Prewalking

Today PODgallery is featuring work by Janet K Skiles in PODkids.  She employs a very fun and free style in presenting great art for children.  Much of it actually features winter themes, like Magical Snowman, so it may not be the best choice for August, but great nonetheless.

Luckily, there is also some summer imagery, such as Iguana Cocktail Time, seen here. A wonderfully fun and inviting piece. The image is very well composed, and brings together iconic beach imagery, without overwhelming the viewer.  The sunglass-sporting gull is a great little touch.

Janet also employs a nice visual conceit in a few images featuring animals, such as Frog Paradise. In these images, she uses the figure of an animal to contain a representation of its habitat, or its being.  This allows for a striking visual, giving the viewer another level to interpret.  But the secondary levels are also easily accessed, and really help to pull you into the image.

The featured artist this week on PODgallery is Abigail Wood.  The selection is small, but makes up for in impact what it lacks in quantity.  She features work in a highly naturalistic style, alongside a few more stylized images.  Her animals, such as African Leopard, show a nice sense of the nature of the animal, while working in a digital medium.  Rather than come across as flat and lifeless, as many digital pieces can, the strong brush strokes in the fur give great depth.

Indigo Angel Eladael brings fantasy to the work.  The angel is right in the foreground, with two statues of Pegasus in the back.  Using the stained glass window as framing helps the angel stand out.  The depth provided by this device keeps the figure from simply fading into nothing.  In many fantasy images, figures such as angels just seem to exist in the aether, but the framing really anchors her into the viewer’s gaze.

Today PODgallery features new art by Dandi Palmer.  Her work is separated into three galleries, each featuring a different theme within her style.

In “Animals” we find imagery with influences like Rousseau, along with some of the naturalism you’d find in studies by Audobon.  Her composition is clean and crisp, but remains lush.

“Book Illustration”  brings a style roots in India and the East.  These images are busier, but still retain a stong sense of space.  In Stag Steals Crown, the background designs threaten to steal the show, much as the crown is stolen by the Stag.  However, we get a sense of depth and a surprising naturalism instead.  While there is nothing to say clearly that the stag is running into the woods, the implication is unmistakable.

“Fantasy” brings one more approach.  The style is similar to that found in her illustrations, but a little more exuberant.  Man Scorpion shows a hybrid the likes of which give some Republican senators’ nightmares.  The head on the creature shows more Eastern influences, while some of the flora in the surroundings evoke the style of Arthur Rackham. Pond is a lovely image featuring a stylized Koi.  The influence here is more Japanese than sub-continental or mainland Asian. I especially like the slightly abstracted and luxurious splash.

Really though, what a remarkable achievement 40 years ago. An event that has in many ways been superseded by the digital revolution, and the increasing powers of modern computers.

40 years ago, the processing power in the Apollo program was less than that in a modern cellphone!! And I mean a Razr, not an iPhone.  With a single iPhone, they could have sent someone to Mars back in 69.  

But priorities have changed. Computing power has been the focus for the last generation and a half.  When we turn our sights to the distance, that is no longer measured in space, but in thought.  The unexplored territory may still have monsters, but they are coded, and burn digital peasants in digital thatch-roofed cottages.

What would be the modern equivilent of the moon landing?  I think that there is nothing. The climate (politically and meteorogically) has changed too much.  We no longer have the will to reach for the long goal, with every mind tuned to its necessities.  The Manhattan Project is outdated.  The moon landing is outdated.  We should have trillions invested in sustainable energ, with all available scientists and engineers pulling to this one result.  Instead, we have some few billions desultorily passed about by forward-looking VC.

Maybe our only hope is that Google is, in fact, Skynet. But instead of arising from the ashes of a militayr computer, a Skynet that rises from “don’t be evil.” AI that follows Asimov’s laws, or some reasonable facsimile. These hypothetical benevolent AIs will be able to throw all the processing power and thought needed at any and all necessary problems. Or at least that’s the theory.

At a later time, I’ll try to discuss the social upheavals we’d likely see from the ascent of AI (even though much of that has been dealt with fabulously in fiction by authors such as Ken McCleod and Charles Stross).

I have to say that this account is more believable than “One small step.”

PODgallery added art by Ron Tanovitz today as its featured artist.  His work employs a graphic style that references a lot of work that came before, but manages to stay up to date.

We see, especially in images like Jazz Man a harkening to the print makers of the late 19th century. Jazz Man has similarities to work like this title page from the portfolio Love (Amour) by Maurice Denis, at the MOMA. The stong central figure works throughout the composition to create a balance, while maintaining movement and a sense of openess.  Similar themes are brought up, but turned on their heads by Tanovitz’s 90 Million Years Ago.  The use of a T-Rex ups the whimsy ante, but does nothing to undermine the piece’s impact.

All told, it’s a great addition to the art at PODgallery.

Next week, we’ll be trying an experiment.  I will ask all my Facebook friends to look around , and choose an image, any image (though I think I’ll try to ask for something clean, try to keep everything “family”), and link to it on Facebook on the same day, or even at roughly the same time, if possible.

I want to see how many people I can get to participate, and how many can get others to jump in, and see what it does to people’s Facebook homes.  As there is of necessity a lot of overlap with friends, there are some people who should be inundated, but be in on it.  There should be others however, who will all of a sudden, with no warning, get all these images from the same source on their page.  And they’ll have to wonder what just happened.

That’s my hope at least.  We’ll just have to see.