098 - Valentine Massacre

098 - Valentine Massacre
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

My wife headed off to Chicago to teach a course there for a week or so. I really miss her, so I made this.

Ever wished you could do something, like play the guitar? What is stopping you?

I want to make pictures, so I made myself a guitar out of a cardboard box. I had to edit it a lot and up the contrast of the picture to make it work.

I want to make my wife happy, and show her how I feel. So I did what I knew I could do, and I only know I can because once in the past I took a risk and tried. Sometimes what blocks us is not knowing enough about the process, so we have to believe in the eventual success enough to keep us from thinking about what we don't know now and what problems we still need to overcome.

I work quickly so I don't get slowed down by worries, and as a consequence I let my subconscious help out by not trying to control what I am doing too much. I let the practice of doing give me better skill, and I am not afraid to play around.

I keep the image simple and uncluttered, so it is easier to focus on the essential relations between things. In the past artists working on large commissions might get other people to fill in the scenery or minor characters so they could focus less on paint and more on the relationships between the elements in the image.

some people say artists in the past were better because they had to grind and mix their own paints. This is rubbish, you grind and mix paints because you either have no other choice or because you enjoy it. If an artist grew and cooked his own meals, grew the materials for the canvas and wooden frames, made brushes and all the rest required to get a human to the point of applying paint to canvas there would not be time enough to paint.

We get choices about what we do, and we get other people to do the rest. Then we die. If we think there are no choices, we are not really thinking. We live from moment to moment, and no one can control all of those moments, so there are always moments we can make choices about what we think.

I found some moments in a very stressful week, where I had to make some really hard decisions, to think about the woman I truly love. This is part of the result.