Tag: art

Squaresville

Those who are already in power like to pretend to be revolutionaries. They say things like “A Storm is Coming,” but they’re pretty sure that nothing is poised to disturb the status quo, and if there were any storm on the way, they would do everything in their power to minimize damage to their status.

Real revolutionaries keep a low profile, hoping that the element of surprise will work in their favor. Having little to lose, they are ready to risk everything when the time to strike arrives.

Squares like to dabble in the arts. It makes them seem less square. When I lived in San Francisco, there were faux bohemian “art galleries” on Fisherman’s wharf, where a vacationing investment banker from Missouri could buy an oil painting of a San Francisco street scene, complete with globs of paint to show that the painting was modern and hip. What they didn’t tell the investment banker was that the painting was produced in a factory in Dafen, China, on an assembly line. Want a rainy Belle Epoque Parisian street scene? They’re cranking them out over there even as we speak.

Slapdash Artist

I was put here for a reason. Part of that reason is to invent new things for other people to enjoy. Writing, acting, photography, painting…whatever I can dabble in.

I have a short attention span, so dabble is the operative word here. Never known for rigor, I try my hand at many things in the hope that one or two of them will please me and maybe someone else. Most of my output suffers from a lack of Quality Control. This probably explains why I’m not rich after a relatively long life in the creative arts.

I’m not lazy, but I am scattered. As I approach my seventieth birthday, I find myself living on social security in Thailand, where things are cheap enough to allow such a thing. Where things are inexpensive enough to allow a dabbler to live a life of relative freedom from want.

I’ve just returned from the art supply store where I bought another $3.30 canvas. I will spend less than an hour splashing paint on it and wiping it around haphazardly. Then I will photograph it for posterity and consign it a closet someplace in this ramshackle house, where it will be discovered after I am dead and disposed of in some way that seems appropriate to the finder.

The problem I face in putting all my eggs in the “artistic creativity” basket allows me to wonder what I should be doing with myself when inspiration fails me. Sometimes inspirations fails me for an entire day. Then what?

Most people enjoy numerous avenues of diversion, but not me. I take no interest in sports or politics, and do not read mysteries of adventure novels. If it’s not art, I’m not interested.

So I’m a bored elitist. For one who can barely hop, my bar is set too high.

Michelangelo had the patience to rub a slab of marble with an abrasive cloth until it turned into a human figure. I can’t be bothered to wait for oil paint to dry, and so must rely on acrylics. My numerous creations escape my recall. If I can’t remember them, why would anyone else notice?