Imagining the end of the universe is such a fun and guiltless exercise.  It’s an event that cannot really be taken seriously and inherently seems so unlikely that it can be readily laughed at, lightheartedly talked about and then effortlessly dismissed from our minds.  And if it does happen no one would be left to point out what a jerk you were for making fun of the idea.

How it will all end is a fun question to daydream about.  Why it would end at all is an intriguing question for so many good reasons.  Yet the one we collectively seem to focus on is When will it end.  I think this is because it turns this moderately terrible, overwhelmingly profound event into a practical matter of scheduling and time management.  How would our lives change, how would our whole world change, if THE END really were scheduled for December 12th, 2012, reservation confirmed for 7.1 billion?  If we knew for absolute certain there was no hope of any single person dodging this ultimate and sudden conclusion to all things, how drastically and dramatically would we abandon all of our routines, responsibilities and commitments?  What would suddenly become truly important to each of us, and to all of us as a single race facing total extinction all at once?  Wait, what would the Dinosaurs do?

Naturally many might turn to the romantic notion of the old Bucket List.  Time to get to work on that collection of unlikely adventures before there isn’t a planet left to have them on.  Apparently people who find out they, for certain, only have a short time left to live go in for this sort of thing and why not?  However, there is a little problem with this concept in this particular scenario.

Say on your to do list is to take a scenic airplane ride over the Swiss Alps.  Problem is, all of the pilots who’ve been taking annoying tourists on those plane rides for decades have their own list, and they want to go on a submarine ride deep into the Atlantic ocean.  Do you think those sailors really want to spend their last days cruising around in a boat with no windows filled stale smelling air while some commercial swiss pilot asks what this button does?  You start to see the problem, we would mostly come up with ideas that would rely on other people to be doing their jobs in some fashion, even if for basic needs such as continuing to make and deliver fuel for the airplanes, submarines, buses and taxi cabs.  If you’ve kept your bucket list modest, say all you want to do is successfully Tazer the neighborhood kid who once keyed your car, well then things might all work out for you.  If you want to climb Mt. Everest you have to get there and find someone who knows the way up who actually feels like doing it again instead of finding their way to a nice beach in the Bahamas where they can drink rum and smoke pot instead of putting up with your desire to get yourself killed ahead of schedule.

The world wouldn’t shut down exactly, but it certainly wouldn’t just keep rolling along as it does now either.  It would undoubtedly be the absolute best time in human history to be a teenager.  I think it would also be the perfect time to be 80+ as you could then head into the end knowing you’re not going to miss out on anything.  If debris from a Russian satellite were to fall on my head tomorrow one thing I would really lament is never knowing if humanity ever figures out a way to get off this planet and explore the galaxy.  Whether or not we will ever make contact with intelligent life from another planet.  Just think about everything I would not have known we were capable of, or understood about the world and the universe around us if I had died in the 17th century.  I would check out wondering  what amazing developments the coming centuries will bring that I won’t get to see because my face provided a nice soft landing spot for some failed piece of Soviet space garbage.  But, if I already knew this world was scheduled to go out of business later this year I could go a bit more peacefully into oblivion because I would know the answers to those questions.  Will we ever travel through space and time to explore the farthest reaches of the cosmos?  Nope.  Will we meet cool aliens and hang out in their space pub that orbits a black hole?  Sadly, no.

Overall, what sort of new yet temporary world would we trend towards?  Chaos and violence and destruction?  Or calm through acceptance of the inevitable, and of the realization that there is nothing left to gain that is worth gaining when it will all be gone so very soon?  What do you pursue, embrace and throw yourself into when you know whatever you learn, gain or experience will not last, stay with you or outlive you?  What happens when those most dire consequences of breaking society’s laws become a considerably less effective deterrent?  Put me in jail?  Why would the guards spend their last days guarding me?  Execute me?  If I’ve already pulled off whatever it was I had some unholy desire to do then what do I care if I perish a few months before the judge, jury and executioner?  Would it all crumble and fall apart, break down and savagely tear itself apart?

We’ll never know I guess because, fortunately or unfortunately, our calendars are still clear of any appointments with Armageddon.  Oh sure the Mayans might yet have been on to something.  Give me some of what their elders were smoking and I might buy it too.  But until a huge meteor is bearing down on us or the Sun goes out like a cheap Bic lighter we’re not all going to believe the end is near all at once, altogether now, the great last call is here and tell the lovely lady with the bodacious curves to warm up her sweet singing voice.  But it is fun to think about.

-Josh

  “The Room 740 Studio” – Digital Illustration created in Photoshop CS3 This is what I want for Christmas.  Every single year.  A place worthy of every mad thought of world domination that routinely occupies the forefront of my thoughts.  Not that I have a solid plan for how I would go about such a [Continue Reading...]

Finished (99% anyway).

And so another journey through oil paint and turpentine yields a questionably memorable illustration.  As you may not recall, when I started this painting I did not, for once, plan out each trivial detail before I started slapping paint all over the place.  I tried to just let the painting develop as the ideas came floating in, inspired by whatever it was that was going on that day, evening or weekend.  That is definitely the advantage of this approach.  Planning it out in the beginning pretty well locks the painting into whatever ideas I had at that specific time.

Of course taking this approach has its disadvantages, as I cannot simply keep painting layer over layer without impacting the quality of the painting itself.  Between this version and the one posted here previously the guy on the bench was sporting the vague shape of a rather unfashionable hat, but now is going lidless.  Though it cannot be seen in the photo here, there is a sort of ridge that outlines where that hat was as a texture in what should be a flat sky background.  There shouldn’t be any shadows or textures that clash with the image being presented, but it is a small blemish and something that would probably go unnoticed by everyone but someone with entirely too much time to sit and stare at every brush stroke on a particular piece of art.

Detail of the roses on the bench "bleeding out".

The real risk is that each time a new element is added in it means there is a little less freedom available to change what the painting is going to be.

In the beginning there was a tree.  There could be anything under that tree so it made a good start.  Then I indicated it was on a hill, which was the near side of a small valley.  The idea that occurred to me then was to have the valley filled up with broken, old-fashioned television sets.  The death of old media?  I ended up abandoning that idea because while it was interesting, I couldn’t really say what it meant, and I couldn’t think of how to make a complete picture out of it.  I did however start blocking out a pile of Something in the valley, so that is where the rocks ended up coming into the painting.  Not exactly planned, but luckily worked out well enough, and so it goes.

Then there was the Bench and the Dude.  What was he doing there?  Was this to be some kind of medieval bus stop?  It did make sense that he was waiting for something, or someone.  I had painted his arm up on the back of the bench without really even thinking about it, but had never really had any intention of placing another person into the scene.  Longing for companionship?  Lamenting the loss of a friend, lover, or squash partner?  Just relaxing on a bench out in some park does not make for a very interesting painting, so I was in need of something strange, unique or odd to provide something that would draw the viewer’s attention and intrigue them enough to keep studying the image.  Nothing like spilling a little blood to raise the interest of a casual observer, though in this case it was an idea to spill rose petals that turn into rose red rivulets to signify something meaningful slowly draining away that clicked into place.

From there the additional elements of a letter with ink running off the page, a clock with the numbers sequenced backwards and a sidewalk that seems to come from somewhere and then abruptly end at this spot tied together an image that ends up feeling rather sad, though not entirely depressing.  As though it is ultimately a case of an opportunity lost, but not necessarily the end of all things.

And it all began with a tree.  Actually it began with some boredom and access to paint and brushes, but you get the idea.  I just need to trust my abilities a little more and just let it happen…

-Josh