Mental illness tee

Work is having this mental illness t shirt drawing contest things.  One of my coworkers yesterday said she thought I should do it.  So I drew for a bit last night.  I like the drawing up close, but I don't know how it would do as a t shirt.  From a distance it does not work well, also the shading I don't think could be conveyed in silk screen.


Well it looks like I missed the deadline anyway. :P

Unsung Heroes

One thing that drives me nuts is that if you are in scrubs people always assume you are a doctor or a nurse.  I think TV and movies are to blame.  There are a whole scope of people who work at hospitals, who are not doctors or nurses.  People who work really hard too.  I know my department has continually been short staffed in the close to nine years I have worked here.  Although other departments are too.  Cleaning staff were at least shown on Scrubs, I don't recall seeing anyone from laundry on it though.  I know one of our night laundry guys has told me has had a work week that lasted for four months.  That blows me out of the water, my longest work week is a measly 26 days, which I hope to never ever repeat.  I actually wonder how well the doctors know the support staff roles.  I ran into one resident doctor who did not seem to know that CS techs pick up the stuff they use for procedures, they clean that stuff.  They also are the ones who fill their orders and drop off for that stuff.  I also kind of wonder how many doctors have been back to, or even know where their suture kits for surgery are put together.  I guess that is one of the main things I enjoy about my job, as cleaning staff I get to go pretty much everywhere.  Although amazingly after almost nine years I have not been everywhere.  The doctors have the upperhand on the ICE House.  Hopefully this isn't too tedious, but places I have worked at the hospital compound.  The Loft apartment, where cisiting CEOs stay, and would not be surprised if Newt Gingrich stayed there when he visited.  Easily the swankest accomodations, also the only spot my department is responsible for washing and ironing the bedding.  The old resident doctor housing (they have built new housing). Laundry building.  Medlink hanger.  Logistics building, the woman who showed me this part said that was where the kindest most supportive people were, not so much in the hospital.  Power plant.  Inpatient Psychiatric ward old and new, the old now seems to be command center for construction facility service guys.  Surgical Digestive.  Medical Oncology.  Neonatal ICU.  Pediatric ICU.  Pediatrics.  Postpartum.  I used to know the birthing suites and cover the Labor &Delivery ORs, not comfortable there anymore.  Short Stay.  Neuroscience.  Orthopaedics.  Lab where they process stuff.  Critical Care.  Rehab.  The old Renal dialysis.  I also used to work the old Cath Lab, moved.  Cardio-pulmonary.  IT tech guy area.  Used to know Emergency Services.  On the clinic side- Dental, Oral surgery area, where they make the teeth is kind of neat.  I have cleaned doctor offices in Urology.  Cardiology.  North Obstetrics Gynecology.  East Obstetrics Gynecology.  Pacemaker area.  Resident doctor lounge.  Medical Foundation.  Physician Support and Recruitment.  Podiatry (part of current area). Radiology (part of current regular area).  Orthopaedics.  Physical Therapy.  Orthotics, the workshop where they make the braces is neat.  Occupational therapy.  Old area on 2 mainly offices and breakrooms.  Courier room (part of current area). Flower Delivery (part of current area).  Collection Lab (part of my regular area).  PreAdmidssions.  Finance.  Endocrinology.  Project Search.  IS Clinical Engineering, where they fix IV pumps.  Medical Media.  Patient Liason Services.  My Departments Area.  Pulmonary.  Pediatric Specialty.  Founders building- Sleep Lab.  Pediatrics.  Family Medecine.  I've bopped around throughout the East Building cleaning offices and what not, but do not know it well.  The old Morgue.  Full Fledged Doctor Lounge.  Medical Library.  CS breakroom area.  The old Hospital Pharmacy (security is there now), was shocked to learn leeches are still in use.  The old Interventional Radiology, moved.  I think I got everything.  So to snotty Critical Care HUC this is what I am expected.  I don't have your luxury of only needing to know one area.

