The Museum of Bad Art: Bad As They Wanna Be

Did you know there is a museum dedicated exclusively to the preservation of Bad Art?  Yes, indeed!  Click here to see!

“Can something that affords me so much pleasure (I can’t stop looking at it) really be classed as worthless?”  muses my twitter pal/first mate Glennie Bee on the subject of Bad Art.  Read the rest of her blog here.

To qualify for MOBA’s collection, the art cannot be deliberately bad. You won’t find dogs playing poker or velvet Elvises there, though there is one pretty disturbing clown.

John Wayne Gacy would have been proud to paint this

.

.

.

.

The badness has to be have the free, spontaneous quality that only comes when it’s done unintentionally.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Manufactured Crises

And now, even though I reiterate that this is not a political blog, I must talk more about the media.  I already talked about publicity stunts and manufactured outrage.  But now let’s talk about manufactured crises.

As an example, let’s have a look at an article about diabetes published on the BBC’s website today.  It’s like a page out of the Evil Overlord 101 syllabus.

.

1. Present a crisis. “[Insert Crisis Subject Here] is costing us millions of dollars/pounds/euros!”  Frame everything as a crisis!  Sure to grab the reader’s attention and induce the kind of anxiety that defuses critical thinking, as well as convince the reader that OMG WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS NOW.

.

.

.

Twitter and Sports: I Finally Take a Stand

This is going to lose me half my followers.  Wait.  No, it won’t.   Only like 2 of my Twitter followers actually read my blog.

Anyway, I feel the need to explain something about Twitter and sports.

If you are watching a sports event…

DO NOT TWEET ABOUT IT.

Why not?

IF anybody who follows you gives a tinker’s cuss about the game, THEY WILL BE WATCHING IT THEMSELVES.    So you don’t need to tell them every little thing that happens.  They already know!

The rest of us do not give a fat rat’s clacker about sports, and we do not want to scroll past hundreds of subliterate, ill-considered tweets on the subject, particularly from people who otherwise tweet sanely.

Thank you.

– The Management

 

 

I am going straight to hell

…for posting this, but it’s worth it, to provide you with a few moments’ entertainment.  That’s how dedicated an art blogger I am.  You’re welcome.

Bad Christian Art

Jesus cuts deal with the Feds to avoid insider trading scandal

..Also, he’s totally going to invite that guy up to his place later. Painting by Nathan Greene.

Sundays with Clyfford Still: Truth Imagined (11)

Welcome to Sundays With Clyfford Still.  I’m your host, M.K. Hajdin.

This is number 11  in the series.  You can read the other posts here.

Illusions, in one form or another, have been the recurring theme of the blog this week, so it’s only fitting to end it with some words about finding truth.

1965 (PH-578) by Clyfford Still (Photo: The Daily Artist)

I hold it imperative to evolve an instrument of thought which will aid in cutting through all cultural opiates, past and present, so that a direct, immediate, and truly free vision can be achieved. (Clyfford Still)

Manufactured Outrage

The Yellow Press

People have been tweeting me links to some revolting news stories lately.   Whenever they do so in future,  they will be referred here.

Inflammatory news stories follow a pattern like this:

1. Person says or does really offensive thing.
2. Thing is reported, in the name of keeping the public informed.
3. Outrage follows.
4. Offending person pretends to be traumatized by all the outrage, while proudly displaying all the negative comments received.
5.  Public is annoyed into making even more negative comments.
6. Offensive person gets a book deal/gallery show/TV interview/undeserved fame.
7. Offensive person wins. Public loses.

It’s really easy to find ourselves being drawn into situations like this, because most of us do our best to avoid negative attention.  When someone does something that bothers us, our first instinct is to express our feelings about it.  We think that the wrongdoer will be chastised and mend his or her ways.   This is because we’re not trolls and we don’t think the way they do.

Happy Birthday, Don Pettit

The aurora has a special message for you.

That aurora's got great penmanship

I wonder if you baked a birthday cake in space, would it fall?  And if it did, which way?   These are important scientific questions.  Get on it, astronauts!

(If you are tuning in late, go read this fascinating blog.  You’ll never come back.  You’ll start downloading cool space images and forget all about me.  And that will make me sad.  But it’s all about the advancement of science.)

 

This Isn’t One of My Paintings

But I wish it were.  It looks almost like this, doesn’t it?

Night-shining clouds as seen from the International Space Station. Photo credit: Don Pettit and NASA TV

They hover on the edge of space. Thin, wispy clouds, glowing electric blue. Some scientists think they’re seeded by space dust. Others suspect they’re a telltale sign of global warming.

They’re called noctilucent or “night-shining” clouds (NLCs for short). And whatever causes them, they’re lovely.

“Over the past few weeks we’ve been enjoying outstanding views of these clouds above the southern hemisphere,” said space station astronaut Don Pettit during a NASA TV broadcast last month. “We routinely see them when we’re flying over Australia and the tip of South America.

Read the rest of this article here.

 

Don Pettit writes poetry about auroras.  I may have a tiny little geek-girl crush on him.  Maybe.

Don Pettit, in space

 

Amateur macro photography of the day: Rose

Rose from my balcony

I am experimenting with my camera.  Here’s a rose from the plant I have on the balcony.  The rest of the balcony is not quite so photogenic, so it got cropped out.

I don’t know if this is actually “macro”, or just a close-up, but I used the “macro” setting on my rotten little camera so that’s what I’m calling it.

It rained last night and the day before, and that makes me almost too happy to post.  The real world calls.  I’ll be back next time it’s disgustingly sunny and I need to hide indoors.

 

Sundays with Clyfford Still: Elemental Magic (10)

Welcome to Sundays With Clyfford Still.  I’m your host, M.K. Hajdin.

This is number 10  in the series.  You can read the other posts here.

1950-M No.1 by Clyfford Still

Jagged orange stalagmites are submerged in a blue haze that turns them violet, as if we have stepped into a cave in the gloaming, or are underwater.

The best works are often those with the fewest and simplest elements… until you look at them a little more, and things start to happen.  — Clyfford Still