August 24th, 2006 by admin
fumigation - painting no accident

Experimental Fields - digital painting / art prints - DB - 2005
I played image roulette today to come across this piece and therefore feature it. But like I always say nothing is by accident.
Actually, I had been thinking about blogging about this again because I just received notice that there will be methyl bromide fumigation near my house sometime soon.
The scene above is actually accurate with workers working right next to the danger sign. Most of the fumigant is released the first day, but nevertheless a scary scene.
I had a terrible reaction last year - though not corroborated by doctors or agriculture commission - process of elimination says it was the methyl bromide.
Like an antibiotic - it is a complete sterilizer for the fields.
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Relevant Tags:accident, Art Prints, digital painting, fumigation, methyl bromide, painting
October 24th, 2005 by admin
Art from Concept

Above is an image of a very recent work entitled "Experimental Fields". It came about in a slightly different way. I was creating a piece which I was in the middle of and felt the urge to put plastic over a section of the fields.
Plastic has been all around me these days. It is used to cover strawberry fields in the making and then methyl bromide is pumped into the soil as a fumigant. Methyl Bromide has been banned for its ozone depleting qualities but the timeline keeps getting extended. Unfortunately, it also has health depleting qualities as well.
There is lots of documentation, but safe levels aren’t clear; and I personally suffered a great deal of dizziness (enough that I thought I needed a hospital) that I have become convinced was caused by exposure from having ruled everything else out.
It is never my intention to directly copy any other artist; that is just the way I work. However, I do see other artists in my own work. I find the same thing to be the case in music and certainly others might see influences which I was unaware.
In looking at the first piece, I was reminded oddly of Henri Rousseau, not because of style, but the way he would have animals hidden in the fields.
From the aspect of creating from a concept, I am naturally drawn to Christo and his huge installations - particularly given the plastic theme.
There are countless others who create from a concept. In fact, I think one would be hard pressed to find art that doen’t draw on a concept to some degree. Representation by its nature is conceptual - but then again, I arrived at the piece above in a way that was different from the normal way I work.
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Relevant Tags:art, conceptual art, create art, methyl bromide, new art