A New Year for More Desert Paintings

Well, heck! Here it is, ten days into the new year, and I haven't had time to write anything yet!

So -- HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYBODY!!!

OK -- so what's in store for 2012?

It appears I won't be teaching microbiology or anything else biology this spring, and I never teach during the summer. Maybe next fall. I'll be looking for other teaching positions at other community colleges, but I doubt I would teach this semester no matter who hires me (if anybody). But I'll try.

Meanwhile, I seem to have gotten over the funk I was going through last year -- I'm starting to do art again, with the idea of selling it. So far, I have only one venue: the Crystal Fantasy, a kind of an Enlightenment/crystals/fairies gift shop with gallery space. They've sold a couple of my paintings within the last few weeks; more fun: I even sold a large piece off of my Website!

So I'll continue to make artwork that Crystal Fantasy may be able to sell to tourists and locals alike, and otherwise I'll be optimizing my Website (which, by the way, is http://www.southwestspaces.com/ or http://www.markjunge.com/) so I can hopefully sell more from it. No more art shows, no other galleries (unless they want to buy the works outright -- no more consignment stuff) -- just Internet sales.

At the same time, I'm not blind to the concept of how hard Website sales-only is going to be. But the costs will be minimal. I'd like to have postcards printed up with an image, my name and logo, and the two URLs mentioned above. Then I'd send these to frame shops (or any other place where potential art customers might come to) with an incentive offer: I'd pay the shops for any clients who see the postcard and buy a painting from me as a result of the shop's cooperation. It sounds workable, and I'd get an image and name out in areas where people never heard of Mark Junge, desert paintings, before.

Finally, I still plan on writing an illustrated book about the end-of-the-year holidays.

We'll see how 2012 works out. Meanwhile, this is the painting I sold off of my Website. Happy New Year!!!

I Don't Watch Sports on TV: Reason #1

I don't watch sports on TV. Not very often, anyway.

I've never been that excited about sports -- watching it OR doing it myself. I can think of 100 things I'd rather do than watch sports.

Still, I'll break the pattern once in a great while. Today was one example: we watched the Belmont Stakes. At least we like horses, so sometimes we'll watch horse-related sports.

But I was reminded of some reasons why I don't like television sports. The number one reason: the INANE and CONSTANT chatter!

When was the last time you heard anything intelligent spoken during a sports broadcast?

Commentator to losing team member: What happened today?

Team member: Well, the other team had a really strong offense, they were really on their game, they had some good moves; our team's defense was weak and had a few holes in our plays, but we'll come back even stronger and get 'em NEXT time.

Isn't all of that obvious? Didn't the winners simply play better than the losers, assuming the teams were evenly matched in the first place? What ELSE could the team spokesperson say to explain their loss? In which case, why bother interviewing the guy/gal in the first place?

Back to the Belmont: lots of interviews, lots of utterly forgettable comments made. Constant chatter. Do viewers really like this stuff? If so, why? Does drinking more beer make it all go down better? If viewers actually attended the race (or other event), they wouldn't hear the chatter then. Why bore us with it in the comfort of our homes?

And the Belmont Stakes at least a two-hour broadcast! Two-three minutes of racing, preceeded and followed by interviews and mindless blah-blah.

I realize a program like this probably can't function by airing only the race itself. OK, so maybe the trumpet fanfare, the race itself and the awarding of the trophy. Half an hour. If necessary, raise the advertising rates to make sure costs can be recovered in 1/2 hour. On TV, I've seen rooms decorated and paintings completed in that amount of time.

By the way, Summer Bird won. And I'm done watching TV sports for a long time.

Anti-Art

I may have to give up television forever! Not so much because the programming is so stupid (although that's part of it, too), but because of the commercials!! Maybe it's because we live in a somewhat rural area, but it seems like there are a handful of commercials that are broadcast over and over and over...ad infinitum, ad nauseum. During the morning news programs, a certain commercial (Commercial A) will air, then a different one, then Commercial A is run again!! EVERY morning!!!

And some gal thinks we just gotta put Mercury (cars) on our list? NO!!! I don't gotta do NUTHIN! I'd rather make that female DRINK mercury!

Around here, we hear these commercials to death!! And to think--we have a limited, 'tho' large, number of brain cells. I hate the idea of them being used up and wasted on storing commercial jingles and copy! I still remember toothpaste commercials from my early childhood:

Brush-a, brush-a, brush-a
With the new Ipana,
Brush-a, brush-a, brush-a,
Ipana for your tee-eeth.

I even remember the tune this was sung to!!

What a waste of what might have been artistic genius. This is anti-art. And a depressing commentary of how we are exposed to sonic noise from birth to death--and end up being forced to remember it forever.