Greetings blog humans! I've not blogged in a while, caught up with the more socially intense world of Facebook but yes it's now time to reblog.
News part one! My exhibition in Sevens in Macclesfield took place. The opening was scant and/or spartan but I sold a watercolour and a poetry book on that day, and two prints over the course of the exhibition. The biggest benefit was that I was forced to calculate the prices and appropriate print size for each painting. I did this by typing the width/height of every painting into a spreadsheet, and calculating the aspect ratio to eliminate the most unusual shapes. Then I tallied this with a list of standard print sizes (12x10, 16x12, 20x16 etc. etc.) and typing those, their cost and other factors (like a commission value) into a separate sheet. More to do on this, as it's a complicated formula.
News two! I've added a shopping cart system to my website. It's crude but wasn't too hard using $SESSION variables. This was created to make it easier to buy sound effects on my sound effects website IndieSFX, but should prove useful. My music is now available to buy that way, as are digital prints.
News three! Painting! Here is Triumph of the Mechanauts. This for a competition with a theme of a dystopian future. An alternative title is Two Victorian Time Travellers Discovering Technological Lovelessness in the Year 2791. It's about the death of emotion.
It's been a disappointing month regarding competitions and entry into exhibitions, however my faith in my abilities is stronger than ever, and my work and mindset is back to the good days of 2006, 2007, 2008 which were better years than 2010 and 2011. My ultrafaith in future artworks is undiminished. In 100 years time I'm sure that the most famous and renowned artist of this time will be me, and yet to be in this exact position of obscurity and freedom and the correct modicum of insanity and isolation is ideal for creativity to flourish. I have three other paintings underpainted and awaiting completion; a leaping tiger, a flagellation of Christ (which took about a week but I might throw away as I never really liked it) and a third painting which was to replace it called God Being Killed by Theists and Atheists. Both of those are on the theme of religious violence for the Religionis Violenta competition. How more violent could we get than the death of God?
The painting was inspired by a epic tragedy related to me by a stranger, one which caused him to deny the existence of God and then become fervently religious. I'm atheist myself, although I do not object to religion because I think it's good for society and exists for logical social scientific reasons, because a stable society demands it. I don't believe anyone really believes in God. The thought that there might actually be a giant invisible man controlling everything is obviously ridiculous. Moved by the story and urgently needing a new painting I idea I spent a day alone and later in darkness the idea appeared in one; God dying in the sky, as evil priests (and initially demons) faced monkeys (representing atheists) over a chess board. On the horizon was a small crucifix. In the sky circled many crucifixes, in panic and stabbing and swirling. The calm cross on the horizon gives a contrast to the rest of the painting and as a representation of Jesus makes the painting devoutly religious; amidst the confused monkeys and corruption of the earthly church there is Christ. Yet, a day later I realised that the crucifix was a gravestone, God was dead and religion was dead, so my unconscious had magically made a painting with simultaneous dual meanings, devout religion and devout atheism in one.
I will complete this painting this month. It would work best on an epic scale but I don't have the time or storage space for something like that.
There are lots of other things to tell, like One Moment In Time, a community art project for Jubilee Monday I'm doing, music news and other things but that must come later for it's time for a cup of tea.
