Art with my Kids

"Underground Revitalization", co-created when Liam was 9 years old

   I am very fortunate to have two VERY creative kids. My son Liam has been doodling on paper with me since he was able to hold a pencil. Our first collaborations began shortly after that, when he instructed me to "decorate my picture daddy"...so LiaMarx became an entity then and there. We have continued working together...however, once he became a teen and established his own visual-voice...he did not want me modifying his work. So, we shifted the co-creations from visual art to a writing. Now we have begun conjuring own own original tales; we must have compiled over a dozen stories so far. Hopefully we can publish our work someday soon.

"Water Breathers", co-created when Liam was 8 years old

    My Daughter Paige also has the creative spark. Arguably, she has an even stronger visual muse than her brother...and perhaps even me. She compulsively draws every day...easily going through a ream of print paper on a regular basis. I have posted some of her very first sketches with me (PaigeMarx), so her primordial vignettes are very ethereal...even visceral in origin. This made my alterations more abstracted...more surreal...more dada-ish. She also has continued her own narrative path...scoring her own toons and comics in a unique visual style.

"Green-Cookie" co-created when Paige was 4 years old

"Candy Thorn" co-created when Paige was 5 years old

   Later on, I will post their own "unembellished" work (if they give me permission). They are a bit more guarded than their old man.

"Monster Heads", 2011 & 2012, Sculpey, glass beads, and acrylic paint mounted on a wood base

"Vampire Trophy" 2011
photography by Seth Benson

   These heads are derivative of trophies one might have after a hunt. Of course they are injected with the same dose of whimsey and satire typically seen in most of my character designs. The initial idea for these stemmed from a sculpting workshop I gave...it  was only to last 3 days so I had to conceive of method that could be rapidly sculpted, fired, and painted. Taxidermy monster heads seemed to be the best fit.

   Each piece was formed over an aluminum foil core; Sculpey(TM) served as the sculptural vehicle. I wanted to include slightly "realistic" eyes because sculpted eyes are often too "lifeless". The vampire's ears were formed over thick cardboard cutouts. I wanted to make him appear older and battle-scarred, so I placed a long fleshy trench down his face over his left eye. His scale is approximately 9" x 12". I mounted him to the stained wood base with Liquid Nails.
   "Glob" is supposed to be the remnant of a viscious/viscous cyclops warrior; I wanted it to appear to be still oozing. His eye, (like the vampire's) has a hole punched deep into the head.  It was painted black prior to firing to give the impression of a pupil. Since the glass is green, I treated it like it was pure iris (no sclera).

"Glob" 2012
photography by Kristina Phillips

   I haven't created a sculptural piece in a while now; but it is time to makes plans to jump back into it again soon.

"Sol" and "Luna", 2010 acrylic on manikin forms

Sol and Luna as seen at the Litchford Gallery Show
now owned by Liz Gray

  This was an experiment I must try again. A while back, I had bought these manikin forms online (actually  the unpainted forms hung in my bedroom for over a year). After getting motivated for a group show at a makeshift gallery in Litchford Village and an upcoming solo show at the Atomic Salon I decided the time was right to finally inundate/liberate/elucidate the forms. With a plethora of contemplation (and yes procrastination) the theme would  be derived from reciprocity...terrestrial/celestial...male/female...day/night...aridity/fecundity...phallic/vulvar.
  The male form was to be earth-bound...xerotes...Prometheus chained for his deeds of fire. The iconic buttes of Monument Valley served as a perfect setting for maleness...testosterone laden cowboys...phallic projections thrust upwards from a desolate terrain/physique like a sublime Calvin Klein underwear ad. Sol looms high in the sky with a manly tattooed arrogance...the sky is certainly cloudy with threatening rains/reins/reigns. The time is high noon...time for vultures and unfinished violence.
  Juxtaposed with a slightly more diminutive proportion, Luna floats effortlessly in an umbrageous sky. A fertile treeline silhouette offered up in a sensuous/sinuous undulation...with a low-cut panties seductiveness. Quiet...moist...reflective...luminous stardust scattered around mother moon...snuggled within clandestine breasts. Luna is the heart, the soul/sole illumination within the dark of night. Primipara...matron...lover...intimate...nurturer...reflector...guardian of the empyrean gate.
  ? Have you noticed that both forms possess ironically capped hooks...things that hold up the forms...support them...secure them...bind their backs against the wall...leave them hanging. Perhaps that is the grandest gesture of all as it is revealed/reveled/reviled/re-veiled between the sexes. Not knowing...yet yearning to do so.

Bugaboo Portraits

   I love Monsters!
    There has to be some psychogenic implications at work here. Seriously, what drives me (and many like me) to be captivated by these fear-evoking creatures? Perhaps it is a way of emasculating the fears we herald in our heads. By evoking dreadful imagery and horrific imaginings we take control of them...we trivialize their power over us...construe a way for us to understand our own anxieties. Whatever the reason...I am fascinated by this genre and return to it time and time again.
   My own formulaic tendency is to inject a healthy dose of whimsy into fearsome creatures. Perhaps this buffers the blow...certainly it trivializes the horror even more. Maurice Sendak, Dr. Seuss, Charles Addams, Tony DiTerlizzi, Gahan Wilson, Brian Froud, Basil Woverton, Edward Gorey, plus local artists CJ Calvin and Eric Knisley...these are the inspirations for me. They add just the right ingredients to make the most appetizing recipe...satire + gore + witticism to make a delicious serving of macabre illustrative mastery. I strive to emulate their essence...nibble at their aesthetic substance...cite their authoritative magical inspirations. Here is a spattering of several older images to exemplify my ramblings:

Bugaboo Tag, amalgamated sketches, date? ink/digital

Monster Lineup (LiaMarx) 2008 my son Liam's childhood sketches with my embellishments 

Wooley Booger and HippoRex, 2008, Ink/Acrylic/Digital

I plan on continuing this theme for the next posting.