No we didn't evolve from monkeys

A nasty guy I went to school with and with whom I am friends on Facebook posted something that included "If we are descended from monkeys, why are they still around?"  Well we are not descendants of the apes and monkeys living today.  We share a common anscestor with them.  We have been evolving on our own line evolution, and they have been evolving on their own cocurrent evolutionary path.  This may lead some to say this is where we ended up, and look where they ended up with an air of superiority.  Apes and monkeys are different from us, and have capabilities we don't have, and vice versa.  I think the big thing humans get hung up on is our speech capacity.  Movies and TV I think have furthered the notion that animals cannot talk like us due to mental deficiency.  I mean they always show talking animals with the same snout configuurations as what they do in real life.  Animals lack the physical capacity.  Our lips and mouth configuration is unique in the animal kingdom, it is what enables us to talk as we do.  I mean gorillas and chimpanzees are capable of learning sign language.  That would indicate mental capacity, but they cannot physically make the noises we can with our mouths.  My cat certainly is incapable of human speech, but he is quite effective in communicating to me that he wants his food.  He can also make a noise I can't,  he can purr, which incidently would be my wish from the genie.  As an asside (maybe this is out of date) we owe our tremendous brains and mental capacity to meat consumption.  Our ancestors made better use of tools to eat meat, which made our brains grow.  I have read that some cholesterol is actually needed for us because it is what fuels our thoughts.

Back to Kehinde Wiley

Well I initially was not going to talk about this painting shown above by Kehinde Wiley, mainly because I am not black.  I did not feel that I could properly address it without my own biases getting in the way.  Honestly this painting does make me uncomfortable as a white woman.  Some of the negative feedback I saw online related to President Obama's portrait had to do with Wiley also having painted the above painting, so I thought maybe I should talk about it here (not that I have that many readers).  I also thought I should talk about because some of the best advice I have gotten on art is you need to really be looking at the stuff that makes you angry or upset, and think about why it does that.  This painting upsets me for two main reasons.


The first being the most obvious of the violence towards the white woman and the anger level of it towards the white woman.  There is something here though that is important to remember this is a painting not a photograph, no white women were killed to produce this image.

The same cannot be said for the above image.  It is a photograph of very real violence towards a black person.  Many white people tend to fall into the mindset that slavery and only slavery was the big issue with black people.  I don't think many people realize that even following the Civil War lynching was a big thing, and there were white photographers making money off of it.  Not only would lynching participants buy the photos from them, the photographers were also selling them as postcards and sending them all over the country.  I was shocked to learn that it did not become illegal to send these postcards through the US mail until the 1950s.  It is insane to me that it took that long.  It is also insane to me how many people don't know this.  Another grisly detail about this is that lynching participants would often keep hair or teeth from the victim framed with the photo.  So is me being angry over pretend violence really justified.


The other thing that makes me angry is that presumably the painting is meant to be sort of a role reversal.  I may be weird, but I dislike the thought that maybe I am being viewed as a spoiled fairy princess.  I have worked hard in my life at less then glamorous jobs, I drink beer, and honestly I am also quite gassy.  None of these are things I attribute to fairy princesses.  I think on some level this trips up many white Americans, as most white Americans do not have Donald Trump's wealth.  Yes I have worked crap jobs in my life, but I probably do still have an advantage because I am white.  Years ago I had a temp job at this gun accessories factory.  I had hit it off with this Hmong girl, we were chatting away, and being airheaded 20 something year olds we left the building we were in a few minutes  before quitting time.  The Hmong girl was fired for it, but I was not even though I was guilty of the exact same thing.  When I first started at the hospital I used to see it a bit with the doctors.  When I first started I had to on more than one occasion inform the doctor that their patient had died (or less morbidly when the nurses transfer their patient somewhere else), when they would come to the room looking for the patient, and all they would find is me cleaning the room.  It seemed to me that it happened more with minority doctors, so not claiming to be a saint here (maybe makes up for times I have sucked) I reported it on our Employee feedback thing.  A lady from HR did talk to me about it, and I have not had to tell any doctor of a patient's death since.  I have asked newer  more regular hospital workers and they have not had to either.  I am not sure if this is due to improved HUC performance, or if Epic has anything to do with it (I don't think we were using Epic then).  To get back on topic it is very easy for poor white folks to fall into the I work hard and try to do right, and then forget or not even realize the times being white has been beneficial to them. 

