Mounted Prints
A favorite subject for Ty, bees are always a symbol of renewal and re-creation, and the tenacity of the nature despite makind abuses. Think pollinating the flowers after the winter. George Carlin has a great stand up routine about ‘its not the earth that’s in trouble, it’s the people’.
It says in the scroll "It is not the most strong that survive, nor the most intelligent, it is one most adaptive to change -Charles Darwin", a wonderful message (born from the pandemic) for people going through difficult times
The banner reads ""Refocus on the much larger themes of life: The improbable phenomenon of our existence and the epiphanies of experience. We are beautiful
creatures surrounded by darkness. Practice awe. Never stagnate. Peace ∙ prosperity ∙ happiness."
The line it Ty’s artist statement that resonates most with people is “We are beautiful creatures surrounded by darkness” so here is a stream-of consciousness big doodle drawing dedicated to that sentiment. Pen and ink with watercolor and heavy-body acrylic, this print is shrunk down from 24” x 36” so it’s details are really tiny but still legible. It’s laminated to shining glow by hand, by Ty
For the Salem, MA Halloween fair called ‘Haunted Happenings” Ty endeavored to create a witchy, halloweeny artwork, this witch searching for her black cat in the garden; however whenever Ty is not sure what to draw he draws a hedgehog or an opossum, and now this is very clearly an opossum artwork with a black cat as a background. Ty is bad at making things traditionally creepy
The bears that live among us are gentle or fearful; if they create any kind of problem at all for people then they are killed. It’s been a hundred years since there was a bear attack that resulted in a death in New Hampshire, although it’s true that a bear destroyed Ty’s chicken coop several years ago, and that in Jellystone they regularly steal picnic baskets
Blue footed boobies have a particular mating dance that they do before mating for life; this is a romantic artwork
If you've ever tried to get along with a new crowd then you know how this earnest bat feels; this is an artwork about trying to get along with an unfamiliar crowd
Originally a 16"x20" Acrylic Painting, one of Ty's first "Swirly-do" paintings in his signature screenprint-esque spot color pen & ink style but with Heavy Body Acrylic. The painting sold from the New Hampshire Art Association Gallery in Portsmouth, NH in 2022 and remains one of his best selling artworks, always, but especially at the Blue Heron Music Festival in upstate NY… which was serendipitous.
Seabirds for sea art festivals; this was created for an ocean festival at Strawberry Banke in Portsmouth, NH. Pen and ink with watercolor and heavy body acrylic
Bees are always a symbol of renewal and re-creation, think flowers after the long, cold winter; they are particularly appealing because of the drama of their sting and subsequent death, their politics around their queen and their fierce, irrational anger
Happy fox is Ty’s most popular artwork, which is ironic because it’s so different from the rest of them. To his chagrin Ty admits that happy Fox started as a pen and ink artwork like the rest but he felt like he botched the drawing and decided to correct it with gouache, a sort of super-pigmented watercolor that is very opaque. But he fixed it so much it became a gouache painting, which is valid but wildly different then any of the rest of Ty’s art. You’d think he’d change his style to match the popularity but pen and ink is too much in his blood, and his second most popular artwork is ‘Raven’s visit a king” which is pure pen and ink. How much of art is an accident? How much of it is luck?
A darkly pen-and ink drawing with heavy brushstrokes of black and white acrylic to accent. Ty discovered via doodling that if he fills a page with ravens it sells immediately; he could make an entire art career on drawing thousands on thousands of ravens, but here’s a print. A flock of owls is called a ‘Parliment’, a flock of crows is a ‘Murder’ and a flock of ravens is an ‘Unkindness’ but Ty likes ravens so he called this artworks A Kindness of Ravens
Both cardinals and dragonflies are creatures that remind us of our passed loved ones, and in the lower right hand side of the artwork is a ghostly loon, so this is about loss; but the babies on the mama loons back are a momenta vitae, a reminder of life. Its a sweet, sad beautiful artwork about beauty and longing.
Ty tucked this mouse family into the corner of a much larger artwork but liked the symbology and identified with it so much he made it into it’s own artwork. If humble creatures were just left alone they could pursue happiness, raise their kids, do their art, but predators are running around just wrecking everyone’s day all the time.
