Once They Banned Imagine

We had our heart strings dangling ripe for the yanking

And a lot of reasons grabby was good

Poor huddled masses singing boots up their asses

Giving grabby what he needed to pull

All the way back to where ghosts from the past were still

Fighting their wars from the grave

Complete with record burning and threatening and spurning

The crime of getting blood on the page

Since the big one ended we'd been mostly pretending

We'd have had the same gumption and grit

As the greatest among us when harm came upon us

We wouldn't hesitate to defend

But with or against something's been out to get us

And it looked like something finally did

No nobler cause in our lifetime for setting our sails to the wind

But once they banned Imagine 
it became the same old war its always been

Once they banned Imagine 
it became the war it was when we were kids

Are you now or have you ever been in cahoots with the notion that people can change

When history happens again if you do or you did you'll be blamed

From baseless inquiry

To no knocking entry

Becoming the law of the land

To half cocked excuses for bullet abuse regarding anything browner than tan

Cause once they banned Imagine 
it became the same old war its always been

Once they banned Imagine 
it became the war it was when we were kids

-  "Once They Banned Imagine", Drive-By Truckers

Hold On

It's funny how some images find a new meaning with time.  I decided I was going to sneak in a few positive thoughts on this blog, but I've since turned on the television.  A friend of mine tried to convince me that everyone finds optimism at some point...maybe so, but I'm skeptical. 

Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:

I often think it’s comical

How nature always does contrive

That every boy and every gal

That’s born into the world alive

Is either a little Liberal

Or else a little Conservative.

Which one are you in this country? It’s practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren’t one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.

If some of you still haven’t decided, I’ll make it easy for you.

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.

If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.

What could be simpler?

-From Kurt Vonnegut's "Cold Turkey", In These Times, May 10, 2004

Mice and Men

"Trapped"

oil on canvas

24" x 24"

I won't go into too many details, but there are a few people who passionately dislike my paintings of dead mice.  On more than one occasion, they have gone out of their way to convey their disgust to me.  Oh well, I guess.  I haven't bothered to entertain them, as I'm sure nothing I can say could convince them there's anything more, or much less, to this image than they've already decided for themselves.  It's really pretty simple...I kill a mouse and I paint the mouse I killed.  My motivation doesn't matter and there's no sense in me blabbing on about my concept or lack thereof, but I do confess...I killed the mouse. 

But you know...this isn't actually a dead mouse anyway, it's a painting of a dead mouse.  If I didn't already own up to it, who's to say I didn't make it all up?  And if I did make it up, what's the big deal?  Is this more violent than the reality television we watch on the evening "news"?  If I killed a mouse, placed it behind an antique vase filled with beautiful flowers, and painted all of that pretty stuff hiding the ugly, dead thing behind it, did I do anything different?  Are people disgusted because they assume I killed an innocent animal or because I "made them look" at something they refuse to see?  Is painting a dead mouse different than mounting a deer's head?  Is painting a dead mouse different than painting a portrait of your dead grandparents?  Is it different than painting the Crucifixion of Jesus?  Is it more or less tragic?

I'm not going to pretend that these dead mouse paintings aren't somewhat confrontational, and I'll admit, I struggle every time I make one.  Killing is killing and I take no pride in being an exterminator.  But let's get real...if I would've simply taken a photo of the poor little guy I doubt anyone would care one way or the other.  And while pissing people off isn't really a goal of my painting process, which is evidently a large part of this conundrum, I'll gladly choose it over making crappy renditions of "beautiful" subjects that people can stare at blankly and without emotion.  

Sorry Not Sorry

If I kick the bucket tomorrow, please, invite everyone over for one last portrait.

Logging Out

Most people that quit @twitter leave at least three paragraphs STATING that they're quitting #twitter before they quit #twitter. #SouthPark

It looks like I’m just in time to join the anti-bandwagon bandwagon.  Thank you Southpark, for letting me laugh at myself.  While I don’t have Twitter, I was late to arrive on the Facebook scene.  I think I made my first post sometime in June, 2014.  I’ve had the pleasure of physically meeting many of my Facebook friends and actually becoming “real-life friends” with a lot of them.  I’ve been inspired by fellow artists, entertained by many memes, and kept in the online loop for a couple years now.  I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to share my art and experiences with an audience.  I’ve also had a lot of fun being part of what will surely become known as the “Facebook Generation”.  For those of you that have found me here via social media, you’ve been great and I thank you.