Mental Illness & Guns

I have talked a little before about having schizophrenia.  I guess I just wanted to comment that this atmosphere of blaming mass shootings on mental illness really sucks, and really is such a cop out.  The only thing that it does is create stigma against people, and believe me I have received very little help.  I have paid off my medical debt and much of my student loans by picking up in the hospital.  One time I agreed to pick up as an early morning float, and ended up getting placed in Peds.  This is not an area I know that well, and I tend to struggle with figuring out what I am supposed to do (it is also very different from every other part of the hospital).  Anyways at somepoint I noticed two pediatricians looking at me with absolute panic on their faces.  Then a little latter one of them telling the resident doctors that it was probably alright as I did not have a gun.  Also had a nurse call me a bitch that day, no clue what that was about.  So fucking offensive, probably when I was at my worst point with my mental illness I was working a lot in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit (where the babies are))  I ended up in the ER and then in the psychward, but I did nothing to those babies, and again that was the time in my life I would rate as my worst.  Granted I did not like the area and had the psychiatrist tell my supervisor not to put me there, but that was due to the 4am start time for the area.  It had destroyed my ability to sleep, which was not helping with my mental health issues.  Again no shooting I got myself out of working the area.  Reason why that doctor is so offensive to me.  I mean did he do anything to help me, no, all he did was ostracize me over my health condition.  Really I think that might count as a HIPPA violation.  I mentioned once to the psychiatrist, who got me started on the meds at work that if she asked around the other doctors would tell her that when I work nights in the clinic I talk to the voices.  She said they wouldn't because doctors are not supposed to gossip about that stuff, it is a violation.  That is also a load of bullshit.  One time I had a doctor throw me into a loop of questioning if the voices were real, and then in turn why Aam I taking meds with dangerous side effects for it.  All because he randomly came up to me and said something mildly related to what I had been talking about one night in the clinic.  As near as I could tell I was by myself, and that particular doctor does not work  in my area in the clinic that was why I was so confused.  But I think the answer is doctors gossip.

Presidential Portraits

I would like to begin by saying that I do like some of Kehinde Wiley's work.  There are some things going on in the president's portrait that were not to my taste.  I have seen some very disgusting worthless comments in my facebook feed about this painting, and I hope my criticism does not come off like those comments.  Wiley did an excellent job rendering the president, honestly he's a better painter than what I will probably ever be.  The thing that gets me is really the lack of negative space.  Granted his pieces tend to have intense pattern work, but in other work I have looked at by him there is more spacing in the background pattern work.  I also think compositionally that the eye moves that well through it.  I mean if you drop thinking that it is the president and plant life, and just look at it as blobs of color.  Then you have a reddish brown spot contained largely in a field green, and the brown doesn't really continue anywhere else, so that your eye moves easily around.
I think Wiley is more successful in this painting.                                                                                          I actually really like Amy Sherald's painting of Michelle Obama.  I actually feel like the Obamas were the most elegant first family we have had in recent times.  They blow the Trumps out of the water, and they also blew Bush family out of the water.  I think the Michelle Obama painting really shows that elegance in its simplicity.  Sherald makes excellent use of the negative space.  I think she also goes back a little in art history with the big skirt.  Lots of paintings of important white women through history with the big skirt.  Sherald does this in a very modern way though.                                                                                                              Both artists did an excellent job on the paintings.  They are both very different from what you expect from pesidential portraits.  I don't ever remember presidential paintings getting as much attention as what these have.  Nothing but a good thing.  I think they got some people who would not normally look at art to look at art.

