Tuesday, 30 May 2006 - 12:27 PM EDT

Hits me like "Garden of Earthly Delights" meets "Where the Wild Things Are". Cool.

Tuesday, 30 May 2006 - 2:41 PM EDT

Groan. Yes, everyone makes the connection to Heironymus Bosh. So I am taking pains to make my next painting so hidious that people will be shocked into silence. You do know that I wanted the little fellows in the orange tree grove hanging from trees with their necks broken and choaking and drowning one another. It doesn't pay going against instint. My next painting I'm following my heart. There is a decapitated body in it.

Tuesday, 30 May 2006 - 11:17 PM EDT

You do realize that comparisons to Bosch are compliments, right?

Wednesday, 31 May 2006 - 9:32 AM EDT

(laughter)

See, the thing is, when I think of the Bosh pictures I have poured over in books, I know for a fact, that he is not only more creatively talented than I, but that because he was not mentally ill (at least not with my illness) he was able to hone his illustrative skills. I see a parallel with Bosh and Salvador Dali. Both artists were trying to communicate dreamlike sequences, and both suceeded because they are master illustrators of realistic space and detail. I know how hard Dali practiced in the Louve copying the masters when he was a young man. I don't have the ability to get that kind of education, wether it is at an art school or as an autodidactic. I would also say that Bosh's creative innovation of morphing human bodies with animal features and inventing places and mechanical things that did not yet exist was a bit stronger than Dali's new distortions of space and object, but that's my personal opinion. Dali had the benefit of Bosh as a predecsor, as well as his contemporary friends and artists all discussing the new dada or surrealistic art movement. Bosh had religious immagry before his time to reference, but he was in my view a more isolated (in time and culture) artist than Dali.

So, when someone compares me to Bosh a little voice inside my head says, "yes. But I'm no where as good as he. I'm a poor cousin twice removed."

Wednesday, 31 May 2006 - 9:34 AM EDT

I mean Bosch. I hope you can spell right.