Just Pretty Pictures and Stuff

More photo essay than anything.

First, paper flying-eagle silhouettes in the local school. Very well done, no?

At least a little art in this school. One of the teachers yawped at me that I'd said bad things about the school, when they're a good school, and have lots of good programs.

Really? Is that why the kids can only get art classes from the local little old ladies' art club, who are volunteers, and nobody gets paid? Pull the other one. You don't have dance or music, either. Plenty of money for the football team, and the dying industries, but nothing for the actual future.

Hallowe'en skeleton with ripening tomatoes. Next year, I'm working out how to plant the tomatoes upside down, and then, when they're loaded with fruit and the frost is coming, I'll just cut 'em and hang 'em in the house to ripen and dry.

Here's a shot from last summer, when the calla lilies were in bloom. It's the newly painted empty room. That's right - we have an EMPTY ROOM. Yeah, the upper shelves are full of DVDs and the lower shelves full of stuff - but the room itself got nothing but space and Fearless; that's her curled up in the box down there.

Karin Ashton told me about the "bed sculpture" up by the mouth of a the Sekiu river. Dan and I went up and actually found it. It made for a misty, spooky, warm beach walk. Thanks, Karin! Dunno who built it - forgot to ask her last time I saw her. She's threatening to do comic books and bring them to the Clallam Bay Comicon, so I look forward to that. I wonder if she knows about Fumetti?  The American version. I love well-done Fumetti.

Somebody went to a lot of work on the campsite and bed area. The winter tides will sweep it away, but it must have been a lot of fun for parties this summer. 

There's always something like this on the local beaches. They're temporary and don't hurt anything, but they're always fun to find.

Kind of like local art installations. Could be artists, or surfers, or just bored people. Who knows?

Salmon carcasses in the Clallam River, visible this autumn off the bridge. People throw 'em in there for the otters - an to attract the silver salmon run up the river. Yes, there might be one yet, as the river continues to recover. 

Now if we can only convince the traditional ignoramus fishermen to not catch the last ones in the run, so they can breed. I sometimes think these guys believe that fish and trees just get abracadaba's back into place, just for them. 

We call those guys BWS - Born With Servants. There's always somebody there to pick up after them, starting with their moms. And godlets help you if you have to clean up after them when they move. Finally. Late. They're the same ones telling us "alders aren't native" because it gets in the way of them logging off the land so it can be sold to developers. And don't tell the game warden about any fish they caught, especially if they gave you one.

The neighbor got many cranberries from the Folly Bog up the Hoko river road. It was started a long time ago by a guy just to see if he could do it, and not only went through three generations, but continues today under new owners. really wonderful cranberries. Good with everything, and enough to last until January.

The salmon carcasses remind me of a party I went to recently. Lovely silver salmon, baked with herbs. But finding out who caught it, I said that maybe they didn't want to be telling the game warden about it. I've seen these guys brag about catching eleven fish on a two-fish limit, and then not eating them - it's all about the fish torture. And the salmon was taken in the river that was recovering. In other words, he'd taken a fish that had actually made its head cells up to go up the river to breed.

It's hard living with children who think the planet and everything on it is their playtoy. And then have to clean up and repair after them. I wish they'd learn to wipe their own butts. But not with the toilet paper they make from the lungs of the planet.

Back To Art - Thank You, Godlets!

Picnic Pavilian, Clallam Bay Park

I was so sick and tired of fighting for the local silent weaklings, but it looks like Rayonier has finally shot itself in the foot. Can we say, "Tumbling Rapids?" Maybe Forks has more guts than Clallam Bay and Joyce, after what happened to Pillar Point. And you moron fishermen - you really think we can't see you in Clallam Bay trying to harass the sea mammals? That better not be a rifle, asshole. But enough of talking to resource idiots; one of these days Mom Earth will take care of THEM. HARD.

Anyway, I was begging to go back to the arts, where I belong, and stop messing with numbnuts local rural politics. They're easy, but they're not my baby. Solar will build itself, from the ground up, while the whimperers with the 1970's information will lose. Those making fake assumptions about things that DO work and are improving will be laughed at. In their faces. So, as usual, the godlets answer my vague thoughts (and you really have to be careful what you ask for).

Wild Sorrel, in the last of the summer sun.

Forks is opening a new arts center. Yay, Forks! An event I am thoroughly on board for is coming up in April. It's run by a local gentleman who has his head on straight, and wants to learn more. More news to come, and I'll be promoting it everywhere, including letting them use my international press release list.