Frozen River Film Festival

I tried out the being a artist vendor at the Frozen River Film Festival at Winona State.  We were in the lobby of Science building, which had some beautiful design work.  They had us circled around this many pointed star bench dias thing with a star map on it.  On the floor around that was a circle with symbols in it.  I think they were replacing the zodiac signs with symbols representing the different branches of science.  There was what looked like a chemical equation and a plant close to me.  It was kind of hard to see the full thing though due to tables and chairs.                                                                               I went in with the attitude that if I made back the cost of being a vendor I would be happy.  Well I did that and made a profit.  I had drawings, prints, and knitting for sale.  The knitting was the big seller.  My two big buyers I think were a mother daughter duo.  The mother was recovering from cancer.  She bought a baby alpaca and merino wool hat from me.  It was made from the same yarn I used on the scarf I have bragged about here elsewhere.  Decadently soft.  Maybe I should have just given it to her, but they couldn't believe my prices were so low.  The daughter actually gave me an extra $20 because she said I wasn't charging enough.  I also got some compliments from people saying they liked the colors.  That one actually really meant something to me.  I gravitate to color a lot when I look at art, but I often feel like I fall short of where I would like to be on that as an artist.  Had a couple anti wool people.  Unfortunately the commercial clothing industry uses cheap nasty wool, but wool can actually be very soft (merino wool in particular).  She never even bothered to stop and touch and see.  She said on her second pass that she was not allergic she just didn't like it.

Chuck Close Allegations

I read an article last night about two women coming forward to accuse Chuck Close of sexual harassment.  He did not touch them, he commented to the one that her "pussy looked delicious."  Most male artists are not that bad.  I can think of one guy I went to school with venting that his non art friends thought he drew with a hard on in that class.  I have also done a little nude modeling.  For two main reasons.  One, I wanted to see what it was like on their end.  I was still holding out hope then to be an art professor, and I thought it would be good to have some clue on that.  The second reason being did I really want to come to the end of my life and not be able to say that I had.  None of my experiences were as bad as what the women described with Chuck Close.  The one though said she was operating on the assumption he was just going to do his typical face portrait thing of her.  Never assume, always ask to see their work and what exactly they want you to model for.  Yes, I did decline on a couple modeling gigs because I didn't like the answers. Not condoning what Chuck Close said, but a woman has to look out for herself.  In my mind that is part of the responsibility of a free adult woman.  The alternative in my mind is the old patronizing thing.  That women can't look after themselves and need men to protect them from these situations.  It is also perplexing to me why when she first got there and he started talking about a nude photo he had on his wall and how he fucked that model why she didn't leave then.  Instead she went on to take off her clothes, and she only left after the pussy comment.  Part of what needs to happen with this Metoo thing is education for women on warning signs, when to leave, when to punch, when to call the cops.  This movement will be for naught if these things don't happen.  Finger pointing is not enough.

Beige bathrooms

I really hate beige or brownish bathrooms.  It is a trend I cannot stand.  The two main reasons as I see it for why people go there are one: many people are afraid of or don't like color, and two: because it hides shit really well.  In public spaces I suppose designers have to try to go with a color everyone will like.  As an artist this fear of color drives me nuts.  When I watch the home design shows when I work out it is a lot of grey and beige.  This one Great Course I took on the psychology of color said that grey is the color depressed people gravitate to.  I am not sure how correct that is that course seemed a little wooish to me.  If it is right what does it say about our obsession with grey and beige right now.  Speaking as a cleaning lady I dislike beige bathrooms because I know how well the color hides things.  Personally I would rather be able to easily see and do my job.  I really like the older bathrooms at work with the blue tile work.  Bits of wet paper towel do not blend in on those floors.  Beige bathrooms just feel gross dirty to me.

