Photoshop collage mockup of Relativistic Selfie 1 featuring a high angle selfie with prominent cleavage, grackle and cactus with an arrow pointing to the cleavage and bird poop in her open palm.

Relative Sexiness of High Angle Cleavage Selfies

Dick Van der Wurst on January 25, 2024

What is up with all the high angle pics certain women post on social media? I understand that it’s a simple trick to make yourself look more attractive, but why are we not more self aware that we are blatantly trying to obscure our true selves? So high angle pics make you look more attractive but then many women will complain about the people these pics inspire to contact them…and yet they continue to post them, every day, over and over.

So what? Who cares? Well not only is it interesting to me that so many people will repeatedly use such obvious tricks, but why it works! The angles of pics incorporate aspects of both physical and philosophical relativism. The subjective “truth” of how beautiful someone is depends on the relative angle of the observer.

Relativism about truth is the claim that what is true for one individual, or one social group, may not be true for another and that every effort to adjudicate between context-dependent standards of truth and falsity is bound to be futile.

ScienceDirect.com

But it isn’t only for women. Men can appear to be more attractive and dominant, accentuating features of male prowess by taking pics from LOWER angles.

The journal Psychological Science (Makhanova et al., 2017).

  • People’s physical position relative to others may shape how those others perceive them.
  • people use relative physical position to manage impressions by strategically positioning themselves either higher or lower relative to ostensible observers.
  • Five studies supported the prediction that women take and display photographs portraying themselves in a low relative physical position to highlight their youthful features and appear attractive
  • whereas men take and display photographs portraying themselves in a high relative physical position to highlight their size and appear dominant. 
  • as do members of other social species, people use relative physical position to manage social impressions, and although these impression-management strategies may have deep ancestral roots, they appear to manifest themselves through a contemporary human modality-photographs.

Women

…being viewed from above (a downward angle) amplifies signs of youth and attractiveness, such as having a large eyes and forehead, and thus appears to be consistent with women’s motives.

Indeed, women appear more attractive when their heads are tilted down and they are thus viewed from a downward angle.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28485703/

Men

“Being viewed from below (an upward angle) amplifies
signs of dominance, such as height and a large jaw, and thus appears to be consistent with men’s motives.

Indeed, targets appear more dominant when their heads are tilted back and they are thus viewed from an upward angle.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28485703/

Interestingly, the researchers found that men and women take pictures from different angles depending on their motive.

Women:

  • tend to take selfies from above when trying to appear more attractive
  • when the picture is aimed at other women, they take the picture straight on.
  • tended to take their online dating selfies from above.

Men:

  • showed no particular preference for dating pictures.
  • switched from a low-angle selfie for attracting women
  • to a straight-on selfie if the audience was thought to be other men.

And so I am working on this series of paintings that feature high angle pics of women that accentuate their feminine beauty. I incorporate an unsettling gaze into the view’s eyes that shows a bold, unwavering confidence in what they are doing. Also included are examples of mating displays from the animal kingdom as well as hints of underlying discomfort that is always present when you can’t back up the reality you’re trying to project.

Prickly Pear Pinups: A Series Full of Love

Dick Van der Wurst on January 26, 2023

2022 was wild for me. We came out of the pandemic just in time for me to find myself with a surgically repaired knee, turning 50 and single for the first time since 1985.

I had 6 colonoscopies, 2 stays in the hospital that left me seriously anemic, a vasectomy, a break up, coVid, and almost bought a house in Illinois with a new lady but it didn’t work out.

I also had an art show and created 13 new pieces for it. Among them were three pieces that were a culmination of an idea I had for a while but didn’t know what to do with.

I Love to Fish painting of a woman in a cactus fishing with a heart shaped lure sitting in a prickly pear cactus growing out of a Fred's Fish Fry Cup
I Love To Fish
Nacho Hollarback Girl painting of a girl in a prickly pear cactus growing out of a rico cheese can with skulls wearing top hats
Nacho Hollaback Girl
Best Maid Plans of Mice and Men painting of a lady in a prickly pear cactus growing out of a pickle jar
The Best Maid Plans of Mice and Men
I Can’t Remember the Alamo

For a few years I knew I wanted to do something with pinup girls posing in, around, and on prickly pear cactuses, but I needed something else, another layer, a special Dick Van Der Wurst Lowbrow Pop Art twist. That started to come into view as I considered what the cactuses might be growing out of. Containers, cans, cups, buildings and brands that are uniquely San Antonio, to go with the women I was deciding to use for my pinups…also uniquely San Antonio. Especially since I had been going through the San Antonio dating ringer for the previous 6 months.

  1. San Antonio women love to fish
  2. San Antonio women are spicy
  3. San Antonio women have their own agendas
  4. San Antonio women can drink

Now, it is important to note that none of these “revelations” are criticisms…except maybe the fishing part. I don’t get that… and although they may be broad generalizations, they reflect my experience with the limited number I encountered across various races and ethnicities…again except the fishing part. I swear they all say they love to fish.

But the result gets my delicate beauties nestled in the hostile embrace of prickly pear pads…a plant that represents so much of the environment and culture. Food, medicine, feed for livestock, beauty all within a rugged plant that can damn near survive anything as long as it’s hot enough. I love all that prickly pear represents about the people, the history and the very climate itself.

Blue Martini (2011)

Something New? Time For A Change

Dick Van der Wurst on December 21, 2022

Sedimentary - Rock Quarry (2012)

So have the fence pickets, low end lowbrow stuff run its course? Or am I just painting the wrong things on it? I think I’m too tight on a surface that is too unforgiving. Am I getting ready to leave Texas for Illinois and need to switch to something more vertical (Chicago) and horizontal (prairie)?

