ARTificial Intelligence

 Unless you have been hunkering down in a remote cabin in Idaho, or maybe in the rain forests of Southeast Asia you have been hearing about the coming tsunami of AI - aka - artificial intelligence - and how it is going to change the world while unfortunately eliminating millions of blue collar and entry level  jobs. Could be. Who knows? But I thought we were all supposed to have flying cars and teleportation pods by now. I guess we will all just have to wait and see.

My concern is with the supposed impact on the creativity sector, you know, "the arts." Perfect prose, perfect sculpture with 3D printing, perfect images with filters and CG. Everything we now struggle through with tools, and physical processes, and physical effort will all be handled with AI. Al-lelujah!

I don't think so. 

There is this wonderful book; Almost Lost Arts: Traditional Crafts and the Artisans Keeping Them Alive by Emily Freidenrich and Margaret Shepard that chronicles the activities of a variety of artisans from potters to weavers, to folks making world globes - all without the "help" of AI.

I cannot speak to those crafts, I have no experience with them, but I will share some thoughts on image creation - an area that I do spend a significant amount of time with. It is a bit more nuanced. 

First let us consider the value of "the hand of the master." Right now here in Chicago there is a bubbling controversy as to whether the Rembrandt painting Man with a Golden Chain on display at the Art Institute of Chicago is an original Rembrandt or a copy - or perhaps even a copy that was also painted by Rembrandt. And each version would make a huge difference. Bottom line, in the world of fine art a work created directly by "the hand of the master" can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, while a copy - perhaps even an exact replica created by AI - would be worth maybe a few hundred. So for the marketplace anyhow, AI would have a hard time replacing, in terms of value, works from "the hand of the master."

In that creation of images I need to fall back on my own experiences. I spent much of my career exposing students to the creative potential of various tools, film cameras, still cameras and video, so naturally when the current spate of digital tools came on the scene I played with therm as well.

For me the result has been three categories of works:

Pure drawing. These are works that are basic "hand to paper" pieces. No tech involved at all. A good example is a series of images I did back during the first round of covid when nobody really knew much about the disease. So I drew these images to "put a face on it." The first is one of the faces. The second is the virus itself.

And then there is portraiture in "pure drawing":

Untitled

Significantly augmented images. These are works that made significant use of image technology - primarily Photoshop. A couple of examples. In this image that I call The Ghost of Anne Boleyn, the background is painted completely in Photoshop, while Anne's head is clipped from a "pure drawing" piece called Girl on My Shoulder, [below the larger image of Anne] and feathered in Photoshop. The bottles are from a separate "pure drawing" created specifically as a "framing" image for this piece and saved as a separate layer. Then the three layers, background, head and bottles were all merged into a single image and printed commercially, a print that I then framed.

Images with Augmented Elements. These are images in which elements from my photographs or "pure drawings" are placed in a digital "page" that I then have commercially printed on heavy grade white paper. From that point on the process is pure drawings. The most recent examples are the Venice Grand Canal image [just below] in Not Crazy After All these Years post from December of last year and the Carriage Ride [below Canal] post from February 18th. The Grand Canal image was based on a photograph from our hotel window, while carriage ride comes from a photograph of a model carriage that lives in our living room. The photo based images are visually important, yet, everything else in those images is "hand to paper", and equally important.

Gently Touched Images. This is a flexible category since the image I will discuss in the rest of the post could actually fit in Images with Augmented Elements just as Carriage Ride could possibly fit here. I think it is a question of degree. In both Carriage Ride and this current image, which I am tentatively calling Lighting the Loggias, creating the augmented elements and getting them printed onto the drawing paper was the work of an hour or two. Drawing the additional elements in Carriage Ride literally took a couple of months. I am a few weeks into Loggias. [To clarify, I don't draw for more than a couple of hours a day. My hands begin to give out after that. I have discovered tho' as we are puppy sitting without the normal distractions of home, that I can get two sessions in during a day! :-)]

I'm going to show you Loggias in process so I can touch the AI issue with you. Here it is:

Let's first talk about the loggias and the lampposts first. Those are "cut and pastes" from two photographs. The lampposts are from a photograph I took on the bridge that separates old Buda and old Pest in Budapest. The loggias are photographs, as I believe I have already mentioned, of a maybe 15x8x6 inch architectural model. I duplicated and flipped image horizontally to create the central focus of the image. Then drew and colored the designs within the loggias and the lampposts.

Now about the black squares and circles and other little unfinished elements. Yes, I draw each one, and yes, they are taking a long time. And yes, there is an easier way to do it. Back it the 0-somethings I did a drawing called Through Every Window. I'll stick it in here if I can find it. The image featured brick walls, and rather drawing each brick I created a cluster of four bricks, copied them, and then created a new layer copied the bricks into the new layer and dragged them into the appropriate place on the wall. A new layer for each cluster of four bricks and then merged them all.  Ah, here is Through Every Window. I've already mentioned the bricks. The strange flowers in the foreground windows are "pure drawings" drawn separately and pasted in the windows. The windows in the background buildings are filled with my photographs.

