"If we don't see a thing...

 ...fate does it to us." ~ Carl Jung, from The Red Book

This may seem a strange choice of a quote for this time in which the world has been and is still suffering from something that has come out of nowhere and caused so much pain through no fault of our own, no matter who we may be, but to me, it applies in many ways, the most important being that people may agree with something like the concept of healthcare as a basic human right more than they ever had before (not to mention this right being also a way to stave off something like this much more efficiently), and they may value life itself more than they ever have, or their loved ones more than ever, (especially after some having lost some of them to COVID), or possibly they now value life more than they ever have before, just life itself, let alone all the fringe benefits of life. 

I myself have almost died a few times in this life, and for some reason have lost a larger than average amount of people I love to death (including a few during this period of the pandemic, but not due COVID itself, and many years ago, both of my parents) so this is now firmly in my DNA; The value of just being alive. It is easy to take for granted. During the midst of this crisis, I was thinking about that, and on an index card, in Sharpie, I wrote 'Stay Alive. All Else is Frosting.' I even made some for friends. I always try to keep this sentiment in mind, and every morning in the shower, though I am not religious in the traditional sense but for lack of a better word, I say a prayer for all that I am grateful for, starting with Life, and having it, while I do.

 

The cards I wrote to keep certain basic things in mind. The anatomy figure sits upon my kitchen table (my roomie brought it home from work one day) where I spent a lot of time during the isolation period of the pandemic reading, writing, doing art, and of course, eating (which, incidentally, helped in keeping me alive!). 

Despite the apt title of this blog based on my love of talking and telling stories, I am not going to go in depth toward all I have learned and all I have thought about during all of this, I will save it for later entries (including my theory that the world needed to be broken open in order to properly begin to heal) and I will now go to the standby on here that is the staple of every entry; Photos. I am including far more than I usually do, since it has been so long.

Be well, and revel in Life, while we have it,

Yours, Wayne Ray Flower II 

 

All photos by Wayne R. Flower except where noted  

 

Robot Boy awaits the bus

Journaling helped keep me sane during all this madness

A fabulous exit...

 

"I don't trust those trees...Hey guys, check this out, more imposters!"


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Aye, germ is the word these days

I came across this (above) somewhere in SE Portland, it reminded me of the scene in Andrei Tarkovsky's film, The Sacrifice where the main character comes across a perfect replica of his own house in the woods near it. Below is a promo photo for the film of Tarkovsky working on setting up the house for the scene. The Sacrifice was his last film before he died of cancer, and one of my favorite films. Many of his films use houses as a metaphor.

The Green will win the Slow War

I found a malformed rock heart. Perfect.

This is hilarious. I have no idea what inspired this, but my joke was, "Nothing says love like writing your lover's name on a dirty old mattress and propping it up a on a busy street for all to see."

My friend's two nutty little dogs, Ringo and Watts. They looked like furry stones.



Below: Playing tennis with the moon

On the balcony where I rehearse music are these badass lions, keeping watch

STOP! In the name of Love. And because there are dogs and kids around, Man!

I dropped my burrito and it landed perfectly. As well, I had just cleaned the floor. Best. Burrito drop. Ever.

This little creature can at times be a little prick, but mostly he is so sweet and he always comforts me when I am down or sick, and through the madness he has been golden.

Something doesn't feel right....

 

"I can't...

...breathe." ~ A common plea of people of color as they are killed by police which has become a social justice, anti-police violence rallying cry.

I have been away, obviously, we are all preoccupied with COVID and how that radically transformed our lives, and our inept government. But now we have an administration that can actually govern, and even is interested in governing, something we have lacked for 4 years nationally, and, promising vaccines also rays of hope. 

"I can't breathe," has been taken up as a battle cry in the fight against racist police murders (call it what you want, but that is what they are) because people literally had their breath taken away, like George Floyd who we all saw murdered, slowly, his breath was taken away forever.

Then came COVID, which also took away one's ability to breathe, and compounded the racism because it extends to eveything, especially healthcare, so it was yet another way for the breath of people of color, especially African Americans, to be taken away in higher numbers than for whites. 

And where I am in the Pacific NW, the smoke from fires choked us, took away our breath, trapped us in homes even more than we were. We went outside and couldn't breathe.

