poemimage

The visual & the poetic.

Category: Artist GIF

January 15, 2022

GIF Experiments: 31 (Crack in the narrative)

Once I shattered my ankle. An ocean of cracks.

The shattered ankle followed two impossible years.

Everything started up again like a beginning.

Like some sort of symbolic ritual.

…that’s how the light gets in.

A crack, a wound, a shiver, a doubt, recalibration.

Crack in the narrative.

In Neruda’s Ode to Broken Things: cups cracked by the cold.

Leonard Cohen: There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

Lennon-McCartney: I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in… and stops my mind from wandering.

I knew a video editor who referred to ‘artifacts’ when discussing glitches.

Artifacts… of subversion… create… a new version.

Versions... of subversion… create… a new artifact.

Pop goes the weasel! Crack goes the narrative!

Pop Goes the Weasel

A penny for a spool of thread

A penny for a needle

That’s the way the money goes

Pop goes the weasel ~

Johnny’s got the whooping cough

Jenny’s got the measles

That’s the way the money goes

Pop goes the weasel ~

All around the cobbler’s bench

The monkey chased the weasel

The monkey thought twas all in fun

Pop goes the weasel ~

I’ve no time to wait or sigh

No time to wheedle

Only time to say goodbye

Pop goes the weasel ~

All around the chicken coop

Ran the little weasel

The monkey thought he had him when

Pop goes the weasel ~

Round and round the monkey ran

Till he began to wheedle

Come and catch me if you can

Pop goes the weasel ~

And then the cow jumped over the moon

The cat played the fiddle

They all began to sing the tune

Pop goes the weasel ~

No time to sing have I

No time to wheedle

Kiss me quick and then I’m off

Pop goes the weasel ~

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November 22, 2021

GIF Experiments: 30 (Carnival of Shadows 1, 2 & 3)

I created these three GIFs before my Photoshop 5 program became unworkable. A face in Art History seems out of context yet provides commentary, a touchstone. I remind myself, in various ways, of this day when the carnival came to town. A long car driving through shadows into the sun of art history.

I walked past the row houses where I spent my childhood, stepping over syringes, watching for wild dogs, hearing hammering & avoiding ladders leaned against altars in late-afternoon shadow. The wind blew a torn page to my feet: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Without understanding why, I put the folded paper in my jacket pocket. A touchstone.

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November 19, 2021

GIF Experiments: 29 (Goodbye, a painting)

I said ‘goodbye’ to a painting this week. Sprayed it with four sweeps of archival varnish half an hour between on a warmish day and packaged it the next. I wanted to write the title on the back but couldn’t find it. So I just started calling the painting ‘Goodbye.’

The canvases with blues I’ve done the last couple years psyched me for using blues on the 5′ X 33′ roll (scroll) of Italian paper I began in late April. That work is now 70% complete. There is no chance of forgetting the title because I rework it often. One word is Druidica.

As for Photoshop 5 and troubles with ‘scratch discs’ – if I save a simple GIF to Web & Devices at the first warning the program won’t shut down on me. But no large files and nothing tricky! So it goes.

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Image | October 27, 2021
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September 22, 2021

GIF Experiments: 27 (Run For The Exit)

My (old) Photoshop 5 program became impossible to work with. Some issue with ‘scratch discs.’ So I worked on a 33′ X 5′ roll of Italian paper for a few weeks and developed some writing ideas.

Then I remembered my blog (!) and made this GIF circumventing the ‘scratch-disc’ issue with a simpler arrangement of frames.

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Image | August 1, 2021
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July 26, 2021

GIF Experiments: 25 (Exploring Five Lines from Lyon by Pierre L’Abbe in Six Variations)

In the traboules of the Croix-Rousse
the shuffling silk weaver
the bile of vertigo rising in his throat moves left
in the stairwell only the balls of his feet
on narrow circular steps

(from Lyon, Pierre L’Abbé)

Pierre L’Abbé is a poet and fiction writer, he recently translated Palestine, a novel by Hubert Haddad.  

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July 10, 2021

GIF Experiments: 24 (The Ronettes… although)

I’m glad I was able to post a GIF today. I was working with a large volume of images interpreting five lines from Lyon by Pierre L’Abbe and need more time. I will (knock on wood) assemble that GIF this coming week. In the meantime I offer this ‘slow-moving river of a GIF’ featuring (ostensibly) The Ronettes, although they too were code for something else I suspect, considering when I drew them.

THIS GIF HAS SUFFERED SOME SORT OF DAMAGE OVER TIME. EACH PANEL IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THIS (BELOW). I WILL FIX THIS (REPLACE) AT SOME POINT.

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July 3, 2021

GIF Experiments: 23 (Napoleon and the Cook)

This one has a humorous air to it to go with the pathos of solitude. The ‘face’ of the striding emperor (can you see it?) is the same as the harlequins in the procession with yellow flags. I created a series of pages with that face & design. A shape accidentally happened, I noticed it looked like a face and saved it – it reminded me of my (deceased) brother.

I ‘sign’ these GIFs same as I would a drawing or painting. It’s not egomania that makes me put my name in there.

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July 2, 2021

GIF Experiments: 22 (The Charge of the Light Brigade)

Although the title in the GIF looks like a book and the GIF looks like a book trailer it’s not. However I created poetic text after the fact.

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The Light Brigade

As in

Let There Be Light.

Witness

The mechanics of charging light.

Witness traction activate

Clouds of unknowing known

As muscled determination.

The mechanical opposite to A sucker born every minute.

Touch your tongue to the tent of your mouth. Announce

Charge

Pronounce light

As in

Let There Be Light.

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Notes on the GIF: Intimations of Runic script transform into curvilinear vegetal design indicating a charging beast. It happened visually by itself (so to speak) during the design process.

Finding ‘his’ footing. Gaining traction. The irony of a ‘massive’ beast doing double-duty as charging light. Charging like flashlight beams in a force field? Surely he is not disembodied.

This GIF ponders our pressing situation, universal as it is, and the question of something, anything, out of the blue in reply.

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