Back to Loggias, I'm sure that AI would allow me "insert squares in designated space, adapt as necessary. Mimic style of provided sample." And there it would be, neat, clean, but definitively not from "the hand of the master," or my hand for that matter. But getting a slew of clean precise design elements isn't the point.

You see, I like drawing those elements. I can shift direction on a whim. I can shoot out a line of blocks to wherever I feel the light from the moon might go. Heck, I even decided to add another little moon. Same with the lampposts. And there is something very zen about drawing the little boxes while listening to a whole variety of music - again, faces and places accompany me. 

There is an acronym - HUMINT. For those of us not actually involved in international espionage we encounter it mostly in novels and video, though I have learned it is actually used out there in the "real world." It stands for "human intelligence." We usually hear it dialogue:

Head protagonist: "Dammit! We're sending people in blind! We need HUMINT, boots on the ground. Don't we have anyone in there?!" 

Other person: "I'll check on it!"

Perhaps we should take heed of that admonition. When it comes to art we can really do well without turning the creative process over to artificial intelligence. There is still something valuable, unique and fulfilling about HUMINT, not so much boots on the ground as hands on the brushes putting color on the paper, the canvas, tools and fingers in the clay, pressing on the frets, chisels to stone, tickling the ivories, breath through the reeds, all of it - human intelligence.

A Decade of Dementia

 It's not like I'm taking pot shots at old guys, tho' Biden and Trump 2 were both a year older than I am now when they were sworn in, and both could claim to be the oldest president in history at their swearing in. Rather, I'm thinking about the mental clarity of both these men who held, or are holding, arguably the most powerful office on the globe.

Wikipedia tells us that:

Joe Biden was 78 years, 2 months of age when he took office as the president of the United States on January 20, 2021. At the time, he became both the oldest person to be inaugurated as U.S. president and the oldest sitting president in U.S. history.

and:

Donald Trump was 70 years old when he was first inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017. At the time, he was the oldest person to assume the presidency. Upon his return to office on January 20, 2025, at age 78, he became the oldest president to be inaugurated.

In dog years, these guys were 546 years old when they took office. And partisans in each party would argue they were both dogs. But that is not really my concern. As I said my concern is mental clarity.

I am not proposing membership in Mensa for either. Both were elected, as is sadly the unifying criterion in American politics, because of fealty to the party line. But I am concerned about how my fellow septuagenarians handled or are handling the pressures and responsibilities of the job.

President Biden focused on economic recovery, infrastructure investment, and climate action. All consistent issues of focus for the Democratic party. His public persona was often called into question by his detractors as slow and unfocused. And there is some video evidence that could be used to support that contention. However, another perspective is that he is better seen as a favorite uncle or a gentlemanly grandfather. Not as quick or as sharp as he once was, but still a gentle man, kindly and soft spoken.

President Trump, in his current persona - which makes for a legitimate comparison chronologically - cannot be seen as gentle, soft-spoken or kind. He is aggressive, combative, and given to confrontational language. And there are those who see that as appropriate. Obviously, I am not among them. But these are not the characteristics that most concern me. Rather, I am most concerned with his seeming lack of consistency and mental clarity.

He has demonstrated an unsettling ability to shift focus. He spoke often about his legacy as a peace-maker, and his belief that he was deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet apparently sees no contradiction between that stance and his military adventures in Iran and what he prefers to call the Gulf of America. This perspective is more indicative of the attitude that prompted him to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War. Yet he is loathe to define the current conflict in the Middle East a war, instead asking for 200 billion dollars to fund a “major conflict operation” or “excursion;” an incredible boondoggle that exacerbates raising gas and aviation fuel costs, crippling everyday driving and air travel for millions. All this seems to prolong a pointless military adventure for which he provides varying motivations and an indefinite termination date.

He remains firmly opposed to those who dare to stray from his worldview, instructing the department - still known as the Department of Justice - to file a variety of suits against individuals and organizations he sees as antagonists. He seems to appoint people to positions of power in his administration who have no professional credentials. The recent case of Robert F Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is germane: A federal judge temporarily blocked federal health officials from advising cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said Kennedy, who does not have a medical degree (MD), nor is he a doctor, physician, or formally trained scientist, likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee. More recently the President has pushed to make the former owner of a plumbing business and home maintenance talk show host, head of the Department of Homeland Security.

He has also recently instructed the DOJ to investigate ActBlue a Democratic fund raising organization, and continues to file suits contesting his loss in the 2020 presidential election. The President also seemingly spends hours at night texting on his personal online platform, Truth Social, railing against these and other supposed antagonists. Equally concerning are his televised appearances - from the longest ramblingState of the Union Address in history, to spontaneous interactions with the press in hallways or on Air Force One - where any question can result in a verbal attack on the questioner or a diatribe against the "fake news" of mainstream media. All while commissioning a couple of gold commemorative coins depicting himself. Similar baubles cost between $1500 and $11,000.

