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years for a fashion company running a design studio and using a cad design computer and spent 17 years at imax in film production and marketing this helped her imagination evolve from abstract painting in acrylics and mixed media to developing a new visual language her arresting content boasts more than two million followers https www instagram com reel dxfvteajcqm igsh mtjvawtiam5onmzqdw she is also a music lover and jumped at the chance to use ai tools like suno to make cool music to go with her videos in her own words the ability to make your own video content just blows my mind i used to have to go out and shoot things or buy stock videos now i can create anything i want sitting on my couch it s mind blowing https youtu be 54dkztkl4hg is kwojrafv8ionqukc boesch likes variety i m a bit of a creative sponge whether it s painting jewelry design or now ai i m always looking for new ways to tell stories visually her love of animals fashion music and colour immediately pops up some of her videos are strange some perhaps not to my taste and some are plain wonderful but see what you think for yourselves https youtu be tgovedg2tse is fem1dmcjlci0_7jl ps i also think some of her clothes are super cool ️ author m l kappa posted on june 28 2026 june 28 2026 categories art commentary tags ai art ai artist kelly boesch sunday thoughts 8 comments on weird and wonderful the ai art of kelly david hockney another post another obituary but this time it is a celebration of a life well lived david hockney did the thing he loved to do most paint to the very end not a bad way to go he was 88 and his health had been failing for some time david hockney was born in 1939 into a working class family in the small industrial city of bradford yorkshire one of five children his father was a self employed restorer of baby carriages and a crusader against nuclear arms his mother laura to whom he was especially close was a frequent subject of his portraits david hockney maintained close ties to his parents returning yearly to spend christmas with them until the end of their lives image tate my parents david hockney 1977 conservative in his art since it was figurative and narrative in an era when abstraction was favoured he was nevertheless avant garde as one of the first widely popular artists of his time to make work with undisguised gay content image christie s portrait of an artist pool with two figurines ⓒ david hockney 1972 hockney travelled widely in search of inspiration and spent many years in america in new york and especially los angeles where he made a lot of his best known paintings many including images of swimming pools these identified him as the quintessential artist of southern california s nouveau riche leisure life christopher isherwood and don bachardy 1968 acrylic on canvas 212 x 303 5 cm private collection david hockney he painted the people around him his family lovers and friends and made a series of evocative double portraits the one above is a particularly favourite of mine he also painted vivid landscapes some huge filled with light and colour hockney was a visually striking man with a high color wardrobe of plaid suits striped soccer jerseys and mismatched colored socks owlish glasses and bleached blond hair a gregarious personality he surrounded himself with people and made many friends until late in life when deafness isolated him slightly he compensated by surrounding himself with his beloved pet dachshunds made on ipad with procreate later on he used technology in his art making collages of photographs and ipad art in fact during his long career he tried his hand at many different techniques such as theatre sets and stained glass windows he loved to experiment with various methods nevertheless his appetite for technology was unexpected because as the washington post put it there is no living art star less in need of a machine hockney can draw water hockney can draw smog he can draw the bleaching sunlight in los angeles he can draw the chilling damp of bradford he can draw the glow of friendship the photo is from an invitation to an exhibition at the museum boijmans van beuningen in rottredam 1995 author m l kappa posted on june 13 2026 categories art obituary tags art david hockney obit 13 comments on david hockney sad about marjane i was saddened to read that marjane satrapi the iranian french author whose graphic novel series persepolis documented the struggles of ordinary iranians during the turbulent years around the islamic revolution has died at 56 years old apparently the cause of death was sadness stemming from the premature death of her beloved husband matthias ripa the couple did not have children ms satrapi was a troubled but extremely talented and influential person writer artist director with the publication of the semi autobiographical persepolis in the early 2000s ms satrapi became one of the major exponents of a form of graphic novel influenced by art spiegelman s maus that combined political history and memoir her heroine marji is a girl living through some of the most difficult years of iranian history just as ms satrapi did both she and her character were born in iran in 1969 and were about 10 when the shah was overthrown they both lived through the rise of the clerics and the horror of the iran iraq war and left the country at 14 to study in austria for satrapi the viennese experience was a disaster and she moved back home after four years here is an excerpt from her obituary in the nyt marjane satrapi was born on nov 22 1969 in rasht near the caspian sea and grew up in tehran she had aristocratic ancestors and her parents were cosmopolitan leftists her father was an engineer and her mother designed dresses marjane bridled against the new restrictions on dress and behavior when she was 14 she hit a school principal who had tried to confiscate her jewelry and her parents worried for her safety sent her to live with an iranian family in austria there she was overwhelmed by the experience of a very different world they opposed the shah and protested against his government but were disillusioned by the political and cultural crackdown that followed the revolution and the end of his rule marjane s uncle was accused of being a soviet spy jailed and executed at her nadir simon hattenstone wrote in the guardian in 2008 she was peddling drugs homeless and she almost died from bronchitis after four years in vienna she admitted defeat put on her veil and returned home back in iran in 1989 she studied art in tehran and had an early marriage that ended in divorce then returned to europe in 1994 ms satrapi moved to paris where she wrote the persepolis series in french it was later translated into english and other languages and has been read by millions of readers the books have also become popular as school assignments the series was adapted into a 2007 film that was nominated for an academy award for best animated feature some years later ms satrapi documented another tumultuous moment in iranian history the unrest in 2022 that followed the death in police custody of a 22 year old kurdish woman mahsa amini who had been accused of violating a law requiring women to wear the hijab in public in protest women across iran tore off their veils in one of the most significant cultural and political moments in the country since the 1979 revolution marjane satrapi with her husband mattias ripa in 2012 venturelli wireimage ms satrapi