Can this really be a good idea?

I refer, of course, to this ...

Which once looked like this ...

I get a thrill when I look at some paintings and assemblages -- old ones usually -- that seem to be coming apart, or peeling off in bits and pieces.  Ralph Lauren, that putz, made billions by taking the sorts of things the British aristocracy prized -- one's grandfather's favorite riding boots, for example -- and mass marketing them to people who weren't part of the British aristocracy but wanted to be.

Let's be clear here.  We're talking about taking a new pair of boots, tying them to the back of your car and dragging them around town long enough so they look like they were owned by your grandfather, and then selling them for several multiples of their worth.

You'll remember that our original thinking was something like this ...

One can't help wondering where we went off the tracks.

I can't help wondering when we adopted the royal We.
Us too.
Really?  Is everything a joke to you?
No.  I suppose the fundamental rational for the royal We is that this blog is a bit more participatory, at least from a voyeuristic point of view, than those of most painters.  I mean, the warts are truly exposed, and, as a defense mechanism, I like to think of them as our warts, not mine.
Oh.  A kind of "We, the People of The Year of Magical Painting ..." sort of a thing?
Exactly.  There's a manifesto in there somewhere.
Seeking to form a more perfect union, so to speak.
Exactly.
So what's with the bit about Ralph Lauren?
Dunno.