Desperate House Wares

You owe me one! I went on an entirely too long diatribe of Kafka's Metamorphosis that somehow descended into a muddled murmur about Marx and the division of labor. I deleted the blog post and threw away the painting.

Thus, I'd like to apologize: I'm sorry its been so long (naturally, my ego assumes you care). I had to start over again with a new painting and blog post.

Over the course of this blog it's become progressively clear that I have a two-fold obsession when it comes to painting: an obsession with language and a commodity fetish. Hence a talking teapot was really a predictable eventuality. Actually, this is part of a series of nine watercolors of sarcastic commodities called "Desperate House Wares".

Clearly the profundities of sarcastic appliances are abundant. To be frank, though, initially I only thought they were funny. To be frank again, I believe funny should be the numero uno aspect of art. I won't explain this: I'm sure you understand and it really deserves a blog of its own. (The beer, Spaten Optimator, also deserves a blog of its own - it's only $7.69 and it's a German bock with 7.6% alcohol! Vegan and (arguably) best beer for your money.)

Ok, to finally get to these watercolors: After two Optimators I found my self staring at this teapot and getting upset. Who does this teapot think it is? It does what I say (namely, warm my water and pour it where ever my whimsy wishes)! However, why is this picture so stupidly annoying? We don't need Marx to tell us that a commodity is a commodity because of its use-value. That is to say, we don't need to read Das Kapital to know we buy a teapot for what it does (and that we wouldn't buy no smart mouth teapot).

So what is a teapot that doesn't do what it does? What is an unsittable chair? What is a useless commodity? It's not just an abstract object. Further, what am I when I'm out for the summer, not working? I know it sounds dumb, but why do I feel so horribly existentially bored? If a teapot is not in the mood to warm up your tea, what is the point of being a teapot?

My Mustachioed Muse

What to paint? I sat and stared at an empty canvas like some kind of visual cliché. I was creatively paralyzed with a stupid and contrived conundrum that I couldn’t work around: any thing I paint should be better as a representation rather than the original. Otherwise, what would be the point of painting something if checking out the actual subject is a better experience. For example, what’s the point of painting a lamp if the real lamp in my living room looks much better? The only solution I could come up with is that my painted lamp shall have a moustache. That would make it much cooler than a regular lamp.
My mustachioed lamp may settle my muse-less musings at the moment, but now all sorts of questions crop up. Questions about representation, images, symbolism, abstraction, advertisements. I clearly have some thinking and reading to do. I think Debord is driving me crazy. Or maybe I’m becoming more sane and fitting in less in a crazy world. Same difference.