- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 129
So again on my day off to survey the members show & sale, now noticing how many pieces have sold and how off-the-map the pricing is.
For example, someone's created a hand-drawn bat to place in your window to keep birds from crashing. Very creative. He wants $500 for it. I want to say it's a joke, but you can't be sure around here...
Another, a linocut for again $500 - and - yet again, given you can buy an original oil or acrylic for the same price, who's going to pay that?
A fine felted wall hanging - $3500 - and while I appreciate the work that went into it $3500 is a big price for something that's going to attract dust...
Then there are the "prints on canvas" - another peeve of mine, they are never "limited", always too expensive (even if you wanted one); the artist currently hanging his work in the restaurant at the moment is the same - you're buying an unlimited run of prints on canvas for the price of an original. That said, the one selling out of our restaurant has now sold I think about 6 paintings, and he has work hanging in the art gallery, in Salmo, other places, and so - while it might annoy me he's clearly got the selling part of the business down...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 99
In the news quite literally nothing of interest, despite the pundits predicting the war in Iran and the inevitable outcomes of this. Just more Israel behaving badly, more nonsense from the US, nothing ever new, just more of it.
Oh, wait - the Hantavirus outbreak on the Cruise Ship. That was interesting, although it's already had it's run in the news - for a bit the human-to-human transmission was looking like we could be on to another Covid, then it disappeared; we'll see if it comes into play again. I can't help but think:
Don't dismiss
The Hantavirus
- it's foreshadowing a plague bubonic
Given the last pandemic was filled with similar misinformation and given as well the fact the current administration has proven even more incompetent/indifferent than it was last round I'm not yet convinced this is a dead story...
***
Meanwhile, when not fretting the state of the world; some efforts at painting - abstract, I've been enjoying Chris Loud's YouTube Channel, although I have to say my results vary a great deal from his (how is this possible that I can fuck up even abstract art??!!), some other YouTube prospectors including Everything is Spirit; and Barry's Economics although I find myself too much in agreement; and really would like once in a while to be exposed to a different point of view (one differing from mine own). Not the standard imbeciles that ornament the right side of the political spectrum, just something different.
Social Media, Facebook and it's buckets of AI generated slop; formerly comics of Gary Larson with the captions that made sense of the cartoon cut off, now it's AI drivel “after the style of" Gary Larson with nonsensical images and punch lines. Low effort engagement - but - hey -"made you look!!".
Digging out the art supplies again, inspired by Chris Loud, trying again the fluid acrylics only this time it's not working, not at all, and this - as I discover later in an "aha" moment is because the Floetrol has separated, try again after shaking and it works, after a fashion, although I'm going to have to tweak the recipe...
Outside, have a cigarette, feed the crows, the pigeon has proven fearless, landing beside me, trying to get on my lap or land on my head, a passer-by notices and congratulates me on my pet; the pigeon, meanwhile, is making love to my shoe, which I suppose makes sense as it's the hand that drops the peanut but the shoe that crushes it so the pigeon can eat it...
The crows, they'll play fetch for a bit and then get bored and carry on about their day, this pigeon, it's non-stop, and I'm half curious to go out with a full bag of peanuts and see how much it can eat, really, I mean it's pretty fat as is, I don't think it would stop...
And I am broke, not of my own bad money management but I've let a few paydays slide and I really must get a little more insistent, out of vodka, cigarettes, an empty fridge and a neighbour that constantly needs to borrow money and forgets to repay it; when I announce I'm out of cash she's over raiding my fridge, despite my having an empty fridge and hers being full she's taking the last of my tomatoes, sauce, she means well but it's getting a bit maddening...
Which catches us up to today...now to text work and see if I can claim on an old payday, get back to the flat and try painting again; see if I can't get a proper "acrylic flow recipe" going; find the next book to read; tonight, at work, a wedding, it's going to be loud, long and late and I need to find some way to psychologically prepare...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 115
A rather amusing nintendo-styled browser game in which you get to play the Donald in Operation Epic Furious.
If all the news was this amusing...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 109
My feeding of the Crows has had the unexpected side effect of making me a saint amongst the pigeons. The crows, they crack the peanuts, leave a lot of crumbs for the pigeons to eat. The pigeons have figured out that when I appear, so do the crumbs.
There's one, I'll call him/her stupid, he/she will swoop down, land, then rush me with as much focus and determination any pigeon has ever had. Once under my feet he/she'll tramp about, look at me, look for crumbs, land on my foot, try and land on my lap, land beside me, I give up and crush a peanut under foot...
This merely encourages him/her.
I must say, I prefer the reticence of the crows, their ultra-cautious approach, always keeping a good 5 feet or more away, although, having watched me not murder said little pesky pigeon they've grown a bit more bold. By the end of summer I'll have one on my shoulder...
