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Storms are always on the sea
Today's new experience: scavenging art. On my way home from the library plus half-hour detour to visit ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks (and gaudior, who got home about five minutes after I arrived), I found a painting on the curb of Highland Avenue. Its colors were striking and its style looked weirdly like some fictional paintings I have described. I called derspatchel to get a second opinion on whether its owner would want it back—he didn't think so; it was in the traditional location of colorful discards whose former owners are hoping someone else will have a soft spot for them—and then I carried it home by the hanging wire. It is currently propped in our stairwell while we figure out what to do with it. I have never trash-picked art before.
I think it's done in acrylics, although I would appreciate an assessment from someone with a better knowledge of paints than myself. It's signed with the initials "EH" or "EN" and the year "04" and it does not look like professional work, but I have no other idea of its provenance. It got my attention by being so heavily sculpted in wave-blues and sea-greens that the paint stands off the canvas in whorls and ridges; there is an outlined bare-bones boat-shape in black with a steamlike white plume above it and two circles underneath. The left-hand one is deep red and looks like a sun, with bits and flares of red breaking off into the sea-colored paint. The right-hand one is the problem; it is approximately the color of Silly Putty and I cannot figure out if it was an intended effect that dramatically failed or an error of judgment that the artist never amended or what even happened. The few lines of mustard-yellow spiraling within it do not help. It's not just that it's a bad color, although it is—it doesn't go with the vibrant rest of the painting at all. I am genuinely considering vandalizing the canvas by repainting it some more congruent shade (although then I'll feel stupid if the original turns out to be the equivalent of a Jackson Pollack at a yard sale).1 I still took the whole thing home and have asked Rob to take a picture tomorrow in good light so that I can post it.
It's not that I'm having the world's most interesting dreams lately, but they are not my usual kind of boring dreams. Last night I dreamed of watching something like Game of Thrones in that it was a gritty succession struggle with multiple players and no clear winner, but the medieval-ish cultures were visibly Asian-derived and the contested territories were all islands, renamed every time they changed hands. (There were still dragons. That was pretty cool.) The night before that, I dreamed that I was working overtime for an office job, evenings and weekends, exhausted and constantly being handed new assignments, and at the end of the month I was told that the company couldn't afford to employ me any longer—too many people in the office had spent too much money ordering ice cream and I was devastated because I had never once bought ice cream with my coworkers, I brought my own lunches, I couldn't afford anything else. (A situation which bears no resemblance to my waking life, of course.) Before that, I had the very unpleasant experience of dreaming that someone I knew in real life was implicated in the disappearance of a woman in a landscape of bogs and wet forests, and it took me about a day of being awake not to feel awkward toward them. (That was more annoying than anything else.) There was one more I wanted to record, but I can't call it to mind now. It was the same kind of awkwardly mundane. Eventually I will have to start dreaming more normal things again; I always have before. I feel fundamentally better when my dreams have either a weird narrative or monumental architecture.
I really want to be writing a new story, but I feel like I don't think in fiction anymore.shweta_narayan has been very helpful in reminding me that this is the effect of stress and exhaustion on creativity, but it's still very frustrating. I owe lesser_celery a story about trees and asakiyume has recently made me think of crows.
1. Just as I was about to post this entry, I remembered a scene from Susan Cooper's Greenwitch (1974): "'I'm going,' Barney said, moving one step backwards. 'Why green, up in that top corner, though? Why not blue? Or a better kind of green?' He was distressed by a lurid zig-zag of a particularly nasty shade, a yellowy, mustard-like green which drew the eye away from the rest of the picture . . . He said to himself rebelliously, 'But that colour was all wrong.'" Rob asked if I thought the painting had a ghost when I expressed some curiosity that anyone had put it out on the curb, but it didn't occur to me to worry about spells.
rushthatspeaks (and gaudior, who got home about five minutes after I arrived), I found a painting on the curb of Highland Avenue. Its colors were striking and its style looked weirdly like some fictional paintings I have described. I called derspatchel to get a second opinion on whether its owner would want it back—he didn't think so; it was in the traditional location of colorful discards whose former owners are hoping someone else will have a soft spot for them—and then I carried it home by the hanging wire. It is currently propped in our stairwell while we figure out what to do with it. I have never trash-picked art before.I think it's done in acrylics, although I would appreciate an assessment from someone with a better knowledge of paints than myself. It's signed with the initials "EH" or "EN" and the year "04" and it does not look like professional work, but I have no other idea of its provenance. It got my attention by being so heavily sculpted in wave-blues and sea-greens that the paint stands off the canvas in whorls and ridges; there is an outlined bare-bones boat-shape in black with a steamlike white plume above it and two circles underneath. The left-hand one is deep red and looks like a sun, with bits and flares of red breaking off into the sea-colored paint. The right-hand one is the problem; it is approximately the color of Silly Putty and I cannot figure out if it was an intended effect that dramatically failed or an error of judgment that the artist never amended or what even happened. The few lines of mustard-yellow spiraling within it do not help. It's not just that it's a bad color, although it is—it doesn't go with the vibrant rest of the painting at all. I am genuinely considering vandalizing the canvas by repainting it some more congruent shade (although then I'll feel stupid if the original turns out to be the equivalent of a Jackson Pollack at a yard sale).1 I still took the whole thing home and have asked Rob to take a picture tomorrow in good light so that I can post it.
