There was an interesting question on the conlang group today that I wanted to respond to. But as I tend to leave long comments, I decided to add this to my own page, and maybe make a condensed version for the conlang post so I don't come across as a blabber mouth. The question was asking why you conlang. (Conlang means to 'construct' or invent your own language). Here's an answer I'm working on:

I started conlanging when I was a little kid building brightly painted 'countries' with broken bricks, twigs and mud in the yard. I desperately wished to travel to far off lands, such as India, Egypt, Japan, Israel, Italy, France, Arabia, Indonesia, etc... My painted mud creations and invented alphabets made me feel like I was really at the other side of the world. I played with matches for exotic festivals, being very careful my parents didn't find out. I like sci-fi on occasion, but my languages have never been influenced by it ...or by Tolkein, though I understand that Tolkein was an exceptionally creative man, through posts I've read about him on the internet. Perhaps there's a bit of the social anthropologist in me, since my interests revolve around world cultures, philosophy and their art. Another strong pull to languages is my love of systems. I might have become a mechanic, biologist, or physicist as well. As years go by, my curiosity and involvement with systems deepens. I relate to what James posted. It seems to have held true in my case these many years, that the journey takes precedence over the destination. While Tapissary has sat comfortably as a completed language several times during its existence, it gets a grammatical transfusion every so often, to keep the journey in motion. The irony is that my search for the exotic has led me full circle back to my own roots in English. It's not surprising that I came up with a cyclic grammar. I am fascinated with the invisible elements of language. For many years, I've been infusing English with a system that spotlights the physicality and effect of time. I'm thinking of 5 trials: 1. How far can I go beyond the confines of English without crippling it? 2. How much discreet grammar may I add to these 'English' patterns so as to describe Tapissary? 3. Keeping it balanced, so that the grammar doesn't become more 'interesting' or 'central' than the communication itself. 'What' is being said is as important as 'how' it is being said. 4. Keeping the forms simple for linguistic economy. 5. Allowing just enough impracticalities and hypocrisies in the grammar to keep the system spicy.

I had a first time sale at the Zazzle store!. Two cards sold. I hadn't minded having a virtual store front with no sales, since it is fun to make products anyway, and it's a good way to display my work on the internet. But now that two cards have sold, it makes me feel like the merchant of Venticello!



NOTE: for anyone visiting for the Tapissary, I have written out the above paragraph in the glyphic language. Below is the transliteration of the glyphs. I have written them line by line to correlate with the 6 lines of the Tapissary text. Start reading from right to left, then alternate directions each line thereafter:

Some weight brought on a first sale at the zazzle

store! 2 sold cards counted off. I hadn't not not (triple negative) minded having a virtual store

front with no sales, since its craft is fun to drum up products

anyway, and a good way for my display to open up my work on the inter-net.

But now that sales have 2-carded, it makes me

like-the-merchant-of-Venticello'l a feeling.

I didn't realize until late this morning that today is a date composed of a row of eights. 8/8/8. I always like to do something special on interesting numerical dates. Last year, on 7 7 07, I'd made a large adjustment to the cyclic grammar, and called it "Sevens" to commemorate that day. As for the simplified grammar of Tapissary, I came up with the name Base Coat Tapissary, this morning. Then later in the day, taking account of the numerical coincidence, I decided to name the simplified grammar: "Eights".

Recently, I've been writing my entries in Sevens. But for a change, today I'm writing the text in Eights.

I got inspired to make a film based on yesterday's post of a paragraph from Alice and Wonderland. For a long time, I've been wanting to make films about Tapissary, in a way that clarifies its inner workings. I'll have to learn how to best present Tapissary to the viewer by trial and error, so by all means, if you have any feedback, please let me know. Once again, here is the English version, and the transliterated version:

Transliteration: At last the mouse On, who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out, "Yourn sitting down takes this, all of you, and yourn listening heeds me! My act soon will cause you dry enough!" All of their sitting downs settled at once, in a large ring, with the mouse in the middle. Alice's keepance stayed her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would bad coldate a catch if she didn't get dry very soon.






