Tag Archives: aliens

WE ARE ART. WE ARE ALL ARTISTS.

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We express ourselves in different ways. One’s wild garden tending is another’s storytelling of memories, across the bridge someone walks along the river in deep introspection, another dreams as she looks at the sky, he hopes as he sprints down the road, they smile at passersby…this is art…the living choices we paint our lives with…the colors spilling over onto another’s path…some mixes go muddy…others create spectral arcs that seemingly touch the sky…if you think you can’t create art…you’re not looking deeply enough…we are all artists…each one of us the embodiment of art itself…🌠

My character, Hank Olin, began as a drawing many years ago. He was then slid into a plastic sleeve and clipped into a binder to join other characters who’d grown silent between black vinyl covers. One day he escaped to become an acrylic painting. His accomplice told him metallic paint would wake his spacesuit up too so he could fly. Hank Olin was happy – he no longer had to live in the binder. He was free.

Being the benevolent ele-space-ien he was, he asked for the immediate release of all those trapped between the heavy covers of that wicked black vinyl binder.

His request was soon granted by an accomplice on the outside, who looked at the sky that very day, appreciating their singular freedom to gaze upon such beauty in a world of madness. Hank Olin was lifted from his two-dimensional prison. Today Hank is free to stargaze, to whisper musings in the ear of anyone nearby, he’s dreamed below the afternoon sky and sparkled, he travels to regions real and imagined, he lives his best life while watching his friends grow into the free characters they were meant to be.

The Loveland Frogman

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This cryptid sculpt is the Loveland Frogman. I created collages of a few cryptid/creature illustrations for the UFO Fair (loads of outrageous fun- JUNE 7th – Pine Bush, NY).

My husband, Keith, requested the Frogman collage (orange bkgd painting shown) to hang over his desk. Now, as I’ve crashed into sculpting, he requested a Frogman sculpt to live as a silent desk-partner. I’m glad he asked for this critter. The Frogman was great fun to make.

Have a wonderful weekend🐰🪻I hope you’re managing through the madness.
For those who celebrate the day – Hoppy Easter🐸!

1975

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In 1975 and for many years afterward, I wanted nothing more than to look and sing like Bobbie Gentry, and emulate Carl Kolchak, the mildly insane journalist, who investigated supernatural crimes while wearing a goofy smile and a slanted straw hat.

Today, I continue to play my favorite Gentry album Ode to Billy Joe while the guitar sitting in the corner of my studio listens along. And I strive to pile my hair higher than is normal.

As for becoming a boots-on-the-ground monster-chasing reporter, I daily arm myself with art supplies to track down creatures, and I type prose on a typewriter keyboard. The wide-brimmed straw hat resting on a pile of books in my studio sees action when the sun is out.

Maybe, I did become who I wanted to be all along. Maybe…


Pencil sketch of Bobbie Gentry done about two months ago. I continue to use a giant Ticonderoga pencil. I’m not allowing myself to get into details using sharpened points and varieties of leads in the hopes of focusing on shape and form.

I’ve not done much writing these last few months. I’ve been madly creating monster collage mini-paintings like Shunka Warakin (below) for the upcoming UFO Fair in Pine Bush, NY. Such fun:)

I hope you are all doing well.
am:)

A Harvest Festival

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Since the annual UFO Fair this past June, I’ve turned myself into a mad monster merchant selling all measure of cryptid ilk. Yup, I designed prints, magnets, stickers, cards with mugs and totes waiting beneath Mothman’s wings. As a participating vendor at the Alien Fair, I’d passed up several opportunities to sell original artwork which I’d been using expressly as background decor (I’ve always had a difficult time parting with my original art). For this harvest festival, I turned some of my original paintings into 11 x 14 prints. Well, weeks of spending money to make money finally arrived on October 16 and it did not disappoint.

