Secret-societies rule the world, Elvis is still alive and working down at the Piggly-Wiggly and giant lizards are in the White House. We certainly love our conspiracy theories and the Internet has become a giant repository of the paranoid, the disturbing and the downright crazy. We read it with a mixture of alarm and amusement, knowing most of it is improbable, but we’re still left with nagging doubts. After all, we know that governments really do assassinate people, commit criminal acts, and manipulate public opinion by the use of black propaganda. We know from published documents that the CIA experimented on unsuspecting subjects with LSD and that elements of American government really did consider carrying out terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens to manipulate public opinion back in the early 60s. So if the impossible is possible and the unthinkable has indeed been thought, then what else might be true ? If there’s even a little bit of truth in any of these ‘conspiracy theories’ then the world we live in is truly a terrifying place.

Giant Lizards Rule the World

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In his book ‘The Biggest Secret,’ David Icke, a one-time BBC sports reporter turned mystic and guru, spills the beans on one of the most scary conspiracy theories so far. He claims that we are secretly ruled by blood-drinking, shape-shifting, flesh-eating reptilian humanoids from outer space. They have been pretty successful, he suggests, in taking the top jobs in big business, the entertainment industry and politics. It may interest you to know that members of the British royal family are giant reptiles, as are members of the Bush family. Wild as they may seem, Mr Icke’s conspiracy theories have garnered considerable attention and have many believers. Who knows, when people say some politicians are just slimy reptiles, they might be right.

The Moon Landing Hoax

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In 1969 astronaut Neil Armstrong took a “small step for man, a giant leap for mankind” when he walked on the surface of the moon. Or did he? Conspiracy theorists say the whole thing was a hoax and that the Americans, desperate to beat the Russians in the space race, either faked the whole thing or the parts of it involving men walking on the moon, with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin acting out their mission on a secret film set. Another reason advanced for the hoax was that the U.S.government wanted to distract the public’s attention away from the deeply unpopular Vietnam war. Coincidentally (perhaps) lunar activities subsequently stopped, with planned missions canceled, around the same time that the U.S. ceased its involvement in Vietnam. A Gallup poll 20 years later in 1999 showed that 6% of Americans thought the lunar landings were fake and 5% were undecided.

The John F. Kennedy Assassination

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John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 in a Dallas motorcade. Who killed him? Officially it was a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. That was the conclusion of the Warren Commission set up to investigate. However polls held from 1966 onwards regularly show that anything up to a staggering 80% of Americans do not believe the ‘lone gunman’ story. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be ‘seriously flawed’. Conspiracy theorists suggest it was a political coup with the execution planned and carried out by the CIA in collaboration with organized crime. Many witnesses and key participants subsequently died in mysterious circumstances, adding to the widespread belief that the official story was just a convenient fiction for public consumption.

The 9/11 Cover-Up

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Conspiracy theories surrounding the attack on the twin towers on September 11 2001 essentially allege that the U.S. government was, to some degree, ‘in on it’. They either looked the other way while the ‘terrorist’ plan was executed or were behind it. Their motives were to use the attacks as a pretext to justify the pre-planned invasion of foreign countries and to excuse the draconian curtailment of domestic civil liberties (both of which happened). Critics say it is simply absurd to suppose an American government would consider allowing its citizens to be killed and lie about it. In 1962 there was active consideration of a plan (Operation Northwoods) to inflict civilian casualties on America with hijacked aircraft to dupe the public into supporting the invasion of Cuba. Sound familiar? More recently members of the Bush administration considered using ‘false-flag’ attacks on U.S. troops to justify invading Iran. So the idea that killing US citizens and lying about it is totally unthinkable to some in government is sadly not true. But is that what happened on 9/11? Or is it just a crazy ‘conspiracy theory’?

The CIA and AIDS

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The CIA is a dark and deadly organization. Some think they are the courageous defenders of ‘freedom and democracy’ overseas. Others call them the biggest terrorist organization on the planet. One of the very many conspiracy theories that swirl around them like fog is that they were responsible for AIDS. It has been suggested that it was created in CIA labs and that the government deliberately injected gay men with the virus during 1978 hepatitis-B experiments in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. That may seem far-fetched and without any sane motive, but of course it is a fact that the CIA engaged in illegal experiments where they administered LSD to unwitting Americans without their consent so its easy to see why people regard them with suspicion. Incidentally, most members of the scientific community believe the virus jumped from monkeys to humans but the conspiracy theorists are far from convinced.

