October 9, 2015

October 9, 2015

I am going to admit that I like Bubble Gum Music.  If you aren’t a 60s child, you may not know what that is.  It was light, catchy, upbeat music with simple harmonies and it was aimed for the younger audience.  I was not exactly in that category being 20 the year that the bubble gum sound started, but I guess that I looked it.  The next year, at 21 I went to Marion Jr. High to do my student teaching.  I told the secretary in the office that I was to be with Mr. Stobel.  She got the forms and started enrolling me in the 8^th grade to my great embarrassment. Bubble gum music is happy and cheerful, the words were simple, the refrain was catchy.  Most of the bubble gum sound was created by studio groups hired by a producer and given a name just for that song.  The Archies may be the most famous of these studio groups; they were named for the comic book characters.  If you check out their hit, ‘Sugar, Sugar’, on u-tube you will see a cartoon with Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica performing.  I loved Tommy Roe who had bubble gum hits as well as the Monkees who were a studio group hired to have a television show about an imaginary rock group.  They actually became a performing band because they had such great songwriters. Boyce & Hart and Neil Diamond wrote hits for the Monkees and they eventually became a real rock band.  Anyway I wanted to include a bubble gum song and I decided to make it a 3D piece with a small manikin.  I decided to go with ‘Sugar, Sugar’ and she is full of it!  Her dress is collaged with candy wrappers, sugar packets, cupcake papers and candy images.  There are some adult visual puns which are not hard to find.  I wanted her hair to look like icing or cotton candy.  Come to the show to check out the puns and see how I made permanent icing for her hair.

October 8, 2015

October 8, 2015

I already mentioned that three dimensional work was not a consideration when I first started preparing for this show one year ago.  So I had not been going to garage sales and looking for possibilities.  However, as a mixed media artist, I have a gigantic space full of potential treasures.  (This is the reason that this new house is perfect for me.)  I started looking among the stash and found a violin.  Violin = music, a nice match.  But what 60s song do you think of when you think violin?  I asked my daughter, Lisa, and she said “Eleanor Rigby.”  Of course.  What a depressing song.  Who wants to buy depressing images?  Well, I hope that someone does, because that is the only song that I could come up with for the violin.  First I painted the violin with purple and grey shades, then I studied the song lyrics for images.  The front of the violin has the church and a cemetery scene with only Father McKenzie present at Eleanor’s burial.  The back of the violin has Eleanor (faceless) with her face in a jar—no, make that 7 faces in jars by the door to choose from.  I decided that she could choose her mood and expression for the day by picking a face.  I have already been told how warped my sense of humor is.  Actually I really think that my humor leans toward stating the obvious which is what I do for the Family Album cards.  If you look at them closely I am only picking up on what the picture shows and verbalizing it.  With the violin I took the words at face value and created an image to go with them.  Come to the Prairie Art Alliance to see this and other unusual 3D pieces which I will tell about in the week to come.  Again, the show runs from October 17 until December 3. 

October 7, 2015

October 7, 2015

I lived in southern California in the early 60s.  It was my favorite place of all the places we lived.  The early 60s were great years to be there.  The weather was perfect, the communities and roads were not yet overbuilt and overcrowded.  We lived in Camarillo which is north of L. A. and near Ventura.  In those days it was a quiet little place.  My mother once sat next to Hermione Gingold in the beauty shop (bet most of you have to look her up.)  And Mom was a census taker for the 60 census.  In those days the census takers went house to house recording the information.  She took the census at James Arness’s and Eve Arden’s homes and Eve told her to bring the kids over to swim.  (We did not do so.)  A classmate of mine lived next door to Steve McQueen.  We would jump on his diving board trying to peek into Steve’s backyard.  And I was a Beach Boy’s fan and had to include one of their songs.  I decided on Surfin’ U.S.A.  I have depicted a beach with surfers, as it might have been in the early 60s. This painting brings back a lot of memories for me.  And even if you did not visit the California beaches in the 60s, the Beach Boys and surfing songs were popular all over the country.

