From up here, over the noise of the wind and the transport, you could hardly hear the chaos of the city below. For a few brief moments, you could pretend the lights were all there was. Uniform blocks of darkness, patterns of illumination. Red and white streaks swarming below. You could ignore the people driving those cars, the people stuck late at their offices, even the little black dots moving between the street lights. Nothing but orderly lights, moving in predictable yet chaotic little patterns.

Then, of course, reality catches up. RCGs finish handshaking with the building's wi-fi, and suddenly the world gets complicated again. Every little light down there has someone behind it, and every someone has a story. The network is more than happy to tell you all about them, and you could get lost listening to them and cross-referencing endlessly between one another. The only story you really want to hear right now is where that shipment went. If the system knew that one, you wouldn't be here.

Still, on a night like tonight, one thing is certain.
Programming Charlotte to play the saxophone for ambiance was absolutely worth it.

KrakenTango, being the mad genius that she is, enjoys working with unconventional materials. Mostly ballpoint pens, with the occasional highlighter or gel pen, or a brush pen for when she's feeling super fancy. The vast majority of the art she posts is super tiny, in a way that doesn't really come across unless you see it for yourself. Anything marked as "LBB" in her gallery was seriously sketched on a piece of paper no bigger than your hand.

This was an exception. This is an 8"x10" cedar board, attacked by Kraken's traditional traditional materials as an experiment in a new medium. The ink is not so much drawn onto the plank as it was engraved, lines going over lines until there was finally enough ink to seep into the wood. It's downright miraculous that she pulled this off; there was no touch-up done to this after scanning, and every line here was put in by hand, often multiple times over.

Topping off this impossible sundae is the fact that, shortly after completing it, Kraken mailed me the piece itself; it's now hanging on my wall, keeping a watchful gaze over anyone going through the door. I am beyond delighted to have her here.

The picture is, obviously, an homage/remake to one of the original Counselor Dakós pictures, made almost exactly eleven months apart. It's amazing how far someone can come in a year. Hey, wanna see just how far?

Art: KrakenTango (original)