Did five whip outs this morning before I went into work. Chalk it up to my lunatic role model and his insane influence.
Van Gogh Gunfighters and the two massive bios that spawned them
One of my goals this year is to produce a series of gunfighters, in what I have come to call The Stud Stance.
Daily Whip Out: "Stud Stance Study, No. 1"
I have long experimented with narrative boxes with varied degrees of success. Most are belabored and overwrought, but somehow, some way I want to capture the un-regimented, organic version of this study:
Daily Whip Out, "Organic Comic Strip Narrative, No. 1"
One of the few authenticated photographs of Doc Holliday in Arizona was taken in Prescott in 1879.
Doc Holliday in Prescott, 1879
Some people see glasses on his nose. I am one of them.
Daily Whip Out: "Doc In Glasses"
No matter what he wore, he had a one-way ticket to the worm condo.
Daily Whip Out: "Doc In Decline"
Grabbed another "unfinished" painting out of the Daily Whip Out pile and gave it another go:
Daily Whip Out: "The Lonely Sheepherder"
And last but not least, a purple study, also on its way to the Daily Whip Out file, and I just had to give it a quick wash:
Daily Whip Out: "Riders of The Purple Sage"
I realize this is pretty manic behavior, but to my mind, I am in good company. Vincent van Gogh was considered a raving mad man (see quote below), but, to me, he was crazy like a fox and besides, he is from my tribe: Beethoven, Goya, Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Jonathon Winters and many other artists were lunatics—like me. So, I aspire to a certain level of commitment which is often perceived by the larger culture as "crazy." As Rainer Metzger points out, "Society, for its part, cannot conceive that life beyond its orderly regimen might be worth living."
Amen, brother.
". . .society dictated that he would play the part which, in a sense, he was made for. Van Gogh was now a lunatic."
—Rainer Metzger, in "Van Gogh The Complete Paintings" writing about the events after Vincent cut off his ear lobe (and not his entire ear, by the way)