October 6, 2015

October 6, 2015

I decided that I should have an instrumental record in my collection.  I loved a lot of instrumentals during the 60s.  Remember Telstar, Classical Gas, Grazing in the Grass, Pipeline, Walk, Don’t Run, Green Onions, The Stripper, Taste of Honey, Yellow Bird, Hawaii Five-O and so many others.  I decided to do Green Onions.  I had a vision of a row of green onions in a chorus line doing a can-can.  I could not find fake green onions locally, but I saw a set of five on eBay and bought them.  When they came I was very disappointed.  They were papier-mâché—even the green stems which were bent and cracked.  They also had unattractive little strings hanging down like a strange beard.  So there will be no green onion chorus line—at least not for this show.  Then Sirius 60s played Baby Elephant Walk—a song that I had forgotten, by Henry Mancini.  So I made a 12” x 12” baby elephant scene.  I bet you have to play this recording when you come to the gallery, it is not one that we remember.

October 5, 2015

October 5, 2015

My work has to be in at the end of the week.  I am in crunch mode!  It is not just the art, but figuring out how to make the tags from records with the recorders attached with the button in place for activation.  I finished two pieces this weekend and am still working on 3.  The art can be turned in on Friday or Saturday.  I am sure that I will be a Saturday person. 

One piece that I wanted to do from the beginning was ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.  I pictured a couple of teens from late 50s/early 60s era.  The boy is in a black leather jacket; the girl is wearing a short red headscarf (remember those?) and has a red sweater tied over her shoulders.  The boy is in a gang called “The Black Sheep” with the logo on the back of his jacket.  (“I’m going to keep my sheep suit on until I’m sure that you’ve been shown that I can be trusted walking with you alone. Owoooooooo!).  It was a fun song, not as big as their hit ‘Wooly Booly’ but easier to illustrate. 

Anyhow I actually saw Sam the Sham in a dance club in Quincy.  It was a small venue and they played and everyone danced.  Years later when my husband and I were talking we discovered that we were both at that concert.  I was there with my friend, Cindy, and he was there with her brother, Marty.  We didn’t meet until a couple of years later when he transferred to SIU-Carbondale.  It was also a dance—a mixer held at Woody Hall where I was an R.A.  If nothing else, this show will bring back memories for those of us who remember the 60s. 

Octover 4, 2015

October 4, 2015

I always liked the song ‘Do You Love Me (Now that I can Dance)’ by the Contours.  It was a bonus that it is a Motown song since I wanted to cover all genres.  However when I heard it, I got a picture of hippy rabbits frolicking and dancing.  (Do not ask why, I don’t know.)  This was also fortuitous because hippies were a big part of the 60s culture and I wanted to include that as well.  Why rabbits?  I am not sure but they seemed like a good choice for a hippy (peace, love, vegetarian, etc.).  So I have two male and two female rabbits dressed in hippie clothing (flowers in their hare--sorry) dancing along the road.  This is a just for fun, silly piece.  But it is something that you look at and have to smile or even laugh.  Come to the show which runs from October 17 through December 3 at the Prairie Art Alliance Gallery at the Hoogland Center for the Arts.

October 3, 2015

October 3, 2015
I told you that I would come back to tell you about hand-painted papers.  I have a gelli plate which is like a thick sheet of gelatin but is permanent.  I dab some paint on, spread it with a brayer, add lines or texture if I want, and lay down a sheet of paper to get a print.  Deli paper is my preferred type of paper—it is the thin paper that they wrap sandwiches in at a Deli.  You do not have to clean the plate between uses, the left-over paint adds wonderful depth and shadow.(But the plate cleans easily with water or a baby-wipe when you are finished.)  Printing with the gelli plate is addictive.  I can easily paint 20-30 sheets in no time.  Luckily I have a drying rack in my studio, but I hate taking the time to put the wet papers on it.  I had great fun painting lots of colorful sheets for my ‘Octopus’s Garden’ piece.  The piece is entirely collage (except for the sand and water).  The only paper that was not painted using the gelli plate is the rock that the Octopus is sitting on.  The rest of the papers are just the way that they came off the plate.  I added a little shadow and minimal embellishments.  This piece is 12” x 12”.  I told you that it was going to be my raffle piece, but turned out too well.  (But I do LOVE ‘I am the Walrus’ which is my raffle piece and may have to buy a chance myself!)   If anyone wants to come to my studio and do some gelli plate printing, I would love to have you--but wait until next week after the show pieces are all turned in.  Thanks.