Roswell and Alien Autopsies

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Something crashed on a remote ranch near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Was it a weather balloon, as the official story suggests, or was it an alien spaceship? Conspiracy theorists think it was the latter. First reports said it was some sort of saucer but that was hastily amended to a weather balloon. Possibly it was neither, but rather a high-altitude, top-secret military balloon from Project Mogul. Descriptions of the wreckage first reported by the original eyewitnesses match photos of the Project Mogul balloons, down to the silvery finish and strange symbols. But what about the alien autopsies? Well they didn’t surface until decades later, when a book on the topic was published. There probably was a cover-up, but did it involve flying saucers and alien bodies or just a top-secret, high-altitude balloon that they wanted to keep quiet?

Was Marilyn Monroe Murdered?

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Marilyn was found dead in the bedroom of her Los Angeles house and the death was attributed to ‘acute barbiturate poisoning’ and ‘probable suicide’ by the coroner. She was a long-term barbiturate user and had a history of overdose. In fact, she had a history of not only overdosing, but of being resuscitated. However many individuals including Jack Clemmons, the first LAPD officer to arrive at the house, and her ex-husband Joe Di Maggio, believe she was murdered. Monroe had been having an affair with John F Kennedy and perhaps with his brother Bobby too. She was also a close associate of Frank Sinatra, who himself had influential friends in organized crime. It is suggested that Monroe, something of a ‘loose cannon’ with her drug problems and chaotic lifestyle, was killed on the instructions of the Kennedy’s because she knew too much about the political dynasty’s Mafia links and was threatening to go public to get back at Robert for dumping her.

The Holocaust Conspiracy

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Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some conspiracy theorists believe that the deliberate extermination of 6 million Jews in the Nazi concentration camps is simply a conspiracy intended to discredit Hitler. They do not deny that Jews were interned in prison camps during World War II but argue that the number of deaths was greatly exaggerated. They say that the pictures of emaciated people and bodies stacked like cord wood were actually of Poles and Germans who died of typhus rather than being the victims of mistreatment. They maintain that gas chambers were just a rumor. To buy into this revisionist view one would need to discount the mountain of pictorial and first-hand witness evidence available, but that’s never stood in the way of a conspiracy theory before.

The New World Order

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There are many conspiracy theories floating around that involve ‘secret societies’ but the main ones can be pulled together under the umbrella title of ‘the new world order’, a power-hungry global elite who seek to rule the planet via a police-state, one-world government. Secret societies such as the Illuminati and The Bilderberg Group are the tools through which this power elite work. The theory goes that perhaps less than 3,000 of the worlds top figures in commerce, politics and finance are the puppet-masters pulling the strings and this is really the ultimate conspiracy theory from which so many others spring. The recent banking collapse, for example, or the imposition of draconian police-state powers under ‘anti-terrorist’ laws can be seen as necessary steps towards the global police state that will be the ‘new world order’. Is it happening ? I guess it all depends how you interpret things.

The Death of Princess Diana

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Diana, Princess of Wales, died in 1997 in a car wreck in Paris. Her lover, the wealthy Dodi al-Fayed, and the driver of the car, Henri Paul, both died too. al-Fayed’s bodyguard was the only survivor. A lengthy French judicial investigation concluded that the crash was caused by Paul losing control of the car at high speed while his abilities were impaired by drink and anti-depressants. A sad, avoidable, but pretty ordinary accident you might think. Conspiracy theorists, however, claim it was murder. They say Diana was pregnant with the child of Dodi al-Fayed, whom she was going to marry, and the Duke of Edinburgh (the Queen’s husband) ordered MI6 (the British secret service) to kill Diana and Dodi. Whatever the truth, the continuing controversy keeps Diana’s picture on the worlds front pages and sells lots of newspapers and magazines.

