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I have a weird confession. I don’t usually get too upset by paying my taxes. I can’t explore space by myself…nor can I invent the internet, fight Ebola, or operate a nuclear aircraft carrier. The government does amazing things which benefit everyone! [plus I barely make any money anyway]
Yet some group of marketers with deep pockets has been trying to convince everyone that the government is incompetent and you should give all of your money to reclusive billionaire twins and evil cartels instead.
And their efforts are working! This year I was pretty unhappy to turn over my meager earnings to be used on golf outings, summer palaces, estranged trophy wives, and brownshirts. I was peeved with Intuit as well, even though I have used them for many years. Not only did Intuit lobby the government to keep the tax code exhaustively complicated, but Turbotax kept demanding that I buy a more expensive software package and the numbers changed wildly for no coherent reason. I only have one W2. What the heck? No more Turbotax from now on. I finally gave up and used the el cheapo knockoff that the IRS referred me to. I have recorded this spring experience for posterity in this little sparkling picture of floundering beneath the cherry blossoms of our nation’s capital. I call it “Turbot Tax” and I think the symbolism is self explanatory.
But whatever…at least I have fileted my taxes…er I mean filed. Now that we have got that chore done, we can get to spring flowers in earnest!
My art theme this year has been flatfish, and I have made quite a lot of them. I think the results are very strong, but the slightly ludicrous subject leaves me at a disadvantage when I am trying to explain my work via the unforgiving medium of tweet or elevator pitch. Nothing vexes a group of high-fashion socialites quite like blurting out “I mostly paint elaborate symbolic flatfish!” The most obvious quick explanation is to make a joke about how I have been floundering (which is certainly true in many ways), however there is a lot more to this favorite subject than that.
The Pleuronectiformes (flatfish) are indeed flat–like paintings and drawings–which makes them an ideal medium for compositions. They are a favorite prey for humankind–which perfectly suits my theme of hooks, lures, traps, and beguilements (which seem to be taking over ever more in human society as we proliferate and jockey for resources). Flatfish also provides an immediate environmental theme–for they are quickly being fished into extinction (like almost all of the ray-finned fishes). Yet flatfish are no innocents. Like many large fish, these animals are all highly sophisticated predators. In order to succeed they make use of their own subterfuges. Flatfish blend in. They can literally change colors like chameleons. I sort of think of them as the middle class of the biome, squeezed between the little shrimpkins, copepods, and minnows they gobble up and the rapacious pelicans, dolphins, humans and suchlike superpredators who in turn hunt them with beaked hooks, sonar, and cruel nets.
Above all, flatfish are asymmetric–which means I can draw both of their expressive eyes without being forced to contemplate a lot of elaborate piscine bending. Their asymmetry also makes them stand out among all of the vertebrates. The universe has twisted them at adolescence–but it has given them an indefinable topological advantage as well. Also look at their little irregular paisley eyes.
Of course Meg Miller thinks I have gone crazy, and perhaps she is right. But after a while staring in the windows, “outsider artist” is the only card left to play. You never know, I could still leap out of the substrate and start gobbling shrimp any day now. Kindly check out my flatfish on Instagram and write me about your thoughts on the subject. Flounders are sad, but they are comical too (which is unusual in visual art) so everyone has an opinion. Please let me know how these flatfish make you feel!
ferrebeekeeper 