The Fly in my Soup is Crying

Interim

2011-11-01T11:04:00.000-07:00

I vowed that the next post on this blog would be the memorial for our westie, Pupkin. Writing about him proved to be painful, and still is now even after a whole year (hence the procrastination). It is like having to say goodbye all over again, but with the anniversary date of his passing quickly approaching I need to do it.

The last blog I wrote was about the loss of what we called the Bradbury Tree across the street from us. Little did we know that not long after we would be losing our Pupkin, who was named after Joe Pipkin from Ray Bradbury's, The Halloween Tree. Bitter irony.

Rather than have two memorials back to back I thought I'd post this tidbit about something that really cheered up Becky and me when we saw it.

Earlier this year Cody Goodfellow posted a progress report on the Perilous Press Blog and included a photo he took of Patton Oswalt holding a copy of Michael Shea's Copping Squid. Cody told me that Patton is a huge fan of Michael's work. We were stoked to see such a great comedian and actor (who is one of our all time favorites!) holding up a book sporting a cover done by me. Thanks Cody for letting me re-post the photo!

© 2011 Cody Goodfellow

Happy Autumn? Not so fast.

2010-09-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

We woke up this morning to the wail of chainsaws. Across the street from our home, city workers were taking down a majestic old maple tree that must have been at least 80 years old.

The reason the workers gave Becky when she inquired was, "we were told to take it down 'cause its damaging the sidewalk".

Even in the strongest winds and fiercest ice storms the old girl never lost more than a branch or two. But what Mother Nature in her capricious moods nibbled in healable morsels, man in his hunger for imagined order devoured in whole.

We enjoyed watching that beautiful tree revolve through the seasons since we moved here in July of 1994. It, along with the old historic homes it complimented, was one of the reasons we referred to our little area as a "Ray Bradbury Street". Water Street could perhaps have been some unmentioned side avenue in "The Halloween Tree" or a quiet lane from "Dandelion Wine".

We'll miss the starkness of its bare branches against the winter sky, the soft pale green of its new leaves in spring, the sound of the summer winds moving through its dense foliage, and the fiery orange of its autumn cloak.

No more will its leaves skitter madly through the streets on a windy November day, no more will squadrons of dragonflies hunt above its canopy on a bright August afternoon.

The streetlight will now only have the sterile ground below for its mercury incandescence to illuminate, the leaves and branches that caught and softened the upward shine of its harsh glare hauled off and dumped without ceremony in some overburdened landfill.

Some might rejoice in the passing of "a messy tree whose leaves clogged the gutters and littered the neighborhood lawns". But there are a few of us who mourn the loss of what could be equated as an old and trusted friend. Today the City of Charlestown may have become closer to model efficiency, but we feel that it has become exponentially colder in heart.

Yes, I'm being melodramatic, but I felt the occasion called for a bit of literary decorum.

And as summer comes to a close...

2010-09-21T17:55:00.000-07:00

I'm busy, busy, busy. I meant to have this blog entry posted by the beginning of September, but better late than never. I can't complain though. It is so nice having a full work schedule.

It was a definitely a"Butterfly" summer. Simon Clark's novella "Butterfly" sold out in a heartbeat. Simon was kind enough to include some of the images I created for his Signature Series book in this wonderful promotional video. The music and photographs are by Alex Clark.

I was once again accorded the honor of working on a Gene O'Neill novel. Coming soon from Bad Moon Books is Gene's novel "DEATHFLASH" Here are the cover and interiors.

Our final convention of the year was Context 23 . What a blast! Everyone from fellow guests to Context staff were just wonderful. I sold a lot of prints and the original illustration for my latest Chaosium assignment. And the frosting on the cake was that I scored some jobs. I love writer's conventions.

One of the jobs resulted from my highly successful art demo. More about that in a future blog.

On Saturday night during the Shroud Publishing party the Hiram Awards were bestowed. Lo and behold I was given the award for "Unique Juxtaposition in Illustration". Written on the back of the award certificate is " For demonstrating innumerable uses of cogs and fossils in horror art". Uh-oh, this is just going to provoke me to keep painting my mechanized nightmares.

And just in time for the Halloween season is my cover illustration for J. G. Faherty's forthcoming novel " Carnival of Fear" which will be published by by Graveside Books (GravesideBooks.com). It was great fun making J. G.'s vision for his cover a reality, but how can you go wrong with ghouls and ferris wheels.

Butterfly

2010-07-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Yay! I just saw this at Cemetery Dance Publications. The limited edition of Simon Clark's Butterfly is now listed as In-Stock.

A Facebook test.

2010-07-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

I just want to see if Facebook will import this new entry.

NEEDS MORE COWBELL!

2010-07-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd better jot down this blog while it is reasonably fresh in my mind. Camp Necon was last weekend. We had a great time as always. The title of my blog is in reference to Cortney Skinner's spot-on impersonation of Christopher Walken during this years talent show.

Cortney Skinner

This was the 30th anniversary and the campus was rocking. There were two mystery guests this time around. I think everyone had an interesting time trying to guess who they might be (it would be fun if this turned into a yearly event). As it turned out the mystery guests were none other than literary greats Brian Keene and Joe Hill. Of course it must be noted that all the writers at Necon are either current or future literary greats.

I have not read Joe's work yet, but I now have an autographed copy of Heart Shaped Box to start with.

Brian Keene, Mary SanGiovanni, and Joe Hill

Poetry extraordinaire Linda Addison was in attendance. I have to give her a nod for introducing us to St. Germain Elderflower liqueur. We brought a bottle of this potent nectar and had great fun in sharing it. We plan on bringing a bottle with us next year in addition to some other interesting spirits. It is after all a horror writers convention.

Jill Bauman, Linda Addison, and Becky.

During a round table discussion at the gazebo in the quad Rick Hautala posed the question to everyone "Who would you drive 500 miles to meet?". The answers included such greats as Ray Bradbury, Rachel Maddow, Angela Lansbury (Becky's answer) and guitarist Steve Howe.

I was preoccupied taking pics with the old Sony so I did not give an answer that night, but here it is now. Necon as a whole is my response to the question. Since 2005 I've been driving over 500 miles to meet some of the greatest folks in the world. I'm constantly learning new things at Necon, I continuously meet new and fascinating people at Necon, and getting to the nitty gritty of things, I get paying jobs at Necon. And while I'm projecting (hopefully) the appearance of a professional artist, inside I'm the biggest geek fan of all these extraordinary people. I know this might sound sappy, but it is true.

Now to a bit of Necon news I've been sitting on for a year. I now have something in common with such artistic greats as Omar Rayyan, Cortney Skinner, Alan Clark, Jill Bauman, Mike Mignola, and Richard Sardinha to name a few. In 2011 I will be the Artist Guest of Honor for Necon 31. All I can say is wow. Well, that is all I can say at the moment. But really, WOW!

A special thanks to Dallas Mayr for pointing out the sweet spot for this wonderful shot. Click on the picture to get the full sized image.

"Mechanizing the Chimera" and other news fit to print.

2010-06-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

My show "Mechanizing the Chimera" is currently up at The Tim Faulkner Gallery. Consisiting of twelve new 16" x 20" paintings on canvas, this show explores some of my older illustrating ideas (some dating back to high school) and revisiting them with the current concepts and techniques I've been working with.

The show is up through the month of June, and if you find yourself in Louisville tonight please drop by the gallery for my "private" reception.

I'm woefully behind in my blogging duties (as usual) and up to my ears in assignments, so I'll quickly wrap this blog up with a role call of books currently available that feature my art on the covers.

To Each Their Darkness by Gary A. Braunbeck is currently available from Apex Book Company.

Jade by Gene O'Neill, published by Bad Moon Books, is available at Horror Mall

The Yith Cycle, edited by Bob Price is available from Chaosium Inc.

Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss is available from Cemetery Dance Publications.

And sporting a cover created by Alan M. Clark and myself is Lost in Cat Brain Land by Cameron Pierce, published by Eraserhead Press and available through Amazon.com

The Bram Stoker Awards

2010-03-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

The Bram Stoker Awards ceremony was held this past weekend at the World Horror Convention in Brighton, England. I'm pleased to report that Gene O'Neill won the Award for Superior Achievement in a Collection for Taste of Tenderloin which I did the cover for. Congratulations to Gene and publisher Jason Sizemore!

Also congratulations to Norman Prentiss for winning the Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction and Michael Knost for winning the Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction.

The complete list of winners can be seen at the Horror Writers Association's blog Dark Whispers.

I have had the pleasure of working on a number of Gene's projects. I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to William Jones for choosing me to illustrate Gene's story "Invasors de Suenos" for Dark Wisdom back in 2005. This brought my work to Gene's attention. Most recently I illustrated his chapbook Jade, published by Bad Moon Books (available for pre-order at Horror Mall).

Congratulations again Gene, and I look forward to our future collaborations.

2010-03-02T18:52:00.000-08:00

The year started out on a sad note for us. We lost our cat Will-o-wisp. She would have been 18 this coming June. She died of feline kidney failure, which, if I'm correct in understanding, is fairly common in older cats. She had a pretty good life aside from having to deal with our younger cats, and being nearly 18 is admittedly a good milestone for a feline. Nonetheless, I wish we could have had more time with her. I miss her rattling the door knobs on my studio doors and sitting behind me in my chair while I painted.

In news of my trade, my first assignment for the year was an Elder Signs Press project. I was very pleased with how the painting turned out. I'll post that as soon as I'm given the go-ahead. Likewise with an interior illustration for Allen K's magazine INHUMAN.

Gene O'Neill's anthology Taste of Tenderloin (published by Apex Digest) has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award (the complete list is available here) . Congratulations Gene! This is the first time that a publication with one of my covers has been on the nomination list.

A limited edition chapbook Dark Faith: Last Rights is available from Apex Book Company. And of course I'm mentioning it here because the cover is by me. This is part of a promotion for the anthology Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon. Ordering info is available at at this address.

And back to Gene O'Neill. I had the pleasure of illustrating his new chapbook "Jade" which will soon be available from Bad Moon Books. Here is the cover and interior illustrations.

"Inside The Jack-In-The-Box"

2009-12-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

This friday (December 4th) is the opening for the December show "Inside The Jack-In-The-Box" at the Tim Faulkner Gallery. Some of my paintings will be among the fantastic work on display and for sale.

Here is the official announcement:

"Tim Faulkner Gallery will be marking it's 2nd anniversary with "Inside The Jack-In-The-Box", a Xmas group show. To celebrate this holiday season, I have gotten together with some of the city's top artists and they've produced smaller works that will be very affordable and make great Xmas presents. This will be an opportunity to own works by artists such as Steven Gilberts, Quincy Owens, Terry Tapp, Barbara Crawford, Margaret Spivey, and Jeremy Dixon at a more than reasonable cost. Please plan on attending and supporting the local arts. This should prove to be our biggest show of the year, so needless to say you don't want to miss it!"

Date: Friday, December 4, 2009
Time: 5:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: Tim Faulkner Gallery

The show will be up through December, so even if you cannot make it for the opening I hope you will be able to drop in sometime this month.

And don't forget, the gallery has moved. The new address is:

632 E. Market St. Ste. 1
Louisville, KY 40202

and the phone number is (502) 381-1314.

Ghosts and Toasts

2009-11-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

We had a blast this past weekend.

Saturday night we hung out with the great folks of "The Old Dark Clubhouse" gang at the Wonderfest reunion. As the level of a $100 bottle of special Woodford Reserve steadily decreased the conversation ran from episodes of SCTV to old movies (I've got to see Stairway to Heaven) to tales of the fortean. At everyone's urging Troy Guinn broke out his guitar and regaled us with music from his old band The Secret Commonwealth. Later in the evening he sang a tribute song to the late, great, Jack Hunter Daves that he and Linda Wylie co-wrote which was followed by a toast in memory of Jack. There was not a dry eye in the house. Thanks again Dave and Randy for inviting us.

Sunday found us at the monthly Sunday Salon at The Tim Faulkner Gallery. The current show is Shoe Gazer Dream Pop, a showing of recent work by phenomenal artist Jen Goodell. It was good crowd. I brought some work for the upcoming December show and had my ego boosted with wonderful plaudits. And thank you again Margaret for giving me the moniker "Mystic Steve".

Among the scary subjects discussed Saturday night were ghosts, and among the scary subjects discussed Sunday was health insurance. The insurance conversation was by far the scariest of the weekend.

In other news, Perilous Press is running the NOVEMBER COPPING SQUID SWEEPSTAKES! .

Here is the info from the Perilous Press site: "STEVEN GILBERTS showered a treasure trove of darksome COPPING SQUID art upon us, and we're passing it on to you. Everyone who purchases an exclusive limited edition COPPING SQUID by MICHAEL SHEA from our site between now and Thanksgiving Day, 2009 will be entered to win a full-color, signed, limited (#1 of 500) print of eye-popping Copping Squid art by the phenomenal Steve Gilberts. The lucky winner will be notified by e-mail, and receive their print early enough to decide not to give it away for Xmas.

If you've already pre-ordered a copy, you're already entered to win. If you haven't, ORDER NOW! The limited edition of COPPING SQUID has been delayed by printing complications, but to make up for it and cover everyone who didn't win a print, we're throwing in an 11X17 poster print of OCEAN'S DAUGHTER, a Gilberts masterpiece painted for the trade edition cover, with every order.

And CONGRATULATIONS to ZAK JARVIS, the winner of our first Steve Gilberts drawing, at the World Fantasy Convention."*

Well, back to the easel. I'm still getting acclimated to my new studio, but it is great having everything in one place. Now if I can just solve the mysteries of Photoshop CS4 my life will be complete.

-Insert Witty Title Here-

2009-10-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

Good gosh what a hectic October. Among our recent misadventures was the aforementioned repair of our rain damaged bedroom ceiling. They had to pull down all the plaster from the ceiling and replace it with drywall. Fortunately all of the wood was intact (and the bare lathe strips looked pretty neat). Mark Robinson of Robinson LTD did an excellent job of renovation.

This past Saturday Becky and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. The weather was bright and sunny just like the day we were married. The afternoon was spent getting our bedroom back in order, but we made up for it that evening by going to one of our favorite restaurants, Jeeves and Company, for a superb gourmet dinner. As we dined we watched the setting sun illuminate the fall foliage of the court house trees across the street to fiery reds and oranges. Couldn't ask for a better day.

In other news I've restored two online galleries lost in the January server crash and also added a new one.

You can find my cover art and interiors for David Lee Summers' "Vampires of the Scarlet Order" here.

My gallery for the cover art and interiors for Simon Clark's "Butterfly" is at this address.

And this is the home for the new gallery of my cover and interior art for Michael Shea's anthology "Copping Squid and other Mythos Tales".

Goodbye September, Hello October.

2009-09-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for ducking under the radar as of late. September has consisted of home owner dilemmas, starting with the bottom of the house (some plumbing issues) and finishing with the top of the house (multiple leaks in a two year old roof). The roofing issue created damage to our bedroom ceiling, so that will be our October adventure.

Fortunately the roof is under warranty and has now been (hopefully) repaired, insurance (sans the deductible) will cover our bedroom ceiling repairs, and in looking over our homeowners policy we discovered some gaps in coverage that have now been corrected. Whew!

