Monday, February 13, 2012

535 - Cien Pesos, Por Favor



The other night, I returned from a wonderful two-week vacation to Puerto Vallarta.  With an eye towards today, the monthly Ungood Art Day here on JSVB, as a tourist I took the time to sit on the beach and paint rocks for the Mexicans.  Above is an example. 

The history of this particular rock is rather sad.  A couple of years ago, a hurricane devastated the Puerto Vallarta shorefront, damaging local buildings and washing away the esplanade, the famous Malecón.  Over time, much of the debris that had been sucked out to sea has been returned in the surf.  This rock was likely part of a painted wall. 

I chose this rock because it already had blue paint.  I borrowed a bottle of typo correction fluid to colour in the white bits and used a marker to draw in the black.  It's a mess of artistic stereotypes, with the sleeping Mexican in his sombrero, the waving palm trees, the distant cloud-draped mountains, and the ubiquitous "M"-shaped birds.  Unlike many of my Ungood Art pieces, this one was intentionally engineered to be bad.  Unfortunately, it's not much different from the painted rocks that the tourists buy.

Cien Pesos, Por Favor.  A hundred pesos, please.  Ten bucks, and this rock is yours.