Tag: Art

Where does it come from?

Using a crow quill (#102 nib)… how I communicate with my mother… who had superb control and draftsmanship with that instrument. Once the pen of choice for comic strip artists. A 0.1 STAEDTLER liner pen makes a line as fine, but without the nib and the dynamic line. Stippling, the micro splatters and splits using the nib make for more interesting shading–have to do that deliberately with the liner pen. When I work that fine–much of the interest is in exploring up-close, so it makes a difference.

I’ve been thinking about doing something like this, much larger scale. (this is a detail from a 23×40 acrylic https://jacobrussellsmagicnames.com/page/3/) …for still larger, and more complex detail, need liquid acrylics and finer linen canvas, gesso sanded smooth, to work with that level of detail.
I took children’s classes at the Chicago Art Institute when I was, like… 6 or 7. Seurat’s Un Dimanche a la Grande Jatte burned a hole in my brain, passing by as I came and went.

Pope Frank in Philly

Pope Frances elects to share his dinner with 300 homeless in D.C.
Think about this. What makes this so moving? I see in this, the power of religion … as essentially, the power of poetry. Of narrative. Of myth. Dogma and theology are its decomposition… not, as in: deconstruction. As in… of a corpse.
Fuck the hierarchy, the real estate empire of the RC institution–I see no validation of any of that in what he’s doing. But I can damn well feel and recognize the power of the narrative he’s living out before us… a pageant infused with life… or life, enriched in it’s becoming, pageant. This is theater, someone told me, to dis it.
If it’s theater–if that’s really what it is: theater–than we should fucking celebrate it.
I spent the afternoon walking around Center City, talking with people of the streets (I really dislike, “homeless”… a condition, is not an identity). There may or may not have been plans to round up these Philly citizens and incarcerate them for the weekend. There were at least rumors to the effect.
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility–but I think Pope Frank’s theater piece in D.C. made that way less likely. How could Nutter look him in the eye, if he’d okay’d that shit? The playback publicity would have crucified him.
At least I hope so.
I don’t buy your religion, Frank… but you’re damn good at theater… and making the best of where you are.
I tip my glittery hat to you.
Welcome to Philly. But fuck Saint Serra forever and ever.