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DAVID "BAT" AYALA
(the artist formerly known as Fritz)
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For those who haven't been following along, I recently won the Iowa Artists area 11 art show and was then supposed to head on up to Okiboje, Iowa to compete in the finals. Well, I did this. A six and a half hour road up. What a colossal waste of time and money. Iron Man pretty much single-handedly saved the whole trip from being a complete nightmare.

This was not my scene, and I knew it instantly when I entered the gallery. There was a sea of blue-haired, elderly women hanging up paintings of flowers, sunsets and landscapes. Yes, the token barn painting was there. Yes, you can count on the fact that someone splattered paint randomly and haphazardly on a canvas and named something randomly pretentious sounding. This just wasn't a tea party i belonged at, I knew it and the elderly women knew it.

Now, it's no secret that I have a negative stance on art contests. Anything that involves judgment and not a clear cut winner (like in a foot race) is bound to be flawed, because you enter into the realm of opinion. In this case, the man handing out that opinion was a professor at some university I'd never heard of. In all fairness, he had a pretty good idea. He'd show some of his art, so we'd understand where he was coming from. Trouble was, he was a very one dimensional artist. He showed about 50 paintings, he ONLY worked in acrylic and watercolors and he ONLY painted three possible subject matters. Tulips, berries and sand dunes. That's it. I'm not exaggerating. Now, plenty of people enjoy that sort of thing, to me, it couldn't be any blander; but personal tastes aside, who in their right mind limits themselves to only doing three things? I thought that was nuts, but what do I know.

Anyways, I was ignored, my picture was barely looked at. I was not apart of the elderly woman clique (which I'm okay with, really). Nearly 50% of the room headed home with a ribbon or cash prize. I got nothing (wah), which would have been fine if I'd been even remotely convinced that my picture just wasn't good enough. Thing is, I know I'm nowhere near great, nor am I anywhere near where I'd like to be as an artist. I'm also aware that I'm not awful, but I'm certain my stuff was "better" (relative term) than much of what did win. it was definitely made clear to me that day that I was not welcome in their reindeer games.

Or maybe it was a case of mermaid discrimination...

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I was tagged with this one a couple times before, this time by =gothitink I'll answer the call, but I'm not tagging anyone else.

* 1. Post these rules.
* 2. Each tagged person must post 8 things about their self on their journal.
* 3. At the end, you have to choose and tag 8 people and post their icons on the same journal.
* 4. Go to their pages and send a message saying you tagged them.
* 5. No tag-backs.

1. I'm Batman
2. For fun, I like to skate on the other side of the ice.
3. I invented the internet. (I also won a Nobel Peace Price for making a documentary on global warming, where I blatantly lied and spread scientific misinformation throughout the world despite the fact that we're heading into a second cooling period in the last hundred years.)
4. If Hillary Clinton wins the Presidency, I'll do something drastic.
5. I'm a member in good stand of Skull and Bones.
6. I'm a mean, bitter old man just waiting to happen.
7. I need to mow my lawn this weekend. It looks like crap out there.
8. I own "Giant-Sized Man-Thing" #1, which was put out by Marvel Comics in the early 70s. It's one of my favorite comics, because it's called giant-sized man-thing.

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MYSTERY OF FEATURES!


Distressed Memories by =Salemburn
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CLUBS

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IMPORTANT LINKS
my art prints • [link]
my original recorded music • [link] [link]
myspace • [link]
comicspace • [link]
progmetal • [link]
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YOUR BRAINS
... are magically delicious!


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David Ayala began drawing at an early age, He attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc. He has since worked as a graphic artist for nearly 20 years. He is proficient in illustration, comic book art, graphics software such as Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. He also does caricatures at local events and has a professional background designing interior and exterior casino signs and casino gaming tokens. He really wants to eat your brains.