The Birth of Mutation

Almost time for the new year and I’ve completed the last painting that will be made in 2009. Why write about it? you may be wondering… well, mostly because I can’t find anything else to do with my time at the moment: I already put in a good pinball session today (Lord of the Rings at Beautiful Pizza) and I really don’t feel like writing anymore code… yuck! Since I can’t find anything better to do, I thought that I would let you know that I won’t be finishing anymore paintings this year and let you know what’s in store for next 2010.

Birth of a Mutation

Mutations is a new body of work that I’m putting together that was born out of my participation in The Big 100 Show earlier this month. For those of you who are unfamiliar with shows of this kind, please allow me to explain a few things. The organizers of The Big 100 asked 100 artists to create 20 8″ x 8″ paintings each. The paintings will be available for one night only and each piece is to be priced at $30.00.

Now, I generally have a problem with anyone attempting to control the retail value of my artwork especially when the value is 2 to 3 times less than normal. However, I decided to make an exception in this case for a few different reasons:

1. I really needed some cash. I’ve had a bike on layaway forever and had to borrow some money to pay off the balance before my down payment was forfeited.
2. I’m pretty good friend with the organizers and they were giving all proceeds to different charities.
3. I had came up with a theory as to how I could create work in a shorter period of time that still embodied the basic style of my normal artwork.

So, how did it all work out? Great question! I worked out pretty well, I sold 13 out of 14 (I knew adding a hobbit was a bad idea… noone needs those hairy little toes leaving jam on the carpet…), paid off the bike loan, facilitated the donation of $130.00 to charity and acquired a new way of creating artwork thus giving life to the Mutations series.

Let’s Get Mutated

The basic idea came from an article I read years ago written by Paul Fujita outlining his process of carbon transfer using acrylic medium. I always thought that this was a cool idea, but never really had a way to incorporate it into my own work. Then it dawned on me… I had all these drawings laying around that I think are pretty cool, but people don’t really ever buy them at my shows – I think it’s because they are just black and white? Whatever the reason, I can’t seem to sell them and there’s no chance in hell that I’m coloring them in. So I photocopied a grip of them, splashed a bunch of bright colors on some wood and went to town with the acrylic media transer process. I think it turned out really well in the end. The piece retain the detail of my normal work without me having to make all of those tiny, tiny lines. I was able to cut creation time of the pieces by a landslide which made it much easier for me to fork them over for a third of the cost.

Look! A Picture!

Here’s an example of what I have been talking about. On the left you will see the original drawing and on the right, the Mutation. Notice how the composition has not been radically altered, but elements have changed well beyond that of simple embellishment.

Why Mutations?

I was struggling with a name for this series. The only thing that made any sense was Theme and Variation. I think that the definition fits the series well and I like the musical association, whenever I hear “Theme and Variation” I get this unsettling visualization of sitting on a brightly colored rug in Kindergarden while some mean lady with a fake smile belted out verse after verse of “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”. Hey lady! do you really thing that I want to sing after stomaching warm milk and stale crackers?!?!? I think not! Go stand in the corner no cookies for you…

Anyway, the thesaurus told me the Mutation is a synonym for Variation and the only flashbacks I get when I hear the word are of the warm an soothing variety… much like the Beck album of the same name. And let me get stuck down with lightning as I type if I fail to mention that it was only through the process of mutation that the ninja turtles were able to save New York City from the dastardly deeds of Super Shredder and his Mighty Technodrome. Also, without the process of mutation, atheists would have little or nothing to argue with when they meet an unsuspecting creationist.

Mutation.

It’s a wonderful thing!