Advertising is one of the most powerful forces shaping our lives. From the day we are born to the day we die, for every waking hour, we are bombarded with exhortations to buy.  Advertising is the enabler of the consumer society, keeping factories open and people employed, and giving everyone a reason to get out of bed in the morning so they can work ever harder for more and more things that they don’t really need. Of course people have always advertised their wares and services on a personal level but it only became the giant, remorseless machine that it is now during the 20th century. For me the ‘golden’ age of advertising was probably the 1950s in America. A coincidence of booming post-war prosperity and the advent of television as an advertising medium created the perfect environment for the huge advertising companies to develop. They’ve never looked back since.

The Birth of Television

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Television was reaching the masses of America during the 1950s (the first color sets hit the market in 1951) and it allowed the hard-sell to be thrust right into the country’s living rooms. Suddenly there was a fascinating array of must-have products that people had never realized before they needed. Whole programs were devised not for any artistic reasons but simply as a vehicle for selling. One of the best examples was the ‘soap opera’. These were ongoing, episodic works of dramatic fiction presented in serial format, originally on radio but transferred during the 1950s with great effect to television. The name “soap opera” stems from the original  serials sponsored by soap manufacturers like Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. They  were aimed at, and consumed by, a predominantly female audience and typically had weekday daytime slots when mostly housewives would be available to listen.

The Age of Instant Gratification

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With so much product to shift the advertising men of the 1950s couldn’t afford to encourage the old-fashioned values of thrift and prudence. The idea that you should only buy what you could afford, or save until you could afford it, simply wasn’t going to cut it any more. So people were encouraged to buy on credit. After all, if you could have that shiny new car or washing-machine right now why wait until you actually had the money for it ? Instant gratification became the accepted way of life for Americans.  Its no surprise therefore that the credit card system was introduced into America in 1950 to allow debt to be acquired in the fastest and easiest possible way.

Dream Cars

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Speaking of cars, there is possibly nothing that symbolizes America in the 1950s as perfectly as its cars. It was a time long before the global dominance of foreign car-makers and bland corporate design, when you would buy a car made in the USA and choose from a huge range of genuinely different models. American cars of the 1950s dripped with chrome and had swooping tail-fins. They were extravagent, futuristic, and glowed in the bright pastels and primary colors of an optimistic age. Car advertizing in the 1950s was as unrestrained as the product itself, stressing  the car as an essential part of the ‘American Dream’.

Land of Milk and Honey

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America came out of the great depression of the 1930s straight into the hardships of the second world war and it took until the 1950s for people to feel secure and comfortable about the future. By then the average household income was nearly $3000 and almost 60% of Americans owned their own homes. It was the land of plenty and nothing was more plentiful than the food. A still war-damaged Europe could only look enviously at the magazine advertisements it saw of plates piled high for smiling , milk-fed Americans with perfect white teeth. Of course in reality poverty and hunger was rife in large parts of urban and rural America but you would never have guessed it from the food adverts.

Shiny New Gadgets

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By the end of the fifties most American households owned their own car and washing machine and approximately 90% of them owned at least one television set. According to the advertising men you had to have a brand-new washing machine to keep all those new clothes clean and the latest, gigantic fridge so all the food they’d persuaded you to buy wouldn’t go bad. There was no end to the shiny new gadgets you needed if you were to keep up with the Joneses. Faced with this, people felt that they had to work ever harder so they could afford the labor-saving devices that would free up their time so they could work even harder to buy more labor saying devices. The virtuous circle of consumerism was perfected in the 1950s and has continued to grow in strength ever since.

Staying Healthy

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Working extra hard to buy so many new things, and the constant worry about ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ that advertising strove to engender, inevitably took their toll. Fortunately the ad-men were right there to tell you about the health-giving benefits of smoking and how a little Pepto-Bismol could cure the indigestion caused by stuffing yourself with that over-abundance of food from your super-sized new refrigerator. People discovered through the medium of 1950s advertising that they suffered from complaints they didn’t even know they had and some that were, indeed, unknown to medical science. Dress an actor up in a white lab coat and hang a stethoscope around his neck and even the most bizarre claims became credible.