A genuine stream-of consciousness doodle drawing, this artwork for Ty is like drawing while dreaming. He did it as a test artwork, testing materials he was going to use for a much larger artwork, but it picked up popularity and it stands on it’s own. People particularly resonate with the hedgehog playing guitar to the snail, and that became a sticker and greeting card called ‘any gig you can get’. The raven with the garland also became it’s own artwork. It’s full of symbols only interpretable by the viewer, so it means different things to different people, which is one of the great glories of this sort of artwork.
In approximately 7.6 billion years, the Sun will expand into a red giant and engulf the Earth and there’s not much we can do about it. However, it is true that there is healthy nihilism and unhealthy nihilism. It’s no good to not care about anything, but it’s also no good to care too much. The Nihilist Titmouse is a momento vitae, a reminder to enjoy life some despite everything; it’s the only life we get.
Pen and ink artists love Octopus artworks, tentacles all radiated and entwined, but Ty attempted a different composition and was rewarded when at the Greenway Artisan marketplace in Boston near Faneuil Hall, several employees of the New England Aquarium, independently from each other, stopped at his art booth and bought this print. Ty was gratified not only in that these nautical people liked his art but also in this proof that the new England Aquarium is staffed by people who really love sea creatures
Goats are interesting as symbols of the devil opposed to sheep, symbols of Christians, all thousands of years past the farmers who found it easy to manage sheep but difficult to manage goats, and besides, they’ve got those weird eyes. People can grow wickeder as they grow older or at least more self-involved, but morality is relative and situational and sometimes wicked old goats are wise
An old friend of Ty’s had rats as pets when she was a kid and as an adult had an opossum taking shelter in her garage that she was very concerned about so Ty created this artwork for her, and then put prints of it out at his weekend market booths and was astonished to discover how popular opossums are. Dopey, slogging along with no rizz, somehow leaning on the evolutionarily extraordinary survival trait of playing dead, or just hissing. Opossum defenders hail the eating of ticks, the inability to get rabies, and the being of the only Northern American Marsupial. Opossum lovers carry gloves while driving to check dead opossums for living babies; Ty met two people who found babies that way and raised them. One person spoke of going into her bedroom in the dark, turning on the lights and being startled by an upside down opossum hanging from a tree outside the window, equally startled. Now if Ty can’t think of what to draw he draws an opossum; look for the many, many opossums in his artworks.
An adorable opossum mama trudges through the void; Ty illustrated an artwork called “Push” with an elephant pushing back darkness followed by many critters, and this opossum was in the foreground absolutely stealing the show. Because it resonated so well with viewers Ty pulled it out and made a sticker out of it that turned out to be tremendously popular, and finally gave the image it’s own artwork. Somehow we relate to her myopia of responsibility and exhaustion, and we’re proud of her for pushing through and taking care of those kids.
An artwork about the kind of wisdom you get that you’re not sure was worth the getting.
Ty’s joke is “I planned a series of Valentines Day artworks around the great love stories of the Greek pantheon only to discover that they’re all terrible; Persephone and Hades is the only one that worked out well- they’ve got a little sharing agreement going on between the husband and the mother, it’s nice” but that line sparked a hundred market day conversations.
When Ty was young he drew a lot of dragons and now that he’s middle-aged he draws a lot of birds because that’s what happens to you as you get older; However, once in a while he checks in on his dragon-drawing skills just to see if they are still there. This is his latest check-in.
The back-and-and forth composition, and the touch of gold against the bleak background makes this artwork. It’s a crowd pleaser and popular, though Ty bemoans that he’d like to redo it with art skills gained since he created it but resonates so well publicly that he leaves it alone
A pretty little gnome town at night. These little European villages were Ty’s go-to doodle subject for years. He doesn’t have very many in his portfolio because the second he puts one on the market it’s gone. From Ty: “I liked to draw little villages and then one day I put a gnome in front of one and everyone lost their minds, so I’m a guy who draws gnomes now, and that’s how that works”
Ty’s been drawing birds for so long that when he zones out and doesn’t want to think too much he just piles birds on top of each other; This one was darkly black and white so he added red, and then slowly, almost accidentally, started adding sparks until it became this firey image. He called it ‘Dark Birds’ but posted it online and someone said “It’s a Raven Rave’ and that was better. The original is a 16”x20” acrylic painting full of textures and details.