It's not that I'm having the world's most interesting dreams lately, but they are not my usual kind of boring dreams. Last night I dreamed of watching something like Game of Thrones in that it was a gritty succession struggle with multiple players and no clear winner, but the medieval-ish cultures were visibly Asian-derived and the contested territories were all islands, renamed every time they changed hands. (There were still dragons. That was pretty cool.) The night before that, I dreamed that I was working overtime for an office job, evenings and weekends, exhausted and constantly being handed new assignments, and at the end of the month I was told that the company couldn't afford to employ me any longer—too many people in the office had spent too much money ordering ice cream and I was devastated because I had never once bought ice cream with my coworkers, I brought my own lunches, I couldn't afford anything else. (A situation which bears no resemblance to my waking life, of course.) Before that, I had the very unpleasant experience of dreaming that someone I knew in real life was implicated in the disappearance of a woman in a landscape of bogs and wet forests, and it took me about a day of being awake not to feel awkward toward them. (That was more annoying than anything else.) There was one more I wanted to record, but I can't call it to mind now. It was the same kind of awkwardly mundane. Eventually I will have to start dreaming more normal things again; I always have before. I feel fundamentally better when my dreams have either a weird narrative or monumental architecture.
I really want to be writing a new story, but I feel like I don't think in fiction anymore.
shweta_narayan has been very helpful in reminding me that this is the effect of stress and exhaustion on creativity, but it's still very frustrating. I owe lesser_celery a story about trees and asakiyume has recently made me think of crows.1. Just as I was about to post this entry, I remembered a scene from Susan Cooper's Greenwitch (1974): "'I'm going,' Barney said, moving one step backwards. 'Why green, up in that top corner, though? Why not blue? Or a better kind of green?' He was distressed by a lurid zig-zag of a particularly nasty shade, a yellowy, mustard-like green which drew the eye away from the rest of the picture . . . He said to himself rebelliously, 'But that colour was all wrong.'" Rob asked if I thought the painting had a ghost when I expressed some curiosity that anyone had put it out on the curb, but it didn't occur to me to worry about spells.
no subject
I really want to be writing a new story, but I feel like I don't think in fiction anymore.
Your dreams aren't fiction? It seems to me that your unconscious is doing pretty well at stories. They are aren't fully spun narratives, but there are some intriguing images and situations.
Nine
no subject
Your dreams aren't fiction?
Not in the sense of writing fiction, no. I have been able to use dreams as sources of inspiration before, but the fact that my brain comes up with these scattershot narratives does nothing to assuage the difficulty of wanting to write something and feeling that there's nothing there. I have not written them. They are not things I create.
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Game of Thrones meets Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings? (Haven't had time to read the latter yet, but it's a Chinese-derived political fantasy in island territory, so.)
Looking forward to seeing the picture!
no subject
(That's neat. I have not read it myself, either.)
Looking forward to seeing the picture!
I hope it will live up to expectations!
no subject
its style looked weirdly like some fictional paintings I have described * Yeah, it was looking for you to adopt it!
He was distressed by a lurid zig-zag of a particularly nasty shade, a yellowy, mustard-like green which drew the eye away from the rest of the picture . . . * And this made me think about a nice (and really brilliant in many ways) idea from a kids book: an ET teenage robot advises a painter on Earth whose landscapes seem not very apt to everybody. "Paint a small steel screw here, among the flowers". The painter protests that his landscape depicts a forest, and a screw would look out of place. But he paints it and then he suddenly starts to rework all the colours, and the painting is transformed and applauded.
no subject
I like that! You should write it.
Yeah, it was looking for you to adopt it!
It doesn't look like any of them specifically, but the colors are right. It was very unexpected!
The painter protests that his landscape depicts a forest, and a screw would look out of place. But he paints it and then he suddenly starts to rework all the colours, and the painting is transformed and applauded.
Oh, nice. What book is that from?
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Here is an entry about the book (and I agree with the reviewers that the text feels somewhat strange) http://www.livelib.ru/book/1000466395
and here is something about the author https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%EE%F0%E8%ED%E5%F6,_%DE%F0%E8%E9_%C8%EE%F1%E8%F4%EE%E2%E8%F7
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I hope that it's the right sort of haunted, not the blood oozing from the walls sort. *sideeyes the painting* I guess seawater and algae are more likely, given the subject matter.
no subject
Hmmm.
It will have to wait until I have finished writing about trees, though.
I COULD EVEN TIE IT IN TO THE STORY WITH THE PAINTINGS DAMMIT
I guess seawater and algae are more likely, given the subject matter.
I . . . could cope with that, actually. I haven't been to the sea all summer.
no subject
There is a non-zero chance I will see the sea the weekend of Necronomicon, which sandwiched between my two proposed Bostonward business trips.
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It's a large and prominent part of the painting, so it can't exactly sneak up on you, but if it gets more prominent, out on the sidewalk again it goes.
not thinking in fiction
Note to self and Sovay: must come back and read the rest of this entry... and not somehow end up commenting twice on entries from last year...
Re: not thinking in fiction
Thank you. Right now I would like to be writing a story with trees and crows for you and
and not somehow end up commenting twice on entries from last year...
I don't mind comments on old entries! How did you end up at that one, though?
Re: not thinking in fiction
How indeed! Gremlins? Timeline mischief? I honestly thought I'd put open windows to entries of yours I'd yet to read. How an entry from last year got into the mix is anyone's guess.