So on to other news. This weekend Cody Goodfellow, Michael Shea, and S. T. Joshi will be attending the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon to promote Copping Squid. A great start for October (and much more fun than home repairs).

Cover art for the limited edition of Copping Squid.

Off and running for September

2009-09-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Becky and I attended Context this past weekend and had a blast! The main reason I attended was for the release party of Gene O'Neill's Taste of the Tenderloin from Apex Book Company, but I also participated in the big Shroud Publications-Meadow Hawk Press extravaganza.

Meeting Gene O'Neill and his son Gavin in person was the highlight of the convention. We also had the pleasure of meeting such wonderful folks as Gord Rollo, Gary Braunbeck, Michael Knost, D. Harlen Wilson, Sheldon Higdon, and Danny Evarts, along with reuniting with the Broaddus family, the Larsons, Tim Deal, the Gambor family, Michael West, Chris Golden, Brian Hatcher, and Grace Welch (of course this is an incomplete list).

I'm not attending Dragoncon, but some of my artwork will be there via World of Strange. They will be in the Artist's Alley at Bob Burden's booth. Of course they will also be featuring the work of such greats as Billy Tackett, Donato Giancola, and William Stout to name a few. Please drop by and purchase some shirts.

That is all I have time to write for now. I have to take our Honda in for a driver's side airbag recall, attempt to replace the wax ring on our toilet, and finish three paintings. What doesn't kill me will make me stronger (and perhaps a little smelly).

I'm Awake!

2009-08-24T07:04:00.001-07:00

The roofers that have been working on the house of our neighbor up on the corner got an early start this morning, so as consequence I got an early start also.

A reminder to all, I'll be a guest at Context this coming weekend. The Apex Book Company's release party for Gene O'Neill's "Taste of Tenderloin" will be at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Work is progressing on the Michael Shea project. The Perilous Press site has been updated, and this link will take you directly to the page for "Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales"

Wee, my work is on the cover of a Robert Bloch anthology! Chaosium.com now has the reissue of Robert Bloch's "The Mysteries of the Worm available. Ordering information is available here.

And now I'm off for a ride on the exercise bike before locking myself into the studio.

August Mayhem.

2009-08-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm hopefully moving towards the end of a nasty summer flu bug. It has made for some sleepless nights, but on a positive note being awake at 1:00 a.m. means I've been able to catch up on my Venture Brothers episodes.

In other news, first up is my latest cover. Here is my painting for "Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales" an anthology of World Fantasy Award Winner Michael Shea's mythos stories.

This will be available from Perilous Press this October. Cody Goodfellow presented me with the intriguing concept and I took it from there. I'm in the process of finishing up the interior art for the project.

My art is now wearable! At this years Hypericon I had the great fortune to meet Ben and Tracy Eller. Ben and Tracy run World of Strange Fantastic Apparel and asked me if they could offer my work on their attire. Of course I said yes. Click here to see my page on their site, and by all means buy something. Also available thru their site is apparel sporting the fantastic art of such artistic luminaries as Michael Whelan, Donato Giancola, Billy Tackett, William Stout, and Cyril van der Haegen. Suffice it to say I'm stoked about being listed along with these folks.

I've updated my shopping site finally. Thank you very much Deborah Jones for creating the tutorial for me. Please drop by to see what I've added (and of course to buy something). For some reason the site takes a few moments to load, so my apologies on the wait.

Last but not least, I'll be attending Context 22 in Columbus Ohio for the release party of Gene O'Neill's "Taste of Tenderloin", published by Apex Book Company. I'll also be doing some book signing for Shroud Publishing. I hope to see you there.

Dilation Exercise for August 2009

2009-08-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

So this is the Dilation Exercise for August 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the August '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of August, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

Ouch! Stop! It Hertz!

2009-07-23T15:09:00.001-07:00

I'll start out on the positive. Necon was wonderful as always. This was our five year anniversary and Necon 29 was every bit as fun as Necon 25. We reunited with old friends, made new friends, and I received great feedback on my paintings. Next year's Necon 30 is going to be like Necon 25 where past Guests of Honor are invited to return, so that will be blast. And there will be some interesting things in store at Necon 31.

And now to the title of the blog. Since 2006 Becky and I have been driving to New York City for the first day of our Necon journey. We stay at Jill Bauman's apartment overnight and the following day the three of us drive up to Rhode Island. This year was no different in that respect, but what an obstacle course we had to traverse.

There is always road construction of course. It's summer. But this year New Jersey proved to be quite a bear. Bumper to bumper mile upon mile. We finally made it to the George Washington Bridge and thought our troubles were over.

How naive we were.

We went to the upper deck because we thought that would be quicker. When we got to the toll booth the traffic was nearly at a standstill. We crawled through the booth and then came to a complete stop on the other side. Six or seven lanes of traffic was being condensed into three lanes.

There was a solid wall of semi-trucks on either side of us. As we sat there the wall of trucks slowly began to move, right towards us! We were in an automotive trash compactor! As our lives flashed before our eyes I made a desperate crawl towards an opening that suddenly appeared. Somehow we made it through in time and unbelievably the traffic all began to move. The traffic thinned out so abruptly that I wondered if maybe we had been crushed to death (the whole Jacob's Ladder, Owl Creek Bridge thing you know).

We made it to Jill's without too much further trouble. Jill was able to get us a spot right in front of her building. We thought that was great.

During the night the flashing lights of a police car caught our attention. I looked out to see that the constables had stopped a woman for some nefarious traffic violation. Silly New Yorkers always breaking the law. She had pulled in right behind our car. After she pulled away the police car, with its lights shining upon our Hertz rental car, sat. And sat. And sat. Not a wheel budged. We assumed that the gentlemen were simply doing their paperwork for the traffic ticket. Eventually they moved on.

The next morning we got everything packed and ready to go. I had been putting things in the trunk and right rear seat, so it was not until we were ready to go that I saw the envelope sticking out from the drivers door. Ah ha, now I knew why the determined officers had been so long in departing. Miscreant that I am, I had crossed the boundary from law abiding citizen to common criminal. But how you might ask?

It was a parking citation of course. Correction. A $65 parking citation. So I must have been blocking a driveway. No. Perhaps I was blocking a hydrant? No, this was where Jill usually parked. Out of state plates are illegal in New York City? Of course not, but we're getting warmer.

Seems the citation was for parking overnight in a residential area with a commercial license plate. A commercial license plate? Yes, sure enough our trustworthy Hertz office in Clarksville IN had provided us with a car with commercial license plates. In all the years we have been renting from Hertz we had never been given a car with commercial plates, and had the woman not parked behind us the officers would probably have been none the wiser about the transgression on parking laws of New York. Obviously though, this was an error on the part of Hertz and they would take care of a loyal customer of 14 years.

Right?

We immediately called the Clarksville office about the problem. The manager told us that we would have to call the 1-800 Hertz Customer Service number. About four hours later as we were nearing our destination in Rhode Island my wife was finally able to talk to a customer service representative. The representative explained that we would have to take the matter up with the office that we had rented the car from. Yes, this is were the story is going.

Despite reassurances by our friends that Hertz would take care of this, I was apprehensive. The specter of our AT&T misadventure still clung to my mind like cat piss odor in carpet (quick side note, when we got home there was yet another junk letter for the mysterious Gary Stevens who seems to reside with us at our address). But as I mulled over the whole situation it became obvious that Hertz would not throw away 14 years of customer loyalty for $65 dollar error on their part.

"Huh, I've never encountered this before and everyone I've talked to is just as baffled. But it is not our fault. We only have to check to make sure the plates are up to date. We get cars from all over the country so we don't know what kind of plate is going to actually be on our cars".

That is what we were told when we returned the car to the Clarksville IN location. The office manager said he would look into the matter and see what he could find out, but consistently reiterated that Hertz was not at fault for what plates are on their cars. I finally had to say "so if it is not the fault of Hertz Car Rental, than you are saying it is our fault". "No no", he said. "It is not your fault, but it is not our fault either. Maybe the police made a mistake".

Thank goodness we had established that nobody except maybe the police were at fault. I could sleep easy now.

But wait a minute, there was still the 2000 lb. $65 parking citation sitting in the room.

Nobody within "The Hertz Corporation, a subsidiary of Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: HTZ), the world's largest general use car rental brand, operating from approximately 8,000 locations in 147 countries worldwide" knew how to handle this problem. It had just never happened before. Ever. Never. Not in the history of all mankind. This just couldn't be. But maybe somehow someway someone within the lofty Hertz hierarchy would deign to call the Clarksville office to answer the burning question, (and maybe even provide the answer to the meaning of life). The manager had me write down my name and phone number on a tiny Post-it note and said he would be in touch.

Now I know it is just $65. You are thinking "you cranky old fart, why not just pay the damn thing and be done with it?". But it is the principle of the situation that is so frustrating. Since 1995 we have been using Hertz. We've never had a problem. But when we did have a problem instead of hearing "Mr. Gilberts, you are a valued customer and we will get this problem resolved" we basically hear, "now that's weird, but it's your problem, not ours".

The citation was not given because I had been using the car in an illegal manner. It was given because the company I trusted to provide us with a safe and legal automobile had in fact not. And we were given absolutely no reason by Hertz as to why they have cars with commercial plates. Obviously there is not any kind of a discount for using a car with them (and obviously it was costing us more to have them).

As we were leaving the office we did finally get a "sorry for the inconvenience this has caused", and later in the day the manager did call us. He said The Hertz Corporation hierarchy was not returning his inquires, but a regional manager had given him permission to deduct the $65 from our rental bill. A quick fix as he put it. Not exactly the response I was looking for, but probably the best we were going to get. I called the manager the following day and inquired if it would be okay if my wife stopped by on her lunch break to get a receipt for the corrected amount. In a dispassionate tone he said that would be fine but we would be receiving a receipt in the mail within a few days.

I did file an online complaint through the Hertz website the same day. Oddly enough they did not respond.

So mind you, I'm quite aware that I'm on a rant. But use my rant for your own benefit. When you are renting a car, check the plates to make sure you don't qualify for a "winning ticket" when you get up the next morning.

Check your phone bills for unusual charges.

Drink your Ovaltine.

And keep watching the skis. I mean skies.

Dilation Exercise for July 2009

2009-07-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

So this is the Dilation Exercise for July 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the July '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of July, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

My 30 Minutes of fame.

2009-06-11T10:30:00.001-07:00

Becky and I had a fantastic time at Hyperion 5 / DeepSouthCon 47. We were able to meet up with old friends and made some new ones as well (I'm not about to name off folks because I know I'll forget someone and feel like a cad).

The art show run by Jamie Herron was stellar as always, and the art demo by Melissa Gay, Deena Warner, Judi Davidson, Sarah Frary, Scott Webb (who needs to get another website!) and myself went swimmingly.

And because I'm pooped out from doing yard work and digging up the backyard for a garden / photo prop (more on that later if my idea works), I'll let some of our photos from the convention do the rest of the talking.

Dilation Exercise for June 2009

2009-06-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

So this is the Dilation Exercise for June 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

As Alan does with his contest, I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the May '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 30th of June, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

Countdown to HyperiCon

2009-05-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

First up, as a result of all the fun and great times we had with AT&T, we are now with Insight Cable. As consequence there was no need to continue with Earthlink, so my old email address is no more. My new one is steve@stevengilberts.com. At some point I promise to recount our exploits with the communications giant. What a convoluted mess. Of course we still haven't received our final bill from them, so it ain't over till the corpulent female intones. And we continue to receive junk mail for the ubiquitous Gary Stevens.

Mo*Con was a blast! Thanks again to Maurice and Sally Broaddus for being the ultimate host and hostess. We had the honor of meeting Tom Piccirilli and his wife Michelle Scalise, Wrath James White. We also reunited with our Necon pals Linda Addison and Gerard Houarner. The panels were wonderful and on Saturday night we were treated to a reading of the epic murder mystery CLOWN courtesy of Doug Warrick.

HyperiCon is a week away. Aside from running off a few additional prints I'm all packed and ready. That does not happen often. We look forward to seeing all our convention and Nashville buddies. If you are attending please stop by on Saturday to watch the art demo by me and the other artists.

My friend Mike Morris snapped some shots of me in my native habitat last week. Despite the subject they turned out great. Here are a few of the pics.

All photos © 2009 Michael R Morris

And this is my cover illustration for Gene O'Neill's upcoming anthology from Apex Publications, Taste of Tenderloin.

2009-05-09T18:35:00.001-07:00

Putting the joy of AT&T aside for a moment, I thought I'd go to my happy place and remind folks about my two upcoming 15 minutes of fame (a whole half hour if you can believe it).

Next week of course I'm Artist Guest of Honor at Mo*Con.

And June 5th thru the 7th will find me as Artist Guest of Honor at Hypericon 5 (DeepSouthCon 47.

Adding color to this blog entry, here are two of my recent cover projects.

I was given the distinction of providing the cover for the summer issue of Space & Time Magazine. There were some very nice comments about my painting in the Editor's Blog.

And this is my illustration for the cover of Devil's Marionette by Maurice Broaddus and published by Shroud Publishing. It is a remarkably fascinating and disturbing tale.

I'll be back to regaling you about my telecommunication woes within short order. The recent turn of events have been nothing less than a journey into the bizarre.

A Terrible Thing

2009-05-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

A Terrible Thing. ATT. Yes, this is a followup to my previous blog about the joy of being a customer of AT&T.

As I've said before, I'm sorry to use my blog as a complaint forum. I prefer to keep my posts on a positive note. But friends have pointed out that it is a good thing to let people know what is going on. Kind of a "duty to warn" situation I suppose.

If you know a copperhead snake is in the backyard you have the responsibility to warn those who might be walking there.

Actually I shouldn't malign copperhead snakes.

If you have just seen a drunk person urinate in a pool, you have a responsibility to warn the kids that are getting ready to jump in. Right? Though maybe it would depend on if they were the same kids that toilet papered your yard, but I digress.

Anyway, last Friday I received an envelope in the mail for a "Gary Stevens". The name seemed familiar. A neighbor perhaps? The address was ours though. Then I remembered something I'd heard over the phone about a month ago, "the account was opened by Gary Stevens and he must have punched in your phone number by mistake". Residential Email LLC had once again reared their ugly head.

The envelope turned out to be stuffed with items that an email spam filter would block in a second. Viagra advertisements, pyramid schemes, pleas from millionaires from Ethiopia. Unfortunately having no postal spam filter, I suppose I'll have this kind of crap to look forward too from now on. Thanks AT&T.

But this was just the beginning of a delightful weekend. On Saturday our AT&T statement arrived, and as usual it did not disappoint.

Now, the problem with the Residential Email LLC charges had actually been resolved during April after I'd threatened to report AT&T to the proper authorities. Supposedly, we even now had the elusive "Third Party Billing Block" whose existence was spoken of in hushed whispers.

Indeed the the credit for the $14.95 charge shined like a beacon of hope from the statement.

But the Past Due Charge of 35.02 shined even brighter.

Yes, in addition to the current bill we were also being charged the amount for the last statement (sans the 14.95 credit) plus a $7.10 late charge. AT&T was saying that we had not sent them our last payment.

What were we thinking not sending in our payment? How could we do something so vile and despicable to a company whose only thought was to provide us with safe and efficient communications services?

Or perhaps we did send the payment in on time, and there were witnesses?

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine and tune in for the next installment of my adventures with AT&T, The Strange Case of the Purloined Payment.

Dilation Exercise for May 2009

2009-05-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

My apologies for skipping the April Dilation Exercise. What a month April was.

So this is the Dilation Exercise for May 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

As Alan does with his contest, I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the March '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of March, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

Mo*Con IV

2009-04-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

March and April have been quite the whirlwind for me. In addition to my duties with my March art show I had doctor appointments (check-ups with plenty of probing and stabbing), AT&T misadventures, and assorted odd weather events. With all the confusion I failed to mention that I'll be the Artist Guest of Honor for Mo*Con IV this coming May! Hurrah!

And what is Mo*Con? I refer you to this description from the blog of horror writer extraordinaire Maurice Broaddus:

"Brought to you by the Indiana Horror Writers, Mo*Con is a friendly convention focused on conversations revolving around horror literature and spirituality (two great tastes that taste great together!). If you enjoy writing, horror, fantasy, poetry, and food, you’ll find plenty to enjoy at this convention."

For more info please go to Maurice's blog, The Pontifications of the Sinister Minister.

And you can find out more about the Indiana Horror Writers Association at IndianaHorror.org

Enhanced Services Billing, Residential Email LLC and AT&T

2009-04-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

I was originally going to title this blog "you're sh**ting in my mouth and telling me it's a sundae" (thank you Mr. Show), but I wanted to ensure that Enhanced Services Billing Inc, Residential Email LLC and AT&T show up on Google searches. Before I go any further, I want to encourage all who read this to contact your phone service provider and ask them what the procedure is for "third party billing charges" blocking.

So what is this all about? Last week we received our monthly statement from AT&T. I always dread reading our statement because often there are rate increases of some sort. This bill did not disappoint in that department. We had a whopping increase of $14.95!

It was not actually a rate increase though. It was a charge from a company called Enhanced Services Billing for an email account from a company called Residential Email LLC. I called AT&T to question this charge and was told by the AT&T customer rep "Fernando" that it was not their problem. I would have to call the "third party" billing to dispute the charge.

So I called Enhanced Services Billing Inc. and was routed to Residential Email LLC where I talked to "Jennie". "Jennie" told me that perhaps someone in my household had set up the account. When I explained that this was not the case she changed her story and said that a person by the name of "Gary Stevens" had set up the account and mistakenly entered our phone number. She then asked me for my home address and email address so she could send an account cancellation notice.

I called AT&T back and got "Fernando" again (lucky me). I asked him how I should handle the third party charge since it had been a mistake on Residential Email LLC's part. Would AT&T send a new bill minus the amount or should we just deduct it?

I was informed that I would still be responsible for the charge. What?!!!

Yes that is what I was told by "Fernando" and at least three other AT&T representatives over the course of two days. The charges are the responsibility of the customer to dispute. And this gets even better.

Turns out Enhanced Services Billing Inc. (hereafter known as ESBI) has a long record of fraudulent billing, and Residential Email LLC is just one of the many "companies" that use ESBI to submit fraudulent charges. Topping this off is that AT&T knows all about this. Two of their agents that I spoke with confirmed that they regularly handled complaints about ESBI and Residential Email LLC, but they along with the other agents I spoke with recited the mantra "the FCC forces us to do this".

So can we the customers that pay these companies on a monthly basis block fraudulent businesses from charging us for bogus accounts and services? Depends on who you talk with.

"Yes Mr. Gilberts, you can block third party charges from appearing on your bill. But it can only be done by filling out forms which we will mail to you. Would you like us to mail you these forms?" This is what I heard from three different reps on April 2. "Yes", I replied, " by all means send me the forms".

The following day I called to see if there was a way to find out if there are any new charges on our account for the April billing cycle. The first rep, Eric, said he would put me on hold while he checked on this, then hung up me. The second rep (you would not believe me if I told you his name) I talked with seemed to be hosting a raucous party. As the cacophony raged in the background of his apartment, the AT&T rep told me " I'm not allowed to access your billing records until the 25th of April, but I can send you forms to fill out to block third party charges". Pretty interesting response since I did not mention the situation of the previous day. Maybe one of his guests were privy to my situation. Anyway, I told the fellow a request had already been made for the forms, but asked if he could verify that they had been mailed. He told me " No they have not, but they will be mailed out first thing on Monday, April 6 and I should receive them by Thursday.

I think you can see where this is going.

Here we are on Thursday. No forms in the mail. I call AT&T to inquire about the tardy documents. After getting the usual runaround I finally talk with "Walkell". She puts me on hold for about five minutes, than informs me that they might have been mailed yesterday ( April 8th). She confirms that I did request the forms on April 2nd. And no, I will not have "Third Party Blocking" until those forms are signed, mailed back, and processed, end of story!

Now unbeknownst to "Walkell" I had alerted other AT&T (and related companies) customers to my situation. Some of these folks called AT&T to inquire about this problem and were told that by simply making the call they now had third party blocking. Now why was I not given that same assurance? Perhaps, and I know this is pure speculation, but perhaps this most noblest of phone companies did not give me the same deal because they had already fed my account to the jackals. And perhaps, and again this is speculation, they have already allowed new charges to be added to our account. Blocking applied last week would have prevented charges from being added on April 6th, a month after the first charges were applied. That would have proven to be a sticky situation for them come May when our next statement arrives with an even larger charge.

Well, sorry for this long posting. I admit it is a bit of a rant to purge my anger, a catharses for a man who tends to be quiet and unassuming. But friends I have discussed this problem with have thanked me for alerting them and advised that I pass the word along so that others can protect themselves. It is not just a simple $14.95 problem. This can damage a person's credit rating. Bad enough in a stable economy, but under the current conditions this can mean a financial disaster.

The criminals that applied the charges were just doing what you expect criminals to do. They steal. But a company that should know better not only allowed this to happen, but also made the victim of the crime contact the perpetrators himself thereby opening himself for further damage. My email is now known to them, and there are possibly recordings of me saying "yes" to various prompts and questions (a favorite tele-marketer trick). I didn't know these companies were crooked until after I had looked them up on a Google search. Because surely AT&T would not put a loyal customer in danger, now would they?

It has been a long week of worry, and I don't imagine things are going to get any better given AT&T's behavior. Have any of you ever seen Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil?

And please go over your monthly phone statements with a fine toothed comb.

"The Audactiy of Bubblegum Mechanics"

2009-03-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

The closing for my show "The Audacity of Bubblegum Mechanics" and Joshua Vance's show "Louisville Portraits" will be this coming Friday. If you missed the opening, I hope you can make it to the closing of my 15 minutes of fame in Louisville. :-) And of course you are more than welcome to drop by the gallery during regular business hours. For more info please go to The Tim Faulkner Gallery.

Tim put together a video featuring mine and Joshua's work. If I imbedded the code correctly you should be able to view it below.

Dilation Exercise for March 2009

2009-03-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Alan Clark is running the monthly Dilation Exercise Contests. This month I will be joining him with my own Dilation Exercise. I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" label.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

As Alan does with his contest, I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the March '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of March, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

HYPERICON 5-DEEPSOUTHCON 47

2009-02-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Things are going swimmingly at the present.

My show opening at The Tim Faulkner Gallery (my first extended gallery showing in Louisville) is less than two weeks away.

I have my online gallery re-established (albeit sans the image info).

My online shop is now good to go (thank you again Deborah!).

And to top everything off, I'm going to be the Artist Guest of Honor for Hypericon 5!

This year Hypericon 5 is also DeepSouthCon 47, so by proxy I'm Artist Guest of Honor for two conventions at once. Not bad for this bucolic little country mouse. With all of the wonderful talent out there to choose from I'm sure selecting a guest artist was not an easy task, so I'd like to again thank Hypericon chairmen Fred Grimm for according me this tremendous honor.

Hypericon is an extraordinary convention. The fans are wonderful and the roster of professional talent that attends is growing yearly. Last year I participated in a painting demonstration with Guest of Honor Alex McVey and the multi-talented Deena Warner. This year we hope to once again provide a demonstration/workshop. I'll keep you posted on the details.

Living in the Dead of Winter

2009-01-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

Whew, what a month. I have my site (sans the Coppermine Gallery pages) back up. My online shop met its demise in the server crash, but is in the process of being created once again by the talented Deborah Jones (thanks again Deborah!).

2008 was a turbulent year but finished on a high note. In November I took a chance and approached Tim Faulkner, owner of the Tim Faulkner Gallery (TimFaulknerGallery.com) with a portfolio of my recent work. He liked what he saw and is now featuring my paintings among the works of other Louisville talents such as Terry Tapp, Jen Goodell and Joshua Vance.

Tim was kind of enough to write up a piece about me on his blog at Louisville Mojo. You can read it here.

During the month of March he will be hosting a show of my work and Joshua's. The show will open on March 6th. Please drop in and have a look.

In other news of the New Year, Alan M. Clark has devised an online project which I will be a part of.

The goal of the project is to bring the viewer into the creative process by encouraging him or her to devise captions and dialogue for a featured piece of work. You can read more about it at The Imagination Fully Dilated Blog.

Back to the internet drawing board. I'm going to once again attempt to set up the Coppermine Gallery. Wish me luck.

Technical Difficulties

2009-01-13T06:10:00.000-08:00

My website is currently down due to a massive server crash. As the wreckage is sifted for remains of life I am frantically, well at least concernedly, working to get things set up at a new server. Fear not. I shall return shortly.

And a belated Happy New Year!

Covers and Conventions

2008-12-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

And here is yet another long overdue blog entry.

Business first. Here is the cover for the wonderfully suspenseful novel The Master of the Moors by Kealan Patrick Burke and published by Necessary Evil Press. This was one of the projects that I had to keep under wraps until the official notification.

More information is available at the NEP site and Kealan's site.

This is the cover for Norman Prentiss's upcoming poignant and eerie short novel "Invisible Fences", published by Cemetery Dance Publications. You can read more information at Norman's site. Keith Minnion created the interior illustrations. You can see more of his work at KeithMinnion.com.

Last but not least, here is the cover for the reprint of "The Necronomicon", edited by Robert M. Price and published by Chaosium Inc. Information is available at Chaosium.com.

And to finish up this post, here are a selection of photos from my busy summer of conventions.

HyperiCon

InConJunction

Camp Necon

And GenCon.

"An Interview With Horror Artist Steven Gilberts"

2008-10-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

In September I was given the distinction of being interviewed by writer and horror historian Matt Cowan for VintageHorror.com. I had the pleasure of meeting Matt last year at GenCon.

My interview can be read at An Interview With Horror Artist Steven Gilberts ,

and you can read more of Matt's fun and informative writings at:

"Break Like The Wind"

2008-09-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks I've been planning to update my blog, but between assignments, sinus headaches, and hurricane winds (which added to the headaches) I've been delinquent with my online duties. Waiting for some paint to dry has provided me with the opportune moment to jot in an entry.

(And in addition to my regular assignments I'm also in the process of setting up an online store for my site. Stay tuned for more info on that front.)

Artist Joe Broers has accorded me the great honor of bringing one of my paintings to life (or as close to life as safely possible).

Earlier this year he purchased the illustration for my first magazine cover. The painting, entitled "Dunwich County Fair", was an idea I had toyed with for years. In 2004 I had the opportunity to bring it to realization when I was asked to provide a cover for Kenneth James Crist's magazine Black Petals.

Here are some pics that Joe sent me of the finished piece compared with the original painting and cover. I think he did a wonderful job. Thanks again Joe!

I Was Turned Into A Newt, But I Got Better.

2008-08-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

The fear of fading into oblivion has prompted me to get off my keister and do some website updating.

I've uploaded 25 images to my gallery page. Four are updated files of images already posted, but the rest are brand new (or close enough to it). If you have the time please drop in and look around.

(And of possible interest to collectors of Cemetery Dance publications, I've set up a gallery exclusively for the illustrations I created for Simon Clark's Signature Series book "Butterfly".)

I have lots of photos from HyperiCon, InConJunction, and Necon still waiting for me to go through. At some point in the near future I'll be posting them with "How I Spent My Summer: Chapter 2", but with one more convention coming up I'm still in busy mode. August 14th thru the 17th I'll be at GenCon in Indianapolis. If you are attending stop by the art show and say hi.

Among the paintings I'll have on display will be my cover illustration for an upcoming collection of stories by writer John Dixon.

The title for the illustration is "Blubbery Rubbery Goo".

How I Spent My Summer: Chapter 1

2008-06-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

We've been painting the old homestead.

We took the plunge and bought a power sprayer, which despite the cleanup hassle is definitely the way to go when painting a story and and a half of house. Wearing safety goggles and a vapor mask atop a 40' ladder in 90º weather is not the optimum way to experience the month of June,

but it is nice to see our 118 year old house looking like new.

At the end of the month I will be among the attending guests at Hypericon. Alex McVey is the artist guest. If all goes to plan Alex and I will be doing an art demo on Saturday (tentatively titled " Can't Is On Won't Street")

The following weekend I will be among the attending guests at InConJunction. Alan M. Clark is the artist guest and I will again be doing an art demo, this time assisting Alan with a demonstration of his process known as "controlled accidents".

This is an example of an earlier "controlled accident" collaboration that we did at Chattacon in 2007.

Stray Ghosts With Casual Hardware © 2007 by Alan M. Clark & Steven C. Gilberts

Go West Young...monster?

2008-05-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design (AAGAD) and the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) recently announced the nominees for the 34th Origins Awards.
Among the nominees in the Publication/Non-fiction category is Frontier Cthulhu, edited by William Jones and published by Chaosium Inc. I had the privilege of illustrating the cover for the collection, and William insists that the cover helped garner the nomination. I won't argue the point any further. :-)

You can read about Frontier Cthulhu here, and a complete list of the 34th Origin Awards nominees can seen here.

That Voodoo that you do so well.

2008-04-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the cover for William Jones' upcoming novel Voodoo Virus which will be published by Chaosium Inc.

I used one of our New York World Horror Con trip photos as the background reference (I had to make up the zombies, as the zombies that actually were shambling along the avenue refused to sign release forms).

It is nice that three years later the trip is still paying off.

Epitaph

2008-04-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

Sean Tyler, Cathy Houge, Dean Rapp, and myself in the middle. Photo © 1981 David Keator

I pulled the plug on my Louisville School of Art site this week. For career needs I had to free up account space in favor of business over nostalgic memories.

I set up the site in spring of 2003, the 20th Anniversary of the LSA's demise. My main goal was that I felt there should be some kind of a web presence for the old school. A secondary hope was that some of my old classmates that I lost touch with might come across it and contact me. Unfortunately this hope did not pan out.

Over the years I've kept contact with a few of my classmates (the few who were willing to stay in contact with me). From time to time we get together and reminisce about the old days over a bottle of micro-brew (and often in front of a bonfire courtesy of Kevin Riggins).

Among the reminisces...

On a warm spring evening our drawing professor lobbed lacrosse balls at a courtyard wall while the school's slightly tipsy maintenance man tried to catch the 60-something -mph projectiles. This went on until the ball missed it's mark (wall or man, take your pick) and hit one of the metal-smithing studio windows, knocking a perfectly round hole into the safety glass. The mystery hole stayed a secret among us until the school shutdown.

During one of the Friday night extracurricular parties, Steve Winfree trapped me in the basement sculpting studio by disabling the elevator. I seem to recall being a little on the obnoxious side that evening, so Steve probably did it for some peace and quiet. Anyway, all the doors to the studio were locked, so I was not going anywhere. As he recounted his prank to a group in the courtyard, the listeners became aware that I was sitting behind him in the shadows raptly listening to his story. That was my 15 minutes of fame as the college's Houdini. How did I get out? I'll never tell.

On a clear late winter's evening one of the musically talented students showed off his skills on a piano that had been left in a huge empty studio room. Attracted by the music, a group of us went in to listen and kill some time before the evening life drawing class. As the setting suns glow illuminated the room and the music echoed through the empty space, we had the feeling of being in the scene of a movie. It was very surreal (and this for a school that was stubbornly abstract).

One afternoon four of us guys picked up a fellow student's Subaru Brat and placed it in such a way so she could not leave until the cars on either side her vehicle had moved. She was quite displeased.

My Design II class had a party in honor of the final project , a group constructed Earth sculpture that was a brick paved ramp that went at least six feet deep into the ground. This was midday in the front yard of the school. There we all were, drinking cheap beer and sitting in and around the sculpture. It sat as a weed filled pit for years after the school shut down. The bricks are probably still there beneath the dirt. This week itself is the actual anniversary of the event.

Maggie Meloy's manic teaching of Art History (her classes would have been great on DVD). It was entertainment for the sophomores and upperclassmen to peek in on the first day of class and see the startled look on the freshman's faces as Maggie shrieked and gyrated while extolling the marvel of some piece of Neolithic art.

Wendy, a black lab, showed up one morning at the front door. She hung out with me the whole day. Dunkin Donuts supplied by Cindy Jaeger helped forge this friendship (sorry about feeding the dog your blueberry donuts Prof. Keator). Thankfully the classes I had that day were taught by very lenient professors, so she received some free education sitting at my side (she actually fell asleep and snored during Color Theory). Prof. Nadine Wegner later helped track down the owner through Wendy's rabies tag number.

Exploring the schools basement / crawl-space that ran the length of the building was fun. The place was like a poor-man's catacombs. One half expected the Phantom of the Opera to pop out from behind one of the columns.

Being able to pursue underage drinking at the art show openings with the help of the newfangled box-o-wine was quite uplifting.

And of course the well rounded education the LSA provided was second to... well second and third to a lot of other secondary schools. But who attends college for that?

Thanks to Kevin Riggins, Steve Winfree, and Antonio Profumo for their help and interest with the LSA site. Antonio provided the majority of photos. I would also like to give special thanks to LSA alumni Richard Drake for contacting me after seeing the site and providing me with some history about the school's Anchorage, Ky. years.

"The Long Look"

2008-04-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

I recently had the honor of illustrating the cover for Richard Park's upcoming novel "The Long Look". It will be published by Five Star.

The image concept is Richard's and depicts the novels central character Tymon in the process of animating a golem.

You can read more information about the novel at Richard's blog.

"Lousy Smarch Weather".

2008-03-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

As usual, winter refuses to let go of the Ohio Valley. The pictures above are from the two ice storms we had a couple of weeks ago, and tomorrow brings the promise of 4 to 6 inches more of happy fun time.

In other news, I've decided to dispel the myth that I don't like to sell my paintings. I have begun the process of adding prices to the artwork information sections of my gallery pages.

Interested buyers can contact me at stevegilberts@earthlink.net.

If you are interested in an illustration that does not have a price please contact me and I will provide the size and price of the piece.

Butterfly

2008-02-01T13:28:00.000-08:00

One of the projects I have been working on has been officially announced by Cemetery Dance Publications. It is my great honor to be the illustrator for Simon Clark's Signature Series book "Butterfly".

Information about the book is available at Butterfly: Cemetery Dance Publications.

Simon Clark's official website is here.

And this is my illustration for the cover.

By Golly It Is 2008!

2008-01-17T12:36:00.000-08:00

I came across a Wikipedia entry for GenCon that has me listed among the recently attending artists. Cool beans! You can read the whole article here.

Yes, I'm still kicking. The final months of 2007 were a bit of a dog (and the dog did bite). The year as a whole was rather pricey (car problems, new roof, a three legged poodle), but we survived it. And on the art side of things 2007 was wonderful.

My two largest projects of 2007 (which are continuing into 2008) are under wraps until the official announcements from the publishers, hence the lack of recent entries in my online gallery.

With that said, here are three images I should have posted some time back.

The first is a collaboration between Alan Clark and myself. Entitled "Stray Ghosts with Casual Hardware", this was a demonstration piece that Alan and I began at Chattacon 32. It's debut was at WFC2007. Purchasing information is available on Alan's site here.

The second one is the cover for "The Strange Case of Rudolph Pearson" by William Jones and published by Chaosium Inc. You can read more about it here.

And the final image is a personal project entitled "The Hidden Mechanics of Remorse". This is a 2' wide by 4' tall painting. It had been a long time since I had painted in a large format (beyond scanner size specifically).

Not Hibernating Yet!

2007-12-16T14:25:00.000-08:00

November and December have been more than a little hectic ( all the usual junk plus then some). So that people don't think I was swallowed up by some Lovecraftian elder creature I thought I'd better throw something onto my blog. So here is my very belated report on the World Fantasy Convention.

Becky and I roomed with our friends Alan Clark and Jill Bauman. Jill and Alan are always a blast to hang out with.

The art show run by Bonnie and Ted Atwood was amazing. The panel bays were in groups of three panels. Within the bay I occupied I had two panels, while the third ( or first depending on which direction you started) had the intricate work of Japanese artist Hicaru Tanaka. Facing my bay and looking to the right found the beautiful work of John Picacio, while across from me were the beautiful watercolors of Charles Vess, to the right of him the wonderful work of Todd Lockwood, and to his left the always delightfully disturbing work of Alan. The entire show consisted of this high level of talent in one form or another.

Displaying my work at WFC is always somewhat daunting. I'm only finishing up my fourth year in the publishing business while the majority of the artists are 20+ years in the field. But my luck is still holding true and I was fortunate to receive a lot of good feedback on my paintings.

I screwed up my courage to introduce myself to Todd Lockwood, Steven Hickman, and Danoto Ginacola (not all at the same time mind you), and to top things off I was able to see original paintings by Jeffery Jones through a special showing of his work.

Other high points of the convention included meeting the lovely Ellen Datlow, Ramsey Campbell signing a copy of his book Cold Print that Becky bought for me in the dealers room, meeting magic-realism author Bruce Taylor , Alan and Jill introducing us to Jane and Walter Frank, and of course getting to meet up with the folks that make the conventions such a special time for us. Among this group are William & Deborah Jones, Gary & Nancy Frank, Beth Gwinn, William O'Conner, John Picacio, Brad & Ann Hutchings, Mike Willmoth, and Richard & Mickey Sardinha.

Here are some shots from the convention and an article that Jill was interviewed for about WFC.

And In The Local News...

2007-10-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Recently I was interviewed by reporter Larry Thomas for a segment in my hometown newspaper The Evening News. You can read an online version here.
The photo that accompanies the article is by staff photographer Chuck Branham.

To my delight the article was on the front page of this Saturday's edition!

Thanks again Larry and Chuck.

Staff photo by C.E. Branham

Some Good October News

2007-10-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Twentieth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant is out.

Stephen Graham Jones' narrative "Raphael" was among the stories included. I did the accompanying illustration for it when it appeared in Cemetery Dance #55 (which also sported a cover done by yours truly).
(Cover for #55)

Mentioned in the Summation 2006: Horror, is Chaosium's "Arkham Tales" which I did the cover for.

