oh capitalism...

selling my work makes me really happy. i think it's kind of addictive -- a somewhat unhealthy, intoxicating validation that i'm pretty sure i should take with a grain of salt. but you have to admit that it's hard to do. even when you know there's so much more to it all than a simple sale or no sale.

"Fossil Fuel" (36"x48") and "Cry Me a River" (48"x48") now happily in the collection of The Romain Group, LLC

Show at Hovel

I have a show opening at Hovel tonight -- 4000 North Mississippi. The work will be up through the first of the year so if you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop in and see it!

redacting information

i've been correcting my painting as i transfer the image from digital pixel to painted pixel. it has occurred to me how ridiculous this is as there is absolutely no way anyone would know that i had made a mistake, but i'm intrigued by the way we always try to hide our mistakes and flaws. it used be somewhat apparent when we tried to cover these up, but with digital technology it's becoming easier and easier to make it seem like it never happened. this manual correction reminds me of wite-out (tm) in the way it deletes information while leaving a trail of the false step. it's so easy to correct something now and make it be/seem (are these the same?) absolutely perfect that it's somewhat exhilarating to admit imperfection.

thinking about wite-out reminded me of documents with redacted text. i suppose these blacked-out areas are the opposite of wite-out, but really it seems like it's all the same thing. perhaps the difference lies in the size of the mistakes or flaws. if it's a grammatical error, then we white it out. if it's a crime, we black it out. i guess this makes sense, but it comes down to the same thing: there's no room for error. we should all live flawless lives and be flawless people. hence botox and my job as a digital retoucher. we are a puritanical society that never really grasped the idea behind the scarlet letter. while i can understand the desire to try to make things better, i can't quite figure out why we'd want to become just like a machine.

The Last Supper

Hal9000 has taken a digital picture of da Vinci's The Last Supper in 16 billion pixels and posted it online. Of course it's not the same as seeing it in person, but it's pretty cool how close you can zoom in.