Unstrung

"Unstrung," acrylic paint on canvas, 2024 Otto Von Miller

The news is blue.  It has it's own way of getting to you.

Many people Thee Optimist knows are deeply concerned about the incoming Trump freak show.  

That's fair.

Personally, Thee Optimist is more concerned that whoever is running the outgoing Biden administration will manage to start World War III before they leave. 

They sure seem to want that.

There's no sense taking any of these people seriously.  They might kill us all.  They might not.  They might be robots.  That part is out of our hands.

The United States is in terminal decline.

That part is also out of our hands.

We can (and should) turn our backs on it, and work to forge new ideas, new systems, new networks, clans, relationships, spiritualities, etc.

In simpler terms, fuck these assholes.

Thee Optimist will ignore them and work on his ART.

The image you see above is a painting his alter ego Otto Von Miller did of his own acoustic guitar.  It's slightly altered from the real guitar, in the sense that the real guitar has a black pick guard, and also has strings on it.

Otto felt that a black pick guard wouldn't look that great.

He didn't put the strings in because he wasn't quite sure how to do it, and he didn't want to ruin the painting.

Which is good, because if he ruined it, he wouldn't be able to play with the color. 

"Purple Guitar," digital art, 2024 Otto Von Miller

Brightly Colored Guitars

Otto scanned the guitar painting into the free online art program Canva, much in the way he did with an earlier painting called "Lips Like Sugar."

He then stripped the color out, as he had done previously, and changed it.  

The above guitar looks like something the great musician Prince might have played, although he usually played electric guitars.  In any event, as it turns out, Prince's favorite color was orange.

Never mind, because I also did the guitar in blue:

"Blue Guitar," digital art, 2024 Otto Von Miller

Warhol Guitars

Weirdly, all of this is rather enjoyable to do.

Since I had the three versions of the guitar, I decided to Warholize them, like I did with my lips painting.

That gave me this:

"Warhol Guitars," digital art, 2024 Otto Von Miller

Killing it, man.  Just killing it.

Words of Wisdom

"Every day I feel is a blessing from God.  And I consider it a new beginning.  Yeah, everything is beautiful."

- Prince