Did you miss me? It’s good to be back home again. Hello to
any NEW folks out there in DIGITAL LAND (William Gibson called it “Cyberspace,”
but we’ll forgive him.) If this is your first encounter with my rambling
shenanigans and primitivist artworkia, don’t take anything you are about to
encounter TOO seriously. Just go with it. (Once you’ve reached Consciousness
Level 13, it ALL becomes serious, but for now, just have fun…)
For the last two weeks, my wife, Mariah, and I have been
trapsing across four different states, driving and walking and flying our way
around Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada. We spent the first half of
the vacation driving to San Francisco and back. Then we took a day to wash our
clothes, grabbed our younger daughter, and flew out of Portland, Oregon, off to
Sin City (Las Vegas.) We spent five days in the scorching heat, noise, and
debauchery before finally returning to the cool, calm, and comforting Pacific
Northwest.
During our adventures we visited museums, art galleries,
bookstores (including CITY LIGHTS!), comic shops, restaurants (FUCKING
EXPENSIVE!!!), casinos (we don’t actually gamble, but the flashing lights are
cool), and even a very nice pool. (It was perfect for ME because I tend to burn
to death in even moderate sunshine, and this pool had a faux-cave area with a
waterfall feature where I spent most of my time in the shade! I got to float
around in the water but didn’t combust!)
One overpowering THING that I was confronted with, HEAD ON, during
this entire trip was the rampant, crass, disgusting (in my view), pointless
consumerism. All flash and no substance. There were LINES to get into certain
branded retail shops, and in one of the art galleries I visited, the curator
(or clerk or whatever) suddenly lost interest in our conversation when he
realized I wasn’t going to buy a $1,000.00 unsigned Miro lithograph. A thousand
bucks IS actually a decent price for a Miro, even unsigned, and if I were a
wealthy feller I might have considered purchasing it! However, if you are the
type of person who is only interested in art or design or creativity because of
the MONEY, then you’re missing the entire fucking point of ART, and I feel a
sense of profound sorrow that these entirely materialistic folks are so
intimately involved in the ART WORLD. Well, maybe I’m not feeling sorrow, but a
Holy Fool ain’t supposed to feel RAGE, (I’m too goddam enlightened,
unfortunately), so sorrow is how I would describe my emotional state when I see
works meant to inspire wonder or create connection to something DEEPER---but
all most people seem to do is reduced the work to a fucking dollar sign… It’s
bullshit---and one of the reasons that I’m enjoying my experiences in DIGITAL
LAND. There is a COMMUNITY to be found there, and it’s incredibly easy to make
and share NFTs and pdf zines and make direct contact with other creative types
through social media---with people who appreciate these works for MORE than
their monetary value.
BUT now we’re home again---THANK BOB! We both agree that
we’re going to avoid ever taking TWO vacations back-to-back any time soon. In
fact, I personally, would be happy just not going back to Vegas OR San
Francisco at all! (Too big, too many people, too expensive, too much of pain
trying to get anywhere, too...much…) Mariah and I loved Ashland, Oregon,
though, (where we stayed the first night), and I’d be perfectly happy to visit
there again any time. Honestly, I think our trips to the coast in Oregon and
Washington are still my favorite vacation destinations…
This isn’t to say we had a bad time on this trip. We saw
City Lights bookstore (as a fan of Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
visiting this store was one of my life goals), the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, watched a live performance by Criss Angel, and spotted a million
cool, weird, off-beat things. (I’ll be making a couple different travel zines so
I can share a bunch of the photos I took!) Both Mariah and I came away from the
experience inspired and ready to get back to work. (I also wrote and drew and
read a bunch while we were vacating, and I’ll be sharing that stuff, either as
posts or zines or NFTs, in the near future!) I’ve also reconfigured my
understanding of what social media IS and how it can be used (for things like
archiving and connecting---connecting with other people AND connecting various
works to each other.)
So that’s it! We’re back home and ready to get rolling! Keep
an eye out for lots of new work over the next couple of weeks!!!
LATER!
P.S.: [For fun, here’s a piece I drew today that shows an
example of that “connecting” I mentioned above. A friend of mine posted an
image of the morning sun (affected by the local wildfires), and I made a
digital drawing OVER her image and shared it as a comment under her post! It’s
simple, but it IS a form of connecting!]
---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)
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