RON'S (un)REAL ART

If you check out Real Art regularly (and I know a few people actually do), then you've noticed that I've reworked the links section over on the left side of the page, including the new greatest hits section. In addition to making my permanent links more user-friendly, the re-organization is also about sprucing up the page a bit, making it ever so slightly more visually appealing. That's also why I've been trying to use more pictures in my posts: my prose might be the most brilliant stuff in the history of English literature (okay, I'm well aware that it's not), but most people aren't going to stick around long without a little flash and dash. Along those lines, and to give the page a bit more symmetry, I've decided to put to use some of my favorite Paintshop self-indulgences over in the right-hand column. It's only three pictures now, but expect the list to grow--I got pretty obsessed with creating digital art a couple of years ago, and have plenty of product on my hard drive.

Now I must admit that what I'm posting as "art" on my page called "Real Art" in no way conforms to what I have asserted real art ought to be about. That is, there is virtually no political content in my visual work. It doesn't expose the struggle of workers against their capitalist oppressors. It doesn't particularly oppose war or greed or hate or any of the other mal-manifestations of human relationships. It simply serves to stimulate an aesthetic response. On any given day, I might even argue that my art actually serves power because it doesn't particularly oppose it, and generally I believe that's true for any cultural artifact that seems to be politically neutral. By my own pompous and pious standard, my "art" isn't at all "real art." Just bear in mind that I'm really only posting this stuff for the purposes of giving Real Art some festive ornamentation. Now having said all that, I must also observe that placing these politically neutral works in juxtapostion to my fiery anti-establishment polemics essentially creates political meaning. That is, it's difficult to emotionally separate the cute orange kitty picture from the pot-shots against the police or corporations or the military right next to it: to some extent, the neutrality of these pictures becomes problematic in that they are presented in an extremely political context.

So there. You know, sometimes I'm so into my own bullshit that I think I'm capable of convincingly illustrating that black is white or two plus two equals five. Sometimes. But enough of that. Let me tell you a bit about these first three works of (un)Real Art. The first one is an emotional response to years of listening to my favorite jazz piano player Bill Evans. Miles Davis once described his playing as sounding like delicate droplets of water cascading down a waterfall, which is as good of a description as any--Evans' greatest work in my opinion is on the song "Blue in Green" from the Kind of Blue album (here's a brief sample). The second is a tribute to my dear departed cat Alec. Alec loved the outdoors, but as he aged I feared more and more for his safety. Consequently, he was ultimately forced to be a house-cat, looking out the window at the world he loved. The third is a salute to, well, my two favorite Superman powers: wouldn't you like the ability to throw your voice half-way around the world? Wouldn't you like to see through any substance except lead? Yeah, me too.

Anyway, that's all for now, but like I said, this is just the first batch. Stay tuned for still more of Ron's (un)Real Art.

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