Insane Imaginings, Random Reveries & Other Creative Cogitation

Ever since I started doing PopCult paintings I have wanted to do something inspired by Andy Warhol.  But I have never been one to just copy something.  The germ of the idea behind Social Networking! came to me as soon as I started doing the Binary Birds, but it did not erupt as a full blown concept until this weekend.

Social Networking! by Jake Beckman. Four brightly-colored canaries socially network form their own squares. The ASCII Binary background reads, "Social Networking!."

Call to action: Buy Social Networking.  Mama needs new canvases. 

I looked over some of Andy Warhol’s work, letting the vibe flow through me, analyzing it in an abstract way. The iconic Andy Warhol image was the Marylin Monroe repetition, therefore I opted to embrace some part of this concept and do a four square Binary Birds painting.  Andy Warhol appears to have loved the color red (so do I), so I decided there would be  a lot of red in the painting. Finally I adopted the outrageous color variation that appeared in those images.  Initially I entertained the notion of repeating my own icon, the canary, in the boxes, but there the my analogy and Andy’s analogy parted ways.

My tweeties represent ordinary people, not famous people who would be recognizable at a glance.  My canaries had to be individuals. I departed from absolute repetition.

From there the concept moved into the sketch phase.  Warning, some quasi-technical stuff ahead.

 Having already completed many Binary Birds paintings with canaries, I just rounded up 4 of my favorite canary sketches, which had been scanned and saved to my computer.  I required an angel-winged flying one of course.  I liked the one where the bird is hanging off a vertical wall.  For whatever reason I like the one I call the “sideways singer,” as it looks like an Egyptian glyph to me.  Finally I settled on a perched canary with a long flowing tail for the fourth bird-I kind of like the idea of having its tail invade the next square.

I moved these into a new Photoshop document and began messing around with the colors. If you have several elements you need to play around with Photoshop is great for that.  Its also superb for color layout as well, which is primarily how I used it in this instance.  At first I thought I would have four solid boxes, but that turned out to be boring.  I recalled Andy Warhol did a repetition with a panda bear toy that had little frames around the image so I tried that.  So the frames are shades of red: Pink, Brick Red and Cadmium Red.  I opted for red, light blue, yellow and light green as the colors for my variations.  The canary in a given square picks up the color of the background in the square counter-clockwise from it, and the eyes, feet and beak pick up the color of the square kitty-corner to it.  I don’t know how Andy Picked is color variations, but the idea of using a pattern appealed to me-I like to create patterns, it is just the way my brain is wired. In my mind all four images are linked in a closed loop with one another via color.

Moving on to the binary…

The phrase “Social Networking” has 17 characters and 17 is a prime number.  There is no way to break it down into anything other than one and seventeen.  I wanted an edge to edge binary pattern in the background.  It occurred to me if I added punctuation I would have 18 characters times 8 bits per ASCII binary character, or 144 characters, which  would form a perfect 12 x12 square of ones and zeros.  Social Networking became Social Networking!

This painting is part of the 100 Paintings thing, but I am dropping 100 Days part as it was no where near a realistic goal.  Today is Day 52 and I have completed 18 paintings.  I accept that life happens and it has been happening to me a lot lately.  At my current rate of production it is going to take at least 300 days to do 100 paintings.  That’s not to say I can’t crank out a painting a day, I just do not seem to have the time to.  Also one thing I did not factor in is all the post production work that has to happen.  This weekend I spent an entire day photographing, resizing, labeling and uploading 7 newly finished works.  This morning I have spend the entire time on just one piece.  This exercise is teaching me a great deal about how much time a single smallish painting really takes-for me it is a minimum of three days: Sketch day, paint day, post-production day.  Of course that does NOT take into account any time spent on marketing the thing.  Thank goodness I quit using oil, I’d never finish anything.

So those are the real life artist thoughts behind Social Networking! If you would like more information about the painting or perhaps would like to buy it, see its page on my website.  Thanks for stopping by. 

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.

