Dan Landrum 30 year retrospective

This page is a taste of the past 30 years or so of my thoughts and expressions doing what I love doing most — playing with words & pictures. Subsequently, it also traces my meandering transition between the physical and the virtual, from the old school analog to the upstart digital realms . . . and back again.

>> SAMPLE: Words & Pictures (show/hide)

Hola Allah

People to Spend a Pandemic With: Group One

Chaotic Collage COVID-19 : 211204: Civics & Epidemiology

Happy Alone Together

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I don't remember a word.

I don't remember a word, still it reverberates -- the pow in powerful, shakes the rain outta the terrain. It could have been the electric Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley or the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. I never knew. In those days I never knew -- everywhere was here and it was always now. It may very well have been Alice Walker for all I know, or for that matter maybe God was giving me a moment and brought in Ella Fitzgerald for the day. I never got her name. Didn't seem important just then, nor whether the lines rhymed or if the verses kept the beat. Exuberance, the full body presence of joy on every wet sparking utterance, that's what I hung on. Wave after wave, deeper and deeper into that ageless shape being drawn in thin air and left dangling in an after image fading into a distant tomorrow that never comes.

I don't remember a word she said, but I know the place well. That place where it's just me and all of it. And the others who stopped on the sidewalk and listened, and really listened, let her seamless mystical conveyance wash other them, they too would light up, you could see clear as day. Those passersby too busy to notice didn't see it, didn't go there, didn't get transported back into themselves. Had nothing to recall.

I don't remember a word spoken, not one, but the place she spoke of was a drop of water. Could have been a teardrop or a dewdrop on a dirty window, or dripping from a leaky faucet, or a single drop of the spray gushing from the sprinklers in the park. One drop, the sunlight hitting just so, fracturing a tiny rainbow in a stunning surprise of wonder and sparking delight. (Yes, there's that wet sparking again, echoing the wet sparking utterances that gushed and gushed from her animated lips in a steady breathless stream.)

I don't remember a word, but for sure I remember she didn't know she was poor, she didn't know she was black. Not then when she first saw the beyond a mystery in a single dazzling clear water drop -- that instance of noticing. Not then and not now, as she overflows three octaves too high an exuberant squeal, (yes, there's that exuberance again, echoing the full body presence of joy on every wet sparking utterance that I'm hanging on,) three octaves below gravitas trying to help us find our way off the hustle bustle traffic jam and into the place where living takes place. She didn't have a cigar box out, or a guitar case. She was gifting, not begging. It wasn't performance politic or a sly sell. It was this other thing. This other thing I'd never see again even if I looked and looked. And I looked, looked long and soft after the last sound whispered out her heart past her moist lips. I looked sharp as she stood silently swaying in the unspoken currents. Rich with an ocean of diamond sunlight in a dewdrop. As free from the chains of social status as a ghost surfing that ocean's breeze.

I never got her name. I didn't have words, or maybe I was too shy or afraid to step up and ask. It's dangerous to know the name of such beauty. Everlasting beauty has a way of capturing you and making you a slave, demanding you stop and listen and be absorbed. You can lose yourself in such beauty, where you find everywhere is here and it's always now; where it's just me and all of it.

UPDATE 211208:

No words. Not an utterance. No words, just dance. I never got her name, but I saw this poet's granddaughter today. Soft shoe, light feet, quick step, a hop, a leap, a twirl. She rolled up to the plaza in front of Apple Inc in Fashion Valley Mall, across from the Banana Republic, past Gucci and Prada with a piece of pink hard-shell airport luggage and her wooden briefcase. Opening the briefcase to fish out The Word Puzzle Book and a journal, she studiously arranges a 3 bill display, a one, a five and a ten dollar bill -- her stretch goal suggestion, which she lays flat and neat, and weighs down with loose change. She's gifting, and soft-sell begging. The books are placed atop the pink luggage, which she's rolled to the other side of her imaginary makeshift stage.

Set-up, she takes a moment. A face covered black on brown with symbols and floral tattoos, otherwise a doppelganger for Amanda Gorman....she begins to sway. She takes a moment, and in that moment she takes me. She takes me with her. The dancer cues to the sounds of the mall sound system. The dancer aligns with the music, but more, she dances feeling. Her feelings run deep. Her knees bend, feet move, her eyes open. She notices me noticing her, smiles a beatific smile as her feet catch fire. Quick step, step, step, a hop, a leap, hop, hop. Twirl, full circle. Stop. Bliss. Leap. Reverie. Twirl. Sublime. Absorbed inner-outer. This! I, we, us, all, dance. I, perfectly still, she, fluid ecstatic motion. Exuberance, the full body presence of joy. Passersby, some somewhat curious, too busy to notice, didn't feel it, didn't go there, didn't get transported back unto themselves. Had nothing to recall in this moment.

