The other day, I was in a modern medical building. I sat down in the waiting room opposite a very large door, about the size of one of Mark Rothko’s famous color-field paintings.

The door resembled a Rothko painting in size—larger than life-size and enough space for you and friend to enter the mystery of the painting. There’s more. The various grades of randomly modulated horizontal shellacked colors that were applied by a tradesman, or maybe ever an automated door painting machine, also added to the illusion: the door was also clearly reminiscent in content of a Rothko color-field painting.

So, it is not unreasonable to see that should this office door be hung in the Museum of Modern Art, viewers would most likely accept it as art.

This, of course, begs the age-old question: Is it art because the artist says so? Or is it art because a number of influential people canonize it? The more important issue to my mind is this: Do you know? This is where the journey begins.

The Beach Poet (l); Guardians of the Land (r).

You may have heard, read, or watched a scene in a movie where the artist looks at his finished painting, then proceeds to splash paint all over it—obliterating the image underneath for something new. X-ray imaging technology has also proven that many of the masters routinely painted over an earlier painting; in these works we can see the pentimento—an underlying image in a painting.

One of the reasons I love working with Corel Painter and the Wacom Intuos4 drawing tablet is that I have the option to create, destroy, and create again without losing anything in the process—which is a universal constant where everything is propelled to balance the equation. This was, in fact, the equation Einstein had in mind when he pondered the still elusive theory of everything.

To illustrate my point: after completing the work on the left (The Beach Poet), I turned my digital onscreen canvas upside down, and began painting over it to create the work on the right (Guardians of the Land). No painting was needlessly sacrificed.

Tradition is good; mindless dogma is not. Remember, when Leonardo discovered the wonders of working with slow-drying oils over fast-drying egg tempura, he immediately embraced the new technology.

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer.

Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild lifes become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every
day.

—Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, 1897

Reason is always fair game for rationalization and self-deception; but, when reason is led by aspirations of the soul, the equation is balanced as creation, which is another word for art.

The other day I caught a snippet from a show that had food maestro Jamie Oliver from England visiting the school system of a West Virginia community well-known for its deplorable health situation—an overwhelming number of obese parents and obese children. Their ignorance about quality food destined them for a life of serious health problems and a shortened life expectancy.

Jamie was trying to show the folks in power that their health problems were easily traced to the awful processed foods served in their schools (home too) beginning in the elementary grades. There was, of course, incredible resistance by the establishment to altering the status quo—despite the facts.

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The Readymade

It cannot be denied. Careers have been launched by winning awards.

Heres a fine piece I entered in a Talenthouse art competition: The Readymade

I need 75 votes to get me to the final round; so, your vote definitely counts.

Voting begins April 2 and closes Tuesday, April 6, 2010.

Here’s the link for voting:

http://tinyurl.com/ykguqhp

Thanks for your support.

Note: voting is done via mobile phone.

Eden