I’m thinking layers as parts of a personality and personal history in a tall, vertical form at that resembles the human form with a slightly off center square on top for the head. Could work in expressive hands on the body and partially obscured face in the square.

This is how I could do portraits of cops who shot innocent people. Lot so fabric layers depicting white privilege and American idealism and mythological righteousness.

I could be how I paint looser and allow the ground to be incorporated into the imagery and rework the surface and generally beat the hell out of things.

The pickets can be used to make frames and ornamentation and overlays and cutout embellishments like I use now. I could use new woodworking tools to assemble rustic frames and a Dremel to carve elements.

I can bring the rectangle back and then break from it through addition rather than subtraction. The enclosed painted layered rich surface is the sacred, isolated, precious otherness. The magical realm separated from the rest of reality.

Trivial Pursuits (1999)

This same type of thing can be done with relief prints as well. different pieces cut and inked and assembled on a page one at a time.

Toxic Masculinity: A photoshop collage of a painting I will do.

New Big Idea: “Toxic Masculinity” (working title)

Dick Van der Wurst on August 31, 2021

So it’s been a while since I started hearing about this. It finally bounced around in my head long enough for it to work its way back out again as a kernel of an idea. It’s pop culture. It’s fraught with emotion, pain, ignorance, smug indignation and denial. In other words, it’s perfect fodder for a painting.

And with this being Texas, there is all kinds of different toxic masculinities running around. You have good ol boys, wannabe cowboys, actual cowboys, bikers, cholos, gansters, hustlers, and evangelicals. I’m not going to touch most of that with a 10 foot pole. At least not directly. I’ll stick to my own point of view as I explore the heart of the matter that bubbles up in all of those different people.

At first I heard toxic masculinity, and as a man, was assuming it was all about me and being a man and masculine in general. I don’t deny people who have been under the boot of the very real white privilege patriarchy. I have guilt knowing that I am an inevitable beneficiary of that system every day in every way, and I know when I need to keep my mouth shut and just not engage. Know one wanted to hear how I felt about the phrase “toxic masculinity” a.

I still privately didn’t get it. I was seeing it as a general feeling that masculinity was inherently toxic. I didn’t like that. We all have some combination of classic masculine and feminine qualities. There is no denying that the sexes have some physical, emotional and their own valid ways of processing things. Not to say of course that individual of either sex can have more or less of one way or another, but masculinity is a thing and it isn’t all bad.

Then one day, I finally got it. Like a flash. Maybe I was reading about ineffectual frustrated white males who aren’t succeeding despite their advantages and lash out violently at the world as a response. I saw toxic masculinity for what it was. Maybe I should have asked more questions instead of backing out of the room trying not to be noticed. But it was apparent to me finally that it wasn’t about me being masculine, it was about frustration at not being gifted with success that men reacted to in violent ways. At least partly. That was at least the aspect that most intrigued me and the one that seemed to be popping up in the news the most with more and more marginalized men engaging in mass shootings.

So that lead me to this piece. We have the flexing skinny white boy wearing the symbol of the toxic frustration he endures like a halo…in his mind the world is doing this to him. He’s a martyr. He is gripping the false idol of male virility, strength and pride. Is he trying to crush it, tear it apart, or is he desperately clinging to it. With his mask he isn’t immune to his poisonous frustration, but he isn’t aware of it.

I’m not sure it’s done and ready to paint/build though. I imagine I need some sort of candles and wall altar treatment as I am wont to do. Let’s see what pops up in my “doing” posts about this piece.

Toxic Masculinity: A photoshop collage of a painting I will do.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – End 🤗

Hopeless Cases and Good Graces

Dick Van der Wurst on July 1, 2020

So I got this commission. Not just for a painting but for a custom niche wired with electricity and anything else I could convince them was necessary. I could have worked some plumbing into it perhaps but no, just the tiles and electricity.

They were interested in a slightly irreverent religious painting of their favorite saint, St. Jude. He needed to be holding their favorite tequila and a High Life, offering them to the viewer as if he recognized YOU as a lost cause in need of a beer and a shot.

I did some research on the worship (adoration is thinly veiled idolatry, let’s not kid ourselves) of St. Jude in Mexico. There is a church in Mexico City that features the image of Jude over a field of blue and white tile, so I figured the niche could have some tile of its own. Many tiles were considered. The sugar skulls motif can be overdone and a bit obvious for applications such as this, but damn it if these didn’t have just the right about of high contrast patterning without being too busy.

Not only did I mock up how the assembled painting look on the tile, I designed the niche to fit the tile without the need for cutting. I also diagrammed the wiring for it to be lit from above and a socket to power the flicker flame light bulb on Jude’s head.

I spent some time reading about St. Jude and how in Mexico he isn’t just associated with lost causes, but because he a lesser saint often confused with Judas, he is said to be a better advocate for juvenile delinquents and criminals who need a saint who will pray extra hard on their behalf. All of this made me think that St. Jude might have a little attitude, with wry smirk and raising an eyebrow as if he knows what a fuck you can be. The face I’m painting a mixture of random internet images, Danny Trejo, Russel Brand and Jesus. In fact the robes and hair are just a painting of Jesus. I turned the regal red robes green, superimposed a rich paisley pattern on the green and added a Jesus medal on a *bling*bling* gold rope chain.

