Here in My Car

Hi, major news. A door closed and another one opened. You know, the usual. (!) One of my projects was put in the deep freeze and the same day I unexpectedly sold a couple of paintings to my Hong Kong client (via BAMO). Tant pis and yay hurray! So recent events have kind of thrown me for a loop and here comes a blog post that seems like a total non sequitur but stay with me, ok? (And do follow my links, they're great.)

I've been casually looking for a new/new to me car. It's casual or maybe uninspired better describes my mood as I hunt for car. The more I look the sweeter my (current) ride looks. I drive a 1987 Dodge Ram Royal Minivan. Ever heard of such a thing? It's very prosaic in a lot of ways but it also quite unusual for it's exact model, age, and its artsy graffiti. It's an art car. (I once lived next door to a household of tagger punks hence my painted van.)

So I'm looking at all sorts of things and then I think to myself: what is my fantasy car? It comes to me instantly: a Citroen! My father insists it the ugliest car in the world and many agree. To me it looks like the future even at 37 years old. Before my van, (which I bought new in 1986), I drove a 1960 Mercedes 220 Sb, pistachio green. So actually moving on to an older car again has a certain kind of logic.








A very quick Google search tells me the car of my dreams is for sale! I'm not going to buy it but if I were a little more insane, insanely rich, and insanely fortunately to have a Citreon mechanic down the street I might buy it. OMG it's so wonderful. I'd float over L.A. traffic in that thing. That beautiful Venetian blinded thing of beauty! My friend, Paulin Paris has just decamped to Paris for a month. Perhaps I should tell him to take a picture of himself for a ride in a DS, just for the vicarious pleasure of it.






Now to prove my devotion to the Citroen I take you back to my (Adobe) Illustrator class where I made the Citroen my final project. I'm sure my project garnered an 'A". Go with your heart, right? Fast forward many years later and I unearth my Illustrator project and subject it to the Jasper Johns maxim: Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.. Actually first I had to render a digital file into object form. I created a transfer print on canvas and did something to it, etc. And the results are pictured. I love making constructions like this but even though it's a small piece working on a big painting seems to take up less room. So back to painting and I'll be back to painting in my next post. Be seeing you.