THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DUMB DESIGN IDEAS, subchapter X

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DUMB DESIGN IDEAS

ACCIDENTAL CONTENT
Shown above is another of the recently discovered "lost" paintings of Jan Van Assaerts. This daub contains a dreadful error. Sometimes an artist accidentally paints something that looks like a little face or a fish perhaps, and when you see it, the picture is ruined for you. You can never look at the painting without seeing that accidental "thing" in there. Artists take a lot of care to avoid those little gremlins.

Van Assaert accidentally included a half naked Hula Dancer. His wife was, by this time, a large pink gelatin, weighing as much as a tiled parlor stove, and he may have seen a Hula dancer from the far off Dutch colonies in the Polynesian islands or an engraving of the dance in a contemporary men's magazine. He certainly expressed his own subconscious yearnings in a way that seems as fresh today as when it was painted so long ago.

So don't let this happen to you! Before a painting goes to a show, or gallery, sit down in front of it and look carefully to make sure there are no little faces, pixies or frogs legs in there.

Dirk and his wife moved from the one room hovel on the canal to a larger home in the village. With his rapidly growing family Dirk knew he would have to find more income. Studying on the weekends, Dirk worked hard and in less than two years earned his masters degree.

Dirk still needed more money for his family, so he approached an artists career counselor. She was a little scary, frankly, she was mostly just bones and a few strands of oily ligament, her grey hair was pulled severely back on what must have been her head. Dressed in a shapeless, slubby raw linen bag the color of mildewed oatmeal, with broomstick pleats and a shirred round neck, she was feeding on a small salad. She had on wooden earrings the size and shape of Doritos. Like an enormous lizard she hissed through her thin lips and triple chins that artists make a living by getting grants. Then she looked disdainfully at him over the top of her rusting iron glasses as she ate another handful of organic vitamins for her numerous allergies. She waved him impatiently out of her damp office.

Dirk needed to apply for a grant from the Assembly of Compliance or one of the numerous Peoples Art Assistance bureaus. Training generations of children to be artists meant that upwards of 60% of the adult population were now artists. In order for that to work, a society had to provide lots of grant money and other stipends. Dirk knew that with Access to Creativity legislation recently signed into law, he stood a good chance of becoming an approved artist, particularly with that new degree! Unseen workers somewhere stood ready to pay, he had a right to make it as an artist!