#cause i draw etho with a lot of layers

[violet-fire-cat]

👀

Hehe I'm so glad I got sent a few of these! I'm gonna have fun rambling about aus now! Lots of rambling. I'm not kidding. This one at least is uh- long. Oops.

As I said before, a lot of my AUs are Ethubs focused, but hopefully you guys don't mind that! 😅

Soooo, let's see, which one should I start with, hmmmmmm. Let's go with one I was talking about with a friend a lot a few weeks ago!

And that would be -

Assassin Creed AU 🗡️ Well- it's inspired by Assassin's Creed anyway. I am not well versed enough on the series lore to do anything that sticks to it too closely. I wanted to play around with ideas a bit anyway. But I started playing one of the games again a while ago and that's where the ideas came from.

Assassin AUs have been done before, yes. But this one is mine!

Etho is an assassin, somewhere in the 18th/19th century, and has been with the Assassin's Brotherhood for most of his life. He's very good at what he does. He's smart, quick, and stealthy. Like a ghost with a knife. You won't know he's there until his blade has found it's way into your throat.

The Brotherhood consists of various other Hermits, including; Doc - retired assassin now serving as the groups main medic Tango - his targets often go out with a bang. or with fire. Grian - death from above Cleo - master of poisons and deadly concoctions Impulse - weaponsmith, where you go for a new knife or gun Zedaph - creator of gadgets and nifty tools and Mumbo - the spymaster. Kinda. Not really. Far too squeamish for assassin work. So he handles information gathering, sorting out jobs and targets, etc

They work together to take out criminals and other bad people who are causing issues in the area. As well as probably aiming to solve some sort of ancient mystery like in the games. (Though I haven't figured that part out yet.)

The story is mostly focused on Etho, a lot of what I have is about his and Bdubs' relationship too, but there's other stuff as well. Rambling continues under the cut ~

Etho doesn't interact with civillians much. But then he meets Bdubs. Bdubs is not affiliated with the Brotherhood. He's a craftsman. He works with wood, leather, and sometimes metal, making tools and clothes mostly, but weaopns too, and selling them in his little shop. Etho goes there on a whim looking for quick repairs or a replacement.

Bdubs is a pretty ordinary guy just going about his life. He has no idea what's in store for him when he meets Etho that day.

Etho is- odd. Tall and mysterious, and dressed in strange clothes. Bdubs doesn't know what to make of him. But treats him like any other customer. He does what's asked of him, Etho pays well. And he finds himself with a regular visitor.

Etho isn't entirely sure why he keeps going back there. He knows other people with the same skillset that he could go to instead. But there's something about Bdubs... There's something drawing Etho to him in a way he's never really experienced before.

Gradually, they become friends. And with time, that friendship progresses. Etho slowly falls in love with Bdubs, and realises that he's so screwed. He's never been in love before. And these- these- emotions. Are not easy to deal with! He doesn't know how to handle Bdubs being so gentle with him, so kind and smiling so sweetly.

And. Yeah. Things develop. A very touch starved Etho craves the gentleness and kindness that Bdubs gives him so easily. Etho has friends, sure, but this is different. Someone detatched from the violence of his work. Someone willing to care for him and love him despite all that he is. It's like nothing he's ever experienced before.

Bdubs never expected to get tangled up with someone like Etho. Danger surrounds him. Etho could leave one day and just. Never come back. But behind all that. Behind the layers of Trained Killer. There's a sweet, slightly shy guy that Bdubs can't help but love.

It's not all plain sailing though. No no. There's drama and chaos too of course. The nature of Etho's work kind of requires it. One time Etho returns to base badly hurt, and in a state of 'I thought I was going to die and all I wanted was to see you again,' he's asking Doc, who's looking after him, for Bdubs. Another time, Bdubs gets captured by the bad guys and Etho and the other assassin's have to rescue him. There's heartbreak as events leave Etho thinking that Bdubs doesn't want to see him anymore. And the difficulty of tracking down an assassin who doesn't want to be found. Etho becomes over protective at times, which Bdubs isn't fond of. But panic ensues when that protectiveness leads to Etho hurting Bdubs accidentally. Bdubs doesn't know what to think of seeing Etho kill someone. Knowing it happens is one thing, actually seeing it happen is another.

