By Tom Merriman
Darkness surrounds
Fear’s fallen shadow
Silent screams
Curdle inner turmoil
Fermenting
Tormenting
Spiting the light
But light
Strikes through the darkness
And no matter how dark
Even the tiniest glimmer
No matter how dark
Shows the way forward
Shows the way through
And gives power to hope
…and Naïve art.
I learned a new phrase today, ‘Naïve art’. Basically it’s art created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist has, or art that is almost childlike.
Being a big kid at heart, and only being trained so far in art, I feel I fall into this particular art movement most easily. However, professional artists try to emulate this particular style, which then has it’s own name, ‘primitivism’. My artwork, I’m pleased to say, is naturally primitive and I now try to emulate no style other than my own. We artists have to be unique, don’t you know?
Inspired by the phrase Naïve Art, and thinking it was high time I posted another post on this blog before the gremlins take control and wires start coming away from the edges, I decided to create a piece of Naïve art based on time. Unfortunately, the gremlins have taken control of my tablet, so I had to create my piece of art using the mouse. I know. I know. How childlike. How primitive.
I also, as is usually the case whenever I decide to do something, didn’t really have a lot of time, so just dabbed and clicked and tweaked and added text and created the images below.
Now that this is posted, I need to lie down in a darkened room. Abstract art can be so time consuming when you only have so much to spare!
What makes a good character?
Someone mysterious? Boring? Risqué? Over-the-top? Untouchable? Surreal? Perfect? Ludicrous? Rude? Quiet? Professional? Heart-felt? Needy? Brash? Sexy? Offensive? Kind? Alien? Square? Thoughtless? Thoughtful? Dreamy? Inept? Quirky? Confident? Artistic? Argumentative? Stubborn? Creative? Constructive? Forward-thinking? Magical? Business-minded? Helpful? Shut-off? Energetic? Charismatic? Disabled? Old-fashioned? Forward-thinking? Imaginative? Colourful? Radiant? Beautiful? Ugly? Robotic? Moronic? Warm? Cold? Holier-than-thou? Devilish? Inappropriate? Risk-taker? Stick-in-the-mud? Comical? Interesting?
A mixture of all? Just one? Maybe a couple?
There are a lot of ‘interesting’ characters that call by this blog that could easily fit into the list above. Myself included… Tom Merriman’s a character, don’t forget. OK. Maybe ‘interesting’ was the wrong choice of word.
My characters are all adaptable. They try to fit into a number of different scenarios. Some they take to like a duck to water, and others they’re like a fish out of it.
But they are still characters. Surreal creations that exist in Universes far, far away. Surreal lives with surreal existences that desperately need for their surreal stories to be told.
But are they good characters?
I don’t know. They’re all a work in progress.
Pfft.
Pfffft.
Pfffffttttt. Pfft. Pfft.
Pfft.
PFFFFFTTTTT!!!!!!
It’s one of life’s little mysteries
That’s never really bothered me
I’ve never been able to whistle, see
But I’m OK with that.
I’m not musically minded, though
And when I try it really shows
But I very often have a go
And I’m OK with that.
I can whistle a little bit
Very faint and quite high pitched
It actually sounds a little shigh
Yet I’m OK with that.
I find lately I hum a lot
As whistling I just cannot
Do. This poem’s gone to pot
Still I’m OK with that.
But whistlin’ and me, we don’t get on
And it’s terrible when I hear a song
And I simply have to pffffft along
‘Though I can live with that.
Pfffft.
A bit of fun for this week’s Brew’N’Spew Café; the link to Eugenia’s site is above.
One Word Sunday this week is ‘Confusion’.
So, I’ve flipped it around a little and gone with ‘Understanding’. And by that, I mean our way of going about understanding the confusion of the Universe. Well, Outer Space. Well, radio waves. Well, pulsars and the like.
This is the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, as it was a few years ago, although it looks pretty much the same today, and probably as it looked when it was first built back in 1957.
I love the magic of the Universe; and the fantasies. I’m more than bamboozled by the workings of it, but have at least some understanding of it thanks in part to the data gathered by telescopes such as this. I couldn’t answer questions on it (or pulsars, quasars or other ‘spacial’ stuff for that matter) and if I did I would receive many a confused look back at me… but as I don’t have any photos of confused looks to use, this representation of understanding will have to do!
Visit Debbie’s site (on the link below) to see more takes on the theme:
