A Form of Flattery

With the economy as it is, and the job market in Windsor being weak, i have found myself, once again, unemployed. So, Something Clever becomes the main focus. Whether it be artwork or screen printing. So it means a lot of art shows… so long as i can afford to do so.
Recently, at one of the art shows I was at, I was lucky enough to meet an artist whose art i had admired for a really long time. And, of course, because i had admired their art, I had this childish idea of what an awesome person they must also be. As we were talking i found that we had a lot in common and i even felt this zing of a spark between us. I mean, this person was not only an amazing artist, but also seemed to be very intelligent and one of the few people I’ve met who was aware of the world outside of Essex County. Anyway, as i got to know them, i started to see all these little cracks. Infatuated as i was, i ignored them as best i could, but they kept piling up…. there was a trend here… things i’d seen before. I came to realize that much of this person’s work did not belong to them at all… here i thought i had met a creative soul, someone really unique with a brilliant and beautiful mind and it turned out they were just playing monkey see – monkey do. I felt my heart sink to my stomach. How could this even be so?

I also recently picked up this month’s issue of Juxtapoz thinking i might buy it. I had a friend in high school who swore by it, and i’ve been following it on facebook for years. I was so horribly disgusted by what i found. The trendiest crap possible. Every art piece seemed so painfully similar. All with one central human character with over sized eyes which look irritated. Irritated the way your eyes look when you’ve been either smoking pot for hours or crying for the same amount of time. a lot of them with tattoos and/ or Victorian items. It really kind of irks me. I mean, is that how you get noticed as an artist in the present? just do what everyone else is doing? It seems to me, counter-creative. Ironic, i know, for a screen-printer to say, as the idea behind screen printing is to create a tonne of the same image. I don’t know… perhaps i’m just jealous and frustrated with my own lack of success as an artist.