PeeWee – HaHa!

Wayne White came to my attention in the later 1980′s because I was a big huge fan of PeeWee’s Playhouse. He was a big part of it’s look and insanity. I would sit on the couch and watch that crazy show every Saturday morning; and I was ostensibly a ‘grown up’ already. I was in my 20′s anyway; same age as the show creators as it turns out. I wasn’t much of an artist in those days – I certainly wasn’t pursuing it in any big way, but I sure knew what I liked. I liked the colors, the light touch, and the full-on-crazy world those people invented!

Dan does amazing caricatures of people and animals out of polymer clay.

It was all so inspirational. But I wasn’t ready yet to make art big time so I just let that influence percolate.

About ten years later I had become a full time artist and that’s when I got to meet Dan Crowley. He and I were both showing our work at a national fine craft show and I was blown away by the clear voice of his clay sculptures. Later I came to be amazed at his sheer will power and persistence in pursuing his dreams.

Below is the movie trailer for a documentary made about Wayne and his career. It’s a fascinating look at the whirlwind that surrounds a creative dynamo. After watching this movie I realized just how much Wayne and the others who co-created PeeWee’s Playhouse had influenced me. They set a course that opened the world up to my kind of art! Since seeing this I have befriended Mimi Pond, Wayne’s awesome cartoonist wife, on Facebook where I get to stay in touch with their energy. (She’s getting ready to release a book soon – count on me talking about it when she does.)

“Beauty is Embarrassing” - Wayne’s documentary

That’s Wayne with a giant paper mache’ head dancing with Mimi in the trailer still.

Success is a Life Well Lived – Dan Crowley’s Story

Next is a super tribute a film student made of Dan about his life’s passions. This is so totally worth your while to have a look at because in it  we learn how pursuing art as his career has had its challenges and hasn’t been the lucrative, easy path you might think someone of his amazing depth and talent would have (yet – it’s always yet with people like me and Dan). But financial gains is so not what his career has been all about. His life is rich and full and his work has made gentle strides in changing bad days to good days for thousands of people.

So there you are. Two creative Life Forces who have both inspired and influenced me – each with a film that helps us all understand why it is they do what they do. I love how Wayne’s financial success hasn’t ruined his output – and Dan’s struggles haven’t ruined his either. Seen together now we have a chance to understand how money is so beside the point for most of what real art is about.

People always wonder “How can I tell if this art is real or good?” THIS is how, by looking at the creator. If money isn’t the driving factor then I will tell you, you are looking at genuine art. Now you know.

What I do is I set up shop in the living room and flip on our local NBC affiliate and watch the entire day through their eyes. Yep, here in Lexington the Horse Capital of the World they air the ENTIRE day – every mint julep, every race on the card, every talking head they can get to go public with an opinion on the certain winner (they’re all different – count on it). I sit with my sketch book or paints and draw and color. I take breaks to go out and love on my own horses munching hay in the barn.

Maybe at 3 or 5 or 10am  I’ll crush some ice, pick some mint, stir up some simple syrup and fix Mikey and me our own juleps.Then when the bell rings and “They’re Off!” I sit with my heart in my throat wishing as hard as I can for every equine to travel safely and without damaging incident, around that mile long dirt oval in front of millions of dollars of hats, seersucker and sucker suckers.It usually works. They’re usually hale and hearty when they cross the finish line and one little man raises his arm over his head pointing to his God and shouts gleefully.

The most truthful answer is a simple “No.”
I can show you how I draw. I can explain my process, discuss my tools and describe the space I tend to find the most conducive: the time of day I find the most stimulating; the circumstances most likely to allow my ideas to flow from wherever it is they come down my arm and out my pencil. But I can’t teach myself to draw let alone anyone else.

All I, or anyone else, can do is practice. Practice putting marks on tablets. Practice being patient with ourselves as our own process evolves. Practice building on what we like and moving away from results we’d rather not get. Then find the balance which will become our artistic voice within these multiple factors and try to repeat it adding and subtracting variables as we go.

The reason I try to draw every day is because I need the practice. I’m on my 486th drawing in a row and what I can tell you for certain is only this: I’ve gotten a little bit better accepting what I get. Some days I like the results a lot more than others. Some days I almost wonder why I bothered. Often I have to be content with kind of a crumby drawing knowing somewhere in the effort something good was begun or some old habit moved away from. In this way I’m often certain I’ve learned something. Sometimes all I’ve learned though is to be nice to myself for at least trying even when I wasn’t much n the mood, or devoid of any original idea or solution.

Black Cat Dancer

The days when I create a little vignette that otherwise wouldn’t have existed had I not made the effort that ends up delighting some viewers when I post it somewhere – those are the exception and those days give me just the boost I need to make it through the tougher more typical ones.