wrote several children s books and other graphic novels including chicken with plums the story of the death of her great uncle which was also turned into a film another of her works embroideries depicted iranian women discussing love sex and men over afternoon tea she directed several feature films including the voices 2014 with ryan reynolds and radioactive 2019 starring rosamund pike as marie curie she also won acclaim as a painter and was elected in 2024 to the académie des beaux arts one of the highest honors in the french art world she wrote frequently about her perpetual sense of dislocation living away from her home country but thinking constantly of it i call iran home because no matter how long i live in france and despite the fact that i feel also french after all these years to me the word home has only one meaning iran ms satrapi wrote in a 2009 essay for the times no matter how much i am in love with paris and its indescribable beauty she said tehran with all its ugliness will in my eyes forever be the bride of all cities around the world i advise anyone who has not read persepolis to try it even if graphic novels are not your cup of tea just as you should read maus also below you can find a trailer for the persepolis animated movie https youtu be 3pxhekubzpy si j5oupboa vhxbs0x author m l kappa posted on june 7 2026 june 7 2026 categories commentary events tags iran marjane satrapi obit persepolis 7 comments on sad about marjane publishing update and free gift i know regency romance is not to everyone s taste so for those of you not interested you can stop right here publishing is a steep learning curve it is frustrating slow but also interesting and fun in my search for information and improvement i have joined the authors guild of america where there is a very active and varied community of authors all connecting and asking for and giving advice to each other i have learned much from there the idea that if you can get an agent to take you on you are invited to a posh lunch and thereafter everything is done for you has been firmly squashed unless you are margaret atwood or a celebrity with a misery memoir to sell prince harry perhaps stories abound of people being fired by their agents agents unable to sell to publishers and so on even if the publisher acquires your book nothing is secure publishers go out of business the editor assigned to you leaves and the replacement hates your book they publish but it does not sell of course you can always self publish but i have always had a niggling feeling that if nobody wants to take on your debut it is probably not polished enough yet or not good enough once you know the ropes things will become easier but self publishing is expensive unless you are an expert at editing proofreading cover design formatting etc otherwise you have to hire people to do all these things and after all that once your book is actually on the market drum roll you still have to sell it again unless you are a well known author guaranteed to sell thousands of book you can forget about book tours and organised readings paid for by your publisher also every single publisher expects you to take an active part in selling your book which as i have slowly been finding out consists of the dreaded social media blog tours getting your friends to review your book much harder than expected and other stratagems such as paying for amazon or facebook ads and your options depend on where you live are there book fairs in your vicinity friendly bookstores or libraries in my case none of that is available since i live in the french countryside and i don t think i know anyone who reads in english luckily there is plenty of advice to be found online misunderstandings banter and romance read it by joining my reader s club i was thrilled when i landed my publisher cupid s arrow who are a small indie outfit in san jose they are lovely people but overwhelmed by having to do it all themselves communication is slow information hard to get and you mostly have to deal with your own problems but the printed copies are great especially the hardback i was not expecting them to have hardbacks available my editor lisa is wonderful i am not expecting to make much money out of this but i do need to sell enough copies so that the publisher will take on the next book in the series i have therefore applied myself to marketing the damn thing the authors guild provides members with tools to build a simple website for free and human help where needed shoutout to hector my saviour in hard times within the website i have set up a reader s club where subscribers can sign up to get freebies extra content short stories etc and news of upcoming publications at the moment i am offering a free short story plus a curated list of books if interested you can join here i also set up an instagram account and try to produce content who knew i would be getting into this at my age but it s actually quite fun once you get around the tech the account is called mmontroseauthor here is a post i hope you are suitably impressed and that some of you will join the reader s club and or take a look at my ig account if you do please let me know your thoughts i always welcome feedback and comments as you know author m l kappa posted on april 8 2026 april 8 2026 categories commentary fiction tags debut fiction marguerite marina montrose author publishing regency romance 16 comments on publishing update and free gift glen baxter has left the building i am a huge fan of cartoons and comic strips and glen baxter who passed away aged 82 was a big favourite glen baxter created a surreal artistic universe populated by erudite cowboys tweed clad empire builders and malevolent boy scouts his fame was higher outside england where he was considered a modern surrealist master at home he sadly often fell into the funny greeting cards category his drawings relied for their offbeat humour as much on their absurd deadpan captions as on the artfully simplistic drawings often the drawings themselves were offbeat such as the one featuring a man sawing off his own leg in front of two children with the caption uncle frank would keep us amused for hours look at the image above the bottom half of the lady inside the chimney suggests she is stolidly middle aged while the husband looks like a teenager in his shorts can t you imagine baxter sitting at his work table thinking up all this nonsense not a bad day job some images would depend for their effect wholly on the caption two co habitees glowering at each other the tension at no 83 had been almost unbearable ever since eric had deliberately swallowed toby s anorak baxter was inspired by pulp fiction and old adventure comics which he combined with literary nonsense the delightfully old fashioned pictures depict incongruous characters such as cowboys explorers and boy scouts uttering intellectual statements regarding art and philosophy this is probably not to everyone s taste but i love his work and for those interested here is a fun interview about his life and aspirations interview with glen baxter author m l kappa posted on april 6 2026 april 5 2026 categories art commentary tags art cartoons comics glen baxter surrealist art 8 comments on glen baxter has left the building happy easter happy easter to all those who celebrate today greek easter is next week here s an easter bunny to cheer you up and don t we all cheering up reading the news this morning i was appalled again i ask is an ameri...