sweasel.com

I consider a lot of sterile, but visually interesting work to be design rather than “art”. One test is, would it make a good wallpaper pattern? Mondrian print wall covering, for example. Frank Stella for another. I’m sure there’s other categories of pointless abstraction that don’t pass the wallpaper test. I really don’t want Gilbert and George print in the kitchen, and a Kazimir Malevich print would be pointless.

When art historians look back on the late 20th century I think they’ll find all the exciting art was in sources like comic books and commercial art and illustration.

we need a word for works that are extremely cool but ultimately pointless and emotionally sterile.

Masturbart
Quixarte

A fairly well known sculptor I know told me on more than one occasion that art for arts sake is not enough. So I’ve always made sure not to show him any of my junk. Cartoon weasels for cartoon weasels sake.

I am kindly and benignly disposed to accept genuine folk art. I dislike contrived art. I used to go to a doctor whose waiting room was decorated in modern art. One “mixed media” piece included a dirty crew sock and a jock strap. Oh, please.

But I love portraits—regardless the medium. My favorite painting however, is one done by my second father—a rural “snow” scape using three colors: green, black, and white. While the composition is clearly amateurish, the coloration is sublime. Delicate shadows in wagon-wheel ruts in the snow. Glorious. You’d be impressed, too.

I used to paint in watercolors, the most reckless form of art ever. I got hung-up on painting bubbles—as in bubbles on a sandy beach as the surf washed in and out. Damned hard in watercolors. Once I mastered bubbles (I painted hundreds of them practicing the technique)—it broke the spell. Sigh. I haven’t painted since.

I DO love Stoaty Weasel art, though she’s been kinda shy lately.

we need a word for works that are extremely cool but ultimately pointless and emotionally sterile

Wouldn’t that be a “time-waster”?

I am sure the Germans have a word for it.
Maybe (using google)
unnutzfreude.
pointless joy.

Netflix is airing it’s mini series The Crown today, which you will also be able to find for free online. Any good? I’m not a Clare Foy fan. After seeing her in that antisemitic claptrap, The Promise, I cant stand her.

I still say you shd start a 24/7 streaming chicken channel. Chickens are fun to watch and to listen to. You are allowing your PhD to go to waste!

I was going to ask you about that. Doesn’t a horse with an arrow in it’s eye kind of, well, make it pretty useless?

Maybe if you do art without a point you’re being a Horse’s Eye? At least when you say, “don’t mind her she’s a Horse’s Eye,” you’ll get some interesting looks.