Hang Up by Jake Beckman. A Yellow Canary purchase atop the telephone icon of an "end call" cell phone button. The ASCII Binary arching over the top reads "Hang Up"

So it is day 23 of 100 paintings in 100 days.  I have completed 9 paintings and I have 9 others in various stages of completion.  With a good days work I probably can complete all of them, but my life is a continuous juggling act and I don’t know when I am going to get a moment to paint again in the next several days.

I came back from my trip to Oak Creek on Day 16.  I painted all day, then packed it in and drove back to Phoenix.  I decided I’d rather start off my short workweek refreshed in the relative cool of the Phoenix AZ morning rather than fried from driving back down the hill in the heat.  It was an uneventful trip home.  The usual stuff, my day job and all, awaited me.

In the last week I finished Vuvuzela’s, five, zero, Call Me, Hang Up & Do It!, photographed them and got the images up on my website.  I still need to register them with my provenance service.  I also blogged about Vuvuzela’s separately since it was directly related to the 2010 Soccer World Cup, which wrapped up last week too.

Do It! by Jake Beckman, a yellow canary angle flies before the "do it" button of a cell phone. The ASCII Binary reads, "Do It!"

I have found time to start 6 new pieces in addition to the three 11×14-inch paintings I started in Oak Creek.  The three inspired by my last visit to Oak Creek are tentatively named www (or web or net I am not sure yet), MySpace and My World.  The 6 new paintings are all 6×8 inch ones that will finish out my key pad: six, seven, eight, nine, Hash and Splat! I need to finish painting the Tweeties in 7 of these and overlay the binary.  My World and MySpace are somewhat less developed at this point.

As you can see, I am falling behind-I should have 23 completed and only 9 done with 9 more in the works-well short of my goal. And I still have a tax class website to prepare, tax class to teach, an artshow in NYC, a mess of art to frame, etc.  I haven’t even purchased the frames, nor have I solidified my travel plans for NYC.  OMG I am so far behind!

Breathe.

This weekend I am going back to Oak Creek canyon.  A fellow artist JChristi wanted to camp out and I suggested Oak Creek as it simplifies “camping” a little bit.  But unlike my last trip, this is more or less JChristi’s show, which means I am going to have to work around her schedule.  We are supposed to leave Friday morning.  Since it is a little after midnight Thursday has just started and I have many things to do before I can leave for Sedona.  I am looking forward to going back though; it is really hot here in Phoenix (112 at the airport today, 116 in some parts of the valley) and it will be cooler up there.  Also being unplugged does get my creative juices flowing.   JChristi told me to “bring my paints” so I am going to, but I am unsure how much painting I will actually get done.

DH is demuring about going with again, so our cats will have one of their people around.

Back to the subject at hand. Maybe 100 paintings in 100 days is not a realistic goal given all the other things I have going on in my life – after all I have missed my mark by 61% at this point-not counting the partially finished pieces.  Embrace the reality.  Maybe it will be 100 paintings by the end of the year (at this rate-even that is pushing it).  I don’t know, but I am going to keep at this.

In the meantime you can certainly check out the paintings I have completed on this project, and of course if you’d like to buy one that would be lovely as well.  Enjoy.    two, three, four, five, zero, Vuvuzelas, Call Me, Do It!, Hang Up

Also the cell phone keypad is approaching completion and I really think it needs a place to be displayed-in fact I have already laid out the pieces and had a look-see for myself. It’s definitely coming along.  So if you know of any place that might be interested in displaying it and perhaps selling it, please let me know.  I’ll post the entire work somewhere when its done.

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.

On June 22 I decide to attempt 100 paintings in 100 days. I don’t know if I can even do this.  Its a daunting task to contemplate, but I am going to give it a try.  Why? I watched Julia & Julia and it gave me this ridiculous idea.  Sure I have heard about it before as a method to develop a distinctive style. The theory is when you have to crank it out, your style will happen. 

