All At Once with Trap Doors

All At Once with Trap Doors, mixed media by Douglas Brent Smith

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Deep Thinker Thinking

Deep Thinker Thinking, drawing by douglas Brent smith, December 2001, from Journal #35, Mission Control, Volume Two, 2001 - 2002. Drawing helps me think. Thinking, sometimes, draws me to draw. It amazes me how few adults draw at all. Somewhere along the line in childhood they just stopped. We should all draw more and more often. Pencil, pen, crayon, whatever you've got. Instead of scrolling tonight, spend that time drawing a picture. Instead of wasting your time and feeling bad about it you've have a picture you can feel good about. It doesn't have to be great, it just has to be yours.

User Agreement Rider

Do you like reading and committing to User Agreements? Of course you don't. They are pure rubbish. .Designed to make you read them, but written so that you can't read them (because they are confusing and massively too long) we mostly end up pretending that we did read them just to get on with whatever we want to do. Not fair. Not designed to be fair. Designed to cover the butts of the people who wrote the User Agreement and to restrict the rest of us from being ourselves, from doing what we want and need to do, and from exercising our rights. In a perfect world, all of those user agreements are unenforceable. Maybe, even in an imperfect world. Is it really an agreement if we don't agree to it? If we don't have any influence on what goes INTO an agreement, how is THAT an agreement? Enough! We need some sanity. I hereby propose a universal User Agreement Rider to invoke whenever you've had enough of an evil User Agreement. No lawyers have been involved in the drafti...

Lighter Than Air

Lighter Than Air - acrylic painting by Douglas Brent Smith, November 1976. Notes: I don't have every painting I've ever painted. Some years ago I purged many of them. I like this one, though, and have it hanging in my apartment. It's whimsical. It's a painting in a painting. It has a top hat. It has balance, a candle, even a drop of blood. What else could you want in a painting?

Not Obsolete

Things -- and people -- well cared for need not go obsolete. Getting tired of something is a choice. Discarding the old is a choice. While we should continually improve ourselves, our materials, our technology, there is still value in preserving what lives on with quality. That great guitar. That classic car. That recipe that still tastes good. There was an episode of "The Twilight Zone" on this week about "Obsolete." Burgess Meredith plays a librarian who in some autocratic society had been judged (under penalty of death) as obsolete. The last forbidden book he pulls from hiding, as he awaits his execution, is a Bible. He was not truly obsolete. His value as a being was unquestionable and though thru cleverness he brings his executioner to fear at being himself on the edge of facing his own imminent death, locked in a room with a bomb, the librarian does allow mercy (in God's name) to prevail, setting free his captor even though he himself will perish. Like man...

Better Platforms Coming

When was the last time that you drew anything? Do you remember how joyful it can be? Let go of any goal in drawing and the drawing will claim you, name you, frame you. I had no idea where this drawing was going. Does that make it a doodle? Does it matter. Draw something. Show someone. Save it. Smile. You do not have to, of course. No one can compel you. But, what if it's fun? Better Platforms Coming - sketch by douglas brent smith, 1996

still life

still life -- painting by douglas brent smith

Creating on Illusion

Creating on Illusion - collage by Douglas Brent Smith Where's the illusion? What sleight of hand do we focus on? I think that I made this collage in 1989. That was so long ago and yet, in terms of illusions, not long at all. What do you think?

Terra Cotta

Whatever floats your boat matters. Send yourself on a journey unique to your character, special for your strengths, resilient to your challenges. My dad once made a canoe. He carved it out of a single piece of wood. He told me that it floated, the way a canoe should, but it leaned to one side. I never got in that canoe but I did see it. It's a gift to be able to make things out of wood, even if the first time you try it comes out a little wabi sabi. Terra Cotta - collage by Douglas Brent Smith, 1998, from Journal #33, Life In Progress

Selecting Changes Using the Logical If

Selecting Changes Using the Logical If - collage by douglas brent smith

frequency log

frequency log - collage by douglas brent smith, 1979

douglas brent smith

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