J.B. Sommerset

Here is more artwork from the vault. I have slowed on the transfers to digital because I have a lot of other things to complete. However, they are still coming. Here's a new one (also posted on the "artwork" page).  Cheers!

One of my favorite authors, the one it took me ages to appreciate, is H.P. Lovecraft. I have mentioned him many times here on my blog. I have Lovecraft binges where I will read a bunch and digest the work, which usually takes a minute. Sometimes it takes a second or third course before I fully appreciate his work.   The more I am exposed to his unique genre of literature, the more I like it. One of the reasons it took me so long to read his books and short stories is his use of words. He paints a picture with language! Sometimes that picture is not pleasant but similar to a good train wreck, it can't be looked away from. It's the nature of what he writes. Most people feel the same way about Lovecraft; he is complicated and hard to read. He has a method of assembling his sentences in a structure that requires swashbuckling through at times. When I was younger, I struggled with this. I liked simple, easy, and straightforward. H.P. Lovecraft is the antithesis of simple. I would l...

Marketing! There, I said it. We all know what it means, and most of us hiss and scurry away into the dark when we hear it. If you are a writer, an artist, or a musician, you most likely hate that word. I know I sure do... So much. You might find yourself asking a whole lot of questions about this sort of thing, and most of the answers are harder to find than they used to be. I still struggle with this part of writing, but the truth is, it's more important than the work (providing you want to get paid for what you do). What good is a masterpiece if no one ever sees it and becomes a stack of mold somewhere?  That being said, some notable artists create for the sheer release it provides. This is the cathartic value of the arts. It's a pressure release valve to let out all that "stuff" right under the surface. Just ask Henry Darger - he wrote his whole life, over twenty thousand pages never shared them with anyone. After his death, his works were discovered by accident.  ...