Spring is like that; tentative, pushed back under and then – Boing! Nothing can hold it back and everything reaches for the sun with a pent up gusto unrivaled by any other season. Entire hillsides green up in an afternoon. Bees tumble out of their stale depleted hives and giddily encircle the blooms on the ones who commit early.

Robins stop eyeing you quizzically as they focus their attentions now to the unseen clamoring maybe only they can hear in the soil just below the surface. Clouds stumble on each other racing to this horizon or that. Yellow sparkles light up corners replacing last year’s frazzled leftovers with their joyful announcements. Creeks rid themselves of their sodden winter accumulations. Delicate tendrils begin feeling their way back up to the tops of their fences, posts, walls, tree trunks and sleeping dogs.

Suddenly you throw open the door and your mood lifts as fast a startled Mourning Dove up beyond the trees with their lightly green tinged branches.

This is spring.

Spice Bush Buds

Red Tulips

Dandelion

Decorative Peach bloom macro

Apple Blossom

The honey bees first feast tree

Red Cotoneaster blooms

Close Up pink tulip

Narcissus center

Forsythia leaf bud

Dogwood bud

The end of a bud macro

“Creeping Charlie” blooms close up

Macro Magnolia

Opening Leaves

Luscious Bud

Forsythia’s Golden Haze

All photos ©marti mcginnis | taken with an iphone 4s | lightly modified using a 99¢ app

The front cover image

Sunday, March 24, was “International Mini Comics Day” across the globe. Cartoonists were invited to participate no mater where they lived, or what their skills, fame or topic.

I decided this would be a great way to reinvigorate my own participation in the world of creating comics so I set aside the entire day to produce my own ‘mini comic’.

Due to the recent passing of a great friend, JoJo, a canine pal, fellow creative, and long time business associate I opted to tackle the tough concept of what happens to us when we die. Following the directions for creating a mini comic using just one sheet of letter sized paper I sized my drawings to scale down to fit the panels. The comic is printed on card stock, printed both sides with a color reproduction of this triptych affixed to the front.

I think what I’ve come up with might be a nice thing to give to someone who has lost a pet. For the more open minded, I think it actually does a pretty good job comforting someone thinking about where we all might head after we’re done on earth. In any case, it comforts me.

Below are the 6 interior pages as well as the painting triptych that appears on the front cover. What do you think?

Panel 1

Panel 2

Panel 3

Panel 4

Panel 5

Panel 6 – End

The mini comic

Copies of the Mini Comic are available here for $1.50 each.

Fine Art prints of the cover image are available here.

Use Promo Code: EVERNESS to get free shipping for the mini comic or the print or any combo of the two for a limited time only!

Young Quarter Horses

Remuda (collection of horses)

Briefly, what happens is, four upper tier horse trainers are invited to meet in an arena and spend several sessions with a young, completely unhandled colt in full view of a paying public — complete with loud playby and Jumbotrons — and do what they can to get this horse trained. In a total of four sessions from 1 to 2 hours each (for a total of about 5 hours total) these savvy horsemen and horsewomen convince their equine charges that life can be fine as a riding horse, and, in fact, this is what they were born to be! NOTE: training a young horse more typically takes several weeks to get them ‘started’ and some years beyond that for a fine ‘finish’.

Who IS This Guy?

I had been expecting to see competence, skills, patience, technique; but I wasn’t prepared for the tears that flowed as I witnessed the transformation of one colt into a trusting tractable Partner in such an astoundingly short amount of time under some of THE most trying of circumstances for these creatures of flight. His likable steward was Guy McLean, an Aussie equine showman who loves to joke and doesn’t shy away from the limelight.

Noodle-a-Thon

The three days culminates with the trainers riding these half-broke colts through a series of obstacles in front of a sometimes rowdy and enthusiastic full house in this 5000 seat indoor arena. Guys’s colt not only made it through the neck-grabbing noodle chute, the freaktastic mylar hanging banners of menace and death and across the tarp of instant death (all horses’ terms, not mine) but he tromped up onto a pedestal and let Guy stand on his back cracking whips and do a shoulder stand on his neck – did I say it was a full house, the crowd was noisy and this green, young horse had only a total of 6 hours handling? Here’s the kicker and where my tears started flowing.

Amazing Grace

Drawing #459 – Guy McLean – horseman extraordinaire

Guy sits back down and recites a poem he’s written that honors this horse; honors all horses. He calls himself a bush-poet – he’s Australian, they’re funny yhat way. Then he leans forward and gently removes the bridle drops it to the ground and eases this almost unnaturally trusting partner into a nice lope around the full parameter of the arena with just his seat – an amazing feat for any horseman anywhere under any circumstance with any seasoned horse including all those with years of training!

The End Word?

