Our progress as artists
October 25th, 2006A unique conjunction of the planets or something gives me the opportunity to show you the progress Aaron and I have made as artists in the past 11 years. After the comments on the previous post, Aaron was inspired to create an “artistic rendering of the plight of you midwesterners.” You’ll see that later in the post.
I, on the other hand, was inspired to ask my parents for photos of the mural that decorates the outer walls of the studio we built in our barn. Thanks to the fact that we signed and dated our masterpiece, I can tell you that we painted this mural when we were about 14 years old. Lest you think that we were “good kids who painted murals in their spare time,” I confess that we also concocted explosives and torched aeresol cans. Andd now, if any of you were wondering what my mom was referring to when she commented about carrots with machine guns and rabid rabbits, here are close-ups of two sections of the mural. The media were (I think) oil on fiberboard and oil on particle board, respectively:
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Aaron was responsible for the carrots and anything that looks remotely good. I was responsible for the rabbits and the ”(un)happy trees”. Notice especially the tongue-in-cheek references to the ubiquitous consumerism of our society when we made the clouds say “Eat at Joe’s” and the 1970’s John Doe sun advertise a bottle of Coke.
So that you can see how far we have come since then, here is Aaron’s artistic representation of a stingray of doom (the “plight of the midwest” that I mentioned above):
As you can see, this giant land ray is busy wreaking havoc on what appears to be a tanker truck in what appears to be a grassy field. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I’m sure that’s because the level of the work outpaced my knowledge. I don’t know why our art has the tendency to center around enormous animals/vegetables destroying things. There’s probably some psychological explanation.
As for the example of my most recent artistic pursuit, you’ll have to wait until the next post. Actually, I’m not sure you could call what I’m currently doing art, but then, if rabid rabbits and gargantuan stingrays crushing things are the standards by which we’re judging art… maybe I’m an artist after all. ;)
Ok, the machine gun bearing carrot might actually beat out the doll in the freezer PR ad for snow camp :)
i don’t know, jess…. “linda” made quite an impression on me.
J & B: Yeah, Linda was impressive all right, but she didn’t pack a sweet piece. The carrot could take her—unless it was really cold outside, and then she’d win. I’d like to see her take on the stingray of doom, though… that sequel is just begging to be made, Aaron. This one could be in the mock horror/action/Jerry Springer genre (if there isn’t such a thing yet, we’ll totally be breaking new ground here). The key word there being “mock”.
Snow Camp II: Attack of the Killer Carrots… and the Women Who Shred Them.
What most people don’t know is that Linda;s first appearance wasn’t in that winter camp promo, but in a educational movie that discussed the industrial and french revolutions. That movie included the decapitation of Linda (including fake blood) and a music montage of Linda dancing with her floating head to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” So help me, if I ever track down those Linda films, you can rest assured they’ll be on Youtube.
Given the fact that Aaron is pursuing a ministry position at the moment, should these discussions be taken offline? Way offline? Also, reviewing the hospital pictures again—I gather that the real problem with the one facility in Florida was that it was out of focus. Would you have felt better going there if it wasn’t so pixelated? Also, we may have located Linda. Our barn is a kind of Panama Canal from Arsenic and Old Lace.