Since 2014
PICK PIECES The Ballpointer staff choose the artwork and let the artist explain it in their own words ・ Vol 7 No 6 posted November 7, 2020
Alexandra Miron・London, England
Psychedelic Angel ・ 2020 ・ ballpoint pen on paper ・ 21 x 29.7cm (8.3 x 11.7'')(X x X'')
illustration by Susan May for The Ballpointer
RECAP originally posted in installments throughout 2015
Andy Warhol @ Christie's online auction series, 2015
Psychedelic Angel © Alexandra Miron
''The idea came to me while thinking of my guardian angel, drawing a parallel between angels and seraphim. The seraphim are the highest-ranking celestial beings in the hierarchy of angels and they are associated with light, ardour, and purity. Seraphim angels are glorious, exotic creatures, having six wings: two wings used to cover their face, two wings used to cover their feet, and the remaining two used to fly. The seraphim's bodies are covered with eyes on all sides and religious texts describe them as radiating brilliant light like flames of fire. My angel is a little different, having eight wings and five eyes, these numbers together making up number 13, which symbolizes the death to the matter and the birth to the spirit: the passage on a higher level of existence. This drawing was done using Staedtler coloured ballpoint pens. The colours I have used symbolize light, peace and love. The drawing took me about 10 hours”・
For more info about the art & the artist, find Alexandra Miron's Art on facebook or contact directly andra20051@yahoo.com
Missing the Ball Point
Dimes-to-donuts there's a ballpoint pen within reach of you right now. Reliable friends, always there when you need them; on standby to scratch a Hitler mustache onto The President or blacken the teeth of the covergirl dujour. Your grade-school composition books were probably filled with more stream-of-conscious creative filler than actual studies. But this proletarian tool is no longer just for signing checks, writing postcards or doodling sweet nothings.
The origins of ballpoint artwork echo the humble origins of art itself. Caveman roots; the universal, instinctive urge to create. For some, an irresistible force; to express oneself, to leave one's mark, to teach, using whatever tools are available. All that's necessary is the will to do so, pressed by a bit of creative curiosity, aided by ingenuity. ''Let's see what happens when I do this.'' Galleries, museums and art critics enter the equation much later.
There you sit, a dozen-thousand years later, surfing through the daily barrage of viral news. A headline grabs you: Starving Artist Illustrates The Bible on his Bedroom Wall Using Ballpoint Pens. Well, ''starving artist '' doesn't mean much anymore; with the amount of aspiring artists art schools churn out every year its a miracle anyone goes onto a career. ''Illustrating the Bible ''? Hasn't that already been accomplished in any number of formats any number of times in any number of languages ? ''On his bedroom wall ''? Children cover walls with masterpieces daily, to their parent's dismay, worldwide. And ''using ballpoint pen''? Now there's a story, right ? Well…
News outlets worldwide still report about artwork created using ballpoint pens as if, in the half-century since its invention, the pens have never been given any artistic consideration. Prior to the advent of the internet and social media, their ignorance could be forgiven. Nowadays ballpointers are everywhere, in every corner of the world, and the so-called ballpoint Wow Factor in and of itself carries less weight. The internet and social media are these days awash with ballpoint art blogs of every stripe, although with varying content. Ballpoint art classes may already be part of a curriculum somewhere. But the birth of the internet didn't mark the beginnings of ballpoint innovation; if anything, it merely serves as proof of how commonplace it has become, or how it has been all along ・・・