Scenes from Julius Caeser/Oxygen permeation

Consider this:

Brutus: What, my Lord, do you think it is that causes the paint you store in those one quart plastic Folgers coffee containers to go bad so quickly?
Caeser: O2, Brutus?

So I'm staring at a glass jar that used to hold some Welch's grape jelly, having dutifully rinsed it clean in anticipation of tossing it in the recycling bag, and I'm thinking that perhaps those plastic Folgers coffee containers are letting a bit too much oxygen through and that's why my paint (which I typically transfer from the quart Benjamin Moore container to the Folgers "can" for ease of access) thickens up so quickly.

You've seen them ...



Fun that you can find a massive sized file on the internet of a plastic Folgers coffee can. Go ahead and click on it. I can't confirm as I write this (since I'm writing this instead of confirming), but my guess is that it'll blow way up on your screen. The size of the file is much larger than, say, the ones you see of my paintings here.

Or, better yet, drag it onto your desktop, open it up from there, and keep clicking until it fills the screen. This iconization (often, sadly these days, a function of size as much as deserved mythic resonance) of everyday objects was one of the bedrock concepts of pop art.

Buzz Lightyear: To infinity ... and beyond.

You too can be Andy Warhol. Just keep clicking.

Anyway, the point of the story is that I may start storing my paint in glass jars with screw on lids. That said, I'm stopping typing now and going into the kitchen...

Okay, I'm back.

Brutus: What's that you're eating, my Lord?
Caesar: A pickle, Brutus.

I just ate the last of my Claussen dill pickles and rinsed out what I take to be a quart glass jar. I'm planning on buying a quart of black paint in the next day or so, and, by Jove, I'm gonna put the stuff in here.

Take a look at this:



It's a somewhat edited version of what the main table in my studio looks like. Not to be confused, on any level, with this:



Frankie Bacon's studio on an average day. The man was notorious for his clutter. I'm fond of this one too...



But the point of the thing is that if you scroll back up to the picture of my studio, you can see a small pile of Folgers plastic cans on the left hand side. I count eleven of the damned things scattered here and about. Right now, if I took the same picture, there'd prolly be twenty of the damned things. The photographer from the New York Times said, upon casting her eyes about, something along the lines of "That's a lot of coffee."

If you popped any but a couple open, I bet the paint in them would be the consistency of hoisin sauce. So, getting back to the original line of thinking, it hit me like a ton of bricks a moment or so ago that maybe I'm doing my paint wrong.

So I'm starting something new.