Ghosts

I remember painting these several years ago. I was experimenting with negative imagery, painting the dark around a lit object, around a lit face or figure, landscapes at night, using a brush loaded up with Ivory Black. The subject inevitably came around to ghosts. Cutting the eyes out of a photograph does the same thing; we are suddenly looking at a dead thing.

















I can remember films using this simple idea to arresting effect, no commentary needed. When the eyes are gone, the person isn't there anymore, or that is the intent, as if the eyes are the repository of the soul. (I wrote a short story around this idea recently. I love ghost stories.) These images and several others were published in The Believer a couple of years ago. The story hasn't been published yet, although half of my published stories do have ghosts of one kind or another in them. Mostly the ones I've had published in Australia for some reason. Happy Halloween. Enjoy your parties.

Camera Setting

This drawing appeared in last month's issue of The Believer, art directed by Jason Polan. I recently did a whole series of these arrangements of familiar objects. I began with the familiar place setting, plate center, tableware left and right, glass at one o'clock, etc. When I named this one "camera setting" I realized its double meaning. But there is no meaning to it. No reason behind it. The arrangement is arbitrary. We organize our lives and our belongings along similar lines, with familiar protocols, like items at our desks or dinner tables. Likewise our computer desktops, which are intangible and fugitive. Order reassures us the world is going to function even when it won't.