November is two days old, and I'm keen to wash the bitter taste of October from my mouth with the peppermint rinse of mentioning that today, I meet to spec the premises for the live painting event with FM 94.9 on November 12th.
I also wanted to let you know that my interview with Fantasy E-zine is now available to read for subscribers at the following address:
http://www.fantasyezine.com/
A snippet of which follows:
FE: How would you describe or categorize your art?
DG: I really don’t like to-its too static. By nature, artists are flighty and evolving constantly, and to formalize any kind of label is to box you in. This week, I happen to be a hyper real Victorian, surrealist with a sideline in biomechanic-steampunk, next week I may be playing jazz flute.
Finally, I am in the process of illustrating a book with author Peter J Carroll, who used my Gods and Monsters piece on the cover of his previous book-The Apophenion. Peters new book is a very exciting project, and I shall post occasional teasers. It's a continued exploration of practical and theoretical magic and higher dimensional curved spacetime.
Which brings us back to matters of karmic influences in a way-arc, circle closed.
Uh-oh, don't look now...
If my series of mermaid paintings were a love sonnet to my wife, then the works that followed seemed a natural progression.
Bolstered by the brio of sales, and taking more than a leaf from the book of world domination-courtesy of my good friend Jasmine Becket Griffith, I repackaged my Urban Fairies as awkward, blitzed out-on-absinthe, little fae punkettes, too archaic for the modern world-prostituting themselves and their magiks to a society that had outgrown them.
Conceptually it was born from the brow of an X box-artistically, it was all very telling.
As in the piece-'Faeries do it better'-art had been relegated to the footnote of an alleyway wall.
The license deals followed*, and for a short time my thumb-tacked addition onto every angst ridden, emo's bedroom wall was assured, and words like integrity became replaced by words such as demographic.
Reinventing myself as a modern day Arthur Rackham with the Froud crowd, It became akin to pulling the wings from faeries, or at least-forging brass ones for my own back.
By the end of the whole wretched three years, I had been horribly shafted several times over by less reputable licensing companies, any reputation I had artistically was in tatters, and I had nothing but contempt for everything I had done.
Destiny-waiting for the wind to change- was exactly that, in the eternal waiting room of big breaks, I was starving for my turn.
I still am.
I retired the series in 05, with the aptly titled work-'Done'
Disillusioned, I retreated to the avant garde and the influences of my early years, to reconsider my next career move.
*To date-despite residual licenses,and those still making money from my work, I have received barely a cent, so should you find anything in stores with my name on that is not endorsed by myself-ie: figurines, journals, unsigned prints, T-shirts, cards, mugs, candles-etc... please do not buy it, I do not get royalty for any of it.
