C.O.L ART

The artwork for Colony Of Losers is by illustrator Peter Diamond. See more of his work at www.peterdiamond.ca.

THE TALE OF HOW I MET STEADMAN

Following the end of my mental breakdown, I began writing Colony of Losers and attempted to spread the word to my Facebook friends, pretty girls in shopping malls and your grandmother.  Part of that process included some very awkward self promotion for the Blog. I joined Halifaxlocals, a den of miscreants, cynics and hopped up hipsters with a desire for debate and degradation in order to spread the word. I posed as an eccentric writer obsessed with Famous Ray’s candy corn and received some criticism constructive and otherwise and found an unlikely ally in a man by the name of Scrotomancer. He read my stories extremely carefully and liked the good things and disliked the bad things. My friend Herman knew the identity of said Scrotomancer and he was an artist by the name of Peter Diamond.

I saw Peter’s art and was immediately struck by an intense feeling of artistic admiration. As such, I felt it necessary to seduce him to become my Ralph Steadman.   Many artists constantly trace themselves in their work, getting stuck in surface intrepratations. Peter was digging deep into his guts and pulling shit out of himself for the world to see.  Eviscerating himself to find the diamonds in the seas of shit. Sort of like what I want my art to be at its best.  Plus most of the pictures looked like something that an acid tripping free love hippy would stare at until the trip was over and since that was my target audience he seemed the perfect choice.

While my attempts at self promotion failed and I stooped to create a fictitious anarchist named Depressionliquor who wore a “Jesus is a Cunt “sweatshirt to pick a fight with myself to get more views to no avail, I did meet Peter.

Which began an artistic collaboration I hope will last for years. Here is a look at the thread.

Our collaboration is strangely non participatory on my part. I write about my life and my struggles and he reads it and creates images that reflect what the stories bring out in him. Somehow they always end up being what I was looking for even though I would never ask him to create them. In any collaboration, sexual, physical, artistic and metaphysical the key point is trust. I trust Pete with my art even if I don’t know him well enough to know whether he prefers to be called Pete or Peter or whether he is a pumpkin eater or minds if his girlfriend farts or if he eats picking popcorn out of his teeth and refuses to eat it at the movies.  I trust him because he doesn’t go for easy work.

We were working on lettering for Colony of Losers and he created a picture based on what we talked about during our first and only meeting over omelets at the Paperchase. He sent it to me and I didn’t like it. Even though it was mostly my idea. Because he doesn’t make work for other people when he is doing his best work. He takes my thoughts and makes them his own and adds something to my work rather than retells it.  Gives of himself to further my own story. Instead of the lettering he drew a whale on a bicycle that was being attacked by a colony of sailors and it was perfect.

Two fucked artists found eachother. Now we work on making something you will fall in love with.

Treading Water

'Treading Water' ©2010 Peter Diamond. Ink, Alcohol Marker and Digital Color

Champions Of Breakfast

'Champions Of Breakfast' ©2010 Peter Diamond. Ink, Alcohol Markers, Digital

Empty Nest

'Empty Nest' ©2010 Peter Diamond. Ink, Alcohol Markers, Digital Color.