However, I’m sorry to say, I’m no longer interested in having a Facebook identity.  For as much as it has given me, Facebook and “Internet life” has simultaneously watered-down what “real” is to me.  While I have used social media almost exclusively as a way of promoting myself as an artist, I can’t help but occasionally cruise my news feed.  All of my friends share a lot of great stuff.  Unfortunately, those great posts are mingled in with a far greater amount of faux news, bad politics, Internet-generated personality, and hate.  As pretentious as it may seem, or actually is, I can’t justify my self-promotion on a platform that is filled with so many social media robots that probably have no interest in what I’m doing, but hit the “like” button anyway.  Facebook isn’t always “real-life” and I’m not so sure that all of “real-life” is Facebook worthy.  I’d hate to look back and discover that I somehow made a decision based on how well it represents an internet identity, forged by the many people that only know me as an online personality.   Mind you, I think I’ve Facebooking entirely wrong for the past couple years.  While I’ve been using it as cold, free advertising, I’m sure everyone else has been using it in a much more lighthearted manner.  I don’t mean for my commentary to be accusatory, I just wanted to capture my reasons for leaving, as egocentric as they may be, in Times New Roman.  There are, evidently, over 1.7 billion Facebook users out there.  Our World’s population is somewhere around 7.5 billion.  I can’t argue with the numbers…whatever that means.

I’m probably shooting myself in the foot, as Facebook has been a great way of advertising exhibits, sharing my latest work, and ultimately, selling paintings.  But…I’m tired of tooting my own horn and trying to be a social media marketer.  At the end of day, posting pictures of my art doesn’t change anything about what I do, so despite what this lengthy, primadonna-label inducing explanation may imply, I don’t have any qualms about leaving.  I’ve tried hard to be my own best spokesperson, but I’m just not very interested in putting myself out there on a regular basis, especially for the sake of sharing my artwork, which is becoming more and more of a personal thing for me.  More often than not, when I log on to make a post, I feel like some infomercial guy, trying to sell something nobody needs on a television screen behind the Skee-Ball machines at Dave & Busters.  

In today’s wacky world, you can do a lot with the swipe of a finger.  It’s cool.  But, as much as I like to Google factoids, YouTube funny animal videos, and Amazon stuff I don’t need, I don’t like feeling as if I wasted a single minute of my idle time scrolling through everyone else’s business, regardless of how public they want it to be.  I’ve always known social media can be a slippery slope, so I think I’ll go ahead and stumble off halfway down rather than crashing in a pile at the bottom.  It might just be word play, but I really believe regression and progression are one of the same in this situation…for me, anyway.  Ironically enough, I’m desperately trying to make my life simpler.  That is, I want to do what I do, love what I love, and leave the rest for everyone else to worry about.  I’ve been very lucky, so I think it’s a good idea to cash out of as many unnecessary obligations as possible to make the most of what good fortune I’ve stirred up.     

I’m hoping my “fans” and friends will continue to follow me on my website and this blog, which I feel are much more appropriate venues for the horn tooting I’ve done on Facebook.  So if you’re looking for my newest paintings, travels, exhibits, or thoughts, you’re going to have to work for it a little harder for it.  Visit my website: www.legrandartstudio.com...I'll try to keep it as up-to-date as possible, or possibly, out-of-date but always accessible.  And while you’re at it, go ahead and bookmark this page…you know, if you’re into that sort of thing.  I'll try to keep a good pace here on the blog, but as far as Facebook is concerned, consider this the note on the nightstand.  

