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The
Muse in Action
How Michael Douglas Jones
fools the eye.
Written
by Erin Braden
Reprinted courtesy of Frederick Magazine
Art is everywhere-especially in the places you least expect to find it.
This feeling holds true for
After his service, art still held sway for Jones as he furthered his
skills through studies at
Most recently, Jones was known for his detailed
trompe l’oeil (“to fool the eye”) paintings. Inspired by the great
masters, Caravaggio and Vermeer, his pieces were hailed for their stunning
clarity and breathtaking reality. His most recent trompe l’oeil painting,
“Waiting for Creation,” is a photo-realistic look at the tools of the
artist; the paintbrushes, paints, pencils and rulers.
All waiting, as the title implies, for the muse.
However, this work was completed more than two years ago.
What has happened to Jones since? Was
this his last work of art?
The short answer: No.
After a lengthy hiatus, the muse has returned to Jones, but not in the
shape he had expected. Two
children appeared at his doorstep: his fifteen-year-old niece and her
five-month-old baby, both of whom desperately needed a home.
Jones and his wife took them in with open arms, expanding their
immediate family by two.
As luck (or fate) would have it, the pair became his muse.
Whether it was the abrupt change in lifestyle or a change in artistic
form waiting to happen, Jones developed his first series of “assemblages,”
and titled it “Eggs in Envelopes.”
“Eggs in Envelopes” consists of a series of framed pieces, each of
which contains different objects placed together in the form of a collage.
Each collage tells a piece of the story, and the tale grows from one
frame to the next.
Jones strategically places the objects: inside each frame is a letter
or journal that tells the story of tiny eggs arriving in an envelope and the
artist’s conflict over what to do with those eggs.
Every frame displays a brush or writing utensil, an egg, a letter, and
an envelope.
Everything in the frame is also made to look old.
Jones uses trompe l’oeil techniques to “fool” his audience into
believing that the piece is authentically antique, and that the letters and
envelopes are genuine originals (actually, they are computer generated.)
To accomplish this, he scans old envelopes, postage marks, stamps, and
papers, and reproduces, paints, folds, and cuts them to create his intended
effect.
Doing assemblages is a fresh way of looking at things.
“It is very expressive and exciting to use actual objects in my art,
after years of meticulously rendering them in oils.” he says.
After “Eggs in Envelopes,” Jones started a new series entitled
“Invitation of the Muse.” In
it, he uses French postcards depicting women-the portrait of the muse,
perhaps?
It wasn’t the postcards’ historical reputation for being risqué,
however, that drew Jones to them. “There
is something about the faces of these muses,” he says.
“They are angelic faces whose eyes just speak to me; they
have old souls. It’s almost as
if they have the deepest, dark secrets of the ages that are kept hidden.”
Each frame of “Invitation of the Muse” tells part of the story of
how the muse descends to talk to the artist.
Like much of Jones’ work, though, it is ultimately about much more
than simply telling a tale.
“All of my art is about detail,” he says.
“I take insignificant objects and make them significant, and make
everything I use important, because in the big picture, it is all important;
every seemingly insignificant detail of the world is necessary.
That detail in my art is supposed to look accidental, as if you found
it that way, but it is not that easy. Art
has its own language where, if you aren’t precise, you may be
misinterpreted”
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