Clothes Maketh the Man

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There was no point in having all of the brand new shiny gadgets and the dream car and a super-size fridge full of food if you dressed like one of the Beverley Hillbillies so clothes figured large in advertizing. As with so much else the ad-men were selling a dream, that all it would take is a new Arrow sport-shirt or a new Dacron suit and you would get that promotion, you would be popular, you would be a hit with the ladies. For generations people had got by with only their work clothes and a ‘sunday-go-to-meeting’ suit that lasted for years but now they were introduced to the concept of ‘leisure-wear’ for the new-found leisure they had so little of because they were working so hard to buy all the new ‘stuff’ they were told they needed.

Cute Kids

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Never one to miss a trick, the ad-wizards of the 1950s relied heavily on ‘cute kids’ to promote everything from food to toys to .. well just about anything. Generally speaking the pitch was to guilt-trip the parent and imply  .. “if only you buy these cornflakes or this soda or this toy then your child will be happier and healthier than it is now and if you don’t you can’t possibly love them.” Parents naturally found this line of argument irresistible. Personally, I find that a lot of the kids used in 1950s ads look positively demonic. They were more ‘perky’ and with bigger, toothier grins than anything outside of a Disney animatronic show had a right to be. But maybe that’s just seeing them from a 21st century perspective.

Selling Family Values

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One of the most interesting things about advertising from the 1950s, or any other time for that matter, is what it tells us about the society it was aimed at. Old ads often provide unwitting social commentary. In the case of this ad (for shirts) you can see that the basic premise is the nuclear family. Dad, Mom and the two kids all live happily together in the suburbs. Dad goes out to work and Mom stays at home to look after the children. That was the publically accepted norm in the 1950s and you wouldn’t find any ads pitched at single mothers or divorced dads. It was a different world then and the ads reflect that very clearly.

Let the Good Times Roll

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This old ad from the Ethyl corporation captures the exuberance of the 1950s and the advertising that flourished then. After the dark post-war years it seemed as if the clouds had finally blown away from America  and the sun was shining again. Everything was bright and colorful and exciting and, however young or old, you were entitled to have a good time. In some ways the picture the ads painted of mid-century America was accurate in capturing the spirit of optimism and aspiration. In other ways, of course, this picture was a gross misrepresentation and ignored the darker side of 1950s America, the poverty, apartheid, rigid conformity, intolerance, corruption, and the vile McCarthy communist witch-hunts. The ads of the 1950s were how America wanted to see itself though and, even if untrue, it wasn’t a bad vision.

What is Film Noir ? Well basically it’s a cinematic term used to describe a certain type of movie. It’s hard to pin down with absolute precision, because it’s essentially about an instantly recognizable ‘look’ and ‘mood’. The guys were tough but vulnerable, the women were beautiful but flawed, everyone smoked like a chimney and the whole thing was shot in gloomy, brooding black and white. The classic ‘film noir’ period stretched from the early 1940s to the late 1950s although the low-key, black and white visual style of the films had its roots in earlier German expressionist cinema.  Film Noir movies were often crime dramas that explored moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Many of the typical stories and much of the attitude of classic ‘noir’ derive from the fashion in the USA at the time for ‘tough’ crime fiction, for example Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Movie buffs argue endlessly about the ‘best’ Film Noir movies so we won’t stray into that mine-field. Instead lets just remember a few great examples of the genre.

The Maltese Falcon

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One of the strongest influences on the film noir genre of the 1940s was Americas love-affair with the ‘hard-boiled’ detective of popular fiction. Dashiell Hammett’s private-eye Sam Spade was as tough as they come. Sam, played here with laconic cool by Humphrey Bogart, finds himself hounded by police when his partner is killed whilst tailing a man. The girl who asked him to follow the man turns out not to be who she says she is and is secretly involved in something to do with a mysterious ‘Maltese Falcon’, a gold-encrusted life-sized statue of a falcon. The plot thickens.

Casablanca – 1942

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Settings don’t come much more seedy than Casablanca in World War II and Rick Blaine, exiled American and former freedom fighter, is the perfect morally ambiguous noir ‘hero’. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) runs the most popular nightspot in Casablanca. The plot involves Nazis, secret letters, a crooked police chief and, of course, Rick’s lost love Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) who turns up in his bar one night needing his help. The director, Michael Curtiz, somehow managed to transcend the genre and produce what has become one of the great movie love-stories of all time.