All told I think I photoshopped together about 20 different elements to create the collaged comp you see here. Two hands, shot glass, the logo on the shot glass, the beer, the body with the left arm rotated a bit, the medal covering up the original’s sacred heart, the gold rope chain, Danny Trejo’s face with a less prominent brow, some other guy’s eyes (all Christian saints have to have blue eyes) and parts of Russel Brand’s beard…as well as the halo, bulb, bird, fire and rays. And let’s not forget the parting clouds. It’s a very complicate piece that highlights so much of what I learned as a good Catholic School boy.

As they say, “Progress Over Perfection.” But I hate it when they say that even if it’s true.

So all I really have left to do is the top of the bottle and the face and there is always another pass necessary to get all the details just so. I just spent an hour touching up the Jesus medal a little bit. After all that I’ll just need to put it together.

The thought of painting that face has me shook. I’m a little worried about getting the expression just right. I guess faces with character and lines and shadows are easier than smooth soft faces. If so, then Danny Trejo’s modified mug should be a breeze.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – End 🤗

Brain dump on the toilet

Big Giant List of Ideas

Dick Van der Wurst on June 28, 2020

This is a live working list. I’ll be making notes and checking things off and adding more ideas as I go forward.

One at a time I will pluck an idea off of here and create new post about what I plan to do, what I’m doing, and how it all worked out when it’s done.

I Watch out now! Yeah, buddy.

IN PROGRESS

  • Acrimony and Cheese
  • Armadillo by Morning
  • Covid Lockdown

ILLUSTRATIVE VECTOR SERIES

🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉

  • REDO
    • ⭐️ Cock of the Walk
    • ⭐️ Moral Relativity
    • ⭐️ Lesser of 2 Evils
    • ⭐️ Cigars and sexual awakening (1 Freud over Red with a wolf and woodsman puppets on hands reaching around her)
    • Armadillo by Morning
    • Appletini and Fig Leaf Bikini (no bottles, no angel/devil)
    • Snakebites and Forbidden Delights (no bottles, no angel/devil)
    • 7 years bad luck
    • Burlesque Existentialist – only one emo quote:
      • “I choose the black sheep over the unicorns and puppies.”
      • “If on thoughts of death we are fed. Thus, a coffin, became my bed.”
      • “There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.”
      • “There’s nothing in front of me but a black wall.”
      • “The point is there ain’t no point.”
      • “Hang my head, drown my fear ’til you all just disappear.”
    • Curiosity Killed the Cat
    • Half Empty, Half Full
    • ⭐️ Carrot and stick
  • ⭐️ Speed Demon Spider Monkey
  • ⭐️ Heart Breaker
  • ⭐️ Cactus Nudes
    • ⭐️ In cans
    • ⭐️ On Wall (day of the dead skull with cactus in cranium)
    • ⭐️ Ranch Motel with pin up maid
    • Cactus and Flowers In Small Cans
  • Skull –
    • someone walked over my grave
    • Permanent Vacation: skull with vacation scenery
    • Surf Texas
    • ⭐️ whistling past the graveyard
  • monopoly man

🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉✏️💘✍🏻🐉

PRINTS

🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃

  • Armadillo
  • Police
    • Police Cars – vandalized, burned, flipped…flowers, hope, renewal
    • Portraits of cops who killed people: “I killed …”
  • Condiments
    • mayo
    • what-a-burger
    • mustards
  • cactus text
    • riff raff
    • fuddy duddy
    • topsy turvy
    • mumbo jumbo
    • wishy washy
    • hot shot
    • hush hush
    • dilly dally
    • hum drum
    • pitter patter
    • tip top
    • wheeler dealer
    • true blue
    • pay heed
    • cutting corners
    • fiddle sticks
    • holy smokes
    • good golly
    • dog gone
    • Geez Louise
    • gee whiz
    • holy cow
    • horse feathers
  • cactus nudes

🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃🐾🖨📃

CONDIMENTS

🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙

  • mayo triplets in fridge all opened and various amounts missing
  • what-a-burger spicy ketchup
  • mustards star

🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙🥫🫒🫙

ON DECK

  • Covid Cure
  • CoVid Lockdown

SOCIAL UNREST

👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸

  • Pink Shirt Pizza Sparrows and Black Umbrella Hawks
  • Police Cars – vandalized, burned, flipped…flowers, hope, renewal
  • Police Portraits – repeated, vandalized,

👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸✊🏿🚓🖕🏿🔥👨🏿‍🦱🇺🇸

PRICKLY PEARS TO CONSIDER USING

🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜

  • Ice cream: Blue bell, cows, cream,
  • Prickly Pear: Ice Cream
  • Lone star
  • Shiner
  • Road signs
  • Surf Texas – Wave and rig inside bull skull, Skeltons in hats in the eyes. Cactus behind
  • Prickly pear – nudes
  • Prickly pear and highway signs 
  • Prickly pear fiesta hat
  • Prickly pear modular – critters hidden inside. 
  • Run for the Border
  • Art drank – prickly pear growing in big soda cup, with crushed monster and toppled jaeger. 
  • Free Range, Suburban, Urban Chickens (cactus in ground, in a flower bed, in a pot)

🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜🌵🏜

LITTLE PEOPLE RIDING TEXAS CRITTERS

  • Toad Stranglers and tight wranglers 
  • Jackrabbits and IKEA habits 
  • Freetails and garage sales 
  • Wild boars and thrift stores
  • Armadillos and cigarillos.  
  • til the cows come home

with Texas slogans, idioms and cliches

  • Don’t Mess With Texas
  • You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas
  • Deep in the Heart of Texas
  • Screw you’re, we’re from Texas
  • Let’s sing another stupid Texas song
  • Everything is bigger in Texas
  • Ford is the Best in Texas
  • Doing The Old Texas Two-Step
  • That’s what I like about Texas
  • I can’t remember the Alamo 
  • Texas cakewalk – hangin