"I can't breathe," will be immortal as a cry for social justice and an end to systemic racist policing and violence, and it will always sum up 2020, and I feel like the breath I have held for 4 years is slowly being exhaled. 

A lot to be thankful for, this Thanksgiving. Thank you, speaking of, for stopping by. Much more to come in this and my Music History blog. 

Be well and have a safe, happy, healthy holiday. Stay home. Don't create Christmas funerals. Please. 🙏❤

~ Wayne Ray Flower II

"Scars have the strange power...

"...to remind us that our past is real." ~ Cormac McCarthy, Author

I have been processing everything in my own way of late, along with the world. I am taking notes, literally and mentally, to write about my thoughts on everything but it is a subject hard to write about, mainly because it is going on right now, and really to get a sense of vetting it is only healthy to write about it, to vent, to appeal for reason and solidarity amidst the pure fucking madness going on right now. Also, as a diabetic? Frankly, I have to watch my heart rate!

As I have mentioned, art has saved me, over and over and especially now, and I did a little photo essay on my scars called, 'Scar Maps and Stories' that I present to you here, it grew out of some scar maps I did for a friend. 

Scars tell a story, as Mr. McCarthy's quote implies. They are a memory map, written over time, on our bodies; tattoos given to us by the Universe that will go with us to the grave. In this light, they are beautiful, in the same way Japanese people value something even more if it is broken or imperfect. We all have value and we don't deserve to die, least of all from incompetence. 

Here we are, scars and all, and here are the stories of some of my scars, so I don't have to think too much about what is coming in our world ~ But I will, once my heart heals a little ~

RIP John Lewis, thank you for your fierce compassion and hard work. We are a better people for having you as our conscience. Be well in the other place - one last bridge, Sir, to a peaceful end ~

 Photo retrieved from CNN Website

All photos (following unless otherwise noted) and writing by Wayne R. Flower 

A Wayne Flower walks into a bar...



It was the year of my 29th birthday (1995) and my then girlfriend, as a present, gave me money to go see Sister Double Happiness play at the Off Ramp club in our home of Seattle, Washington. I was stoked. I had been a fan of a couple of the members' previous band The Dicks, Texas hardcore fronted by an in your face gay man named Gary Floyd, with a voice like gravel and molasses and great lyrics (check out The Dicks last LP, These People). I mention his sexuality as that was a huge part of who he was, boldly, on stage in Texas in the '80s! That took guts.

Promptly after arriving at the Off Ramp, I drank one Long Island Iced Tea after another. I was there with a friend but I don't remember who (anyone?). The Off Ramp was a notorious bar at the bottom of the steep incline of Denny Way that shoots straight up to Capitol Hill, the most popular area to live and where I lived then and for many years. It was called the Off Ramp for the obvious reason, at the bottom of Denny Way was the entrance and off-ramp to and from Interstate 5. There was a strange energy in that spot, I don't know if the energy continued when it became other venues, I played a show with a band in the split off half of the bar (in the same space as a different bar) as it was in 2015 or so, but it was so different and I there so short a time, I don't have a sense of this). But I had seen a number of bizarre incidents there, including a stabbing. This all said, I also saw and played some of the best shows there (including the only Nirvana show I saw where they were actually tight - a rarity sometimes depending, in the early days - before I saw them when playing a gig with with them in '91, when they had gotten super tight) and an amazing show a Seattle band I played bass in, Violent Green, played with Caustic Resin from Boise and The Cows from Portland (right around the time of this Sister Double Happiness show, actually).

Sister Double Happiness (SDH) hit the stage (don't remember who opened, was anyone there?) and ripped it - I was drunk, swaying my head, in heaven. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! The Long Island Iced Teas made me piss every 5 minutes. I headed to the men's room and peed in the urinal (probably a little on my shoes, too, I was lit). Out of nowhere, the stall door for the sit-down toilet swung out, hard, and the corner edge of the metal door caught me on the eyebrow and forehead, sending me to the floor, bewildered.

