A study of my own -

"Christina II"
colored pencil drawing by Mick Mather

Rob D'Agostino popped into my office on Monday for a blog tutorial. Afterward we took a tour of the 10 Totem Project sculptures scattered around downtown Syracuse, New York before getting lunch and heading to my other office at The Warehouse. While we were walking it came up that I promised to post a few studies of my own - accomplished at the class that Rob and I attended for many, many years. As I was checking back through the files of scanned images from one of my sketchbooks I found a piece that makes perfect sense when considering his blog and our connected, shared past ... here then, is one of my drawings, Rob's daughter, Christina.

A Vision and a little bit of Visioning -

"The Public Sculpture"
$50 Unframed - LUCAS GALLERY
digitally manipulated photograph by Mick Mather

This post is all about a public sculpture series that I've spoken of briefly before. At this stage there are five designs on the drawing table - one of which nearly squeaked past The Totem Project panel in the last RFP round at the end of July. Apparently, my support material offered too many choices and the group much preferred two other designs over the one proposed. I'll choose one of those and re-submit for the October round. Anyway, while it's always a treat to have one of the fairer sex included, this piece is all about the original sculpture - superimposed just to the right of the tree. My goal is to have all five (perhaps more!) in this series placed around the City. :)

Crazy Ivan -

"Two Women"
digitally manipulated torn paper collage

In Tom Clancy's novel, "The Hunt For Red October", there comes a point where Jack Ryan asks if the Russian Captain has pulled a Crazy Ivan yet. In military gamesmanship, this refers to a sudden 90-degree turn meant to discover and discourage another submarine from being a successful shadow. As it turns out, I did a Crazy Ivan of my own last night when I spotted some scraps of torn newspaper in the recycling bin - left over while clipping out a recent article in the local papers regarding the Totem Project in downtown Syracuse. Anyway, they were begging to be tossed onto the scanner bed and then run through the usual array here at the secret visual laboratory. It was fun, relaxing and it is what it is. It also happens to be exactly what I needed at that moment.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Lab -

"Reinventing the Wheel I"
$50 Unframed - LUCAS GALLERY
digital collage by Mick Mather

As I mentioned last week, I went on a binge of development work for another Totem Project proposal. While I was comfortably ensconced at the Secret Visual Laboratory with the mouse in one hand and a glass of Courvoissier, straight up, in the other, another series of works popped out. The piece you see here is destined to become a large painting...4' X 8' as I currently see it. I know, I know, I've talked about turning images into paintings before and the likelihood of it actually happening anytime soon is still as suspect as my good intentions. I thought you might like to see it and it stands alone as a digital print anyway - remember, most of my work can be purchased for $50 through Lucas Gallery Online.