Sean McFarland @Baer Ridgway

Here's a show coming up in March from a local artist whose work I really like, Sean McFarland, at my favorite San Francisco gallery, Baer Ridgway. Info courtesy of Happenstand. The images below are from his "Dark Pictures" series.

pole position

More Etsy

Here are some digital prints I did in grad school, but I haven't done much to show or sell them. I've recently put some of them on Etsy. Enjoy!

Landscape

Here's a snapshot of a recent little (9"x12") drawing. It's a return to some work I was doing in Philadelphia.

It's been awhile since I've spent any time outdoors...since Portland in mid-December. I decided during that trip that I needed more time outdoors, that it was essential for my well-being, though I haven't been great at doing this since then. One thing I remember from Land Arts was how differently things became prioritized. No more 24-hour news, reality TV, traffic, etc. Every day was an adventure and every day was also very basic -- we had to make sure we had enough food and water, and if we didn't, we needed to make plans. Not quite the same, though, as when you need groceries in a city or town and you can just run to the store in 5 minutes. Supplies could be hours away if we didn't plan accordingly. This kind of distance from the hustle and bustle of the world of people was refreshing.

There's so much going on in the world of people that it's easy to miss things that are worth while. Things seem to move fast beyond comprehension, yet time strangely appears never to change. The seasons are myths that don't really affect us. We can get any kind of food we want regardless of the time of year. Exploring your physical surroundings seems odd and senseless when you have a car to go places and so much to do online.

I know that with every change, something is always given up. Our relationship to the natural world is very strange now. I find this compelling. And I believe that part of the reason why I have felt so alienated in my life is because of my alienation from the natural world.

Hellboy pt. 2

So, I know this is going to make me seem like a total Hellboy junkie, but in reality I'm still just becoming familiar with this comic. It's just interesting to me the way in which Hellboy is so willful (maybe his strongest attribute in my mind). He refuses to be the kind of being other people (including, but not limited to demons from hell) expect or want him to be. I think it's fairly common advice to "fulfill your potential" and to do things in your life that help you to bring out your potential. But it's not that Hellboy is denying his potential, just the potential that others want him to have. There's a big difference.

Hellboy

After having been attracted to this character ever since I saw the first Hellboy movie several years ago, I finally got around to reading some Hellboy comics/graphic novels. Nothing so far, In my opinion, comes close to Maus in the graphic novel world, but Hellboy is not bad. I like the drawing style, which is not so slick as many comics seem to be. Comparatively minimalistic even. And the stories are interesting in that they are (pretty transparently, to Mike Mignola's credit) mostly mash-ups of folklore from many different times and places. I particularly like Hellboy when he doesn't do much. At the root of it all his story is not about his fighting skills so much as his displacement -- he doesn't really belong here in the world of humans. Neither do talking skeletons and fish-men and all the other monsters that populate these stories mind you, but despite all this, he's not really among his own kind. And while he does some heroic things, he's mainly just trying to get by. I think this is makes him relatable because we are all born into a world that we've had no hand in creating (unless you believe in reincarnation) and to which we are strangers. I suppose you could say this about many comic book characters, come to think of it, but something about this seems to be more at the heart of Hellboy's story.

questions and points about my work

1. What does it do to the natural world to interact with it only from
the perspective of morality and progress (capital)? What would nature be
without religion and civilization?

2. Can we act in any other way than in striving, as a species, to be
masters over all? How can we redefine success (mainstream idea of
success) when it doesn't involve the abuse of resources, both human
and environmental? Who gets to determine what's abusive and where it's
acceptable to live?

3. Much of the beauty I see in the natural world stems from its
harshness. The earth provides sustenance, in every way, for survival,
but it poses constant and relentless threats to survival as well. Does
that mean it's our enemy? Do we destroy it because it poses threats to
our existence even though we can't exist without it? We want to create
our own user-friendly world, but how far do we go?

4. The natural world is not moral. It is harsh and unforgiving, but
all life is deeply connected to it. Humans replace natural world with
civilization, which is meant to protect us from the world's savage
dangers.