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0=1= ZAPATEADO © 2006 Keith Halonen    oil on panel    48¼×29¾ in / 123×76 cm    $ 47,000 US THIS PAINTING IS A GOLDEN RECTANGLE

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I have more photos in my candidate image archives than I'll ever be able to incorporate into paintings and I tend to go with fresher ideas most of the time. Occasionally, though, I dip into the archives for something special.      The dancer entertained at the annual Rom Festival in Freestone, California during the late 1990s. The Grand Canyon appears courtesy of Planet Earth and some editing on my part. I removed the modern safety railings and concrete stair steps. I wanted to give the impression of the pre-tourism era. I wanted to depict a daring scene but the guard rails were too much information and seemed irrelevant to my concept. I didn't even want to entertain the idea that the dancer might have had to climb over barriers to get where she is. It's already unlikely enough that she's there at all.      As for the theme here, this is a standalone piece that doesn't really conform to my ongoing series of portraits of objects but it is an idea that suggested itself to me quite a while back and I've only just now gotten 'round to working it out. Here are some close-up views from the image, including one of my characteristic camouflage signatures.

Detail from 0=1= ZAPATEADO

Oh, I almost forgot... the name! I had a deep think and decided that I owed myself at least one ultraweird cryptic painting title. Without a token mystery title, how could I consider myself a bohemian artist? Apart, that is, from the fact that I am a Bohemian artist. I probably owe myself an Untitled, too, but it's definitely not this painting.      Aren't computers wonderful? I entered the Boolean search phrase "Spanish AND dance" into the WordHunter feature bundled in with my onboard American Heritage Dictionary. It spat out 22 candidate words in an instant! From the very bottom of the list, I felt impelled to select the esoteric word zapateado, which is the rhythmic heel-tapping in Spanish flamenco dance.      As to the striking formula preceding the word, that must be the one those string theorists are seeking; you know, the spookily succinct equation that contains the key to the whole shebang, the Universe, demeaning of life, and so on. But please remember, dear art lovers, that when you one day watch some hatful of brains on TV talking about the impact of   0 = 1 = on Third Millenium science, think back to this day when you read it here directly from the fellow to whom it spontaneously occurred in a dream.

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