Meditations on Wildness

I am currently working on a selection of options for a friend's upcoming book's cover.

He and I spend a good amount of time thinking about and pursuing our own wildness,

trying to pull apart where that need comes from, and considering what that even means.

As a hyperactive, borderline feral kid, it very often felt like I had to learn to be a human.  

Sometimes people who meet me in a more formal situation have a hard time

imagining that I was a kid up a tree with matted hair and no ability to control 

the volume of my voice or most of the things that came out of my mouth.

I am always on the opposite end of that reality, 

forgetting that I have lost (or forfeited) so much of my sharp and feral ways. 

I know that this is crucial to my survival, but it still comes with an enormous amount of sadness. 

When you are young, especially a young kid with raging ADHD and few social skills,

 you eventually learn how to check every impulse, you eventually stop cutting off your hair in chunks

without any reason that you can understand or remember, you start figuring out how to sit still.

You find something you can focus on, and you draw.

 

Sarojini Naidu

2.5' x 5', Acrylic and Gouache on Pine

Currently on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

Illustration Project

This is one of the many pet portraits that I worked on recently for the holiday season.

Holiday Discount

Holiday discount on my webstore til December 14th - 

winter means Star Wars season, so just type in RANCOR 

for 20% off the entire site!

Just Hold On To Your Friends

Now available for purchase, this limited edition run 

of holiday friendship prints is on sale and ready to land in your mailbox.

Also, any pet portrait orders placed from today until Nov. 31st 

will receive this print as a free bonus for ordering early 

before the holiday season is in full swing. 

Two arts for the price of one? That's good gifting.

New Phase Mirror Paintings Available Now In the Art Store

http://ketchwehr.bigcartel.com

After a number of inquiries about the mirror moon paintings featured in my recent show

at the Leslie Lohman Museum, I have decided to produce a limited edition of 12

one-of-a-kind phase mirror paintings. 

These paintings are 8" by 6," made with a durable glass acrylic on hexagonal

mirrors, and are priced affordably for handmade art. 

They are definitely looking popular for the winter holiday season 

(you know, Krampus, Ursul, what have you) so go ahead and buy yours today.

If you want one in a particular phase or color, just e-mail me (furfaceart at gmail.com)!

I'm still cooking up a few more, so I am very open to custom orders 

at no extra charge.

Interview with Posture Magazine

My recent interview with Posture Magazine just went up - I think it was a lot of fun!

Big thanks to Winter Mendelson, Oscar Lopez, and Manu Gupta for their work 

on this piece, they make a remarkable team.

Selection of Work from Emblems of Things to Come

This is a collection of images of half of the work currently on exhibit

at the window gallery of the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

  

The reception was a great success, and I owe a great deal of gratitude

to the team at the Museum and to the people in my life who made so much of this possible,

particularly my partner, my family, and my longtime friends.

 This show took a lot of time and research.
It seems like I have just begun down a path where

I challenge myself to do much more than I have accomplished before.

Whenever I make a new show, it's difficult to avoid that fear
that your concept and actual work are in conflict,
and this is a show where put in a lot of time to

challenge my own expectations and not to get too comfortable.  

I'm very proud of this collection of paintings and intend to just
keep going on from here, collecting stories and histories for a long time.

Anne Bonney (1700 – 1722?) “The most famous of all women pirates, 

of Anne’s various activities… reporters are loathe to tell about her lesbianism.   

Anne is reported to have quipped during her final fray, 

“Dogs! In insteady of these weaklings I only had some women with me!” 

(The Encyclopedia of Amazons, Jessica A. Salmonson)

­Boudica (d. c. AD 61) “Derived from the Celtic word for ‘Victorious.’ 

Warrior-queen of the Iceni of Norfolk.  She led a rebellion in A.D. 61, 

sacking numerous [occupying] Roman settlements… [and] temporarily liberated her people

 from the Roman yoke.  The Roman army was urged on with the observation

 that the Celtic queen’s forces included “more women than warriors.” 

(The Encyclopedia of Amazons, Jessica A. Salmonson) 

Hypatia  (c. AD 350–370; d 415) “was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer – 

at the time of her death, she was the foremost in her field in the West, 

and probably in the entire world.  

…Religious and secular tensions in Alexandria led to her murder.” 