English version: At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out "Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry enough!" They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.


http://www.tapissary.com/art_chikn/caucus/alice1.html

The complete description of this text with the phrases broken down one by one, can be viewed by clicking on the link above.

...

Here's a paragraph from Chapter Three of Alice in Wonderland, concerning the Caucus Race. To illustrate the mouse, I photographed a flooring tile I made at the Topolino Mausoleum in Venticello. It is part of an elaborate tombstone for two mice my cat had caught. Because the text highlights a mouse, I decided to let this little tile serve as the illustration. The original English paragraph is written below the image. But above it is the transliteration in Tapissary. Read that first, before checking the English version, to see how much of it you understand. It may look like nonsense at first, but the choice of vocabulary, use of suffixes, and interchangeable parts of speech, all contribute to defining which coordinate in a cycle the phrase falls. The writing in the image is written Tapissary, of course. The transliteration will allow you to plot the order of the words in the phrases, if you are at all familiar with any of the hieroglyphs. The first line of the text begins reading from left to right, then alternates direction on the next line down, and so it continues snaking its path to the end of the paragraph.

READ ME FIRST
Transliteration: At last the mouse On who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out, "Yourn sitting down takes this, all of you, and yourn listening heeds me! My act soon will cause you dry enough!" All of their sitting downs settled at once, in a large ring, with the mouse in the middle. Alice's keepance stayed her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would bad coldate a catch if she didn't get dry very soon.


Click on the image above to enlarge it. Once enlarged, you may click yet another time, and it will grow again to full size.


READ ME LAST
English version: At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out "Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry enough!" They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.

I'm experimenting with calligraphy. This is the beginning of a sentence which will read: Tapissary is my invented language. (lit. Tapissary's charge holds my invented language). These are the first two glyphs: Tapissary's Charge. I rolled out some clay into ropes with which to sculpt the characters. The next step was to photograph the clay glyphs. Then I made alterations on photoshop. This is my first study. Eventually I want to see if I can achieve a transleucent plastic effect.

Here is another of my clay dioramas. I made this Balinese inspired group of musicians about the same time as I made the European singers (see earlier post).

Thank you udon_chow for your feedback. Here is another shot I took of my sculpture this morning. I got some blurring in the photo, but it is a closer view. If you click on this image, it will take you to a larger version.

These 'cows' are from sometime around the early '90's. I made them with an oven bake clay... and for the past 15 years or so, they've still been singing the same song. Serious musicians.

I love this dry erase board. As I work out certain design principles of Tapissary, I feel more spontaneous with a dry erase board than with paper. Practice writing a phrase over and over helps me determine what balance I'm after, so you will see many repeated sentences here, with a sense of intended variation. The other nice thing I'm discovering about the board is how you can erase with a light touch, leaving behind ghostly remnants of previous scribbles. This gives the board a more painterly look, and layering is one of my favorite things to do.

One of my LiveJournal friends, udon-chow, had suggested I check out redbubble.com. I think the definition is better somehow on images posted there. Maybe it's high definition... I don't know much about technicalities. Since joining, I've posted about 6 works. Many people seems to offer their works for sale through redbubble, though I haven't done that yet. While the greatest portion of the artwork is conventional, which is true of the internet in general, the system for finding like minded artists is helped along by the favorite buttons on redbubble. Once you find a page of work you like, you can click on that person's favorite buttons to see if any of their friends' icons hold an interest for you. In that way, you're lead via images to narrow down to a style and subject you like.



I posted this landscape on my redbubble page. It's an ink drawing of a landscape in the hills. I drew it on site. I added the oil pastel color over the ink. If you'd like to see my work on redbubble, type moltencrayons into the search box.

