Tag Archives: drawing

Drawing is my medicine: free protest and march sign art.

suzanneforbes NoBan Jan 28 2017 NoWallI made this drawing of Lady Liberty after a guy on twitter said he’d donate $5 to the ACLU for every hand-drawn image of support for refugees and detainees tweeted at him.

It’s licensed thus: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain. Anyone can use it for anything they want.Public domain BaphoMeta by Suzanne Forbes Jan 2017

I made this drawing of a variant Baphomet after seeing this post of a miniature Baphomet statue (I want one for my dollhouse garden so much!). The Satanic Temple sells them in their online store.

It is licensed as follows: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.

The horrific situation with the US makes me want to make transgressive art that shows love and faith. I don’t know if this will give comfort to anyone but me, but it makes me feel better to have made it. Thanks to the monthly support of my Patrons, I can make and distribute free and copyright free art. He can gut the NEA, but he can’t stop the people from supporting artists.

Usually I make my free drawings available with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike License (CC BY-NC-SA), so that people can use them freely but Urban Outfitters can’t profit off them. However, in this case, if Urban Outfitters wants to make t-shirts or phone cases with my fat, hairy, trans demon sheltering a spectrum of marginalized children, they are welcome to.

This drawing is in no way intended to be a critique of the official Satanic Temple Baphomet statuecreated by Brooklyn sculptor Mark Porter after a drawing by 19th-century French occultist Eliphas Levi.

The official sculpture is a transgressive work of art that derives visceral power from the clever use of two children in a pose that echoes popular formatted iconography of the 1950s.  No shade, just a variant, an homage I offer to the world!

I hope the statue will be placed at the Arkansas Capitol; I love the mission of The Satanic Temple:

The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will. Politically aware, Civic-minded Satanists and allies in The Satanic Temple have publicly opposed The Westboro Baptist Church, advocated on behalf of children in public school to abolish corporal punishment, applied for equal representation where religious monuments are placed on public property, provided religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict women’s reproductive autonomy, exposed fraudulent harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners and claims in mental health care, and applied to hold clubs alongside other religious after school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations.

Drawing Amanda Palmer in Berlin!

Amanda Palmer in my kitchen, by Suzanne Forbes Halloween 2016

Our longtime beloved FriendMusePatron Whitney was on tour this fall with her longtime friend Amanda Palmer.

On Halloween she and Amanda and baby Ash and the whole delightful entourage of cool people came to our house. I made this drawing of Amanda in the kitchen. Daria drew the same moment!

Amanda and I had only met once before, almost a decade ago, so we had some sad quiet time in my bedroom talking about our mutual friend Conor. Amanda’s blog still sends a reader almost every day to my post about how Conor lost his battle with depression and addiction.

I’m grateful that her fans are reading my message about how depression is a medical illness, not a failing of character.

While we talked baby Ash, a sweet-tempered and happy baby, crawled around the coverlet and peered at the cats. He has soulful, deep-set eyes. I love him.Amanda and Whitney practising Paperback Writer in Berlin by Suzanne Forbes Nov 1 2016

Then on the next day me and Daria got to go to the show and be backstage and draw and it was wonderful.

This is Whitney and Amanda practising “Paperback Writer” in the empty venue before the show. The show was at a legendary Berlin venue, Huxleys Neue Welt, and the acoustics were gorgeous. Their voices rose up pure and exquisite in the open space, and the piano was amazing.

When we came into the concert hall where Amanda was at the piano, she sang into the mike, “The artists have arrived!”. I would like to be introduced this way everywhere.

Amanda Palmer and Ash in the Green Room by Suzanne Forbes Nov 1 2016

Scotty the Blue Bunny in Berlin by Suzanne Forbes Nov 1 2016In the green room Ash was looked after by his nanny, who had been an on-point Eleven for Halloween, and old friends of Amanda’s who live in Berlin. His mother’s ear was always tuned to him, even as she got ready to perform.

Scotty the Blue Bunny, another Bay Area refugee now in Berlin, opened the show with his signature baton twirling. Amanda said she would like to be introduced this way everywhere she goes.

Amanda speaks fluent German, as you may or may not know, and fans were yelling “Your German is great!”

She spoke in German quite a bit and it went over gangbusters.

Here’s Amanda taking requests by writing them on her arm!

This is her traditional method of taking requests. The audience happily complied, yelling out song titles.Amanda Palmer taking requests in Berlin by Suzanne Forbes Nov 1 2016

And Amanda playing the ukulele. I fucking love when Amanda plays the ukulele!

Here’s Daria’s. It was so great, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to be there and make these drawings. You can support both me and Amanda continuing to make exactly the art that feels most authentic to us on Patreon!

Amanda Palmer playing ukulele in Berlin by Suzanne Forbes Nov 1 2016

Amanda Palmer playing ukulele in Berlin by Suzanne Forbes Nov 1 2016

Amanda is in Melbourne right now, but in the US you can hear Whitney sing with group Midtown Social all over the Bay Area.