Subverting the Dreadful Normal: Coming to the Pacific Grove Art Center this November 2022

Yes, it's still five weeks away, but I'm already excited and busy preparing for my solo exhibit in Pacific Grove Art Center's Annand Gallery.

Please mark your calendars: Artist’s reception on Friday, November 4, 2022 between 7 and 9 PM PST. My solo exhibit runs through December 15.

Also great news: Monterey Peninsula Art Foundation will be having its member exhibition in PGAC’S adjoining Gill gallery during November. Both my wife Karen Warwick and I are members . In fact, Karen’s work will be on display there as well.

The Pacific Grove Art Center is located at 568 Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove, California. The PGAC is open Wednesday through Saturday between 12 and 5 PM, and Sunday between 12 and 4 PM. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Newsletter subscribers will receive reminders as we get closer to the show. I’d be overjoyed to see you there.

New Website In the Works

Ten years ago when I built this website we were still in the midst of the so-called Great Recession. Hopefully, we're not looking towards a new recession. What I am looking forward to is a bright and shiny rebuild of this website.

The site has gotten long-in-the-tooth in a decade. My here-and-there tweaks will no longer suffice for the complex demands made of an e-commerce site. I'm enlisting the aid of Monterey Bay Design to do a complete overhaul:

Secure online purchases of original art and prints enabled;
Enhanced data privacy and security;
Optimized visibility on the worldwide web;
ADA compliant;
and best of all --
a dynamic bold interface to best showcase portfolios of my dynamic and bold cultural subversive art!

Stay tuned.

Happy Birthday, Rosa Bonheur!

When I was a seventeen-year-old studying art at New York’s Fiorello La Guardia High School of Music and the Arts, I experienced what some may call a “spiritual” (or “mystical” “religious” or what some may even consider a "psychotic") event. Whatever one calls it, it was an event so intensely compelling and profound as to guide me from my time as a moody emotional teen art student through the various messes I’d make in my life in the following half century.

Using word, image and animation* I’ve attempted over the years to sensuously describe this as it happened to me. I haven’t yet succeeded, and I won’t duplicate those attempts here. Perhaps ‘ineffable’ is the only word applicable.

For some, such an event happens in a desert, forest, monastery or on the road to Damascus. For me it occurred in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as I gazed on the massive painting, The Horse Fair.

The artist was Rosa Bonheur. She was a French artist of the Nineteenth Century born in 1822. March 16 is her birthday. She primarily painted animals, but was also a realist sculptor. There is much to be said about the person of Rosa Bonheur in her historical, social as well as artistic roles.  Perhaps I’ll say more about her in the near future.

If an artist could make such a painting that could swallow up the viewer and deposit them at heaven’s door, then I wanted to learn to make such paintings - the thought took root in my psyche that day fifty-one years ago. I haven’t succeeded at that yet, either.

But thank you, Rosa, for being the channel through which I received this lifetime quest; and thank you to the City of New York and LaGuardia High School for the monthly museum passes that allowed me and other students to experience such bliss. Educators take note - art changes lives.

Please write and tell me about your spiritual and psychic encounters with the ineffable.

André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

*When I was a graphic design student at California State University Monterey Bay, my emphasis was in digital animation. In this video from more than a decade ago I took advantage of a class project for one such attempt to describe my experience as sensuous and immediate.

First Post on Dream Work

Our psyche speaks to us in many ways. A significant one for me as an artist and creative is through the symbols of dreams. This is my first post on dream work.

For me, even though my dreams seem to transcend time and space -- such as when I speak with my dead parents at various ages in their lives, or I'm thirteen years old again in the back of the school bus, etc., -- I think they're also intimately connected with my present day life. Although I may present fantastic or dreamlike images in my artwork, I try to link these to present day concerns. This same concept holds for great science fiction, whether literary or cinematic.

In my opinion there are no "bad dreams". Even nightmares are useful and informative. In my own life if I'm refusing to face something in my waking life my psyche will talk louder and louder in my dreams to get my attention until I do.

One of many books I've found useful is Inner Work: Using Dreams & Active Imagination For Personal Growth by Robert A. Johnson. He's a Jungian author (He; She; We; Ecstasy; Femininity Lost and Regained) who writes about understanding dream symbols and images to enrich our waking experiences

 Anyone out that there have ideas on these? I’d love to hear from you. Please comment below or drop me a line.

Karen Warwick Art at The Cherry

Several of my friends and fellow artists are participating in the "Face It: Artists' Portraits" exhibit at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, located at 4th and Guadalupe in Carmel-By-the-Sea, California.

