The Effects Of Caffeine On An Artist

Some people get jitters and shakes.

For me, it’s like everything slows down so I can process it.

After coffee, even walking down a street becomes a intoxicating rush of information.

With the caffeine loosing my brain, it’s as if a switch has been thrown-“click” as suddenly it begins to come alive with the river of patterns…

The words “ smooth flavor” flashes across my thoughts. I stop; mentally I backtrack, and realize the source was a piece of paper blowing in the wind past me, glimpsed by my eye for a fraction of a second as I hurried along.

An ant on the pavement who’s short one antennae…a girl with three earrings on her left ear, two on the right(I wonder if she feels off-balance?)…three blooms, two buds on that bush across the street(hmm, rather late in the season)…sounds, shapes, colors, all being processed and organized simultaneously at light speed. I get the feeling that if I really wanted to, I could think a great thought…

Or something.

=)

Attack of the Flavonoids

Sounds scary, right?
"Phasers have no effect, sir!"
"Keptin, we must-" *BZZZZZZZ (static)
"Billy? Billy!!"
"Curses upon you, Flavonoid!"

Or it sounds like some you need surgery to remove.
"What's the matter with him?"
*hushed tone "Oh, he's got flavonoids."
"Flavonoids? No way, man. That's rough..."

Turns out, Flavonoids are actually good things. Flavonoids are a polyphenolic compound and are found in most of the fruits and veggies that we eat, and are known for being high in- (Oh, pick me!) Antioxidants!
Go here, if you want to learn more.
Or go here, if you want to see a cool website that will help you do the stuff you do better, and give you some new ideas too.

And now, back to my tea.
Which contains flavonoids.

We all scream for art...

>

Aristotle wrote: “Experience produces art, but inexperience only luck. Art is produced when out of many ideas gained through experience we draw one general conclusion about some class of like cases.”

Hmmm…

Now, Aristotle and I don’t always see eye to eye, but on the philosophy of art I tend to agree with him, at least this far.

I could suddenly start painting a series of paintings of Africa, but chances are the resulting pieces would lack inspiration and originality, since my only experience of Africa is second hand, a trickled-down compressed myopic view from someone else’s experience of that country. The quality would suffer because of the dearth of inspiration. It would be dead to me.

Art, in my opinion, needs subjectivity. In order to be art, it needs to provoke a response, however subtle, in the viewer. There is some art that I really don’t like. Take “The Scream”, by Edvard Munch for example. Not my favorite piece. But I have to concede that it is still art. Creepy? Yes. But still art.

Whenever I paint I try to remember this principle, and strive to let my work speak…

That’s all.