adbuster buster

Cynicism is a useless waste of time - which may be why my more recent painting ideas have been a bit more whimsical in nature. You may remember my Thomas Kinkade ripoff painting (dubbed "the Sincade painting" by my Maple Ridge friends), which blasted the poor, happy little painter for only ever painting in "the key of glowing cottage". I attempted to counter this by subtly painting into the piece four demons, some fire, a grisly murder and a bloody hand print.

A fair bit of my work has been just like that: pointing a finger at some obvious (yet overlooked) problem and yelling, "Look! A problem!" This is well and good and, I think, useful. But the willful ignorance of evil has it's equally dismal flipside - the willful ignorance of good. There is a lot of beauty and truth and niceness out there. People give hugs, return lost wallets and give qualified help for free to those who can't afford it.

In light of that smiling point, this is the problem I have with magazines like "Adbusters": while they're useful and necessary and probably point to solutions by implication, they spend pretty much all their time whining and pointing and cynicizing. Down with evil corporations and unchecked consumerism and entertainmentcentricity - yes! But also, up with people! Up with sunshine and rain and hugs and up with babies and kisses and hope!

I don't know, maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part - maybe I just want it to be true because I've gone and half-made a kid that is almost born and I cannot stomach an utterly doom-and-gloom worldview because of it. But I think not.