My dear wife and closest collaborator Karen Warwick is participating there also with her  painting Song of Artemis. If you're unable to visit the Monterey Bay area, you can view the exhibit online at the link above. Please visit Karen's website to view her other work.

The Cherry is open Wednesday to Friday, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Saturday 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm. I hope you'll get to see them all. The "Face It" exhibit runs through Saturday, February 19, 2022. A closing reception is scheduled for between 1 and 3 PM. Come and meet the exhibit artists; and I'll be there, too.

What's Up For 2022?

Christmas 2021 has come and gone; and 2022 is a few days away. Here’s a preview of upcoming changes.

This E. M. Corpus Graphic and Fine Arts website that I initiated nearly a decade ago is now long-in-the-tooth. Ten years. Can you believe that? I can hardly myself. The website is due for a major overhaul on both the front and back ends.

The “front end” is what you see on your screen, the images you see, the buttons and links you click. The “back end” is all the coding that makes things happen when you click. It’s been a long time since I did back end web design. I’ve concentrated on developing my skills in visual art. My back end design skills haven’t kept up; so I’m going to leave that stuff to my excellent web services provider at Monterey Bay Design.

As I stated in my previous post, I’ll be actively blogging more than ever. Art follows life – and vice versa. At least that’s a goal of culturally subversive art – to influence everyday life towards the sublime and self-aware. I’ll be documenting the day-to-day downsides to the creative life, as well as the upsides. No ivory towers to this artist’s life: I’m affected by Covid-19, climate change, weather, environment, economic and political foolery as much as anyone else. I’m also inspired and awed by the beauty around me living on the California central coast. Either way, the writing could get raw and personal -- as it should.

Also as stated previously, awkward as it is to market both fine art and graphic art together, I’ll be doing just that as well as combining the visual image with the written word. Perhaps I’ll create another website gallery for my graphic output. Perhaps I’ll consolidate the galleries I have now.

With a larger studio space in 2021 I began to paint larger works than I was able previously. I’ll have a solo gallery exhibition in November 2022. While that may seem nearly another year away for most, for me this means producing more large work to fill that gallery, starting well before yesterday.

Finally, I need to actively search for new venues for the kind of art I produce that may not fit in well with the landscapes and seascapes this area is known for. Will 2022 be a bust-out year for me professionally and commercially? I have positive expectations.

Anyone out that there have ideas on these? I’d love to hear from you. Please comment below or drop me a line.

My "Fine" Art vs "Graphic" Art Dilemma

I haven’t blog posted in a couple of months, and my record of putting them out at all is admittedly dismal. I’m not even sure anyone reads anything I write. (If you do, please drop me a line, even if just to tell me how badly I write.) Long ago I decided that I had ideas worth expressing in word as well as with visual art. With the New Year less than two weeks away I’ve resolved to jump in to put it out there regularly. I know that in the beginning it will be rough -- for me the blogger, and for you the reader; (Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a reader!) And if it seems that I'm just rambling all over the page, and I don’t know what I’m doing, it may be because of just that.

That’s just a foreshadowing of some things to come. What I wanted to inform my readers in this night’s post is the dilemma I have of being both a "fine artist" and "graphic artist" – not from the personal perspective of my personal identity as an artist per se, but from the standpoint of making commercial sales of my art. Those who are among my blessed long-time followers may have noticed my banner has changed from E. M. Corpus Graphic Arts to E. M. Corpus Graphic and Fine Arts although I've always done both.

The business of being artists attempting to survive on our artwork is hard enough. I have no desire to perpetuate that absolute myth of the "starving artist". Some business marketing coaches might say that the prospective commercial audiences of these two ("fine" and "graphic") art forms are different. Hence the two categories of art should be kept separate. Promoting both confuses your audiences and clutters up your website and social media platforms, they might say. That may be true.

But – I’m an artist. This is the art that I make, Fine Art and graphic art. I make art because I’m a creative artist. I’m an artist whether I ever sell a piece of art or not. Doing the work of artist and passionate at what you do qualifies you as the artist. Selling your work, does not. I worship at the altar of creativity, not of the dollar. Now, I do need that dollar, at least in the ways the 99% of us do. Selling my art for dollars will enable me to continue to eat, pay my rent and make more art. And in making art, I wind up make both fine art and graphic art. Yes, I'd love to find the art lovers and collectors who can like -- and purchase -- one, the other or both of my art forms.

(Oh, and I also write, though not often enough; and sometimes I make writing a part of my graphic art.)

