Wednesday, February 15, 2017

I, of the Storm

I, Of the Storm


The Pensive Trumpet

So Happy for you your fate was sealed
By a foreign God, in foreign land
in foreign tongues @1.5-2Kyears ago

That you chose at the core of your patriotism
Your eagle-god tri-colored
& dollar-bill green
Saul-Paul’s godman                  &
12 men who loved their lord
a single sex religion,  He the first of the monarchy

This man-god reported to revive
Mortuus tribus diebus, mimicking his Lazarus
Walked among them then
Assumed into a waiting realm
For you to die and join him
And all the saints, regally appointed
To serve at his side
And those on who must serve him
Or devil betrothed
Now this self-declared god
Needed not the succor of the women
Except to bear his fruit
To mother his needs
or trophy the arm of the Lords
Who own and rule the land
His men their men his church to conquer
In faith, by force and threat
Eternally on fire
Will spread the Billowing words
By the sword of the word of the lord
to the shores of the newly found
Other side of the world

Amerigo’s world, the unfound Asia
Filled with Indians, you call them, still

And forgetting the promise
Of independent thought
In a brand new world
Where flocked the faithful chosen
Pilgrim Protestants to the North
The Papal crew goes South
To conquer or kill the devil tribes
clans of the holy faith
with a quest to establish
a holy land
the fabled foreign sacred town
In a land alluringly
Religion free, as they see

Prepare:

The Kings shall blow the Trumpet
To sound your end of time
We shall terrorize the terrorists
Our Soldiers and citizens
beneath the Tower walls
Shall die a martyrs death
In heaven beneath the dirty ground
Their treasure they shall find
Their actions save
the kingly class
Behind the gated walls
In the Kingdom of Alternatives
Gilded with their Golden Lies

Then indeed the Swamp is Drained
& New Jerusalem regained


Inspired by
The New Kingdom Inaugurated 1/20/2017
Under his Lordship, Donald J. Trump
And his second in command, the Holy Prince Pence


Monday, January 16, 2017

Between



Completed in September, this seems appropriate for the coming week
and the uncertainty that will face the nation, and world, after this Friday.


The Captain, My Captain
my very Lord and Master
his word we must obey
or hell to pay to score his wrath
We sailors, iternant, enslaved, unschooled
fed on hardtack, fish and rum
men as hard and soft as me
&
Beneath, beneath
the endless & eternal, cold & fathomless sea

Between
 Enameled paper floating on a Watercolor Sea
12 x 16 (framed 16 x 20)

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Complicita gets a Face Lift

        One of the troubles about working in the fragile medium of paper, is that it is so susceptible to negative reactions from the elements.  The first version began to fade-- the printed plaid picnic cloth melting into pink and the halo-mane losing brilliance, even though it was not subjected to direct sunlight. It was time to give Little Miss Paula's recurring living nightmare (also defined as little white lies) a new life, more permanent materials.  We must remember our little daemons, and take care of them for they keep us on our toes, and not to let foolishness overtake our intelligent hearts.


Little Miss Paula's Pic-a-nic Daemon, 2016
Acrylic on Canvas Paper
20" x 20" x 3"

        While working on the little daemon, it began to become so personal, with memories snatched from my childhood, that I christened it Complicita  de la Piccanini, daughter of James LeCrowe, who began appearing in multiple sightings, in the latter half of the 19th Century.  No matter how many little white lies we tell ourselves that it doesn't exist, or how much we love the dear sweet lil' childe, the presence of the little daemons we have inherited from our forefathers will continue to appear in the picnic of life, until we all share the banquet of life.
     Here is the original from 2013:  


Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Uncle Finbarr joins the Gods

Uncle Finbarr began as Uncle Harald, with a wild fringe of hair placed on a white face; his inspiration was from Freddie, a fisherman, who, off season, sometimes worked for Chuck & I in the kitchen doing prep at our restaurant.  He talked to the food as he prepped.  One day I asked him: "Did I hear you talking to Mr. Tuna again?"  He told me his dreams of catching "Mr. Tuna", a Moby Dick sized dream of the ultimate prize fish--bringing glory and fortune to the weary fisherman.  Living on the Harbor in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where the Merrimac meets the Atlantic, Freddies stories enhanced the romance of our seaside home.  
Freddies tales became:
Uncle Harald Weaves Tales of the Sea
(2013) 11 x18

