Click on image for an enlarged view

This fabric catches the life of the Unexpected Forum or SB2K, on a winter solstice, 12/21/00, and was offered as a Christmas present to all who have ever signed on to the forum. I never knew it would get so crowded with names when I began to intricately lock names together. I tried to use each of the names I found on the forum that day, as well as all the new inductees into the official fans page.

As a computer graphic artist, I like to create images that I see as beautiful, or that just interest me, I keep them around as potential backgrounds for new and unusual graphic images. The background on the above poster was created one day a year and a half ago, while listening to a CD sample of the music of Brandon McDonnell. The three files I created that day can be seen on the following page of my larger website, http://www.intimateriver.com/Adobe_Web/time/html You might notice the similarity of color between the background of the above file and the background of my "Birthday Card To Frank Peterson," below. That background evolved from the above one over the course of a few hours. Such is the fun of computer graphics. I roughed up the above background thoroughly with a smear tool, (a tool common to most computer graphic software packages,) and then I went over this new "swirly" image with what is called a rubber stamp or transfer tool, until it again caught my eye and I saved it. I then played around with this brand new image in Coral Photopaint using a few more tools, one being a magic wand tool that scattered butterflies across the canvas. Sensing something I liked, I again saved the new file. This graphic, in turn, became the background for the files I created of Tausha describing Sarah's voice, and a Christmas card that I sent to Amlet. The thing I like about computer graphics, is I still have the original file I made that day, sitting as it's own art statement, on my web site, and on a disk. Who knows what I will do with it next. As an example, I created the new image on the right, in about 30 minutes. I like playing with this image. Part of the original inspiration, besides the music of Brendon, was a large ceramic wall piece, made up of many small tiles, that I had seen years ago in Santa Fe. The texture on the finish of the wall piece had a very chalk like, pastel, finish. It was so strong a piece, that eight years later, it effected art work I was doing on the computer!!

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The background on this birthday card says a lot visually about how any of the music Frank Peterson produces, makes me feel. Over time I've used the 3 backgrounds that I made that day for a number of cards. If you click on the above card, I've included a couple other examples of cards that I made. The first one was for Yolospat to give to her grandmother, and the second is a card that I sent to Amlet, who lives on the other side of the planet, for Christmas.

Click on image for an expanded version of this file

It was fun to work names from the "Unexpected Forum" into the above poster. I did this two years after I created the original art piece. In this version I've included a December 2001 calendar, so this graphic is duplicated in my calendar section. The day I did the original poster was a sad day for me. (On the left, is a small version of the original poster.) I had just finished figuring out 1996's taxes on my my sculpture and pottery business, (somewhere in the late fall of 1998.) Although I took in around 30,000$, I had actually lost money doing so!! Making a living as an artist is a business like any business, but it is also a very personal gift to the world. Indeed Christmas is a very interesting day for me as a ceramic artist. People I have never met, are opening my one of a kind, glazed and fired clay pieces. Do they like them? Are they joyous? Or are they wondering what to do with them? At any rate, as an artist, after completing my taxes that day, (at the demand of of the IRS,) I came into my graphic design class and created "Tragedy On X-Mas Eve." When I looked back on it, I knew I'd unintentionally captured what I was feeling that day. As an art piece, it still needs some work, (Tradgedy On X-Mas Eve is fuzzy, etc...) but the core of it, I still respond to very possitively.
It is interesting to work on an art piece, off and on, over a period of time. In time, I will figure out how to make the whole piece hum. It dosn't right now, but it has a lot of potential. Maybe there is even a Children's story in it. I don't know. In this way it reminds me a lot of my 9" * 7" foot sculpture/fouttain I am forever working on. The sculpture is out of oil based clay, so it never dries, and will eventually have to have a mold made of it. I have learned a tremendous amount since I started it nine years ago. I am still waiting for it to look right from every angle, and there are hundreds. The photo to the right is taken just from behind the heads. It shows the composition of the hands quite well, but there are other angles that show many flaws!! Fortunatly a computer graphic only has to look right from one angle!

Making this new section of my web site, "INTIMATE RIVER'S ENIGMATIC SARAH SITE," has been both long hard work and great fun. I now have over 30 pages in this section of my web site, (I know because I've coded them all in basic HTML.) That brings me up to around 120 pages in my overall, www.intimateriver.com web site. The larger site features a book of my poetry and prose, "INTIMATE RIVER SOUNDS," my life size figurative sculpture, "INTIMATE RIVER," quite a few of my indoor and outdoor ceramic fountains, and a section on Adobe Photoshop, with some of my earlier computer graphics. Enjoy; Gary