These are not the behaviors of a man in tight control of his faculties. They reflect, rather, patterns of behavior that, were we to observe them in our own family members, would prompt us to seek advice from mental health professionals as to how we might best deal with these obvious signs of dementia.

Checking in From Dreamland

I continue to be fascinated by dreams, their capricious nature and the tantalizing possibilities of what we might discern from their engaging theater.

A recent one has remained with me in part for it's seeming deviation from what I have come to expect from these nocturnal visitations. In a way it mirrored a common dramatic disappointment. You may have experienced it. You have scraped together the current absurd cost of a big name performance - parallel to say, what, a live version of Burton and Taylor's in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, whatever that might be. You arrive at the theater, scurry inside, find your seats and open the playbill only to find the dreaded little slip of paper saying; "Tonight tonight Martha will be played by Beatrice Whosit and George will be played by Bartholomew Whatsome. You know the feeling. The understudies, striving mightily, are competent but you sense that they too feel the disappointment of the audience.

This dream was sort of like that. It was a narrative of no great import, but the casting was bizarre. I, naturally, played myself - well, my 30-40ish self, untroubled by the current twinges and lapses of memory that are my current companions. I am married, somewhat strangely, to a woman I had dated semi-seriously my freshman year of college. We had met at one of those "freshman mixers" that small liberal arts colleges were wont to provide. Apparently things had moved on from there. She had avoided multiple decades and still looked like her freshman self.

The story continued in that strange vein. We were debating the advisability of her parents - played by the parents of my oldest friend; who I had just visited in DC - adopting "our" dog, played by the Cockapoo mix I had while teaching in Wisconsin in the late 1970s. I do not recall the resolution, if there was one. Rather I simply awoke saying "Whoa! That was very, very, strange!"

So from where do these mysterious entr'actes arise, slipping between our waking realities? I suppose there are at least thousands of Ph.D dissertations, articles and books presenting their various experiments, explanations and theories. And were I still toiling in the halls of the academy, I would feel obligated to address the most compelling of them before advancing my interpretation. However, having left tenure behind me decades ago, I can cut directly to the chase - i.e. what I choose to believe.

As I have mentioned before I am particularly taken with the quantum mechanics notion of "many worlds." Or as I think about it - branching realities. Briefly, whenever we make a choice in our lives - where we go to school, what career we choose, with whom we fall in love, marry, have kids with, where we choose to live - those are all the path taken. The "many worlds" are created by all the paths not taken - and alternate versions of ourselves move on along those paths, into those many worlds.

I further choose to believe that those many worlds may not be as completely separate as the theoretical physicists might have us believe. That they may occasionally leak into each other. Things like deja vu, the feeling that you have been somewhere before, did something before, met someone before - maybe those are little bit of evidence of "worlds leaking." Huh? Maybe?

And dreams! Ah, there could be the mother lode. Perhaps dreams are like a sort of "many worlds blender." Those little leaks get whirled together in a strange psychic cake mix, and, when asleep, we cook it up into a dream that seems a single experience but is in, sort of reality, a hybrid, tri-bred, multi-bred blend of all the roads - both taken and not.

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sleep well!

 

One Step at a Time

 Wikipedia tells us that: "A loggia is a covered, open-air gallery featuring columns or arches - typically featuring columns or arches." My better half knows I love architectural models so she gifted me this one a few Christmases ago:

And so I made it the center focus of the image I am currently working on called Lighting the Loggias. I have finished the loggias portion of the image:

And I am pretty much OK with it.  However I now need to deal with the rest of the image:

A lot of white space there, and I don't intend to leave any. I'm thinking something with a moon and clouds. Has to be at least dusk if not night. Otherwise why have the lamp posts, right? 

Anyhow, I'll keep you posted 😅

Magical Moments

 There is a magic I do not understand. I envy it, but do not understand it.

I have been reading To The Hilt, by Dick Francis (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1996.) As usual with Francis, the plotline features thoroughbred racing, horses, jockeys and such. Which is befitting for an author who, Wikipedia tells us: "after serving in the RAF, became a full-time jump-jockey, winning over 350 races and becoming champion jockey of the British National Hunt." But in this book, racing is eclipsed by artistry. Painting to be specific.

The protagonist is Alexander Kinloch, the sort of ne'er do well son of a prominent local family. But rather than swain about the countryside as is normal for the younger sons of minor gentry, Alex has taken up residence in a rough outbuilding where he earns a respectable living as an artist. His "money stream" comes from paintings of golfers and golf courses that he markets quite profitably to country clubs in England and the States.

However, he also works quite seriously in portraiture. And Francis devotes an equally serious amount of time describing Alex's work on one particular portrait. I do recommend the novel to you. It is a nice mystery. However, I won't spoil it for you with any discussion of the plot as the magic is in the description of Alex's work on the portrait. I can find no evidence that Francis ever dabbled in painting himself, however several sources credit his wife, Mary Margaret Brenchley, as his primary researcher. If that was her role for this work, she did an incredible job.