In the back are the honorable mentions. Among the listed stories that I did illustrations for are:

Scott Nicholson's "She Climbs A Winding Stair", Dark Wisdom #9 ( which I also did the cover for).
(Cover for#9)

J. T. Petty's "Grapefruit Spoons", Cemetery Dance #55.

And Glen Hirshberg's "Transitway", Cemetery Dance #56.

Ellen Datlow's nod to the artists of the small press is again an impressive list, including such peers of personal acquaintance as Allen Koszowski, Keith Minnion, Augie Wiedemann, Debbie Hughes, Russell Dickerson, Chad Savage, and Teresa Tunaley.

And once again I also have the great honor of being included on the list!

Thank you very much Ms. Datlow.

Cthulhu Ahoy!

2007-09-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

William Jones invited me to post on his blog a short essay about my creation of the cover for High Seas Cthulhu. It can be found in the replies section for the High Seas Cthulhu entry (William's Ramblings).

My professional history with William brings up something which I have stated before, but always bears repeating.

It could be said that my career took off in the spring of 2004. That was when I garnered my first assignment for William and Deborah Jones' magazine The Book of Dark Wisdom (now known as Dark Wisdom).

The exposure I received from having my work appear in Dark Wisdom that year (coupled with my membership at Chad Savage and Alan Clark's spookyART.com) could definitely be considered a launching point for my vocation.

And of course I would not have a Chesley Nomination to my credit if not for my cover illustration for Dark Wisdom issue #8.

So thanks again William, Deborah, Chad, and Alan.

Just for the fun of it, here is my first illustration for Dark Wisdom and below that one of my most recent ones.

2004

2007

Site Update

2007-09-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

I finally put up my bio page at my website. The sordid details of my career as told by one of my childhood friends can be found here -Steve' bio.

It still needs some fine tuning, but at least the darn thing is finally posted.

Enjoy!

The Chesley Awards!

2007-09-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

No, I did not win the Chesley Award for Best Magazine Cover for 2006, but I'm still thrilled that I was actually nominated. I never thought it would have happened. And my work has actually been shown in Japan!

My fellow nominees were the fantastically talented artists John Picacio, R. K. Post, and Renee LeCompte, with Renee's lovely cover for Fantasy Magazine taking the win.

In related news our friend Frank Wu won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist. Congratulations Frank!

I've Been Nominated!

2007-07-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

I actually garnered a Chesley Nomination for Best Magazine Cover of 2006. I was elated at being included on the suggestion list, but words cannot describe my feelings over this honor.

Thank you everyone who voted for me!

Camp Necon

2007-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

We returned home from Necon late monday night. The drive is a bit exhausting,but the convention is well worth the journey, first to Queens New York for an overnight stop to pick up Jill Bauman, then on to Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. The convention was great as always. We were delighted to see old friends and had the pleasure of making new ones.

Rick Sardinha's art show was top notch as always. New this year was the talent of Deena Warner and Keith Minnion.

I was quite pleased with the setup this year. Here is a shot of my panels.

Totally Unexpected.

2007-06-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

I received some surprising news from fellow artist Judi Davidson this morning. I've been included on the Chesley Award Suggestion List for 2007 for my Dark Wisdom #8 cover. A very nice end to a very stressful week. Thanks Judi!

And among a most impressive tally of artists are three that I am fortunate enough to be aquatinted with. Congratulations to John Picacio, Alex McVey , and Scott Webb.

Here is the painting that was suggested.

New Work for 2007

2007-06-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

I've posted some new work for 2007 in my gallery. I still need to fill in the details for each piece, but the images are there so please feel free to browse.

The Work of Michael Morris

2007-05-29T19:00:00.001-07:00

The work of my friend Michael Morris will be on display in The Gallery at The Kentucky center from now through July 13.

From the Kentucky Center Website:

"The Gallery at The Kentucky Center
Storyboard for a Disparate Life
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL MORRIS
Exhibit runs through July 13 In conjunction with the 2007 Louisville Photo Biennial
Join us Friday, June 1, from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., for our First Friday Gallery Hop reception in honor of Michael Morris."

You can find out more about the show at The Kentucky Center and see Michael's work at michaelrmorris.com

My Art in Louisville!

2007-03-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend I will have some of my artwork on display in the Art Sanctuary Amuse Les Sens VIII from 7pm-2am at the Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center.

Book Plugs-Part Two

2007-01-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Below are the two book covers I had the honor of illustrating for my friend and mentor Alan M. Clark. They were written by Alan, Stephen C. Merritt, and Lorelei Shannon.

Being asked by Alan to create the cover paintings for his novels is a distinction beyond words and one of the highlights for me of 2006.

I first saw Alan's artwork at RiverCon 20 in the summer of 1995. It was my first convention art show and I was amazed (and quite intimidated) by the work of the four guest artists: Kevin Ward, Mark Maxwell, Debbie Hughes, and Alan. Growing up on a literary diet of science fiction and fantasy provided a point of reference for me in regards to the work of Kevin, Mark and Debbie. But Alan's delightfully macabre illustrations provided a new and wonderful visual experience. The paintings he exhibited were predominantly from the book The Pain Doctors of Suture Self General by the Bovine Smoke Society.

The following January I participated in my first ChattaCon art show in which Alan was also an attending artist. Having been too shy to approach any of the artists ( in particular Alan ) at the RiverCon show, I was not about to let the chance to talk with him slip by again. The polar opposite of his subject matter ( as most horror artists are ), Alan was the model of southern hospitality. He complimented me on my paintings of dinosaurs, fossils and dragons and was more than happy to reveal how he achieved various effects in his own work.

Later when he looked through an illustrated Halloween party invitation that Louisville graphic artist Michael Morris had created and I had co-illustrated, his words were something to the effect of " you should consider going darker with your work".

So I did.

Alan has been a tremendous source of help and information to me in both art technique and publishing, and without his help I would not be where I am today in the field of horror illustration.

For more information on the Blood of Father Time series please go here

Book Plugs-Part One

2007-01-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

Just wrapping up some final news from 2006. These are two books from Elder Signs Press which sport covers illustrated by yours truly and are now available thru the ESP site.

Elder Signs Press is owned and operated by Deborah and William Jones. A growing force in the small press industry, ESP was recently nominated for an International Horror Guild Award for Best Periodical of 2005. And the just released issue #10 of ESP's magazine Dark Wisdom is sporting a new full color format that is creating quite a stir.

My work appearing in William and Deborah's publications has been and continues to be a strong element in my burgeoning career as an illustrator.

On the left is the cover for A. A. Attanasio's collection Twice Dead Things, and on the right is the cover for C. J. Henderson's novel The Things That Are Not There.

A Pleasant Surprise to Finish the Year

2006-12-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

This week I picked up a copy of The Years Best Fantasy and Horror 19th Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin J Grant.

Within Ellen Datlow's 2005 Summation of Horror she kindly gives mention to artists working in the small press whose work she found noteworthy for that year. And within that list that includes such luminaries of the field such as John Picacio, Jason Van Hollander, Allen K, and Kinuko Y Craft, I had the surprise of finding my own name.

Wow!

The Lost and the Damned: Artist Week-January 7th-12th

2006-12-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

On Friday the 12th of January 2007 starting at 9:00 PM eastern time, Russell Dickerson and myself will be the featured talent in the chat room for Artist Week at The Lost and the Damned. Drop in here for the complete schedule and info.

My first book cover (circa 2004).

2006-12-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

I've added a gallery for the first book that I did a cover for, Vampires of the Scarlet Order. I also created the interior illustrations.

Written by premier science fiction author David Lee Summers, this novel focuses on a group of vampires as they learn to adjust with the advantages and disadvanteges of human progress. An extremely fun read, it can be purchased through the publisher LBF Books, and I believe is going to be available through Barnes & Noble in the near future.

A Smooth Move?

2006-12-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is my new blog for updates and such.

My older news blog can be found here.