I haven’t done any painting in a while, and frankly, I missed it a little.  So a couple weeks ago, when I visited NYC with Natalie, I saw a painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that I just fell in love with.

The painting looked like something along the lines of what you see here.  The artist made a repetitive design of lines that formed an imaginary object boundary where the lines change direction.  The effect is that you see a diamond, when there really is none.

Another thing I found neat was that the artist made no real attempt at making lines that were particularly straight or even parallel.  The overall design of the painting sort-of just comes out as an emergent property.

The painting I did behaves similarly, but is quite different in its own right.  I wish I knew the name of the artist who did the original, but I can’t seem to remember.  If anyone recognizes the style, please let me know.

I have plans for embarking on a second painting in the same style, with a much more complex subject matter.  Get ready!

Click here for a full size.

You may recall that I wrote a suggestion on solving the economic crisis to the Obama administration a while back.  Well since the economic crisis is obviously over, and it’s very likely my fault, he wrote a thank you note… very personal.

As we all know the Obama administration is the most open and communicative of all administrations ever.   That’s why every letter is read and responded to on non-letter sized paper.

Dear Friend:

Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas.  I appreciate hearing from you.

Our Nation faces serious challenges, and we will only overcome them by involving all Americans in shaping the policies that affect their own lives.  My Administration is continuously working to engage individuals in innovative ways.  I encourage you to explore www.WhiteHouse.gov, which is regularly updated and more interactive than ever before.

Thank you again for contacting me and providing your thoughtful suggestions.

Sincerely,

(REAL SIGNATURE!)

Wow, I can’t believe Barack Obama himself personally wrote and signed a letter to me on A4 sized paper!!

You may recall the letter I wrote to Pabst Brewing Company a while back, which can be read here.  Well they finally worked up the nerve to write back to me, along with a gift!

Overall the letter is rather formulaic, probably only the very last paragraph not pre-written.  Maybe not even that.

Here’s a transcription:

Dear Mr. Dolan:

The Pabst Brewing Company wants to thank you for sending your kind comments about Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.  We appreciate the fact that you took time out of your busy day to write us.

We would also like to thank you for being a loyal customer of many years.  It is because of loyal customer [sic] like you that we hold our products to such high standards.  Pabst Brewing Company is very pleased to know that a loyal customer of many years believes that our product is still high quality.

Please accept the Pabst T-shirt as a small token of our appreciation…

Thank you for your continued patronage.  Pabst Brewing Company appreciates your product loyalty.  If we can be of further assistance, please write to me at the above address.  I am sorry but we are not allowed to use any suggestions for Marketing… but we appreciate the thought.

Sincerely,

Monica Hernandez

Pabst Brewing Company

Included with this response was a very large Pabst Blue Ribbon T-shirt…

I haven’t posted anything in my blog for a long time, because everyone’s come home and I am hanging out with them and everything.  I.E. I have better things to do.  But I recently took the chance to explore the female form by painting.

I named her Stephanie.  This was my first attempt at painting a real person.

See full size.

I just received my first response in the letter-writing campaign, from POM Wonderful.

This letter is response to I Liked Pomegranates Before They Were Cool.

Granted, it’s rather similar to POM’s comment on that post, but still, I like this company now, because of their sense of humor.

July 27, 2009

RE: POM Wonderful Pomegranates

Kevin,

Thank you for the letter and post.

We appreciate your concern.  I know our PR team has spent a lot of time evangelizing the potential health benefits of the Wonderful variety of pomegranate, specifically those grown by us (POM Wonderful).  They have also promoted some tof the things you can do with pomegranates, like our recipes and home decor.  I am not aware of them intentionally doing PR efforts to make the fruit more trendy, I think that just happened naturally as people realized the power of the pomegranate.  Although, I know our PR folks are for more cool than I am and have been able to get into some really cool events, shows and on the minds of other cool (and trendy) people.  I will talk to our HR peoplr and the VP of PR to see if we can try to hire less ‘cool’ people though.  I wish we were to blame for its trendiness but I personally think the fruit did that all by itself.

Regarding the concern for appearing health-conscious, yes that could be a valid concern but hopefully one of our several drink recipes will help you cope with it: http://bit.ly/pomcocktails.

Thank you again,

Jeff, POM Wonderful Blogger

Interesting.  Should I respond?