We following Alex's work on the through the preparation of the canvas, with gesso, and multiple layers of background color - acrylic, not oil which takes too long to dry - through multiple layers of glazes, preparatory sketches, and finally scratching through the layers of paint and glaze to reveal in the lower layers an effect that reveals the various - gradually aging - faces of the subject. To which the object of the portrait eventually responds "you have made me immortal."

It's not that I am unfamiliar with mysteries that foreground painting. I am currently reading The Bellotto Connection, the 29th book in Estelle Ryan's, entertaining and informative Genevieve Lenard series which features a young woman "on the spectrum" whose special talent is discerning truth, or the lack thereof, from peoples nonverbal cues. In each novel the caper centers around the works of a particular artist. [Yeah, right? 29 different artists some of whom I must admit I'd never heard.] 

Anyhow, in those novels the paintings are often discussed (by the secondary protagonist, a reformed art thief) in detail. But those explanations tend to focus on what is on the canvas - clues and indications of how the images might aid in catching the bad guys. How the artist came to create the images is only a minor consideration.

So I was enthralled with Francis's intricate and thorough description of how Alex came to create his images. Yet I must admit to having also been somewhat chagrined. It has taken me a great deal of time and introspection to assert that my images are "art."

Not so much, the description of Alex's processes would argue. He mixes and blends hues and textures to achieve his desired result. I am restricted to paper and the predetermined colors of my - admitted extensive - collection of markers.

So, I came away from Francis's novel feeling something like a "pretender" wasting hours on images that have no purpose.

But then my natural optimism bubbled to the surface and I remembered what I used to tell my students when they were wrestling with a creative assignment. I asserted that unless they intended to "go pro," and earn their living with their art, they should never compare their own efforts to the current GOATs, or those of history. The Greatest of All Times were not only exceptionally talented, they had, most often, invested years of training at the feet of equally exceptional practitioners to learn their craft.

That was not the objective of the assignments I gave them. Rather, I wanted them to explore what in the creative process expressed their feelings, brought what was inside out, and most importantly made them feel good, made them happy.

So I decided to listen to myself and remember that what is important isn't what the image shows, what it looks like on the page. Rather the value of the creative process is what you put into the exercise. The value for those of us who live, largely, outside the business of selling art, is in what we invest in the creation of our art, and what, in return, it gives to us.

Meet My Invisible Friend

 "Doctors, I've been wrestling with reality for 40 years and I'm happy to say that I've finally won out over it."

Elwood P Dowd in Harvey, by Mary Chase. Pulitzer Prize, 1945.

The title character in Ms. Chase's book, and later in the 1950 film starring Jimmy Stewart, is an invisible 6'3" rabbit who is also a Pooka - from old Celtic mythology - a mischievous fairy spirit in animal form - always very large. Harvey talks to Elwood P. Dowd, Stewart's character, throughout - and Elwood seems to draw great comfort from their dialogues.

I often think about this odd couple when I encounter two kinds of seemingly different, but actually quite similar contemporary social phenomena; my age-mates experiencing a return to spirituality, and adolescents being drawn to chat bots. "No wait," as I used to say to my Media and Society students, "Really. It will make sense. Just wait."

OK. I have one dear friend who joins me in our 7th decade, who has begun to attend not only the Catholic services in which he was raised but also some Saturday services - maybe Unitarian? He jokes about joining a Jewish Temple to give him a weekend trifecta. Another dear friend who has just broken into her 8th decade has converted to Judaism. And I sense they are not outliers. Nor do the various theologies indicate that they are trying to hoard indulgences to smooth their way into some multifaceted hereafter.

No. And I may be completely wrong here, having not broached the question to them, but I think the commonality is prayer. NWIWMS - that's shorthand for "No wait it will make sense."

What generalizations can we make about folks in this - OK, my - demographic cluster, somewhere north of 70? They - er, we - have racked up a lot of very varied experiences. And those experiences have solidified into occasionally quite firm conclusions and beliefs regarding the nature of life, existence, behavior, right and wrong.

And while they/we may occasionally articulate those positions loudly and sometimes inappropriately, in some - I would assert many - cases they/we would prefer to just let the kids (everyone under 65 or so) natter on among themselves. We'll just have another glass of wine and pet the dog. The kids won’t listen anyhow. And that, of course, is the crux of the issue for our two seemingly disparate populations: Nobody, perhaps not even my peers are listening. Or, if they are their "truth" may be at odds with my truth. And I don't want to debate.

