art making – Page 4 – Sidewalk Face

The Wrinkles/Concussion Conundrum

December 1, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl3 Comments

If you don’t want wrinkles, you need to strike while the iron is hot. If you want to give someone a concussion, strike at any time.

What the heck does this mean? I don’t even remember writing it. I came here to write something else and this was waiting for me.

Maybe I can make it work?…….Okay, I’ve got something. I think it means that things can always go two ways. One of those ways necessitates preparation. The other way just needs raw emotion.

I’ve been offering my sidewalk faces as limited-edition prints. This is something I have wanted to do for a really long time, as in years long time. It’s amazing how long it can take to do things that you really want to do. It can take so long you could question if you really want to do it. For example, say that you really want to wear freshly ironed, straight as a pin linen pants. You see yourself in these gorgeous pants looking like a million bucks, like you haven’t a care in the world on your remote Caribbean island writing poetry and hosting fabulous friends while wafting about in your timeless linen pants forcing those visiting friends to huddle together in wonder at your effortless effervescence. But seeing it and being it and are not the same. That vision is not about spending your time ironing and yet those pants have to be ironed. They don’t get wrinkle free on their own. We often want the fruits of labor we can’t stand to make.

But I have made the labor. I have ironed the wrinkles out of my prints and now I can offer them to you. And because of that I don’t want to throw the iron at anybody’s head, most especially my own. Hurray! Check out my gorgeous new offerings here (and also in the Limited Editions menu).

Thank you!

Art, Creative Process, Sidewalk Faces

The Happiest Little Star

November 17, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl4 Comments

This contented cutie, Sidewalk Face 1000, is my second print offering. Click here for purchase information.

I walk by them almost every day, nod and say hello. It’s nice to see friends. I’ve photographed them several times. However, after a rare morning rain, the evaporating water made their halo more pronounced and it was time to do another portrait! I knew right away this one was special, such joie de vivre*!

They are a personal favorite, radiating kind-heartedness and embodying what I value most in my art:

Pavement

The classic medium of my genre!

Seeing Potential

I like noticing things and examining closely so I turned that into an art practice. That’s how I entertain myself on endless dog walks, traversing the same streets year after year, I look for what is unusual or has changed. It’s my modern urban way of scratching the ancient hunter-gatherer itch. I got excited by the rusted metal pipe remains of his nose. It’s the small things that make my day.

Minimal Interference

My personal goal is to do the least to get the most. I try to make them feel as if they emerged on their own from what was naturally there. Sometimes my contribution is artificial and obvious, it’s more important to make a good expression than be austere but it’s part of my ethos to not overwork the image. This one is very minimal and that makes me happy.

Availablism

Wanting a little more detail than the curved sticks were providing, I added additional eye features with spit. That’s availablism**. Use what you have.

Emotional Expression

As you all know I post as many miserable faces as happy ones. I am always pushing to find greater emotional nuance in cement, sticks, stains and detritus. I am looking for something I recognize, a feeling I have felt. Sometimes a face is compositionally good but has no emotional authenticity. I don’t like that. I have to feel it.

*French for joy of living.

**Term coined by the ever awesome Kembra Pfahler of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.

Art Journal, Creative Process

Enchantment Enhancement

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl12 Comments

One of the things I like to do in my little blank books is write down funny nonsense phrases. Things like:

Mendoza Gyoza

French Toast Frenzy

Compliment Conundrum

The Parmesan Pals

Runaway Complacency

Enchantment Enhancement

Pachydermatologist

Polly Darton

What’s the point of this you might ask?

Amusement. We like to try and make ourselves laugh.

Sometimes we say something funny and I just write it down. Sometimes we actively try to create funny phrases. It’s actually pretty challenging. You say a lot of super stupid stuff. That in itself starts to be funny. Sooner or later a noteworthy phrase blurps out and you laugh.

Sometimes I have whole columns of these phrases, sometimes just a single one. Almost always they re-surprise me. They take me back. They fill me with a mixture of happiness and melancholy. They are a portal to all the past good times.

A book you have filled up yourself over the course of several months is a potent time capsule. Writing down funny things (or anything you write down) is a powerful way to recall the past. Rather than reminding me of my outer reality, it calls up my inner world, how I was thinking and perceiving. Photos are great and I enjoy remembering the events they capture, but if I am in them, my vanity is triggered, and I start thinking about whether I look good and how my looks have changed. So boring! I don’t want that. When I see silly things I have written down, it just makes me want to write down some new silly things. Nothing negative is triggered and I feel connected to myself past and present.