***
And the patio has been set up and provides yet another obstacle to making a living. Called in to work for Sunday, a certain waitress, all the personality of a garbage truck, has quit, or, but none of my business. She would complain of the slowest of days (fair enough) but you'd come in to a shift after her and find nothing was done. No prep, nada, zilch, she sat on the phone the whole day. So while I'm glad she's gone I'm not thrilled to be working.
***
It's the Sunday Mother's Day Market, a very-real possibility it will be busy. Before work I've committed to helping the old Chef buy a car, we go and look at it, a Nissan Infinity, good condition, well looked after, turns out the seller is a customer, he recognizes me; this favours the sale and former Chef makes the purchase. The car, runs good, looks good, probably good, but at the moment I'm a little skeptical, the world at the moment, petrol, Iran, you get it. Maybe this isn't the year to buy a car. But we all go on as normal, fire? what fire? oh....the world. Nobody that I've spoken to has in any way understood the gravity of our situation. Maybe it's me. I'm a bit of a nay-sayer, I mean, I spent NYEve 2000 under my desk, but...well, wait and see....
***
The patio, a table, inside the restaurant, a bit busy, maybe a little too much for one person, with the to-go orders and deliveries definitely too much, but the evening passes and I bail at 7:30. This was to be a day off, squandered, and I'm a little nervous as to tonight, tomorrow, the patio, it might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Already I'm busy enough, tables inside, even on a slow night it's busier than it appears with the phone, to-go orders, deliveries, now - well; we'll see if I can juggle it all, although it might be time to change my schedule to a 10:30-7:30 so that I help the closer with the cross-over duties.
***
Painting, little postcards, experiments, trying to get a grasp on the mixed media still within my possession, I need to go to the museum and commit to making some postcards; hand-made one of a kind, one at a time, small profits multiplied with a factory styled approach...
***
And having cleaned the apartment for the inspection/heater check up that didn't occur, loathe to make a mess again, reminded of what needs to go, what can stay, and everything that I would use once again mislaid or misfiled and I'm at a loss...
***
The weather is fine. Mighty fine, last night thunder and electrical storms, violent lights fragmenting the sky, a fine spring-time show. I do so love a good thunder-shower.
***
The Hantavirus
...and this, the trending news, and everyone on Reddit says "don't worry be happy" and while I'm sure they're all right, all qualified disease specialists, all know what they're talking about, I can't help but remember the Coronavirus, the early warning signals from China, the videos, posts, we all knew - if we paid attention and believed it - it was coming - but the handling of it (Canada, fine, USA, not-so-much), and the fact that patients have been transported to the zone of non-competence...
Well...
2020 2.0
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 140
The neighbours' pigeon, alas, didn't work out. It started flying about her apartment, ignoring the oats and water set out for it, flying into things, landing on picture frames (of which she has many), shitting on walls, typical pigeon behaviour, and when it had enough it left.
I was pretty sure it wasn't going to work out.
Monday, Tuesday, we've become the "Midnight Sushi" joint. Nothing happens all night and then, a quarter to close, they come, 1 to 5 tables, to whittle my time away into the wee hours...
Tuesday night, returning late to my apartment to find a not stuffed in my door advising that they're coming - the Pastor and repair men - to inspect my heating unit.
This is, of course, impossible, my place is quite literal a landslide of art supplies and dishes; a mess, proper-hoarder type scenario, I mean, I was dealing with it as fast as I could, bringing stuff to/taking stuff from the Locker, but - I'm dependant on other's for rides and so it wasn't going exactly quickly. Add to that I was looking at organizing my art supplies in the locker in a way they weren't organized at home. So it was to be a process...
It becomes obvious there is no time for the process. Wednesday, up early and stressed, coffee, breakfast, roll up my sleeves and hit the mess. Not cleaning, per se, more hiding shit in my bedroom, moving garbage from one pile to another. It takes about 4 hours and I'm done, or close enough, everything squared away, a "reasonable", "somebody lives here" sort of mess, my shrine is obvious and should be visible to the pastor, as is the King James Bible I leave on the bookstand to be duly noted as well. I think of opening it to a favourite passage, but I'm trying to keep it in the realm of somewhat plausible...
I got to admit, it kind of feels good. The weight of all these unfinished things swept away and stashed in closets, well, it's good, makes obvious how easily and why my focus is so scattered, a semi-clean apartment (never mind the bedroom has become "the mess" - nothing happens there anyways). Over the next few weeks the mess will move from the closets to the locker where they can be further sorted and categorized, and things can come from the locker to be built upon or sold, this dependancy on other peoples' schedules is a bit of a nightmare but must be endured until I'm driving myself...
...and the days, outside, beautiful, sunny, the sort of weather one should be chomping on nuggets down by the river or bashing at some overhang or striding the forest and digging holes or going down into ancient mines...
Instead, out of my apartment, hiding out at the library until the heat pump has been examined...