There are periods of time when my productivity goes through the roof, but there are lulls, sometimes long ones where I let my life get in the way of my passion.  I also intend to blog about it.  Short blogs probably, but blogging about it is going to be part of this exercise.  I have a hard time talking about my art, it just doesn’t flow easily.  I also want to write better blogs and there is no substitute for, well, just doing it.  I am probably going to be experimenting with the plug-ins and what not as I attempt to get more advice on presenting the blog, so this will involve a lot of blogging too. Jeepers. 

Day 1.  I finished up 2 paintings that had been laying around.  One was very nearly done.  The second I thought was finished, but when I went to photograph it I hated it and had to edit it substantially.  So the editing job became the the first painting in 100 paintings in 100 days. I finished two for day 1 and I started a second and a third painting.  I had originally painted one and decided to paint two without really knowing where I was going with this idea. 

two by jake beckman, two canaries perched with the number 2, and ASCII binary of two & 2

As usual, the binary code has everything to do with the painting, spelling out two and 2 in ASCII binary. 

Day 2.  three and four were barely started yesterday, I had got beyond a sketch, but not by much, however they are finished today. Of course I have to photograph them etc now.  Since these are all 6×8 inch paintings I have decided they are going to be arranged like a phone keypad and be grouped that way; I have to do 5,6,7,8,9,0 #, *, and maybe answer, hangup and do it button too.  So I have the idea for the next 8-11 paintings, which will give me time to contemplate what comes after the cell phone number pad. 

I don’t know what you all think about this idea, but Julia’s mother’s comment about, “Why,” especially when I am so busy with other things does come to mind.  So if any of you all have ever undertaken a self-commited program for only reasons you can understand I’d like whatever advice you might chip in or what ever general comments come to mind as I embrace this insanity. 

If you’d like to find out more about one and two or perhaps buy them please check out their pages at AKAJake.com, one and two. 

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 finished this painting more than a month ago.  I can’t believe it has taken me that long to upload the images to my website and to sit down and blog about it.  As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”  So true for me too.  I found myself spending several weeks dealing with feral cat issues, softy that I am.  Adding that one thing really put me behind on everything and so these paintings languished in the obscurity of my studio.

But no more.  Since June 27, 2010 was a total washout on painting I endeavored to “catch up” on my blogging, and my website maintenance among other things. I cranked out quite a few so I can post them later. It’s now later for this blog, enjoy.

Bridge is a spin off on iPod Tweety and iPod ads in general, but it is also a contrast as well. Once I did iPod Tweety, one of the first things that came to mind was a person who conducts an imaginary orchestra while listening to a recording of some kind. The cockatoo became the obvious bird because of the crest. I dunno but I think of conductors as having shocks of unruly hair sticking up.  Conductors usually wear dark suits so the bird in silhouette also tracked in my mind. 

But unlike the music behind Rock Me! classical music has layers, movements, changes in melody, key and other such devices that generally imply a more complex arrangement; besides most classical works are much longer than your average pop radio tune.  With this in mind I set out to make my abstract background conveying this complexity and passage of time.  I chose green.  The background is a very dark green, which is overlaid with bright green and then light sea green. I did several waves of color sweeping from the top of the canvas to the bottom around the conductor bird as a melody.  I placed a series of thick bright spires behind the cockatoo opposite these waves, I think of them as a deep throbbing baseline.  Finally I painted some thin verticals that were much lighter in color to convey a sprinkling of high notes.  The top of the painting is lighter in color and the bottom is still bright green but much darker, the waves and vertical lines “bridge” the two zones. I also have some textural elements in the waves and the thick bright spires. Of course while I was painting it I was not in this literal “this means that mode,” I was feeling the music. 

Bridge, by Jake Beckman. A crested cockatoo conducts and imaginary symphony while listening to its iPod. The green background is an abstract representation of classical music.

That was the thought behind Bridge.  I hope you like this different take on Binary Birds, iPods and music.  Any comments?  If you would like more details about Bridge or would like to buy it, please see its page at AKAJake.com.

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.