So who do you - my demographic - talk to? And why? To paraphrase the title of a book popular among a far younger demographic, "Hello God. Are you there? It's me." Maybe it's not God in a catholic (little c) sense. Maybe it is more like a listening entity. Need not even be an entity who can do anything more than listen. Yet an entity whose experience and insight far outstrips our own. Dialogue is not required. We are not so much looking for answers as we are clarifying questions without the listening entity interrupting with "I know what you mean! My brother/sister/son/daughter/whatever did exactly the same thing and I yadda yadda yadda . . . "

The idea is that as we talk to the le - aka listening entity - about our concerns, uncertainties, wishes, problems, etc., we may come to hear the echoes of, if not answers, at least possibilities regarding our inquiries. You see, so much of today's world, for our demographic niche, falls into the "been there, done that" bucket. So our inquiries with the le look beyond those concerns to the ripples of the strange. Of course we are curious about what comes next, but we are more concerned about those glitches that conflict with our experienced-based worldview:

Why does humanity remain blind? Why does conflict seem unceasing? Why do the patently foolish succeed? How can I foster harmony, enable beauty, distill complexity, and oppose harm? OK, you caught me - those last four are my personal queries. But you get the idea. My cohort is not focused on the next job, the next rung on the ladder, finding success, building to retirement, because - ta, da! We're already there! For better or for worse. But I am nattering on again. Focus.

So, do you need a gathering place to commune with the le? Probably not. Yet throughout the ages from Stonehenge - and possibly earlier gathering spots - through Notre Dame and Gaudi's still unfinished Sagrada Familia to the Hagia Sophia and the Neue Synagogue in Berlin, inspired builders have been creating spaces seemingly in tune with the le, whether for a solitary soul or a significant congregation.

Which does present the additional question; do you need a congregation to talk to the le? There are certainly a raft of theologians and philosophers who would assert that neither a structure nor a congregation is necessary for communion with the le. That nature provides the vista that first inspired spiritual gatherings. Personally I like sacred spaces best when they are empty, just me and the le. On the other hand I can understand the notion that a gathering of other seemingly likeminded folks can affirm one's own spiritual inclination.

Another issue in the whole "me to the le" interaction: do you need a conduit? A rosary? An icon? A prayer rug? A kippah? A crucifix? While mine is an admittedly agnostic view, I would say that these "dressings" are unnecessary trimmings, devised by ecclesiastical structures to keep the faithful in line. On the other, more important, hand, if some sort of conduit makes talking to the le easier, go ahead - certainly can't hurt.

So, to hop back to Harvey for a moment, I don't think it is unacceptable to assert that Harvey was Elwood's listening entity. Of course, Chase had to make Harvey a sympathetic speaking entity as well. Otherwise the book would have been crushing dull and the film unbearable. 

But as stated above, our expecting the le to respond directly is probably a futile exercise. Rather we should listen to ourselves, ferreting out possible answers or clues for behavior in the totality of our questions. So "Hello le. It's me. I was wondering . . . " might be a good way to begin. Or perhaps "Hello Lee. It's me I was wondering . . ." Lee seems like a good noun of address. Seems more natural, is gender non-specific, more comfortable. But I am rambling.

So now let us turn our attention to the adolescents and their chatbots. NWIWMS! NPR reports Children and teenagers are rapidly adopting AI chatbots, with studies showing that 64% to 72% of U.S. teens (ages 13–17) have used AI chatbots. While many use these tools for homework, a significant number—roughly 3 in 10—use them daily for companionship, advice, and emotional support.. "Hi GPTChat. You there? I was wondering. . . ." Hmmmm. [To ramble just a moment - I often think about children who have either an invisible friend, or a special toy who provide "companionship, advice, and emotional support." Maybe another Wall.]

Anyhow, a website dedicated to healthy children and other sources contend that:

"There are documented cases of chatbots failing to properly handle discussions about suicide, with some, in rare cases, even encouraging self-harm or providing dangerous advice. And because chatbots are designed to be "sycophantic" (constantly agreeable) and offer "frictionless" interaction, children may prefer them to real, complex human relationships, leading to isolation."

Yee, gads! There is no way that chatbots for that 30% of teens using chatbots for "companionship, advice, and emotional support" are mirroring the le experience of spiritually questing seniors. 

A couple of salient points:

Chatbots are the creatures of computer software engineers. And so are by definition fallible. My iPad, iPhone and car software systems have all been "upgraded" in the last few weeks. They now "talk" to each other differently than before - and sometimes not at all. The solution is often "Turn off. Restart. Again." Hardly good advice for curious teens!

Teenagers are creatures of determined confusion. Their experiences in, and beliefs about, the "real world" are existentially truncated. Yet many have, since birth, had screens as their constant companions. Look around you at the grocery store, or at the carload of backseat kids next to you at the stoplight. How many of them are being pacified by some screen or another? And when they leave the car they carry their tablets, phones or smart watches with them - tethered to their chatbot buddy. Why should we find it strange that as they grow older and more curious about the complexities of the modern world that they turn to those same screens for the "truth" about issues their parents are too busy or uneasy to discuss?