He dismounted, removed the saddle and with a choke in his own voice and through the glaze of his own tears told us all he hadn’t planned to be able to do that, and he was honoring his new friend and giving him full credit for completing this inspirational circle of trust. Which is why I’m writing about this on this blog; my art blog. Because inspiration can come from anywhere at any time, and most especially through patience, skill, compassion, perseverance and trust. And when it comes, the very best among us don’t claim it, but share it willingly, freely and with all their heart.

Guy McLean – rides his 4 at this weekend’s Road to the Horse in Lexington, Kentucky

Where’s my picture of Guy’s amazing ride? I don’t have one. I was too busy being amazed and wiping away tears to even think about that.

Mean vs. Nice

Since releasing my latest book, “400 Mornings” I’ve continued drawing. I tried to stop, or at least slow down, but I soon discovered I have become somewhat addicted to the good feeling of morning creation. The really nice side benefit of some of all this sketching is the plethora of ideas I can choose from to re-work into full color paintings!

HappyArt Gazette

Below are the next 50. To help spread the word about this ongoing project and share the optimism and general good feeling these ditties tend to engender I have started up this very day an email newsletter I’m calling the “HappyArt Gazette“. I plan to release an issue no more than twice a month and in it will be the best of the recent drawings as well as some pix of how some of these have become paintings and prints. Click here to subscribe. Of course you can unsubscribe any time.

Any Image is Yours!

Finally, new this season, you can purchase a fine-art giclee print of ANY numbered drawing below or from the book. Each comes matted and sleeved and ready to plop into a standard 11×14 frame. At just $17 each, they’re a great way to spread the joy this project inspires! Click here for details.

Here are the most recent new fifty:
Click on the FS button to see larger and your own “esc” button to go back to normal size again.)

• The Hidden Reality
• The Elegant Universe:
• Parallel Worlds:
• Hyperspace:

Where is Love?

As a pursuer of Truth in other realms I also love to tap into the overarching teachings of just about every religion. Whenever the proponents of each religion get into the underlying principles for their truths and beliefs you really start to see wonderful patterns emerge. An excellent and very current source for their observations and teaching is a radio show and podcast called “On Being‘ hosted by Krista Tippett. She finds people from every religious and spiritual aspect as well as other places where spiritual practice is less precious and more day-to-day.

Who Describes Love Best?

I also find the same is true for all who envision a better world and seek to illuminate and create paths for others to find grace. I think Creatives of every media – from art to applied sciences and everything in between also discover universal kernels of Truth in our pursuits.

I drew a ven diagram of how I envision the intersection of these various ways of going through this world happens upon similar universal truths – the ones having to do with Love, its non-locality, everywhereness potential and expression through pattern, connection and ultimate peace.

Love: It’s Everywhere

Whether in the explorations of deep math, dark matter, gravitons and quanta or love, happiness, peace and joy, self-expression, dance, art, music, poetry or cooking, gardening, fixing things – where these activities overlap in ‘flow‘, joy, love and sharing I think is where you have found the God in it; the Love.

I paint it like this:

Love is found wherever truth seekers look for it.

And it’s available as a fine art print here.

Phoebe Allen – TV Star!

Prolific and Terrific!

Phoebe is a Channel Island Allen (S.s. sedentarius) hummingbird in Orange County, California. She is a wonderful and seasoned mother too. The hosts have been broadcasting her clutches since 2007! What I love is the wonderful sense of community among the onlookers who check in from all over the globe. There’s a running chat stream so we get to interact with each other as each little event takes place live before our eyes.

Guardian Angels

I have begun to feel that this whole experience feels exactly like we’re all Phoebe’s Guardian Angels. While we can’t actually reach out and touch her, we all send these absolutely genuine and very strong feelings of love, hope, joy with each egg laid, each chick who pecks out, each first feeding, oh - everything!

Below is a video of the live feed showing Phoebe laying an egg!

Join Us!

Phoebe has a Facebook Page. She also has a fact page where you can read up on the particulars. They tweet ( (haha!) about her @phoebeallens

The fun Facebook surprise

Yesterday I filled out an application to participate as an Art Car Artist at the ever-fun Lower Town Art and Music Festival in Paducah, Kentucky. New for them this year will an Art Car feature. They’re encouraging everyone within a 350 mile range of Paducah to give them a heads up on their intent to come and show the region their ride!

Of course I’ll be bring The Lucky Mobile – because that’s what I drive anyway! What was interesting about the timing of my filling out their application was yesterday I was tagged in a photo posted by an organization completely unknown to me that featured my car as it was parked at an equine event at the Kentucky Horse Park a couple of years back. The funny thing was that picture was going viral throughout horsey people on Facebook.

One of my connections saw the pic and tagged me. Totally cracked me up; the timing. I’ve been painting my vehicles for over fifteen years now. Below is the latest version:

Your door – climb aboard!

My door

Your side – hop in!

The whole thing complete with pony topper

With the Happy Garden Trailer and snarky mini