Insane Imaginings, Random Reveries & Other Creative Cogitation

The painting made its public debut last night at the Scottdale Festival Artwalk.  It was a chilly night to be out and about. My free coffee and Reeses were very popular.  Anyway, meant to post this blog yesterday, but I didn’t get a roundtoit.

In this painting I explore the darker side of the internet, one which has been in the news lately, PleaseRobMe.com.  PleaseRobMe.com works off an application FourSquare.com, (or any geotagging software such as Google Buzz or Bright Kite etc.) which allows people to track their friends via twitter.com to presumably to make it easier to connect in the big blue box.  PleaseRobMe.com basically notes when people using this application tweet things like “I am going away for the weekend,” or “Going to the gym now, be back in a few hours” or “I am at the mall now.” etc.  The folks at PleaseRobMe.com say they are basically re-listing these tweets to make people more aware of the dangers of telling people where you are and where you are not.  Essentially their service is a dressed up Twitter search. It generally does not take too many tries to find a person, who is listed on PleaseRobMe.com, and whose home address is also listed on the internet.  The owners of PleaseRobMe.com do say it is not their intention to have anyone’s house burgled, but clearly show this is one possible nefarious use of this public information.

"2nd Story Job" by Jake Beckman. A crow with burglary on its mind listens to geotagged tweets looking for an empty home to rob.

In this painting the binary code on the wires all read,

• “I’m leaving” (the color binary),
• “FourSquare.com” (up (b or d) and down (p or q) binary),
• “RobMyHouse.com” (right (b/p) or left (d/q) facing binary).

I chose a crow as they are one species of bird known for thievery.  Besides I like crows, ravens, and the other clever members of the family corvidae.  The symbol on the nose of the crow is a distorted version of the FourSquare.com logo – I think the round thing in the logo is supposed to be a dodge ball, or is it a trackball? I dunno. But I have translated it into the eye of the crow that is listening to the buzz of the wires.  Also I have chosen a different color pallet of red,  greenish black with shadings of green and purple.  I hope you like this latest in the Social Media Birds series (I really need a better name – help?)

I am noticing my high resolution photos are really not doing justice to the color gamut of my backgrounds-I don’t think there is much I can do about that, except maybe get a new camera, which I can’t afford right now.

Any comments? Do you like it, hate it, think its too dark, think its funny…”

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

This weekend, now nearly over is the big annual downtown Phoenix Art Show called Art Detour now in its 22 year.  The event kicks off with First Fridays, which has become the tail wagging the dog so to speak.  Although Art Detour was the big event for many years, the monthly party called First Friday receives a lot more attendance on the whole these days. I had planned to go to First Friday but just couldn’t make myself join the madhouse that event has become. It really doesn’t seem to be about art, but more about the party, which is fine – but not necessarily something I automatically think is a great idea on any given day.  But I still felt like I had to make it downtown at least once to see the people who routinely support me at the local art shows I do.  So I force myself to be a social animal and kicked myself out of my studio.

It was good to intersect with several people I had not seen in a while, but while the studios were open I think many artists/owners were absent & recuperating from the night before.  It was a quiet day to be about, but it was a clear-blue-sky bragging weather day in Phoenix AZ.   Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.  So, I didn’t just go to the studios but did a general walkabout in the downtown Phoenix area to investigate how the Convention Center remodel went, to see how the new ASU downtown campus came together and the overall progress of gentrification.  It appears gentrification was well underway but the recession has definitely halted things for now.  As for the art studios, some that were open before are closed now, some have changed hands, some have moved, and maybe there are a few new kids on the block as well.  The Art Detour Head Quarters was listed at the Phoenix Center for the Arts so I was expecting a pretty decent display there; in the old days it had a sample of art from all the participating galleries. Unfortunately this year it was literally a trolley stop with a few brochures – no art that I could see.  My overall impression of Art Detour on Saturday was underwhelmed. Anyway I took lots of pictures and edited them when I got home so you can check them out here if you like.

In the last few minutes I have receive a couple of tweets regarding this final day of Art Detour 22 1) Bring an Umbrella and 2) Greg Esser is promoting his new venture at Westwind Studios, 16th Street and Cypress. I didn’t make it over to Westwind yesterday; I wish Greg all the best.

So onto new art. While I was working on 2nd Story Job, which will be posted next, I did not have a second painting to parallel process in mind.  I got a piece of water color paper out, gesso-ed it on both sides then thoughtfully dripped, drooled and spattered paint on it while I waited for layers of paint to dry on 2nd Story Job.

As 2nd Story Job neared completion the abstract auxiliary work looked like this.