The teenage utilization of Chatbots is diametrically opposed to senior's spiritual interactions with le - or Lee. With le the human explores possibilities in their questing interactions with the silent, but assumed attentive, le, - questions based on decades of real world experience. With a Chatbot, the teen, also posing questions, is sometimes fed the digital equivalent of emotional fast food - sweet and savory - by a hyperactive, chatty electronic entity prone to errors, falsehoods and deception. Yet from that frothy menu the teen distills something that passes for truth.

So what do we take away from this rambling discourse? Well, first off, even with all the mental challenges and physical maladies in attendance, I'd rather be old than young. And my sympathy for parents attempting to raise children in the current digital environment is immense. My advice to them is to maximize non-screen experience. Experiences their children can touch without keyboards. Pets, sports, learning cursive, writing with it, painting, sculpting, playing an instrument - always utilizing the non-digital option when possible. It is inevitable that life will eventually force them into the increasingly digital world - but they will have the advantage of having known the more gritty processes the digital seeks to imitate. And with that advantage they may ask better questions of real people.

Second, to my aged cohort re-exploring their spirituality - have at it! But take notes. I hate it when I come to an insight while talking to the le during the tiny hours after midnight, but then awake the next morning to discover it has slipped away!

Two Perspectives

OK. Yes it is finally done. And in truth, I am a bit glad. Exhausted, but, well, perhaps more relieved than glad. Sort of like those Olympians we are watching following the end of some grueling event. Putting the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" aside, they were all just glad to have completed the task they had set for themselves. So I am glad to have completed this task. And the image is truly one that is best seen live. Or if you are not planning a visit, on as big as screen as possible. Project it to your TV if you have those skills.

Anyhow, here it is:

And no, I really have no preference as to which side defines up and down, left or right. I will probably have to make that decision once I put it up on a wall, assuming I can find space on a wall somewhere that can accept it. Something that is far from certain. It is 40x50 inches.

But simply telling you the dimensions doesn't really describe the size. I have created larger images, some blended images; part hand-drawn, then digitally enhanced and printed top out at 4 x 5 feet. And then there was that image that was wrapped around a city bus in Raleigh - yeah, bus size. But Carriage Ride is the largest pure hand-to-paper piece I have ever done. So here is an ill-advised "selfie" to demonstrate its size:

So as I consider the image, and the guy behind the image, I fall to reflecting on the "narrative" that best describes the evolution - the dénouement of the image if you will.

The earliest evidence I can find of the image is this picture from August 27th of last year:

Which is obviously a painted version of this image:

Which is, strangely, dated a week later. There are then a number of interim images up until Valentines Day 2026, which was when I declared that the image was “finished-finished.”

Which brings us to the first perspective which is the perspective of the artist. And this is where I defer to Rembrandt's assertion, which I have mentioned before, that "a painting is finished when the artist says it is finished." So the creative process of painting Carriage Ride ran from about August 27 of 2025, until Valentine's Day 2026. So let's run the numbers.

That's 176 days. And I figure an average of about two and half hours a day. Some less, some considerably more. Which brings us to somewhere between 400 and 500 hours of flinging myself down and laying on the floor drawing the bits and bobs of the final image. Which brings us to the interesting second perspective: What is a painting worth?

Well, if you use the highest number I ever got for "consulting" back in the day: $500.00 an hour including travel, lodging etc. Using a "dollars per painting hour" scale I would put the value of the painting at about $250,000.00. However, the value an artist places on an image is not the relevant metric here. Rather, the second perspective is that: a painting is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

So Salvator Mundi, reportedly by Da Vinci, sold for $450 million, purportedly to a mysterious Saudi prince, and Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer recently topped $236.4 million at Sotheby’s. However, the most expensive Van Gogh painting ever sold is Orchard with Cypresses (Verger avec cyprès) from the collection of Paul Allen, which fetched $117.2 million at a Christie's auction in 2022 . Pretty "spendy" as my kin in South Dakota would say.Yet it was a painting unable to find any buyer during the artist's lifetime.

Which tempts me to quote the King in The King and I : "Tis a puzzlement!"

Personally, neither perspective will drive my consideration for my next image. Rather, I will chose an image appropriately sized to fit on my drawing table - enough floor painting. And I'm thinking of something that reduces white space - rather, something that contrasts color, light  and darkness. A touch of chiaroscuro, which I remember thinking was a Mexican spice. I believe I have a photograph that I took of a streetlight on a bridge between Buda and Pest that might be a good starting point.

I'll keep you posted. :-)

Oh, and if any of you have a spare quarter million you wish to invest in Carriage Ride, I accept cash, checks, credit cards, PayPal, gold, and appraised gems.  But no bitcoin.

 

The Curse of the Third Ball

We have a number of four-legged grandchildren scattered around the country - four up here in Chicagoland. The closest is Birdie - a mostly black lab. Those of us close to her choose to believe she is a lab, she certainly presents as such. However, her parents did have her DNA tested and that revealed a predominantly Labrador critter of mixed heritage. A touch of hound, which may explain those long legs that, in her puppy days, she used to drag around after her, not quite sure to whom they belonged. These days she uses them to bound effortlessly around, clearing the couch - which tries her patience as she moves from kitchen to living room - in a single graceful leap.