"Snow Gateau"

   Gateau means "various rich and elaborate cakes". Isn't that  what life is all about...adorn and dine...enjoy the varied flavor supposals...motleyed myriads of delicious daubed decor...spread thick...textured insipidity. Snow and sweet baked confections can be easily construed into life's trivial-complexities...our omega-inceptions. Cold and luscious...robust and delicate...easily formed and easily deformed.

   I seem to be compelled or drawn to snowmen. I have been sketching/painting/sculpting them for a long time...perhaps it is their relatively spherical proportions or possibly their gnarled limbs...possibly they have mythical/psychological implications...their naive forms offer up boundless potentiality. For whatever reason they fascinate me and I find them popping up in my art often. My passion predated seeing Bill Watterson's gloriously illustrated and demented snowmen massacres in Calvin and Hobbes...and those brilliant panels still startle me with their genius...still enrapture me with aesthetic envy...still inspire me...still make me giggle.

Demented Snow-menclature, date? ink on paper/digitally enhanced

   This composition has been digitally stitched together from 3 separate unrelated sketchbook pages. The dates each were created is a mystery to me, but I conjecture that they are at least 5-7 years old. I can't help thinking of the snowman sliding along in Rudolph's snow milieu or how the electric shaver glides along in the old Norelco  commercial...my gentle-snowman locomotes in this world much the fashion, as he interacts with the other spiny inhabitants.
   Soon I will flesh out these audacious snow critters in Sculpey. They seem to be needing/wanting to be broken out in other dimensions...their festering forms are ready to be unveiled in 3D. I can't wait to have my cake and gleet it too.

"Sketchbook Entropy" date unknown, mixed media on paper

   Sketchbooks define me more than any medium; these amassed visions function as a cathartic diary, a conceptual playground, a media laboratory, and an incognizable soliloquy. I obsess...ruminate over each page...each piece is derived individually, but oftentimes one might discern a coherency of style or at least see a concordant series of cosmetic applications amongst the pages.
   These little experimental clusters began way back in college with an assignment to "fill an entire sketchbook in a semester". My professor was Clarence Morgan, an talented abstract expressionist and brilliant mentor; his extraordinary visionary style and penetrating critiques made an indelible "mark" on me. His classroom challenge entailed putting  together over 100 individual pages in a 9" x 12" hardbound sketchbook (set alongside my normal coursework responsibilities)...any medium was game...all pages needed to be "compositionally" consummate. It became a gauntlet I wholeheartedly took up. Little did I realize then, that I would continue on with this challenge for 20 + years...Clarence became a scintillating Johnny Appleseed to me.
   Here is a random...somewhat more obscure entry. It began with a stochastic rip from a yellow pages heading (a nearly defunct advertising vehicle)...I noticed the weird header and it set my mind to reeling. I grabbed some Elmer's glue and pasted the shredded pieces together. Slowly the oddly serendipitous title  pushed out a visual...the contradictory wording conjured up a vision of microscopic stitching...post-hypnotic promptings...mesmerisms with malicious volition...advertisements injected into our psyche just below the threshold of perception...jaundiced stitching onto our method of thought.
   "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" ~Karl Marx~

"The Rock", 1998 Ink

   This is an older piece/peace of mine/mind. It attests to be somewhat of a personal iconic metaphor for me. Now after numerous years of retrospection, I can see the subliminal interrogations ebbing forth...I can now grok the child it was...and has grown into being. Here are my penitent disclosures.
   Notice the shape...elevated above the plain/plane...it rises up to see the world, the lurking predators. It rises up to stand ready to move, narcissistically proud to be recognized...to not be left behind. Is it stacked and cemented or weathered and eroded from a volcanic ebullition. Really, this rock is a rectangle...an abhorrent geometric contention left to defy the elements.
  The rock has connotations of the strong religious upbringing I weathered...there is no animosity in that statement...perhaps a healthy dose of cynicism, but no real christian misanthropy. I left that theosophical path behind me numerous years ago, and have grown to realize faith is a subjective mental representation...a make-believe template for behavioral modification. However, the echoing philosophical remnants still emerge at times...those eternal punishments in Hell metaphors shake my inner child at times...weaken my soul-idity...weather my objectiveness.
   Perhaps this is where the cave comes in. It appears to be a Delphic passage...the mysterious portal to another realm. The enigma lays ahead of us...shall we climb the vines to see? Are these meandering flora the fruitless remnants of knowledge...of life. Why does this withered wellspring call me? Why am I so hypnotized by its beckoning depth? I yearn  to feel the dulcet stones, to bear on and cling to their aplomb surfaces...to find my destiny.