I heard a gruff voice and a hand gently touched my shoulder, "Oh no!" said the voice, "I know you, man, you're my friend! I'm sorry man, you're my friend!"
I stood up, swaying a little, touching my forehead gingerly, walking over to the sink to survey the damage. I saw that the person who had hit me, accidentally, it seemed, was a guy named Bruce, he was in a roughian street skater gang called The Jacks, who distinguished themselves by wearing denim jackets plastered with patches for bands, skateboard brands and other punk shit, usually the sleeves of the jackets were cut off. They also sometimes competed in skateboarding contests, and played 'hockey' with empty Fosters beer cans  in a funeral home parking lot on skateboards (something me and my friends did as teens, too, but in 4 or 5 story parking garages).

I was in a band in the '90s that played a lot of shows with bands different than our style, crusty punk and skate-punk bands - The Jacks were all in with these crews, so I knew some of these guys, they were always really nice to me (a continuation from my childhood of getting in tight with roughians). Bruce was much older than the other members of The Jacks. He was a short white man, with a rough looking, acne and fight-scarred face and bleached blond hair with bangs. I estimate his age, factoring in the very likely possibility that he had a hard life and looked older than he was, to be around 40-45 in 1995. Most other Jacks were in their 20s or 30s. But Bruce was one of the most badass Jacks, and, one of the nicest if you weren't on his bad side.

It turned out the reason he smashed the stall door was that he was in a moment of rage thinking of some wrong done to him by a friend, or a girlfriend, I don't remember. He felt terrible for hitting me with the door. "You should hit me, man. Come on, I won't stop you, you deserve a shot." (See? Nice to me ; ) I waved my hand at the offer. I have never been a fighter, really, but I am a big man, 6 ft 2 and about 210 (back then probably more like 195ish) and I was a hardcore punker for years, playing crazy thrash pits, keeping assholes starting fights in the thrash pit out for shows my band put on - Basically, if you mess with me or anyone I love or anyone who can't defend themselves, you will see the other side! I use my powers only for good - I grew up on Spider-Man, for cryin' out loud, and yeah you know what is coming next, but you have heard it said (and maybe even said your own self) but most likely, it was wrong. This is the actual quote from Peter Parker's dying Uncle Ben; "...With great power, there must also come great responsibility." The original is also the most grammatically correct. Sniff. [Adjusts taped-together glasses, cracks knuckles and keeps typing]

So I declined the kind offer to 'get even' with Bruce, but as I looked in the mirror to splash water on my face, I saw the deep red blood coming from the gash in my eyebrow and I saw red (in part, literally) and I swung at Bruce - But I didn't really want to land a punch square on his face, I liked the guy, this was an accident, after all. But rage took over my drunken mind, then edited mid swing so that I elbowed him in the mouth - A fair compromise, thought Drunk Wayne. I knocked him to the floor just as another Jack, the 7 foot (no exaggeration) white guy ironically nicknamed 'Hobbit', entered the bathroom, and all Hobbit saw was me punching his buddy Bruce to the ground, he had zero context, so the next thing I knew I was up in the air, level, and then my whole body was slammed to the sink and counter, hard. As I lay looking up at him, he drew back a fist nearly the size of my fucking head. Bruce to the rescue.

"No, no, no, Hobbit! He's my friend, I know him, I told him he could hit me cuz I accidentally hit him!" Hobbit had a confused look on his handsome, '70s cigarette ad looking face (handlebar mustache included). I stumbled out of the bathroom, bloody and confused and pissed as hell. By the time I got home to my girlfriend, I was bloody and crying and she held my drunk ass until I slept it off. Happy Birthday.



 
"You don't show up to a knife fight with a gall bladder."~ Friend Andrew Adolphsen, a comment in response to my Facebook post about my gall bladder surgery, which was 'I got into a knife fight with a surgeon.'

   

I call this particular group of scars on my stomach 'The Constellation of Scars'. 

I opted to get my gall bladder removed as I had some pain due to a huge stone. A simple procedure, outpatient surgery. As they shaved my belly (a very strange experience for people not into that kind of thing) one of the physician's assistants was chatting with me, he was a tall, thin German man. I was already high on the meds they had given me. We were discussing my disability, a numb leg from getting hit by a car while walking in a crosswalk in 2009, and the general numbness on my left side, always assumed to be from my neural issues. This man was very kind, and I guess because I was high on surgery prep meds, I couldn't not see him as a Nazi doctor. I partially blame Hollywood for this stereotype locked in my head, and, he had the perfect Hollywood Nazi Doctor look; A white medical cap on a shaved-bald head, prominent cheek bones and sparkly blue eyes. I felt bad for thinking it, but anyway this not-a-Nazi-doctor-but-a-nice-German-man was positing that my numbness could have been from a mini-stroke. "Hmmm," I pondered, "A mini-stroke..." as they wheeled me into surgery...

