We don't rehearse and you won't be disappointed.

News for those in the know...

You won't find this in the local newspaper...

But, if you enjoy fellowship and framed pictures, I imagine you'll have a great time hanging out at my latest and last exhibit at the Main Street Pop-Up Gallery in Linton, Indiana.  That's right, the grand finale, the encore, my last hurrah at 118 North Main.  No pressure, but if you pass on this party, you're a party pooper.  Don't poop on my party.

What I lack in quality I more than make up for in quantity...both in painted pictures and finger foods.  See you soon.

The Main Street Pop-Up Gallery

118 N. Main Street, Linton, Indiana

Saturday, December 1st,  5-10pm

Sunday, December 2nd, Noon-5pm

Road Trip: Painting and Destination

Rachel's Knoll

oil on canvas

20" x 20"

This was a common motif during my time in Arizona.  I could go on and on about the vistas, the trails, and the red-colored everything...but I really want to tell you about the rattlesnake of Rachel's Knoll.

The Main Street Pop-Up Gallery

118 N. Main Street, Linton, Indiana

Saturday, December 1st,  5-10pm

Sunday, December 2nd, Noon-5pm

Road Trip: Painting and Destination

Sedona

oil on canvas

18" x 36"

200 paintings

+ 2,000 cocktail wieners

_____________________________________________________

best time of your life

The Main Street Pop-Up Gallery

118 N. Main Street, Linton, Indiana

Saturday, December 1st,  5-10pm

Sunday, December 2nd, Noon-5pm

Road Trip: Painting and Destination

Wrecked

oil on canvas

12" x 24"

This picture traveled all the way from Arizona to attend my upcoming exhibit, "Road Trip: Painting and Destination".  Where are you from?  Who are you bringing to the show this weekend?

   

The Main Street Pop-Up Gallery

118 N. Main Street, Linton, Indiana

Saturday, December 1st,  5-10pm

Sunday, December 2nd, Noon-5pm

What kind of bird are you?

If it's a jalopy you seek, come see me next week.

I'm having a huge new exhibit / holiday party on December 1st and 2nd.  So, if you have any Black Friday money leftover after you pick up that Hoverboard, 23andMe Ancestry Kit, or Xbox One...

think about getting an Instant Pot, they're really hot this year.

Let me tell you all about how thankful I am...

This Thanksgiving, I refuse to give thanks.

Now mind you, if I were to be thankful, I'd be more thankful than anyone else at the dinner table.  Everyone would be envious of my degree of thankfulness.  They'd give thanks for how thankful I am.

But instead of capitalizing on the obligatory holiday pseudo-sensitivity, I'm going to give thanks tomorrow, Black Friday, when it really counts.  I plan on thanking Michael's for all of their great prices on stretched canvas.  I'll thank them with a credit card and they'll thank me back with forty percent off of my next purchase.  

Here in the US, it's a widespread misconception that today is a blessing of the harvest, an anniversary of an Anglo-Indigenous potluck, or even a celebration of large, buckling hats.  But Thanksgiving is actually a Hindu holiday.  That's right...give enough thanks today and karma will even out your ridiculous behavior tomorrow.  

I'm not Hindu.  I refuse to give thanks.  Let's go buy some crap.

I've got John Mellencamp on the guest list...will you be there?

A Gamble

Roulette

oil on canvas

30" x 40"

Every so often, I find an opportunity to paint a subject I'd typically avoid.  I wouldn't say I've grown to love the struggle, but I've certainly come to appreciate the process of making a picture when the odds aren't in my favor.  I'm never very picky about subject matter, as I've always enjoyed finding paintings in boring and overlooked places, however, I definitely have a wheelhouse that dictates what I choose to paint on most occasions.  While the subject above was anything but boring, I decided a long time ago it was something I'd never paint...

so I painted it.

I guess I fibbed...I've painted this subject several times before, but never from this point of view.  If you're not sure what Roulette is a depiction of, don't worry about it...that's part of the reason I chose to paint the scene.  It's too abstract, it's too obvious, it's too complicated, it's too boring, it's too symmetrical, it's too round, it's too flat...basically, it's the most obvious but least sensible way of tackling such a subject, and I like that.  It was one of those, "that looks super cool but I'd never try to paint it" situations.  One of those, "let's do the opposite of everything that feels comfortable" moments.  

I wouldn't say the painting is a great one, but I'm happy with how it turned out.  It's interestingly abstract for those who don't know the subject, obviously representational for those who do, and it has a tongue-in-cheek provocative thing going on that I like.  

