I worked with this image for....well, I won't tell you for how long. A long time. A lot of distortion and added "scrapes" and spots and whatnot. I was going after a look that I didn't quite capture. I was trying to create the sense of a cool oasis, the blue, in a hot hot desert of reds and tans and yellows.
You're probably thinking I should get a hobby. But then were I to tell you that this IS my hobby, you'd frown, furl your eyebrows, and deeply regret your suggestion. Here's the original photo which generated the above.
It is a milk jug as seen through a big pickle jar filled with rainwater on Mr. Steven Taylor's porch. Another photo should make sense of it all. Here.
As Dave Barry once said, and I paraphrase, it's but a fine line between hobby and insanity.
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I have so many questions and comments here I don't know how to articulate them all... I like the finished product the best, especially that the blue label looks like stained glass; also like the warm brown tones you brought out... To get those earthy and vibrant colors out of the final dull/washed out photo actually taken, you must have pumped the bejeez of color into the thing... I'm curious whether you envisioned the final product when you first spied the pickle jar sitting on the floor of the porch, or if not, when in your mixing and scarring it occurred to you that you would attain this final product... I'm curious what all the groceries are doing on the porch... I'm wondering what a funny response to 'the bean' from me would have been but I couldn't reach it myself... and most of all I'm wondering 'why is there water in that pickle jar, with the lid screwed back on?...'
I admit, I originally had another "fine line" quote in mind. But no, I like this picture.
BTW, you hurt me with that Truth review which I just noticed. You hurt me real deep... But then I noticed Steinbeck himself only mustered 4 stars, and I realized shoot you just a hard grader.
A.
Andy D--MDW and I just howled in laughter when we read your comment this morning. Yes, we read them out loud like a newlywed couple. You know how it goes: the couple that reads insults aimed at the husband together, stays together. Or something like that. You help keep our marriage bond tight, my friend.
As for your questions, all I can say is that they're most excellent questions, my friend. Perhaps Mr. Taylor can respond to your questions himself. In fact, I license him to answer the questions about my artistic intentions as well. He probably understands them as well as I do.
As for "The Truth." I suppose what I want from ol' Al is less truth and more funny.
MB: An impressive transformation.
Andy D.: there is a collection of jars and jugs on my patio, usually hidden from view behind the grill (which I was using at the time of said photo) full of rain water that I use on my plants. The lid is on to prevent mosquito breeding. They are in jars because I am too cheap to go buy a bigger container to store the rainwater.
In regards to MB's artistic vision: I feel safe in saying he didn't have a clue. I can say this with certainty because, a) I know MB pretty well, b) I take far more straightforward photos than he and I usually am not sure what I have until I look at them later, and c) when he took that one we were talking about something having nothing to do with photography or jars of water (I think it was about work) and he noted he was "drawn to" the jars in the corner.
So no. Not a freakin' clue.
Do I have an amen?
ST, I resemble that remark!!
Wasn't it Socrates/Plato or one of those other Greeks who said that artists, while they are close to the divine, have absolutely no conception of how they got what they have, and thus are borderline retarded? I think that's more or less the quote.
Anyway, what a jerk. He also wanted to kick all of the poets out of his lockstep Republic, if I recall.
All of which to say, I feel that a vague feeling that something looks cool is the impetus of much art. The vision, if there is one, seems to be discovered in the refining. My guess is MB operates this way .. I, on the other hand, abjure both refinement and vision. The most I ask for is the looking-cool.
JoyF--
Borderline retarded is a generous spin on Plato's description of the artists, but I think this reasoning was that artists are all caught up in the moment trying to capture something immediately. Philosophers, by contrast, align themselves--or so they say, and so they'd have us believe--with the eternal.
Pshaw!
I have learned, however, that for virtually every claim about Plato one can make, one can find a reputable interpreter to hold the opposite finding. Not a different opinion. The opposite.
I'm happy with capturing "looks cool," but I'm even happier with creating something that looks cool. That's why I'm tortured: by my mediocrity. My artistic ambitions are trapped by my photographer's talent. Oh, to be a painter.
Re: Socrates, I learned that upon exiting Dr. Lawler's class and realizing that his interpretation was, as you say, the opposite of most people's. That Socrates.
Also, you can get a beginner's acrylic set with easel/box, brushes, paints, palette, and 3 small canvases for about $30 at your local craft store. Though after getting one myself, I decided I prefer the look of oils.
Joy--
Good to know, but does it come with a little pill that provide talent?
No, but a fifth of liquor, taken while painting, will provide a comparable (though temporary) perception.
(ahem) taken gradually, I should have said. Don't want any poisonings on my hands.
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