But, let's have a little air cleared about the local attitude toward the arts. We won't go into the truly moronic shutting down of the arts, dance, music, etc., that goes on in the local schools - we know the pointless dumbness of that, and if they won't work for their own good, I'm not their mommy. And I'm not listening to the crying and whining when that comes back to bite them in the ass. Enough of the spoilt babies. Here we go:

Neah Bay Popsicle ARTIST:
see definition in text.

"Twilight" taught the local community that the future of human existence is entertainment (we sell and buy to and from each other). Of course, all single book markets fade, and that one is, too. But as people who come to the Clallam Bay Comicon know, I can help them get ALL the books and movies and set-building, and put everybody up here on the road to fun, clean, well-paying employment (not "jobs" - that 200-year-old paradigm is dying, and good riddance). All it takes is using the heads a bit, and I don't know anybody stupid up here, anybody who can't do it. I've seen lots of stupid behavior, but that's just lack of trying, not ability. 

However, they're stuck firmly in the 19th-century world of gallery artists snubbing each other, thinking they're avant garde for copying van Gogh with a palette knife, and calling fabrics and basketweaving "crafts." This note is to start to educate 'em. 

First of all, if you designed it yourself, it's "art." If it's out of a kit, it's a "craft." Doesn't matter if you carved, painted, beaded or cooked or photographed or filmed it. Or danced or sang it. There's original art, and there's Cover Art (as in, I suspect, to "cover" the bills until your art takes off for real). Now I'll dust off my hands and get on to the next lesson. Ready? 

The guy with the arts center messaged me to tell me there'd be an "arts" event. He made some remarks I and some other entertainment-industry people had to straighten out, and he immediately learned and got on the right track. This event will be a success if he keeps on that road. He's good people.

But now to talk to the local arts scene, and tell you you're not good enough to be as snobbish as you think you can get away with. You're going to be facing professionals, and not just easy-going me, who for years has simply let you slide. This is a wake-up call.

The first time I saw this sloppiness was at the Clallam County Fair art show. Two pieces should have won. For ability, experience, and use of materials, a couple of paintings that wouldn't have looked bad at a minor Seattle gallery. But what won? Some poorly-done pencil/watercolor thang of an old lady with white curly hair, and a still-life that looked like the label of a jam jar. You're letting THESE people run your art life? Please. It's embarrassing. Then again, the stars of a fair are lambs and potatoes, so they're not exactly a professional arts venue.

I THINK the gang up here thinks "art" means "we can put it in a frame" - which is why they call pressed seaweed and fishprints done on copyrighted maps - "art." (Of course, they ARE art, but just being put in a gallery isn't how you define art.)

And those of you thinking you can do abstracts - give me air. An abstract is for long-practiced experts, who are tearing apart their medium to view it more clearly, to see what their eye is really seeing. Slapping paint on a palette because you think that's how it's done - what do you think a true expert can see? We saw what you did, there (hell we can see the guy who did the bison in the cave-paintings invented the first filbert brush). You have at least 20 years of hard work and learning, before you can even begin to think you can approach a full abstraction.

(Of course, all art is abstraction, but let's keep this simple. As for copyright, just hit the page and don't argue about it. Those are the rules, and that's IT.)

And teaching and learning by copying out of somebody else's how-to book? And offering ignorant versions of native art because "Them injuns charge too much?" Gallery prices at 50% markup, with no framing, insurance, advertising, travel? And artists dumb enough to pay it? Oh, yeah, I've seen it all. The amount of ignorant arrogance is simply breath-taking. As a long-time attendee of comicons, I can tell you the stupidest newby wouldn't make these mistakes. There are too many hard sharks in that business to put up with the dumb and self-satisfied. Cross those big fish, and there's blood in the water.

And please, while you're looking at my page for the comicon, look at my artist rates. This is where it STARTS. Art is our future. Pay for it correctly, and it will come back as collectibles. You didn't know that? 

So get ready for the art world that Twilight handed you. And either learn to surf properly, or get slapped with the board and sent under where the sharks can get you. Because they're swimming in, with gleaming teeth. And soon.

One last thing: CONTESTS for art-festival posters? REALLY? Find an artist you like, and hire her or him. Damn, people. Stop whittering, "It will give you such good exposure!" People die of exposure. But don't feel bad - the world at large tries this crap, let alone your little elbow of the earth. 

Sticks and Stones

Kids do this up here, write on the beach and make hearts with sticks and stones. I have a photo of a "skeleton" somebody built, complete with a wood-bole "skull." That's gonna have to be for the mystery series. If ever.