There has to be solutions for artists like me, and I do intend to find them. For now I’m just more than a little skeptical how the marketing techniques of the business world in selling Big Macs, sportswear and alcoholic drinks can or should be applied to selling art. If I look for coaching to navigate through the world of marketing my “brand” (ugh! I hate the sound of that word), I’d certainly look to those who’ve successfully done so before me with credentials as artists.

I’m surely not offering any of those solutions tonight. I also have another dilemma to vent about; but that will wait ‘til another post.

"Are You An Angel? (An Encounter With Non-Locality)" a Winner!

Hey guys, I'm very pleased to announce that my acrylic painting Are You An Angel? (An Encounter With Non-Locality) was Second-Place Winner in the two-dimensional art category of the Walter Lee Avery Gallery 2021 Fall Adult Competition.

I received the award from the Mayor of the City of Seaside, Ian Oglesby, and Seaside Art Commissioner, Sandra Gray, in Seaside City Hall's Council Chambers this past Friday, October 8th at well-attended reception.

I'm grateful to the Seaside Art Commission, Francoise Avery, Sandra Gray and her crew for their outstanding curating of the exhibit and organizing the reception.

Eleventh Author Portrait: Gabriel Garcia Márquez

5 x 7 inches (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm)
watercolor painting

This is from the series of author portraits painted in 2020.

In celebration of the re-opening of the Pacific Grove Library, Renewal a juried exhibition is on display at the library’s Steve and Nancy Hauk Gallery from October 8, 2021 through January 7, 2022.

The library is located at 550 Central Avenue, Pacific Grove, California 93950.

Artwork is available for viewing and sales.

Mental Health Awareness Month 2021

Suicide Watch
5 x 5 in pen-and-ink drawing with digital coloration

May is National Mental Health Awareness month.

Back in 2017 I posted this on social media for Inktober as a proof-of-concept illustration for a possible future graphic novel Extreme Dreams. However, it's actually based on my own life.

In 1972 and the final three months of high school, unbeknownst to my classmates my "home" after school was the Montefiore Medical Center psychiatric ward in New York City. When the staff eventually deemed that I was less likely to overdose or slit my wrists I was allowed to go to school by day so I could finally graduate.

Here is my Extreme Dreams original character Johnnie Riggs spending his first night on suicide watch. Please be aware that for too many teens this is as real today as it was forty-nine years ago. If you or anyone you know have thoughts of self-harm, please call 1-800-273-8255. Speak with someone. You are not alone.

Tenth Author Portrait: Maya Angelou (circa 1973)

5 x 7 inches (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm)
watercolor painting

January is Black History Month. 

This is from the series of author portraits painted in 2020.

My First Composition of 2021

This week I completed painting The Tower, which you can view here.

It's my first composition of 2021. At four feet in height (30 x 48 inches) it's also my largest painting to date.

Anyone out there familiar with the Tarot? In the description I include an excerpt from Pamela Aiken's Tarot of the Spirit.

The XVI Key -- the Tower -- first presents as an ominous card, a "hard" card to take on first glance, since it warns of an ascendance to knowledge occurring through the destruction of old, outdated and outgrown structures. Emphasis on "destruction" meaning that insights are gained in the midst of drastic conditions and disruption of the status quo.

As I note, it kind of summarizes my 2020; and the changes are still in progress.

Let me know what you think.

New Studio Space

Here's a quote from another of my favorite authors, this time the science fiction writer, Frank Herbert. “Adapt or die” is the motto of the Fremen, the nomadic tribes of the desert planet Arrakis, or Dune.

Okay, on to the “Adapt or die” changes now in progress:

When I sold my home -- and home studio -- to get married and move in with Karen, I went from a 1,600-square-foot house occupied by only me and my dog to an 800-square-foot house. Our little home is in fact much too little to contain both our creative workshops and still be home to now two artists, three dogs and a rabbit.

Beginning this December just past I began renting a studio that can allow me to create the larger art pieces I have in mind. Soon you’ll be able with art curators and collectors to take virtual tours – and hopefully in person soon afterwards, once we get Covid-19 behind us. I'll be posting photos soon on my "About the Artist" page.

Ninth Author Portrait: Ernest Hemingway

Young Ernest Hemingway In Italy
5 x 7 inches (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm)
watercolor painting

UPDATE: On display and for purchase at the You Can't Quarantine Creativity exhibit, Marjorie Evans Gallery at Sunset Cultural Center, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California October 5 - December 1, 2020.

