Ron Eller • Blog

Self Portrait

Fri, 14 May 2010 22:36:09 -0400

CENTERED   I always knew
I was the center,
like the concentric dot,
perfectly posed upon a leopards back.
Mixed with other centers.
Powerless as I ride and succumb
to the will and the resign
of an insane feline.

Knowing this has served me well.

I exist and live according to the will
of the wild leopard and universes unknown.
Some choose to call it god,
but it’s just a leopards bone.
In the end I am just a dark spot,
incredibly alone.

We were a very low budget National Lampoon

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:25:55 -0500

1953 Well preserved

The only thing that may be noteworthy about me is that I have always followed my heart. I have on more than one occasion been told I wear my heart on my sleeve. I knew at a very young age I had a vocation. I was an artist. I can't remember a time when I didn't identify as being an artist. At age ten I drew portraits of all the United States Presidents. The technique was sophisticated and ninety-eight percent were right on. I know this because I returned to my home town twenty years later and lo and behold my presidential portraits were still hanging in my fourth grade class room. I was surprised at the sophistication and amazed that they were so well preserved.

1959 My Influences

I loved Mad magazine and each presidential portrait was uniquely sophisticated with an illustration style that I developed from hours of copying Mad Magazine’s caricatures. I developed my own style as I copied the humorous imagery of satirical story telling. By the time I was fourteen I was a fairly sophisticated as an illustrator. I would draw caricatures of my friends on T shirts. It was 1959 and I was getting five to ten dollars for each finished shirt. I used permanent ink felt tip markers as a medium. The images I created were anti authority and establishment. Mad Magazine’s Art and story telling helped to define me as a writer and illustrator. As I grew older my work matured.
                    

1966 We were a very low budget
National Lampoon.

Later in college at the University of New Mexico I developed a satirical cartoon strip for a monthly campus humor publication known as Juggler Magazine. We were a very low budget National Lampoon. Lyndon B. Johnson became the focal point and our joker. Lyndon made the cover of 3 or 4 issues of our satirical creation that was politically motivated opposing the Vietnam War. It was wonderful creative opportunity to vent our displeasure about a myriad of subjects. We were irreverent and funny. The magazine became a two man enterprise, myself and the editor Rob Burton. Rob was also a campus activist who was a member of the SDS which was considered to be a radical organization.

The Poetry Ads

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 21:34:50 -0500

The Poetry Ads is a partial spoof taking to task pop culture that runs on sound bites some true, some foolish, some brilliant.
The medium frames the message and the message should
be read as much by what is not written as by the copy presented. The same can be said for the graphic design. You
have already decided what is true and what is an illusion.
My intent is not to influence but rather to entertain by composing
a multi-medium panoply of art conceived for no other reason
than to be or not to be. 
Graphic design is a legitimate fine art form. This book is a testament to a series of complex artworks merging poetry illustration and design into intricately woven tapestries to be known as The Poetry Ads. Each page is
a multimedia design weaving the art of poetry and the highest standards of graphic design, photography, and does what all great art should do; reflect
the truth of our time, mirror who and what we are and challenge some of our preconceived notions.

When we do this we leave a wake, a legacy of truth and honesty that defines our work beyond the thinness of style and the illusion of celebrity. We are true to our gift. That is all that really matters.

To download a PDF of the poetry ads book click on the circular icon below.

Paris 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:34:55 -0400

Paris Ad Champaign
A perfect design  of form and function.
A feline judged
by how much
she can swallow.
An empty wish
with no compunction.
She is as thin and
tall as she is hollow.

Antithesis

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:29:15 -0400

Ah the perplexity?
Do we look to rationalize
Our unwilling compromise?
Turn the other cheek,
could be courage
or a resolve worn weak,
cowardice or a braver stand.
We reason stacking our truths
like rows of dominoes.

Justice will come in retribution.
It is the better half
that truth does seek.
The word supplies
the appropriation,
an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth.
This vile counterpoint
anger to rage provoked,
leaving the land blood soaked.

On the killing fields
dying souls die
to the tune of another lie.
The truth is not a constant.
We’ll go to heaven if we try.
With in the disparity
we hunger for clarity.

Force shall be meet with force.
Here we confide
and make our point
For every point made
there shall be a counterpoint.
Who will die is a matter of power.
Who will know is a matter of truth.

Is this the will of God?
Is this an impostor ?
If we have to ask we are not...

By reason alone,
from conception
God's will must be,
we are the masters
of our deception.
This humbling reality
perhaps our connection.