Although, Andy, you’re not the only one – I too have been asked to design an album cover… Although my brief was much more terrifying, consisting of a photo and the directions to “create what the album creates in your mind…”

After much procrastination I gave the band this…

As my payment for the “painfully gnarly” design I was made an inaugural Death Ray Ballerina.

Ah the joys of an open brief.

A beautiful exit to a talented and giving soul. Thank you for your contribution to the world Sir Howard, your life has made it a better place, and you have helped New Zealanders search for a united cultural identity immeasurably. Thank you, and goodbye, you will not be forgotten by this Jaffa.

For those of you who don’t know much about him, here is his bio…
And for your listening pleasure… How Great Tho Art by Howie (There is an astounding live version of this song where he sings it to the Queen, but as I can’t find it on YouTube, I imagine it’s tied up in the archives of TVNZ.)

Some good links can be obtained from The Dominion Post

Lets take a look at some of the brands that have stuck with us through thick and thin something to celebrate this year…  Air Korea is celebrating its 40th, MINI celebrates it’s 50th (with a new coupe no less), Marks & Spencer is 125 years old and Sainsbury’s is 140! Oh, and closer to home, St Pierre’s is 25.. I love the way marketing trends trickle down into our local brands.

What exactly is a 140-year anniversary anyway?
A quadecimus-centennial?

Good on Dave Dye for blogging about ‘the importance’ of a well-established brand in economic times like these. (read it) You’ve made my recession so much easier to bare more amusing.

So what about the newer companies? Do they get to celebrate? Or are these duodecimus and quart-centennial celebratory campaigns the supernovas of our baby-booming fore-bearers contribution to the worlds economy? The last bastion of their capitalist ideology, before they drown in their own economic quagmire…  I need a long cool glass of Milk.

* * FIGURE OUT YOUR CELEBRATORY ORDINALS HERE !! * *

To begin, let me explain myself… After a long day of figuring out what looks good on the screen, experimenting with layers and layout and Ctrl+Z(ing) my way out of unsatisfactory decisions, I often find myself in my studio destroying unfinished paintings by approaching my work with too much uncontrolled zeal (and not in a good way) as somehow my brain has programmed itself into thinking I can undo anything I don’t like.

It will be interesting to see how this modern phenomenon (if indeed it is one) effects the development of the finer arts over time in a wider historical sense.

The idealistic dreams of life-time sponsorship as an artist are long gone for me. Many ex art students, such as myself, find themselves working in advertising and design industries to maintain the lifestyle they envisaged for themselves at art school. I imagine it is common now for creative pondering minds to find themselves working in Creative Suite 5-12 hours a day, making repeated aesthetic decisions and rejecting them, able to Ctrl+Z their way back to an earlier development. This repetition surely creates a strong pattern in our cognitive processes. So it makes sense that when the same set of aesthetic decision making skills are reactivated, using more traditional permanent mediums, that subconsciously our approach is significantly more brazen due the freedom of experimentation we have when using Ctrl+Z.

Am I the only one who has noticed this when painting? Are we partaking in an involuntary renaissance of some sort? Is it possible that Photoshop is circumventing paint on canvas from a slower, more  intellectual progression, to one that has us mentally somersaulting ideas and whims onto canvas, in the same way we paint-bucket a background in Photoshop with an inappropriate colour, or fiddle with our filters on our layers ‘just to see’ if anything extraordinary evolves from it..?

Quick drying mediums have always suited me, but now I’m considering moving back to oils in an attempt to force my mind away from this Ctrl-Z jam. I feel as if i’m estranged from my closest from of expression, and I have to choose to either relax into it and let myself butcher works, or restrain my curiosity when engrossed in paint with forced determination, and reteach myself the art of painting as if I was learning to cook mathematics… Something I’d really rather avoid..

“The Ctrl-Z Aimee period” Is my own personal investigation into the wider Photoshop Renaissance. I have named it in accordance to the hurricane system. (ie. Ctrl-Z Bernard.) as it will have several contributors over time. I plan to readdress this topic, so any discussion on the subject would be appreciated. I might even interview some other painters, get their perspective.

To Be Continued…

The bathroom lines at the already crowded space shuttle and space station complex have got a lot longer, because of a flooded toilet.

One of two commodes aboard the international space station malfunctioned, right in the middle of complicated robotic work being conducted by the two crews. The pump separator apparently flooded.

Mission Control advised the astronauts to hang an “out of service” sign on the toilet until it could be fixed. In the meantime, the six space station residents had to get in line to use their one good toilet. And Endeavour’s seven astronauts were restricted to the shuttle bathroom.

There have never been so many people – 13 – together in space. The toilet repair work fell to Belgian Frank De Winne, who had to don goggles, gloves and a mask.