If you're from my neck of the woods and happen to visit West Baden in the coming weeks, check out the fireplace...it's huge. 

Yesterday, When I Was Young

I guess I need to be careful about the folks I feature on this blog...

Roy liked Linton, Indiana, evidently.  When I was young, I attended a rock 'n roll show in Linton at the aptly named Roy Clark Community Building.  The headlining band, some high school hipsters who sounded like Oasis, packed the house with every cute girl in the county.  That night, I decided I'd start a band.

So, thank you Roy Clark.  If you hadn't of liked Linton so much, my life might be very different.  And wide-collared shirts with overalls never looked so good...

Felt-Tip Pensiveness

I've always enjoyed pretending these little fliers were treasured like concert posters...ahh vanity.  I can't wait to autograph these advertisements at the opening...ahh dilusion.  How about this...

Fold one of these little ego-squares into a paper crane and bring it to the show.  Place it in an open hand, present to the person standing to the right of me and exclaim, "This little bird is only a dead duck!"  I'll reward this action with an equally ridiculous reaction.

Like, Share, Tag, Tweet, Bing, Bang, Boom

As you start preparing those holiday greeting cards, feel free to include me in the envelope.  I hope to see you and all of your cousin Eddies at my upcoming exhibition...it's going to be (wink) "real nice".

As smart as the next iOS update

I bought a new iPhone yesterday.  It does a lot of stuff I don't need it to do.  A nice man at the store went through the latest features...it's all Greek to me.  I needed a phone that charged up and made calls when you plugged the cord in, as mine stopped doing that.  The iPhone XS charges when you plug it in...it's a great phone.  

I dedicated part of my afternoon to understanding the more advanced nuances of my new contraption.  I was able to use a colorful virtual button to find answers to things I'd been pondering while rehearsing my finger acrobatics.  Here's what I found, according to the truth that is the Internet via smartphone:

There are over 325 million people in the United States.  Over 85 million (more than 25 percent of the population) of those folks have an iPhone like I do.  

I bet most of those folks know how to operate their iPhones better than I'll ever be able to.  And given the iPhone's ability to answer any question you may have on demand with its Apps and Siris and Locators and Face Recognizers, I have to assume all of those folks who can navigate their touchscreens better than I to be immensely more intelligent than I'll ever be.  With the iPhone becoming such a universal appendage, it's fair to say we're all getting smarter, right?  With all of the information available at a flick of the finger, and with a substantial part of our society jumping on the AI bandwagon, the collective knowledge of the human race must be reaching an unfathomable high, right?  I can feel my brain swelling...no wait, that's my data usage...no wait, same thing.  

I found another factoid on my iPhone Internet that may or may not be true but will undoubtedly roll the eyes of a few of you...

There are an estimated 365 million guns in the United States.  

Don't worry, I'm not going to regurgitate a predictable point of view...I'll be creative...

I wonder what will happen when there are more iPhones in the US than people?  I mean, what will happen when there are almost as many iPhones as guns?  I bet we'll all be geniuses.  We're going to be a bunch of super smart people, thinking through our fingers and shooting stuff.  Hold your brain in one hand and protect it with the other.  Don't tread on me, trend on me...or else.

Now, I know what you're thinking—"It's a shame I can't just threaten and kill things with my smartphone."—right?  Maybe, if you're not already a selfie-taking text message-typing distracted driver, you can implore Apple to build a gun into the next iPhone?  "Think different", right?  Just imagine how cool it would be to play those first-person shooter games with a fully automatic cell phone that you could actually load an extended magazine of bullets into...for hunting, of course.  Double-tap, swipe up, safety off, shoot something, post to instatwitter.


Hey Siri, am I safe yet? 

Mark Your Calendars

131

Now, I love to say the right thing to you every time, it is . . .

To say I love you, it is every thing, right now the time to . .  .

Take the A Train

Joe Donnelly and Mike Braun better stop sending me text messages.

I'm just a privileged white guy watching from the sidelines.  It's unfair, I know.  And if you're reading this, I'm willing to bet there has been a time when you've felt like I usually do—guilty and ashamed for never knowing the struggles of our fellow man and forever in debt to those who fight injustice for the rest of us.  That is, if you're anything like me, I hope you care enough to feel awful from time to time about how good you have it in comparison to those who don't.  The truth is, our players on the field will always have more at stake than the rest of us, but we can still take comfort in rooting for the home team from our comfortable stadium seats.  