And as anyone who knows anything about dogs will tell you, mixed breeds are smarter than their purebred kin. Amazing creatures, dogs. They pad along hospital corridors as therapy dogs, bringing comfort to the afflicted and lonely. They warn their owners of the onset of seizures. They lead rescuers to the lost or trapped. They can detect illicit substances, and now detect and distinguish among various cancers and other diseases! Little wonder that we claim these furry buddies as our best friends.

But although we are confident that Birdie could, if she chose to, execute all these tasks and more, Birdie has decided to hone a skill that we choose to see as unique. Anyone who owns a lab knows that they will chase a tennis ball to the point of exhaustion - and then ask "just a couple more? Huh? Huh? Please?" And here Birdie runs true to the breed. But her exceptional extension is this:

And this:

Yes, Birdie can hold two balls in her mouth at one time! But this seemingly innocent extension of the norm carries a hidden peril: The Curse of the Third Ball. You see when Birdie has those two balls in her mouth, it is simply not enough. She looks at you with pleading eyes, so you toss the third ball.

She rushes to it, and only then realizes that she already has two balls in her mouth. She tries mightily to add the third ball to them  - unsuccessfully. Inevitably as she attempts to collect the third ball one or both of the other balls escape, rolling away. What results is a comic, piteous and futile series of attempts to get all three balls in her mouth at the same time.

You can learn a lot about people by watching dogs. There are those individuals in human society who have mastered the trick of holding two balls in their mouths at the same time. They have, say, money and power. Two balls that many would consider sufficient. But sadly, for them, it is not enough. They look around and see there are more balls out there, seemingly available for the taking.

Money, power, OK. How about acclaim? Having people love you? Maybe you can get a nip of that third ball but careful, one of the other two might slip. How about access to sex? Drop Jeff an email. No wait he's dead. Damn. Oh, wait! Celebrity! Open wide. Oops there went . . . Which ball was that? You get the idea.

In our culture a poisonous uberclass has risen to the surface, like a toxic algae bloom on a polluted pond. They are not content with the balls already secure in their grasp. They want more. Whether the richest man in the world, or the holder of the highest office on the globe, they want more. And they do not care who they harm in pursuit of that 3rd, 4th, 5th, . . . . nth ball.

I have heard tell that some of the top .001 percent are investing heavily in "life extending" technologies. Seemingly not content with amassing as many balls as possible in their natural life, they seek to carry their acquisitions on in some version of an unnatural life. It would be like, it seems, grafting chipmunk's cheeks - which can expand to three times the size of the critter's head - onto Birdie so that she could stuff three, four, or even more balls into her face.

Or perhaps, instead, we could teach her restraint. "No Birdie, I'm not going to throw you this third ball. It will make you crazy. You will try to stuff it in with the other two and may, in that fevered attempt, lose all your balls - or marbles."

Another lesson we could learn from watching our dogs. No more third balls.

So sit Birdie. Stay. Good girl. Two balls is enough. Wanna treat?

 

Scenes, Not Memes

 Again, some thoughts on dreams - which have been elbowing their way into my nocturnal sojourns recently, more insistently than usual. They stay true to form for the most part: technicolor, high definition, a cast most often composed of strangers, yet who seem completely familiar with the primary protagonist - me.

Recently however, as I think I may have mentioned, there have been a few guest appearances by people I know - but I recognize them only after waking; "Hey, I think that was so and so." Also, a recent aberration has been the "to be continued" dream. Those are the ones where you wake up, get a drink of water, go pee, check the weather, something - and go back to sleep. Then, whamo! There you are back in the same dream. This appears to be a phenomenon over which I have no control, since when I want to return to a dream to see how things turnout, it never works.

OK. So what? Well, I have found myself recently thinking about the notion that unlike much of contemporary existence which is crafted by shared, posted, texted, screened, emailed, cell-phoned or reported, expressions; dreams are experiences that are completely private. Oh, we can write about them, or talk about them to friends, lovers, family, therapists, whatever. But those descriptions are mandatorily second-hand. And the insights of those others, no matter how well intentioned, are still intrinsically interpretations from outside the dreamer. The pure experience of the dream is totally internal. Like the pearl within the oyster - the dream in its natural state, is invisible to the world outside.

It is, of course, a common calling of the artist to externalize the dream. And in some ways, all art is an attempt to make the internal insight perceivable to others. And tho' some artists refuse to discuss the meaning in their art - I am among them when it comes to visual art, not because I am being secretive I just don't really know where some of them spring from. I still contend that, whether visual, audible, tactile or some combination thereof, art draws some shy perception out of internal shadows into the sunlight of external examination. And while the meaning of those external examinations may be up for grabs it is, to some extent, the degree to which that artistic reveal is successful that determines the value - and staying power - of the artwork.

