Creative Cogitation

Part of my think­ing about Social Media revolves around the fringe ele­ment.  I think we all are fringy at times. Here’s a fringe the­ory from me. Please explain oth­er­wise why kit­tens are a per­rienial favorite post­ing in all forms of social media? I think it’s their secret power — I’d reach for for my tin foil hat but my cat is send­ing rays to me bend­ing me to her will… I… must… pet my cat.  Just jok­ing — but I think you get the drift. 

I have been hear­ing about the end of time (accord­ing to the Mayan Cal­en­der) since I was a teenager.  My mom is a go to source for all things fringy.  I love my mom, but she did expose me to every­thing from Nos­tro­damus, to the­o­ries of Atlantis so I have known about fringe ele­ment the­o­ries for quite some time.  I am sure the mod­ern day Mayans (yes they are still around) are sick of hear­ing about the end of the 13th b’aktun as they know the 14th b’aktun starts the next day. To them I am sure its just a flip­ping of the cal­en­dar like Jan­u­ary 1, 2000.  If you want to find out more about the Mayan Cal­en­dar, read my post dis­cussing the wheel of time that appears in the paint­ings below.

Any­way, from what I have read, it seems the Mayans would view the flip­ping over of their cal­en­dar as an aus­pi­cious event, a time for cel­e­bra­tion.  “Hey folks, we made it another 400 years.  Lets Party!”  Of course you really don’t need an excuse to party, “Happy Wednes­day!” Any­one?  But flip­ping a 400-year cal­en­dar seems to be a good a rea­son as any.

So when I was con­tem­plat­ing my Binary Birds paint­ing on the sub­ject and fig­ur­ing out how I was going to depict the the long count cal­en­dar, I decided the paint­ings would reflect this more joy­ous take on the end of the 13 b’aktun.  I decided to use a red-crested par­rot as the bird in the paint­ings as this dis­tinc­tive bird is a native of Mex­ico; after all it is their cel­e­bra­tion… no? 

But a some­thing hap­pened when I went to paint.  I could not decide how many birds to put in the paint­ing so I came up with two ver­sions.  The first sim­ply enti­tled 12/20/2012 has a happy par­rot danc­ing on the outer most cog of my wheel of time; the paint­ing is dom­i­nated by the entire cal­en­dar.   By the way any­one else notice the end of the 13th b’aktun as num­ber is kind of the same for­ward and backward? See how easy it is to point out spu­ri­ous coin­ci­dence and build some fringe the­ory around it? Of course true to Binary Birds theme there is ASCII binary which reads right to left & top to bot­tom 12/20/2012. 

12/20/2012 by Jake Beck­man. A red crested par­rot dance in Jake;s con­cep­tion of Mayan Long Count Calendar.

The sec­ond paint­ing I think expresses the cel­bra­tion aspect a bit better.  The wheel is still pretty large, but my par­ty­ing par­rots are def­i­nitely more com­pelling.  The title is Party like its CJJHJ!  Which is of course a take on Party like is 1999! reflect­ing on the par­ties that occured at the end of the last cen­tury (of course some like to point out that the new cen­tury didn’t begin until 2001, but I am going with the major­ity on this one-even if they are not tech­ni­cally cor­rect).  The binary reads Party like its CJJHJ from left to right & top to bottom. By the way, is it just me or do par­rots have ugly feet? If you are won­der­ing about CJJHJ, read more about my rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Mayan long-count cal­en­dar in my blog post on the subject. 

Party Like its CJJHJ, by Jake Beck­man. Three red-crested par­rots cel­e­brate the end of the 13th b’aktun of the Mayan long-count calendar.

So thats the story of my paint­ings on the sub­ject of 2012 as relates to Binary Birds & social media.  I hope you like them.  If you want to find out more about these paint­ings or buy one or both check out their pages on my web­site: 12/20/2012 and Party like its CJJHJ

By the way I have con­firmed my par­tic­i­pa­tion in the End of the World Face­book party on 12/20/2012.  Have you?

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

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