There's ups and downs, and I want there to be some overarching mission that Etho and the rest of the Assassin's are working towards. But I don't know what that is yet. I need to brainstorm and play the games more I think.

However, meanwhile, in the present day. Another young man, funnily enough also known as 'Etho', has somehow gotten himself roped into an investigation being done on his ansestor. A- distant cousin. Or something. He thinks. But the guy was an assassin. Which is cool. Fancy technology he'd never heard of allows him to relive the 'genetic memories' of the assassin. See what he experienced and learn about his life. About the things he did, the people he knew, and the events he was a part of. Hoping it'll help them find answers to something that's going on now.

This Etho, nerdy computer science graduate Etho, is very confused but overall rather fascinated by it all. Though he realises quickly there's a lot more at stake here than facts and figures about centuries old history. He learns a lot about his assassin ancestor and the life he lived. Maybe... Maybe too much. He's not sure that he wanted to know about the more- private parts of the guys life. It's interesting that the man the assassin was in love with looked a lot like one of the technicians working on this investigation, though. It's probably just a coincidence. The odds of it being anything else are far, far too small. But he is rather handsome, so surely you can't blame Etho for having a bit of a crush on him...

And- I am going to stop there or I could ramble all night dfghj. I love this AU a lot, if you couldn't tell. I'm probably forgetting things, but this is already more than enough to get an idea of how things go! There's assassins! And drama! And romance! And it's so much fun!

Thank you Anon for giving me an excuse to ramble endlessly about my AU! If you want to ask more about this au though then please do! Aaand maybe I'll draw something for it at some point too, I've been wanting to for a while hehe!

#hermitcraft #ethoslab #bdoubleo100 #ethubs #hermitshipping #hermitcraft au #violetanswers #and yes I know that in Assassin's Creed the assassin in the past and the guy in the present aren't like- super similiar #but I don't care #that's what I wanted to do here 'cos I thought it'd be fun to play around with #and then I get TWO Ethubs romances in ONE au! How cool is that! #but yeah this is about 1000 words of my rambles so I hope it's at least nice to read pfft

[tiredfoxtf]

Do you have any headcanons that are true for most/all of your fanworks even if it’s not always noticeable?

Hmmm. It got me really thinking to be honest. I am not Exactly sure what you mean (forgive me stoopid brain), but there are some things that come to mind.

So in my design Tango is a Fire Elemental, not a blaze, right? And across a lot of my works, it's kinda not obvious, but his own fire actively hurts him. Specifically it hurts his more human shell. Under it there's another layer to him that is more true to his nature of an elemental being. And very strong emotions that go out of control (in his specific case it's anger) cause damage to his skin. Basically it's kinda starts cracking and the element just sips through those cracks. Which are mostly in his hands. And this is why he is wearing gloves. They kinda protect him from outside fire and protect others from his fire. He basically a candle and at any moment he can melt if the fire gets too strong.

Another interesting headcanon I have for Tango specifically is more of an observation. He has that weird connection with chance and luck. Specifically he has that connection in regard that he suffers from bad luck, while someone else wins the chance. He is kinda a magnet for bad luck while being a good luck charm for others. A really funny thing.

I draw Life Indicators as those collar thingies right. Basically in my headcanon they are like physically enforce the rules. More specifically when someone goes red they inject something you can think of as emotion stimuli. They basically boost violent impulses and as a side effect all emotions are feel more vibrant. Like joy can turn into hysteria, anger and annoyance turn to blind rage, etc. And it also causes some veins be visible in those bright red colour. It's visible on some of my arts.

I really waited for someone to point out a heart locker my Joel design has, but no one did in the end. Originally there was only a photo of Lizzie in there, but during Double like he put Etho's photo in there too as joke. But then never took it out.

My Lizzie design has two cute tails under her dress and I am so sad no one talks about them. She is a fairy. With two tails, just like the one on her dress!

