thomas farley's blog

I’ve re-edited some footage from Horror Hotel, also known as The City of the Dead, to put more emphasis on character development. This is part of a continuing body of work financed by Men of Culture Everywhere, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, now hiding in plain sight in Goldfield, Nevada.

Venetia Stevenson was America’s Favorite Victim until Jamie Lee Curtis came along many years later. Although Jamie never had this much silk on her. (Or, off.) There’s plenty of information on Venetia on the web, or you can find her face in any dictionary. She’s listed under the word “hubba-hubba.’

A peculiarity of A/I is how determined it is to produce something, even if it is nowhere close to what was requested. My prompt was this, “beautiful woman in the style of french actress bardot photorealism “. Okay, these images are all over the map but Firefly still wants to deliver something. In twenty seconds! Now, any graphic artist will be able to modify these images in any way they like. Right now. it is impossible to think of all the paths that A/I is going to lead to. Gutenberg revolutionized the world with a copying machine. This is a creation machine.

This is Adobe’s Firefly at work.

The Artist as a Young Cat. Early days, folks, early days. Each of these images took literally seconds to generate. Firefly can’t seem to do text well, however, I must be missing something because it can generate text under a particular program that I was experimenting with yesterday. We shall see. Early days, folks, early days.

This is from my blog in 2018:

A poorly worded ad caught my attention. It meant to capture Keats but he is not easily seized.

Yesterday’s post by Shelley was from 1820. The following is from Keats in 1818. I understand they were not friends.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever” is an exceptional line. Keats then gets better. “Some shape of beauty moves away the pall” easily reasons why beauty is joyous, why it counters our dark spirits.

Besides keeping a quiet bower for us and a sleep full of sweet dreams.

Endymion by John Keats

(an excerpt)

A Poetic Romance

BOOK I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

Editor’s note (me) This was written at the height of World War II and Rita Hayworth was the GI’s favorite pin-up girl.

WHAT’s IN A PICTURE?

Life Magazine, August 11, 1941, photograph by Bob Landry of Rita Hayworth

“It happens that she is instantly recognizable. But whether her name is Khan, or Kahn, or Connie doesn’t really matter.

Lithesome, lithe, perfumed, she is our superbly sculptured embodiment of our age’s concept of feminine perfection, brown-black tresses glossy and fragrant, lambent eyes aware yet unprovacative.

To the male she is a materialized memory: the incredible girl another luckier fellow brought to the Senior Prom a few years back.

To a woman she is deadly: the other person — of all the others! — not to stand next to. (But how would I look, kneeling on that shiny satin, sheathed in thin-lined lace, flatteringly lighted?)

Pretty girls are as much part of today’s life as the irrational bloodiness of war, the unrealities of some contemporary art, the devious channels of international politics.

A far more normal, more human, more acceptable part.

And of all the pretty girls, here is she, caught by the camera’s split second magic for LIFE, the mirror of life, in unconsciously charming dishabille — so real, so live, so silken that for an instant you scent the faint perfume she has just touched to her bare shoulders.”

More Gigi. Because you cannot have enough Hadid, either Gigi, here, or her older sister Bella.

Technically, this was tricky. The image on the left comes from a photo I took with my iPhone of a recent issue of Star in hardcopy, always published on cheap newsprint. Yes, I bought it at the supermarket.

The photo on the right was taken off the internet, a low res shot at 72 dpi. Two different sources, undoubtedly different photographers at this NYC promotion.

The problem was trying to make the two images look acceptably similar without spending too much time on it. These Instagram posts, after all, are throwaway design exercises. Cutting out the figures took more time than it should have despite the advanced ability these days of Photoshop. Blah, blah, blah. Who cares? You have Gigi to look at.

I wrote all this below and then realized, I’d rather look at Gigi or any or my other stuff than than this crap and its equally ugly explanation.

Original post below:

Interesting looking work of a full time studio artist who has spent long years studying at various art schools and has shown successfully at some major galleries.

I don’t make up stories about my work unless you want to hear the reasons behind them. Otherwise, they all stand on their own. You like the way they look or you don’t. Fair enough?

I deliberately place myself in the decorative arts; I have no aspiration to move into the fine arts community of which this artist places themselves into. Because those people, particularly those in abstract expressionism, have to spin a story to explain why the ornamental or the ugly really isn’t ugly or ornamental. Read this explanation that this artist provides for their work:

“My work focuses on the architecture of the unconscious and subconscious mind. Exploring different techniques such as long gestural strokes juxtaposed with bold mark-making helps me to create a disoriented mindscape. I layer my materials light and heavy to block out whole areas that construct an unfocused state. The mind intrigues me because things are often hidden from us. How are we affected? How does the human brain process emotion and trauma? What is revealed when we evaluate the unseen aspect of our true selves? Sometimes the memories can be easily accessed, yet experience creates layers, scars create marks, and we are tangled in our emotion. What is hidden from the subconscious? I explore this process while pushing and pulling my way through the architecture of my mind.”

Arrgh. If that is what this artist truly thinks then fine. But don’t ask me to move up my opinions based on your words or explanations. As a professional writer and editor, I can come up with any kind of nonsense you want to hear about what I do and why. In the end, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. Good art speaks and stands by itself. Period.