Predatory Metal Cats 050117 photomontage © 2017 – Howard Faxon
COLOR CRAZY CHALLENGE
In conjunction with the “Color Crazy Challenge – Blue” week I have chosen part two of the Predatory Metal Cats Series. This challenge was started by Kim Johnson and details can be found here.
THE PICTURE
The predatory metal cats are seen mucking things up under a beautiful BLUE sky. There is a feel of alternate universes or dreamlike imagery with the hovering inverted orb world and the mirrored shovels. The ‘wrong way reading’ CAT logo could have easily been replaced to read correctly but was not. The viewer is standing at the seam of the world and the backwards world – half in one world; and, half in another. The ever present crows or ravens are watching as the metal machines crawl upon the earth leaving a trail rubble in their wake. This piece from the series also features the five dollar brass cat that was found in a junk store. This cat appears often in my collages. The series itself is one idea explored in different ways.
PREDATORY METAL CATS
This series is a commentary on the extractive industries that are wreaking havoc on the living things of our planet.. They are a photomontages combining elements from my personal photographs (taken by me). Many of the machines involved are made by the Caterpillar corporation and have the logo that says ‘CAT’ on them. So, I decided to call them ‘predatory metal cats’. This is one of my most ‘flushed out’ series of images and they are the source of several offshoots. I am planning to slowly publish the whole series here so watch for updates.
This is the second installment in the series. I present Predatory Metal Cats 050117.
Part one of Predatory Metal Cats is here.
Oh this is wonderful, I love the kitty.
Thanks!
The triad of kitties pictured: bronze, brass, and steel. Those steel kitties are stone cold though.
That they most certainly are…
I liked the combination of the powerful iron birds in the background and the raven gray crows. This is super cool.
Thanks so much. I’m glad you like this one – it is one I really like as well.
Cheers. Thanks again.
A big “CAT”, so impressed.
Thank you very much. I’m glad you stopped by. 🙂
Adore artworks implemented in such style – our true reality & your picture is absolutely incredible!!!
Thank you so much – you are too kind.
Lately, my consensus on our chances as a world have been a bit bleak. We’re doing all the wrong things even more.
Thanks for viewing – I have twenty more coming. Cheers!
Wow is all I can say when I see your creations. Absolutely genius.
Thank you Carol for those kind words.
I am making a ‘how i made these’ group of posts. I want them to be really good so I can leave them in the Zeitgeist forever. It started at Tsu, continued at Niume, and now it’s a great pencil for me. Also it rewards over time in ease. Each erased element is available forever. Anyway, it’s coming real soon. (there is one last ‘trust but verify’ (thanks Doc) to get out of the way)
Cheers! Thank you again.
This is very cool Howard. I will have to go check out the series. 🙂
Thanks.
They are all coming here – there are over twenty at this point.
If you want to preview there are 18 here at present:
https://glen-faxon.pixels.com/collections/predatory+metal+cats
Wonderful. You have been busy, Wow. Thanks for the link!
Sure, You are welcome. I store things there. And there is a magnification feature. YouTube and FAA are my storage facilities.
Cheers.
Nice image I like the colours and arrangement of this image
Thanks so much
For some of my work color is a main driver. It is mostly BLUE – i was emphasizing the BLUE.
Great and very creative ………
Thanks man. It’s an ongoing series and there are a few good pieces in there so far.
the cat with the funerary urn is an especially nice touch
Thanks.
That cat lives in house. Well patinated bronze. And down in front a solid brass cat from a junk store.
didn’t even notice the brass cat, that crouching is more effective than I thought
Stealthy.
Everything in the pieces had to at some point be in a picture I took. All the clutter at home is represented. Maybe the repetition of elements will make the stuff recognizable as my work. (the digital stuff anyway)
Someone in the “Church of the Subgenius” described my stuff as ‘bad photoshop’ – which is actually a pretty good description of what these are.
a collage doesn’t have to blend- the elements can look bolted on if that’s the look you’re going for
I agree. I emphasized scissors and glue in the other post. Nothing fancy or high tech – really just scissors and glue of an ethereal nature. Nothing here really – just time.
just sayin’ that is the old school collage look
A very interesting entry for the Blue Challenge. Thank you for the Predatory Metal Cats.
It was mostly blue, right? I did feel the need to emphasize BLUE apparently though.
I wonder if I have one for the next color. There’s over twenty of these PMC’s.
Thanks.
Very creative , I love the idea.
Thanks so much. I enjoy making them.
i love the series.
This second piece feels more “destructive” than the first one. The first one evoked the feeling of we need to take care of the earth.
This one gives me the feeling that we are laying waste.
oh yeah and it’s blue!
Yes, I like that first one for that reason. It’s warm and pleasant and it has that “love your mother (the earth)” thing happening.
BLUE. I had to emphasize the BLUE.
((I just spent the day, when not uploading, reading about “cascading system collapse” and some new reports on similar stuff. Ugh.)
I try to temper news vs happy stuff.
I don’t succeed.
Cascading system failure is an interesting problem. Chaos Monkey was invented to create that problem in code.
🙂
Netflix – something I don’t need and won’t pay for.
I tend to read more sources of news stories rather than the stories. Not always a source of happiness but sometimes understanding. This one struck me yesterday – https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/A_HRC_41_39.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0uInsJyM7UBq6c88Aoxzu2b4BMGgy2swnDoX8C1VvOdpEWjCK5zny2Sxg
There were “Chaos Monkey” like simulations for global ecology in the seventies. We knew.
The one that was funny was SATAN – the hackers got it, changed like 20 lines and then they had a powerful weapon to find holes in firewalls. (ancient history)
It does present an interesting situation. The use of broad simulations will hopefully get people moving forward.
Or scare people enough that they act.
It is interesting to me, that some of the code used to infiltrate other systems is the same today as it was 20 years ago.
Oh yeah, sadly some of the scientists studying the climate issue are now advising that it is time to start moving away from the coastlines. Suddenly stuff is happening right now that they didn’t project would happen for 70 years. … There is a point where you can no longer mitigate the change and then “cascading system failure” begins. People who have studied this the longest aren’t very optimistic about our chances. It will be an interesting time. We will need all our humanity and compassion to deal with it as a planet. (looks like we’re going the wrong direction on almost every aspect)