Or Thoughts from the Damp Side
I love walking in the rain.
It does bring back indelible memories of the paper route boy I was in elementary school – rain-spotted glasses and jeans clinging to thighs – and the farmer’s kid – wet through in calving season, drenched and running after the wagon racing for the barn with the last bales before a storm.
In New Zealand, my favourite days for strolling the beach were those when inclement weather had driven all but the hardiest of creatures indoors. Not only could I have it all to myself, but the light and was always astonishing. There would only ever be one other person outdoors – Alan Lee, equally soaked and beaming (but then he’s English, and from Devon, so no weather is too foul for him).
The absolute treat is rain and sun together. (Artfully obtained behind our kitchen, where, in the tiny space between house and hedge, where I’ve planted ferns and ivy beneath the magnolia, I can turn the garden hose on fine spray and make my own private rainstorm. The neighbours just shrug, they already know they have an eccentric in their midst.)
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A rain-filled landscape is like strolling in a watercolour before it dries. It’s those wonderful bright pebbles you used to pick up as a kid from a stream or a beach, that become just dusty lumps of rock. The way wet leaves catch the light is more akin to what happens on the troubled surface of a lake than in a forest. Each suspended drop of water, whether in the air or on a branch or blade of grass is light in liquid form.
So when I’m out wandering in the rain, I’m just outside trying to find my way into the next painting before it dries.
In Others’ Words
Occasionally I end up engaged in wonderful exchanges about just about every subject. And, usually out of my depth, and ever eager to let others do the talking for me, I’ve asked Jane Frank if I could reproduce a portion of one of her letters. (Jane, by the way, for want of a better term, is a “voice” in modern fantasy art, so when she speaks, I tread water and listen attentively.)
To Paint or To Program? The Digital Divide in Art
On websites and bios I now see sf/f artists listing their computer skills and mastery of digital programs and applications, in additon to, or in place of, information pertaining to “media used” . . .
My personal feeling is that no one will care about what programs they used except as a piece of arcane and perhaps trivial ‘historical’ information. Somewhat comparable to caring about whether Durer used this or that size pen nib, but with the added problem of having the equipment be outdated within 3 years …so that future artists will be unable to view, let alone reproduce, the technique. Brushes, pen nibs, pencils, pastels…these are part of our everyday vocabulary, not least of which because we’ve been grinding and manufacturing certain art products for centuries, and using them in much the same way… But whatever program artists are using now, will be “ancient history” by the time my book comes out, so the descriptions in detail re: their techniques and methods will need to be compressed into a few explanatory words. In just a short while even the very names of the programs will be foreign to those who read them. Like saying you used a Commodore Amiga….Remember the Atari….Wang office stations? remember hypercards and WYSIWYG (does that mean anything to you?) Even Mac users today don’t remember that one, the fundamental selling point for Apple computers! (“what you see is what you get”) And that was just the 1980s!!! Now they’re saying the ordinary CD has a shelf life of 3 months before it starts to disintegrate. But even with permanent media, you’ll need the equivalent of a record player that can play 78s—a reel to reel tape player….an 8 track/beta/16 mm projector….in just 3 years. How many curators in museums are stocking up on old computers and programs so that 20 years from now they can see what artists today are creating? Yeah, right. ……. all I can say for sure, right now, is that for this generation of freelancers, at least, book covers will end up being the ONLY life their artwork will ever know….the only documentable existence these artworks will ever have. If the books don’t survive (and you may be aware of how transient the paper used today is….the cheapest possible for paperbacks) then neither will the art. for there’s nothing else…they will not be discovered in tombs, or live on in museum basements or private collections 
Like old movies, someone may care about the best of them to preserve them, colorize them, and distribute them to fans who are nostalgic…but otherwise…they will be gone, never to be seen again unless someone has the book. And by the time we figure out who WAS the best of the digital artists, and a way to preserve the images beyond the shelf-life ….it will be too late to preserve the majority of them. Like nitrate cels…pre-40s cartoons. Like body suits made of latex rubber. Disintegrating…We’ll be left with whatever random ‘files’ survived, and like Russian icons…all we’ll know about them will be based on those precious few that somebody treasured. Not because they were the best, but because that’s all we’ve got. A whole business could be invented, just to ‘read’ the old files….experts that (like archeologists) are trained to carefully sift through through the dirt, to find the shards.
Jane Frank, May 2005
Paris in the Spring
What better place to spend a day or two in the spring?
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From left to right: exhibition poster, invitation – front and back.
I’ll be having a little gallery show at a modestly proportioned but wonderfully well located gallery in the Île Saint-Louis, in Paris. No, NOT Tolkien for once (I heard what you were thinking, but that’s for the show in Carouge in June.) and only a couple of dozen pieces, BUT…
We will be doing some really nice and very limited prints for the show.
These will be Elf Fantastic, Celtic Myth and Lancelot.
These will ONLY be available from Arludik. For more news – formats, prices and other information- call +33 1 43 26 19 22 or write to Diane at contacts@arludik.com
Year of the Dragon
I’ll be having a new calendar coming out for 2006 from Avalanche Publishing in the US.
“Why do you like dragons, I’m often asked. How can I NOT madly love dragons, I have to reply. Creatures the size of a 747, with wings and claws and scales and horns, of every conceiveable shape and origin, and that breath fire besides? Far too exciting to pass up.
Dragons have accompanied mankind since the beginning; paragons of wisdom and symbols of immortality, they are no less the embodiment of evil darkness that inhabits us all. They soar against the stars, and they tunnel and writhe in darkness, hoarding treasure or gnawing at the roots of the universe. Mythical heroes hunt them mercilessly, modern heroes ride them to battle or aspire to become one of their race.
Dragons will be with us, in all their diversity, for a long time to come.”
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There’s no new work in this one, but quite a number of the pictures are from my ill-fated “A Diversity of Dragons” book with Anne McCaffrey, so I’m happy to see them in print again.
Flotsam & Jetsam
I know I’ve posted this kind of picture once before, but this is typical of the rampart of documentation behind which I find the freedom to work.
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Needless to say, it means treading carfefully, both figuratively and physically…
