Notches

2009-11-07T21:38:00.002-06:00

I quickly titled this one "Giddy" because I am feeling a little giddy. Haven't posted in a while. Been overwhelmed going through years of work, journals, quick sketches, rambling thoughts, stretching back over a decade, trying to organize a life spend in the arts. My own stumbling quest to record an erratic life. It can become a job. It is now.

2009-11-07T21:36:00.001-06:00

2009-11-07T21:34:00.002-06:00

2009-11-07T21:27:00.003-06:00

Targets? I am not very good at aiming in on a specific theme or style or even a goal when I start drawing/writing. Just start doing it. Seeing where it will go. Sometimes I like 'em. Sometimes I have doubts. May set it aside and come back later. Give it a new twist. See what may happen this time. Recording a life. My life. One day, one piece at a time.

2009-11-07T21:12:00.005-06:00

"Is this Sarah Palin?" the artist asks. "Can't be. I did this back in the '80s. One of my journal entries. Just now scanned and pasted it on my journal template. Hmm...anyway, I like it." "Me too," the Muse said.

2009-11-07T21:10:00.001-06:00

2009-10-19T15:34:00.001-05:00

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2009-10-19T15:24:00.002-05:00

An artist

2009-09-29T12:08:00.006-05:00

Take my memories here and put 'em down. Better here than "lost and found".

(I don't know if I have many memories. More a "smile" than any compulsive thought.)

Just back from Walmart's. Picked up a netbook type computer. Learning curve ahead. I have two weeks to try it out. If it doesn't fit my needs I can return and get my money back. Man, frustrated these days. 71 birthday in August. My health is good, but even so, time is short. 2 must-dos. Organize art work of a lifetime- No. 1. How to preserve it for others. - No. 2.

I say "lifetime". It is true. Record this life. My life. My art. Creating imagery and forms to capture a thought or idea of the moment. A couple laughing over coffee. A back-street wino digging for empty cans. A student impatiently waiting for the next campus bus. An elderly lady with shopping cart pausing to run her eyes over the paperbacks. While a janitor with mop bucket waits for her to clear the aisle and move on.

Life. Nothing climatic. No lost soul found. No romantic dream realized. Just life. Kick-skipping a soda pop lid, watching the sun set behind a distant cloud. Walking home. Another day realized. Experienced. Lived. Home. And put it down.

Ladies I Love

2009-09-28T11:19:00.003-05:00

I like experimenting with the different painting techniques the computer art programs provide. Another "must do" on the infinite list of goals to achieve in the coming days/months/years. Patience, Muse, patience. Being a "great" artist DOES take time.

Great Places In America

2009-09-28T11:13:00.003-05:00

Doing my take on different states. Kentucky is among the current top five or six so far. 40 something states to go.

Eve's Eden

2009-09-28T11:07:00.002-05:00

A tag line to "Eve's Eden" - a series of drawings reflecting the artist's take on the biblical Eden story. Related with somewhat sarcastic humor - as reflected here.

...the artist as a young man

2009-09-28T11:02:00.003-05:00

2009-09-24T16:31:00.006-05:00

What now...? What next...? The "self-portrait" here (as I imagined myself; not looked at myself) created on my old Amiga computer when I was in my late 40's, could - except for the age - be me today. Wondering what to do? How to do? Where to do? Questions. Questions. My only certainty is Need. The need to do what I do. Record a life. This life. This time. This mood. I am an artist.

Verities of Love

2009-09-24T16:26:00.000-05:00

Verities of Love

2009-09-24T16:21:00.001-05:00

Verities of Love

2009-09-24T16:15:00.000-05:00

Verities of Love

2009-09-24T15:54:00.004-05:00

Ramblings

2009-09-23T16:16:00.008-05:00

Ramblings. From ... god ... 1982. 27 years ago. I would have been 42 when I wrote this in my journal volume of the time. Speaking of loneliness. Yet boosting my ego. A not uncommon theme. By no means. Even to this day. I disguise the loneliness. I talk easier with strangers (fellow waiters at a bus stop, coffee/beer sippers at the table nearby, etc.) but I continue to presenting a somewhat shell of self, not the "me" inside. I don't know how open I will be here. Rambling. My art. But I do it. Need to do it. See what it becomes and where it goes.