Double Indemnity – 1944

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Directed by Billy Wilder and with a tag line of ‘It’s Love And Murder At First Sight’, Double Indemnity contained the characteristic moral uncertainty of the Film Noir genre. Smooth-talking insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) becomes infatuated with Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and agrees to help murder her husband. After she has tricked him into signing a ‘double indemnity’ policy, they kill the husband to make it look like an accident. However, the suspicious insurance company investigates, uncovering shocking facts about the widow. A scheming woman, a weak and gullible man, infatuation, murder and double-cross, this is Film Noir at its cynical best.

The Big Sleep – 1946

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This Howard Hawks movie took Noir star Humphrey Bogart and plugged him straight back into his successful ‘private eye’ persona in a screenplay from a popular Raymond Chandler crime novel. The plot, shockingly for its time, contains homosexuality, gambling, police corruption, sex photos, criminals, scam artists, murder and an unflattering portrait of the very wealthy of Los Angeles. World-weary private-eye Phillip Marlow (Bogart) is a basically decent but flawed man trying to solve a complex series of mysteries and stay alive at the same time. The film is a good example of how the brooding cinematic style and the portrayal of imperfect humanity come together in Film Noir.

The Killers – 1946

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One of the things you can say in favor of movies from this era is that they were often based on good writing, in this case a Hemingway story, unlike so much current cinema where plot and characterization seem to take a back-seat to gimmicks and special effects . In this story the Swede (Burt Lancaster), is an ex-prize fighter who has foolishly gotten mixed up with mobsters and a double-crossing dame and is waiting in his cheap small-town hotel room for two hit-men to find and kill him. Director Robert Siodmak took the original Ernest Hemingway short story as his opening point and cleverly developed it through an elaborate series of flashbacks. Ava Gardner, in an early role, makes an excellent Film Noir ‘femme fatale’.

The Postman Always Rings Twice – 1946

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Tainted love, moral weakness, betrayal and murder – you just know it has to be Film Noir. In this classic example of the genre, Nick Smith, the middle-aged proprietor of a roadside restaurant, hires drifter Frank Chambers as a handyman. The drifter eventually begins a steamy affair with Nick’s beautiful wife Cora, who talks Frank into helping her kill Nick, by “accident.” Of course in Film Noir nothing ever goes according to plan and the lovers find their feelings for each other tested and found wanting in unexpected ways.

Gilda – 1946

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Down in Argentina, small-time crooked gambler Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is saved from a gunman by sinister Ballin Mundson, who later makes Johnny his right-hand man. True to the Film Noir ethos, their friendship is based on a mutual lack of scruples. The relationship heads for the rocks when Mundsons new wife Gilda (Rita Hayworth) appears on the scene. Johnny once knew femme-fatale Gilda and still feels both attraction and hatred towards her. Their relationship is a battlefield of warring emotions that becomes even more explosive after Mundson disappears in mysterious circumstances, leaving Gilda and Farrell free to marry. This incendiary situation finally explodes when the supposed dead-man turns up again looking for revenge.

The Third Man – 1949

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This classic Film Noir movie is set in the shadowy streets of post-war Vienna, a ruined city where nothing (and no-one) is quite what they seem. An American pulp-fiction writer (Joseph Cotton) arrives to discover that a friend of his, Harry Lime, has died under mysterious circumstances. Or has he ? The ensuing mystery entangles Cotton in his friend’s black-market dealings, with the multinational police, and with his mysterious Czech girlfriend. Demonstrating that a movie is always improved by memorable music the haunting ‘Harry Lime’ theme, played on the zither, sticks in the memory long after the end credits.

Sunset Boulevard – 1950

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Down-on-his-luck Hollywood scriptwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) takes on the job of writing a screenplay for forgotten silent movie actress Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). She is a former matinee idol, long past her former glories and living as a recluse in a ramshackle Hollywood mansion with her butler Max, who was once her director and husband. The penniless scriptwriter finds himself seduced into becoming her gigolo, has his moral integrity tested and found wanting in true Film Noir fashion, and is a witness and unwilling participant in her descent into murder and madness.

