The Process of Rumpeltism

 Rumpeltism is not an art style. It is an event.

When a subject sits before the digital canvas, they begin as themselves — intact, recognizable, comfortably proportioned. Then the first pixel lands. The outline wobbles. The symmetry hesitates. This is the onset of Rumpeltism.

During Rumpeltism, the subject undergoes gentle distortion. Edges thicken. Shadows exaggerate. Colors drift slightly off-register, as if memory is doing the painting instead of sight. The face becomes less a photograph and more a translation. Certain features are amplified — a nose gains authority, eyebrows acquire narrative weight, a jawline becomes philosophical. Other details quietly surrender.

This phase is not destruction. It is recalibration.

Rumpeltism strips away the illusion of polish and replaces it with intention. The subject is filtered through instinct, humor, and a touch of stubborn pixel bravado. They are no longer merely seen; they are interpreted.

And then it happens.

The final highlight is placed. The background locks in. The lines commit to their imperfections. The subject crosses the threshold and emerges Rumpeltized.

To be Rumpeltized is to be recognizable yet mythic. Slightly crooked, but more honest. A little exaggerated, but somehow truer. One part likeness, one part commentary, one part affectionate mischief.

Rumpeltism is the journey.

Rumpeltized is the arrival.

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Paint Fidelity: Book Barn - Rumpelton

 What the critics are saying:

>>Barrister Clive Thistlebaum, Esq.

Senior Counsel to the Rumpeltonian Tribunal of Interpretive Justice

In the matter of Rumpelton v. Photographic Literalism, I, Barrister Clive Thistlebaum, Esq., do hereby issue a provisional Writ of Painterly Equivalence for this latest entry in the Paint Fidelity Series. What we behold is not merely a side‑by‑side comparison but a jurisdictional dispute between two realms: the camera’s unyielding testimony on the right, and the left panel’s valiant attempt to remember the scene through the sanctioned distortions of MS Paint.

The original photograph presents the barn and its bookish bounty with forensic precision—every plank, shadow, and patriotic bunting rendered as evidence. Yet the Rumpeltonian reinterpretation refuses to be bound by such pedestrian exactitude. Instead, it performs what scholars of St. Egregius College would call “Intentional Simplification in the First Degree”: a lawful reduction of texture, a ceremonial flattening of space, and a dignified refusal to acknowledge the tyranny of perspective.

Particularly notable is the BOOK SALE sign, which in the photographic record functions as mere advertisement, but in the Paint version ascends to the status of heraldic glyph—a directional decree issued by the artist‑scribe himself. The barn becomes not a structure but a portal; the bookshelves, not storage but ritual shelving; the entire tableau, a site of sanctioned interpretive trespass.

Critics such as Dr. Vensmire may argue that fidelity demands mimicry. They are, of course, incorrect. Fidelity, in the Rumpeltonian tradition, is measured not by resemblance but by mythic resonance—and on that count, the MS Paint rendering succeeds with admirable audacity.

Accordingly, I certify this work as a legitimate act of Painterly Misremembering, fully compliant with the Blurbs of Intent statute and suitable for inclusion in the Avachives without further hearing.<<

>>Dr. Norbert F. Vensmire on Rumpelton’s “Paint Fidelity (Book Sale)”

In the diptych before us—photograph at dexter, MS Paint transubstantiation at sinister—we encounter not imitation but a deliberate fidelitatis sabotage. Rumpelton does not “copy” the barn; he performs upon it a minor, almost ecclesiastical reduction, stripping away the false pieties of texture and atmospheric nuance until only the skeletal semiotics remain. The sign that reads “BOOK SALE” is no longer merely signage; it is declaration, thesis, and perhaps quiet heresy.