Given our current situation here in the US, any "go vote" speech delivered on election day inevitably sounds like an endorsement...sorry.  I promise I'm not trying to change your mind, I'd just like for you to speak your mind.  So, go vote.  Being apolitical is convenient when you feel you have no dog in the fight, but being apolitical isn't the same as holding your tongue.  Being apolitical is always the same as voting for the asshole. 

Maybe Jeff can persuade you...he's smarter than I...

A Message from Jeff Tweedy  
11/5/2018
This Election...

"Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of arguments against voting—like, 'it doesn’t matter' or 'both sides are the same'—and I’ve never found any of them to be very persuasive. I’ve always figured that even if they’re right, I’d still rather take some time out of my day and vote than shrug off my duty as a citizen and lose my right to bitch. Right now, however, I feel angry at the selfish and thoughtless nature of those types of excuses. If voting doesn’t matter, then I’d like someone to explain to me why some politicians work so hard to make it so difficult. What are they afraid of? If it doesn’t matter, why would they care? Well, it does matter a lot! What they’re afraid of is how radically our country would change if all the decent and fair-minded citizens who have disenfranchised themselves by convincing themselves it’s pointless to vote stopped giving their rights away willingly. Vote! If you weren’t allowed to, I’m pretty certain you’d want to real bad."

Call Me Crazy

Maybe a Vortex

oil on canvas

24" x 30"

Because I know you're all dying to know...

I drove out to Arizona a few weeks ago and wandered through the desert with my paints and brushes.  I was invited to take part in the Sedona Plein Air Festival with twenty-some other picture painters from all sorts of other far-off places...places so far-off the picture painters from said places reacted as if little Bloomfield, Indiana was an exotic location upon reading my descriptive name tag.  The typical response was something like, "Holy Shit!  Indiana huh?"  Turns out, in the most beautiful places on earth, folks like to romanticize the notion of living somewhere exponentially more boring in comparison.  Who needs mountain air, ocean breezes, or postcard vistas when you have "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing"?  

I painted forty-three pictures during my time in Arizona...ran out of canvas before I ran out of socks.  All of the romantics chalked it up to my "Midwestern hard work ethic" and we had a good laugh with lots of winks and pats on the back.  Evidently, driving 3,500 miles to paint pictures from sunup through sundown with neglect to leisure, socializing, and personal hygiene will earn you a crazy badge.  I might be deserving.  Call me crazy, but you'd be a moron to drive 3,500 miles to paint pictures and not paint like a crazy person.  

Anyhow, it's taken me two weeks to unload the van.  Scattered through the foam coffee cups, stale potato chips, and mounds of transplanted red dirt, forty-one paintings were found.  Thankfully, upon review from the homestead, I discovered most of the paintings don't suck.  In fact, I like most of the paintings quite a bit.  But unfortunately, according to the back-patting romantics, returning to the Midwest with paintings of anything other than barns and covered bridges is just preparation for disappointment.  I've been informed, in the entire history of picture painting, not a single picture painted of red rock or desert landscape has ever been sold in the Hoosier state.

Luckily, I'm not in the business of selling pictures.  I drive around, I look at things, I paint pictures of stuff, and then I hang those pictures up on the wall so I can remember how much I enjoyed driving around looking at things...all without any hope of making a single dollar.  It's pretty complicated.

If I haven't bored you back to instatwitter, here's what I think this all means for you...

  I plan on hanging all of the paintings I've created over the past couple months while driving around looking at things on a bunch walls for you to look at...not to purchase, of course.  So, if you like driving around and looking at things like I do, but for whatever reason, have decided not to paint the stuff you liked looking at, you might enjoy remembering the stuff you might've seen while driving around in places like those I have driven through and then decided to paint pictures of.  Let's pretend my gallery is your car, my paintings are your windows, and I'm driving you across the country to look at a bunch of fantastic things solely because I have accompanying stories I desperately need to tell someone before I forget them.  It's going to be fun...for me...that's why I'm doing it...duh.

So, if any part of this roundabout, "I don't want to sell paintings" sales pitch riles you up to the point of proving me wrong, I hope to see you soon.  If you like the idea of having real conversations with real people you may or may not know about how good or bad my pictures may or may not be, I hope to see you soon.  If you like eating meatballs, cocktail wienies, and other delicious holiday fare with toothpicks from tiny plates while staring at something other than your stupid smart phone, I hope to see you soon.

You're invited!  Details on the exhibit are forthcoming, so stayed tuned...or don't...whatever...I'm doing it with or without you...duh.

The paintings will be for sale. 

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