But that assertion requires some clarification, and draws into necessary consideration the newly coined notion of the meme. The word was advanced by Richard Dawkins' 1976 work, The Selfish Gene, to describe how cultural information spreads.

So a meme is any sort of cultural item - such as an idea, behavior, image, or video - that spreads rapidly from person to person across the internet, usually through social media platforms. An example of an early meme which is often cited is the ":-)" which many text-based platforms automatically convert to this icon: 🙂. Something called an "emoticon." An icon that conveys an emotion. And they are handy little guys especially for those of us who were raised in the un-evolved environments in which "keyboarding skills" were primarily intended for young women destined to become secretaries. I, a two- sometimes four-fingered typist - use them often myself.

But it is important to remember that emoticons, like many contemporary memes, are a type of communication shorthand. They attempt to "stand for" larger, often more complex communicative messages, structures or systems. I tend to think of them being similar to runes, or cuneiform or hieroglyphics. Writing systems restricted by medium [runes in stone, cuneiform in clay] or specialized skills or social status [hieroglyphics]. But still shorthand.

While watching one of our recent snowfalls I realized that I still remembered all of Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. You know; "Whose woods these are, I think I know . . ." And I wondered how that poem would be constructed with emoticons? I mean think of really old works, Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh? I admit I am intentionally not doing an Internet search for "emoticon poetry." Oh, who am I kidding:

I'm thinking this is supposed to be "Tiger, tiger, burning bright! In the forest of the night." But if I didn't already have some memory of the poem, I doubt I would have been able to translate. My memory is incomplete so the last two "lines" remain a mystery to me.

For me the issue remains that our art seeks to externalize, to reveal the internalized scenes that we contain - we are the oyster, our dreams are the pearls.

Memes and emoticons are the shells.

Michelangelo's Playlist

If the question is "What was on Michelangelo's playlist?" the answer is obvious: nothing. He didn't have a playlist. Or at least not a digital one he could take with him as he clambered up the scaffolds to lie on his back while he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. For hours everyday. For four years.

Back when I was teaching various creative media courses I would caution my students to avoid comparing their efforts to those of the G.O.A.T.s - contemporary or long past. It could, I opined, stifle their own efforts: "Oh! I could never paint, sing, dance, take photos, make movies, act, etc., . . like whoever!"

I sometimes fail to follow my own advice. I am fascinated by the lives and practices of those Greatest Of All Times. Particularly in the areas in which I dabble or have dabbled - acting, singing, painting, writing, sculpture - artsy stuff. Most of the time I am content to ascribe the vastly elevated nature of their accomplishments to the simple acknowledgment that their abilities far outstripped mine. But there are some things that I simply cannot comprehend. For example, set aside Mike's crazy genius skill level. Forget his youth. How did he lie on his back for countless hours for four years without music!?

Even before personal portable players - remember the Walkman, auto-reverse and mix-tapes? - I have no memory of engaging in any personal creative endeavor without music. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, some of that music was "self-produced." Humming or "whisper-singing" under my breath. But four years for the Sistine Chapel, more than that for The Last Judgment? Whew.

For me music is an integral part of the enjoyment I derive from my art. An alternate title for this post was "I Saw A Shadow Touch A Shadow's Hand." That's a line from the 1964 song Bleeker Street, by Simon and Garfunkel. For me the idea was - is - that when music combines with other art forms - drawing and painting for me these days - the activity becomes transcendent. Takes me to other places and other times, where I walk among shadows that no longer surround me, but obtain an almost tangible nature - hands I can almost touch.

It is an experience over which I have some varying degree of control. Pat Boone [No relation to Daniel for those of you for whom Pat is a historical figure.] had a 1959 hit song titled Twixt 12 and 20 [that he later turned into a book with the same title - no marketing newbie he] that asserts that those "years to remember" are exceptionally formative, and, I would go on to assert, fill that musical part of our brain with links to shadows that we carry around for the rest of our lives. And, I would further venture, there is really nothing entirely unique about that decade. Rather, it seems that all the various stages of our lives come with a soundtrack. All include songs we remember, and the shadows that live therein.

And it is that enduring link between our lives and our music that gives us some control over the shadows that inhabit our artistic-musical synthesis. I choose the soundtrack that I draw to, and hence the shadows I invite to join me. Pick a decade, or a world, grade school, high school, college, first love, favorite place, favorite person, whatever you like, and craft a unique playlist for that place, person or time. All today's digital music worlds - Pandora, Spotify, whatever, let you do this.

Then fire it up, turn up the volume, open the door and let the shadows in. Watch "a shadow touch a shadow's hand."

Which is why I am completely dumbfounded by the idea that Michelangelo had no playlist. Nor did Vermeer, or Titian, or Lebrun. Did they paint without music? Inconceivable! Perhaps it was all internal music?

That's a lot of humming.