Unresolved Resolutions

In spite of the BCS Championship having been completely resolved by Alabama’s destruction of Notre Dame, there are a whole flock of resolutions still hanging around and television not to be ignored has made it its mission to exploit every single one of them.

It appears, okay I am not the target of this particular promotion nor am I likely to be swayed by any television flack job so this went right over my head, but it must have struck a chord with someone cause there are at least five different versions of the pitch floating around right now, that the only resolution women make in any given year is to lose enough weight to get back in their favorite bikini.

Well, I like bikinis. You know I approve of nekkid women and bikinis are the closest thing to nekkid you can do and not get arrested and in some places they will arrest you anyway, but we’ll pass right over Kansas and deal with this add, so getting into a bikini has a lot of appeal for me, but I not clear on whether this is the single most important goal of women everywhere or just he ones who get hired for television advertising.

Now they do seem to have something in common these bikini focused ladies, they smile like they just died and rigor has set in, they beam like they had just won the Nobel prize and they stand with their ankles crossed.

Smiling is nice and more people should do it but I can’t be positive that wearing a bikini would make me smile like that. In fact in this area it would probably make my teeth chatter cause it is to cold to be on any beach without a wet suit.

Beaming is best left up to Scotty. I could manage a shy turn of the lip if I won one of the large Power Ball jackpots, but beam? That is only for television resolution makers and models on Wheel.

Crossing ankles is a wonderful posing trick which makes the leg look extremely long and slender as well as gracefully curved and attractive but it is a trick rather like all of the flexing the body builders do when they are pumping up their lats or quads to get the attention of the Judges. Most people have never crossed their ankles while standing in their entire lives.

And none of this clarifies the basic issue, is getting into a bikini the secret passion of every red, white and blue blooded American girl?

New moms want their bodies back and if I had been turned into an incubator for nine months to struggle like Hercules for twenty plus hours to generate one more life on this ole planet I’d want at least getting my body back if not a Purple Heart or a new Lexus.

Television spokes models, isn’t that just a horrible term? Like the reedy clothes hangers ever talked anyway. They pose and point and priss on every game show, celebrity expose and most morning “news” shows but do they every talk? Not so much as a single article or contraction. They might reveal just how ill-equipped to speak they are.

I was pretty sure that even a few years ago getting into a bikini was limited to Playboy Bunnies and California girls so maybe the they’ve spread the Gospel and now mid-westerners want bikini bodies too, but I’m thinking that a John Deere don’t need no stinkin’ bikini model on its tractors.

Bigfoot, no the super truck not the hairy guy who isn’t Ashton Kutcher, don’t need nekkid girls either.

So where did the television admen get their idea that bikinis are the only thing the American woman need to be complete?

But more important to the artist and the whole point of this is are you making resolutions with substance or are you trying to get into a bikini?

There is so little time in any given year that you cannot waste even a single moment of it trying to get into a bikini when what you need to be doing is working on your foundations.

Have you taken a look at the Ken Means show at the Coos Art Museum? The cravings are beyond fantastic and sculpture of the very first order. No shame on anything in this show. The only reason they didn’t make it into the Uffizi Gallery is they are in Coos bay and not Milano.

But underlying the masterful carving is he draftsmanship in the cartoons used to make the cuts and the roughs which become the sculptures. That’s drawing 101. You cannot make such beautiful sculpture without a solid grounding in drawing.

So you do plants and trees. Have you studied their anatomy? They have it you know and that is where the artists get separated from the posers. The draftsmanship behind the painting is what makes a flower leap off the sheet or that landscape so real you want to take off your shoes and dangle feet in the stream and run barefoot through the carpet of leaves. Drawing.

Maybe like me you appreciate the incredible engineering of the human female and all of those wonderful buttresses and support beams and marvel at the artistry of the two piece sun/bathing suit which not only attracts the eye but lends subtle underpinning to what Nature created.

But have you spent enough time practicing the drawing of this natural masterpiece? You cannot match your work to Nature’s if you aren’t willing to work hard enough to build a solid foundation for all of that creative imaging.

Even the finny friends that swim in our oceans and streams needs dedicated craft to render correctly. Do your fish look like they could be cooked or are they the cone with the x in the back that you made in the third grade?

Make your New Year start right, resolve to find something in your skill set which needs work and then work n it so that before the month ends you have a better grasp of the basic tool of the artist and better skills to sue in the upcoming year.