Born of Fire underpainting (by Jake Beckman)

The color gamut of this picture appears a little skewed toward the blue, and the range of the photo does not do the under-painting/background justice, but I think you can get an idea of how it looked.

I have been on a major bird kick for years and I often default to something related to that – in this case a bird-like dragon.  It took me a few minutes to sketch the critter out on to my canvas.    I did a glaze of manganese blue to fill in the bird-like dragon’s body for no other reason than I had a big glob of it on my wet pallet left over from previous Social Media Bird paintings and I intended to make the dragon dark.   I did not anticipate I would love the effect of the under-painting showing through, but I did.   I very carefully applied glazes of black to the serpent to define its structure while retaining as much of the transparency as was possible.

Detail of Born of Fire by Jake Beckman showing the underpainting revealed through the glaze

Born of Fire, by Jake Beckman, A dragon gazes skyward, oblivious to the fiery inferno that surrounds it.

So this results from me not having a plan when I start painting. What do you think?

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

In this fifth installment of the Social Media Birds series, I explore binary with birds. As people have talked about the preceding paintings I have been asked, “What do the ones and zeros mean?” Yes, I did write a code in ASCII binary, and, yes, it does mean something, and I have no problem with telling the viewer what the binary means. But… Like all art, it’s in the eye of the beholder who is free to apply whatever interpretation they want to the painting including the code. I could have put the actual words in the painting, but I chose to put representations of words instead. That is one reason for the binary, being literal without being literal. That there is this abstraction of language is sufficient. I would like the viewer to explore meaning a little more deeply than the face value. What are those birds talking about? Why is one bird orange? Are canaries a valid way to represent “Social Media?” Is cyber-communication real, or just a facsimile of real? Feel free to come up with your own, questions, answers, interpretations and “code;” after all, how many people can actually read ASCII binary just to look at it? Your story could be better than mine.

ASCII Bird, by Jake Beckman. 80 birds are encoded with the binary messages.

In this painting I took off on a tangent, representing the binary code with a code. Each bird represents three distinct possibilities and therefore three distinct binary states. The bird can be perched or flying, the bird can be black or white and the bird can face left or right. This allowed me to layer three different “messages” in the binary coded by the states of the birds. You don’t need ones and zeros, you just need something that can be distinctly one thing or another.

Beyond that I broke with using bright colors and also laid the birds out in a grid pattern to re-enforce the “code.” I think it has a vaguely Egyptian feel. If you want to know what the binary means, you can check it the ASCII Bird page on my website, where I have decoded the messages.

What do you think? Which one do you like best so far?

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

As I previously stated while I was working on Bird on a Wire a whole series of paintings came to me.  This series is a result of my recent immersion into social media.  I am a noob (a neophyte) to things like FaceBook and Twitter, but I hope to get better.  I even took a class for FaceBook, just before they completely redid the layout.  ARGH!

I am still looking for FaceBook fan page tips.  My RSS feed is double posting and since they redid the layout I can’t find where the RSS Feed link is at on the fan page anymore.

Anyway, when I posted TweetDeck, one of my commentators said that Retweet came to mind.  Of course I was already working on it as it was such an obvious follow-on.  And now it is done-enjoy.

Retweet by Jake Beckman. An orange canary sings to four other yellow ones who seem to be listening. The binary in the background reads "Retweet."

Its a little abstract in concept, but also kind of literal too.  The ASCII binary reads “Retweet” from Left to Right, and Top to bottom.  In this version I explicitly included a spiral as a place for my canaries to perch.  I opted to fill the entire background with binary so the upper most bird would have something to stand on, otherwise it would have been hanging upside down like an orangutan.   What do you think?

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

So I came back from the 2009 Florence Biennale, rolling into to Sky Harbor shortly after midnight December 16 sicker ‘n a dog.  I spent the holidays watching Christmas shows, box of tissue in hand, my IQ hovering between PB&J and potted plant.  Needless to say working on putting my pictures together in a photo album on line with a travelogue was the furthest thing from my mind.  The holidays ended officially for me on January 9 when my last house guest left.  I had a lot to catch up on, but I have been working steadily on crunching down those pictures, putting on captions and otherwise making them suitable for a website etc.  Early this morning I posted the last of the pictures and went “live.”

Jake Beckman at entrance to Florence Biennale featuring Marina Abromovic photo

The link to the Florence Biennale Experience is:  http://akajake.com/florence-biennial-experience.htm

Working on the pictures brought back many fond memories for me and had me doing things like seeing how many people (that I befriended at the biennale) I could find on facebook.  I realized as I was going through the pictures that I didn’t get pictures of many people I talked to and I didn’t get pictures of their art – guess I was too busy being at the Biennale instead of documenting it. I was in several group photos but I didn’t force the camera off onto the randomly drafted photographer often enough either. So I do have a request… If you were a participant in the Florence Biennale and have other pictures you would like to add to this conversation, please post them.

