Losing and Gaining Momentum

I thought I had lost steam on making and sending Artist Trading Cards, and truthfully, I have. I've missed several deadlines and lost interest to some degree. But then a theme comes along, like revamping Grant Wood's famous painting "American Gothic," and I couldn't resist. I lost myself in making new versions of mom and pop American farmer, sending them to exotic locales (Hawaii, Chitchen Itza, Mesa Verde, the Monterey Aquarium) and designing new "paper doll" outfits to wear over their traditional calico and coveralls.

If it's not the art of the tragic, it must be the art of humor that draws me. And, so these quirky little creations are among the most recent things I've done.

Over the holidays, I switched from drawing and collaging to sewing and made a number of friends tea cozies. I had once fancied I could make tea cozies to earn an extra few bucks, but calculated that I'd have to charge upwards of $65 per cozy to make any kind of money for the time and materials that went into my cutomized cozies. Such is art.

No one really wants to pay the genuine price for something, whether it be organic vegetables or oil; is this peculiarly American? Unemployed for a year now, it is evident to me we have an economy that values very little about human beings. With the protestations surrounding health care reform (which is really health insurance reform), it is clear too that many of us are dispensable superfluities in the capitalist system.