the king's men

on exhibit @ the paperdoll, bellingham, wa

sometimes i get an artistic wild hair.  i want to try something new.  i'm antsy and i get bored with myself and my same old style of "painting the things i see".  you may know this about me from my blog and the random anomalous paintings in there.  they are awkward like the jokers in the deck, the black sheep in the flock.  how they usually come about: i see the art of my friends, like daniel long for instance, and think: i like that better.  i want to make art like that.  i told daniel about this conundrum in particular last night, about how i was drawn to his work because it is raw and emotional and immediate and has so many layers of interpretation.  i said i wanted to paint like him. i even tried. and he said the exact same thing.  he wanted to paint like me.  its stupidly funny how we were like suburban neighbors, looking over the fence admiring each other's greener green grass when our own grass was just green enough. and it served as a revelation, of sorts, about human nature.  we always want what we don't have.  usually, after dabbling in this or that style in search of excitement, getting nowhere fast, appropriating ideas from here and there like a bad medley from a cover band, i run back to my good old standby.  doesn't everybody?  because it works.  it's tried and true.  it's actually even faster for me than experimentation, because i know exactly where i'm going. it's like driving a familiar car: reliable, trustworthy. these are the comforts we can't take for granted. and the qualities that make us individual.