Phoenix Rising: Alexandra Valenti

This is almost too much for me to deal with on a Wednesday morning... Alexandra Valenti has been nailing photoshoots for some time, but this one outstrips them all. 

So beautiful -- edited and embellished perfectly. The colours, light leaks, nature and costume...

I could spend all day looking at this, but, unfortunately... it's back to work for me.

Sepia

Amy Soderlind by Daniel Kinclaid

The country of madness

I've been away for a while... I'm working lots and working on some illustration projects and ideas, so I'll be back soon with more new, colourful, exciting drawing-type things. 

There was also a death in my family and, of course, the ensuing existential crisis and assessment of what is actually important. 

It's probably not the right time to be getting stuck into The Doors of Perception... or maybe it is. 

I'm also going to blame my first real winter for some of my unwillingness to do anything. 

 

But the point of this is... I'm still here, I'm not gone forever! I will be back on board soon enough... and I'm hoping to work on some more interesting, art-based stuff and maybe some more personal content. Hope you can bear with me.

Meanwhile, you can visit me on Instagram (@raychponygold), I'm updating that more frequently. 

Dig xo

 

Funk, Flash, Folk: Earth Age

Images from Native Funk & Flash: An Emerging Folk Art (1974), via Earth Age (more here).

These rad people live in one of Earth Age's vintage 70s books, Native Funk and Flash, which is full of the folk art that was happening in San Francisco around the early-70s. 

It reminded me about my parents, and how I sometimes forget that they were semi-hippies back then too... they were far, far from San Francisco, but my mum spun her own wool and weaved rugs that are still in the lounge room of my parents' house, and my dad can make just about anything out of wood, leather, metal or stone -- and he regularly does. 

I'm glad that some of their creative talents knocked-on to me, but I do worry that our lives are increasingly lived in abstract, intangible ways -- on the internet, phone, television. 

Everything's available, fast, and maybe people forget how to be patient, to focus, to work. 

Well, I don't know... I just know I sure as hell haven't done anything constructive lately.