My love of this work like a good yarn, grew in my imagination, and Uncle Harald became Uncle Finbarr, after reading a story of a wild Scandinavian fisherman by that name.And now a revival has come upon the shore.  Reborn into a broader sea, with the intercession of Neptune, he has become: 


Lord Finbarr, Weaver of Gotaway Fishtales and Dampened Dreams
 Handmade, watercolor, enameled and canvas papers, 2016
13" x 20"

Saturday, October 8, 2016

On Honeyflies and Butterbees

Oh, Gods so oft forgotten
and Goddesses gone before
there are times when we seem to need you
ever more and more

Seems we human beings, when we begin to moan
have a dreadful habit of messing up our home
sometimes so bright and pretty
well fed and happy so

Then we court our own disaster
the few pile gold and wealth
which brightens no one's future
nor strengthens the people's health

And in that lust our ignorance
seeks the help from a priest of god
that simply assuage the masters 
who  force with gun and rod

But when we kill the miniscule
the birds the bees the fish the bat
we lose the benefits of life and
we realise the world is built on that

Our hearts now open to the need, 
we call upon the winds of yore
we seek loved gods and goddesses
 we invented to serve before


Apyariadnae
Goddess of Honeyflies and Butterbees
(on white background)
16 x 16 x 2 Cut Paper
 (on red wall, afternoon light)

Completed 10/07/2016
copyright james m. frase-white

Monday, August 15, 2016

A New Old Fish From the Realms of Glory

A books of Angels, which I'd purchased as gifts for my daughter and a friend, included several versions of the Angel of the Apocalypse, one in particular in a tetraptych, that is, composed of 4 panels or wings.  I did a my version beginning as a painting, planning to turn it into a stained glass window.  The window was not created but the work grew from the initial 2 foot square watercolor into a  3' x 3' 4-Panel Paper Cutting in 2013 (see link below to view full work).  The upper left quadrant of the original mock up is the angel in the red circle below. 


The Angel of the Apocalypse, version 1
(Detail) Gouache mock up for Stained Glass Window  (8" x 8")
[See link below]
September 2009

Sketch  3" x 3"
made during a faculty meeting 2010 or 11


 Angel/Man on Flying Fish (in Vermont, of course) 
Watercolor 16 x 12
2012



The Angel Gabriel Announces the Apocalypse 
(Panel 1 of 4) 2013

To see complete work of all four panels, please check out my webpage, go to the page titled  A Gallery of Paperworks  then view the slide show:  The Apoclypse Myth


Gabriel Calls the End of the Beginning 
 begun 2012, completed August 12, 2016

This recently completed Watercolor was found, half done, in a pile of old works.

I started playing with this overgrown cherub until satisfied, sharing a certain boisterous innocence to replace a told-you-so type of somewhat sinister rejoicing that some seem to feel (or so it appears to me) about this rumor of this peculiar religious destruction and end of the world by its reported creator.  16 x 12


Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Makemake in the Realm of the Dwarves

The dismissal of Pluto from the realm of the major planets was at first a letdown, as if, unlike the Ancient God, the heavenly body had been treated like the Disney cartoon. Astronomers have now discovered that Pluto is no longer "in the doghouse, but in a neighborhood with a litter" of dwarf planets, including the Hawaiian named Makemake.  The canine reference stops here.  Below are two paintings and a stained glass window I have done in the past year, the last two more recently, on the fascinating subject of those mysterious worlds, so far, yet eternally so close to us and our beloved god, the Sun.


"A Feather on the Breath of God"
14 x 18, Gouache & Watercolor



"Red Feather Dwarf:  Searching for Makemake"
12 x 16, Gouache, Acrylic & Watercolor


"In the Realm of the Dwarves"
Stained Glass, 30 x 28
Looking East


As above, Looking North