As you all know, I recently moved back into my home in Ithaca.  Well I was considering whether or not I should work on a painting today, and I thought, oh damn I’m out of canvas… maybe I should just paint on the walls.  It was then that I realized my walls were already covered in paint!

A while back, towards the end of spring semester, we threw a party in which we allowed the guests to paint all over the walls in my room.  We called it the paint party, but the more I think about it, the more I realize this was the original paint jam.

That’s right, even more original than what I was calling the first paint jam.

I also noticed that there were never any pictures of the final, completed work online.

So here they are: (all images are clickable for a full-size)

Dear Sir or Madam,

My name is Mark Vigeant and I would like to begin by expressing my fondness of Edy’s ice cream. Your brand is guaranteed to be delicious yet affordable, unlike Ben & Jerry’s. At my home, there’s always a box of Edy’s in my freezer. It’s good medicine for a bad day. However, I come bearing a complaint.

I by no means am an ice cream connoisseur; I perhaps eat ice cream 10 to 15 times a month. But this means that when I indulge myself, I expect it to be incredible. Desserts are my specialty, and how better to enjoy a warm batch of brownies than to add vanilla ice cream to them? Normally a box of Edy’s ice cream would do the trick. But not last weekend. No, on Saturday, after spending an hour crafting delicious fudgy brownies, I bought a big container of what I thought would be untainted vanilla-y goodness to accompany my chocolate delight. But what did my housemates discover upon opening my grocery bag? That it was a Light ice cream! Preposterous!

I am a healthy eater. I exercise. I walk instead of drive. But my philosophy on dessert has and always will be that it is a treat. Dessert is a purely gluttonous vice that should only be done rarely, but when done, should taste like the nectar of the Gods. Light ice cream is for addicts and people stuck in denial. I do not allow it to touch my lips in principle, because it’s still bad for you, just not as tasty.

So how did I end up with a box of light ice cream? Something about the words “Slow-Churned” and “Rich and Creamy” gave me the sense that it was going to be just that: heavy on the creamy fattening deliciousness that leads so many to heart problems and obesity. Only upon closer inspection did I see the word “Light” written next to the main logo. But only a light-ice-cream sleuth could find it in the first place, since it is lightly written on a lightly colored box.

Excuse me for sounding absurd but I believe my complaint is valid. The word “Light” should more prominently be featured on your next model of light ice cream, or else a lot of college students with lightning-fast metabolisms are going to be pissed off. And start eating Cherry Garcia.

Sincerely,

Mark T. Vigeant

We just finished another Paint Jam and discovered, once again, how awesome sandwiches can be.

We titled this one Cosmapology, because our inspiration for this one involved the great cosmic apology (read Carnot, 1879).  After a fierce debate on the subject, we found ourselves not speaking to one another, utterly disgusted with our adversaries’ opinoins.

We went with the 8 panel idea to symbolize the juxtapositions of our collective apathy toward the realizations upon further examinination of the cosmic apology.

…anyway…

Hope you enjoy.  Thanks to everyone who asked about prints from out last paint jam, Car Wreck, but to clarify, we were joking.  Prints will not actually be available for sale.  We hold these paint jams sacred, and could not part with even prints.  However, please feel free to take a look at our commercial galleries.

Contributors: Kevin Dolan, Jaime Fanzo, Josh Fanzo, Michael Sharps

I wanted to do another painting tonight, to redeem myself and all.  So I set at it.  For the subject, I had intended on doing Power Howard from Power Hower…

So I began work on the background.  The background is really the part of this painting I am most proud of.  I really like how the colors fade.  I probably spent most of my time on that.

The creature coming out of the hole was put together rather quickly.  I didn’t want it to have particularly sharp edges or a particularly smooth gradient, because I’ve already seen that.  I like how it turned out, except the space on the side of his mouth is a little too wide.

For that reason, I am referring to the subject of this painting, not as Power Howard, but Power Howard’s Angry Uncle.  See the family resemblance?

Full size.

Also note, this is the first painting I signed on the front.  What it do?

This is a followup paintint to Attempt at Abstraction.  I have decided hands-down that this is not my style of painting.

Something about attempting to make the edges pop just doesn’t seem natural.  Seems like I’m trying to do in paint what I can do in Adobe Illustrator 100x better.  I forgot why I started painting in the first place.

If you even want to see it full (doubt it) click

I was planning on doing more to it, but in the end deemed it unworthy.  Maybe someday when I have the necessary skill, I will revisit it… but I doubt it.