Thursday 31 December 2020

2020 in Review

New Mexico had the most Covid restrictions in the United States, nevertheless 2020 was an oddly productive year for me.  Sheltering-in-place, I resolved to push my drawings through all the art software I could find on the Internet.






Still Sound Advice
dating back to 1982



Early
EXHIBITIONS

This year started off with a bang. Until March I kept busy with exhibitions, pulling the Desert Triangle Print Carpeta out of the Las Cruces Museum of Art in January, showing the Ambos Lados International Print Exchange in Taos (January 10 - February 9), and visiting Mexic-Arte in Austin to see some of the prints we donated on exhibit.










Soft Exhibition:  John Tollett printed one of my AI altered drawings onto a fuzzy blanket:


10 YEARS of BLOGGING

March 10th marked the 10 year anniversary of this blog, just days before Covid lockdown closed down all the drawing groups.  I made a summary post looking back at this blog.



DRAWING LOCKDOWN

In mid-March we abruptly went into lockdown over Covid and all the drawing sessions and galleries closed down.  However the Tuesday Night Santa Fe Drawing Group started drawing again online, barely missing a beat (thank to the efforts of Holly Grimm).  I also drew a couple of times online with a London Drawing group, as well as on Croquis Cafe and Sketch Daily.






RANDOM










INFAME ZINE
of Guadalajara

Infame Zine in Guadalajara put a lot of effort into screening my drawings into a centerfold.





STEAMROLLER PRINTING
Labor Day Weekend


I documented the steamroller printing of Henry Morales and Mike Kimball.  Remarque Print Workshop directed it during the Zozobra screening event sponsored by Bernalillo County.




LATER EXHIBITIONS
of 2020

In spite of the Covid lockdown I still participated in some exhibitions.

April


June 2 - August 22


October - December







November 2020 - 2021?

  • I submitted 15 drawings and a 200 word essay to The Drawing Center in New York City.  They will let me know at the end of January 2021 if I was accepted or not.


FAKE EXHIBITION
Caught on Video



POSER


Birth of Computer Art



UNDER THE HOOD 
Projects that require more in depth reviews

The most substantial progress I made in 2020 is also more esoteric -- specifically how artificial intelligence created fake drawings in my style; and how I pushed my drawings through Blender and other online art programs.  I cover those pursuits in more depth in the bulleted reviews below.

--Trigger Warning: FAKE DRAWINGS!





--The 360°/3D video compilation below is even better
 when viewed with an OCULUS VR Headset:


Shortest string of characters to type 
 into the YouTube search box in the Oculus


3D, AI and other online software
REVIEWS

I pushed my drawings through 3D, Deep Dream Generator, artificial intelligence and other programs, all of which are summarized in the following reviews:

 



*****
Afterword 

On July 25th a huge rainstorm hit, and later in the night I heard loud screams behind QueLab, like goats bleating.  Google let me know that the cries were from New Mexico Spadefoot toads.  For the next two weeks I inspected the standing water by the rail road tracks to watch the triops and tadpoles grow.  However all the ponds evaporated before the tadpoles could mature into toads.  



When I was a kid I saw tadpoles in a fleeting desert pond once, and looked for them ever since.  However I never found any until this summer.

I also saw skunks, racoons, an opossum and a badger roaming the streets of Albuquerque during the Summer of Covid.

***

2020 felt like 2008 

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