16,416

16,416 is the number of square inches I covered with oil paint today.  I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow (today), but today (yesterday) was one of the most rewarding days of painting I can remember.  So much so, I'm wondering if I was even really painting before.  Now, I'm going to watch The Road Warrior until I fall asleep on the couch..."I'm just here for the gasoline." -Max

Big

I've always loved painting big.  But, I have to admit, there are several challenges to working large.  Like...where the heck do you store those big canvases?  Are you going to build them yourself or buy out the local Michaels on Black Friday?  What subjects work on such a large surface?  What gallery has the space to exhibit the finished paintings?  How do you transport them?  How to you frame them without spending a fortune?  Who's going to buy something they can't take home in their Prius?  I typically ignore all of these concerns and just go for it anyway.  Today, however, I was able to make a little headway in the "go big or go home" department.  I didn't actually find a solution to any of the mentioned issues, but I did find a way to make painting big even more fun...which might become a problem. 

I don't think I've thrown away a tube of paint in five years.  That might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much.  I have a bad habit of using 90% of the tube and then throwing it a pile.  I'll restock my paint supply and never use the last 10%.  So...today, I squeezed the majority of my "almost empties" into some GladWare, emptied a couple bottles of linseed oil into my colors, and dropped them into a big, wooden, chevron-shaped box I built and attached to a folding table.  I bet I squeezed a couple hundred tubes.  My hands hurt.  Now, I've got my entire palette sealed up like leftovers in the freezer, ready for those "I wonder what this would look like life-size" moments.  

What's the big deal?  Why not just squirt out more paint for bigger paintings?  Well, the brush-size to palette-size to canvas-size ratio has become a real factor for me.  I want to be able to block in a 5' x 5' painting in the same quick and loose fashion that I handle a 12" x 12".  That means I need a bigger brush, bigger surface to mix paint, and more paint available to cover all of that canvas.  There are some limitations, but this approach is certainly going to speed up and loosen up the beginnings of some larger paintings.  Tonight, I was able to block in a 36" x 36" and a 30" x 40" in a matter of a few minutes.  With the huge brush and 500+ml of paint available in all of my colors, I had a lot of fun literally slinging paint.  We'll see what happens.  Anyone have a vehicle capable of transporting a 10' picture that I can borrow in the near future?

Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year, I guess.  I'm not really a big fan of New Year's celebrations.  It's not that I don't enjoy being with friends, eating cheese dip, and drinking too much while playing bumper pool in the garage.  And it's not that I don't enjoy fondly remembering all that we've had and lost, obviously.  I have trouble with the idea that this is the time we've given ourselves another "new beginning" just because the calendar year is rolling over.  If you're upset about something that happened last February, interested in pursuing an idea that came about last May, or ready to make a change to your lifestyle for the third January in a row, this day is for you...I sure hope patience really is a virtue.  I guess I just feel guilty, because after the holidays, I don't feel any different, I don't have any renewed hope, and most of all, I don't really want to do anything differently.  I know, I know...if you read this crap halfway regularly, you're saying, "Man, Wyatt is a real buzzkill."  Forget about it...I just hope you all get what you want.

I drew the picture above several years ago.  My grandfather went crazy during dinner one evening.  He claimed to see a man standing on the kitchen table and refused to eat until the man was removed.  His health had been declining, mostly because of his bad knees, but this was new to all of us.  My grandmother, the sweetest kindergarten teacher in the world, was probably the most confused.  She called my mother and I, and eventually, the ambulance.  My grandfather was taken to the hospital, admitted to the fifth floor, and kept for observation.  That was the last meal my grandfather ate at his kitchen table...my kitchen table.  I estimate he ate over 16,000 dinners at the table, and at this last one, he left a cold Arby's sandwich unfinished.  He never came back home, but he enjoyed many more dinners in hospitals, rehab facilities, and nursing homes.  I'd heard the word dementia thrown around, but I didn't really know what it meant.  Alzheimer's disease, ironically enough, is poorly understood.  My grandfather eventually forgot most of the stories and dirty jokes he was known for, but he never forgot who I was.  I drew this portrait on the first night of his adventure, while he ate a dry, grey hamburger in the soothing green surroundings of his hospital room.  I let him look through my sketches a few days later.  When he got to this one, he looked at me with a serious expression and asked, "Who's this sorry son of a bitch?"  There was a tense moment before he said, "Why don't you give me a little extra hair next time."

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And auld lang syne?

-Robert Burns