So far early comments have been positive.  I hope you will enjoy it too,  Anyway, let me know what you think.  I would love to hear from you.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

So while I was working on Bird on a Wire an whole series of ideas came into my head.  TweetDeck is one of them.  It took several days from inkling in the old brain housing group to finished canvas.  I hope you like it.

The series is the result of my immersion in social media lately (and probably for some time to come).  I have a FaceBook fan page started (and only started).  It is going to take me a while to figure out how to really use that tool properly.  And there is all the linkage between FaceBook, Twitter, my blog and to a lesser extent, MySpace and LinkedIn.  MySpace seems to be yesterday’s news.  LinkedIn seems more business minded.  But I think the whole thing can work.  In theory TwitterFeed is feeding this blog or the RSS feed to several locations.

In furtherance of my education, I participated in a kind of FaceBook for Dummies class this week.  I didn’t learn too much except how to stop being hammered with all the games.  Yes, I know, its easy, but I have not had the time to sit around and play with this stuff a lot.  Learning how to get rid of FarmVille Spam was pretty cool.  Also learning what information is being shared and how to control it to some extent was also important.  The class actually did not suggest any recommendations in this regard, which I found to be an interesting omission.

It was a hands on class, so the moment I logged on, all my FaceBook friends could see I was there and engage in chat. That was a new experience for me.  I spent a bit of time chatting with several people including my nephew who seems to think Apple/Macintosh is the be-all-end-all-here and can’t understand why I am still using a clunky HP laptop or why I think my next phone is going to be a Blackberry.

Anyway, so my mind is chewing on this stuff and out comes this series of ideas with canaries and binary.  I enjoyed painting my little tweetie bird commune so much another one is underway.  Anyway, without futher ado, TweetDeck.

TweetDeck, painting by Jake Beckman. Five canaries perch on a wire.

Its a little abstract in concept, but also kind of literal too.  The ASCII binary reads “TweetDeck” from Left to Right, and Top to bottom.  In addition to the binary I have attempted to imply a golden spiral in the arrangement of the birds and the wire and to a lesser extent the tonal variation of the colors in the background.  Mostly I think this series is going to be about whimsy.  What do you think?

Alternatively, got any FaceBook Fan page or other social media tips? Love to hear from you.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

—-

Tried to figure out a way to reply to my own blog but couldn’t, so to all my commentators, thanks for all the social media applause.    I really appreciate you stopping by.  – Jake

Working on the Social Media thing.  Started a FaceBook fan page, AKAJake if you are interested.  Become a fan!

I have no idea what to do with this fan page yet.  Tomorrow evening I am supposed to have an “Intro to FaceBook” class – I am hoping to walk out of there a bit more clued in.

For example I really would like to have a snippet of my blogs appear in other places with a link, but I have no idea how to set that up.  I did find my RSS feed address so at least I can link that.

Of course I have my “real job” to do and I am finding it had to make a balance and still move forward with intention.  Still I must endeavor.  2010 will be the “Year of Marketing” for me because I have put it off too long and really need to figure it all out. Art is a real job too.

Anyway, I have about a million projects.  OK it is actually less than that, but I stoop to hyperbole because sometimes it feels like that.  Definitely got a few gators nibbling on my butt and the bosses just called down that the swamp draining project is on hold.    One of those alligators is “the establish a distinctive style and / or thematic reference to make myself recognizable as an artist”-gator. Once I have this consistent style I will build a body of work based on that… and market it of course.

That is the battle plan.What is it they say about battle plans? Oh yeah, the don’t tend to survive first contact with the enemy.

Toward that end I painted something last Friday; I already have a bunch of variations on the theme in my head.  I like it of course, but then again I tend to like all of my art more or less, but somebody else liked it too.  It has already flown away to live in Wisconsin.

Bird on a Wire, representational abstract by Jake

The ASCII Binary reads Twitter.com tweet. You can tell where my head is at. What do you think?

Alternatively, got any FaceBook Fan page or other social media tips? Love to hear from you.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

I am largely over my funk from the last show, and I did another one last night.  Even though we had decent traffic, no one seemed to be buying.  It is getting cooler at night around here.  I had a long-sleeve shirt on but I was walking around with my hands in my pockets for several hours anyway.  Not that most folks would consider a balmy 50-60 F evening cold, but here in Phoenix AZ, which is located just this side of the blazing fires of hell, we are used to the heat and it thins our blood down; when the temperatures drop below body temp we start complaining.  Still it was a pretty nice evening, the vibe was good, we had a nice assortment of artists selling wares, but like I said, no one was buying.  This show is probably my last for 2009 as I am going to Italy for 2 weeks for the Florence Biennial, and after that I will have a week to get ready for Christmas and New Years.  I could do one more show, but it would require me to jump off the plane, catch a few Zs then pack up the van for a show the next day. I just don’t think I can do that.

