Saturday, August 13, 2011

Newly inspired

I don't know if it's all the Elliot Smith I listened to today, but I finally got inspired. Finally.

I've had this feeling for the last little while- the last post helped to express some of it. I feel a very big lack of quality in life. That's a really clumsy way to phrase it, but I'll try my best to explain.

I work at a daily newspaper- the focus here is not finely crafted advertisements, beautiful paper, well thought out typography, etc. The idea is get it in as best as you can and get it on the press. I am blessed to live in the oldest neighbourhood in Hamilton that has maintained so many gorgeous architectural treasures, however, this isn't valued everywhere. The current mentality is build homes very fast that aren't going to stand out in history (that will, in fact, probably crumble to the ground very quickly because they are built in such a rush). Technology expires faster than I can keep up (CS5.5, is that really necessary?) and it's making my head spin.

I suppose this should make me very Buddhist and I should understand that times change and everything is transitory, but it just makes me cling to the things I find comforting.

Back to the inspired part- I was at the art crawl last night, and they were doing the Beehive Collective craft fair in the old Friendship Shop (in a funny tangent, it used to be an Asian gift shop, and I used to buy tons of Sailor Moon stuff there as a young girl, but I digress). This print totally caught my eye- especially the nun.



It's a bit dark, a bit humourous and definitely has something to say. Skulls and skeletons have been a recurring theme in my art since I was in University. My first big project in sculpture class was to build a shelter, and I made myself a coffin. It's not that I'm morbid, but I've always been very aware of my own mortality.

So today, I did this:



I was just thinking about days gone by where people actually cared about dressing up in a tuxedo and bow tie and how I'll never see very much of that. The time is very literally dead. It's just a first painting, i'm a little rusty, and I'd like to find other ways to explore this idea.