2009-09-04T16:11:00.000-05:00

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2009-07-10T09:55:00.002-05:00

2009-07-01T21:52:00.002-05:00

When he's feeling low, Bird knows where to go. Got the blues? Do the blues. Right on, Bird!

2009-07-01T21:51:00.001-05:00

Ah, my...Bird is up to his usual forays into pushing the buttons of political correctness. Checking out the scenes on the wild side. I accompany him gratefully. As I say he's my male muse, taking me into areas my conventional muse sometimes won't go.

2009-07-01T21:50:00.003-05:00

"Fool me twice...?" Ms. Eve has been down this road before. Thanks to the 60's and 70's Women Rights" move- ment, she now calls the shots. Right on, Ms. Eve! Way to go.

2009-07-01T21:49:00.001-05:00

I like the starkness of woodcut prints. I like comic panels. Here the computer does both.

2009-07-01T21:48:00.003-05:00

Where will this go? I don't know. If the Muse knows, she isn't telling. Just go with the flow.

2009-06-18T16:14:00.006-05:00

The Muse does keep me in check. I think it is part of her own Ozark Hill Country culture. She has incorporated the common "Don't get too big for your britches" taboo against one thinking too highly of him or herself. Well...live with it, babe, I say back to her. And fairly often. She does accept it takes quite an ego to keep the artist going.

2009-06-17T12:58:00.003-05:00

I know not whether words or images come first. I do one. The other fits. Thank you, Muse.

2009-06-16T16:09:00.003-05:00

The work here is quite a different take than my 4 posts below. I seldom work directly on paper with real ink/paints anymore. I probably did this one a year or more ago. I do feel a tug to get back to old methods but as evident, the computer/pixel mode has definitely gained first place. It is symptomatic of my approach as an artist. I have never placed myself into any particular medium/form. I write, I draw, I paint. I sometimes am very serious in what I do. Other times, more often, I take refuge in humor, satire. Placing myself both in and above what I do. The only thing I can state unequivocally is I AM an artist. It has taken years to acknowledge. But - an artist - I truly am.

2009-06-14T11:56:00.002-05:00

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2009-06-12T14:06:00.001-05:00

2009-06-11T11:39:00.002-05:00

2009-06-10T12:58:00.005-05:00

"Dancing the Dark Away". This take was inspired by my friend, Frou, her vitality, her dancing. She is one of those ladies whom when the music starts to play - whether in a bar ballroom or a park concert - is always one of the first who starts to move. Like many men, I tend to remain seated or with back to the wall, but as she and others who join continue to move, will find my head nodding, my hands lightly clapping, and even - occasionally - stand or move forward a step or two, and join the beat. Frou is a good friend. And here she truly inspires me.

2009-06-08T10:03:00.002-05:00

Home. Where the heart is. Front porch. Where the trees are, a stream runs by. Partly fed by a small waterfall, where Ol' Budda, my Ozarks Buddha, rests. Coffee in hand. A cigarette between my fingers. I scatter birdseed out front. For both birds and squirrels. Dickson Street, our university town's entertainment center, is three blocks away. Where I go for coffee talk, to sketch on napkins, and take my social breaks. Behind me, at the windows, my computer table sets. Setting here, I look out to watch the birds and squirrels - and occasionally a woodchuck - as I write and draw on my Notches. Home. Where the heart is. Mine is here. (Photo by T. Krapausky)

2009-06-07T16:45:00.002-05:00

These drawings are thumb-tacked to the wall in the second bedroom of my apartment, which I use as a storage room for books and journals and old art supplies, easel and such. And older computer also there. Each is 12"x14", sketched out with markers on foam core board. I have a stack. When I get tired of pushing the mouse around and creating such imagery directly on the monitor screen, I will sometimes take a break and knock one of these out. Shown them once as a private art exhibit for me work but have never tried or placed for sale. Actually I have never tried to sell any of my art. I do it for myself. I want all to be a part of the collection I hope to leave to the Fine Arts library here at our local university. I like doing ladies. A combination of imagination and memory of those I would like to know and have known.

