Archive for July, 2006
July 20th, 2006
You been around artists very long, you should think about a 12 step program. A.A.A. Associatin with Artists Anonymous. Time was when we kept em away— AT bay, not by the bay, for godsake. We put em up in attics, in back rooms, in isolated studios, we let em cut off their ears if they felt like it or walk around with their eyeglass glass knocked out and wear weathered beat up hats no self-respectin hounddog would ever chew, we let em dress like weirdoes and crackpots and …. Well hell, let’s be honest, like artists.
We kept em poor and hungry so you KNEW they painted or sculpted or cut glass to smithereens cause they didn’t know no better. We called that PASSION back then. Or vision. Or genius. If it got too out of control, we put em in a special place for geniuses, the padded motel. We kept the light on for em.
Nowadays we got pharmaceutical remedies. You get a mite TOO geniusy, we can bring you back into earth orbit real quick. I suppose the art suffers, but hey, pharmaceutical CEO’s gotta eat too. And anyway, look at all these artists we got now. Look under every other rock on the South End and I figure there’s a paint splattered ARTISTE or half an earlobe left behind.
People who are obviously not from around these parts keep sayin, my goodness, it must be interesting livin among all these artist types. I just say, yes ma’am, never a dull moment. Just gotta be careful you don’t trip over the easels, end up subject matter.
No, best to keep them artists at arms’ length. If not further. We got signs down our way: Don’t Feed the Wildlife. We ain’t talking raccoons. It’s for THEIR protection too, remember.
July 19th, 2006
SKEETER DADDLE’S LATEST THRILLER
NOW IN PAPERBACK!!
July 19th, 2006
Good afternoon Art Lovers! We’re the South End String Band, a musical collage of avante-garde traditionalists specializing in synchronized disharmonic modulations of a bygone era resurrected for your listening… ah, pleasure. In other words, to put it in reductionist terms, we’re cultural oxymorons, sound artists who paint not with brushes but with plucked strings and various kitchen utensils to create a post-modern past mortem pre-Muzak.
Sit with us a spell on the anaylsts’ couch on our back porch while we dig deep into our psyches for those common roots we all share, those connections that make us all human, those psychoses that brand us all certifiable South Enders. And while you’re tappin your toes and grabbin for the prozak, try to remember the immortal words of Peter Picasso, Pablo’s younger brother who played harmonica in a Barcelona Jug Band: Beauty in the Ear of the Beholder. Get out your Q-tips, ladies and gentlemen….this ain’t wax buildup we’re gonna throw your way…..
So now, due to contractual obligation, we’re performin a new number complete with subliminal shoppin messages. Keep your checks and credit cards handy and remember, all art purchases today are really a charitable contribution to the poor and starving, the needy and the underprivileged. Us.
July 19th, 2006
We got ourselves a population explosion down in the remote old growth nettle regions of the South End. Oh, I don’t mean the realtors. They’ve always been breedin like rabbits on Viagara, but they eat their young which helps keep the numbers in check.
I’m talking about a fast growin, unchecked, immigratin subculture of brushwieldin, paint pocked, ego enhanced species we see proliferatin like a red tide on steroids. I’m talking of course about the alarming influx of artists. Oil painters and glass fusers and watercolorists and auto salvage sculptors and photorealists and miniaturists and gigantilists and banner painters and stained glassers and raku potters and acrylic landscapists and prozak escapists and mosaic tillers and woodworkers and glassblowers and egg tempura pointillists and fabric assemblagers — you name it, we got it or its going to be here faster than the bird flu. The Camano Art Association has 100 members. So does the Stanwood Arts Guild. The quilters do too. The waiting list at the Elger Bay School of Aesthetic Enlargement is backed up til the next decade. Our beaches are jammed with easels and our galleries can only show miniatures mostly.
At first we thought it was cute. Sorta quaint. Aunt Matilda paintin tulips. Kinda like kid art on the refrigerator. Stick it up, praise the little tyke, tell him Picasso wasn’t much better at 8 either…. But imagine the refrigerator with 16 layers. Then the stove. The wallpaper growing sediment. It’s become a flesh eatin collage that takes over the house, covers the barn, grows up the trees, clogs the power lines, spreads into the next county….
It’s everywhere. THEY”RE everywhere. The grocery store lines with nothing but talk of the latest art show, the art gossip, the art meeting, the art gallery, the art the art, my god, the art. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe there’s no cure. No biological control. No artist eating predators. The tides already come in a foot higher from the weight of expanded egoes. The climate has warmed from so much heated air. There may still be time. ….Unless of course the artists begin breeding with the realtors. Then, I think you know, we should all be very, very afraid.
July 19th, 2006
We want to thank you art afficionadoes for comin out today and supporting our troops in the front line on the war against mediocrity and cookie cutter kitsch. The Band like to think art is really about self-expression. The Band likes to think we’re ALL artists, whether it’s playin in a string philharmonic or sewin quildt or building a shop or plantin a garden or cookin dinner or arranging a scrapbook.
The modern world’s gotten so darn specialized we think if we aren’t a virtuoso, why bother at all?? Art ain’t a contest, American-give-me-a-break Idol notwithstanding. Art’s about putting yourself into what you’re doin. Flower arranging, web designin, home decoratin, wood workin, just about anything you do. I mean look around here today and you can see the myriad possibilities.
I hear people say they haven’t got an artistic bone in their body. The truth is we’re all writin the book of our life, we’re all dancing to our own rhythm. And if you listen close, we’re all just waitin for the perfect song that plays on the midnight radio of our perfect hearts. Turn up the volume, turn down the lights and sing along. That song is you and it plays forever.
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