Night Light
Untitled - 2000
Fable (#1) - March 1999
Fable #2 - Inspiration - April 1999
Immortal #1 - 1999
Immortal #2 - March 1999
Lilitu, Sanvi, Sansanvi & Semangelaf - 1999
Lust - 1998
Muses - 1999 - overpainted
Nightmare
Prt 1: A Prayer to Cerridwen; Prt 2: Suffering her Indifference - 1999
Passion Abstracted
Morning - charcoal - 1995
Nap- charcoal - 1995
Dali study - charcoal - 1995
untitled charcoal - 1995
untitled charcoal sketch - 1996
Skeleton study - life size, charcoal - 1995
detail from Skeleton study
charcoal leg study - 1995
Study of a chest - live model
     
Fable (#1)- Poem written by Ty after the painting was complete:
There is a moral to this story, and it smells sweet and dangerous and familiar, like the lingering cigar smoke on grandpas’ jacket, or like a pile of clothes thrown against a bedroom wall. The wolf behind the tree had a wicked grin, and the cracks of his smile shone red as rubies, and he had a twin. And they bore names that hid them in the sacred wombs of myth, Romulus and Remus among the blue nights of enchanted forests, the black trails reserved only for the timid of spirit and the strong of soul.

There was a little girl, and she was not so little anymore and she walked into the woods with the courage of a goddess. She had liquid eyes, opaque and staring into absolutely nothing and always on the verge of tears. She had long hair that  commanded the wind, shimmering and burning itself into the air every few seconds like platinum flames, soft as baby’s breath...

It could have been a dream, probably should have been, but the earth felt cold and moist beneath her feet, and the sky was scattered with diamonds and the air skipped into her lungs and tickled her throat, and it was real.  She was walking into the woods and her life was fading into clouds of dust, big beautiful clouds of dust. The trees were giants against the black sky and they kept their secrets well. She wrapped her crimson cloak around her like candy apples and hid her gaze from the canopy of night. The crickets played their sad fiddles in her ear, the owls screamed their pains of burning midnight oil, and the ghosts of nature rattled weary chains. The air was cool and she walked on, too brave to fall asleep.

And then the twins awoke.

One of them, the taller one, the paler one, the sweeter one, reached out from around a close tree, a tree just to the right of her. She smelled a freshness in the air, that of newly cut skin, and her heart jumped into her throught with a violent obsession.  And his hand reached down onto a smooth white chest and caught a drop of blood from a fresh tattoo on his finger, and with all the grace of a fallen angel, touched her lips and painted her smile.

The other one, so timid it would make a demon cry, krept out from behind the shadows and asked her with his eyes if he could taste his brother’s blood, and she found herself not arguing at all...

The cold night wind turned still and warm and a scarlet cloak slipped softly onto the roots of a giant tree, and it made a wonderful red carpet. And the taller one, the paler one, the sweeter one landed his hand on her breasts and this closed her eyes against the diamond-studded sky. And the other one, the beautiful and timid one tasted the blood on her lips, as if he were a child and she the bright red candy apple, and he kissed her stomach, and the taller sweeter one kissed her neck and slipping down in between the both of them she lost her disbelief in fairy tales.

And she created her own fable, born of deep woods and red lips, pale skin and stolen touches, the moral of this story being only the beautiful and complete abondonment of thought. -Ty Caston

Fable #2 based on the following poem:
Nothing is ever dark enough for people like us,
waiting for the horizon to turn blue and noticing the glory of a bruise. We shut our eyse tight and see a million wretched stars paint whorlwinds in the sky... We hide beneath the covers and feel moonlight cut through goosedown castles like blades through butter. And we shiver at the thought of losing any memory of that last dream we had, the one where the horizon really is blue and the top of that hill just below the moon makes a wonderful place to lie down naked underneath the cool crisp air and the purple clouds and wait to be ravished.

People like us know the seconds of these dreams are so much more important than years of reality ...

And the purple clouds converge so nicely into one magnificent ghost, the indigo prince of a gothic mysth, translucent suggestion of wings on strong shoulder blades, wings that are like a spider's web, visible only through the right light or the right eyes. Rapunzel-length black hair made animate by the painted winds of the subconscious, dark eyes focused on you, on us, and a thin silver chain hooked to one glorious nipple on his end, the other end dangled just above your torso, skimming the bottom of your neck, the top of your chest, seduction in slow-motion...

Paint me like this, so that I may sleep and dream forever.
Ty - 3/28/99

We are perfect reflections of the purple sky staring at the setting sun. Every now and then a paintbrush can appear to be a lover's tears or a  crooked smile or a human heart, but only if  you want it to. I've compared your smiles to the moon's silver tears raining softly on my black rose-garden, and I know that nothing grows by accident, and that nothing has waited for you longer than I will. I cannot sleep deep enough for you to lose me... You cannot escape me even as I dream. With my stark blue eyes I saw you sitting in the midst of all the falling rain like a sorceress on the verge of undiscovered pain. And you tossed your words into the air like a princess-goddess gambler, tossing your dice above the green tables. ~ Ty