I’ve been in kind of a daze, wondering about how many planets there might be like ours, how many universe, how many intelligent races and, above all—how it is that we’re right here and now on a great planet like Earth.
Divine Providence? A secret magic code? A umptifloptillion-superfaczillion-wubbawubbagodzillion rolls of the dice?
One of my readers made the remark that, if there were inexhaustibly many planets, and you went and took a picture of the main drag of each one, then some of the pictures would, on a pixel-by-pixel basis have to repeat. Not that EVERY picture has to be repeated, but some of them will have to repeat and in fact at least one of the pictures will have to repeat endlessly many times. That’s the one where the main street has a Gap and a 7-11 and a Pizza Hut and a TGIF bar…
A zombie mystery painting by Robert Williams, I forget the name, you can see it at his show in Santa Rosa CA right now… Click for a larger (and zoomable) version of the painting.
This nasty, nasty painting by Robert Williams ain’t never gonna repeat. This image repays close study. Note that the dead man is so frank an admirer of the fair sex that he has—o my god those are squid—yes, a squid tied, one each, to his eyeballs and his tongue. Rbt. Williams is a menace.
Back to my metalogical ruminations…if someone could write out a thumpin’ fat biography in English of each person in the universe, each book less than 2000 pages long, and if there were infinitely many people, then some of these infinitely many less-than-2000-page bios would have to be the same as some others. But my bio doesn’t necessarily have to be repeated anywhere, and neither does yours, friend.
Click for a larger version of the poster.
And herewith I’ve worked my way around the fact that the opening party for my own art show will be at Borderlands Books, Saturday, June 13, at 3 in the afternoon. We’ll hang out, I’ll do a reading from my thumpin’ fat Journals 1990-2014, answer question, and I’ll give a little tour of the paintings.
Note the chiasmus, the X, the encounter of streetpole and scrappy urban tree.
In addition I’ve made about thirty prints of my paintings¬—I’ve been printing them out this week, printing on highest-quality thick, archival “Museum Etching” paper, using my balky 10-color Pro9500 Canon printer, and mounting the prints on archival mat board.
The only way to get these signed prints is to buy them from me in person, like at an artshow or a reading, for instance on this Saturday afternoon at Borderlands. I don’t sell my hand-made prints by mail nor in stores, although, yes, you can get commercial and somewhat less bitchin’ prints online via Imagekind.
With the high price of the ink and paper and mat board and the fact that I often have to do a print twice, my prints cost me quite a bit, plus an unreasonable amount of labor. And on Saturday I’ll be selling them at prices between $15 and $30, depending on the size of the prints. Practically giving them away!
Oh, wait, am I sounding like a tweaked carnival hawker, a shabby man, his voice hoarse from shouting? Time to fade and merge into the fog…
Hope to see you Saturday, 3 pm, Borderlands Books.
June 14th, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Dang – looks like I just missed another chance to see one of your events. Well, since it all goes on for an infinite time, I’m sure to make one in the future, however many eternities that may be.
But I do have a comment about your art for sale. You honestly describe your travails to get top quality prints and suggest that you sound like a “hawker”… I am, here and now, to speak about that. “$15 to $30”? I rather imagine that you are losing money at those prices, Rudy. I have a large format inkjet printer (~16×20) and I’m lucky to get prints out that could be sold at that price range. Ink, paper, time: you are giving it away. But never fear: All praise the author! No, I have no vested interest here and no, this is not sarcasm. I’m a hack at this but I would have to sell nothing below $100 per print if I would deign to put food on my table.
Sorry for the long rant but art? It don’t come cheap!
June 18th, 2015 at 6:22 am
I think the time factor would work against there being so many repeats. The street would have a Pizza Hut, eventually, but when you checked it might be The Squirrel and Hammer pub or the cave of Ogg, maker of arrowheads.