Wake Up!

 Our history is one of the slow diminishing of the citizen to that of the consumer. We are now the commodity being sold to the highest bidder. We all sit staring blankly at our phones that have become systems for delivering advertising housed within a thin layer of content. This content, in the old world of print media, used to be produced by professionals. The system was still supported by advertising, but the layer of content was much more meaningful. Today, we are both the amateur producers of the content and the target of the advertising that surrounds it. We spend a good portion of our days receiving advertising and wading through meaningless content. We have become the spectacle. 

What is the escape? Turn off, tune out, and don't participate in the spectacle. The more time we spend looking at our phones, the less time we have to live. If you spend even one hour a day looking at your phone, that's 365 hours a year-- that's nearly 23 16-hour days). If you were to spend 2 hours a day, which is likely a more accurate number, that's 45 16-hour days in a year, a month and-a-half. Imagine if you had done something else with that time? What if you had read a book or even written a book. Produced art, anything but staring at a small screen that is slowly sucking the life out of you. We live in a dead world. Wake up! 

Painting Has Become Significant

I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned how good I should feel that I have found something I love doing. There are not many people that find something that can put them into a state of flow where your perception of time seems to disappear. I was a little dismissive, but it was a good observation. When I paint, I do sometimes lose track of time. I can be in my basement studio working on a piece and I will lose all awareness of time, three hours can pass without me even being aware. I will look at the clock on my computer and be surprised by the time. I put this up against my normal day at work where time seems to stand still. 

It doesn't mean I am producing great work that people are clamoring to buy, but it does mean I am producing work which might be the most important thing. How much of our lives can slip away with no sign we were even here. So far, in my painting journey, I have completed 70 paintings. As the years pass, I would like to mark them with at least a couple dozen more per year. If I live 15 more years, that's another 360 paintings. Is that possible? Only time will tell. Here is my most recent work, Maria Callas (14x11 oil on canvas):