I was inspired by udon_chow's Dreamz Boudoir on Zazzle, which I discovered on her LiveJournal page, and decided to set up one for myself. It's a shop where you can sell your images or writings on practical items such as t shirts, mugs, mouse pads and the like. Zazzle lets the artist/writer set their own commission on top of Zazzle's base price for each item. They take care of all the financial transactions and the shipping. I've set my commission at the lowest amount, which is 10%, to encourage sales. However, if you want to open your own store, you can set the commission anywhere from 10% to 99%. Did I mention that registration is free? You can customize your store, or use a template. Seems like a good deal to me.

Please click on the buy button, and it will take you to my storefront. Clicking the BUY button does not obligate you to buy. It simply shows you options for my products, such as shirt sizes, styles and colors. You can also choose from a variety of mug styles, etc... Then, you decide to buy or not. There's no salesman pressure on Zazzle.


make custom gifts at Zazzle

Also from around 1997, here is an ink sketch I did of an angel at the LACMA museum. I set up a chair in front of the statue and went about my work. After the ink was laid in, I began rubbing in the color with oil pastels.



Notice the box of text in the upper right area of the drawing. I often took notes in Tapissary about the pieces I drew.

I believe this oil pastel is from around 1997. The young man who modeled is Barry, who was a performance artist. Everyday, he would change something about his physical appearance. Each time he came to pose at the drawing workshop, we knew he would take on a different look - a change of hair color, a radical change of hair style, a beard, a mustache, etc. Posing in the nude, and not having clothing as a prop, he was able to manage these identity variations all in the face and head. Barry took photos of himself everyday with a polaroid camera. Then he displayed hundreds of the shots in an exhibit to chart his transformations.



Though you cannot tell by my drawing, Barry had an ideal physique and perfectly clear skin. I concentrated on his exotic nature by drawing fields of design on my first layer of ink sketching. Then I built up the colors with oil pastel, and probably wax crayon. The pose might suggest a blend of Pre-columbian and Mannerist styles. It's one of my favorites among my old drawings.

This is a wax drawing of a statue that I drew sometime in the late 90's. I was doing a small series with dark pigment, though the statue itself is white.

For a little change from my pastels, I'm adding this miniature oil painting I did sometime in the late 90's. It's a still life I set up in my studio. It is painted on either a square of brass or copper. I don't remember which. The slick surface of the metal allows for the rendering of finer details. At the time, I had been taking a painting class with a teacher of contemporary taste. I remember his disgust in my piece because it recalls some previous century. Instead of telling me directly that this was not acceptable, he made a general comment that all 19th century art should be burnt.





He succeeded, over the semester, in making me so confused about what I wanted to paint, and what I should paint, that for a decade after I have often been hesitant and very uncomfortable painting. I know that his direction is experienced and apt, but some of it is also immature. He doesn't distinguish between his personal taste, and that of others. His voice and mine were wrapped in some kind of perpetual duel. Perhaps that's a good thing on the long run, because to overcome it will require strength and commitment. I've already been committed, and the strength is its slow but sure companion. I need to take the valuable teachings without throwing myself away in the process. Balance and confidence. I assume this is a life long assignment.

This sketch was done during a life drawing workshop in 1997. For several years, some of my favorite materials for sketching were oil pastels, charcoal pencil, beeswax, and wax sticks. I used them in all sorts of combinations. My art material box was nothing less than a trash heap, though somehow, I usually managed to find the colors and material I needed for each drawing.




While sketching at a workshop where the model/s took several poses during the session, I would often draw one pose near, or overlapping another. That was probably the case in this example.

This oil pastel sketch is from '97. It is based on a painting from LACMA's collection. I altered the colors a lot, but don't remember if I also changed the composition. At any rate, it was not meant to be close to the original.



I used the original painting as a point of departure for experimenting with light and color.

This morning, I've been going through my drawings from 1996 - 98. I'm going to photograph some of them, and post them day by day... or week by week. As I work on my new drawing projects which are more subtle in color, I can refer back to some of my previous sketches which were usually more bold. Some of the works are copies of museum paintings, but most by far, are from life drawing workshops.

This first piece, in ink and oil pastel, is a composite of poses depicting one of my friends, Kim. It dates to 1997.