i've been shooting upstate (new images! exciting!) for a few days and, while at a michael's with my dad looking for embroidery thread for a performance piece i'm working on (it sounds so cliche in writing but it's not i swear), i stumbled across all these paint by numbers kits. it's interesting because so many of them are really ideallic farm scenes in these over the top country settings. i realize they have alot of kitshcy connotations, that they run serious risk of being too much, but i kind of like them in the context of the plots of land and strip malls. i'm making one at the moment, since the rain is hindering my ability to photograph, and am seriously considering how they might work alongside these images. i can't help but wonder if they're inclusion will feel too much like a gimmick, and if re-photographing the finished paintings will remove some of that. i mean, i don't mind a little hint of irony, but do these take it too far? what gives something subtlety, and what makes something feel like slap-stick?