The mall sound system fades, song ends. The hop stops into a soft sway, eyes close. She takes a moment. A thought bubble cocks her head to the side and the soft shoe dancer steps purposefully to the journal atop the pink luggage. As she documents, I fish a twenty out of my wallet and place it in her wooden briefcase. As I do she looks up, sparkles, "Thank you. I really appreciate it." Not shy at all, "Yes, thank YOU!" I reply. Thank you for this rare moment. Now unafraid of the everlasting beauty that has a way of capturing you and making you a slave, demanding you stop and listen and be absorbed. Now more than happy to lose myself in such beauty, where everywhere is here and it's always now; where it's just me, and she, and they, and all of it.

<< CLOSE sample: Words & Pictures (show/hide)

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International Mail Art [PDF: 39MB]
Nothing captures the leap from snail-mail to cyber-art as distinctly as Mail Art.
(Also see > Lynn-Radford: Dan Landrum’s Digi-Distortions, posted on April 29, 2014)

Doodles [PDF: 39MB]
No threads pass through my meanderings more than doodling. I can't say enough about my time spent doodling. So I'll let them speak for themselves.

Landrum Arts ARCHIVE: 6/1999 to 2/2003 [PDF: 1MB]
My first personal website built in 2000. I lost the domain name in 2003 when I went on vacation and forgot to renew the domain registration.

Non‐objective paintings of the early 1990's (from the Jane Selle Morgan collection) [PDF: 6MB]

Landrum Arts via Internet Archive Wayback Machine: December 6, 2000 and April 7, 2002

Web & Graphic Design [PDF: 4MB]
From 2000 to 2012, I worked as a Web & Graphic Designer, both freelance and as an in-house employee. Here are some samples of my client based collateral.

Social Media: images uploaded to Facebook between 2013-2018.
Over 3,000 images — not a dud in the bunch.

FB 2013-18: IMAGES-01 [PDF: 106MB]
FB 2013-18: IMAGES-02 [PDF: 100MB]
FB 2013-18: IMAGES-03 [PDF: 108MB]
FB 2013-18: IMAGES-04 [PDF: 110MB]

The Adventures of Mere & Merry Mortal [PDF: 42MB]
A quasi cartoon narrative that emerged as an analog/digital blend of pen and paper doodles and cyber collaging.

American Gothic Digital Collages [PDF: 6MB]
Doubling down on the confluent narrative of cyber collaging

Bird Series Project [PDF: 5MB]
Again bending the rules in an analog/digital marriage, but this time riffing off a small, local "Paint Night Group" community.

Memories in the Making
For 5 years beginning in 2002 I provided art sessions 5 times a week for the Alzheimer's Association's Memories in the Making program.

Memories in the Making--Artists [PDF: 1MB]
A few interactions I had with MIM artists.
MIM Pieces [PDF: 48MB]
Somes of the pieces I made in collaboration with MIM artists.

Computer Numerical Control (CNC)
Prompted by the promise of CNC smart tools emerging in the Maker Movement, from 2012 to 2014 I designed and made laser-cut corrugated cardboard lamps, decor containers and sculptures, as well as laser engraved signs and wall art.

My Quest to Turn Smart Craft into a Sustainable Business -- MAKE Magazine 2014 [PDF: 1MB]
Signs by Design [PDF: 7MB]

Urban Mining Project [PDF: 9MB]
In an effort to reclaim, repurpose and add value to the myriad discards from our consumer culture, the durable and malleable kraft paper used to make the lowly cardboard box becomes an inviting substrate for paintings abstractly, expressing the dynamics of the universal urban hubbub.

Portraits of People to Spend a Pandemic With
Paintings on cardboard and pencil drawings on paper done while shut away from a raging global real world viral pandemic.

Pandemic Portraits, pencil drawings on paper [PDF: 25MB]

Millimeter for millimeter
there is likely no other piece of real estate
more expressive
of the feelings or 'state of mind'
behind it
than the human face.

