The lighting was really nice today — “crispy” and overcast, with no glare — so I was able to get a couple good pictures of the latest two paintings. Because they were done with post-processing involving several layers of hard polymer tinted glazes, they’re very difficult to capture. You can click either of them to access a higher res version in my art gallery (hey, buy a 2009 art calendar if you’re not into my body modification interview book).
Since everyone’s been asking me to add “The Lonely Tree” as a t-shirt, I’ve added it and one other design (below) to my shirts page. Both turned out pretty well I think…
 Beard and Cross-Bones I created a new “beard and crossbones” logo for Zentastic, and optimized it for the way Zazzle prints shirts. Zoom in: 
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 The Lonely Tree By popular demand, Nefarious’s painting “The Lonely Tree” has been turned into a shirt. See a close up: 
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As Nefarious and the other kids get more experienced they’re able to work at a higher height and do some more ambitious work on the silks and the hoop and trapeze. Their normal teacher was out today, so Fernando was their teacher which also made the class a little more boisterous and high-flying I think! For those that are interested, they have classes for all ages — kids and adults — and the winter session starts at the start of January.
These server problems/interference/whatever suck! Nice timing, eh, when I’m working to promote the new book…? Please pass on that this book is available. My voice isn’t as loud as it used to be, so the help is very much appreciated.
Last week someone tried to make a post from NYC* with a fake UK address slagging my paintings (ie. they were just posting to be rude and trying to hide who they were; I don’t let through anonymously posted rudeness)… If I remember right it was a general “this sucks, no better than a doodle, this isn’t art” sort of insult. I thought it was a little funny because I’m perfectly capable of doing a “technical” painting, but it’s my strong feeling that the role of an artist is not to paint what they see, but to paint how they see. Of course there’s a place for more visually literate story-telling in art, but for me, I prefer trying to communicate the way I feel about the world — bright colors, simplified forms and characters, a slightly “off” construction, a sense of joy and childishness, and a cartoonish sloppy haze of psychedelia.
* I’ve been asked to mention for the rumormongers that this was not my ex, who was in LA at the time! It was “someone” from IP 68.173.69.99.
I’m very happy to announce that after working like a maniac for a few days, I’ve managed to get 460 pages and 240,000 words laid up in this compendium of past interviews that I did for BME between 1995 and 2008 (all the interviews except stuff that’s male-genital oriented, since that’s in a different project). Especially since BME has chosen to take this material offline, it makes a wonderful book to own — or gift.
The really good news is that it’s only $19.99 in softcover and you can also get it as a hardcover for $34.99, and if you visit the book page here, you can download the PDF for free as well. Thanks again everyone for helping produce and support this project.
Please pass on that this book is available!!!
