This image was painted in response to the youtube clip of Emily Gould on The Larry King Live Show. (Guest hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, April 2007) It's old news, of course. In this series I'm angling to distill the moments and figures of an industry and culture in transition. The Kimmel/Gould moment lingers in my mind.

The painting has, eh, chaffed some dispositions, while kicking around the studio for the past year, so I will offer 'my take.' I am generally against this kind of proto editorial note because it predicts a certain relevance the image has not yet afforded: the specious value of my own opinions on my own creation.
But if you've ended up in this metaphorical sandbox of mine, you might also like the designs for my imaginary spaceship. I'm blogging, I mean. Apologies aside.

Testimony

It's indulgent, but it's also brave, to pour your guts out in the semi public. Going on record where no record is requested--testifying inchoate moralities to an imagined jury. Oversharing is worth thinking or writing about because it's diagnostic of a cultural moment. Emily Gould was, at one point, a classic Oversharer.

The Oversharing moment has since matured to a kind of civility, or at least predictability in digital etiquette and decorum. That Ms. Gould happened to be at the apex of this forming paradigm was as critical as it was incidental. She was a symbol of the moment, not its sole proprietor.

Incidence aside, it was brave to sit down for tete-a-tete punditry with a spitfire comedian who'd made his name on quick witted chest thumping fart and tit humor. The Man Show was a demographic burp. It was forceful and bloated. It was 'a thing.'

Any comparative between chortling man humor and sensual voyeuristic femme blogging will have to be done off campus. I don't know, really. Perhaps it's two leering travelers on the same public transit.

But boy that JK sure came off entitled to his fame. Boy, oh boy!

Ugly Tactics in an Ugly War

On a related note, because I'm not a Kimmel hater either, it does take a lot of verve to wear suspenders unironically. He's got, you know, panache. He's funny; he is. Reminds me of a french bulldog for some reason.

It was unfortunate that Emily would have to defend gossip pedaling, and the vague metaphor of on-line 'stalking.' She was not the creator or real beneficiary. This was a pure ambush. Nothing was won for journalism or privacy. Ugly tactics in an ugly war.

At best, it was a case study on the personal impact of an unmitigated media beating that two mustachioed hooligans and a Kimmel could deliver in a five minute segment.

For all those reasons I think that Emily Gould got a raw deal. She wrote a very pure article in response. It is worth mulling over still, because she handled herself (handled herself!) with brazen objectivity. It was a powerful and defiant act towards the uneven criticism of her vanity.

Art and Bullies

As a culture we are rightly critical of artlessness in the public space. If our public voices regularly bared their private listlessness, we would have to stop hero worship and possibly dissolve fame's hierarchy all together. Who is nodding here? Notify the guards. (It's already happened you say?)

Pundit decorum, rhetoric mongers, bullies, bullshit artists--they all constitute a kind of cultural rind that keeps the fruit and vital juices of actual complex human emotion from oozing out into open air and dissolving. Like any good post catholic with vestigial guilt will tell you: real emotions are better kept inside, brought to a slow boil, manipulated, sublimated, crafted, eventually served as intricate stews. Sometimes we call this 'Art'.

But artlessness in the act of creation- the willingness to remove posture and speak frankly on individual human frailty- is not a native or small talent.

In writing about her experience Emily's artlessness was proper and wonderful. I thought highly of it when I read it back then. I still find it very striking.

Back in 20th century art history class--where good young art geeks go to mutilate their future sincerity--I picked up this tiny nugget:

I know I shall not live very long... If I've painted three good pictures, then I shall leave gladly with flowers in my hand and my hair. - Paula Modersohn-Becker

I subscribe. I don't know enough of Emily's work to say what other pieces may live up. But unlike the greater thrust of her contemporaries, I count at least one truly lasting work in her favor.

What's the deal with the painting, though?

Right, yea, I paint. I do that. Nasty habit.

Meant to paint the moment as nail polish flaking away. The residue of glamor's decay. That sort of thing. Thanks for taking a look. You're acutally very good looking yourself. I'm sure I'm not the first to mention...