It seems that whenever I do a lot of soul searching I become more aware of art in unexpected mediums. That’s not to say I become a great artist – ha, no, far from it – I just notice beautiful things more than I usually do. Which can be rather alarming, coming from a girl who can sometimes be stopped in her tracks by an unexpectedly beautiful insect or sardine can (what? It’s a very appealing shape…) But ever since that little epiphany of mine I’ve been more aware of my surroundings. Maybe it’s proof of that old saying, you can never fully understand the world until you understand yourself, or whatever the heck that was. Or did I just make that up? Hey cool, I just made up something profound! Ha! Take that, Anais Nin!

    Anyway, coming back from my little detour, I’ve become fascinated with advertisements lately. Not modern advertisements – most of those are far too simple and ridiculous. I mean vintage advertisements, ranging from the mid 19th century until around the 1970’s. I’ve always been mildly amused by them – after all, my bedroom wall is coated in framed printed advertisements from the 1940’s – but I never really grasped the art behind the medium. I got an unexpected present of a gift card to Barnes & Noble and instantly I remembered this advertising anthology Ed and I found at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco. Oddly though, in the month that I’d first seen the book, my view of it had shifted from funny stupidity to an odd and misunderstood art form. While not all the ads are anything remarkable, there are several that really surprise me with their depth and complexity. I’ve always thought great art conveys a story, an emotion, encapsulating a moment in time, all with beauty and pinache. A couple of those ads – primarily the furniture ads, for some reason – do exactly that, all in the name of consumerism. It’s fabulous stuff, and now I absolutely have to collect the accompanying anthologies for the 30’s through to the 50’s. Now if only I had another gift card to speed shop with…

    On the flipside of all this attention to unexpected beauty, I’ve also found myself exploding with creativity. It’s nothing profound by any means, just a pleasant surprise of flourishing talents I didn’t know I had. Take for instance my obsession with drawing. Before the LoveBugs, I had the hardest time drawing anything that was “cute.” That was always my brother’s domain, and I still say he could out-cute anybody, any time, any where. The simplest of cartoon characters were beyond my reach, though; cutesy animals were impossible. A few nights ago, again unable to sleep, I was struck with this urge to draw a cat. A cat. Don’t know where the crap that came from, but I obeyed and pulled out my sketch pad. Twenty minutes and only one sketch later, I came up with Lolita. The design came out of nowhere, but the name was inspired by my little impromptu Z4 outburst.

I don’t think she’s anything uber-amazing, but for me, this is a huge breakthrough. She’s small, she’s simple, she’s sickeningly saccharine cute! And I drew it! Very little erasing, almost no alterations, and out pops this little character. I even started coming up with a story to go with her – Lolita and the Posse Cats, starring hip, lounge-inspired Lolita and her two friends, Sandy and Jo (named after the great 60’s model Sandy Warner and Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, but I’m sure everyone already got that… [man, I’m random]) I’m over the moon! I feel like churning out a whole new series of cartoons based on these little things, and I still have no clue where this all came from – I’m not even a cat person.

    Believe me, things have been a whole lot better on the creative front than just drawing cute little kitties. Earlier this week, my friend Stephen and I got together to finally start painting his house. He’s being nice enough to let me spend his money picking out paint colors with him and buying all new furniture. On Thursday, before we started painting, he took me out for Thai food to pay me for a website I’m helping him with (apparently I can be bought for the price of spring rolls and pad see-ew.) The restaurant had this long wall with an abstract wall featuring all sorts of swirls, blobby shapes, and colorful tentacles, all criss-crossing with each other. Steve suddenly looked up at the wall while munching on satay and said, “I wish I could have that on my wall.” I was feeling inexplicably confident and I spent the next fifteen minutes convincing him that if he really wanted it, I could paint it for him in his living room. I may not be a great painter, but I can do abstract.

    A little while later I was standing in his living room, bedecked in painting clothes far too large for me, a pencil in hand, and a contemplative look on my face. I stared at the largest “canvas” I’ve ever had in my life: a wall that’s twelve feet high and roughly six feet wide. I’ve always wanted to paint a mural, but I was starting to feel a little worried. After all, I’ve never been very good at coming up with random, asymmetrical patterns. I didn’t want to appear too nervous, thus undermining Steve’s confidence, so I leaned against the wall and just let my arm do whatever it felt like at first. Within the next hour I’d drawn this elaborate design on the wall that was beautifully random and asymmetrical. I’m going to paint it with all the colors we’ve picked out for his house, so it promises to be one of the brightest and most flamboyant paintings I’ve ever done. (If you want to see a slightly similar rendering of what the house will look like, click here. It isn’t entirely accurate and the mural’s not the same, but it’ll give you an idea of the colors and the layout.) The mural’s huge, but if it turns out half as well as I expect it to, it’s going to be fantastic. So far I think Steve likes the mural too, since he’s told me a couple times that if I enjoy painting this one, there are about ten other walls I could paint for him. Bring on the spring rolls, and we’ll see, hehe.

    So what had started out as a really sucky week is turning out to be fantastic. I’m seriously considering having more of these ‘What the hell am I doing?’ moments if I can figure out how to force them on myself, cause I sure have been productive lately. Let’s just hope it lasts, eh? 🙂