What is fascinating about this particular surgery is that the scars are from openings used are not just made for the surgeon and his assistants to reach in and do cutting, but some holes are also for air hoses to blow up your stomach like a huge flesh balloon! They gave me a photo from the inside of my stomach while it was blown up, it was so cool! You could see everything in there - And I would love to post it here, it would be perfect of course, but...I dropped it on the wet cement in the rain and ruined the photo. Now, it looks like an abstract painting, and I do plan on using it for something at some time, as some art project component. I haven't missed my gall bladder since. If you don't think you can commit to a low fat diet, I don't recommend this procedure.

In 2014, it was raining in Portland, Oregon, slightly, enough to inspire the usage of windshield wipers. I was driving to my drum rehearsal room to bang on some skins as I do, waiting to turn left from Sandy Boulevard to NE 28th St., my old neighborhood, near what is called the Hollywood District in NE Portland. To my left, I saw the owner of a tattoo parlor right there on the corner, across from the dive bar/greasy spoon, Katy O'Brien's, where I met him one night at the bar and we struck up a 'bar friendship'  - good guy. Anyhow I saw him and a couple friends at the crosswalk to my left (again I was turning left), and they had the light. I had been hit by the car 4 blocks down Sandy, around the corner from where I lived then, 5 years prior to this. So, having been hit by someone not paying attention before, I am hyper-conscious of people in crosswalks. I waited to see if they were going to cross (they were hesitating). As I was waiting and looking left at them, I had very slightly edged forward a bit. The car coming toward me (a two way boulevard, Sandy) smashed into the hood of my 1990 Volvo 240, spinning the whole car completely around. 

The air bag hit me, and let me tell you, it isn't a balloon-like thing, not by a fucking long shot. It is like a Hulkfist punch to the gut, a canvas bag forced full of air at less than the blink of an eye. It bruised all my ribs and made a gash that left this middle scar labeled above. It saved my life, face and neck for sure, but man. That shit HURTS. This has all been settled in court, by the way. Technically my fault, but they were sure as hell going 45 or so on Sandy, way over the speed limit - I had no way of proving that. 

I never spoke to the cat that owns the tattoo parlor after the incident. It must have been pretty wild from his point of view! The SUV that hit me veered toward he and his friends, and just missed them on the sidewalk. I am sure it was terrifying. The Volvo, named Mingus, after one of my favorite bass players and composers, Charles Mingus, saved my life. These things have roll cages built in to the cab, and the older cars like this were made of good, solid materials. Thank you, Mingus, RIP!

Sandy is a busy, weird boulevard, as it is at an angle to the grid of the other streets. There are many accidents and deaths on Sandy Boulevard, most are probably people dying on bikes hit by cars would be my guess, based on the high volume of ghost bikes you see all up and down the many, many miles of Sandy Boulevard. Sad and fucked up.

 

I saw this the morning after the accident, I caught the bus to the wrecking yard, and I was blown away - It was then I realized how close I came to dying, or being paralyzed for life.

To read more about this and other near death experiences, check out the entry in this very blog, "He not busy being born is busy dying..."

"It'll be fine, I don't need to go see a doctor..." Famous last words of many a stupid man

 

Note: I misspelled the surgery in the picture - it is spelled 'microdiscectomy' 

I had sciatica for a few years. The sciatic nerve is the biggest nerve in your body, it stretches from your hip to your ankle. In sciatica, the particular affliction is caused by bad posture habits over time leading to a spine that bends, and your vertebrae, the 'ladder' rungs of bone in your spine, pinch the discs, which are the pads between the vertebrae (basically little shock absorbers, sort of rubber like) causing them to impinge on the nerve. My probem was in the area most common for back issues, Lumbar 5, at the base of the spine. I ignored the pleas of my then girlfriend and my brother to see a doctor for a few years, then my L5 disc blew out - When later I saw the scan of it, it looked like someone took a gun to it. It was a no-brainer to get the surgery. I couldn't lift myself with my left foot, at all. 

