The Locusts Are Coming.

Get out the bug spray. The locusts are coming. The apocalypse has arrived.

I saw the sign: A Mark Rothko painting has just sold for 73 million dollars at auction. It is the second highest amount ever paid for a modern art painting.

Are you f@$#ing kidding me?

"Which painting?" you ask. Is it the one with the large square or the other one with the large square or the other one with the large square or the one with the large square? Oh wait -- maybe it's the one with the large square.

Exactly.

(If you think I'm kidding, do a Google image search on Mark Rothko.)

I've railed against Mark Rothko many times in this journal. I believe that peoples' affection and museums' embrace of him are simply a conspiracy to piss me off. I don't get it.

I love to hear people tell me how amazing a painter he is. How his colors undulate and squares are windows to different places and the heavy and deep meaning contained within its simple design.

Fine. I'll buy any argument for one painting.

But he did the exact same painting for twenty years. When you repeat yourself for that long, it starts being about something else.

Perhaps, that you can't draw.

If he was a photographer he'd be taking photos of babies dressed up like flowers or dogs dressed up like people. Wait? There are already photographers doing those two themes? Damn.

The good and bad of Rothko: If you've seen one Rothko painting, you've truly seen them all. Is that an artist you want to promote? How did this happen?

"Warhol did the same thing," you say. Yep, he did. He extensively reproduced an image with slight variations. But you see, he was mocking mass production. He was mocking the consumer.

Perhaps this is my problem. I feel that Rothko is mocking us.

For the Birds.

Close friends and faithful readers of this journal know that I hate birds.

Or do I?

This past Sunday, Juliana and I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

We walked along a path and encountered a man-made marsh, where two pelicans sat before us, one of them watching two young chicks.





I started taking lots of pictures when a beautiful white egret flew high into the trees.



I mumbled something.

"Do you know what you just said?" Juliana began. "I'm not sure I even know you anymore. You just said that you love birds."

"There is no way I said that."

"Yep."

"No way."

"Maybe you need to qualify your bird statement," Jules said. "You don't hate all birds. You just hate pigeons."

"I guess you're right. I like ducks. I like pelicans. I guess I just hate pigeons. And gulls."

And to qualify my bird hating statement -- I also hate massive flocks of birds flying overhead that could potentially poop on me.

But I do love ducks. And pelicans.



My whole world just turned inside out.

(As an aside, the cheetahs at the Wild Animal Park rock!)

Rock Poster: Secret Apollo (5/12/07 Show).

I designed a rock poster for Secret Apollo....



The koi fish were painted on Bristol board using gouache (opaque watercolors). The painting was scanned and then text added using Photoshop.

Jill.

Jill Sitting (watercolor on paper, 5 x 4").