Bunnies

Went to First Thursday last night, saw some art and talked to a few of the dudes who had some shows.

They all have this look in their eye when you talk to them like wow Im really doing this and they also are trying to figure out if you're important or not.

I'm not.

So they talk to you and generally they're nice but when they do figure out you're just some schmuck from East Brickhouse, a few miles outside of Hicks From the Sticks, they tend to start looking over your shoulder at everybody else at their show.

I think I do the same thing whenever I have a show. It's tuff and on occasion you find yourself not listening to a word a person is saying to you. You get distracted.

Anyhoo, some some good stuff here and there but wondered why can’t people just make good art? If they’re going to do it, why not make it good?

That's a good question, one I think people could ask me too. It's funny, but everybody who makes art and shows it thinks in their heart that it's good, even people whose art is turrible (which I say non-judgementally).

I don't think they think their art is a masterpiece or anything I think they think that their art is adequate for the venue. If somebody came up to them and said "hey there, you want to show that pic of yours there, that one with the bunnies, do you want to show it in the Louvre? We have some space available"I think they might think, well it ain't no masterpiece and say to the Paris representative of the Louvre who is in town and has seen their art unexpectedly, "why no, I don't think I better. Are there other bunnies in the Louvre? Are you curating a bunny show? well, maybe...would I have to pay to have it shipped there? Just where in the Louvre would it be, like in the basement or something? Do you label the paintings in French, would I have to put my artist's statement in French?"

Once the initial shock of "an Homme" from the Louvre asking for your bunny painting subsides, you'd have a million questions. (How do you say Bunny in French? Jambon? (that means Ham)).

Anyhoo, we saw some paintings of bunnies last night that elicited the comment from Chris that he liked "the wax stuff with the bunnies or whatever."

The bunny guy had a lot of paintings there probably around 30 or 40, most of which (if they contained a bunny) I didn't like all that much, but some of them (bunny free) that I really liked.

I think it just goes to show you, if you make enough paintings, some of them are going to be good.

Do you think if you laid out all of Vincent Van Gogh’s work end to end that every one of them would be a masterpiece? I think not. I know if you laid out every one of MY pieces end to end there would definitely be some of them that are better than others.

You know you DO get your masterpieces every once in awhile (I say this objectively and think as I write it of my masterpiece "Man Eating Burger" that reminded some people of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" it was such a masterpiece) and I think as you continue to work, the quality of your work becomes higher and higher (until it drops off completely which we don't want to think about) and so after a while, EVERYTHING is a masterpiece or maybe EVERYTHING is CLOSE to being a masterpiece with the occasional REAL masterpiece every so often.

F'instance, you know you can look at Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and think it's a masterpiece compared to his "Postman at Arles" but both paintings are kinda up there.

Maybe I better stop using Van Gogh for my greatest artist of all time segments since I saw a list recently of the top artists ever as voted by British art students...it's a long list (I'm tied for 33rd) but here is the top five. 1 Marcel Duchamp2 Pablo Picasso3 Francis Bacon4 Henri Matisse5 Lucian Freud6 Philip Guston.

Kind of a weird list, huh? Marcel DuChamp number one? Van Gogh was actually tied for 17th on the list so I guess his period in the sun is over.

C'est domage.

I mean if you paint a bunny picture do you ever think it will be a masterpiece? Best masterpieces of all time 1 Mona Lisa 2 The Pieta 3 TheBunny picture 4 Campbell's Soup Cans 5 The Last Supper.

I don't think you shouldn't paint bunny paintings, it just I think there are certain uses for certain paintings and not all paintings (while they still are good) are not destined to be masterpieces and that fact is acknowledged by all, including the artist.

Maybe as a whole genre, like say you painted hundreds of bunny paintings you could then collectively say you've painted a masterpiece.

Maybe then but probably not. I think you'd have a better chance of painting a masterpiece if you painted a madonna and stayed clear of the bunnies.