And like, speaking of wings. I don't draw them very often, but Jimmy, Lizzie, Grian and Skizz have them. However they often hidden in a way that is basically just magic - they retract into a tattoo on their spine and whenever they needed they appear Through clothes. Magic.

Grian is a special guy tho and has far more feathers to him than any other bird-like person even with wings hidden. Most of them are covered with clothes. Not much he can do about the ones on his neck, cheeks and head.

Pearl's eyes glow in the dark. Well, more like they reflect light. Like two moons. And the bells on her corset were added in double life as a joke that she was too stealthy and someone should put a bells on her. Well, she did it herself and still able to move so quietly no one notices she's behind them.

Etho's heterochromia no matter what in always caused by damage done to his eye, do with that what you will, tee hee.

That's all I could think of at the moment!

#> tired asks #> tired anons

[opera25]

Co-basing discussion!

#SEASON 8 WOOOOO #SO HYPE!!! #i was planning to do more but I don't have time unfortunately :(((( #iskalls arm makes no sense #tangotek #iskall85 #hermitcraft spoilers #hermitcraft #the awkward moment when u realize u need to give etho a new outfit if he wanna do riptide base #cause i draw etho with a lot of layers #but these clothes would get so soggy #also swimmer goggles question mark? #ope art #chating:assassin roommates ASSASSIN ROOMATES ASSASSIN RO

[bringinbackpod]

Intervewi with Michael C. Duguay

We had the pleasure of interviewing Michael C. Duguay over Zoom video!

On The Winter of Our Discotheque, his first album in nearly a decade, Michael C. Duguay immerses listeners in his complex universe through work which is both familiar and inventive, equally whimsical and stone-cold stoic. The songs in this collection were composed over ten itinerant and disastrous years, in and about his life lived in hospital beds, shelters, and addiction treatment centres. This quasi-sophomore release finds Michael C. Duguay returned to wellness and rapturously reunited with his craft, writing with startling clarity and remarkable candor, withstanding the conventional singer-songwriter label. The Winter of Our Discotheque is a triumphant reemergence, establishing Michael C. Duguay as an idiosyncratic punk-poet whose mercurial work, while firmly rooted in the vernacular tradition, combines adroit pop and the avant-garde to ecstatic and often devastating effect.

On Summer Fights, a song which morphs from pastoral alt-country ballad to jubilant, psychedelic honky-tonk, Michael sings the album’s central thesis; ‘there’s a time and there’s a place for all variety of grace’. This declaration is one of many which draws attention to the beauty that surfaces, and which so often goes overlooked, in a world of chaos and struggle. Describing his time spent battling addiction and mental illness, which found him drifting from the gulf islands of British Columbia, to Halifax’s north end, to a halfway house west of Thunder Bay, Michael remarks, ‘I completely lost hold of my identity, and as my emotions and thinking became increasingly compromised by substances and trauma, my relationship with my practice dissolved; first my ability, then my desire to try’. Despite the hardship endured, in broken moments of lucidity Michael was able to shape new personal understandings of the varieties of human experience, and his own relationship to privilege. These revelations have resulted in a body of work which neither dwells in the darkness nor trivializes his own experience, but which describe in poetic, naturalistic, and sometimes droll language, the realities of his lived experience “I spent a lot of time in places that others might describe as ‘bottoms’, where I never predicted myself landing, and these songs have helped me make sense of those experiences’.  The narrative spun by TheWinter of Our Discotheque is both bildungsroman and poioumenon (a work of art that tells the story of its own making). Revealing its own metfactions as it progresses, his writing draws comparisons to the literary school of Southern Ontario Gothic writers including Munro, Findley, and Urquhart.  The album draws its title from John Steinbeck’s final novel, which in turn references the opening words of Shakespeare’s Richaed III. More than just clever wordplay, the themes on Duguay’s record can be understood as contemporary expressions of both of those writer’s existential anxiety.