2009-06-06T17:45:00.001-05:00

2009-06-04T21:21:00.007-05:00

A snap-shot from the past. Albuquerque. N.M.1988. One year after quitting my newspaper job, selling my home in Fayetteville, AR. Heading west. The Id, once more on the run. Bought an Amiga. Delved into computer art. My personal paper journals now moving into the pixel world. A reminder of the past. I have many, many more. Get it down. A note of another day in a life being lived.

2009-06-03T14:12:00.006-05:00

Old Budda. My contact with Buddha. I was under a complete "pink cloud" when the VA hospital released me April 29th of last year. I had survived (barely) 18 days under 24-hour watch for extreme alcohol poisoning. I have no memory of the days leading up to the trauma. I had obviously blacked out some days before the critical moment. Drinking constantly. Not eating. Drinking. Somehow moving on automatic. Until I completely collapsed and crashed (literally) to the ground. Luckily, I was later told, in public. If it had happened in my apartment - which was likely - I would not have survived the night. An emergency ambulance was called and I was rushed to the VA emergency room. And begin 18-day ride on Death's pale horse. But something happened. Death threw me off the pale horse, laughed, and left me. For now.

I survived. Returned home. Wrapped in a pink cloud of gratitude. To be alive. And on stepping onto my porch, I looked at the stream running beside me, the waters falling, and saw Buddha. The rock. For the first time. Clearly. And Buddha smiling.
There. Here. Now. And so was I.

Today, each day, I stop for a moment. The edge of my porch. Looking down. And say, "Thank you, God. Thank you, Love. And thank you, Buddha.

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A neighbor, a friend, a photographer, at my request, took this picture within a day or two. From the porch. The same view I have daily. My using the word "Budda"? It is my own humor. My Buddha of the Ozarks. "Bubba" is a not uncommon word for "Buddy". Budda is one of my muses. His smile makes me smile. I have life. I have now. I am an artist. Thank YOU, Buddha.

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Note: I have slightly darkened the creases in the rock that gives Budda his smile and the closed eyes. I have lived here 6 years. The rock always there. And it was not until that day in April that I saw Buddha. Like finding a figure in the clouds. But here, only I, have slightly enhanced the image.

2009-06-02T10:30:00.009-05:00

Titles are simple. Context not so. Specifically in words. It is why I rely on images to tell my story. Whether it is a Life from Inside Out or from Upside Down. But words are important too. And have to be written. I enjoy telling stories. But some stories I draw back. (Draw? The mind jumps. I become diverted. Take refuge.) How serious a writer am I? How serious an artist? I know only the need. To do what I do. As well as I can.

2009-06-01T12:54:00.000-05:00

2009-05-30T10:14:00.002-05:00

2009-05-29T15:29:00.007-05:00

Sleep. Where reasons end and dreams begin. Where "why" is not a mystery and "now" is then. I am real and awake I try to write it down and draw it in.

2009-05-28T16:47:00.006-05:00

Interesting how our generation molds our view of erotica. In my 1940's small Ozarks community our pre-adolescent knowledge of sex was zilch. Once we were old enough to whisper exchanges of our knowledge, we still were confused. Our boy "thing" we called a "peter". The girl's "thing" we called "cock". Imagine the embarrassment when at age 16 or 17 we begin connecting with the broader world.(I was 17 and had just joined the army.) So our sense of erotica (of course we didn't know such a word) was formed by movies and stories and whispered rumors. By age 15, the ideal fantasy girl for me (and most of my friends) was the 1930's and 40's "dames" we saw sitting at the bar table, lifting her cigarette to her bright red lips, slightly leaning forward, a tight necklace shinning, and slightly lighting the hint of a widening crease between her breasts, and waiting - for ME - carefully, confidently to also lean forward, and light her fag. Ahhh.. It has never gotten better than that.

2009-05-28T09:41:00.003-05:00

I sometimes write stories. Very brief. Take something real from my emotions, my memories, and add a slight twist. A "what-if?" See where it goes. And ends. Brief enough to contain in a page or two. And illustrate.

2009-05-27T12:27:00.003-05:00

Yeah, me. The ol' iconoclastic commentator and artist. I have no problem with what religion or belief system works for others, I just have found none specifically works for me. And being me, I do my take on all - hopefully with humor. What do I believe? I believe in LOVE. Love opens us up to new things, to new ideas, to an on-going sense of wonderment and joy. Proof? A child in a good environment. LOVE is there. I believe in FEAR. It is fear that prompts us to retreat into a shell. To feel threatened by any belief or people or society or change that may question the existence we have that is familiar and comfortable. I have many fears. Love, I hope, can remove some. I do have faith. And hope. My faith is there IS a reason for existence. My hope is that reason is LOVE.

