Friday Night

One of my favorite ways to spend some time with my muse.

Escher Hands

A number of years ago I worked at a commercial photography studio as a photographer. We were all supposed to come up with a ‘creative’ image to inspire our ‘friends’ at our sister agency in order to get new clients. Towards this end, they wanted us to come up with sample images that would ‘engage’ the creatives at agencies and get them to hire us to help them shoot their next ad campaign. After pitching dozens of ideas and getting shot down on each one, I finally just went to my studio space and made the above image. Those are my hands and it is a reference to the famous M. C. Escher drawing of ‘hands’ (reproduced below) that has graced the dorm room walls and T shirts of American college students since dorm rooms and T shirts were invented. Everything else I had proposed had been considered, ‘too weird.’ I showed the above work to my studio manager and he said, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s based on that M.C. Escher drawing,” I said. “It’s supposed to be about the creative process.” I showed him the original drawing. I didn’t think M.C. Escher was unknown or obscure and I thought the idea of hands drawing themselves, at an ad agency, wouldn’t be ‘too far out there.’ Since an ad agency came up with Starkist’s “Charley Tuna” (a fish who wants to be eaten), hands that draw themselves and then pop out of the paper and become real seems pretty positive to me.

The studio manager looked puzzled. “Who?” I showed him the drawings of Escher online and told him Escher was very well known and popular. I thought most of the people at the agency would know who M.C. Escher was and I was baffled that he didn’t know who Escher was.

He looked at the drawings without interest and said, “That is weird. I still don’t get it,” and walked away. We continued to photograph cans of beans, rolls of paper towels and packs of tube socks until the studio went out of business a few years later. It’s not as if I didn’t try.

The original by Escher

ONLINE SHOP OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

Original art for the above image (from Green Ronin Publishing’s “Spaceship Zero”) and many other pictures are now listed for sale on my online shop page. Currently 19 works are listed (half color, half B&W). In the coming weeks, I will list more.

Dragonden + Webstore coming soon

This is a painting I did 5 0r 6 years ago. I always liked it and it appeared on the cover of a ‘zine (I think it was called “Footprints”) and maybe 1 or 2 other places in print… but I need to clear out some corners of the studio and refill my money sacks so this and a bunch of other works, possibly including pictures published by Goodman Games, Expeditious Retreat Press, Kenzer & Co., Green Ronin and maybe others will go on sale — probably on another page on this website. I’ll announce it here and on Google+ when it is ready to go. When works sell, I’ll mark them as sold and replace them with new ones. Some of these works (including this one) may also be available for use; inquire if interested in usage rights sbpoag(at)gmail(dot)com.

Click to enlarge. The painting is acrylic on paper, about 14×17.

Water God (work in progress)

Ink on paper. Not finished yet.