Tag: Politics

Random Stuff

Took a break mid-painting. Rallied myself, getting back to it, back to life.

If one doesn’t agree with something about a company, chain store, product or social media platform anything short of not interacting with it is meaningless. If you hate watch a show, the network doesn’t care about motive for watching, they just go by the count of eyeballs on it. For a platform it is the same thing. The worth of any platform is the number of people on it. If you are on a platform for whatever reason, you are contributing to its worth to advertisers et al. (this is support. whether you are in agreement with ideology or not. Same can be said for a fast food chain that contributes to a cause. Saying that you are against cause but like the food, it’s money they receive and spend as they want, not you)

There is a saying which is sadly apt for today:

If you are in a parade and there is a nazi float, then you are in a nazi parade.

I am in middle moving one my social media pages to Blue Sky

@waynehwwolfson.bsky.social

And of course, I remain here.

Here are just random quick sketches and photos as I finish painting:

by Wayne Wolfson

Nightmare of Reason

Anyone who reads my various online sites knows that I largely eschew politics. I am a voracious reader of non-fiction, especially biographies. It always comes across as strange when the journals/letter or straight biography on an artist has zero commentary on major upheavals occurring around them. Especially, as one can be completely oblivious to politics and other strife but still have their lives drastically effected by it. So, on rare occasions I make commentary.

One can write off politics and such as “Not my thing”. This is fine, but it will still effect all artists regardless of medium and genre. Not necessarily in how works are created but in the zeitgeist which ultimately influences where they can be seen and by whom.

I have never felt it is the artist’s duty to have program or message transmitted via their works. The real duty of all artists is to do your thing. Culture is important as it offers a brief reprieve from the grind and struggle. It is a reminder that there are things out there bigger than ourselves and more permanent.

If you are not a creator, audience is equally as important. In refreshing yourself and the (brief) cessation of life’s negatives comes the recouping of strength/will. Being able to redirect concentration from mere struggle allows for getting closer to being the best version of oneself. This is a tool to make the world a better place.

This is actually a quick sketch, larger than I normally work.

14×17 Inches soft lead pencil.

A graphite elegiac musing. There is nothing constructive in non-pundits now doing a post mortem. There is no one thing, this person shouldn’t have done/said this, that person is to blame because… Fact of the matter is, the finger could be pointed at missteps on campaign trail or how tricks were played by the other side but more than half the country casted votes a certain way.

To rail against it is to punch at waves as they crash towards the shore, it might make you feel better in the moment but ultimately is without purpose. Better to change the landscape than fight the players and in this art can be of use.

by Wayne Wolfson

Art Balm

I am in the middle of working on a new CINEFIELD® and so other big works are on hold until done. There is still the nightly drawing/woodshedding. After a week or so, I find myself missing painting. I am lucky that my lyra pieces are a close approximation, it gives me the same serving the process emotional pay off.

Although the lyra pieces are also a form of woodshedding, I consider all the mediums I use of equal value, nothing is a second class citizen.. If I can get the effects i want in monochrome, especially for portraits, then when I am using my paints, it becomes “easier”.

Stateside, the news continues to be bleak. Everything has morphed into culture wars, a forced upon life or death struggles. A lot of it manages to be very serious and also absurd. It’s become too easy for one to remain amped up from a steady diet of doom scrolling, shaking their fist at the other side while veins July Fourth pop in the forehead. Even as the book banners morph more and more into (most likely) book burners, know it has to eventually pass.

In the interim, all artists have a duty to do their thing. Not to have specific political messages in their work, but to show beauty, even terrible beauty or ugly beauty. It serves as a reminder there is something bigger than oneself out there, culture. It’s a way to show that emotions besides the negative ones can be equally as strong.

If everything but the fight and thoughts of the enemy drop away, what’s the point of it all?

Two Lyra pieces 5×7

by Wayne Wolfson