Gryffyd Eamonn Dempsey » Art

Raider Nation

Gryffyd — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:47:10 +0000

I have always enjoyed taking walks, but it is only because of my wish to keep the dogs’ walks somewhat fresh that we have explored practically every street within a thirty to forty-five minute radius from our house. If it weren’t for the dogs, I certainly would have no need to go walk down the series of streets between 82nd and the freeway, most of which are still unimproved roads and none of which have sidewalks. And then I would have missed the house below, the residents of which are presumably Raiders fans:

Right down to the mailbox:

Self-referential

Gryffyd — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:29:27 +0000

Earlier this month I visited San Francisco with my father for a couple of days. Among other things we visited the De Young museum. There I was struck by this photograph, and on inspection, recognized the name of the artist, Imogen Cunningham. Not because I have any especial knowledge of 20th century female American photographers, but because in googling my first name she pops up in the results because she named her first son Gryffyd. A younger son was called Padraic, and since this was my older brother’s name, this was apparently my mother’s inspiration. I’ll have to verify it. You’d think the history of our naming would be a minor bit of family lore, but it has not become so established. I pointed out the picture to my father and related the information about Imogen’s sons, but her name and story and likely influence on my mother were not familiar to him; he offered no alternative, however.

When I was gathering the links above, I came across a reference to Imogen having been born here in Portland. I don’t think I knew that before.

Eamon, check yourself

Gryffyd — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:58:40 +0000

I have no idea why someone would enter the phrase “eamon smells of poo” into a search engine, but someone evidently has, because that phrase has shown up in the list of search queries used to find this site. I assume it’s not me who smells so, given the alternate spelling of the name.

Another, more specific query is “golden retriever cocker spaniel mix in portland oregon”. Crikey. “Stick this in your fuse box” has turned up twice, and “kitchen sponge syndrome” eight times. “When was jebus born” is in there only once, as is “liz phair ipod engraving”.

The second most popular phrase, however, is “roxanne dunning”. Roxanne is the fabulous artist responsible for the picture of the fishes that graces this site. She is currently working on a painting for myself and Mrs The Fyd; a detail of the work-in-process can be seen here. It may not be seemly to publicise that we are to be the recipients of such great creative largesse, but a mitigating purpose is that there are pictures of some of Roxanne’s other work there, and I think everybody should go admire them.

Two Women

Gryffyd — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:51:28 +0000

I’ve been reading through John Updike’s collected early short stories. From “Snowing in Greenwich Village”, we have this passage:

Her face was pale, mottled pink and yellow; this accentuated the Modiglianiesque quality established by her oval blue eyes and her habit of sitting to her full height, her head quizzically tilted and her hands palm upward in her lap.

At the same time I have finally gotten around to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Early on we get this description:

Marylou was a pretty blonde with immense ringlets of hair like a sea of golden tresses; she sat there on the edge of the couch with her hands hanging in her lap and her smoky blue country eyes fixed in a wide stare because she was in an evil gray pad that she’d heard about back West, and waiting like a longbodied emaciated Modigliani surrealist woman in a serious room.

Someone else can get an essay out of this; for me it’s just a marker of cultural allusions in the mid-Fifties. Two of our best writers, but not directly comparable. I doubt I’ve seen any references to Modigliani in recent fiction. Reubenesque and Titian, perhaps. Warholian? They’re all writer’s crutches anyway, good riddance.

Seeing and hearing

Gryffyd — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:53:55 +0000

The 2008 calendar above my desk here at work shows a different Wayne Thiebaud painting each month. January displays this. I like Thiebaud’s work for a sense of fun and detail, but not so much for creepy. More than two-thirds of the month to go before I can stop looking at the devil’s toy closet.

This week I have been listening to Lucinda William’s “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” over and over again. It’s an indictment of myself that I did not earlier take the initiative to listen to her, and an indictment of American culture that I never heard a song of hers by chance until I watched the movie Talladega Nights, of all things. In fact, the song plays during the credits of that movie, which made my encounter with that divine voice even chancier. Bless those movie makers.

Of course that movie had Sepultura and AC/DC on its soundtrack, so I was always going to be kindly disposed to it.