The Big Heat – 1956

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The ‘golden age’ of Film Noir was arguably the 1940s but there were still plenty of examples of the genre being made in the 1950s. In this film, detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is assigned to the routine investigation of a police sergeant’s suicide but when a ‘B-girl’ claiming to have evidence is found murdered, Bannion’s superiors order him off the case. Stubbornly Bannion pushes back at reputed mob boss Lagana, who fanatically keeps his home life free of “dirt.” The result is that a bomb meant for Bannion kills his wife, turning him into a vigilante bent on revenge at all costs and alone against a corrupt city except for Debby, the disfigured ex-mistress of a sadistic mobster. Love it or hate it, you’re not likely to come across many nice people in Film Noir.

Decorating military planes with nose art has been a largely American tradition since WWI. During WWII and the Korean War, nose art surged in popularity with controversial images of cheesecake pinups reminiscent of Vargas girls, ferocious animals or scenes representing memories from home or the tour of duty.

The Girls of WWII

(images via: arizona.edu, styrheim)

Artists often mimicked Vargas-style pinup art on the military aircraft they decorated. Sometimes the nose art was fashioned or named after a pilot’s sweetheart back home, but fantasy girls were far more popular.

The B-17 Flying Fortress Sally B. doubled as “Memphis Belle” in the 1991 film by the same name. To save money during the production of the film, one side of the plane remained Sally B., while the other side was dolled up as Memphis Belle for the movie.

Unique Names and Fierce Nose Art Designs

(images via: arizona.edu, swittersb, suduko, fsu.edu)

Although the B-17 is the plane most people think of as the standard WWII bomber, there were actually more B-24s in service. The B-24 had a long range and carried more bombers, but was much less attractive than the B-17. Million Dollar Baby’s name referred to the fact that during the war, the U.S. government paid $1 million for each B-29. Many of the B-29s were decorated with nose art in a variation of the Million Dollar Baby theme. Other bombers had nose art meant to look intimidating to enemies or names and mascots with sentimental value to the crew.

Recovered WWII Nose Art

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Military aircraft nose art is part of American history and is valuable for collectors. Much of it was lost during WWII and the Korean War. For instance, the image of “Miss Please” shown above with the girls of WWII is the only existing photograph of the artwork. This B24 aircraft was shot down over Yugoslavia on October 14, 1944.

Military Aircraft Nose Art Lives On

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The nose artwork was sometimes bartered and traded for, as there was no budget for decorating the planes during the wars. The nose artwork on Joltin’ Josie was said to have been painted for a 5th of liquor. Although the most notable nose art was displayed on military planes during WWII and the Korean War, the tradition is still alive today, although with far more politically correct themes. Those who are fortunate enough own pieces of original WWII-era nose art work to preserve this bit of Americana and the history behind it.

Abstract art developed around the turn of the last century as cameras began to take painting and illustration’s place as the primary means of portraiture. But just because technology and the art world had moved beyond portraits doesn’t mean people stopped drawing realistic pictures of each other. The art of realistic portraits is alive and well today and is represented here with a selection of wonderful artists.

Sketches

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(image via: David Yoon)

(image via: Keturah Bobo)

(image via: Sam Kwon)

(image via: Andy Leung)

(image via: Kieran Harris)

(image via: Ashley Hicks)

(image via: Raul Esparza)

From high school art classes to street art fairs to a police precinct, sketching portraits is a widely practiced art form. There’s a reason for that (outside of, in the case of the police, they need to catch a criminal): there’s something incredibly thrilling about an artist setting a single instrument, be it a pen or pencil, to paper and whipping up, with just his or her hands, an incredibly realistic depiction of what they see.

Paintings

(images via Salena B.)

(image via: Saya)

(images via: Talisa Almonte)

(images via: David Jackson)

(image via: Michael Jocelyn)

(images via: Salena B.)

Painting portraits takes much more time, skill and patience than sketching. While not as visceral an art form in the DOING, colorful depictions of people strike an emotional chord within us that sketches just can’t.

There’s something thrillingly vintage about a painted portrait. Cameras aren’t special–there’s one in every phone, computer and, if we’re counting security video cameras, just about on every corner of every block in most major cities. The photographed image isn’t special anymore. But there’s no insta-matic painting machine attached to your Blackberry. And sure, there’s a painting app on the iPhone, but it still requires skill and plenty of time.

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
-Oscar Wilde