On the haunting and vertiginous Tithes, overtop of swirling reeds and reverberating electric piano, Michael sings ‘there’s no cause for your applause.’ First sketched in a hospital bed in Moncton in 2014, these words make clear that Michael is not writing to solicit sympathy and validation, or to abide by convention, but to devoutly recommence his work with a new, refined focus and an unshakeable joie de vivre. Musically, this outsider ethos is also present. Soaring brass parts are unexpectedly paired with layers of synth drones and percussion, and the arrangements feature billowing woodwinds and iridescent piano in lieu of guitar solos and other conventional indie-rock signifiers. Clocking in at just under an hour, the album’s eight songs are meticulous, and the genre-defying arrangements are palatial. Simply put, The Winter of Our Discotheque is an uniquely indulgent album, and audibly the work of an idiosyncratic artist skillfully working out a decade’s worth of pent up creativity. In Michael’s patient and thoughtful hands, this sort of indulgence is a virtue. While the album sonically references a wide spectrum of influence – post-rock, mid-nineties midwest emo, oblique Americana, and cinimetac psych-pop – an impressive clarity of aesthetic vision, supported by Michael’s distinct vocals and lyrical style, has resulted in a record that is both boldly obscure and remarkably cohesive.

Michael C. Duguay first surfaced in the Canadian music landscape as a collaborative multi-instrumentalist working with a number of a number of critically acclaimed projects, performing on breakthrough albums by Evening Hymns and The Burning Hell, and in east-coast supergroup Weird Lines (with Julie Doiron and Jon McKiel), among others. While touring the world and gaining a reputation primarily as a backing musician, Michael was covertly recognized in the Canadian music community as an enigmatic personality, fervent community organizer, and a gifted artist, songwriter, and poet whose busy touring schedule and reckless lifestyle often stood in the way of formally documenting his own work. In 2012, he self-released Heavy on the Glory, a collection of eight songs written and recorded between 2004 and 2010, produced by James Bunton (Donovan Woods, Ohbijou), and featuring over thirty contributing musicians. Recorded in the shared living space of the communal artist co-op that he inhabited in Peterborough, Ontario, the album showcased Duguay’s emerging knack for lucent storytelling and his penchant for thrilling compositions, entrenched in stalwart punk rock ethos and energy. Though considered by those in his circle to be a captivating documentation of Duguay’s conspicuous ability, Heavy on the Glory was never formally promoted or toured as Duguay’s health and personal life unraveled. Following a move to Sackville, New Brunswick after years of substance abuse and undiagnosed mental illness, Duguay suffered a series of mental breakdowns, eventually leading to institutionalization, poverty, and homelessness. From 2014 to 2018, Michael disappeared from the Canadian music scene completely.

In 2018, Michael resurfaced near Kingston, Ontario after sustained and determined efforts from his friends and family contributed to his return to health and stability. He compiled and completed his poetry and song-sketches from the preceding decade, and set out to record and produce a new album. With a revolving and diverse cast of friends including members of Evening Hymns, Pony Girl, Little Kid, Minotaurs, Alanna Gurr, Merival, the Two Minute Miracles, and Omhouse – his partner performs the trombone parts, and his 87 year old Grandfather also sings on the closing track – the album was produced out of heralded Canadian studios including Port William Sound, The House of Miracles, and Little Bullhorn. The result, two years later, is The Winter of our Discotheque; a fascinating and compelling collection of songs that offer a sobering insight into the mind of an artist deeply invested in the meticulous craft of honest songwriting. With storytelling rooted in genuine grit and hard-earned mettle, Michael has finally been given the chance to have his voice heard. On the album’s sprawling opening track, One Million More, a powerful eight-minute testimony of forgiveness, and a humble and compelling commitment to personal accountability, sobriety, and his craft, Michael sings, ‘‘I’ve heard the song remains the same; I think I’ll write one million more.’ With this proclamation, Michael C. Duguay announces the long-awaited arrival of his distinctive voice. The batch of uniquely thoughtful, compelling, and resonant songs that follow serve as a promise of what is destined to be a rich and prolific career for one of Canada’s finest and most formidable young songwriters.

We want to hear from you! Please email [email protected].