My monetary goal at these events has been, at the very least, to make the vendor fee back. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to have leapt a few monsterish bounds beyond my goal each time. More importantly, I’ve overcome my trepidation of being on the other side of the vendor experience. I remember well the feeling of ‘shame’ when passing by merchants, some alone beneath their canopies, all those years ago at the flea markets and fairs when I wasn’t interested in shopping their wares.

No matter how many calendars or daily planners we mark off, we never cease learning about ourselves. I never imagined that after all those visits to outdoor flea markets, festivals and fairs with my husband and children, that I’d become a seasonal vendor who can handle getting sheepishly or brazenly passed by when my creative work isn’t appreciated or wanted. Though I’ll never understand why some people refuse to find a soft spot for critters with massive fangs, killer claws and bloodlust in their veins;), I’ll continue merrily along my quest of meeting festival folks and chatting up creatures or the weather or the strange light fair-goers might have seen that disappeared into an inky night sky.

When the world gets cold, our experiences and memories are often the things that warm us with their Bigfoot feet and Yeti breath.

I hope you are all doing well.

xo
am

P.S. I must thank my husband, Keith, who sacrifices his only day off during the week for these events. He is also kind (and wise enough) to buy his insane wife morning ‘pre-vending’ bloody marys:)

The UFOs Came and Went but They’ll Return Again Next Year to Pine Bush, New York

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For the last few months, I’ve been busily preparing for the UFOs and aliens that descend once a year upon the little hamlet of Pine Bush, New York, a town notorious for its SIGHTINGs and outer-worldliness. Pine Bush even has its own UFO and Paranormal Museum. And the annual UFO Fair draws in both the curious and the faithful by the thousands.

As a first-time vendor to this fascinating experience, I was surprised and amazed at the LOVE everywhere. Storm troopers hugged those who needed hugs. Green and purple people alike held arms. Folks, who’d traveled from near and far, visited the over-hundred plus vendors who were selling UFO tees, posters, stories, books, art, food, handmade items, gifts, jewelry, costumes, music, mementos…

I was blessed to have dear assistants willing to do the 7:30 AM setup, the 4 PM breakdown while smiling, standing, and working through it all. (Large husband and growing son in upper right photo)

My personal hope was to sell something, anything, so I wouldn’t have to walk home with my art-tail between my legs. I was pleasantly surprised. I sold art prints, my poetry book and tees too. I made a nice chunk of dollars that I’ve since deposited into my art & writing account. And now, I can use this hard-earned bounty to create more monsters and aliens! What a great day it was👽

I hope you are all well and managing life on earth. I thank you for visiting my little planet.

am❤️

The View from Above

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Dear Friends,
What is it about leaving our ‘normal’ lives if only for a few days, that throws off the brain’s trajectory? The trajectory being any forward motion beyond a REM cycle. How different we are from one another, whether two streets or many countries apart. Yet despite distance, we constantly seek out similarities. We ache for common ground on which to rest our feet. Beyond grasping the universal necessities of breathing, drinking, eating, sleeping and reproducing, we are often perplexed. The bravest of us dive deep to skim emotional distances beyond invisible borders. But many of us are not brave. We take comfort in comfort’s sake. Our superficial observations block insight. Languages are walls of jumbled symbols. Unfamiliar comfort zones are not easily navigated.

I wonder – as I’m quite sure many of you do – what non-earthly sentient beings would deduce from our world, both past and present. Would they consider us intelligent, performance-driven, altruistic and neighborly?  Or looking down at Earth, would they believe us devoid of any compass, moral or otherwise? Lacking universal sameness, would these sentient beings comprehend our world? Would they conclude we live well together?

This outdoor sculpture stands behind Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island. As I took this photo, the sky bright all around, I contemplated what a non-earth entity would make of this particular subject, hence what they’d think of us earthlings…

statueThe little green visitor below would like to give us, ‘the benefit of the doubt.’

Cheesy Alien

Cheesy Alien

Thank you and goodnight. May you slumber deep and float upon sparkling space dust…
Alien Ragoo created July 22, 2014 with Prisma pencil while listening to Lincoln’s Biography.