Howdy Sport Fans,

Update: I must have been channeling same vibe as Paul, the Octopus from Oberhausen Germany, when I made this painting, chosing red vuvuzelas and opting for a yellow tweety. The octopus apparently was predicting winners of the various soccer matches and ultimately selected Spain in the world cup. Me, I just started a painting in red and yellow about 3 weeks ago. Anyway, Spain won in OT or something like that.

This Binary Bird painting is because of you.  For weeks Vuvuzela was listed as one of the top 10 trend words on places like Twitter.com, all because the annoying little horns were omnipresent at the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa-or so I have been told. Vuvuzela has been suplanted by LaBron James and assorted Harry Potter characters, but by now you’d have to be living in a cave not to know a) the Soccer Championships are going on b) what a vuvuzela is because of a).

Naturally I followed the United States team (or at least DH did)  until they fell out of contention.  Today, when I went to pick up my lamp from fellow artist, JA Jure, she told me all about some Spanish guy with a lot of hair (Carles Puyol?) making a spectacular play against the German’s yesterday to advance Spain to the final.  Me I don’t watch so I can’t say for sure. I do not have the sports gene.  However, I do love pop culture and right now Soccer is pop and therefore Binary Birds fair game. 

Back to Vuvuzelas-since it was the word of the day for so long, I, like the rest of the connected world had to find out what the heck that was, given that a do not actually watch soccer, and of course why everyone was talking about vuvuzelas. Immediately a Binary Bird image sprang to mind. I have finally finished painting it before the World Cup tournament ends, so without further ado, I reveal Vuvuzelas.

Vuvuzelas, by Jake Beckman. A yellow canary Soccer fan rolls a football against a backdrop of red vuvuzela horns.

The painting features my trademark yellow tweetie, with a football, and a background of red vuvuzelas.  The binary across the bottom translates as “Vuvuzelas.”   Initially I though about making the horns assorted colors (like red, white and blue ) but it made for a very busy picture. I chose red because I like the color and for no other reason.  The fact that Spain’s jerseys are that color is purely coincidental.  I am sure several other teams sport that color as well.  As for the tweetie I think he is conveying, “Hell Yeah!” just fine. 

If you would like to find out more about Vuvuzelas or perhaps buy it, check it out on its page on this website.  I hope you like my Football inspired Binary Bird. 

  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.

A friend recently twittered me, “Has technology progressed to the point that I can live out the remainder of my life without face to face contact?” I told him he still needed to get his car emissions tested in person.    But is does raise the question, are we heading for Isaac Asimov’s dystopia, Solaria?

I dunno, but I recently learned a new slang term, e-lationship.  It’s a cyber relationship, where friends, lovers and other strangers never meet face-to-face, they just carry on virtually, be it via FaceBook, Twitter, IM-ing, chat or what have you.  For years people have known that cyber cutie might be a three-hundred pound guy, an 84-year-old grandma, or a teenie bopper looking for a thrill.  But there is the whole other level I had not considered and that is people who really do not want to meet in person, but who feel fulfilled with a harem of cyber-mates.  e-lation, it’s a great punny in my opinion.

e-lation by Jake Beckman. Two cyber-canaries stare dreamily into each others eyes.

e-lation was a natural follow-on piece for the social media birds.  I have place two canaries staring dreamily into each others’ eyes-that alone should give pause for thought-after all you really can’t see the person on the other end of the wire.  The background is mottled, suggesting an insubstantial venue.  The birds are perched on a swirly, green, heart-shaped contour.  One half of the outline is overlaid with ASCII binary which reads e-lation.

I had a great deal of fun letting the acrylic flow in the background of this painting.  There was quite a bit of splattering, dripping, flowing and all sorts of uncontrolled activity, which contrasted strongly with painting binary on the heart outline (that took me three tries to find a good layout).  I hope you like it.

What do you think of the painting, or cyber relationships, or …?

Update: Details about e-lation, size etc., can be found on its art page at AKAJake.com

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?

Update: Details about ASCII Bird, size etc., can be found on its art page at AKAJake.com

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.