

Discover more from Future Fossils with Michael Garfield
π¨ SEVEN New Paintings πΆ New Song + Music Video π§ Interviewed by KMO π Coloring Book!
A bounteous cornucopia for everyone, no matter how muddy you are.
"The creation continues incessantly through the media of man, but man does not create. He discovers."
- Antoni GaudΓ
"As a bee seeks nectar from all kind of flowers, seek teachings everywhere.
Like a deer that finds a quiet place to graze, seek seclusion to digest
all that you have gathered. Like a madman beyond all limits,
go wherever you please and live like a lion completely free of all fear."
- Ancient Tibetan text
π¨ SEVEN New Paintings
Above: Untitled Angelic Mardi Gras Crown Something-Or-Other
18βx24βx0.5β, acrylic paint on canvas
painted in-studio and completed live at Leaf & Hive on 3 September 2023
available for sale β affordable, DM with interest
Below: Untitled Alien Succulent Color Studies (#1-#6)
8βx8βx1β + 5βx5βx1β, acrylic paint on canvas
painted in-studio
available for sale β affordable, DM with interest
(Iβm also open for commissions.)
πΆ "Past Lives" (Acoustic) New Song + Video!
Hereβs my latest song, a kind of manifesto for more humble living at a time when we all have to face the damage wrought by serving endless economic growth. The allure of wealth and power is starting to wear thin for many of us and a post-apocalyptic tenderness and care is starting to shine through. Scaling as an end unto itself just leads us closer to disaster. Small is beautiful. You can consider this a kind of folk-pop cottage-core reflection on the great motifs that play out in the passage of our souls from one life to the nextβ¦or you can read it as a metaphor for the return to human-scale existence after the collapse of civilization. Take your pick.
Lyrics:
I think I used to be scaly
Breathing fire and burning countrysides daily
I remember being giant and scary
Golden, potent, gleaming, loud, and a terror
But the cost of all that tonnage is steep
Guarding horde but all I wanted was sleep
I could soar but they all thought me a creep
So I shed it all for smaller and sweet
Now I need more help but I feel complete
I recall when I had great cosmic power
And before me everybody would cower
If I wanted something it would appear
And the limited all quivered with fear
But it isnβt easy being a djinn
Gold gets dull and silver loses its sheen
And God help you if you are an ifrit
Moving boulders you just long to be freed from the ring
Now I have to work but feel great relief
I have memories of wreaths of white flame
And the trumpets when they called out my name
Best avert your gaze or youβll go insane
Taught Descartes how to conceive of the plane
But the modern world believes Iβm a dream
And that dreams are a distraction from things
And so fails to see me when I appear
Though Realityβs immeasurably queer
In this body I am finally here.
π§ Interviewed by KMO on The Art of Podcasting
As ought to be expected, a conversation ostensibly about how I navigate my podcasting career blossomed out into a conversation about life, mind, time, philosophy, andβ¦wellβ¦everything. Itβs a great window into my head and KMO is a very fun guy and generous interviewer. Dig it:
π Download & Print My Coloring Book!
Enjoy this by-donation, sliding-scale-starting-at-zero, print-your-own PDF with twenty-five pages of trippy line work! The Future Fossils Coloring Book (Volume One) draws on four years of constant ink meditations as the scientific illustrator for the National Biodiversity Research Center at KU and infuses it with twelve years of painting a field guide to the entities of psychedelic hyperspace on festival tour.
You can print each page full-size or half-size or quarter-size depending on your preference for ludicrous microscopic detailβ¦I recommend full-size, but you do you.
My hope is that this offers you a strategy for quiet, flow, and relaxation amidst the mayhem of this nutso year. This is a public good thatβs yours for free but being as woefully unemployed as I still am five months after my departure from SFI, I cannot thank you enough for your subscriptions and donations. Details at the link:
π¨ SEVEN New Paintings πΆ New Song + Music Video π§ Interviewed by KMO π Coloring Book!
Every encounter with Michael--via his art, music or podcasting--produces a natural, positive high, more enjoyable for increased neuronal sparking that some nonlegal-across-state-lines substances. And that's not only fun, it's a real blessing. I encourage everybody to try MG!!