Brain Imprintations

 

                                        This is a painting of the founding doctor where I work.  Him and the doctor who lured him to La Crosse were really the first doctors in the area with bonafide medical degrees.  There were lots of docs running around then who were really just quacks.  Anyways this guy when he took charge of the newly built hospital had an instance where a quack doctor put a scalpel through a patient's eye.  This pissed him off and prompted him to take lengths to ban unqualified doctors from his hospital.  The quacks came after him with lawsuits, like around 100 lawsuits. They used to have a book with all of the original court documents in the main lobby.  He won every single case.  Later when the Great Depression hit the hospital was struggling to stay open, so he put what would be the equivalent of one million dollars today of his own money into it to keep it going.  He also had fantastic taste in artists.  Unfortunately it is not known who painted it.  This painting is fascinating to me because it tends to illicit strong reactions from people, and it comes off differently to different people.  Some of the other cleaning ladies are scared of it.  In their defense he was also a strict if he caught workers talking it was automatic termination.  One floor guy Richard thinks he looks like a condescending prick.  Although it should maybe be noted Richard hates it there and views the hospital as being like the Twilight Zone.  My Dad, who has never been an employee there, thought he looked benevolent.  I fall in between if it is a slow day and I am being a lazy cleaning lady he looks majorly pissed off to me, but if I am having a hectic one break have to stay late kind of day he looks sympathetic to me.  I am sure a lot of this is in my head, but I think there are some artistic tricks here as well.  I think it is kind of like implied line where the artist doesn't fully draw things in because human brains will fill it in.  Only I think this is imprinted emotion.  Because really the doctor's face in the painting is neutral, so I think that our monkey brains imprint whatever emotional biases or whatever onto the painting. In contrast to this painting there used to be another of a different doctor with a very big smile.  That one didn't have quite the same effect because that one the expression was definite.  I think part of the mystique surrounding the Mona Lisa is due to her fairly neutral facial expression, and people imprinting onto her.

Veteran's Day

My grandpa served in WWII in the Philipines.  I guess he had three purple hearts.  I asked Mom, but she won't tell me what they were for.  I think one actually had to do with blood donation.  Grandpa was O- (as am I).  A little fuzzy on the details, but I guess they needed blood to save another soldier's life.  Grandpa said they could take what they needed from him.  They took quite a lot and almost killed granpa.  That is why I like to donate blood sometimes when I feel like I can.

Daguerreotypes

Maybe I am kind of a weird archaeologist.  The pyramids are cool and all, but I do view bread as one of world's wonders.  Just all the steps involved, it is amazing to me that someone way back when figured all that out.  No I am not going to claim that aliens really invented bread.  Learning how to make bread is on my list for things I want to learn though.  Anyways I also view Louis Daguerre's invention of the daguerreotype in the same way.  I don't think most know photographs started out as metal plates not paper.  In school they warned against the process as being too dangerous.  Mercury vapor is used to develop the image, and from what I understand many of the first photographers went insane from those vapors.  In perusing youtube though I have found some demonstrations.  One guy in Buffalo, NY appears to have a studio devoted to making them.  I am currently typing this on my phone, which has limited ability, but when I get a chance I will add a link.  I am curious what sort of safety precautions the youtubers are using, hopefully something.  In the one I watched it just showed the person's hands.  The Buffalo guy just showed a blacked out screen with an explanation of what he was doing (that vid said the vapor exposure had to happen in complete darkness.)

Rob Hay and Lessons in Being Prepared

I probably maybe should have done this a long time ago, but I went to school for a bit with Rob.  Hopefully he won't mind me talking about him.  I don't agree with him on politics, but I would rate him as one of the smartest men I have met in my life.  He was in the graduate painting program at Marywood while I was in the printmaking.  He was one of the older ones there, but it also gave him more insight than some of us.  He went through various phases in his life.  I knew him as a staid bankerish looking guy, but I guess he went through a spiked dog collar phase.  Anyways his first try at a MFA program he said he really didn't care about anything.  He knew they were coming to fail him for his candidacy review, so he waited until they were there and about to open their mouths to critique him to tell them "I dropped out this morning, get the fuck out."  He then went on to get a MA.  He obtained his MFA from Marywood. 


