Chris Simonite's Cubo-Weirdism Blog! A Blog about Chris Simonite's Art by Chris Simonite. Who the Hell else?

Here in my hometown, as well as much of the world, it seems that government mandated anti-COVID measures are relaxing. So I'm sure sure you, dear reader(s) are wondering what that means for the the founder of Cubo-Weirdism, yours truly. For example, you might ask something like: "does this mean his painting production will slow down? Please say it ain't so!". Well, the answer to that question is: maybe.

You see on Sunday evening I did something that I haven't done in over two years. I went to a film set to work as a background performer, or what was previously known as an "extra". This is something I was doing to supplement my income in pre-pandemic times here in fabulous Hollywood North, aka Winnipeg. Basically it's a Hollywood with really cold weather and no palm trees. And no fancy studio tours. Also, they don't shoot sitcoms here, although even that is not unheard of. Okay, it's not Hollywood anything, but apparently it's cost effective for some movies and TV shows to film here, so occasionally I get some work.

It remains to be seen how much I'll do that this year. Back in 2019, I spent a fair amount of the summer doing this kind of work. But that was before I established the pattern of posting two new works a week to social media. And that is a practice I'd like to keep up with. Mind you, whether I take more background work or not, that pattern is likely to be interrupted. That is because I recently purchased a roll of raw canvas that I'm intending to stretch on to some large stretchers that I have. In other words, I'm finally going to take that plunge I've been talking about and make some larger paintings.

I'm not sure how that's going to affect my social media strategy. I will probably work on one of two smaller paintings while I work on the larger ones, but if I can't keep up the posting schedule, I guess I'll post work in progress shots? Two new ones a week? We shall see… But I think it's obvious that if I decided to take a fair amount of background/extra work, I will be unable to keep up the schedule. And that makes me sad, I have to say. Is it bad to miss a pandemic? Well, it's hard to miss something that's not actually over yet, we're all just in pretend-mode now. But I do want to say that once it's over, (if it's ever over) good riddance! And I'll figure things out with regards to social media and my marketing strategy.

^{Ted Lasso, 11" x 14", oil on canvas, 2022.}

Lastly, it's time for some new new work. And with this portrait of Ted Lasso, I ask the question: can a TV character be considered a national treasure? I'm not sure if Jason Sudeikis is at the point in his career where is considered to be one or not. Maybe he is, but I would suggest that Ted Lasso is one! No matter what Nate has to say about it. Ooooh, that Nate!