The recent passing of Kurt Vonnegut really saddened me. His passing has afforded me an opportunity to gain a new appreciation for the contribution Vonnegut made to literature, and my own thinking.
Kurt Vonnegut had a profound gift for portraying the folly of the human condition, but he made light of things. He opened the door to all sorts of outré subjects — other dimensions, robots, and time travel — and tied them all back to everyday life.
Personally, I think the names he dreamt up for his characters — like the Trafalmadoreans — helped guide me to use made-up language in my early pop art paintings.
To create a fitting Kurt Vonnegut tribute of my own, over the last couple of days I’ve been listening to an audio book of Breakfast of Champions as I’ve been painting. Breakfast of Champions is my favorite Vonnegut book. I hadn’t read it in over a decade, and kind of forgot how grim — and rightfully so — it can be.
Earth is a pretty messed up place, for sure. But what a strange, wonderful and funny book it is! The plot summaries of Kilgore Trout’s science fiction books, which pepper Breakfast of Champions, are utterly too hilarious.
Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut. And so it goes.
New studio pics: Below is recent progress I’ve made on Like Antique Shopping 100 Years from Now. I started it about a month ago in my home art studio, but took a three-week break from it. Now I’m filling in the background pattern, and relatively pleased with the results. It’s pretty hard to look at, in a good way.
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