~HAPPY NEW YEAR – FROM NANCY SMITH !!
yep, that be Me.
HELLLLLLLLLLO.
even I thought this drawing was dorky – when it first sprang to life on paper – from my imaginative unconscious !!
way back in the late 70’s. yep.
hey it takes 2 turns of Saturn – to make a man wise – so, I’m down with that.
the girl, with the flying mane of wild hair – well, that was me – fierce, and Aries bright – just like a new copper penny.
but funny how the metaphor of the rider, the sword, and the ‘banner’ in her other hand, as in web ‘banner’ – get it ? all add up to the: web.
you know the www internet.
and you know there were no computers back then, or at least none less than room size !! never mind personal web access.
we were happy just have xerox machines !!
that ‘banner’ – it was supposed to be a paint brush. it started life as paint brush – I am a watercolorist by trade – but it turned into a flame, without missing a beat – and from there it evolved into a flying banner.
well I really like that cartoon-like free hand line drawing, now. pardon my french – but its so pre-sentient, or what ?
took more than 30 years – but, hey . . . better late than never.
so, I’m a late bloomer, or . . . . just really really ahead of my time. your pick.
in this case, since I scrawled this as my ‘business’ card logo way way back in the day – I’m going with: really really ahead of my time – and only catching up – because I’m doing the writing !!
if you’re into art history – the non-objective endless lines of AGNES MARTIN – were all the rage 30 years ago, so yeah, they almost flunked me out of my MFA Concordia Montreal – art program – for this. excuse my french blasphemy.
blast-from-the-past . . . Guido Molinari baby . . . be-me !!
yeah, looking back at it now, my drawing, my logo – I love it.
it’s kind of a force of nature. it’s just – the way I was born. excuse my damn gaga french.
and no, I don’t speak french, dude. that’s why I had to seriously split for NYC in 1981.
what I love most about it, besides the paintbrush turning into a flame and then finally coming to rest as a flying banner – just like knights in medieval armies used to joust by – is how the girl isn’t really riding the horse, but flying right at ya. the in-your-face power of the ‘blog’.
and so the really dorky horse, is what ? the web, duh. the internet.
which is also kinda going kinda dorky, as in wonky bye the way. hijacked by corporate commercialism, and looking to be – way bad copyright laws. whatever.
soon we, all us free thinkers, we gonna have to go back to smoke signals . . . oh, yeah.
and I’ll have to re-claim the ‘fire’, as in the flame part – of the ‘banner’. generating smoke signals, get it ?
I’ll have to say: those clouds in the sky ? really giant smoke signals, how pre-sentient !!
even the tiny hearts on the dress – get ? artlovers !! – stood the test of time.
it’s kind of like those TV specials on NOSTRADAMUS. you know, where they say he saw so far into the future . . . he didn’t know how to give ‘names’ to things . . . that did not yet exist !! so he had to use the metaphors at hand. so the burning twin towers of 9-11 were the twin brothers.
I’m still thinking it would be better off without that dorky horse – but hey, I’ll lay claim to some dorkiness. why not ?
and with the web the way it is now, all corporate big business and hacksville for the rest of us – small indie joints – I’d say, it was wise to have left it in. the web: going nowhere fast, and ass backwards.
free web content – not such a good idea after all, was it. looking to be a long term big business conspiracy to keep the original content providers down, and not the least . . . the musicians, unpaid !! though duh, of course . . . . it’s a great catalyst. like the man said: set your mind free. just if we could figure out a way to siphon off just a little loot, or alot more than those damn google ads pay !! – it would be nice. Google, fun stuff. but their web engines wouldn’t be too interesting, without us. now would they.
ok. that’s my new year’s resolution – change the world.
turn google upside down and make that web coin – disperse.
if the readers are to spoiled now – to want to pay for the content – then google should cough up a fraction of a cent for very hit – it would add up, let me tell ya. Reader’s Digest ‘gig’ – all over again.
you know they were like the first ‘modern’ (1922) publishers to figure out the ‘new’ game plan change: charge a lot of people just a few coins – and it’s a work in progress. nickle and dime em. those were happy days.
actually the comics were the better read, still . . . those guys cracked the code.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY – NANCY !!
WITH MUCH THANKS TO LUKE MURPHY, that’d be the REVEREND LUKE MURPHY to you !! for getting me out of all the endless hacks, and site crashing . . . upgrades. amen.
that’d be LUKE MURPHY’S celestial randomness playing around – at the top of this page. it’s interactive, too. hit it with your mouse.
and thanks too, to TEKSERVE, for keeping me just alive enough, to see another day . . .
P. S. and, yes . . . . . SMOKE SIGNAL, pun intended !!
SMOKE SIGNAL issue #10 – cover art by JOHN SEVERIN, published 2011 by DESERT ISLAND, Brooklyn.
see: SMOKE SIGNAL