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[houstonlocalus-blog]

Visual Vernacular: Gisela Colon

Gisela Colon, “Atmospheres” at McClain Gallery. Images courtesy of the gallery

  An otherworldly exploration of color, form, light, and surface all vibrantly resonate in the latest exhibition at McClain Gallery. The dimensionality, the layering, and the quiet beauty combined by artist Gisela Colon all speak to her vast understanding of the balance of the masculine and the feminine through her impressive sculptural work. As one moves around the pieces, each tuned to a different vibration in colors and feel, one can see the subtle changes within the blow-molded acrylic that show forth both a luminous glow and thoughtful mystery.

These pods, which both hang on the wall and stand by themselves within the light-filled gallery, draw you in to look at the work from all angles but at a slow, purposeful movement. At the rate you traverse around Colon’s work, you truly are led by the hand, the heart, and the mind while pondering the effects these pieces have in a physical and conceptual form. Colon graciously answered questions about her background, her work and her creative process.

  Free Press Houston: Do you have any particular memories from your youth that pushed you into the direction of art?

Gisela Colon: I had quite a few moments in the early years of my childhood — from around the age of 4 to 10 — that were seminal to the realization that art was something special and transcendental. My mother was a painter and I spent a lot of time working hands-on as her young assistant. We spend many long hours creating oil paintings of quotidian subjects my mother would lay out for us, such as sugarcane fields, tropical flowers, maracas, guiros, clay pots, ceramics, bohios, rolling green country landscapes, the rainforest, and numerous other natural subjects indigenous to Puerto Rico. We would frequently use as a source of study and inspiration master painters such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Rembrandt, Matisse, Monet, Gaugin, Picasso, Miro, Calder, etcetera. As a young child I was taken by the colors of Gaugin, the movement of Van Gogh, the light of Renoir, the humanity of Rembrandt, the poetry of Miro, the intensity of Picasso, and many more feelings of wonder, as we studied how all these were different and how we could make our own worlds with paint. I learned that knowledge to create comes from within, that what they all had in common was their own language, their own unique way of seeing the world, and I could see the world my way, too. I learned the power of being an autodidact, which to this day has positively permeated my whole life.

I was particularly mesmerized by how the colors in many of Gaugin’s paintings did not match the reality of what the eye might see, but rather what the mind might see, or choose to see from a variety of options. There was a painting of two women sitting in a field with flowers in their hair and vividly colored dresses, on a grassy meadow with a backdrop of purple-blue mountains and trees. The painting is titled “When will you marry,” 1892. I remember thinking, “why are the mountains painted purple and blue,” when I knew mountains were not really purple or blue, but they looked fantastic in these hues of purple-blue to convey to the mind of the viewer a feeling that the mountains were of significance because they were of such an unusual color.

The purple conveyed a feeling of monumentality, of physical presence beyond the earth. The choice of the color purple made a big difference. It made them special, unusual and almost other-worldly. Then I focused on the grassy meadows, and I noticed that they were all painted wild colors of oranges, bright yellows, and even a large section of an indigo blue. They looked so radically different to me than what I knew to be real grass colors, which then led me to ask, “why would he choose those colors?” And then in my young child’s mind I thought to myself, “because they look real to him, the painter.” I realized they looked real to the mind of Gaugin and they were drawn from an extrapolation of reality. In addition, they were converted into the artist’s reality, which is then conveyed to the viewer as an alternate reality, that is just as good and perhaps in some instances even better than the actual reality that exists before you.

That was the turning point for me, the realization at the age of about 5, that magic could be made. That an artist could possess that special ability to change the world, one person at a time, one perceptual experience at a time, one moment of connecting to another human mind through time. And this connection would be a deeper connection that might not be expressed in words, but in feelings. Color, material, space, light, everything that an artist uses can be twisted, turned, altered, changed, morphed, to convey a feeling, an idea of an alternate reality, an alternative reality that people might not possess individually, but can be communicated as an artist outward. I realized that an artist had the power to alter reality and the alteration of reality could become a meaningful thing.

