Roses I Suppose

Roses I Suppose
oil on linen
11″ x 14

I have no idea what happened to this painting. I can’t find it. It’s very slightly possible I sold it. However, as I’m tied with Van Gogh for least paintings sold in a lifetime, it is unlikely. I may have traded it for alcohol or drugs. That would be more likely than an actual sale, but I don’t recall many in that subculture that have shown the slightest interest in my paintings.

More likely is that my wife tossed it. Perhaps as vengeance for my chucking of her crap figurines over the neighbor’s fence. I’m going to look to see if any of my paintings found their way over that same fence.

I really have only a very vague memory of this piece. I don’t remember getting these flowers. That is my paint brush holder the flowers are in. I wonder where those brushes are. I’m going to need to safety pin stuff to my clothes like my mom did my mittens.

ANGER MANAGEMENT –

I’m not going to try to manage my anger anymore; going to let ‘er rip.

The issue of bullshit advertising be it from TV or Email/texts has me in a near continuous delirium of rage. The people who produce these ads need to be taken out and shot down like dogs.

Example 1: The Guarantee

Bla bla bla ….I guarantee Cold EZE will shorten your cold or your money back.

I’ll just try that on my next runny nose. If I’m not clear in under 37 minutes I will call for my full refund and then hold my breath. Everybody knows that “REFUND” is a flat out lie. Why can’t we jail those people?

Example 2A: Your information is secure

Banner Health lost my identity along with 3 million others. Their solution to my mental health was to provide 1 year of free ID monitoring. This service let me know that my ID was indeed being sold on the dark net. Still, as an optimist, I didn’t have to pay to find I was screwed. So later after some medical procedure at a Banner clinic I received an email from them saying I should create an account through their patient portal in order to get my lab results. The email stated that I could be assured my data was secure. Suck my wallee.

Example 2B: Your information is secure

Equifax lost my identity again along with the rest of the entire adult population of the USA. They quickly contacted the devil’s disciples ad creators to produce this gem:
Please log on the Equifax website. We will give you a free year of credit monitoring to protect your identity. Really? So for free we may expect a call from you saying, “oh ya, your identity has been sold, watch out now.” If it should be sold past the 1 year mark you won’t even get the courtesy call.

I say we take all the holdings of the execs of Equifax, sell the company, then advertise to all the hackers instead of wasting time looting all the innocent people, send us an email and we will give you a payment directly from Equifax holdings.

Valorie’s Quilt

By WR Jones

Valorie’s Quilt
oil on linen
36″ x 24″

Not long ago I complained to my daughter about some issue with this still unfinished painting. Her reply – “Well, you’ve got 10 years on it so far, what’s another year.”

She has a point there. As luck would have it, I don’t need to sell paintings for a living. Otherwise I wouldn’t be living. Had I created a documentary about this piece it could have been used as a dire warning about starting a painting without a crystal clear composition goal. You know, the moron’s way I approach every painting. My reasoning is – FABULOUS idea, let’s get started on it, I’ll figure out the remaining 75% of composition later.

Along my merry painting way on this piece I at one time had a cat on the bed, took him out, put him back. Where the kitten and the dropped stack of squares are on the floor once held two young girls. One was playing jacks, the other held a doll. I painted out one of the girls and added a toddler clinging to the quilt. Painted out the toddler and later the remaining little girl. After that had dried I realised that now you could see the entire mechanism of the sewing machine. On a sculpting trip to New York we stopped at every antique shop we could find looking for reference material for the machine treadle et al.

My latest brilliant idea was to use a book to breakup the large sheet area at the foot of the bed. I first painted it, then realized I hadn’t used perspective. Repainted then realized, OH, it is two point perspective. Then after turning, pulling, pushing, twisting, realized I couldn’t use a lettering template to do the book title; the letters are also in perspective. For example, the L doesn’t have 90 deg angle between the bottom and the vertical edge it is 60 deg.

Bait and switch – I ordered a ‘free’ trial font design program. As soon as I opened the program and tried to edit a letter a message said that couldn’t be done with the free version, I needed to pay $80 for the ‘basic’ version. I made some progress with this version until I tried a particular (and necessary operation), message said this operation required the $150 ‘standard’ version. Continued with great progress, last click to clean up the letter spacing. Computation proceeds with a progress bar; a clean line showing my title in the custom perspective font appears on the screen. I click to save and …. message – this operation requires the $250 ‘pro’ version, on sale for $200. I cried for a brief period and caved. What could I do? They had a gun to my painting thumb. I’m way to shakey to paint the letters freehand. I proved this by trying it, 3 times. Then after designing the font I had to send it out to have a stencil made. Yep, that was some more money. I should have painted over the book idea and put in a ball of yarn. It’s not like I’m in any way adverse to changing horses in mid river. Anyhoo, I think I may have it done within the year, ojala.

DARTS –

I read that muscle memory, which in my case is as useless as regular memory, may be extra myelin coating particular nerve cells. You get this extra coating by repetition of movement. This can be playing a guitar, shoveling dirt (bad example for me), swinging a golf club, throwing a dart. The theory is, in my raggled halfassed understanding, if you repeat the motion enough times in the same manner, you get a faster smoother neural path which helps with repeatablity of a desired outcome. So right away after reading this article I realize I have no myelin. My nerves have no protective coating which may expain the crankiness my daughter (and the rest of the family) complain about.

After thousands of dart throws I still suck. In some respects it is intriguing. It seems improbable that one could do an act so many times with no discernible improvement. I have proved it possible, as the Creepy Cheeto would say, believe me.

A short internal dialog at today’s dart sufferfest –

Those last two darts were pretty bad. Well, three actually if you count all three darts. A short time later – Say not bad, not bad at all, for me anyway. I’ve now thrown 7 darts and not one of them stuck in the wall out past the 3 foot mark. If I keep the wall shots within 3 feet of the dartboard edge the lighting is such that my wife can’t see the holes (that is with the lights dimmed – which I do as soon as I hear her coming)

Discipline

This is a piece I started in a class with Philippe Faraut – a master sculptor and very fine teacher.

In addition to teaching sculpting technique, Philippe instilled a new sense of disipline in me to round out an already stellar character.
Example – yesterday at the gym I turned down a pink frosted donut; iron will! I told the desk clerk I felt I deserved recognition for my self control. Perhaps not on a national scale so as to not interfere with the election process but at least at a state level. She pointed out that she had just observed me eating a cookie and a maple brownie. Oh, ok, never mind I will get on with my workout.

The Scottsdale workshop was a month ago. I just (almost) finished this piece yesterday. In my world of retirement this is considered speed sculpting. I have been putting in a consistent, focused 15 minutes a day on this work. Of course, that includes bathroom breaks, hydration pauses, taking Mango out to pee, and getting the mail.

Thank God I don’t have to make a living doing anything. Vote for Bernie, I need a Social Security raise or I’ll never be able to afford that Tesla which I NEED because it is self driving. Then I won’t feel guilty going down the road drinking. Oh stop feeling so self righteous, I need to unwind after a hard 15 minutes.