NEW GOOD IDEAS

  • Lost in the Sauce
  • tiki luchadors
  • Cedar fever and under achievers
  • flotsam: plastic objects in ocean
  • monkey with potential: dumb baby on throne, like a baby jesus only drooling and dumb
  • big in japan
  • meta as fuck: painting of tools used to make paintings.
  • sushi and selfish urges
  • racial discourse – lawn jockey (that’s racist)
  • religious discourse
  • buddha the hutt
  • civil discourse
  • luche hummels
  • cutout – tubing
  • Pickelhaube luche libre
  • smoking monkey
  • Murder weapons: utensils, grill, cow head
  • soft pretzels and self pity
  • Mimosas and Mea culpas
  • All wretch and no vomit
  • Angst a la Mode
  • Devil accordion
  • Get crazy with the cheese whiz
  • Packaged Foods and Pious platitudes.
  • Barbecued Foods and pious platitudes.
  • Sending/posting Nudes and pious platitudes
  • master-slave morality: pope puppet show
  • Bad attitudes and pious platitudes.
  • Jonah: Naked bald man, baby, reborn, in shallow water, pukey whale in back) – coughed up and self corrected (reborn)
  • 3 on a Match(if three soldiers lit their cigarettes from the same match, one of the three would be killed)
  • 3 sheets to the wind
  • Alpha and Omega (god is a frat boy)
  • Gadzooks = God’s Hooks (nails)
  • Bad News Comes in 3’s

REDO

  • 6 of one 1/2 dozen
  • Apologist Accepted
  • Carrot and Stick
  • Decline of the Bourgeois
  • All the Credit, None of the Blame
  • Acrimony and Cheese
  • Delayed Gratification
  • Cowboys
  • political discourse

TEXAS SIGNS

🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️

  • Alamo Candy
  • Fiesta Spices
  • Big Top Cafe
  • Randy’s
  • Jims
  • Bill Miller Animal Heads
  • Momma Margy’s
  • Fred’s
  • Burger Boy
  • Schilo’s Deli
  • Ranch Motel
  • Pig Stand
  • HEB
  • Henry’s
  • Cavender’s
  • Red McCombs
  • Whataburger
  • old school pizza hut
  • La Playa

🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️🚧💈⛔️

MONKEY HUMMELS

🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊

  • Monkeys with money and guns.
  • Monkeys with car keys
  • Superstitious Monkeys
  • Drunk monkeys
  • Monkeys with emotional support animals
  • Monkey with a mortgage
  • Monkeys with ikea habits.
  • We’re all just monkeys in shoes
  • We’re all just monkeys in skinny jeans
  • Talking monkeys

🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊🙈🙉🙊

TACOS

🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮

  • Narcissus Jesus looking at image in tortilla. Cow head and big red devil/angel
  • The Taco Eaters
  • Politicians facing off or diplomatic tacos hand shake,
  • Taco with fuse/plunger with wires into taco
  • 4 taco truck paintings:
    1. Tacos and Shit
    2. Tacos Hermanos
    3. Sketchy Tacos
    4. Mad max
  • Taco terrorist
  • Taco crusader
  • Big red tie/cow head
  • michellada over the top
  • Retro clip art kid eating corn angel and devil season it
  • Retro clip art kids eating watermelon angel and devil season with tanjin and chamoy
  • Bad hombres and pork tamales
  • Silk purses and sow’s ears
  • Cheezy Grits and conniption fits
  • 3 sisters (corn squash beans) or (guacamole salsa queso)
  • Street Tacos and toxic Masculinity (taco getting beaten with dildos by nerds)
  • Donkey Lady + tacos
  • Aliens + tacos

🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮🌯🌮

VIRGINS

  • Virgin de Accordion
  • Basic White Bitch
  • Butterworth virgin 
  • Karen Virgin
  • Virgin de Accordion

Lucha Libre Masks

  • frida
  • gas mask – single and double canister
  • gimp mask
  • wolf in sheep mask
  • hockey
  • scuba
  • paper bag
  • surgical
  • scream
  • mardi gras

SKULLS

💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️

  • permanent vacation: skull with vacation scenery in his cranium and vacationing skeletons in his eyes.
  • Victoria’s Black Swan Inn
  • the Ghost Tracks
  • Donkey Lady
  • la llarona
  • whistling past the graveyard, felix/snoopy
  • Bat out of helotes
  • Freetail bat silhouette with SATX
  • murder hornets
  • “No regrets” skull
  • “Looks that kill” skull
  • compromised to a permanent end
  • I can’t remember the Alamo
  • Skull – die with your boots on
  • Skull warning:
    • don’t feed the bears
    • turn around don’t drown
    • HALT – sign art
  • pick your poison
  • dead inside
  • Skull – promoted to glory
  • Skull – pushing up daisies
  • Genesis Death Sandwich
  • Skeletal Death Saint.
  • Malachite Man: Green stone skeletons (really just stained by copper)
  • Cash in chips
  • Bonny and Clyde : enjoy coke
  • Site for sore eyes (red eyes in skull, glasses)
  • Bought the farm
  • Buzz Kill
  • numb skull
  • play dead
  • Bite the dust
  • Counting worms
  • Death by misadventure
  • Die with your boots one
  • Gone to your last reward
  • Kick the bucket
  • Number is up
  • Paid the ultimate price
  • Promoted to glory
  • Ride the pale horse
  • Sleeping with the fishes
  • Don’t Wanna Die – crossfit
  • the last train to glory
  • Dirt nap
  • At death’s door – door knocker? Door knob for nose? Skull over a
  • door?
  • Knock em dead
  • Done to death
  • Death of 1000 cuts
  • Dead meat
  • Dead in the water
  • Brush with death
  • Never say die (zipped mouth)
  • Skeleton in the closet
  • Laid out in lavender
  • the difference between an open or closed coffin – skull in helmet, open coffin behind, angel and devil on motorcycles jumping over
  • insult to injury
  • skeleton Hank Williams…Willie Nelson…George Jones

💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️💀☠️

DEVILS

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  • Devil may care…
  • raising hell
  • Angel-Devil Pairs
    • garbage in garbage out
    • bourbon and coke
    • devil’s cut/angel’s share
    • art drank
    • between the devil and the deep blue sea
    • better to reign in hell than serve in heaven
    • Two sides of the same coin (angel and devil flipping coins)
    • tuh–mey-toh / tuh-mah-toh
    • Throwing good money after bad (angel and devil making it rain 💸
    • so heavenly minded no earthly good – angel prays, looking up from earth as it burns at the hands of devils
    • robbing peter to pay paul
    • “Pick your poison. It’s all good”: angel and devil drinking
    • pray in one hand shit in the other
    • penny wise, pound foolish
    • Nothing Ventured, Nothing GainedFree standing, two sides
    • between a rock and a hard place (between devil and angel – with a rock and a brick)
    • Internal Discourse: angel and devil stabbing heart
    • People in hell want ice water
    • ich and du: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou
    • hell or high water
    • light a candle and curse the darkness
    • good cop bad cop: angel and devil cops beating black man
    • United we stand – angel and devil, conjoined, share diaper
    • day late and a dollar short
    • damned if you do, damned if you don’t
  • original sin – (bat winged sacred heart, wrapped in snake coils, blood drips feeding fire below, angel and devil pee on flames.)
  • Devil – lesser of two evils
  • Devil – necessary evil
  • better to rule in hell than serve in heaven
  • Devil – devil take the hindmost
  • there is no Devil, there is just God when he’s drunk.
  • The devil you know
  • Crafty devil
  • Devil and the deep blue sea
  • Devil of a time
  • Devil to pay
  • idle hands are the devil’s playthings.
  • Speak of the devil and he will appear
  • Devil’s in the details
  • Devil accordion
  • explaining hell to the savages
  • Where God has his church the Devil will have his chapel
  • Combo!
    • Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don’t
    • better angels of our nature
  • Speak the truth and shame the devil
  • Pain Management: sick bed (dying man, kid with “get well” balloon, sad adults, priest behind headboard with angel and devil marionettes. Morphine drip.
    • Dr Indoctrinate’s Morality Puppet Playtime
  • relatively speaking (name of show?)
  • paper mache mephistopheles (fake devil, wannabe evil guy)
  • going to hell in a handbasket
  • devil’s advocate
  • we’ll be in heaven before the devil knows we’re dead
  • “There ain’t no devil, there is only god when he’s drunk”
  • I hope they serve _______ in hell.

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BLACK CATS

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  • Black cats – Buddies witch witches and demons. Evil companions and baked salmon. Wicked associates and… . Nefarious Friends and Bank Dividends (monopoly and chance card). 
  • Black cats – cute cat playing or bathing, sleeping on a pillow, thinking evil thoughts. “Rationalizations and Evil Associations.”
  • People riding black cats, with superstitions in text
  • birds fly because cats cant
  • cat-a-tonic
  • kit cat clock

♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈♠️🐈

GERMAN SAUSAGE IDIOMS

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  • sausage on a stick truck
  • pretzel truck
  • schnitzel truck
  • Das ist mir Wurst. = That’s sausage to me.
    • Meaning: either is fine, doesn’t make a difference to me
  • eine Extrawurst verlangen = to ask for an extra sausage
    • Meaning: to ask for special treatment
  • Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei = Everything has one end, only the sausage has two
    • Meaning: everything comes to an end, 
  • “Du hast Schwein gehabt” = You had a pig
    • Meaning: you were lucky and survived by the skin of your teeth.
  • ‘Extra Wurst’ = “extra sausage”.
    • Meaing: you’re a bit of a prima donna.
  • Jemandem eine Extrawurst braten = To fry an extra sausage for someone
    • Meaning: giving someone preferential treatment. In medieval times, a sausage was a special delicacy for poor people and an extra sausage would be a real treat.
  • Mit der Wurst nach dem Schinken werfen = To throw the sausage after the bacon
    • Meaning: that you invest or sacrifice something of lower value to gain something of higher value. 
    • You can also turn this phrase on its head (throwing the bacon after the sausage) to describe spending or investing a lot for little return.
  • Die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen = To play the sulking liver sausage
    • Meaning: a person who is sulking, most likely about trivial things – or at least their disposition isn’t being taken seriously. 
    • refers to beliefs from the middle-ages and up until the 17th/18th century, that people’s spirit and particularly anger originates in the liver.
  • Jetzt geht’s um die Wurst! = It’s all about the sausage now!
    • Meaning: making an effort to get what you want.
    • – It dates back to the days of country fairs where people would participate in games and the prize for the winner would often be a sausage.

