New updates of 'My Life In Limbo': about the Worlds of Witty Art

Some more progress on my Witty Art Book 'My Life In Limbo', which I started a while back, predominantly to process my thoughts and feelings after losing my house and starting a new life, bascially as a 21st century city nomad.

Since starting with 'My Life In Limbo', mid August, creating the book has helped me to get a grip on myself and my life-in-the transition and also provided me with some new, often surprising insights into the world of Witty Art. It evolved from what I thought would be a collection of random sketches and drawings, into something that resembles some kind of graphic story, told by the characters and creatures that inhabit that world.

I have always felt that the world I create on paper or canvas (or on any other surface, or even in 3D, for that matter) is actually an existing world, somewhere out there in what I call The Great Beyond. Now, that might be in another galaxy, obviously one far, far, FAR away, or even in a parallel universe, though some of you might argue it's a world existing only in my mere imagination. Well, whatever, wherever, it does not matter. Fact is, to me it IS a real life world, and its inhabitants are real life characters with their own personalities and sometimes, I feel like all I have to do is recreate their world for them, almost on their behalf.

Or should I say: worlds, as one actually is not enough for them... 

Elsewhere on this blog, I tried to describe it as follows: 

"Christy's work explores universal human themes, but features bizarre, animalistic, cartoonesque, fable-like creatures. Creatures, coping with life, struggling to survive, clinging on to all they hold dear, or what's left of it. These characters are the main actors, appearing and often re-appearing in series of drawings and/or paintings, each image to be experienced both individually or as a whole.
 
Her work features both a ''light'' and a ''darker'' side. The first being cartoonesque, exploring the grey area between autonomous and illustration art. Powerful, often surrealistic but often surprisingly familiar images through which Christy shares with us her look on life, a world spinning round and round and its inhabitants merely clinging to it. They might look sad, unhappy even but at times they appear to be almost glad to be unhappy. This part of Christy's world harbours no peace for the wicked, but leaves room for Hope.

Then there's a much more darker world, where almost every inch of Hope has disappeared. This world is a beautiful but lonely, unforgiving place, but a world at peace.
 
Most work is created in the no man's land between these two worlds.''

Hope or no hope, light or dark, cartoonesque or grotesque, whatever may be, these worlds and the creatures that live and survive there are real to me, as real as the world I live in - and all other living, breahting, hoping and dying species on this planet called Earth. Somehow, I feel our worlds are not even that far apart. Not at all. 

Not at all, indeed...

So, whenever people look at Witty Art and find it makes them smile or frown or are touched by it in any other way, because they recognize something in it, a feeling, an emotion or even a situation they can relate to, then that makes a very proud Miss Witty indeed. Proud, because I have succeed in making these worlds that are so real and alive to me in my own head, visible and, to some agree, accessible for others. 

And I hope to make them come alive in more than one way, one day. Using different mediums and techniques, different technologies and appliances even. One day, I will look back at this time in my life and find that this little book will have helped me achieve that. Not today, not tomorrow, perhaps not even soon, but ... one day!

One day... I will ;-) 


 

The Blame Game & Taking the Guilt Trip: new series ''Blame'' depicts all that and more...

 

The concept of 'blame' plays an important role in my work. Guilt and blame, to be precise. Partially because of reasons far too personal to talk or write about here, partially because of the more psychological aspects of the phenonemon.

It is, as far as I'm concerned, a re-occurring theme in Witty Art, sometimes clearly visible and tangible, most of times more like a some form of abstract presence, lingering and even lurking in the background. Well, that's how someone once described it to me - and I can definitely relate to that.

It's present in, for instance, my series "H.U.R.T." and ''Unforgiven'', the latter specifically triggered by a quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic novel ''Crime and Punishment'': 

''To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.'' 

