"Zim Zam Zoom (A Day at the Races...)" by Richard F. Yates

All the business with HALF the calories! Here's some of what I did today!!! I know you're just DYING to find out! Voyeur! Peeping Tom! ....although I suppose that makes me an exhibitionist... Oh well. Here's my first exhibit for Jan. 21st, 2020: a good, old fashioned drawing!

[Ink on paper---a tiny drawing, just a couple of centimeters across---with digital embellishments and color. 2020!]

I don't know why, exactly, but I like the look of tiny stuff that is blown up to FAR-TOO-BIG of a size, to the point where you can see the flaws in the ink distribution across the paper, the blurring of the pigment, and the NOISE of the tiny textural elements in the paper itself, which are all magnified and then further intensified by my digital meddling. In this case, I really bumped up the dirtiness of the image, then dropped a thin, red wash over it all. The rest was just playing with different digital "pens." It's simple and mostly meaningless, but I like it.

According to the old-school Dada artists, particularly my hero, Tristan Tzara, the reliance on---almost OBSESSION with---meaning is what makes most art come across as so EMPTY. Art as PRODUCT. This is art as expression, entertainment, and novelty---plus, it looks SOOOO simplistic that most folks would be embarrassed to show it. Not me... I am most embarrassed by the works I do that look like COMMERCIAL art, if the monster turns out TOO cutesy, if the message is TOO obvious, if there appears to be a MORAL... Then I've failed...

And that's fine. Failing is an important element of learning, and even though I'm almost 50, I'm not ready to claim that I don't need to learn anything anymore. I learn new stuff as often as I can...

Speaking of learning new stuff, I spent several hours this morning trying to figure out how to use that new music making machine that my daughter bought. (See yesterday's post for more about this device, if you don't know what I'm talking about.) Ellie has already written two songs and started working on a third, so I need to get my act together! (I'm supposed to be making the "beats" for her to sing over.) Between wildly pressing buttons and watching several YoooTooob videos (which were mostly mystifying), I think I may be starting to figure the dang thing out---but I'm not quite ready to share any of my musical creations, yet... (Learning curves are sometimes fun to witness, but even I think I'm a bit too green in this case to share my "work." Maybe someday...)

Spent some more time gathering materials for the Unpublished Writer's event this weekend. I put together a portfolio of some of my one page comics, quite a few art prints, some of my "Angry Old Guy Digital Tender(ness)" fake money, a few micro-zines, and one copy of my big propaganda poster, "The First Laugh." (You folks remember THAT one??? If not, I talked about it a bit in THIS POST from about a year ago!) I'm really looking forward to this event, partially because I'll get to see some of the people I used to work with at the Writing Center where I worked for seven years, and partially because it's my first opportunity to see what "Big City" folks think of my new art and written projects! (I live in a tiny logging town, which has a liquor store, a church, a bar, and tattoo parlor at every four way intersection. These folks don't give two shits about a guy trying to make ART-PRANK-PROPAGANDA... That's half of why it's so much fun to live here! Because of all the weird looks I get!)

And, one more thing I did today (before I sign off and go take a shower), I uploaded a new image to Redbubble, which, for those folks who don't know, is a print-on-demand website that allows people to put artwork or photography on things like t-shirts, coffee mugs, pillows, clocks, leggings, and other junk. I sell a handful of things through that site every year, maybe $20 or $30 bucks worth (USD), but it doesn't cost me anything to upload the images---AND the site ALSO works as a giant GALLERY for my artwork! I have something like 400 different images uploaded there that people can scroll through and laugh at, and (as they occasionally do) buy on a sticker or t-shirt or postcard! Pretty neat.

Here is the image I uploaded today, "Angry Gitzy (In Blue)":

To check out all the great MERCH that you can get with this sad, ugly cat head on it, go HERE!!! (Let me know what you think of the leggings!! My wife said that SHE would wear them! Of course, in MY opinion, they're WAY TOO expensive, but it's still fun to look...)

Okay, I better go take a shower and get to bed before I get too tired to read. (That's how I get a lot of my books read for the reviews that I do. I read before bed---but if I'm too tired to read, it takes me a lot longer to finish the books I'm working on, and hence it takes longer for me to REVIEW the dang things... This is all obvious, but it's hopefully put in a way that's slightly funny, even if the INFORMATION content is low. Hopefully the experience of READING the information is entertaining enough to make the quantity of knowledge exchanging between our heads worthwhile. If now, let me know, and I'll keep doing this anyway---but sometimes getting negative feedback DOES make me laugh!) Yeah... I better go... LATER SKATERS!

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)

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