The Fine Art and Design Blog of Darren Daz Cox

pond<FISH = the future of the internet

Here’s the evolution of an idea, the seed and perhaps what the idea will blossom into.

I’ve noticed that people who are "big fish" tend to be very proud and motivated to promote their little pond, like there’s a guy I follow on twitter who talks mostly about Toulu.com and another who thinks Twine.com is the greatest thing ever, both of them are among the top users of course and neither makes the charts on the other services!

The idea of being a big fish in a little pond is one of the factors that creates a dynamic web experience for the individual and grows the web as a whole as these little ponds can have streams going from one to another.

I was thinking about that and came up with the equation pond < FISH = the future of the internet (which is something the WFABI.org has inspired me to think about).

Then I thought about taking the idea further, brainstormed and came up with (and purchased) poFISHnd.com and floBUGwer.com which, the graphic designer in me is excited to create a logo for! Others I made include floBEEwer.com and shFLYit.com (see it’s a fly on a pile of…, never mind hehe)

I also purchased oilglaze.com to make a specialized oil painting tutorial site since I used oil glazes often in my paintings!

(click this liquified screen grab to become my friend on Plurk.com!)

oh btw, the mighty, beautiful, talented, most successful and famous builder in SecondLife, Wynx Whiplash is on twitter now http://twitter.com/WynxWhiplash  so if you like your ‘tiny" avatar you can drop her a tweet (she invented the tinies!). (do ya like my animated linden dollar? hehe!)

while I was making this blog post I discovered posterous.com which is a neat way to blog, just email them and it turns into a blog! Ok, I have a dozen other projects underway to work on now, just wanted to share that with y’all!

_____Pruconas update!__________It’s been 48 hours since ma.gnolia.com invented the word pruconas for me, and I have been writing it randomly around the web to see how it gets indexed on google. Finally, some of my art has been associated with the word and I can tell ya that either google picked the two smallest jpgs on my site or it was purely random!

 I figured that the word pruconas in a  comment on a blog by a well known blogger like Liz Strauss would get indexed fast but nope, however a similar comment on a blog I visit more often, Mrs.Chili’s blog, was indexed after a single day hehe!!

Clipmarks.com , livejournal.com , Blogger.com , wikipedia.com , wordpress (both hosted and free) twitter and even Plurk.com all indexed fast!!!

One of the people I’m connected with on Twitter, pronoiapierce, has a nice quality blog with original movies, great CSS and a goal of making a professional documentary ( I think!). I like the set up of this site, having a good quality movie interview start the conversation is a fine idea. I really enjoyed the brief talk with Sidney Levy on Authenticity vs. Sincerity but then read the authors comment "Is authenticity a commodity now over sincerity?". 

A commodity?? After watching the Life In Perpetual Beta promo-movie it became clear that the goal of the site was to simply get rich  and look good getting there, as when you are rich you don’t have to worry and while you’re getting rich it’s better to be considered creative, business-creative, not necessarily creative-creative.

It’s almost as if the author, Melissa Pierce, wants to have no opinion or rather keep her personal opinion out of it like a news anchor, just have the authority and the look. People assume that the news anchor isn’t an idiot, after all they must be special to be in that position, so if you get in that position you will be special. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this but when the author becomes a perfect example of the subject matter it’s an opportunity to look at ourselves.

Authenticity vs. Sincerity.

As an artist I completely understand the difference between authenticity and sincerity.
As a person raised on ‘punk rock’ I have made a firm stand to be authentic first, and sincere second.

Authenticity doesn’t have to be “good” but sincerity does.
When do you use the word sincerely? mostly on letters where you are trying to present yourself as professional, competent or knowledgeable etc, not as you really are, all those things and a lot worse!

Authenticity is often associated with weirdness, rebellion and may even be a threat to the status quo. These days Billy Idol is far more sincere than authentic, you pay his manager and he’ll play your venue (or his lawyer will settle with your lawyer etc) but there was a time when he was authentic.

Billy Idol was one of the first punk rockers, it was his (and his friends etc) vision, imagination and courage that propelled the Sex Pistols to fame and started a whole new offshoot of music and culture and rules were made to be broken, just listen to the five minute guitar solo at the end of Generation X’s song Youth Youth Youth, it’s not Jimi Hendrix competent, it’s too long and wanky to be “radio friendly” (you never heard it right?) but it’s authentic as hell!

Our modern society is often too sincere for it’s own good, heck, as competent, knowledgeable and professional Melissa’s fine blog is, all I know about the author is that she feels that something is lacking! What’s lacking is the freedom to fail in my opinion. Allow yourself to learn from setting up huge goals and dreams, not just business strategies to steadily accumulate contacts and wealth. Ditch the traditional coffee cup motif of dedicated business competence and do something unique!