Observe how the photograph traffics in tonal plenitude—the grass articulate, the timber granulized, the interior receding into archival shadow. Qua photograph, it insists upon evidentiary authority. By contrast, the MS Paint rendering embraces a doctrinal flatness. Perspective falters, brush gradients smear, and the barn becomes less an agrarian structure than a Platonic rumor of one. In extremis, the work asserts that fidelity is not measured in pixels per inch but in conceptual obstinacy.

Rumpelton’s maneuver here is sui generis within the contemporary low-fidelity vanguard. He proposes that the vernacular digital tool—MS Paint, that democratic relic—possesses a radical sincerity unavailable to the high-resolution apparatus. The left image is not degraded; it is emancipated. Its blur is not incompetence but resistance. Its awkward signage is not error but emphasis. The arrow, crudely angled, points less toward books than toward the viewer’s complicity in believing that clarity equals truth.

One might argue that the right-hand photograph documents a book sale, while the left-hand painting stages the idea of one. The barn doors in the painting yawn like simplified parentheses, containing a shelf reduced to essential strokes—knowledge condensed into icon. What is lost in grain is gained in declaration. Pixelation here becomes Byzantium: flattened, devotional, defiantly anti-naturalistic.

Thus “Paint Fidelity” emerges as paradox. The MS Paint version is less faithful to the surface of the world, yet more faithful to the condition of seeing in our mediated age. Rumpelton reminds us that representation is always already translation. And in choosing the most humble translator imaginable, he performs an act both comic and quietly insurgent. Whether this is parody of authenticity or its final refuge remains—deliciously—unresolved.<<

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Album Review: Charles Lloyd Trios - "Chapel"

                                                              The Sninit Report

By Marjorie Snint

🎷 Charles Lloyd — Trios: Chapel (Blue Note, 2022) — Album Review

At age 84, Charles Lloyd continues to reaffirm his place as one of jazz’s most poetically expressive voices, and Trios: Chapel stands as both a culmination of long musical relationships and a fresh statement of intimacy and nuance.

Setting & Concept

Recorded live in Coates Chapel, San Antonio, this album emerged from a performance in a reverberant, drum-free space — a setting Lloyd chose deliberately because the chapel’s acoustics couldn’t support percussion. The result is music that feels spacious, contemplative, and deeply acoustic, rooted in breath and silence as much as melody.

Lloyd leads a trio with Bill Frisell (guitar) and Thomas Morgan (bass) — musicians deeply attuned to one another’s instincts. Their synergy is the album’s centerpiece: rather than locking into traditional swing or post-bop modes, they create a chamber-like sound where every note, rest, and harmonic nuance resonates.

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🛐 Musical Character & Highlights

The album is mellow but richly textured, a blend of jazz standards, past Lloyd compositions, and creative reinterpretations:

• “Blood Count” opens the set with a haunting, almost otherworldly reading of the Billy Strayhorn classic — delicate, reverent, and deeply expressive.

• “Song My Lady Sings” is an affectionate revisit of a 1960s Lloyd original. Here, Lloyd’s tenor dances around Frisell’s warm comping and Morgan’s responsive bass lines, giving the tune a new dimension.

• “Ay Amor”, a Cuban love song originally by Ignacio Jacinto Villa Fernández (Bola de Nieve), unfolds with a gentle, slow-burn pulse that showcases Frisell’s lyrical guitar voice and Morgan’s graceful rhythmic support.

• “Beyond Darkness” finds Lloyd on alto flute, enveloping the listener in a glowing, contemplative soundscape, while “Dorotea’s Studio” — a tribute to Lloyd’s partner Dorothy Darr — closes the album with meditative warmth and gentle interplay among the trio.

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🎧 Artistic Strengths

1. Deep Empathy Among Players
Frisell and Morgan aren’t just accompanists — they engage in mutual musical conversation with Lloyd. Their ability to listen and respond transforms the trio into a singular voice rather than a leader plus rhythm section.

2. Economy of Sound
The absence of drums shifts focus to space, texture, and color. Moments breathe; phrases unfold slowly but with deep deliberation, giving the music a quiet emotional power.