The procedure itself is, even more than the aforementioned bladder surgery procedure, fascinating. They take a liposuction tube (for sucking the fat out of people) with snips at the end of it into your spine, navigating with sonar imagery. They suck out what they call 'free floating fragments' (a name I can appreciate that gets right to it, and, is super fun to say!) and they snip and suck them out! Then they close the 2 inch incision and normally send you home but I had it done late in the day so I stayed over night. 

I am glad I did it, it helped me tremendously and influenced me to hit the gym (never been a 'gym person' and in Portland there isn't such a jock stigma on gyms, or gym culture, as much as other cities, I have found, said the self-conscious ex-punker indie guy) to keep my core strong, and for most of the years since, I have remained in good shape, so I don't have to go under the knife again. I lucked out, as I see it.

Image retrieved from Colorado Pain Care website





Happy Birthday 

 

When I was 18 or so years old, my mom gave me this awesome sky blue Panasonic brand ten speed bicycle for my birthday. Yeah, they make, or at least made, bicycles, in addition to stereos and stereo related equipment. I loved it because it was an extra tall bike, and I was tall and lanky, mostly legs. I was flying down Warm Springs Avenue, digging it, man! Then my right foot slipped off the pedal, and the thin flesh of my shin met with the sharp pedal teeth of the bicycle pedal. I looked down at the source of the excruciating pain and hit a parked car, front tire smashing its bumper and jackknifing the long bike into the air, finally crashing it to the road, totaling it and mangling the back rim (amazingly, the front rim that took the hit was fine). There was a grotesque flap of skin on my shin, gruesome pearly white bone showing through glossy crimson meat that was me. Mother was bummed for me (It's ok, she ended up giving me her old Datsun car for graduation!).

My bike looked similar to this, but lighter blue.

These are my Scar Maps and Stories

“One Look ...

Is Worth a Thousand Words..."

Advertising executive Fred R. Barnard invented this saying to promote his agency's ads taken out in Printer's Ink in 1921 with the headline and attributed to an 'ancient Japanese philosopher.'

I like to say 'mental health is also health') as endorphins are the only truly good drug in the world, made by your body for its own good. Walk and walk, lift some weights to a Youtube video, get a walk buddy or an exercise buddy, you can maintain distance and be safe and healthy.

For now, what I was hopefully cleverly alluding to the above intro quote (a Shortstorylong tradition) was the idea of what ultimately became the common refrain, 'A picture is worth a thousand words,' a saying that is pretty much true and that is why it has stayed strong, I believe, even though it came from a racist sham appropriation advertising gimmick (truth reveals itself in strange places, I find). Nowadays, as the old folks always begin (right behind them!) the thing is pictures and words - I can't bring myself to say memes are worth a thousand words, though. Maybe 50! But creating them is a fun challenge. In this kind, you have to read the body language of the figures in the photo, and I think I did that decently - 

I haven't taken some fucking 'meme class' or anything, don't get me wrong, just sharing what I have noticed about them. I am certain sociologists have studied and written the hell out of memes. Maybe I will write a meme essay; a thousand words about 50 words haha! The other thing about this kinda meme? If the person seeing it never saw Star Wars, they won't get it. At all. And who the hell are these people who haven't seen Star Wars, anyway? Sheesh! 

From now til my last day my parting salutation is, 'Be well,' because we all need to be, no matter what madness and injustice swirls around us, we have to come through this, and we will. More later.

Without further ado, meme number two (apologies to Mr. Shakespeare) Feel free to spread this like a vi-..eh...like good news.  

Meme by Wayne R. Flower ( ; ) I thought it would be a good joke to post credit for a meme - Maybe I should up the joke start signing them!) The photo is obviously not mine and from Star Wars, The Return of the Jedi [I must let you behead me for incorrectly previously listing this as from The Empire Strikes Back. But in my defense, sick and on meds, I caught it myself, FORGIVE ME haha get over it.] ... [Aaaaand I also misspelled 'harmonica'  on the first meme I posted. Gosh how embarrassing, especially if people shared it. Fired from my first meme job, man]

 

Be well,
Wayne 

"If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols...

...upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.” ~ Mark Rothko, painter (and I would add visual philosopher).

