I just typed "Jade 2010" for the last time ... it's New Year's Eve already here -- they'll be setting off the Sydney fireworks in less than nine hours. The champagne is chilling ... it's about 110 degrees, so dinner is cold cuts and salad ... and 2010 is almost finished.Think about it: that's the whole of the first decade of the twenty-first century, gone. Already! What happened to it? Ten years seems to have shot by like a flash of lightning ... shazoom, and it's turned into the past.
So I thought, let's do something a little bit special for the art today. In fact, I took two days over it (which is why you didn't see something fresh yesterday). First, paint an alien sky. Then juxtapose figures which seem to contradict...
I might call this series The Empress of Outer Space, if Benie Chandler hadn't written that, about 1965. Don't believe me? Would I tell you porkies?!
What's worse is, I still have a copy, same edition as this. Gazooks. (Confession: I love the "cheesy" old SF novels. They have an inspiring innocence, a naive charm which is absolutely irresistible.)
And meanwhile, I could swear time is unraveling. Somebody needs to get the Doctor on this assignment, because the year is really 1997, and about 80% of the last 20 years has been purloined. By whom? For what? Daleks! Yes, of course, that must be it. Now, what to do about it?
Seriously ... it's New Year's Eve, and here is a lovely series of renders to tickle your imagination: noble lady, about to board a spacecraft, or perhaps farewelling someone who's already boarded, under incredible alien skies (digitally painted in GIMP, yesterday) ... and she weeps salt tears for some parting, some loss that's happened, or soon will, in a distant future. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Happy New Year to all!
Jade, 31 December
