thirty-three

 

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Perhaps I wasn’t that bad a painter after all. 

When I was actively painting, I held myself in high regard, but after setting painting and drawing aside, I adopted a more humble view of my abilities. Now that I have become, by my own estimation, quite good at the almost absurd and extremely curious art of computer and AI assisted imagery (or whatever awful name suits it), I understand even better what it means to have real facility with something, to be ahead of the curve.

My painting and drawing were vivid and good, though not masterful, perhaps. As we prepare to leave, we’ve pulled out a lot of things from the back cupboards to get rid of, and although most of my artwork is long gone, I’ve found a few surviving pieces, especially from my show of Jewish people aged eighty-five and older. I used AI, of course, to clean up my rough photograph of one painting here, and I like the result. I am proud of the painting. I think I was a pretty good painter.

Maybe time allows for me more room to be just... really good?

So I’ll let you see it, and you can decide. If you’re among those who grow weary of all the experiments and the falsity of all my computer-generated “AI art” I present this particular painting as my bona fides, on the one hand suggesting that I put in all the proper time into training and serving the tradition in the hope it will allow me to now do whatever I want due to my historic stature. And on the other hand, well, I think the AI improved my rendition of the hair a little here!

I've added a video version which I find slightly fascinating. Remember to click to engage, full screen as desired, then play. There is no sound.