"Art"

For some time I have been painting. I guess since the 1980's. If food and rent were free (not to mention painting supplies) I would probably do nothing else. There is a lot of joy in creation, even if the eventual outcome is as shabby and as marginal as it is in my case. My studio is tiny: an 8' x 10' box in the back yard with a nice Western exposure, and lots of windows. At some point building it, I realized that this was to be my substitue vacation cabin, like the ones my parents' generation had on beach fronts, that now, no one can afford. It is fully my own sad space, complete with sloppy housekeeping, worn out furniture and the overripe odor of pretension.

What I have been painting lately have been 1960's sic-fi paperback covers, or more precisely, my warped memory of them. I read a lot in my youth, and desperately wanted to be a writer. Being a writer requires an attention span longer than 25 minutes so I was not a good canidate for success . My ideas were great, my follow through was miserable.What I really wanted, I have decided in hindsight, were lurid covers on well worn paperbacks. Kilgore Trout, the Kurt Vonnegut character of the pulp sic-fi author was my hero, a man with amazing ideas and almost no skill as an author, a place in the world I feel I understand very well. That has been the feeling that has plagued me for most of my life; a feeling that I had something to offer but no vehicle or method to express it. Painting is the same thing. So were films. So was writing. It's not failure per se, it's more like artistic impotence. Most days I feel like I am wrapped in plastic wrap like a leftover burrito. Maybe some day I will be released or I will mold and be thrown out. In the meantime: why is it so difficult to paint a believable rabid escaped Soviet space chimp? Like most things I do, no matter how much I enjoy it, or feel fulfilled by it, I somehow do not fully commit to it. I should take classes or otherwise improve myself, however I am lazy and more willing to have a second beer and look out the window than take a painting class.

Generally speaking, the burrito is molding.

Another pseudo pretentious rationalization of my "style" is that, while I could do the same thing more professionally with photoshop and various typeset programs, what I like about them is that they are in fact flawed and weird looking and not at all computer or technology dependent. I am untrained and possibly bereft of normal talent and I like the cartoony, proto-outsider nature of the images.  I will miss cheap crummy paperbacks when they are gone and their stories relegated to iPad/Nook downloadable pulp. I guess this is why I am doing these. That and it's just fun.

I suppose I should get a real hobby like snowmobiling.

Painting is also the only place I actually listen to music anymore. My iPod is ancient and reflects my 1990's obsession with when everything went wrong. I really want to know why there is Dave Matthews and Coldplay on my play list because I think they suck. It's sort of pathetic to see a 51 year old man singing along to Soundgarden in a tool shed, painting goofy, amateurish shit.