I’m not suggesting you run down to a hip boutique and buy some sincere punk rock merchandise, so you look different, just don’t try so hard to be sincere, as you are already authentic but you are suppressing it!!!!

This started as a comment on a museum blog where they were discussing how to define modern art now that modern art has been around for decades and decades. One thing that has defined the modern art world is the way people have an opinion on it, often a very strong one.

I think the reason why so many people feel so strongly negative against certain ‘contemporary/modern art’ is that they don’t or can’t understand it and it makes them feel vulnerable and somehow lacking, perhaps in an intellectual or subjectively un-fashionable way.

I like to use the “David Byrne” approach when exposed to art that I don’t ‘get’. David Byrne (from what I’ve read) tends to like art that isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s David Byrne, you don’t get more ‘artsy’ than him, if it’s art he would know and I trust him to be able to distinguish art from non-art, and so because there is a David Byrne it means the Emperor isn’t naked, just that I see can’t see his clothes.

People use the term “as art” to legitimize something that really isn’t physically creative but put in context of the art world can be original and even amazing, after all, Yoko Ono put an apple on a ladder “as art” and the rest is history. Duchamp presented a urinal “as art” and museums all over the world adore Duchamp!

But “as art” can be sickening, Like starving a dog to death “as art” or watching a man die “as art”. Are snuff films (films that show an actual murder) “art”? Are voyeur cameras in bathrooms making “art”? Were the battles in the Roman Colosseum art or just orchestrated mass murder “as art”?

What is essential, especially to bloggers is to have your own opinion on what is art. What kind of “as art” have you made?

This is a charcoal sketch on a little canvas, I will probably re-use this motif in a larger more complicated painting, I’ve got some huge canvases I’m working on!!!

ha! Akismet has caught 777 spam for you since you first installed it. cool!

Here’s an oil painting that recently got a new layer of gold spray. I had taped off the blue areas.

~Undersea light -oil and spray paint on canvas 16×20 inches by Darren Daz Cox~

What the photograph doesn’t show too well is that the abstract undersea forest oil painting (the blue and white part) is still quite visible under the gold spray painted area, in fact the gold area is like a mist in one kind of light and shiny in another which makes me happy as I love art that changes as the light does.

The fact that the composition isn’t symetrical makes me happy too, the gold area has an exit rather than being confined by a blue frame which would make the optical illlusion effect a little too much i think. The edges of this deep canvas are gold too so it continues the pleasing effect when seen at an angle also.

I’m not sure what happens next with this one, all stages have been random and I trust my subconcious to add the next layer when it’s ready! The spirit of Henri Matise won’t let me down!!!

Here’s what the texture on the canvas is, under the blue and white. I haven’t painted many fertility goddesses or odalesques, I usually paint allegorical figures representing truth and love and hi-falutin’ concepts like that, but I do enjoy the way Henri Matise used the female figure as decoration in his paintings.

Somehow it isn’t sexist when Matise objectifies a woman, even though he is presenting her as simply another luxurious thing to have color wrap around. Sometimes the woman is ’seen but not heard’.  Look at the lady in Matise’s ‘The Red Room (Harmony In Red)’ she is so plain in her maid uniform compared to the wallpaper and tablecloth!

One of my favorite art books of all time is Matise, Picasso, Miro - As I Knew Them by Rosamond Bernier and she tells art history from her first hand experience and tidbits such as that painting was origionally meant to be ‘harmony in blue-green’ not red! I wonder if there is a dimension where Matise didn’t change his mind on this one and it didn’t become the iconic favorite that it will always remain in this dimension?

One of the reasons why I blog is to show you, like Matise showed Bernier, some of the things that make art so fascinating and who knows what kind of effect Bernier herself had on Matise’s work , feel free to give honest opiions and suggestions on what I post here, i won’t be offended if you don’t like my art!

When you really think about it, 40 years from now, you’ll still be looking at Matise’s paintings, and maybe mine, but the current ‘horrible scary thing’ that the news is making you feel fear about will be long forgotten and probably turn out to be exagerated if not be revealed to be a total lie by tomorrow.

I can’t remember what horrible thing dominated the news in 1992 but I totally remember learning about Henri Matise from my friend Kim Gates aka Revo Gruv. I did my first ever oil paintings in her art studio/apartment and She and I were the Neuveau Fauves in an art show at S.I.U Carbondale haha! Her new blog is here!

