Marginal Drawing 17

Marginal Drawing 16

Marginally Academic Drawing 09

Marginally Academic Drawing 08

Marginally Academic Drawing 07

feels like a 4/4 time signature, but it's really 10/4

Mountain Climbing from Weld

The Weld General Store asked me to print up some more of these Seaverns W. Hilton prints.  I made a few sizes: postcards, 8 x 14 (6 x 12 image), 11 x 17 (8 x 16).   Visit the store when you are in town and get one of these reproductions of the historical mural that used to hang on the outside wall of the General Store.

*** one thing to note, is that this is an accurate historical reproduction so still has the old Chimney Trail listed.  That trail has been closed for a long time because of land slides.  It no longer exists and people should NOT go there.  These prints should not be used for navigation.  They are a faithful reproduction of a very old map that used to be available in the town a long time ago.  Anyone who is looking for a trail map that is current can find that at the Weld General Store too.  Be sure to ask for the current map if you plan to hike.

Marginally Academic Drawing 05

Marginally Academic Drawing 03

Marginally Academic Drawing 01

Building on the idea of marginal drawings, I have been exposing students to the ugly process that is an integral part of creating art.  The idea is not new, not my own, but is often overlooked.  Other disciplines teach that learning takes practice, trial and error.  Art has an ignorant concept of genius, divine inspiration, and shamanism that removes the idea of effort from the work and makes people believe (falsely) that art requires talent without effort and that an artist either is born with it or not.  The public face of any artist is that of her/his best work.  If you were allowed to see every page of a sketchbook, every scribbled-upon napkin, every franticly scrawled idea in the margins, you would see a handful of good ideas scattered among many failures and incomplete thoughts.  Some good ideas are complete accidents, most are the result of effort, work, trying, thinking, doing.  Of course the good ideas are given attention as the artist develops them into full bodies of work.  

I call this latest set of marginal drawings "Marginally Academic Drawings" because they have some kind of focus.  The idea is to create a sketch based on a simple idea, a simple set of rules, and build on the mistakes to create variations of the first idea.  This strategy is used very successfully in music.  From my own music collection, I immediately think of this strategy when I listen to the drumming of Neal Peart, the music of Medeski, Martin, and Wood, or Charles Mingus.  I call it academic because some rules exists (as opposed to completely free-form) and some of the forms that evolve look like many art school projects (without regard to the academic rhetoric attached to the forms).  

I share these marginally academic drawings in this blog because this blog is not formal, and is kept mostly for my own entertainment.  I have also found, quite happily, that revealing the working process of creativity does encourage my students to start working (and keep working) on their own projects.  It reveals that art is much deeper than the finished, packaged product in the gallery and contains many processes that are not revealed in the limited space of an artist's website.  

Don't fret precious I'm here, 

step away from the window
Go back to sleep

 
Lay your head down child 

I won't let the boogeyman come
Counting bodies like sheep
To the rhythm of the war drums

 
Pay no mind to the rabble 

Pay no mind to the rabble
Head down, go to sleep
To the rhythm of the war drums

 

Pay no mind what other voices say
They don't care about you, 

like I do, like I do 

Safe from pain and truth and choice 

and other poison devils,
See, they don't give a fuck about you, 

like I do. 

Just stay with me, 

safe and ignorant,
Go back to sleep
Go back to sleep

 
Lay your head down child
I won't let the boogeyman come
Count the bodies like sheep
To the rhythm of the war drums

 
Pay no mind to the rabble
Pay no mind to the rabble
Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums

 
I'll be the one to protect you from 

Your enemies and all your demons 

I'll be the one to protect you from
a will to survive and a voice of reason
I'll be the one to protect you from
Your enemies and your choices son
They're one in the same
I must isolate you
Isolate and save you from yourself

 
Swayin to the rhythm of the new world order and
Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums

The boogeymen are coming
The boogeymen are coming
Keep your head down, go to sleep, to the rhythm of a war drums

Stay with me
Safe and ignorant
Just stay with me
Hold you and protect you from the other ones
The evil ones
Don't love you son,
Go back to sleep

--- Keenan