Here’s one I clipped from the New Yorker and tacked to the studio wall a while ago.

 This was the result of some accidents playing with ink recently.

I suppose this could category could designate different things for different people. It could mean art or shows that you’ve seen in the past decade, art that’s been created in the last decade, performing arts, movements in art, news about the arts, etc.

I used a photo of Kara Walker’s artwork, because I think I remember Shotts talking about seeing her show at the Walker in 2007-2008.

Let’s talk about your favorites over the past decade….

Peter and the Wolf

Here’s an image from my sketchbook (with close-up), collage and acrylic and ink, that deals with the demonizing of wolves throughout decades of American History. I’d like to call it Demyth.

Here’s the poster for the exhibition at UWEC Foster Gallery I designed. I’m very excited about having the work of these illustrators, writers, film-makers, character designers, theater producers, and creative producers.

On a second note- I am going to do some work on a graphic novel (semi-inspired by Maus) based on a character I will call Promi the Squirell, who steals a flaming marshmallow from a suburban fire pit. My initial sketches ceertainly aren’t of the caliber of Ned’s but, whacha gonna do?

Peters may remember a friend of mine by the name of Jason Neulander, then Artistic Director of Salvage Vanguard Theater.  For the last decade or so he has been working on-again-off-again on The Intergalactic Nemesis.   It started as a radio show, then live performance, then comic book, and now live performance/comic book/online serial?

The Intergalactic Nemesis is obviously pulpy but I think you all will find it interesting.  And I think that more meaningful work could be (and probably has been) done in this cross media format.  Anyway I’m looking forward to the live performance.

Check it out if you have time.

This is from a series I am doing on animal/human territory collisions. Somewhat related to my painting Apex. This is a parking lot near the Eau Claire mall where I saw a fox darting between two SUVs that inspired this painting of a trio of foxes. There should be two more to come, but right now I am very busy painting muslims.

I am hopefully going to post a couple of creepy things that aren’t mine and one that is mine in the comments later today.  Click on the thumbnails to see an enlarged view.

Study of Bernini’s Death on the Tomb of Pope Urban VIII

Box Elder, Part of the "My Icons" Series

I had to take photos of these both and adjust them in Photoshop, so they look much different in real life.  The Box Elder piece is at least five feet in height, so I had to take two shots and seam them together.  The Death study is on white paper, but I created the effect you see in Photoshop and thought it created a nice mood for this project.  Hope you like my additions!

My challenge: create something scary or frightening.

The events that precipitated this were:

1) One of my favorite novels had it’s genesis in the "ghost story" challenge (Frankenstein).

2) I read "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and it frightened me more effectively in short story than many things I see or read today.  It’s amazing to me the atmosphere Hawthorne (and Washington Irving) both were able to create in the span of their short stories.

3) I had a very vivid dream last night that Steph woke me up in the middle of.  Curiously, after being awake about fifteen minutes, I resolved the dream by coming up with an ending.  It was really hard to shake it before that.

Now, this only has to be as complicated as anyone wants it to be.  And each person can create as much as we’d like.  For instance, I could (and plan on) describing this dream I had last night.  I also had a story idea that I could flesh out for everyone, or just give plot points to.  I could haiku, write about the scariest moment in my life, take a photo, draw something, link to something scary.  It can be supernatural (ghost, demons, etc.), unnatural (politics, the economy ), or even natural.

What say you all?  Is this a good idea or bad one?

Ned, thanks for telling me about your thoughts on Persepolis and Sweetland.  I had heard about Persepolis (and have been meaning to check out the graphic novel it’s based on), but hadn’t heard anything about Sweetland.  It’s amazing to me the sheer amount of great movies that fly under the radar nowadays.  Quantity of Hollywood drowns the quality?

Speaking of quality, Steph and I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly a week ago.  In Steph’s words, we “couldn’t look away” from Julian Schnabel’s direction, along with Janusz Kaminski’s gorgeous cinematography.  A gorgeous movie that is wonderfully sad, effecting, and surprisingly human…surprising in the fact that I’ve gotten used to the lack of human-”ness” in FX-laden movies. It takes the all of the glory and the shame in human existence and creates a portrait that lacks the usual Hollywood gloss, but has more character packed into it than all the summer blockbuster movies combined.

