wherefore art is: January 2009

i did my first oil painting today. it looks like grey diarrhea, but it was liberating to swirl paint around so freely.

i've had what might be called an epiphany. at first, i thought i was losing it. there was this tingling sensation and i started leaving my mind. i walked around for a while and doodled. simple lines, strokes, senseless faces, warped figures, scribbles, boxes, spirals. it started to get clearer.

no, losing my mind. the figure goes here. he holds an umbrella because it's raining. he is moving away from the foreground, his back turned to you. what's the setting? where's the hierarchy? what are you selling?

i can see you're confused. this is how i felt. so here's the figure, but it's not a figure. it's a mushroom with a face on it. then, an odd shape with no name. next, maybe something that looks like a spider, but very simplified. i was sure i was losing it.

this isn't illustration! this is bullocks. these are scribbles, you're a bullshit artist. go sit with your cardboard and your charcoal and rot with picasso and dali and artistotle, you hack. think inside the box. the figure goes HERE, he's holding an umbrella and it's raining cupcakes. Johnny Cupcakes. His back is turned to you, but the message is clear. Johnny Cupcakes. Johnny Cupcakes, right on his back.

good, you're beginning to see now. a few more lines, here, a squiggle there...perfect. is this what you want to say? crumple it up and throw it away. do it again. use a different medium. spit and food coloring perhaps. what would you say then? would you draw a face? a guy with a zany face. of course you would, it's what you know.

fuck, i'm going crazy. why even make a picture? there's enough content in a single line. you could re-draw the The Killing Joke with a single line. Two, if you'd like. However many you need. what would your life-line look like?

would it look like a seismograph, with peaks and valleys? maybe it'd be a spiral...woah, getting dizzy! maybe you're really boring and you'd be a plain old straight line. maybe you'd be two lines. the possibilities are endless.

maybe i'm still not making sense. i did my first oil painting today. it's the best work i've ever done.

well, by now i'm sure you're craving a point, a punchline. a "get-to-it-already." okay, okay, enough dicking around. here you go:

wherefore art is.