Now, there is another series in the making which deals with the same topic, albeit in a different way, taking a different approach. Whereas, to me, both "H.U.R.T.'' and ''Unforgiven'' are much harsher, violent even on an deeply emotional level, ''Blame'' depicts the feeling of being blamed, aside from whether you are guilty or not. It's about the someone playing the blamegame on you and you taking the guilt trip.

''Blame'' was also partially inspired by the song with the same name of one of my all time favourite bands, The Afghan Whigs: ''Blame, Etc''. As with all of their songs, the raw energy of both their music and lyrics speaks to me on many, many levels.

I took the liberty of embedding a YouTube link to this song, so you can play and listen for yourself. As I said, to me it's not just the pulsating rhythm, haunting guitars and frontman Greg Dulli's grinding voice, but it's the combination with the lyrics that makes their music so powerful to me. 

''Blame, deny, betray, divide
A lie, the truth
Which one shall I use?
Whatcha gonna do?
I know
Whatcha gonna do?
I know, I know, I know"
Words & Music: Greg Dulli 

For those who'd like to read the whole lyrics, please click here. 


 
All I can say, that The Whigs' music has been with me for many years now and it has helped inspire the creation of much Witty Art Work - and I can absolutely state with 100% certainty it will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

Greg Dulli and The Afghan Whigs still perform and tour regularly. 

"Hello, It's Us'': Witty Art about the art of dealing with ''Frenemies''

About time I started posting some of the Witty Art Work created earlier this year. As you followers of this blog and my art might know by now, this hasn't been the easiest year for me. A long period of financial insecurity led to the inevitable: the foreclosre of the mortgage on my house by the bank. 

It has been a long fight, and perhaps I fought that battle for far too long - one I was never to win anyway. But, done is done. My life has altered significantly, and I am slowly but surely coming to terms with it, seeing that the direction it was heading into, was not meant to be mine anyway.

One of the ways to deal with this all, is by the creative proces of making my Witty Art Book 'My Life In Limbo', which I have been sharing quite frequently on this blog, too.

Anyway, the thing is, it has been a pretty turbulent year. And however painful the process of losing my house may have been, it also turned out to be a highly creative one. One, during which I realised yet once again how crucial it is for me to keep on making my art: Witty Art.
 

For instance, it was the first time ever I've been able to visualise my long-term suffering from Insomnia as I did with series like ''Sleep No More'' and ''My (C)Losing Time''. And how liberating it felt to admit to it openly, for the first time, to which extend sleeplessness has been part of my life. 

And much more Witty Art saw the light during that period, and it has been a constant craze of GottaDraw ever since.

One of the other series was ''Hello It's Us!'', a series of five drawings so far, this time not named Part 1, 2, 3, and so on, but each with their own individual subtitle.

The series, at least to me, playfully refers to that type of people we all know exist and, at times, are impossible to escape: that type of friendly strangers or worse, good friends, who seem to think they know you better than anyone else, including yourself.

And whether they know you well or not at all, is irrelevant. The point is, they know all they need to know about you - it's enough for them to weigh you, to disect you and to judge you. They will painstakingly measure whether you fit in or not, if you are, according to a thoroughly set scale of social standards you might not even be aware of. You might not even know it existed in the first place. 

But that's all irrelevant to them. As long as they know. And all they need to know is: will you fit in? In other words: are you one of them, or not?

 

So, my point is: even if you wouldn't know yourself all too well, you'd still know one thing: to stay away from this particular breed  of intrusive, judgemental people as far as you can, as best as you can.

After all, as the saying goes: with friends like these, who needs enemies...?

''Stagefright'' shines a light on being in the spotlights

 
''Stagefright'' is a series of, for now, four drawings, I made during one rainy afternoon. One of those afternoons that nothing seems to work and all that should go right goes horridly wrong. So, drawing and creating Witty Art is always the better option.

That rainy night, ''Stagefright'' emerged from my mind and onto paper. I don't remember what made these images come out, I only know that once my pen touched the paper, I had to draw something in black and white, without the use of any colours.

