My Sacrifice for the Mayan Gods - Watch the Fire Burn

I wouldn't describe this act as a pagan ritual, but out of respect for and in honor of the end of the Mayan Calendar Cycle tomorrow, December 21, 2012 [which some believe to be our imminent apocalypse or (end of days)], I made a sacrifice for the Mayan Gods.

Should mankind live on after tomorrow, I hope my gift to the higher powers will bring us good fortune, peace, and good health.

Watch the fire burn, and on Saturday, hopefully we can all dance together. Oh, and by the way, the sirens were indeed kinda eerie...

Painting Is Alive

Untitled, 30" x 55", oil on canvas, 2011.

For over 50 years some critics have said that painting is dead. But painting is probably the most difficult of all forms of art -- it is a person's soul depicted in a single frame. The entire body of work can be dismissed with a single glance. As more and more people desire to be artists, more and more mediocre paintings dilute the field. Some of these people realize they are not painters, so they dabble in new media, such as video art, a nascent medium yet to develop a list of masters. Painting, on the other hand, has its list, quite an extensive one from over the centuries, thus establishing the highest level of artistic standards. Pablo Picasso, on his deathbed in 1973, said, "Painting remains to be invented." Painting is not dead. It just takes someone like Picasso to show people that painting is still alive!