Poppies, pen & ink from the Misti days

This pen and ink and gesso work dates from the "misti" years that's 18 years ago or better. It's on thin paper that has yellowed some. It also has a few wrinkles were the paper ducks under the matting. I took it out of the frame to take the picture and tried to add a tiniest bit of paper texture in Painter Essentials. This is a very fragile piece and am very glad to have a decent picture of it. These jpegs on the web are low res. I have high res files for many of them. Actually, I can pretty much tell how long I have known someone by which of my names they use...

Sculpture: seated figures

Both of these greenware sculptures were made in separate classes I took at Wooster Community Art Center a few years ago, one taught by Janice Mauro (may not be the right spelling) and the other by Alexander Shundi. The figure on the right, I took back to the school after it cured and it was fired in the kiln there. It became more or less white in the firing process. It's out on an end table in the living room. The one on the left took a fall here as dry greenware. Limbs flew. The poor guy fell apart. Both were made in classes with a live model.

with hair and pages flying...

Dancing Poems!

For a long while now I have been fascinated with visual art that incorporates text in different ways. With all the leaping going on in this mixed media collage, a lot of the movement here is in the varied angles of the text. The text is actually pages torn from my chapbook Inverse Origami, which are collaged to this canvas, as was the dancer, who was drawn on plain paper in crayon and oil pastel. In addition there is some acrylic paint applied to weave it together.

Process: Visual metaphor, psychological metaphor

This work is from the Maine years, most specifically from the year I lived in Brownfield, Maine. The face here belongs to a first cousin once removed, or my rendition of her. She is a beautiful woman, not that you can see that here. The wide open mouth pictured belongs to her mother, and I am not sure what the hell I meant by any of it. Seat of the pants metaphor, I guess. Nor do I recall exactly what I was thinking at the time. Except that the child was the  quiet one and the mom was very  talkative (though not particularly teary.) It is my probably mistaken impression of something hidden in them....

As to the content:

Unfortunately, this is one of those works where people look at me and offer their condolences on my suffering or inquire about possible substance abuse. Understand - I am always stone cold straight and sober when working, (and 99% of other times too) and I am NEVER suffering when I am making a picture. While picture making, I am totally unselfconsciously absorbed in what color should go where, if something is needed to balance something, how the eye travels around etc etc etc. This is also true of writing a poem, or an essay. Music and acting however, are more problematic for me psychologically. They cost something very personal to produce.

The medium here is oil pastel and watercolor on 18 x 24 inch paper. The combination is interesting because, the oil pastel will not absorb the watercolor, and the watercolors can be drawn over with the oil pastels.

- Mar  Walker

Oil Pastel: Vivacity of generations

This is mixed media in the physical sense, as opposed to the digital sense. This a non-digital work. I drew this in the living room sitting on the couch while watching Monk over several weeks. First I did a sketch with a ball point pen/ Then I had a big box with crayons, craypas, whiteout, magic markers, pencils, a few pastels, a white touch up stick, a jackknife for scraping and a blender. I used them all in this work, which is on heavy paper. This sense of atmospheric vivacity here is characteristic of my recent stuff. Her hair is almost electric or Medusan but so is the world that surrounds her. The child is problematic here, and seems to be studying or looking for something, regarding her hipster-mom in the foreground with some anxiety. Maybe I have been hearing too much Ferlingetti and Ginsberg.

dancer with head feathers

This image was in my head after watching an African dance troop in action. I wouldn't swear to it, but I think I made this in MS Paint or NeoPaint. I have run sequentially though so many different computers and operating systems over the years - AMIGA, Radio Shack, three PC systems and an Apple. I have tried lots of the inexpensive of paint and graphic handling programs too, View Print Pro, and versions of PhotoPaint programs that came with various printers and cameras. In this little bit, both the movement and the colors have a pleasant sense of caprice. The spray nozzle splashes of color feel less then volumetric but grounded, while the accents of white give the feeling of canvas-showing-through lightness. I suppose it bears an unfortunate resemblance to a painting on black velvet. Not quite Elvis though.

all teeth - a fire horse

Moved from the Gallery:

This drawing was a study for an oil painting I planned. I used another sketch but these many years later I think the painting has been destroyed or painted over. Oil are so expensive, I haven't been using them. Too bad. They have a glow or transparency I don't find in acrylics. Oil pastel and watercolors and gesso or other weird combinations seem to have more appeal to me now.