All art has a voice, and sometimes that voice is in some alien language that I can’t understand.

On Friday I had to park quite a ways away from my destination while doing some work downtown and found myself walking though Charleston’s art gallery district. Now, this isn’t a blanket statement of the Charleston art scene, but there are a plethora of galleries that sell only paintings of Egrets, Blue Herons, & old Charleston buildings. Like most of them. It’s weird, really. A lot of these paintings look like the stuff you get at Hobby Lobby, or the art section of Wal-Mart. Obviously, there’s a huge market for this stuff too, because real estate downtown isn’t cheap and there are a lot of these galleries.

So, I got to thinking – what if I took one of my shots of a classic doorway of an old house on Church Street and put some birds in there. Maybe an Egret and a Blue Heron. And then, a quick click of the Oil Paint effect in Photoshop and… BAM!!! Mainstream art! Print it out on some matte paper, sign it and add a few artistic embellishments with a paint pen, and then throw it in a metal document frame from Garden Ridge that costs $5.99. Take that bad boy and hang it in plain sight and… Profit?

Nah… But if you happen to find your self on a “royal” street corner in the next day or two, please help yourself to this fine piece of artwork by yours truly. Maybe someone will sell it to one of the many people who like paintings of birds and houses and give the money to the Center For Birds of Prey.

If you do happen to see it, please send me a pic of it!

BTW, I have a lot of friends who love to photograph birds and take photos of classic Charleston buildings, hell, I obviously do on occasion as well (the source material for that masterpiece up top wasn’t stolen – it’s all mine). I don’t mean any disrespect for your love of birds and stuff. Well, that’s not entirely true, I guess. I’m making fun of someone’s art. That’s pretty disrespectful. So screw me, I’m a jerk.

Just remember the golden rule of art: If everyone likes it, it’s not art.

***UPDATE***
OK, the print up above was gone very quickly, so now I’ve put up a new one. This is an iPhone shot of my awesome dog Jackson running through my yard. It’s called “Run Jack Run“. I put it up here while attending Second Sunday on King Street:

Go get it if you want it!