What lies beneath the actual image, or what triggered it: I don't even know myself, except it has something to do with both loving and hating being in the spotlights. And sometimes, just sometimes, there is no way to avoid it. When taking to the stage, you gotta face the fear. Or something like that.

Well, the audience at least.

Bravely battling the corporate rat race: UnBunny appearing in ''Innovation In Carnation''

Quite a while back, I wrote a blogpost about one of the most beloved Witty Art Characters, a little fellow named UnBunny. The first time he appeared in my work, he immediately got his own series and it proved to be one of my best selling ones: ''Innovation In Carnation'', which I started in 2011 and is pretty much still going on, having reached up to over 30 drawings by now. It features UnBunny battling an increasingly technological world, a battle he is bound to loose ofourse... or is he?

Anyway, UnBunny turned out to be such a well-loved character, he appeared in a spin-off series called ''Innovation In Corporation''. This time, he bravely takes on the corporate rat race and epically fails at it, fighting office appliances and equipment. And worse, getting lost in processes and procedures. Much worse, being grinded somewhere between management and cost accounting.

I started this series back in 2012, but somehow never got the chance of the opportunity to showcase the finished drawings on this blog. So far, I finished eight of these in total, of which four were displayed during several exhibitions and art events.

During which I witnessed a great number of people smile at what our long-suffering (anti)hero has to endure. Many of them confessing to me that UnBunny's corporate ''antics and adventures'' were all but too familiar for them. And that's something I can definitely relate to. 

I too, like UnBunny, ran the corporate rat race once. But unlike him, I succeeded. More or less. I mostly succeeded in fooling myself though. That environment and that role were simply not me. But more about that, another time, another place.

"The Greatest Show On Earth'' will leave you in awful awe...

My teenage years were predominantly the early 80's. That notorious era of post-punk, new wave and new romantics; of mass unemployment and mass strikes; and when Cold War reached a feverishly frozen all time low in an Europe, divided by an Iron Curtain and a Wall. The years of Reaganomics, Thatcherism and whoever was in charge in The Kremlin. 

Years of mass demonstrations against the presence of cruise missiles stationed in Europe. Of a growing fear of nuclear war between the USA and the USSR - with Europe being the battle ground. 

I remember reading everything I could about the destructive power of nuclear weapons. Every book, every article, every film, every documentary I could get my hands on. I had to know everything. Everything I could find about the history of the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear testing in the fifties and sixties, the whole nuclear arms race during the Cold War - way up to the mid eighties. 

I remember reading of what nuclear disaster can do. To people, to animals, to the environment. To the earth. It stuck in my teenage mind and it left an imprint never to be erased, only to be enlarged by the '86 Chernobyl disaster. 

But it isn't the only thing I remember.

Yes, what I read and saw was awful. I thought and knew it was aweful. Yet I was struck with awe. By the sheer beauty of the nuclear explosion. The scaringly majestic and awful beauty of the mushroom cloud. Its perfect shape, the utter silence in which it takes place. A mircale of nature and the triumph of science in one. And the potential doom of humankind. 

That mix of awful and awe became the inspiration for my series ''The Greatest Show On Earth''', depicted here. I guess the images kinda speak for themselves. And if not, please bear in mind that one of the descriptions of Witty Art is: ''The Rock courting The Roll while dancing on a seemlingly dead volcano''.... 

Yes, you might get front row seats for this grand spectacle.

But are you prepared to pay the price?

When even barbwire offers no protection for a broken heart: ''HeartWired''

 

Another one of my older series that deserves some much overdue attention, is 'HeartWired'. Quite a series of personal heartbreak, I suppose, a feeling familiar to anyone who has loved and fought to keep it, to hold on to it and failed miserably. And who found out the 'heart way' that not even all the barb wire in the world can prevent your heart from being broken.

Then again, as the familiar saying goes: ''It's better to have loved and lost in love, than to have never loved at all.'' And I stand firmly by that - and so does my (he)art.

Could that mean that Miss Witty perhaps is a romantic at heart...?