Shapeshifter's Ink » Notes by artist

Spotlight on a Tidepool

memmott — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:10:05 +0000

0021 was selected for the “Crossing the Blues: Regional Juried Exhibition at Satellite Gallery in La Grande, Oregon, August 21 – September 12. I will re-post the image after the exhibit. For more information on the exhibit, please visit http://www.crossingtheblues.com

Hungry Bird Embedded in Landscape

memmott — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:51:46 +0000

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I am not a very accomplished artist in drawing or painting, but I’ve found that even my lame attempts at painting provide a rich bounty of details which can be scanned and used for textures and brushstrokes. My art teacher would set up a still-life as an assignment and I’d keep painting over it again and again until it no longer resembled the “objects” thus defeating his ability to judge it in comparison with the still-life or the work of other students. If I frustrated my teacher, imagine how frustrated I was. Whenever I would show him something I drew and asked for technical help in making my “vision” stronger, he would direct me back to the still-life. Well, now there’s digital photography for that. If I need an apple, I will take a photo of one. If I need the steel structure of a bridge, I can do the still-life with camera. I still enjoy sketching with ink and hope to do more painting soon.
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For the Lobby of the Ministry of Whimsy

memmott — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:05:08 +0000

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The Ministry of Whimsy is a very fine small press that published a marvelous range of fantastic literature including the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel, Troika, Stepan Chapman. Editor Jeff VanderMeer deserves recognition for his brave defiance of the commercial norm and the high standards he set for an alternative to NY. So I offer a little something whimsical in honor of his achievement — something for the lobby of his imagined publishing offices made possible by the huge financial success that should go along with MOW’s critical success. We can at least imagine it!
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So what’s in a title?

memmott — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:16:21 +0000

When I started working with digital abstract art, I considered not titling pieces but giving only numbers as a means to identify them because I didn’t want to influence the viewer into looking for something I might see in it. But I’m a writer not a numbers guy and language is also my material, so I decided to follow my own whimsy and sometimes irreverent sense of humor. Abstract titles for abstract art. You may be influenced into seeing something that I see in the image, but don’t look too closely, it might drive you crazy!