2009-05-27T12:24:00.003-05:00

My first computer was a Commodore 64. (64k of memory - whiz machine!) My second was a major upgrade to the Amiga. It was even touted by Andy Warhol (in a paid ad) as being the choice pic for artists. I loved it. A lot of early work was created then. Many images I have updated using my current PC. 256 colors? Time does tell.

2009-05-26T17:54:00.002-05:00

2009-05-26T13:17:00.002-05:00

Ahh... written several years back. Before comics received the clout they are generating today - particularly "graphic novels". Even academics are starting to realize comics may be an expressive form of "true" art. My pic of self here shows this Notches page was created some time ago. (Pre-white beard days. Also note I'm not wearing my usual smiling face. I put on a somewhat "frowning" posture to show I was SERIOUS.) (grin - as always.)

2009-05-25T09:04:00.003-05:00

2009-05-24T09:06:00.006-05:00

Me, Mike, and E.C. Childhood buddies and close friends throughout our lives. All sharing a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn childhood in our small remote Ozark town. Outdoor toilets. Milk cows. Creeks to wade, swim, fish in. Caves to explore. River bluffs to climb. And all colored by our missing fathers and uncles and older cousins away, working at war plants, marching and saluting in National Guard units, and fighting and some dying across wide, wide oceans (which we could only imagine) against even more unimaginable evil bad guys called Germans and Japs. We did our share. Wore sailor caps, soldier caps, helmet lines, carried wooden stick guns, learned to stand at attention and salute, pulled our wagons and collected scrap iron for the war effort, helped our moms hoe and weed our gardens to help with food rations, built model airplanes, collected our own toy soldiers, drew comics with our own superheros doing their share. We were at war! The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, one day before my 7th birthday! Something awesome had happened! We did not know what but we knew all grownups were in awe. Atom Bomb? We thought it was "Adam Bomb" - Adam from Adam and Eve. We definitely knew it was of Biblical proportions.

We wanted to grow up and do our own share. Mike and E.C., 2 years older than me, joined the service as age 18. I joined at age 17. E.C. served 20 years in the Navy. Mike and I chose the Army. We both served in Germany during the 1950's at the height of the Cold War. 30 months tour of duty. Mike and I even got to visit each other while stationed there. (We were in different units. Stationed about 50 miles apart.) World War II. Actual vets? No. But as kids, in our minds, our dreams, our nightmares, and our lives, we served. E.C. died some years after retirement. He had became a jounralist. Mike and I both attended art schools, and also wound up in journalism. Today we are entering our 70's. Still dreamers. Still artists. And still remembering. And thanks for Memorial Day.

2009-05-22T15:16:00.001-05:00

What I worry about is what I complain about. What I complain about is what I am doing at the moment. Which, at the moment, I am able to write about and draw about. It works. So, I know, really, I shouldn't worry about it.

2009-05-21T10:48:00.000-05:00

2009-05-20T21:14:00.001-05:00

2009-05-19T15:37:00.000-05:00

2009-05-15T08:45:00.002-05:00

2009-05-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

2009-05-12T15:55:00.002-05:00

An' it's what I do. Draw. Draw. Draw. With mouse. With pen. With words. With colors.

2009-05-11T19:47:00.001-05:00

Top cock of the woodland stump - w/snake in grass. Dated l982. On this day. I would have been 42 years old. A period of creativity for me. I had been sober for some months and my work, my intensity was improving. It didn't last. Within a few years I was cushioning reality again with mary jane and booze. The piece below - titled "Fear" while done during this same period of sobriety, was what I was feeling inside. I knew my fall was coming. I just didn't know when. It is my take on Munch's "The Scream".