    FPH: How did you come to love working with light and sculpture in a minimalist fashion?

Colon: Minimalism is a misnomer because the term is used broadly to imply that the art is devoid of elements or pared down. However, most minimal art is quite complex and possesses numerous qualities that act together to provide an experience of purity. Minimalism provides an antidote to turmoil, noise, information overload. The key point for me is to invoke an experience of simplicity, silence, calmness, clarity of thought, complex thought, principled thought. Each individual ultimately lives in his own mind. Art is for the individual. That moment when the individual can reckon with his own thoughts, and have a moment of awareness and clarity onto itself. I strive to create objects that invoke some form of rational order, alignment, balance, aesthetic beauty, activating a person’s inner discourse.

I got to where I am today by making objects I want to live with, by making art for my own inner self. Throughout this pathway of discovery, the function of light became more important. Light, actually, is the most essential aspect of any work of art. Light is material, matter, and substance and it makes everything real. Without light we would not be here. It is that elemental. To be able to see something requires light. We take it for granted. We assume light is a given. Light is an essential primeval element that surrounds us all and makes life what it is: Light in its most basic form is the provider of existence. Light through the eyes tickles the brain and provides quasi-tactile functions and sensory pathways that are activated, creating the feeling of being alive. Light is an essential part of my work as it works synergistically with the other sculptural materials to generate a feeling of life-like qualities in the work.

  FPH: Seeing that you have heavy influences from both Puerto Rico and California, how have you merged different design aspects from both worlds?

Colon: Both worlds embrace dynamic energies that can be channeled to effectuate growth and transformation. Puerto Rico provides the original spark, a vital, visceral source of energy. Southern California has an ethos of freedom and creativity; with hard work and perseverance, it is the perfect place to pursue your dreams —anything is possible and everything is achievable. Los Angeles has a long history of being a land of opportunity and freedom of expression from the pre-columbian days of the Cahullia Indians, through the early days of pioneers in the Wild West, to the golden era of Hollywood, this bountiful land has allowed people from all over the world to settle here and become part of the significant and growing creative milieu. I merge both sources of energy, applying a philosophy of transformation to my life and my art, conceptualizing and creating sculptures with chameleon-like qualities, exemplifying the female power of creation and embodying the spirit of renewal and re-invention that is part of the history of Southern California life.

    FPH: Pondering on the title Atmospheres, how does this show encompass some of the pillars of your work and what new techniques did you use for this exhibition?

Colon: The word atmospheres comes from the Greek word vapor, and is generally defined as layers of gases surrounding a spherical celestial body. It denotes something soft pervading into its surrounding space. My work in this show embodies some of those subtle, ephemeral qualities that cause the works to radiate into space. The sculptures contain multiple layers of materials that absorb, reflect, and refract light outwards into the surrounding space, creating an extended atmospheric feel. Also through a unique pigmentation process I developed, they posses the ability to shift color depending on the external lighting conditions, the position of the viewer, the time of day, the orientation of the work, etcetera. They are active mutable objects in symbiotic relationship with their environments, which brings the concept of movement into play.

The concrete aspects of my work are actually not concrete at all. There is no place to rest the eye — the pieces continue in an unabated line of discovery — fluid movement, active change, variability of color, mutability of form, resulting in an experiential object — a present tense object that is always moving into the future. The sculptures are free-form, constantly moving yet still possess an outer vessel that is self-contained. There is a juxtaposition of push and pull, of dematerializing the object and re-materializing the color, light, and form into an autonomous activated object. There is a feeling that nothing is stable, there is no stasis, always in constant movement to the eye. They create a dialogue of permanence vs. impermanence. The work seeks resonance with the human condition, which is one of constant change and movement in different directions; always moving into the future into an ever-evolving self, into a changing identity, into something new; seeking authenticity throughout time.

  FPH: Seeing that there is a heavy fabrication side to your pieces, how involved are you in the process and what is that process like for you as an artist?