As for the horrible show last week, I will attend a meeting of the organizers who were involved in that fiasco.  It’s not a bitch session, it’s a strategy session and I feel honored that the organizers actually think I have something to contribute to the ongoing discussions.  I hope I can blog about it, but it is next Tuesday and I am getting into Holiday/trip packing crunch time.

Anyway, the market must stink all the way around as I just watched a TV ad that I found hysterically funny.  It is right up there with my dark humor.

Santa goes godfather on his naughty list

James Patterson, crime novelist, whose characters feature the Women’s Murder Club and Alex Cross, came on the TV promoting his new novel, I Alex Cross.  The message was short and sweet.  James Patterson holds up his latest novel and says, “Buy this book or I will have to kill Alex Cross.”  My spontaneous guffaw just about had hot tea coming out of my nose.  Although I prefer to read a book in print, I usually do not buy hardbound editions; I patiently wait to buy paperbacks editions. I am willing to hold out a good long time, I think I had to wait two years for paperback edition of the last Harry Potter novel, but I did.  I do love the Alex Cross character, but I admit the threat of killing him of is not going to make me change my book buying pattern.  So it is up to the hardback buying public to save Alex Cross’ life.  I wish him luck.

What are you doing to increase sales?  What do you think of James Patterson’s ploy?  Do you my Godfather Santa cartoon?  Any other thoughts?

Carry on & yours in art,

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

Its like a supernova sometimes.  After I wrote my last bitchy blog, I sat down and did what I said what I was going to do.  I created and created and created for 4 solid days, from the moment I woke until exhaustion drove me to rest.

It was my annual foray into the silly season, Xmas Dementia.  Normally I wait until Turkey Day to do this particular exercise, but given the trip to Florence I need to get things done a lot sooner and so I did.  This season I have done 14 new cartoons.  Its a record for me.  Very seldom do so many of my 20 or so ideas make it that far-usually its 1 or 2.  If I were to go back and look at my notes, I might find that several of these ideas have been “developing”; I don’t know for sure as I hardly ever go back and look at things that I “kicked in the corner.”

I will be posting the new funnies in XmasDementia.com once my Xmas letter goes out.   I have enough for an entire gallery page in one shot.  It just feels good.

And now for a little taste of what is to come…

Santa Jaws - Xmas Dementia Cartoon by Jake Beckman

Yours in Art,

-Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

This blog is about how to incorporate the Golden Ratio into your compositions quickly, without the use of a calculator; after all who has time to figure out how much 36 x 0.618 is when you are out there in the fresh air getting into the creative groove.  The numbered indexes correspond to plates in the composite image below.

1. The gold boxes with dotted lines in the image below represent centered “golden canvases” with height and width corresponding to the Golden ratio.  There is one oriented vertically and one horizontally.  The dotted lines represent the Golden mean, possible places to divide the canvas in a manner that is pleasing according to the Golden ratio (1 to 1.618…). This image has been created with the assistance of a calculator and is provided to show that the trick that follows does work very well.
2. This trick illustrated will work on any arbitrarily dimensioned rectangular canvas.  You draw a line splitting the canvas in half and then in half again along the horizontal and vertical dimensions.  You may want to use a light color and hue of the medium you are working in so you don’t have to spend time erasing.  In the illustration, the black lines represent these divisions.
3. If you place a dot in the direct center of the four center boxes created by dividing the canvas you will arrive at potential places where the focal point should be.  The red dots represent these possible focal point locations.
4. In the illustration below notice how close the dots are to the intersections of our vertically and horizontally oriented golden means.  No calculator is required to incorporate the Golden Mean into your compositions. You really can just eyeball it, figure out where your focal points should be and pick one.  One of these locations will result in a focal point that is most pleasing to the eye if the rest of the composition supports it.
5. A Focal point is really the only thing that can flow outward off the composition, like a star.  In general the rest of the composition should draw you to the focal point.  Realize that lines intersecting where the potential focal points will divide the canvas according to the golden ratio; these are the bold blue lines in the illustration below.  The light blue shadings represent two possible ways of dividing the canvas, but you could just as easily choose another one of the means.
6. The last image is a simple illustration based on the principles just discussed.

Illustrated Lesson: How to Quickly Apply Golden Ratio to Composition

Yours in art – Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!