
Frustrated with some ongoing YouTube shenanigans, I sat down and made a bunch of digital art last night. Messy, abstract expression-inspired digital art. This is the kind of art I make when Iām mad as hell and need to chill it with a skillet.
As a kid, I would alternate between coloring inside the lines on one page of my coloring book and outside the lines on the next.
This amused my dad and frustrated my mom.
Dad was a freethinking, independent type. Mom was a conventional, follow-the-rules type. And me, their only kid, ended up a motley mix of them bothāboth in personality and temperament. Twoāmaybe threeāparts dad, one part mom.
āRebels,ā Mom would call us when she was tired of our mess.
āHELL YEAH!ā Dad and I would shout in unisonā¦then quickly pipe down.
We both loved her and her square ways too much to piss her off (for long).
Dad was a man of few words. He was a deep thinker and a restless tinkerer. He always kept his hands busyāfixing things, building from scratch, or flipping through his latest sci-fi novel. While he never considered himself artistic or creative, I always thought he was both. He taught me that itās a good ideaāespecially when youāre pissed offāto keep your hands moving and make something.
Last night, YouTube was the chaos. Between the gamified algorithm limiting views and some religious zealots spamming Bible verses in the comments, I was fed up with the platformās noise and nonsense.
Thatās when Dadās philosophy kicked in: When it feels like the world is boxing you in, break out your tools and make something new. So, thatās exactly what I didāI pulled out my trusty iPad and made some messy, abstract, digital art that breaks the rules, ignores the lines, and lets me yell āHELL YEAH!ā from the inside out.
As I layered on colors, āpaint,ā and textures, it reminded me of my childhoodāhalf coloring inside the lines, half coloring outside the lines.
Only now, Iāve fully embraced both sides. And the colors are digital.
Thereās freedom in making something that doesnāt fit neatly into a box, that doesnāt have to be advertiser-, algorithm- or family-friendly.
The digital work aboveāThrowing (Momās) Spaghetti At The Wallāis a tribute to my dadās quiet rebellion, my momās colorful cuisine, and my own own personal creativity.
Itās the kind of art I make when Iām not interested in following anyoneās rules. And, like it or not, life is messy. So might as well rebel, break a few rules, and yell āHELL YEAH!ā
When the world says color inside the lines, sometimes the only ārightā response is to grab a bigger brush and throw more paint or pixels at the canvas.
Hereās to shaking off the frustration and creating through the noise and nonsense.
Thanks for reading and subscribing,
Clint
FOUND PHOTOS OF THE DAY
ON THIS DAY = OCTOBER 3
BIRTHDAYS
1856 = Timothy Thomas Fortune = American journalist and publisher
1900 = Thomas Wolfe = American novelist
1915 = Ray Stark, American film producer
1925 = Gore Vidal = American novelist, screenwriter, and critic š
1941 = Chubby Checker = American singer-songwriter
1954 = Stevie Ray Vaughan = American singer-songwriter
1959 = Jack Wagner = American actor and singer
1962 = Tommy Lee = Greek-American singer-songwriter
1964 = Clive Owen = English actor
1969 = Gwen Stefani, American singer-songwriter, actor, and fashion designer
1973 = Neve Campbell = Canadian actor
1975 = India Arie = American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
1976 = Seann William Scott = American actor and producer
1978 = Jake Shears = American singer-songwriter š
EVENTS
1789 = POTUS George Washington proclaims Thursday November 26, 1789, a Thanksgiving Day.
1863 = The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by POTUS Abraham Lincoln.
1922 = First facsimile photo sent over city telephone lines, Washington, D.C.
1949 = WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta, Georgia.
1957 = The California State Superior Court rules that the Allen Ginsbergās Howl and Other Poems is not obscene.
1961 = The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) announces a revision of its production code: āIn keeping with the culture, the mores and the values of our time,ā the revision advises, āhomosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion and restraint.ā The new ruling paves the way for the release of films like The Childrenās Hour and Advise and Consent, but the MPPDA later amends the revision to specify that āsexual aberrationā may be āsuggested but not actually spelled out.ā
1961 = The Dick Van Dyke Show premieres on CBS.
1973 = NYC health administrator Howard J. Brown comes out publicly.
1980 = Congressman and founding member of the American Conservative Union, Robert Bauman, is arrested in Washington, D.C., for soliciting sex from a 16yo boy.
1983 = The AFL-CIO labor union votes to support gay rights legislation.
1990 = The German Democratic Republic is abolished and becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany; the event is celebrated as German Unity Day.
1992 = SinƩad O'Connor rips up a picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL.
1995 = O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
2004 = Desperate Housewives premieres on ABC.
2007 = Pushing Daisies premieres on ABC.
NEW + FEATURED
MORE FROM COLLIDE PRESS
Bluesky + Ko-Fi + Linktree + Shop
+ Storefront + Threadless + YouTube
As you posted, you are more like dad than mom. Don't care much for "modern art". Dad sounds like fun. I like colors inside the lines. Was surprised the AFLCIO voted in favor of Gay rights legislation.