Ponchartrain

Friday follies. That’s what they said years ago during a war that shall not be named. It meant that the generals held press conferences in which they lied to, and gaslight, America.

The made statements like, “In order to save the village we had to destroy it.” Does that make any sense at all?

My follies are a little different.

I do ridiculous things to what were once photographs in search of art. Sometimes I find it. Mostly, I don’t. I’m not sure about this one.

I’d like your opinions.

I’ll say that this is a plant. A Sword something or other. I started working on this one late at night. I just kept going. More about that in the other column.

There are times when I like to experiment and wander around. There are other times when I head straight to the image. No turns. No experiments. My best experiments usually come late at night when I’m tired, and my brain is off. I just react to whatever I see on the screen.

That’s a lot like I work in the street. Pure Zen. Turn off my brain and just react. Try it sometime. You might be amazed at your work. I usually am. I often wonder who took the picture. It might be so good that I’m sure it wasn’t me.

That’s what I’m after.

This image was a photograph.

Once.

I started tinkering with it. Soon it didn’t look like a photograph but it didn’t look like this.

Somewhere along the line my brain clicked off. Then, it clicked back on.

The picture was at the point that you are seeing now.

You know what I thought about?

Art that we did when we were children. Remember?

We’d color a sheet of paper with every color in the Crayon box. Then, we’d cover that in black. Finally, we’d etch out the black and make art that had colorful markings next to the black.

That’s what this looks like to me.

I made it back to my childhood.

Finally.