2009-05-11T19:46:00.003-05:00

'Fraid to say much more about this one. (groan)

2009-05-10T11:04:00.003-05:00

The Dreamer? The loneliness of dreaming? My mother? My memory? My imagination? Yes. My imagination. The stories our minds tell us and re-tell us until we believe they are true. Mother. Born 1906. Turkey Creek. Arkansas Ozarks. Population within 5 miles? Maybe 50. A mill creek. Stories she told. Not often. Quietly. Little detail. My mind can only fill in the blanks. Loneliness. Dreaming. 8th grade education. One-room school. She would get a new pair of shoes in the fall. For school year. She could only put them on after waking the creek that ran in from of her home. And remove them again when she walked the wooded trail to return. Christmas. An orange. And dreams. Never told. But dreams. She lived to by almost 87. Good years. Long life. But still...the dreams. From my imagination. Drawing this. I thought of her.

2009-05-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

2009-05-09T09:10:00.001-05:00

2009-05-09T07:39:00.004-05:00

2009-05-08T12:56:00.003-05:00

2009-05-07T17:50:00.000-05:00

I never studied poetry but I have long enjoyed word play. I like the term Jack Kerouac used: 'word sketches”. I started to do it myself.

Real. Or off the cuff. Like now:

Posting. Back-spacing. Oops.
Cigarette taste. Smoke helps.
What’s ahead? It’s now behind.
Just type. Put it down. Okay.
If it doesn’t work…Forget it.
At least its done. I did it.

2009-05-07T10:27:00.002-05:00

Words play. Words stray. Catch one. Ignore one. It's a game.

2009-05-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

2009-05-05T16:49:00.000-05:00

2009-05-05T16:48:00.003-05:00

2009-05-04T09:14:00.004-05:00

ramblings.

I understand, Muse.

It is not the words I write but the value of the words written. I agree. Still, if I write 10 thousand words and all are trash except words 1,917 to 2,006 are not only revealing but exciting, and the words from 7,218 to 7,246 are not only exciting but fantastic! - doesn't that make me - in the true sense of the word - a poet?

Hey, only kidding, Muse. Lighten up a little.

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I am the sleep gap,
the way-wind surfer,
a tom-tom man
with staccato pulse
targeting the dish
and scooping the net.
Counting the swoons.

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Suffice it to say
it has been
a rough day
and on no account
as we shall see
if there is any
satisfaction
in moving
the action
beyond the realm
of dreams.

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Listen.
Here. Now.
The cat walk
dreamer
on the high wire,
stalker with grim face
and ready claws,
poised to pounce,
catch,
and crunch anew
the tempted,
the neglected,
and the edible.

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We learn what we learn. Choice is not a factor. Nor is truth. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Sugar and spice isn't always nice. Puppy dog tails sweep aside the snails. Snapping turtles clamps tight and only releases at midnight. So cross your heart. If you lie, you die. Reality intrudes slowly. Content to follow its own path.

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2009-05-03T10:31:00.004-05:00

The question was: What is the best $10 investment you ever made?" It was posed on another blog. I posted my response. As copied here:

My best $10 investment had to be the $9.95 I paid for “How to Draw the Human Figure.” A large table-type book. I was 19 years old, serving in the Army, stationed in Germany (1957). I came from a small Ozark town, I had long loved to draw, but I had never had a formal art class. (Such was not taught in the small school.) I had never paid more that 2 bucks or so for a book before. I couldn’t resist. I bought it. And started drawing - page by page -working my way through the book from start to finish.

When I was discharged I knew I wanted to study art. My family had moved to California and I enrolled that fall in a junior college. The first (and only) in my family to do so. The second semester I was introduced to figure drawing. I was nervous. I knew I would be in the midst of students who had studied art in high school - even before. I need not have worried. I did fine. I caught the teacher’s attention for my work. Thanks for that $9.95 investment I felt secure in pursuing my art.

2009-05-02T19:15:00.004-05:00

Sleep. I like this one. Both the words and the image. The drawing. There is the iconoclastic side of me, the me that can only approach life with dark humor and often sarcasm, but sometimes I open to a softer self and when I do something like this may come out. It is still tinged with a little darkness...but there is hope here too. And peace.

2009-05-01T14:46:00.003-05:00

The several posts below tagged with the letter "N" is the completion of a project posted by Misstified.. A letter is assigned the the viewer who is then asked to come up with 10 things that interest them starting with the letter. I was pleased to get "N". Plenty of negatives and no-no's to delve into. Thanks Ms. Misstified. I have enjoyed the project.

2009-05-01T14:40:00.002-05:00