Two extremely busy days. Spent yesterday taking two sets of photographs of myself, for the new computer book...
And also some new profile photos, which more closely match how I'll generally look, and indeed act, at live events or art previews. I wear the gold coat sometimes, most often for musical performances, but my bycocket and suit are increasingly my preferred choice of outfit as it has the flexibility of smart and unique. The surrealists always worse smart and expensive suits, and I exactly understand why, and always felt the same way. The frilly shirt looks good, but the cuffs (and the crown) make guitar playing impossible.
There are a variety of looks, from this, which has something of Dali about it:
This this, which has something of the Laughing Cavalier - or a surrealistic gangsta rapper. This is now (or will be) my official Apple Artists' Image:
I did a lot of work on the book cover too, and re-wrote some parts.
I also de-framed an older painting, You Must Report To Oncology, as its current frame is very old and not good enough. I sawed the panel down to this:
I made a new frame, but the angles were cut incorrectly, due to lack of practice or care (or bent wood, this is always a possibility). I used two offcuts of wood, so the grain mismatched badly, but this couldn't be helped, as the longer offcut is years old and doesn't match anything. These problems instantly limited my frame decoration choice to using thick paint. I spent many hours today making up some custom gesso, painting and sanding the frames, but the result was too poor for my liking. It was, smooth and the grain of the wood was totally suppressed, but the painted colouration was too strong for this delicate painting.
So, I re-cut some fresh pine and will use that.
I've spent the evening making lots of new MODX sounds, in preparation for Fall in Green gigs. I had only made a few to date, but we will need lots. This evening I rapidly made 5 or 10 to cover our most commonly performed works.
We need new things to play. My ideal as a performer is to play only new work, but, it's odd that, despite this desire, we often perform our favourites ourselves.
Money is short. Time is short. Life is short and precious. I must work twice as hard and ten time human speed. On we rush.