I composed this by mashing up two public domain photos for reference, portraying him as the 18-year-old American Red Cross ambulance driver he was in Italy during WW1 shortly before being severely wounded in an Austrian mortar attack. I just read a fascinating and insightful 2018 essay by Mikaella Clements in Literary Hub, excerpts below from The Queerness of Ernest Hemingway:

"...dubbed the ultimate masculine writer...But Hemingway's writing itself does not fit any straightforwardly heterosexual, masculine mold...at once kinder and more lost than we give him credit...has an excellent sense of humor...is often very emotional. His portrayal of women is certainly misogynistic, but...complicated, mixed with longing and terror; very often, his women are the most nuanced characters on the page...most tellingly, Hemingway's writing is distinctly queer..."

Personally, in re-reading Hemingway's semi-autobiographical novel "Farewell To Arms" I see his dilemma as similar to that faced by every man raised in patriarchal culture, the difficulty if not inability to truly love woman or man, since self-hate is hard-wired in the culture.

Eighth Author Portrait: Carlos Bulosan

Portrait of Carlos Bulosan
5 x 7 inches (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm)
watercolor pencil from reference

UPDATE: On display and for purchase at the You Can't Quarantine Creativity exhibit, Marjorie Evans Gallery at Sunset Cultural Center, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California October 5 - December 1, 2020.

Author of memoir America Is In The Heart, essayist, poet, labor organizer. After years of experiencing racial discrimination, violence and blacklisting, he died in obscurity from the effects of alcohol, violence and tuberculosis at the age of forty-six. His voluminous literary output has thankfully been rediscovered. His story is in many ways similar to my father's, who immigrated to the U.S. in the same wave in the 1920s from the Philippines.

KCBX-FM Art Beat 8/1/2020 on artists’ lost income and connection due to Covid-19

on local artists responding to the challenges of lost income and public connection due to Covid-19. Local artists including Edward M. Corpus were interviewed by James Reddick.

Seventh Author Portrait: Jeannette Walls

M

Portrait of Jeannette Walls
5 x 7 inches (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm)
watercolor painting

I'm unable to leave a review of Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle on Amazon. I would have given this book three stars out of five, and perhaps that's too many.

To her credit Walls writes well enough and gives good characterizations of her dysfunctional family. Structurally, she writes a competent memoir. My credit to her ends there, though I'm willing to discuss other opinions and am open to the possibility that I'm missing something here.

Her breezy style, maintained from beginning to end, bothered me from the beginning. She describes a father and mother who, to put it as bluntly and truthfully as necessary, are abusive, neglectful and socially irresponsible.

Perhaps her "through line" or message is the resilience of family, of herself and her siblings. Perhaps they, or at least she, was able to come through without permanent physical or emotional scars.

But what of those children who don't, who don't grow up to writers, journalists and gossip columnists for MSNBC, but instead wind up in prisons or institutions or die in the gutter from their responses to unresolved traumas of childhood?

By not holding her parents to account -- I'm going beyond blame here, it's not what I'm calling for, but accountability -- she implicitly condones abuse. I've heard too often from damaged individuals "When I was a kid my daddy totally whipped my ass, but I turned out fine" and thus condone passing abuse forward. It seems to me Walls does the same thing.

Sixth Author Portrait: Steve Hauk

Portrait of Steve Hauk
5x7 (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm) sepia conte crayon.

Steve is author, playwright, film documentarian and owner of the Hauk Fine Arts gallery in Pacific Grove, California. I recently read his Steinbeck: the Untold Stories. This is a collection of well-written, imaginings based on the lives of John Steinbeck and the people who knew him. The book is illustrated with paintings by Monterey Peninsula artist C. Kline.

Fifth Author Portrait: Sally Mann

Portrait of Sally Mann
7x5 charcoal on paper

This is my imagined scene of the photographer and writer in studio with her 8x10 view camera behind her.

Earlier this year I read her memoir with photographs Hold Still.

She has a very lyrical style of writing with an erudite vocabulary. At a certain point I just abandoned the dictionary and went with the flow of her prose, getting the meaning in context. She juxtaposes the rapturous beauty of the deep South where she grew up with confronting the disturbing legacy of African American slavery that continues to haunt the present lives there.

Personally, I'm not terribly keen on her obsession with death, a theme that runs through this writing. 

Fourth Author Portrait: Cormac McCarthy

Portrait of Cormac McCarthy
7x5 watercolor, watercolor pencil

Cormac McCarthy is the author of The Road, a dystopian novel of a father and young son attempting to survive a grueling trek through America after a global environmental disaster has reduced many humans to the basest and brutal hulks of their former selves.

Like the best of science or speculative fiction, its future dystopian landscape is a reflection of conditions that in some ways are already here.