🥨🌭🍺🥨🌭🍺🥨🌭🍺🥨🌭🍺🥨🌭🍺🥨🌭🍺🥨🌭🍺🥨

MIXED DRANKS

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  • chocolate and milk
  • guiness and apple cider – adam
  • appletini – eve
  • gyn and tonic: here’s to malaria
  • red bull and vodka
  • red bull and Jaeger – art drank
  • wine squirt – ghetto sangria
  • tequila and OJ
  • martini – I like it dirty, devil in the glass with olive
  • monkey wrench – pink grapefruit juice and gold rum
  • boilermaker – whiskey beer
  • whiskey sour
  • buttery nipple – butterscotch schnapps and irish cream
  • champagne and oj – mimosa
  • coffee and kahlua
  • rum and coke
  • bloody mary: fried chicken, pizza, hamburger, rubber duck, rosary, prescription bottle, skull, celery, lemon, knife, fork, statue of liberty, cash, hotdog, salt and pepper shaker
  • beer tomato juice: Micheladas: cow head, taco, bowl of soup, Manu, Insta model, candy skull, car keys, flowers, cactus, fiesta medal, high heal shoe, luchador, lime,
  • mangonada: chamoy and lucas –

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ALIENS

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  • UFO sucking up a taco truck
  • UFO sucking up an ice cream truck
  • UFO sucking up a virgin mary
  • UFO sucking up blue bell
  • UFO sucking up mangonada truck

👽🚀👾🛸👽🚀👾🛸👽🚀👾🛸👽🚀👾🛸👽🚀👾🛸👽🚀👾🛸

FOOD “AND” FEELINGS

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  • soft pretzels and self pityhopelessness and hotdogs
  • “Chili Queens and Dialysis Machines”
  • “Self actualize with Frito Pies”
  • “Hood rat snacks and regressive tax”
  • “Spanish missions and fiery perdition”
  • Quarter Pounders and Quiet Persistence
  • Phony Messiah and over-ripe Papaya
  • Allegory and alka seltzer
  • Angst a la mode
  • Baked brie and absurdity
  • Cinnabons and self hate
  • Debilitating dread and deviled eggs
  • Ruminations and Libations
  • ennui martini
  • Jager and useless passion
  • Mimosas and mea culpas
  • Peppermints and Purposelessness
  • Regret au gratin
  • Transience and trans fats
  • cinnabons and self analysis
  • deviled eggs and despair
  • french fries and fear of death
  • judgement and jellied eggs
  • night terrors and tapas
  • paralyzing fear and fresh fruit
  • cold apathy and empanadas
  • Cedar Fever and Under Achievers
  • —————————————————
  • killing time and …
  • Self-debasement and…
    • Definition of self–debasement. : the act or process of lowering oneself in status, esteem, quality, or character : the act or process of debasing oneself humility bordering on self–debasement.
  • Minced oaths and….
  • …and sycophants
  • …and atavistic endeavors (hipsters engaging in old fashioned activities)
  • …and bottled up anger
  • Missions and…
  • OCD and… (Hand washing)
  • Vim and vigor and….Apple vinegar
  • Xenophobia and …
  • anxiety and…
  • …and a herd of turtles
  • …and moral ambiguity
  • …And willful ignorance
  • …and the banality of evil
    • (following prescribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing)
    • Self-abasement might have a religious aspect for those seeking humility before God, perhaps in the context of monastic or cenobitic lifestyle. Wikipedia
  • Deplorabilia and
  • categorical imperatives and…
  • Unyielding melancholy and…
  • Vinegar, veggies, venison, veal, vermicelli, vodka vermouth, violence and voyeurism
  • Momento Mori and…
  • Conflicting imperatives and…
  • Tragic one-liners and…
  • Cognitive dissidence and…
  • Absolution and…
  • …Value judgements…
  • …Universal truths…
  • …Objective truth…
  • …Skepticism…
  • …Dread…
  • Terror…
  • Revulsion…
  • Asychronicity
  • …Existential anguish…
  • …Indignation…
  • …Cosmic fear…
  • …Uneasiness…
  • …Acute distress…
  • …Hollowness…
  • …Alienation…
  • The anguish of…being,
  • nothingness,
  • freedom,
  • death
  • The Absence of God and…
  • nothingness…
  • Moral obligations
  • Contented pigs
  • Preoccupation
  • Empty abstraction
  • Personal inadequacy
  • Alienation
  • Ambivalence
  • Vanity
  • Pessimistic conclusions
  • Precariousness
  • “Useless passion”
  • Perpetual sorrow
  • Deep Despair
  • Ambivalence
  • Futility
  • Suffering
  • Blame
  • Having to choose
  • Moral consequences and…cookie cakes
  • Inauthenticity and…
  • Inhibitions and…
  • Insecurity
  • Insignificance
  • Isolation
  • Judgements
  • Limitations and…
  • Meaninglessness
  • Searching for meaning
  • Mortality
  • Repressed urges and…
  • Responsibility
  • Self analysis
  • Selfishness
  • Spiritual death
  • Subjectivity
  • Tired metaphors
  • Indifferent universe
  • Cosmic joke
  • Ego depletion
  • Pessimism
  • Morbid conclusions
  • Plausible deniability and…
  • Self pity and…
  • Shame and…
  • Singularity

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Kernels of Some Truly Genius Shit

