Not too exciting — the least exciting page of all in many ways — but I’m working on yet another page of the book. Hopefully later tonight I’ll be a step closer to confirming the studio apartment… It will be very nice being able to set up dozens of canvases at once. To say nothing of having the space to build a car, host a suspension or trapeze party, or anything else Caitlin and Nefarious and I feel like doing.
We all went and visited Ryan and Corrie yesterday who have posted and made public the exciting news of having kid number four on the way. I’m so jealous! I love having kids around. It was a little tiring driving my truck all the way out there though — it’s too slow in its current configuration to drive comfortably on the highway, and it puts me to sleep driving that slow. And it’s a gas hog. It’ll be nice to have the Sterling on the road this summer as it gets about 45 mpg.
I put up another nice interview for the book at bodmodsex — I really would appreciate feedback so they’re in perfect form for print (email is fine if it’s more convenient). And no, even though there’s ranting and raving on BME that I’m “stealing” their material, that’s total BS and the text is all new and any photos are used with permission of the owners (some are new, and some have been posted on a myriad of sites). Sheesh. Focus on building a good site instead of whining about me.
In much more exciting and ego-satisfying news, I discovered that I am the #1 image result for the term “eyeball” on Google Images. Any attention is good attention, right???
I’ve sketched out “Prophecies of War”, the next painting in the book — “And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far, ancestral voices prophesying war!” After this, two to go plus the cover! The end is near! I’ve been doing test readings to Nefarious and I think it’ll hold a child’s attention. To make the book easier to read, every page of text is going to contain the previous and next lines of the poem, allowing the reader more control over the spacing of the images. That is, for this page, the accompanying text page would be something like this — of course this is not the image it goes with; I just wanted a context for the layout:
Anyway, back to sketching this thing out, but here’s that real page, in outline of course. The last two pages are the interior of the pleasure dome, and then the final “milk of paradise” image. Conceptually I see the pleasure dome being full of poppies and other psychoactive plants — thus the imagery of the poem — and I found a great page on Wikipedia that’s acting as a resource for these paintings: Psychedelic plants.
It was hard to get a photo of how the work is going on this painting because, well, it’s night time and this apartment does not have good lighting. We’re considering moving — a nice 3,000 square foot art studio with a garage door just opened up that we’re thinking seriously about taking. It would be an amazing space for us all (it’s got three apartments and about 20 foot ceilings) — with Caitlin’s welding skills we could build hot rods! Woo woo!
I finally got a prescription refill, so I don’t feel as brutally drained — just barely getting through the day — as I have the past couple evenings. A very nice improvement! I’m still slowly but surely chugging along on Kubla Khan. Three more paintings after the ones I have on the go, and I can start moving on to doing the final touches and glazes, and then I have my first kid’s book ready to be published…
‘The River Maze’ is progressing nicely:
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran
And I’ve started on ‘The Mystic’ as well:
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
