I've begun reinterpreting the Tarot. All that old symbolism, kings, pages, queens, death, hardly any of it is relevant nowadays.
Mine, mine will be relevant.
The King of Cups
He is the King. The blue of his shirt represents the Celestial, or Spiritual Kingdom, the Brown of his trousers the Lower Worlds or Subterranean, the cup, encrusted with gems and overflowing, his falling from the earthly thrown, golden Crown, overturned and the golden sun risen high in the sky suggests perhaps he overdid it last night. His earthly kingdom (green throne) may be neglected for a spell while he recovers.
INVERTED: The wine runneth back into the glass and he has a chance at an early start.
The Mechanic
First of all we notice the Ape, or monkey, with his red hungover eyes, throwing a bone into the sky that is becoming a crescent, or MONKEY wrench. In the background we see a sky blue Volvo, over which peak the golden rays of the sun. A dead bird lies upon the ground, probably stricken by the wrench.
This card represents evolution, the continual striving for perfection at the expense of others and greater dreams, the hope that the wrench might be able to fix the car. Travel is to be avoided. The human/simian features of the monkey suggest the evolution, that he would like to attempt the repair of your Volvo, only he is not yet certain which is the wrench end. The dead bird represents spirituality crushed by earthly ambition.
INVERTED: Travel can be attempted.
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I had done another painting the night before, mixed media on paper. I started with watercolor pencils, then ink, then some acrylic and oil pastels. It worked quite well. And so I took the success to heart and started another - Robot, instead of paper using canvas and starting with watercolor pencil and acrylic:
So far so good. Lots to fix with it but I'll do that with the Oil Pastels... they have a better range of color than the cheap Dollorama paints I've been using.
Fail. The oil pastels don't catch or blend with the surface of the canvas, what worked well on paper fails here.
Oh well...learn and try again. Given how much I enjoy painting I should be doing it more often, there are occasional successes, this is not one of them. Fortunately my theory of art limits the time I spend on a piece - failure is often made worse by trying to remedy it, merely learn the lesson and start again...
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It's like I'm in a dark room attempting to unravel a tangled ball of yarn. This creative blockage, it's gone on long enough - 2 trivial projects to be completed, only 2 in the immediacy - 2 short fucking little projects. Squibs.
The kind of stuff Shelley would barf up in an afternoon just trying to get lucky. Worse even, I mean, my bar is nowhere near that high, (there are disadvantages to this, I'm striving for a planiloquence that doesn't demand too much tongue-twisting or mental agility).
Pull them up on the computer, 1 at a time. Stare at them. Read through them, find the holes, there are holes, lots of holes, childrens rhyming verse, rhymes that fall flat, too complex, don't ring true, don't even rhyme, don't, don't, don't, and the beginning, "In the beginning", fuck, I hate it, how to start, how to start...
Ten thousand little don'ts. But there are occasionally those little gems, short verses, stanzas even, that are perfect, or close enough to, and I'm trying to build around them.
A 32 page project - tops, 1 stanza per page - maybe 6-8 lines on average. And I print it off because I can never grasp the scope just looking at a single page, now 40 pages of printed notes, words, rubbish, ideas, repetitive, the same note made a dozen times, it's fallen by the wayside, or like a hedge grown all thorny and overgrown and I can't find the shape of it...
Or I draw the shape of it, but can't fill in the words, the shape of the verse a cup waiting, I rattle letters, rhymes, jostle them together but nothing seems to fit, it's making me crazy, I've fallen, fallen into very bad habits. It's never been this bad.
Write it all out now, untangling the printed words with pen and paper, sort, make it clear in my head, break to meditate, try and try again, juggle, mix, shake, it's not coming together...go for a walk, pace, pace, this, these projects, they've made me a neurotic, restive, infected me with a hundred nervous tics, this - and this is the worst - is I know it is a simple thing, it should be struck from my pen like a grocery list or a scratchy-Bill-Paid, somewhere in my head my little genii's playing "hide and seek", and I'm going a bit crazy trying to find him...
Time for a break. I'm gonna try and sell off some more shit on Kijiji.
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A friend, presuming competence, that generalization that because I'm good at my job and I'm terrific at holding my liquor I'm probably great at my artwork as well, invites me to paint the portrait of her beloved deceased dog.
Cue circus music.
Now I'd make the same mistake myself if I didn't know myself any better. But I accept the challenge - why not, dogs aren't people, you only have to realize a passing resemblance to the breed and people will invariably identify it as "their" dog. Not like people. Damnable people. People, you get a resemblance, eyes, nose, mouth, maybe even ears and a forehead, yet still they find something wrong. Dogs, come close on color, shape and size, and there's no complaining. This summer I'm going to set up at the Ferry landing and do doggie portraits, I'll make a killing, no complaints, I'm pretty sure...so this, this will be the necessary practice.
My art supplies, by grim necessity, are coming largely from "Dollorama". I've got to get used to the new color naming schemes, no Cadmium or Alazarin hues here, I'm making do with "Daffodil Yellow" and "Sapphire Blue" and "Pumpkin Orange". And Glitter, lots and lots of glitter. And you know, it isn't half bad, why ever in the hell did I need expensive top-of-the line oils and canvas when generally all I paint is shit? This is working out terrific...and I'm saving a bundle...
Attempt #1
At which point it was much admired and then she let me know her dog was a girl, hence the fire hydrant wasn't really a necessary prop.
I knew I could do better, and so I tried again:
Yeah, better, maybe, I'm loving the glitter, but not enough better, and so I thought on it for a while and went back to Dollarama for some better brushes. Acrylic brushes.
And I think I got it, maybe a little more abstract than she'd like, but it pleases me (mostly) and in the end that's all that matters...
You know, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to paint clouds. Clearly it didn't sink in. But the whole bit about "Paint the background first" was a bit of a revelation, and upon reflection it kind of makes sense...
My Favorite. It doesn't get better than this. Dog Heaven.
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