  • Persona Non gratta
  • Bacchus Trump on super duper missile
  • John Henry’s
    • delivery
    • grocery checkers
    • other people being replaced by machines
  • Gringo non grata 
  • Eat our own cooking. 
  • sedimentary:
    • dead things: nicknacks and dead people buried
    • deep water: layers of water, rig on top
    • turtles all the way down: layers of turtle fabrics under universe of stars
    • church on top: old gods buried beneath, religious fabrics
  • his beard is tedius as it is long
  • Artisian whole grain gluten free bread and well regulated animal free circuses
  • Isaac’s – pics of him being miserable at different ages
  • Manic cursing rooster
  • intellectual alamo: moderate trumpers
  • mutually assured consumption – cow and farmer stair across at each other grain glows up center from dirt filled with devils and bones angels in clouds pee on grain.
  • Identity politics
  • Good enough to be the truth 
  • What a friend we have in cheeses 
  • To be or not to be…quoth the raven
  • mitocondial eve
  • All I need is a little bit of coffee, and a whole lot of Jesus!
  • the duality of opposites as the organizing principle of the universe.
  • Jaegermeister Meisterjaeger 
  • A hit dog will holler – Shakespeare “me thinks you doth protest too much”
  • Volatizing the esters = stirring up shit
  • Legal discourse
  • god shaped hole: eye looks through hole in knowledge (book? tapestry?)
  • god of the gaps:
  • Manners are too little, morals are too much
  • line of cutout shoes…why? (Needs juxtaposition of some sort)
  • Soup to Nuts
  • paint the town – brush with city scape bristles (red)
  • Karma: the law of cause-and-effect. Or as some might say, “plant a ‘tater, get a ‘tater.”
  • post modern plaid – mixed plaids, no rules, relativism, everything is equally valid
  • Deist’s Advocate: enabler
  • spoilt for choice – so many choices
  • fistulated cow
  • deteriorating faster than I can lower my standards: self portraits highlighting deterioration
  • death in the afternoon: Hemingway book about bullfighting
  • dirt farmer
  • existential to do list:
    • embrace anxiety
    • find oneself
    • live in accordance with self
    • act authentically
    • achieve meaning

Stephen king quotes:

  • We all float down here
  • Redrum
  • Get busy living or get busy dying
  • I’m your number one fan
  • They’re all gonna laugh at you
  • I can see your dirty pillows
  • Sic balls

Some Quotes I Pasted Into This List 🤔

Seek after meaning and value within the tortured appreciation of his own individual foresakenness…

“More often have I seen a cat reason than laugh or weep” humans feeling not reasoning animals

“Perhaps it laughs or weeps inwardly—but then perhaps,also inwardly, the crab solves equations of the second degree.”

Shitcakes and Snooze: A Gigantic Waste of Time

Dick Van der Wurst on October 7, 2019

Pancakes and Booze? More like shitcakes and snooze, am I right!? LOL, BURN! 🔥

So, I heard about this thing early in the summer and figured it sounded like fun. I don’t know why. I’m an eternal optimist maybe? Or I thought it would be an excuse to have fun somewhere? I didn’t have anything else art related going on? I need to post this and maybe use it as a reminder to never do a hacked together, poorly curated, booze driven group show ever again. Why do I put myself through the disappointment, embarrassment and shame associated with wasted time, effort and money? Never again.

  1. I didn’t know when set up started. I asked and never found out. Turns out I was two hours later than everyone else and almost had to drive back home because there was so little room left. So that was a fun lack of organization. First come, first serve? Fine. But with no limit as to how much room anyone could take, there was no guarantee there would be space for everyone they accepted.
  2. The place was a dump. Temporary walls were set up throughout a dingy dark shabby cramped Austin music venue, resulting in a cramped maze, lined with the creative excretions of every sort of freak. It was more of a haunted house than art event.
  3. No one was there to buy art. Of course they weren’t. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was hoping for better. It was just a regular Friday night Austin freak show. Not as much of a hipster scene as a hive of degenerate sewer people.
  4. The pancakes were in a corner of the bar that was hard to get in and out of and the line of people caused a traffic jam that wasn’t worth the trouble.
  5. The stage had no room in front of it so the scrub DJs they had pushing buttons and tweaking knobs couldn’t be seen. Not that there was much to see. The first act was a young couple. They had a friend who, despite not being particularly attractive, took off her skirt and walked around in a bustier, fishnets and Chuck Taylors with her butt cheeks hanging out for no apparent reason.
  6. No body painting. I guess that fad is dead? I won’t miss it, but it is interesting how a few years ago, every event featured young ladies in their underwear smeared with cheap Walmart acrylics. Vaguely burlesque and naughty, it kind of signaled that you were at the right kind of party, but it also kind of made me uncomfortable. I guess I never got to witness the higher end body painting so I just ended up feeling bad for everyone involved. At least I was spared that awkwardness at this event.
  7. It wasn’t fun. It’s work. And you sit there exhausted after preparing and driving andsetting up and sweating. The place barely had room for the artists, DJs and their friends. Other people may have shuffled through but it wasn’t many and no one really wanted to look at art. We didn’t get pancakes or get drunk or make new friends. Kinfolk Art from Dallas was set up next to me. He and his wife were cool. But they were sober too and tired and not thrilled with the event either.

A couple of people saw my work and got excited. Trouble is, they were probably so pleased because they didn’t expect to find anything worth a damn in this sad pit of mediocrity. I’m still no closer to figuring out a place for me in Austin. Maybe there isn’t one. I’m sure I could find places that I like, but I’m still not sure if there is a market. People want prints. They can’t buy art when all of their money goes toward craft brews, organic gluten free tacos and rent.

I’m sure it’s just me. This and other group art shows aren’t necessarily a waste of time for everyone. These events are for younger artists, hacks who need to get it out of their systems and vaguely artistic booths selling stickers, shirts and nicknacks. It isn’t want I’m looking for. I sometimes think that because I’m pushing Texas cultural pop art, I need to be out where the culture is happening. That isn’t true. I need to be where the people are out looking for art to buy.

pancakes and booze: one of the better things I saw
pancakes and booze: butt cheeks never go out of style
pancakes and booze: shirts optional
pancakes and booze: sweaty dude

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – End 🤗

Shit Still Stinks and Pigs Can’t Fly: how to hope for the impossible.

