tsunami benefit
One thing about giving up as an artist is that some people don't really understand that you've given up (or that you were always an elaborate fraud) and subsequently you still get asked to contribute to various art shows that keep going on and on for some reason.
Just the other night I was trying to drink away some hours at Cafe Alma downtown when this DJ dude asked if he could speak to me in private. (You might remember I had a delusion about this DJ some months ago, thinking that--because of of middle eastern appearance, he was some new breed of terrorist that was infiltrating the club scene and hipster community. I felt somewhat certain that when this Osama Bin DJ had a big crowd dancing, his explosive laden speakers would blow everyone to smithereens.)
So when Osama Bin DJ asked if he could speak to me in private, I got kind of curious and nervous.
Am I in some sort of trouble? Did I volunteer for some sort of terrorist mission while I was drunk?
As it turns out, Osama Bin DJ is putting together a group art show to benefit victims of the Tsunami disaster and he wanted to know if I would contribute a piece.
"Of course. I'd be honored," I said.
But having said that, I immediately had to ponder the fact that I haven't made a piece of art work in months, hec, maybe its been years. My last art brainstorm was to make a beautiful metallic sculpture of the female form by wrapping Rachel in a giant taped-together sheet of tin foil. But the tin foil just turned into a big crumply mess and it suffocated Rachel when I tried to shape it around her mouth and nose. (I scrapped that project and rented the cotton candy machine instead).
So now I have this very solemn and challenging art show to participate in. What kind of art should I make? If I was one of those artist that always paints one thing--like cute dogs--I would know just what to paint: another cute dog. But what kind of art do you make when you have no special focus or subject (except calling attention to yourself and trying to make yourself famous?)
The first thing that came into my mind was painting some sort of cool looking wave, maybe like that one Japanese print that you always see, kind of geometric and designy. Then this morning, I was thinking, why not take it to another level? What if I paint on an actual life ring? Or a rubber raft? Or a surf board?
Of course, any of the above concepts will be taken to be in terribly bad taste. For some reason the perfectly appropriate always comes off as horrribly inappropriate when tens of thousands of lives have been lost, and millions more are suffering.
Maybe I'll just paint a cute dog. Or maybe I can just give the DJ some money to give to red cross.
5:09:21 PM 
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