Art for art's sake

I need to take a brief break from politics. There will be absolutely NOTHING about politics in this posting.

People often comment on how much free time I have. In fact, that’s the typical reaction when I make one of my observations — “Jay, you have WAY too much time on your hands.” But of late I’ve found a couple people who seem to have even more than I do.

I’ve never been much of an art fan. I do enjoy some artist’s work — I’ve always been fascinated by the hyperrealistic fantasy artwork of people like Michael Whelan, Boris Vallejo, and the Hildebrandt brothers, and gotten the most pleasant brain twists out of surrealists such as Rene Magritte, but one of my favorites of all time has to be M. C. Escher and his reality-warping creations.

I’ve found someone who takes Escher appreciation to amazing levels. There’s this guy in England who not only loves Escher’s work, he analyzes it, takes it apart, and then recreates the most physically impossible ones in real life, solid form.

In Legos. I’m serious — go look for yourself. He shows exactly how he does it, from multiple angles. I don’t think I’m ruining anything when I say that he uses optic illusions to recreate the effect — they only work from the precise viewing angle depicted in the original Escher piece. But he lets you peek “backstage” and shows you just how the magic is created.

Another guy out there with way too much time on his hands is this guy I met through work, named Rich. Rich has devoted a great deal of his spare time (and money) to documenting the adventures of his friend Homer. That little guy has done EVERYTHING, it seems, and Rich has the pictures to prove it..

As I sit here this morning, I realize that Homer has done a hell of a lot more in less than two years that I’ve done in my entire 36… er, 37 years. I really, REALLY need to get out more and get a life…

J.