"No Deposite, No Return"

J. Crabb, 1976

Again...and a.....

The print is taking shape...the plex intaglio (hate wiping the thing) is roughly half edition...the small etching has been ready to edition for a year now...and soon the litho. I'm getting a 12" wide by 3" dia. brayer due on Wednesday...what this means?....11" x 12" of band of ink without a lap mark! I am considering adding text to the litho...I'm really hung up on this image...it makes me angry that I have to do it...I would rather be doing escapist art that is just for the imagination or just life stuff...but feel compelled to complete this image and some how get it out there...anyway...

BUSH

During the first gulf war (Bush 1) I started working on this image...titled "again...and a..." and after all this time I am finally getting ready to pull the editions...now W wants to start a war with Mexico...or at least get out all the support he can from the bigots he can...divide and conquer...any thing to distract from this administrations total incompetance and criminality...the "free press" finally figures out thier phones are monitored...duh...your either with us or against us...since Ws ratings are down to 29%....this must mean the other 71% of us are down and dirty terrorist...and have no rights...period...this is getting all to real

Again....

A summer like spring day...the sun came up and then went away...slipping on the horizon between tree trunks...crimson...a flitting inferno...natural drama...I caught mouse and set him free.

Found this on the inside of a matchbook that I had written in the 80s:

"How to turn Yellow into Midnight"

That's all.

So...I'm 59 years and 23hours, 35minutes old....and so it goes...tick tock...tick...tock...Bill the horse let me clean the pine tree needles out of his tail yesterday...Bill is 16 and considering he is not my horse this was a break threw...he considers me his stupid human. His owner comes for 15 to 20 minutes each day and feeds Bill and his pasture partner, Gator. Bill is in charge...I've learned that you have to acknowledge Bills' position because when I was not Gator was getting nipped just about everytime I walked out to the fence...so now that Bill and I have an understanding it is a lot easier to spend some time with Gator. Stupid Human...every morning...morning = one hour after I get up...I split an apple with Bill and Gator plus some dried bread pieces I cut up the day before...Bill gets the last bite...ALWAYS....this is really important...anyway if my morning is closer to their afternoon feeding they will walk to the feed bag and bowl and turn their back sides to me...at first they would repeat this...to them I've two legs and two arms and I should be able to walk into the barn...so I get the stupid human treatment...I was supposed to work on a painting today...somehow today is 22 minutes away from becoming yesterday...has not happened yet...did stack some rocks....

So much for the mouse...it will be spring soon and I will hopefully be able to trap and release it...before others discover its exsistance...I found the tamp transcript...thirty four years old now...so the task is to edit or not edit...you have to remember that was before spell checkers...I finished needling a new plate (etching) and have started another plus have a second state of another to proof...means I have to unpack the press and the ferric chloride...Soooooo how do you impeach an administration...babble on Jimmy...but no...I think I'll sleep on it...good night.

A Mouse

A mouse. Two words taken on there own could conjure up any number of mental images...but this mouse has decided it wants to live in this house. It did not bring a cage, feeding dish, or a water container...nor bedding...nor its own food. So I am considering eviction...the means still eludes me...I like to think "I come in peace"...and so does the mouse...a fellow traveler on this swirling, spinning round ball we call earth...a mere speck (the earth) in what we know so far of this thing we call the universe. A mouse....bedtime for me...breakfast time for mouse...tbc...

August 29,2001

J.Crabb 2001

Wandering, stumbling, sometimes running...

Through the cob webs of my mind

Finding little things stuck to the silken thread

I smile softly

In the distant, a flower, a feather, a golden star

Beyond and above glowing day and night

You...smiling softly

(For Dina)

Glass Ants
by
J. Crabb
©2005

"the sky in the bottle was cloudy."
Donna Marie, June 15, 2211

Most people here tie ants to the leaves of their banana trees for luck during the rainy season. No one remembers why this is done. No one in his or her right mind would dare to question it. This is just how it is here.
It was only last year that Ted decided that ants were just too difficult to tie to the leaves of the banana trees. They wiggled, fell apart and some of the larger ants did bite. Ted had many trees. His wife was very clever with her hands. Ted talked her into making the glass ants yet just below the surface of her thoughts was a feeling of dread. So she made many little ants from glass beads and the whiskers of the countless mice caught in Teds' well placed traps. Ted would then let the mice go which lead to many rumors about whiskerless mice invading the dome.
"Ah" thought Ted, his glass ants tied and true for the day, nothing to do but relax. Maybe he could reorganize his zialic collection. This was not to be. On the third night of the second week of ant tying Ted fell down the basement steps...backwards. His wife found him, his neck broken and covered from head to foot with hundreds of zialics and glass ants.
She ran from the house screaming, "The glass ants! The glass ants!" She would never be the same. Some say she took every bead she had ever made and buried them somewhere deep in the forest. The old folks just sat around and shook their heads. They all had many stories of those who had chosen to find a way around the ant tying. The endings all tragic, yet...there must be a way!

T.A.M.P. #3

© J. Crabb,1975

Artist: J.Crabb
Title: T.A.M.P. #3
Media: etching and aquatint
Image Size: 6" x 5"
Papier:De Arches Cover buff
Size:15" x 11"
Edition: 1/20 - 20/20 A/P:1/1
Misc. Info: 2 plate colour

plates destroyed

The TAMP manuscript is still lost in a maze of cardboard boxes. Still other things are happening and of course in cyberspace one is almost expected to wander in the confines of ones own mind and just let things ooze out...like that word...ooze...even looks interesting...lets try it upper case: OOZE...that is even better!

Well maybe I’ve just had to much free time to stare at clouds or something like that….but the question that keeps popping up in my head was (has) the NSA been rearranged as was the petiagon…when folks disagreed there a handpicked special unit was created to match fact with fantasy…and has since vanished from view. The NSA could be worse…my mind wanders to the last election and the “your either with us or against us”…that would make any oppostion to this administration “a threat to national security”…the dots may be fuzzy but given past excesses of this president and the NSA top secret status on documents and activities…it concerns me.

The Trans-Atlantic Mud Puddle...once it was...then the sun came out...it reappeared as mindless prose and later became a site title for my visual art works (works of art...some were work...some never worked and the rest seem to come and go). So I had intended to reproduce the original prose but having just moved haven't been able to find it (yet). So this is the first post in a blog...for me...so from here I wonder where it will go. 2006 who ever thought...

Jim Crabb...aka J. Crabb