Anyways Rob was also a boy scout, and he took the lesson of being prepared to heart.  Just as we were about to finish up and graduate Rob was informed that the school had lost his transcripts, and he had to get them official sealed transcripts within a very limited amount of time.  Otherwise he would have to stay another semester.  Amazingly he had sealed official transcripts in the glove compartment of his truck, which was a very good thing as I don't know if he had had to request transcripts from his old schools if they would have gotten there in time.  A little lesson in being prepared.


This is a link to examples of his work.


https://www.artsy.net/artist/rob-hay

Jose Trujillo

Speaking of buying art this is my newest acquisition.  It is by Jose Trujillo.  I found him on ebay; he seems very prolific.

  He sets his auctions quite low, although expect to get into a bidding war.  I tried to get two other pieces, but was outbid.  He has 100 percent positive feedback.  He has an excellent sense of color, and he has good brushwork.  Granted I am not a painter, but his brush work is loose not tight.  This is something I struggle with sometimes.  Iwould describe looseness as being sort of an ease or confidence in the brushwork.  Being tight can lead to distortions.  Tricks to help combat this is initially start out holding the brush on its far distal end from the brush end.  Good brushes are long for a reason.  I've read Gainsborough had a 7 foot long brush for this purpose.  I've also had a professor recommend standing when drawing or painting because it inreases your range of motion.  At any rate his work is quite affordable, and I am quite sure it is a real painting (not the tricks I talked about in On buying art).  I can really smell the oil paint on it.  I would have to say that part of what fascinates me out Jose Trujillo's work is how he simplifies and breaks down his landscapes into color. 

9 In Hand Press 2018 Print Exchange

Hopefully I can keep focused and complete this one, but 9 In Hand Press has put out their call for entry for the 2018 print exchange.


http://www.9inhandpress.com/print-exchange-2018.html

On Buying Art

Awhile back I read a little article on collecting art.  I think the best point the article made was that you don't need to be super rich to collect art, and a collection is technically more than one piece.  Although then the article went into what sizes you should buy.  I also saw a Better Homes and Gardens article where they said people should be buying more modern art to bring vitality to their homes.   I guess this is all well and good.  In my mind the main rule is buy what you like, and don't worry about investment value.  After all if it is going to be hanging on your wall it should be something you enjoy.  Most of the art I buy tends to be smaller.  It accomodates my budget and small apartment.  Other thoughts on buying art.  I would be wary of buying big name artists on ebay, or there are some on etsy too.  There are a lot of knock offs out there, if you are going to spend a lot of money you should be sure.  There are a lot of fake Chagal prints out there for instance.  I doubt most could afford a Corot, but he was a bit of a trickster too.  To help out his struggling artist friends he would sign their paintings for them.  Then they could go off and sell their Corot more easily and for more money.  Unfortunately today when these paintings surface they do not retain their value.  Part of why I like to buy from living artists.  I will not lie when I heard that an artist I bought from had a Milwaukee PBS special done on them I was pretty happy.  In my mind that is more rewarding than spending a lot of money on a fake big name.  Although that said living artists can be tricksters too.  I have heard of artists at fairs faking their painting ability by having photos printed on canvas, and then painting over with clear varnishes to make it look painting.  This in my mind could also cross over to less realistic art.  Many artists sell giclee prints, or printed canvas reproductions of their work.  This is all well and good but they should be upfront about it.  I could see someone doing brush work on a canvas reproduction and selling it as original.  A lot of the printed canvas ones I have seen have a plastic quality to them.

