sometimes i like to be working on something related to the thing, but not on the thing itself. big painting adjacent. that's how the 101 wall got started.
if i'm mixing up water based paints, i mostly use disposable, slightly slippery pads of palette paper. depending on which type of paint (watercolor, gouache, acrylic) is applied, the pigment can float a little and then seep into the medium or water, becoming a pool with shifts in color depth. it can separate. maybe it merges with a neighboring puddle. thicker paint just sits there, like an island, letting water go around. eventually the island color bleeds into the surrounding viscosity. i save some of the paper palettes. road maps and color stories.
sketchbooks have contour drawings of studio plants and notes, written and drawn. definitions, facts i won't otherwise remember, lyrics, snippets of overheard conversations or interviews, observations, thoughts almost lost, passages from poems and novels, titles.
i started putting the palettes and stuff from the sketchbooks together. intentional distraction. warm ups. studio calisthenics. i.e., big painting adjacent type work.
a few years ago, a friend in tech made an off-hand suggestion that i should create a google alert system for my name. he figured it could be a good way for me to be aware of possible online references to a mural i had just completed. so i did. for a while, nothing. then suddenly: alert! kim west the realtor in east connecticut listed a property. if she detailed a property that had been freshly painted - multiple alerts. sometimes kim west the sleep lady had done something in a studio somewhere. alert! in any case, the alerts for the real estate kim west & the sleep lady kim west were relatively few and far between. also they were random and entertaining enough that i was never motivated to prioritize a spare minute to follow the google link to figure out a search parameter modification, or an altogether undo.
you can guess where this is going?
yeah. kim and kanye. in both quality and increasing quantity, the new alerts became oddly funny to me. i figured my inbox situation could potentially migrate from amusing to seriously annoying if those two ever got hitched. and, then of course...worse. they went and had the baby. alert! alert! all day, every day.
the other place kim & kanye infiltrate my virtual name space? instagram. if you are a glutton for bizarre entertainment and/or punishment (depending on your perspective), check out the serendipitous hashtag #kimwest .
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