Pandemic Portraits, paintings on cardboard [PDF: 22MB]

There's the aching missing of people we know we will never see again in this life time, and the wistful missing of people we hope we can see again before long. With intimates it's all the more. And in the missing there's the reminder that ultimately we are alone, all utterly alone -- and how good it is to have someone else who cares, and for whom we care deeply, to be happy alone together with. I hope I can be one of those for you.

Chaotic Collage COVID-19
Internet media clippings made while shut away from the real world viral pandemic.

As the Coronavirus goes viral in the real world, disinformation, social-political unrest and conspiracy theories go viral in the virtual one. It's the chaos of the Trump era, and for the ardent racial reckoning led in the streets by the Black Lives Matter movement. At some point, to separate fact from fiction, belief from science, it becomes imperative to get a clear sense of the bias of the actual person writing the stories or taking the pictures. These clippings are my take on trying to make sense of the tumult.

"Chaos does not mean disorder... it represents an abstract cosmic principle referring to the source of all creation," Ralph Abraham

Chaotic Collage COVID-19: 1/2020 to 1/2022

1 of 10 > 01-05/2020: [PDF: 292MB]
2 of 10 > 05-08/2020: [PDF: 274MB]
3 of 10 > 08-10/2020: [PDF: 279MB]
4 of 10 > 10-12/2020: [PDF: 250MB]
5 of 10 > 01-04/2021: [PDF: 240MB]
6 of 10 > 04-06/2021: [PDF: 191MB]
7 of 10 > 06-07/2021: [PDF: 120MB]
8 of 10 > 07-09/2021: [PDF: 153MB]
9 of 10 > 09-11/2021: [PDF: 222MB]
10 of 10 > 09-12/2021: [PDF: 210MB]

Daily COVID-19 statistics
16 March 2020 to 31 December 2021: [PDF: 244MB]

Words: my thoughts and conversations

Conversations on Silent Paintings [PDF: 1MB]
Posing the question: "Sensibilities in a society increasingly bombarded with ever more intense stimuli ... do "silent paintings" need quiet minds to be seen and appreciated?"

Data Mining in the Information Age :: SERIES: DigitalArt [PDF: 2MB]
Data Mining in the Information Age is fluid network processing. Fixed objects are matzah balls in the soup. It's the stories we tell around the dinner table that hold our interest and the power to see and make things different. With Teflon-free adaptability and flexibility there is no indigestion, even when gulping all of it at once. Please pass the hot salsa.

Why I Am Out of the Art Conversation [PDF: 1MB]
The world is increasingly polarized between the myth of the rational and the myth of the faithful. The confrontation between religious faith and the modern scientific world is not going away. It's time to break the spell.

reheated tweets: Tell me Who I’m Talking To [PDF: 1MB]
200+ forgettable aphorisms inspired by the Dancing Sun, 2011

Haiku with commentary [PDF: 1MB]

Mother-in-Law's Tongue waggling carefree in an indoor pot.
New growth! Kigo, schmikigo.
Who cares what season it is?

Notes to Self [PDF: 1MB]
I've perpetually been a big fan of bumpersticker logic and declarations, such as the one at the top of this page. Here's a glimpse into my 'notes to self' file.

Showing a neighbor my doodles, he asks how I learned. In big part I say, I must attribute them to the round well-formed handwriting of my mother. Which caused me to think what I owe my life line of expression to...

I am to be found in the lineage of
humanist, transcendental to realist
American Bohemians ala Walt Whitman
(with a pinch of Mark Twain,)
through the post World War 2 beatniks,
spiritual-poets and hipsters melding Alan Watts,
Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Jack Kerouac,
twisting with social-political renegades in the ilk of
Abby Hoffman, Ram Dass (nee Richard Alpert)
and roshi Joan Halifax ─
of course too,
the sirens of my day,
Joan Baez, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins
and Bob Dylan teased me to open
and be with myself on the Us-Them odyssey ─
careful to be on alert not to try to dissolve
the boundaries between,
but rather to ever be expanding
the inclusive facets of what belongs within us.

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Appendix: looking back to a time before Reagan

danYello Seas: reminisces of an intensely laid-back wandering hippie | 2011 [PDF: 2MB]
(An introduction to the author and his times…)

Six Walking Songs from the 1970s [HTML]
As I wandered,... sometimes I had a great notion to sing new songs as I walked from town to town.

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updated through : 31 December 2021
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Words & Pictures 1991-2021: an Analog to Digital retrospective Dan Landrum

I don't remember a word.

Appendix: looking back to a time before Reagan

Words & Pictures 1991-2021:

an Analog to Digital retrospective
Dan Landrum