Rothko is on the mind a bit of late as one of the last books I checked out from the library at the college where I work (one of the last meaning before we suddenly found ourselves in a surreal b sci fi pandemic film where the US is run by con men whose charade becomes exposed - preparing my musings on all that for a future entry). The book is a well done document of Rothko's '40s period, where he evolved over time to the style he would be known for and that would transform art, what others dubbed the 'multiforms'. I am gratefully 'stuck' with this book, not being able to return it during the pandemic.

If you aren't a fan of abstract art, I feel you, I actually do, because I have been a visual artist since I could hold a crayon, and it always eluded me, abstract art. I of course had sparks of moments with works by Dali or Picasso, close to abstract, but still including recognizable figures in most cases. Jackson Pollack I now get, but am not a huge fan as yet. 

I say as yet because I came to Rothko later in life, late in mine, any way, at age 48 (I am now 54), when I went with my partner at the time to see a show of this very period of his work which ended in the multiforms, at the Portland Art Museum in 2013 or 2014 (? have to check...). Beyond being blown away by the work in general, at the multiforms things changed - the very air changed. The quiet somehow became more quiet, which I am certain was a relief to my girlfriend, as I am a talker, and I learned that day that at museums, she is to be left on her own, and she needs silence, which I now completely get, like how I now get Rothko and the multiforms.

We walked into the room of the large multiform paintings at the end of the exhibit. I walked right up to one. At the time, I had no knowledge then that Rothko felt it best to view these large paintings was to stand fairly close to them, 4 feet or so. I was just pulled in, it was intuitive. Because when you see them first from a distance, as you approach them, the colors don't quite add up to what you are seeing in normal paintings. They are dense and complicated, and your brain must know what they are composed of, so you wander closer. And you feel emotions bubble up inside you, slowly or quickly, depending on the piece. He stripped everything that moves a person in a painting down to pure emotion. 

My girlfriend sat on a bench and quietly cried. I would later come to learn that this is common when people view Rothko's work, he himself has talked about it; "I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on - and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions… The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!” Which is interesting that the color relationships did draw me into the emotions, which took over from there. Different for everyone, I suppose, in some ways. I am one who is affected mentally and psychologically by color - which ties it to emotions for me, so it makes sense.


What is interesting is that this girlfriend at that time in my life, the one who really introduced me to Rothko in a way I never had even before seeing the work in person, didn't consider herself a visual artist (she was/is a lawyer) but she was (she also didn't consider herself a musician but can sing, or a poet but writes nice verse - I don't tend to date artists, but closet artists, or in this case, subconscious artists - I don't seek them, they just end up being that kind of person, which makes sense) and once, we did art together at the same time, which I love doing with anyone at all, it's always magical, and she whipped out this beautiful, balanced, expressive abstract painting. Bam. I was baffled. 

My art is detailed, and based almost always on reality, or at least the vast majority was until recently, very recently. See some of my work here on blogger: https://wayneflowerart.blogspot.com/ 
I draw some weird shit sometimes, but it is almost always figurative in some way. Either way, I feel I am a decent artist. But when I took painting classes, I always ended up drawing with my paint brushes. It was frustrating. And when I tried to do anything abstract, painting, drawing, whatever, I just couldn't get there, like a language that eluded me. The closest I ever came to decent, balanced abstract work was the backgrounds I did in my heavy collage period during the mid '80s. So for a time, I gave up on trying.

I recently began cranking out artwork at a frenzied pace, I was obviously using art as a therapeutic method to cope with the stress of world events, a staple throughout my life. And it worked. And the crazy thing was, pretty much everything I produced is not bad (considering these are just sketeches, mind you). This is unusual for any artist. Bob Dylan talks about the period of his music (which happens to be my favorite of his) between Bringing it All Back Home and Blonde on Blonde (time frame from memory, basically the mid to late '60s stuff) that he doesn't know where his ideas for lyrics came from, it didn't feel like they were from him, he said it was like he was channeling it from somewhere...else. And that is exactly how I feel about this prolific, therapeutic stretch of art creation, which has now greatly slowed. 

Today I share only the abstract stuff (and will later share the non-abstract sketches from this prolific period), abstract expression being what I had begun a journey to discover just prior to the pandemic and sheltering in place, and I was making small inroads. This burst of art and reading the Rothko book unlocked the rest, and I am excited to see where it leads me.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is my favorite Rothko piece from the '40s period I am referencing, called Rights of Lilith - Much of this period was influenced by mythology and its symbols, and the sea.