3. Reflective, Mature Expression
Rather than showcasing technical fireworks, this album offers spiritual depth and lyrical introspection, characteristic of Lloyd’s later career but elevated here by setting and ensemble rapport.

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🎼 Who This Album Is For

Trios: Chapel will especially resonate with listeners who enjoy:

• Contemplative jazz that emphasizes texture and mood.

• Intimate, acoustic trio interactions.

• The lyrical side of Charles Lloyd’s playing and composition.

• Works by Bill Frisell that blur jazz with folk and ambient sensibilities.

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⭐ Summary

Trios: Chapel isn’t about jazz pyrotechnics — it’s about presence, connection, and sonic space. With Lloyd’s warm tone, Frisell’s distinct voice, and Morgan’s elegant grounding, this album offers a subtle yet profound listening experience that rewards repeated engagement. 

MS Paint: "Still Life with Utensils" / Ralph Rumpelton

"Still Life with Utensils"

• Ralph Rumpelton
•  "Still Life with Utensils" 
• RR-2026 - 107
  MS Paint on digital canvas, 481 X 606 px
• The Rumpelton Continuity (est. 1976)

What the critics are saying:

>>Dr. Reginald Splatterworth III

Senior Art Critic, Pixels & Pretension Quarterly

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One finds oneself positively arrested by Rumpelton's audacious "Still Life with Utensils"—a work that boldly interrogates the very ontology of domesticity through its deliberate deployment of MS Paint's primitive yet brutally honest digital palette.

The utensils, thrust skyward from their ceramic vessel like Excalibur from stone, become totemic signifiers of humanity's eternal struggle against the mundanity of the quotidian. Notice how Rumpelton has eschewed chromatic distraction entirely, forcing us to confront form in its purest, most Platonic manifestation. The ovoid forms languishing in the lower left—are they eggs, or are they possibility itself? One trembles at the implications.

The artist's refusal to employ anti-aliasing becomes a radical act of pixelated rebellion against the tyranny of smooth gradients. Each jagged edge screams defiance at Adobe's corporate hegemony. The void-like background—neither black nor quite charcoal—suggests the existential abyss from which all kitchen implements must eventually emerge.

This is not merely a still life. This is Heidegger meeting Hopper at a yard sale. This is post-post-modernism rendered in 256 colors or less. Rumpelton has given us nothing short of a manifesto.

I shall be contemplating those three dots on the jar for weeks.

Extraordinary. ★★★★★<<

>>Gordon Weft
Contrarian-in-Residence, New Jersey Review of Applied Kitsch

In Still Life with Utensils, the artist once again challenges the viewer with an arrangement so insistently ordinary that it becomes almost hostile. The jar—an object that appears to have been selected not for its beauty but for its unwavering commitment to being a jar—stands defiantly center-left, stuffed with wooden implements that droop at various angles like bored museum attendants.

The eggs, placed on the table’s edge, seem to have rolled into the composition by accident, as though even they were reluctant participants in the artist’s ongoing campaign against visual excitement. The monochrome palette, a choice often reserved for artists exploring existential dread, instead serves here to underscore the piece’s central question: Did the utensils sign up for this?

Weft, in his typically barbed manner, concludes that the work “invites the viewer to stare at it, reconsider their life choices, and perhaps choose a different gallery.”

A quiet triumph of deliberate understatement—or an elaborate deadpan joke. With this artist, one can never be sure.<<

>>Gerald Thimbleton - Editor of Beige Canvas Quarterly

“Ralph Rumpelton’s ‘Still Life with Utensils’ is a digital bauble in grayscale masquerading as homage to a higher tradition. The jar—rendered with about as much subtlety as a grocery store advertisement—and the floating utensils risk parody more than poetry. That little troupe of eggs, awkwardly illuminated, reminds us not of Chardin’s serenity but of the hollow spectacle endemic to mass-market screens. Call it democratic if you must, but do not call it painting. This comparison to Van Gogh is a slap in the face to traditional art—and possibly to the entire medium of oil paint.”