I still have this canvas, i took it off the frame but it’s pretty huge like 4ft by 4 ft and heavy, I need to one day rebuild a frame and repair it as it is a pretty painting, my first ever oil painting no less! That’s Revo Gruv reading a Matise book in her living room, we painted, literally painted art on, the purple car you see in the window!

I spent a long time on that painting because I was so happy and inspired and stretched the moment out !  Kim didn’t mind being my ‘odalesque’!

I haven’t painted many genre scenes but another of my first oil paintings shows Revo Gruv, her neighbor (in pink) and a couple of puppies in that same apartment. I tried to simplify my style but it is a little weak and sketchy for my taste.

~*Still Life with fast food and puppies -oil on canvas 16×24 by Darren Daz Cox*~

The title is a total homage to Paul Gauguin! I think about Gauguin and Matise often, they make color more exciting for me.

~*Goldfish bowl with a lizard climbing up - sketch by Darren Daz Cox*~

 I bought some little mirrors at the art store today and I think I’ll set one in the eye of a dragonfly I’m working on for Mrs. Chili. I still can’t post on her blog or Erin’s by the look of it, anyone else having any glitches commenting on wordpress blogs? I have this wp blog on my rented GoDaddy server and another free wp blog hosted by WP, ever since I activated the WP one my comments have been crazy, hmm, I also changed the name I post under to Darren Daz Cox instead of just Daz Cox maybe that is screwing things up, i also activated my gravitars maybe it’s that, I’ve logged out and in and everything I can think of oh well…

I’m going to work on my art zine now!

Wendi Kelly, noted writer and thinker  added some great points to my post on acrylic paints with glue added to make deep crackle textures.

Do I (and other fine art painters in general) think about the stability of the medium on the finished canvas, in effect, ensuring the historical legacy and possible re-sale value of the piece?

I think it is far easier to make a painting that will last for centuries than one that will ‘decay’, if you follow the tried, tested and taught rules!

I visited the Met in NYC a few weeks ago and as always I was stunned by the seemingly permanant beauty of the paintings. Sure Renoir was using essentially the same type of quality oil paints that we use today but even the egg tempera (egg whites with pigment) on wood panels from the early renaissance looked fresh and new, not to mention the Roman encaustic pieces, heck that’s pigment in wax!

Is elmers glue mixed into thick acrylic paints going to decay sooner than a traditional painting? I doubt it, here’s an ‘abstract’ one  from about six years ago that has been on my walls consistantly and seems identical to when it finally dried, and bear in mind the paint was about a quarter inch thick on the canvas when wet!

~* Snorkeling in Truk Lagoon - acylic on canvas 8×10 inches by Darren Daz Cox*~

But I didn’t consider the future when I made this one, it is a "quantum painting", my intentions, my thoughts, my memories are all part of this piece, wether anyone else can see it or not. When Yoko Ono put an apple on a ladder in her show, did she consider April 2008? No, the art existed then, now we have the memory. In the case of this painting, the main part was it’s creation and the joy I felt while watching the metamorphasis as it slowly dried from random paint into a picture. What’s left is a memory of a memory and the paint on the canvas!

Truk lagoon is a cool place - go visit!

~* Truk Lagoon circa early 80’s- photo by Darren Daz Cox*~

 Sometimes ‘quantum art’ doesn’t leave any tangiable traces yet still exists, the final painting by Gauguin for example. When his young Tahitian wife finally died, the last memory of what it actually looked like was probably lost forever because she burned their home down, with his final painting on the walls, right after Gauguin died.

I imagine it - therefore it exists.

My favorite painting

My favorite painting is the one I can’t see
somewhere on the walls of a hut in Tahiti
the last mortal act of a soul so completely
absorbed in itself that it reached majesty.
Those tangible dawbs that remain should inspire
us all to strive for our truth
I know what my favorite painting looks like
even though there is now no proof.

~*Darren Daz Cox*~

Probably the most famous, or infamous painter who’s work has self-destructed from not following "the rules" was Albert Pinkham Ryder. You might know him from his The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse) painting. A.P. Ryder was brilliant, one of my favorite artists and a total quantum painter! Like GG Allin, A.P. Ryder did his art for himself first and then for the rest of the world even if that was a very small world.

Sometimes the process of making the art is the art and what everyone else sees is simply the ‘left-overs’. Was Woodstock just the concert? Consider the act of painting as a form of meditation and a game while it is being created and not necessarily a methodical series of steps to make a completed product.

 So should the artist be concerned with longevity of the painting? Yes, if he intends the art to be for others, but no if it is quantum art.