http://crazyartgallery.shutterfly.com/pictures/8
You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
My Crazy Art is Crazy.
I want you to click on the link above. It will take you to an on line art gallery of all my work. As a rule, the higher the number, the more recent the art work, and subsequently the more representative of the type of work I am doing now.
Take a moment to browse, and then let me know what you think I should do with all of this art.
Should I line the bird cage with it? Should I email it to the Dali Lahma and ask for it to be sprinkled with divine relevance. What to do with a dump truck full of art?
And trust me, it’s taken me a long time to call it art. In the beginning, my neanderthal brain couldn’t conceptualize this as art, perhaps because it is computer generated. Perhaps you think it is bird cage fodder, and that is cool too.
When I think art, I think paint and brush and canvas. I think sculpture and other traditional forms of creation.
So when I began my Crazy Art, on a computer, I didn’t know what to call it.
Then my good friend who was an art school graduate said;
“Andy. Shut up. That’s art. It’s your art. It’s got your style in every creation. Sure you make it on a computer, but your work is stylistically yours. It elicits passion and feeling. If it does that it’s art.”
Wow.
I’m an artist? I mused to myself.
I started to think back on what started it all.
I’ve written over 800 individual stories since I began this blog.
So far, except for weekends off, I haven’t missed a day. Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years Day, I’ve been there for you. And trust me, sometimes it’s hard to think up something to write when you would just rather go back to bed.
In the beginning, if I wrote about a topic, I would search the internet for a picture and post that at the top of the story.
That worked for a while, but then it got boring. I felt like the visual was cheating the over all concept I was striving to create.
At times, perhaps for a fleeting moment, the words that fly from my fingertips are wonderful and inspiring and insightful.
I would look at those words and feel pride that I wrote them. But then I would see a stock picture of a car or a dog or a surf board and I would feel a little nauseous.
Putting stock art around my work was like framing a painting with chicken wire.
So I went to my friend in the art department and asked for a graphic arts program that he could recommend.
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR he said with conviction.
My initial concepts were infantile, but pure. They were unique to me and the thoughts in my brain.
The art rarely matches the story. I like the eclectic feeling of marrying the image to the story. Sometimes it makes no sense. Sometimes it looks like it was suppose to be that way.
So it was born.
Years later, I have written hundreds of blog posts. I have now illustrated well over 600 pieces of art.
Many of you have commented on the art. Some of you have asked me how you could get a copy of something. I have one friend who had me make him a shirt with my art taking up the front and back. He says when he wears it in bars, women come to him and it starts conversations.
Wow. This dude might get laid because of my art work.
That’s cool.
I now have over 600 pieces. It’s so much art it is hard to know what to do with it all.
Sometimes I try and take it all in. It’s impossible, like trying to see the entire ocean at once. It’s like trying to let all the stars in the night sky fill your mind.
Sometimes I stare at the 600 squares of neon brilliance I have created and it all swims together like feeder fish in the Monterey Bay. Each fish is individual, but the individuality is lost as part of a gigantic whole.
That’s not how I envision my art, as some gigantic blob waiting to be devoured by predatory sea life.
So now I need your help.
I want to do something with the art. I want it to matter, to be celebrated, to live in its uniqueness.
But what can be done?
Should I sell it? Should I make postage stamps out of it? Should I wall paper my kitchen with it? Can I donate it to the local Children’s Hospital to brighten a sick child’s life?
I want my art to do more than just live at the top of a blog post once a day and then slowly sink into the ether of the next story.
Should I make t shirts? Should I make greeting cards? Should I print them on hats and board shorts and skateboards.
Could that’s Crazy become a conglomerate of global proportions, all fueled by colorful, zany art that somehow speaks to people around the planet?
Or as I’ve said before, should I scoop up the parakeet crap with it and toss it in the receptacle?
It’s an all or nothing swing for the fences type question.
I would love to sell it as art or as a product or as something trendy.
But what?
Any ideas?
Could it hang in a gallery? Would anyone stop and look at it?
Is it an albulm cover for the next indie rock band?
Let me know through this site or my facebook page.
I’m really serious. Like the missing link, I need to evolve.
and that’s crazy.™