Not that there's anything wrong with cute, understand. The world needs cute. If parents didn't think their kids were cute, there would probably be a lot more child abandonment in the world. Cute in itself is a big industry. Cute keeps plenty of people employed, when you consider all the different facets of cute. Cute has loads of fans.
I guess I'm just not one of them.
And what's bringing on the anti-cuteness, Dee? Oh, it's not anti-cute, per se. It's simply that I don't seem to get much out of cute.
Incidentally, today's cute little insect is a Bruce Spanworm moth, which is active later in the year than pretty much any other moth here. It's not unusual for the silly things to be out in November.
Take illustration, for example. Most of my two fans know that I generally try to do a doodle for the Illustration Friday prompt of the week. For me it's mostly just a kick in the butt to get me drawing on a regular basis (and if you're desperate to see the results you can usually find them on the other blog. Check the sidebar), but many of the participants are professional artists who put much more into their entries than I do. Whether they're submitting new work specifically for the prompt or linking to old work that fits the theme, I usually enjoy looking through the links to see the different ideas and the different techniques used to express them.
Usually.
Sometimes, though, it's overwhelmingly Too. Darned. Cute.
Don't get me wrong -- I know that the cute's for a reason. A lot of those people are children's book illustrators, and not-cute children's books probably don't have much of a market. Even for those who aren't aiming their art at children, I do understand that cute is huge. And what, in the end, is wrong with art that gives people the warm fuzzies?
Oh, I don't know. Nothing, really. I suppose it's just that for me and my non-artistness, I like a bit of a challenge when I'm looking at others' creativity. I know how hard it is for me to (pardon the overused cliché) think out of the box, and I appreciate it when someone else's non-boxed thinking takes me along for the ride.
Or maybe I get a little understimulated by the sofa-painting landscapes that are sometimes submitted for our small gallery at work. Of course, that's not a cute issue. That's more of a deja vu thing, as in haven't I seen this before in one of those ads for travelling art sales that offer genuine oil paintings for less than $20 each!!!...
Hmm. That was a little nasty. Especially since I couldn't paint even a garden-variety boring landscape to save my life. There's a reason why I consider myself a doodler rather than an artist, after all.
Probably because I'm not an artist.
And I do genuinely admire those of you who are, whether your art is to my taste or not. In the end it's the creating that's important. It'd be terribly dull if the end product pleased everyone. And if it's dull there's really no point to the whole thing.
And if there's no point, it of course ends up right here on the blog.
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Further to my tmi mention of yesterday (because I know you're all on pins and needles about it), I'm sorry to say that the pressure built up because of the infection finally got to be too much and I just had to (had to, yes. For sanity's sake) drain the thing. The result, somewhat predictably, is a slight black eye. Ought to make for some interesting comments at work, but whatever. It's much less annoying now, and that's the priority.
And aren't you glad that I told you all of this? I thought you'd be.
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Edited because I just realised how much this post illustrates that I'm doing absolutely nothing for Halloween. Ah well, have a happy one for those of you who are.
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