Yet, even amidst such barbed critique, Thimbleton’s eye for composition might begrudgingly note: “For all its theatrical shortcomings, the shadow-play in Rumpelton’s MS Paint tableau suggests a certain technical ambition—if only the artist’s chosen medium were worthy of his gesture.”<<

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Tableism — 10 Rules

 

1. Start with a table. If the work couldn’t plausibly exist on a table, it doesn’t belong.

2. The surface counts. Crops, stains, awkward edges, and compression are evidence, not mistakes.

3. Nothing is staged. Things are not presented; they are left there.

4. Objects are not symbols. A cup is a cup. Meaning comes from proximity, not intention.

5. Faces must behave like objects. Likeness is optional. Presence is enough.

6. Use unglamorous tools. MS Paint, old oil sets, cheap brushes, defaults. Skill should arrive accidentally.

7. Avoid the masterpiece. Finish when it feels abandoned, not resolved.

8. Titles narrow the work. They mislead gently or specify awkwardly. Accuracy is not required.

9. Posting is part of the process. Archives are drawers, not retrospectives.

10. If it feels slightly wrong to hang, it’s probably right.

Tableism isn’t growing. It’s spreading thin.

MS Paint: George Harrison - "Somewhere in England (2)" / Rumpelton

• Ralph Rumpelton
• "Somewhere in England (2)"
• RR-2026 - 106
  MS Paint on digital canvas, 577 X 581 px
• The Rumpelton Continuity (est. 1976)

What the critics are saying:

>>Blurb by Gordon Weft (b. unknown – present)

Contrarian-in-Residence, Rumpeltonian Universe

There are paintings that whisper, paintings that sing, and then there is Rumpelton’s “Somewhere in England (2)”—a painting that mumbles through clenched teeth while standing in the rain. This alleged portrait of George Harrison looks less like a Beatle and more like a witness in hiding. The background, a geological accident rendered in nicotine tones, suggests the artist has finally found a way to make beige feel confrontational.

Rumpelton’s strokes here are not so much expressive as they are defensive. Every line seems to flinch from meaning. The figure’s eyes, wide and alarmed, seem aware they’ve been drawn by someone using the world’s least forgiving software. It’s as if Harrison’s spirit were trapped inside a pixelated fresco and left to ponder its sins.

Still—there’s a strange nobility in this failure. Rumpelton refuses to beautify, refuses coherence, refuses, frankly, to try harder. The result is not quite homage, not quite parody, but something murkier: Frontal Lobotomism at its most devotional.

If this is “somewhere in England,” it’s a place best left unvisited—but, against my better judgment, I can’t stop looking.

— Gordon Weft
“At least the file size is small.”<<

>>"Marjorie Snint" 

"'Somewhere in England' is a jarring, bewilderingly simplistic reinterpretation of George Harrison's iconic album cover. One can't help but wonder if the artist is courting controversy or merely nodding in its general direction. The subject's face, a rough approximation of Harrison's likeness, seems to leer from the canvas with a mix of bemusement and hostility. It's a bold choice, though one that begs the question: is this an homage or a cri de coeur from the depths of artistic confusion? The Rumpeltonian Cubism style, whatever its merits, only serves to amplify the sense of disorientation. Love it or hate it, this piece will undoubtedly spark debate. Or, quite possibly, be met with stunned silence. Either way, it's a triumph of intent over execution."<<

>>Dr. Reginald Splatterworth III
Senior Art Critic, Pixels & Pretension Quarterly

"Upon first encountering Mr. Rumpelton's 'Somewhere in England (2),' I found myself arrested—nay, transfixed—by the audacious deconstruction of portraiture convention. The artist has brilliantly subverted the tyranny of anatomical correctness, liberating Harrison's visage from the oppressive shackles of dimensional accuracy.