(“Missed in History: Hypatia,” Tracey V. Wilson)

Sarojini Naidu from Emblems of Things to Come

Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949) 

“The Nightingale of India, was a child prodigy, 

Indian independence activist and poet. 

Naidu was one of the formers of the Indian Constitution.  

Naidu was the first Indian woman to become 

the President of the Indian National Congress… 

Her birthday is celebrated as women's day all over India.”  (Wikipedia)

Above is another sneak peek at the show, which opens tonight!

Emblems of Things to Come Coundown

It is just shy of 36 hours until the reception for Emblems of Things to Come.

Big thanks to the team at the Leslie Lohman Museum for such a warm welcome

and promotional help. 

 Here are a few snapshot sneak previews of the mirror paintings

and a wood portrait detail.

Show Info - Reception this Friday

You can get all the details on my upcoming reception at the 

Leslie-Lohman Museum here on their website.

Emblems of Things to Come will be opening on October 18th from 6 - 8 pm.  

You can also check out the details on the Facebook Event Page.

Here is another work-in-progress flashback sneak preview of the show 

as it was wrapping up last week:

You can read all about Sarojini Naidu in many places, 

but her Wikipedia page is a fine place to start.

Sylvia Rivera - Show Preview!

Work is wrapping up on the show, which hangs on the 17th.

The mirror paintings will premiere at the reception on Friday, the 18th. 

I'm still reading and researching and working to have a zine

by the reception date to distribute to the first 50 people.

Stay tuned! 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

Video I took for reference in the spring of 2012 while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

 I love thinking about the oblivion and unknown just beneath the surface of water, 

how entirely different worlds exist all around us 

but maybe most clearly within the Earth’s oceans. 

I finally got to use it to paint the water surfaces for the frame of a later piece 

for the upcoming show at the Leslie Lohman Museum that I will be hanging in 10 days.

Upcoming Show!

My show at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is fast approaching,

hanging on October 17th and with an opening reception on October 18th, from 6 - 8 pm.

I will be posting more sneak previews as the event approaches, 

so keep an eye out!  

In the meantime, the quick blurb about the show is this:

“Emblems of Things to Come” is an exhibition of life-sized wood and mirror paintings considering feminist figures in the artist's search for a past as well as a pursuit for context.

           

Many of the figures depicted drew my attention after I found their names 

in Judy Chicago's Dinner Party.  In the Dinner Party's timeline component, 

there is a list of martyrs, saints, and ancient women of power.  

For a long time, I have sought feminist and LGBTIQ icons of a similar substance and vintage. 

I consider them anchors of a sense of continual history and community in what is often

 a disjointed and disparate collection of identities, and relish an opportunity

 to exhibit this collection of beacons of defiance.

As gender roles for women have historically been restrictive, any act of wildness, 

wisdom, or independence can be perceived as gender-nonconformity. 

As a girl I was proud of the accounts of strong and independent women that I could find, 

mythic or historic.  As a trans and gender-nonconforming queer fellow now, 

I continue to crave the voices and histories of strong women 

and a sense of the shared histories we as LGBTIQ persons come from.

Queer history or imposing queer identities on persons who came before

 is a self-serving practice.  Instead I consider any person who challenged 

expectations of gender, either via how they lived, fought, spoke up, or who they loved,

 to be a valuable icon to the LGBTIQ community without label or modern imposition.

The exhibition will be a series of 8 large scale paintings on wood and mirrors 

depicting a selection of these historic female figures.  

They will be in classical, somewhat saintlike postures, but executed more as a 

fluorescent sinew and collection of symbolic indicators than simply a classic portrait.

 Illustration and history both have the ability to fill a person with hunger and curiosity –

 I aim to bring both to the forefront in this body of work.

It is far too easy to erase the collective strengths and threads of unusual 

pasts, presents, and futures. 

This would be another opportunity to explore and celebrate these ties we share. 

Illustration Completed - Eagle Variants

This pair of ink to digital to hand-painted illustrations was for a private client who wanted to see their colleague's electric violin bow incorporated with a golden eagle.  

I always enjoy a sizable raptor like a golden eagle, they are formidable and striking birds that I have

 been fortunate enough to see many times throughout the northern United States.

If you'd like to know more about Golden Eagles, there are a lot of exceptional 

birding guides, but to start you off, I'd recommend this easy to navigate online resource: 

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Batstagram & Show Research

Behold: The Sketch of the Day!