Hide & Seek

It took over a month for Isatella & the Master of the Silver Catfish to emerge from their boreal surroundings so I am calling this one "Hide & Seek." Perhaps my most whimsical watercolor yet...

Eye Land

Sometimes I think about this very old alien Muppet trapped on a tropical island playing an ethereal accordion. Sometimes I can't get his haunting music out of my head. Is it a self-portrait? Maybe, but not mine. I mean it is the nature of art to blur reflection and introspection. It is at the heart of human nature to define your own reality. All art is a self-portrait in one way or another.

 

Open Mined

"Open Mined," digital art by M. D. Friedman

The Shaman Meets the Alien

The Shaman & the Alien
Tells the story of their legendary first meeting in the Fall of 1858 near what is now Pilar, New Mexico.

Burgundy Wink

"Burgundy Wink," digital art by M. D. Friedman

A Drinking Song

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 

Wine comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That’s all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh.

Dogged

This one is called "Dogged".  No photographs were harmed in the process of making this piece.

If you are enjoying my art postings and would like to see them as I make them, please "like" my artist page on FaceBook at www.facebook.com/mdfriedmansart.

Which Came First

The age-old question finally answered through the magic of digital painting.

He Knew

Something a little different from by digital paint brush.  I hope you like it.  More at www.mdfriedman.com.

Bird's Eye View

My latest digital painting.  The pixels are still wet.

It's called "Bird's Eye View."

It's about magical healing.

More at www.americanframe.com/artist/mark-friedman.aspx

Algal Bloom, a Digital Painting by M. D. Friedman

The inspiration for this piece came from being locked into an eye to eye connection with an alpha frog in a nearby wetlands. I was enjoying the connection, feeling his wildness, as we somehow morphed together in a primordial forest, very peaceful yet somehow always underneath what I normally perceive as the wetlands...

More at www.mdfriedman.com.

Girl Braiding Hair

Girl Braiding Hair

She combs her hair as if to untangle
the tussle of his touch, powders plum skin
still stinging from his grizzled tentacle,
over is over when the pain begins.

Elderberry lips are smeared red to hide
the ache, and the baby that was to be,
a hated thing, no longer lives inside,
over is over, at last she writhes free.

Emerging from tide pools, how her eyes swell,
gleam blue, brim briny with bright tears of no;
her anguish, a warped lens, a fractured shell,
over is over wherever she goes.

Easy enough to layer a right hand
full of hair limp on the wild red rope held
snug by left, hand upon hand upon hand,
over is over, when love's flame is quelled.

Not so simple now to grab another fist
full of life, or to be braided again,
when what blooms and wrenches within is missed,
over is over when twisted hurt ends.

    

I chose to write on “Girl Braiding Hair” because I have always been haunted by the sensuality of Renoir’s work. According to Tama Garb, the renowned art historian, Renoir was known as "above all, the painter of women." The women he painted were often pictured as simultaneously innocent, provocative, pensive, alluring, enticing and unattainable. Perhaps it was these qualities of feminine allure and beauty that inspired Robin Dodge to create “Girl Braiding Hair” after the fashion of a Renoir woman. It is also such qualities in women that inspired poet, W. B. Yeats, to some of his greatest work. Although I admire and have always been inspired by the fine craftsmanship of his poetry, I have never attempted, until now, to write in the style of W. B. Yeats. It was, therefore, a wonderful challenge to have this opportunity to seriously emulate this poet I have always believed to be one of the greatest of all time.

Hushed

- in response to Bea Bulter's watercolor painting, Untitled




the sputtering cyclone of


the golden ghost of hope


curls like the smoking promise


around a glowing womb


rubs the nerve raw


opens to the dawning


shadowed forge of life


a lens of black flame


focuses the whirling circle of pain


into a screaming vortex of mirror shard


the lightening claw


of dreamed desire


hushed in misted silence


 

On Works by Helen Brader

Ancient Words

nothing to say
nothing more to see
the throbbing emptiness
of molding words
the chapel of a broken soul
darkness squeaking with light




Opening

begging to begin again
sucked through the graying door
the smoldering storm of it
pierces the muscled grain of stick
deep within its core
reaching into ragged root
dank with musky lust
the twisted branch
seared to its bright quick
draws me through my shadow
sews me into the skin of earth
a heart embroidered with peace

Red Motion

- in response to Mark Jorden's photograph of the same name




blurred into vivid line


the stainless pipe


caves in on itself


falls into the tired vase


sheds its casing like a cracked cricket

Red Alert

- in response to Wendy Rochman's political word art sculpture Alert




alert


Bush's mind


is missing a few pieces


the thorny stem


is missing its rose


blood gurgles out thick as oil


in the name of


Republican fraud