Tattoos

I've been thinking about this a bit lately.  At the opening for the Banned exhibit the thing that really struck me was that pretty much all of the attendees were older; I think maybe I saw one younger guy.  It bothered me at first, but I've thought on it some more.  I said in a previous post that I thought Contemporary art was more about experience than ownership.  I think tattoos are a perfect example of this.  I don't think that interest in art has really faded, more that it has shifted.  I looked a bit online for articles about tattooing and art.  Most were a debate about is it an art, or looking at the cultural history.  I guess I am more interested in the commercial aspect of all this.  What I mean is that a lot of the time people buy art not only for the enjoyment of it, but also as an investment.  A guy I went to grad school with said he had had people who had purchased work from him get in his face.  They wanted to know what he was up to, and why he was not exhibiting.  His work was more of an investment to them.  I have had this a little bit too.  The thing that is of interest to me about tattoos is that people pay to have them done, but there is no potential for reselling them.  They are from an investment point of view valueless.  So maybe tattoo culture is a little bit purer art appreciation.

Yeah Autozone!

Thoughts on Guns

I have schizophrenia and I do not own a gun.  I am more than happy to give up my rights to own one.  I know what really bad is like for me, and I am very glad that I did not have access to a gun then.  I don't think people always appreciate the anger level that can happen with this disease.  Most people have a hard time with comprehending that when I am really bad I hear them constantly.  No privacy no matter what I am doing.  As angry as I was though I never took it out on another human being.  I broke things, and I took it out on myself.  Really the main part of why I don't own a gun is because I would probably use it on myself.  I have had a Republican guy (mom would term him a shooter) at work argue with me about this, which I do not understand.  He says I seem normal, and tells me my experience was not that bad.  Inspite of me showing him the scars on my arm.  He was also not around me when I was fully unmedicated.  I don't get why you would push guns on people like me.
 
       That guy my Mom would classify as shooter.  Mom says there are two types of gun people.  Hunters and shooters.  Hunters understand that guns are tools used to kill.  They use these tools to feed their families, and they don't need assault weapons or machine guns to do it.  Those would only ruin the meat.  Mom's idea of a good hunter was grandpa.  She said she was always amazed because she would examine the deer he brought back.  Every single one only had one shot in them through the heart.  My Grandpa and great uncles had the policy of only shoot if you are one hundred percent sure you can make the shot.  A good hunter does not allow an animal to suffer. Shooters on the other hand are more childlike, they view guns as toys.  Most shooters I know tend to look down on hunters because they kill things.  My Mom has the opposite view of the shooters; hunters are to be respected and shooters should be reviled.  After all the Sandy Hook guy was a shooter prior to his rampage, not a hunter.

I've been looking around on ebay at art.  Kind of the interesting thing to me is that it seems like maybe landscape art does way better than nudes.  Although a lot of the nudes were bad.  I don't think I saw any bids on the nudes actually.  Also saw quite a few gay oriented pieces, actually most of the male nudes did have "gay interest" as a descripter.  Nothing wrong with the gay part, but they should really do a better job on the art.  Someone should introduce them to Mapplethorpe and composition.         Figure drawing is such a maligned thing.  As professor Joel told us humans are at once attracted and repelled by the human body.  I love it though.  I have gotten some nasty reactions.  One guy imagined a porno shoot.  I also know a female artist whose husband will not allow her to work off of male models.  For me that would be the end of the relationship.  I don't think most people realize that female artists in the past were not permitted to work off of live models.  That is for sure on male models, but I also seem to recall hearing they couldn't even work off other women.  Actually even viewing female nudes.  The cliche of the artist drawing back the curtains on their work has it's origins in curtains that would be placed on nudes to hide them from the women and children.  Goya's paintings of the nude maja and clothed maja sort of ran along those lines.  Originally the nude maja hung behind the painting of the clothed maja.  The clothed maja painting was attached to a pulley system that with the flip of a switch would move that painting away to reveal the nude.  That situation had more to do with hiding the nude from the Spanish Inquisition.  Unfortunately the Inquisition did find it, and Goya had to go before them for it.                                            Due to work I have not been able to go to figure drawing sessions like I used to.  What strikes me when I have is how predominatly male the artists are.  One time the guy who organizes it was stoked because there were two female artists who showed up to draw.