The following images are sketches from a sketch book, 8 inches x 5.5 inches, using different colors of Sharpie pens, fine ballpoint pens and pencils. All artwork by Wayne R. Flower
Prints of other work available (I have a PayPal account - Support artists!): https://wayneflowerart.blogspot.com/

God Playing Dice - Title inspired by Einstein's famous response to the   premise of Quantum Physics and probabilities making up everything; "God doesn't play dice."

Much of the work has been very microbial, for lack of a better term, and during a virus pandemic, it makes sense. Other themes that subconsciously emerged were reproductive imagery, like sperm and egg or sexual organs, and some menstrual imagery (more of that in later entries). How it played out each time was that I would draw these themes subconsciously at first and then see a clear idea or image emerge, then I would roll with that and embellish it, as I went.

                         The most virus like image

                     Ghost of Tesla

                       Eggs. I eat a lot of eggs.

               No idea on this, subliminal or otherwise

I like the colors in this. I was soaking paper towel and then wiping on the paper. I had a silver Sharpie, which was fun.

After the fact I labeled these as different 'inner galaxies', for instance the frantic one in the right corner is my 'Inner Chaos Galaxy' and in the center is my 'Inner Creative Spirit Galaxy.'

           One of my favorites as it was a bit of a breakthrough for mixing colors, shapes and movement. The silver, gold and bronze Sharpies are fun to work with and slightly metallic looking.

As I have been working at home a lot, it seems I subliminally drew a computer monitor here! It kind of freaked me out when I realized that.

                    My first real breakthrough - But note that there still had to be lines. Slowly letting go of lines... - - - ~ ~ ...

 

"Save the human race...

...don't touch your fuckin face.."

~ from a song I am working on (that's right, I am quoting myself. Deal with it). It would make an excellent bumper sticker. Later. Too soon. Definitely too soon.

Strange days. I went out last Saturday night (3.21.20) in Portland and it was like being in a sci fi flick; empty parking lots, closed businesses, nervous looking people in masks and you think about every damn thing you touch and wonder whether a little invader is entering you. I watched empty trains sliding by and got a little chill. 

We will get through this, but it will get much worse (already has since I started this draft a few days ago). I imagine I will be posting on both blogs (the two I refer to are the most active, this one and the music history blog: A Music History, by Wayne R. Flower) more often now that I am sheltering in place. Meanwhile, the  clothes wear no emperor (from the same poem in progress). Be well. Pace yourself. Take walks. Create shit, even if, or hell, especially if you aren't an artist or necessarily creative - it helps, no one will have to see it! We are in for the long hall, let's take care of each other and ourselves since leadership is, eh...challenged.

Share this blog. I ain't on the Facebook (for personal reasons, no disrespect, and yes I know my request is ironic) I may be wrong, but I think people may like it about now...

Love to folks and Critters

Wayne Ray Flower II

All photos by Wayne R. Flower


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My boy Denni has made sheltering in place a better place to be.....

Odd electric fruit.....

                          
'KILL YOUR LANDLORD' - I can't remember the origin of this phrase/sentiment, a song I think. Tensions with landlords (a term I stopped using, it took a while - but I am not a serf nor are they my lord; it is their building, it is my home, we have a contract. You can quote me on that) are rising in towns and cities everywhere, especially densely populated urban areas, as demands for a rent freeze ramp up. Things will get ugly, it is certain. Hoping better natures prevail among the privileged owner class.....










"RaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyNeeeeeeeeeeeeerBeeeeeeeeeeeeeer," (for those old enough to remember the old commercials).....

The Holy Bus Stop Stump.....

                                                              The wild gas tank in its unnatural habitat. Shhhh....It's almost feeding time.....

                                Bolders to pebbles to riding rails.....

Still life.....

Life is still (now).....

                                                               Don't jump! We got this.....

Here it is again, it has eaten and is sleeping...

Circles.....

                                              Artist in life imitating his art.....

                              Inheritor of the world: The Green, The Insects, The Molds.....

                               
I just like this as it has an Americana myth sheen to it.....















Story the Tree. If I were a tree, I would marry her.


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