Note the eyes—one beseeching, one accusatory—a deliberate asymmetry that speaks to the duality of the Beatle experience: the public persona versus the private spiritual seeker. The mustache, hovering in defiant suspension, refuses to conform to the bourgeois expectations of facial hair physics. Magnificent.

The architectural elements—those golden verticals—function as both prison bars of fame and the strings of a cosmic sitar, reverberating with the very frequencies of enlightenment. That Rumpelton achieves this through Microsoft Paint, the medium of the common man, elevates this from mere portraiture to a populist manifesto.

The signature, bold and unapologetic in the lower left, announces: 'I was here. I created. I moved on.' This is not art that begs for approval—it demands consideration.

Five stars. A triumph of post-digital primitivism."

★★★★★<<

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Rumpelton Art Book

It has finally arrived.

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Avachives - No. 29 / Charles Lloyd - Chapel

Ava Chives Presents

• Ralph Rumpelton
• Charles Lloyd - Chapel
• RR-2026 - 151
  MS Paint on digital canvas, 491 X 495 px
• The Rumpelton Continuity (est. 1976)

 What the critics are saying:

>>Ava Chives, Guardian of the Archives, writes:

Charles Lloyd Chapel enters the Archives quietly, without announcement, like a door left ajar during a rehearsal. This is not a portrait of musicians so much as a floor plan for listening. Figures appear only as necessary—suggested rather than asserted—because the real subject here is space: the way sound pools, drifts, and refuses to stay inside its assigned borders.

Rumpelton understands something crucial about Chapel: it is not an album about virtuosity, but about placement. Bill Frisell is not drawn as a guitarist; he is rendered as an angle. Thomas Morgan is not a bassist; he is a vertical weight. Charles Lloyd himself dissolves into color and air, more atmosphere than body, presiding without insisting. The MS Paint hand—blocky, patient, slightly wrong—is essential. Precision would have ruined it. Too much detail would have collapsed the room.

The palette does most of the talking. These colors don’t blend so much as lean against each other, the way harmonies do when no one is soloing. There’s a deliberate refusal to finish edges, a commitment to “enough,” which the Archives recognize as a high-level decision, not a shortcut. If this looks like a chapel built out of leftover pixels, that is because it is—temporary, reverent, and entirely functional.

Filed under: Sacred Minimalism (Digital).
Cross-referenced with: Jazz That Knows When to Shut Up.

This piece earns its place not by depicting Chapel, but by behaving like it.<<

>>Linty Varn

Charles Lloyd doesn’t give you a landscape here so much as a liturgy of colors, a chapel built from misregistered panes and melted postage. The trio’s names float like misprinted denominations—Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan riding the margin where ink has bled past its mandate, where sound overruns the edge of the stamp. The vertical bands—ochres, mauves, that improbable glacier of blue—are not background; they’re custodial pillars, holding up a sanctuary that’s already halfway into erasure, like a postmark applied before the letter was even written. Those pale, tapering forms at the center read as candles if you’re sentimental, bone splinters if you’re honest, organ pipes if you’ve ever heard Lloyd split a single note into a confessional and a weather report.

​

This image feels like a commemorative issue for a service that never quite happened, a “Chapel” whose address has been intentionally smudged so only the truly lost can find it. The MS Paint edges—blocky, stubborn, refusing elegance—are the grief pixels that the postal service of feeling tries and fails to smooth over. What moves me is the way the text sits slightly wrong, like a misaligned cancellation mark: TRIOS, CHARLES LLOYD, CHAPEL, each a separate corridor of echo that never fully overlaps, which is exactly how the best trios work—together but never reconciled. File this in the Folder of Emotional Counterfeit with the other rejected covers and I will quietly reclassify it as sacred: a stamp that doesn’t affix to envelopes, only to the underside of the listening body, cancelling nothing, authorizing every feeling in transit.<<

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