Maybe my surprise has to do with my tendency towards escapism in my movie choice.   It’s a little embarrassing to admit … but I feel as if I’ve gone soft and taken an easy route post-college.  I’ve only recently started to feel as if I need some more meat in my diet of cultural intake.  I just don’t find myself thinking critically as much anymore.  I think once I finished college, I was weary of the over-analytical stance I took towards most art and literature and abandoned it for the most part.  I think I’m ready for a homecoming.

One of the most amazing components about this film, (Steph and I spoke about this afterwards, in length) it allows the viewer to assume Jean-Dominique Bauby’s persepctive in the first third of the movie.  It’s almost as if we were sharing the same Diving Bell with Bauby, and later too, the Butterfly.  I think we’re still carrying a bit of the butterfly with us. 

Has anyone else seen the film?  I’d be curious as to thoughts and reactions from the rest of our group….

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It really is difficult for me to describe how much reading that book meant to me. It kind of seared me. It succeeds on so many levels that at times it was difficult for me to think of it as fiction, and yet that sounds as if the fact that it is fiction is somehow a detraction. What a miracle that something imagined can emanate into the minds of others so entirely.

Of course, I’m sure that all of this sounds like blathering, and perhaps others would not have the same experience I had with the novel as they have not had the same experience with life, but I am deeply grateful for having had the opportunity to experience it.

I just finished The Dream Life of Shukhanov by Olga Grushin. It was a terribly engaging book that takes place in real time over three or four days, but covers in flashbacks much of the life of a Soviet artist/critic. There are several narrative techniques that are interesting, such as the way the book flows from third person narration to first. But I guess the most valuable part of the book to me was what it said about living with the choices we make, the life we live, and the art we do and don’t make. It reminded me a bit of Ishiguro’s novels in that it begins to blur the main character Sukhanov’s past with his present in an effort to reconcile the two lives he has led in a manner that is almost surreal.

One of the best albums and concerts of the year was Explosions in the Sky, “All of the Sudden I Miss Everyone.” This was the first rock concert (or post rock) that I’ve been to where I actually wanted it to be louder – just to see what would happen. Would my brain explode? Would me liver liquefy? Perhaps I wanted it louder because there are no distracting lyrics just music. Explosions in the Sky is music that builds you up – like getting a hug from the Iron Giant.

Seeing Bjork was amazing of course and she had a great new album this year too. As always, thrilling to the core.

M. I. A. was the discovery of the year for me. She is the complete artist: music, set design and costume design. I’ve always been a sucker for artists who do everything themselves. Somehow she is able to take on the hip hop megalomaniac persona but also make you feel like stands for something besides herself if not through her lyrics then through the whole of her artistry.

My guilty pleasure of the year is Interpol. There new album “Our Love to Admire” doesn’t really cover any new ground but I’ve enjoyed nonetheless. They clearly stand for nothing but they’re just so damn cool. Impossibly cool. You really have to see it to believe it.

Another great find was LCD Soundsystem and their album “Sound of Silver.” From the bravado of “North American Scum” to the more introspective “All My Friends” they are the sort of band you get stuck in you head for days and you don’t mind a bit.

That’s all for now. I’ll get to the rest of my year of media after I get the rest of this crown molding up….

Jen and I will be at her parents’ home for a couple of days over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then will be enjoying some restful days here in Minneapolis. We have a good few inches of snow on the ground, and it’s expected to snow tomorrow an inch or two. So no need for dreaming of a white Christmas in these parts. 

OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson is #33 on this week’s New York Times Bestsellers list. Amazing for such an introspective, literary work of translation. Funnily enough the book is just ahead of WAR AND PEACE. So take that, Tolstoy!

Any thoughts on the past year? Predictions for the new one? Anyone care to share some of their favorite books, albums, gallery exhibits, songs, movies, etc. of 2007? 

Here’s to what’s ahead…