| Mars
Cheese Castle carries such a surreal sound that no doubt you'll
assume I invented it myself. But, believe it or not, you would be
wrong; this is, in fact, an actual place. The Mars Cheese Castle
is a restaurant found in the heart of Wisconsin, on Interstate 90,
just north of Millwaukee. Having travelled through Wisconsin on
many road trips to places like Chicago, Ohio, or New York, it's
impossible to avoid noticing a name like that. It has such a crazy,
Jimi Hendrix feel to it. Of course, this really shouldn't come as
a surprise; Wisconsin is a state littered with highway billboards
that only read "CHEESE."
This
painting is another personal favorite; you have to enjoy your work,
right? Well, RIGHT?! Anyway, this is made with a mix of various
canned paints, and a quick pass with the liquid paper. I also used
something else; I can't remember the exact name for it, but it was
a tile adhesive one uses to glue kitchen tile to the floor. It's
a very sticky, thick medium that mixes with paints wonderfully.
Another great example of why all artists should experiments with
everything they can find.
For
the b-side, I put together a fake web page as a parody of the Internet,
circa 2000. This was about the time that the dot-coms were beginning
to collapse, and there was a report showing that just about the
only websites making any money were the porn sites. Add in an avalanche
of noisy, obnoxious banner and pop-up ads, and you've got the perfect
money maker!
Of
course, there is more to the Internet in 2004 than back then; for
instance, you can steal old videogames and poor-sounding MP3's.
And you can file-share these pictures of my paintings.
No,
really, go ahead. Artists are so uptight about this stuff. It's
just a picture of Mars Cheese Castle; the real painting is sitting
on my wall, and it's not going anywhere. Steal away. |