Dick Van der Wurst on October 1, 2019

I’m not sure how it got there exactly, but this phrase bounced around in my head for 20 years, from sketchbook to sketchbook and eventually into iPhone notes and various electronic lists of ideas. It hung around waiting for me to explore it adequately. I just never seemed to find a way to get it into a visual that I wanted to make. I believe my creativity was inhibited by The Rectangle and the idea of representing “shit” too literally. Eventually my layered, cutouts materialized and I was inspired.

Pigs can’t fly is a reminder for those hoping for the impossible, for the belief in fantasy…or even those who are distracted by the escapism of fantasy.

Wikipedia says:

“When pigs fly” is a way of saying that something will never happen. The phrase is often used for humorous effect, to scoff at over-ambition. Other variations on the phrase include “And pigs will fly,” this one in retort to an outlandish statement.

Shit still stinks: for those who may think that reality can be ignored…needing to be slapped back into reality.

The idea of a pig head flanked by outhouses hit me first. Rather than representing shit literally, I could allude to it with the outhouses and overcome much of what kept me from knowing how to deliver this idea. Then the clouds to tie them together, rounded out with a sun disk behind a bird to represent the aspirations of swinish flight. The flies and severed head on a stick hit me last as the piece came together, hinting at the disturbing themes from the book “Lord of the Flies.”

This is definitely one of the more interesting journeys an idea of mine has taken from conception in the 90s, to execution some 20 years later. Once a couple of things occurred to me, the ball got rolling towards a state of completion I never could have anticipated or hastened. It isn’t a pretty piece and few find any reason to look at it long enough to draw conclusions of their own about what it. And yet, I think it is one of my favorite pieces and represents so much of my growth and change from young adulthood to middle age.

Check it out in the portfolio!

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – End 🤗

photoshop collage comp for future painting titled Acrimony and cheese

Acrimony and Cheese II – Revisited and Improved

Dick Van der Wurst on September 1, 2019

Food and booze ideas, both old and new, seemed ideal for the Pancakes and Booze shows this fall in Austin, San Antonio and Houston. Here is another idea that I wanted to revisit.

Moe Profane Painting titled: Acrimony and cheese

This piece was always a hit…for 7 years now, and yet was always brought home after so many shows. It is big and expensive and let’s face it, I didn’t paint her very well. I’m not sure too many people realized it, but a few did. I think others just intuitively knew something was off about her face. I mean, I used to blow up the contrast of photos in order to capture the lights and darks of a figure and not worry so much about all the million gradations, allowing the image to blend with the textured background.

I always seem to fall back into a habit of trying to reproduce all the details of what I’m painting and some pieces just call for more concrete figures. In “Acrimony” the image of the lady I was referring to was crap and so…I reproduced it as crap. Also I wasn’t spending enough time honing my illustrated angels and devils.

I’m not sure why I was falling into that trap over and over. I just had this drive to go fast and didn’t give them enough attention. Slicker illustrations or even leaving them out altogether was the greatest opportunity for improvement over the years. I had already come a long way in a brief time when I made this piece, but I had a long way to go.

Redoing this idea is worth the effort and you can get an idea of how it will looks as a layered cut out piece. Nevermind that I’m leaving out the angel and devil. I think there is a place for them in specific types of work but I don’t need them everywhere. They aren’t exactly universally appreciated. It never hurts to mix things up and feel like I need to include a worn out bit in everything I do.

I’m taking the table from the original piece, cutting it out, adding a right side to it. I’ll be painting the rest from scratch…as there really isn’t anything else that doesn’t need to be improved upon. I still remember sitting and painting the portraits of the crock pot, brick of Velveta and its foil wrapper. I don’t want to do that again.

Progress pics on the way.

Here is an update to the original comp. I had realized that I didn’t have the bottom of the table in the original piece. Adding the right side with the Rotel would be easy enough but adding bottom wouldn’t work. So I needed to cut it off with a new visual element. Words are always fun! But any time you do something to a composition, it sends ripples across it throwing everything out of balance. I fixed this by losing the rooster trivet. I angled the curtains in to make them more dynamic and added a garland. Boom. Is it better or worse?

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – End 🤗

photoshop collage comp for future painting titled Holy Guacamole: Delayed Gratification

Holy Guacamole (Delayed Gratification): Revisited and Improved

Dick Van der Wurst on August 26, 2019

So I’ve decided to bring along some old and new food and booze pieces to Pancakes and Booze shows this fall in Austin, San Antonio and Houston. This one needs to be redone though.

Delayed Gratification taco time finished painting.

Delayed Gratification: Taco Time piece was done before I put much thought into layering levels. Also, while people were enjoying the familiar old praying men, they weren’t digging the clock so much. So I cut off the clock and made the men and their meal separated and ready for more to be added.

So then I asked myself, “Self, what could I add that will help make the piece more relatable”

I wanted something to better connect with viewers and make it generally a better piece. I contemplated on just what it could be the men are praying for. Ideas of abuelas and pin up waitresses were considered. But then keeping with the prayer theme, why not add a Mary in their shared “thought could” offering to theme he only thing that’s missing on their tacos? The best of all condiments and something that is becoming more and more expensive. Avocado! Something worthy of prayer. And who better to ask than Mary?

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – End 🤗

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