Colon: My studio is a repurposed plastics factory where I have an inordinate amount of fun! I am personally very involved in the fabrication process, and really enjoy the technical and engineering aspects of the job. I work hand-in-hand with my studio assistants and other aerospace industry fabricators, approving every minute detail every step of the way. When I’m working there, getting down and dirty, is when I feel most alive, vibrant and dynamic. It is extremely liberating, and I experience creative freedom at its best, when I am in the throes of the industrial aspects of making the works.

    FPH: In our culture, the perception of beauty seems to constantly be in flux. How do you as an artist extract a concept of beautiful, especially in the use of color, and how do you hope this translates to a viewer?

Colon: I approach the concept of beauty from a visceral, almost biological, place. I think aesthetics and the appreciation of beauty is something inherent in our genetic make up. We have a capacity biologically to crave beauty, to appreciate beauty, to want to be surrounded by an environment that possesses beauty. But again what is aesthetic beauty? In my experience, there has to be some form of order, not necessarily a rational order, but a sequence, progression, formula of organizing the world around you, which yields balance, colors, forms, a conglomeration of aspects that come together to produce some form of harmony, something that the human eye can see and the entire body can sense and recognize as as a sublime feeling. We find beauty in nature because of its inherent, sometimes invisible order, but it is always ordered. There is always some underlying predetermined order that formulates how things are created, grown, and made in nature.

There is always a code of life that rules everything organic on the planet. That underlying order possesses an inherent beauty, an aesthetic capability of pleasing the eye. Or maybe it is that we just recognize as humans something that is part and parcel of our own formulation, a genetic code that is inside each of our cells that forms our body that allows us to be able to appreciate and recognize the orderly formulation of life. And by orderly it does not necessarily mean symmetrical. You can have orderly asymmetries that also create meaningful aesthetic language. For example, when you look at all of the leaves on a tree changing color in the fall, the fantastic burst of colors blend together such as poppy orange, tomato red, sunset yellows mixed with lemon yellows, and they’re all asymmetrically clustered in a cloud of texture, forming an amorphous form that flutters in the wind with such breathtaking aesthetic pleasure, that you find yourself being alive in the moment, and that’s where the real game is.

Even non-organic life on the planet possesses some form of organized beauty. For example, when you’re hiking in the stark desert of California, with its monumental jagged-edge mountains and huge clustered boulders, you feel the power of the space you are in, recognizing you are in some gigantic cratered form created by the power of earth. That form has such beauty in its stream of creation, the force that was required to create it and the magnitude of the explosion that required its creation, makes it breathtakingly beautiful. Then you look at all of the scattered boulders, rocks, and pebbles, although they appear randomly placed, the laws of physics created them, and generated their placement.

The laws of physics positioned them in their spot and those laws of physics possess order and an underlying rationale for where every little piece of earth crust, rock, sand, ash and dust was laid. Inorganic nature operating at its best. Therein lies aesthetic pleasure, in the marvel of the energy that this planet possesses at its core. The planet has life inside it, whether organic or inorganic. We live on this floating, moving ball of earth that is traveling through the stars, and has a life force that rules everything on this planet. We are part of that greater life force that wants us to seek aesthetic pleasure, to pursue beauty, balance and order, and if we are lucky we can tap into that life force for a feeling of the sublime.

  FPH: What upcoming projects do you have coming up?

Colon: Lots of things. In terms of exhibitions, there are solo presentations of my work coming up at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas (December 15, 2017 – February 4, 2018); South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota (March – July 2018); Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri (September – December 2018); Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana (January – August 2019); Foosaner Art Museum, Melbourne, Florida (September 2019 – January 2020). My work is also featured in a thematic exhibition titled: Plastic Entanglements: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials, opening at the Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania (February 2018 – June 2018), traveling to Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (September 22–December 30, 2018), Smith College Museum of Art (February 8–July 28, 2019), and Chazen Museum of Art (September 13, 2019–January 5, 2020).

  Gisela Colon’s exhibition “Atmospheres” runs through June 17, 2017 at McClain Gallery (2242 Richmond). Hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 am to 5 pm and Saturday from 12 pm to 5 pm.

Visual Vernacular: Gisela Colon this is a repost