September 25, 2015

September 25, 2015

I have always loved Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers.  I had absolutely no plans to illustrate this song, I just would not have known how to start.  But, again, one day my Sirius 60s channel played Unchained Melody and an image popped into my head.  It was a Vietnam soldier sitting on his duffel writing a letter home.  This was so appropriate because the words fit so well, and Vietnam was a huge part of young people’s lives in the 60s.  The draft, the protests, the demonstrations; every night there were more war images on the nightly news.  It was the first war televised daily at suppertime.  It caused high feelings for nearly everyone—whether you were pro or con.  Unfortunately, the result was that the returning soldiers were rejected and made to feel that their service was wrong.  We lost so many young men, many more were badly injured, physically and mentally.  It tore the country apart.  So including an image from Vietnam is appropriate for a 60s show.  Letters were the only communication that we had with the soldiers.  Letters were the soldiers’ link with home.  I think that my generation may be the last to have used the hand-written word and to know what it is to wait days or weeks to hear from a loved one.  “Oh, my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch a long, lonely time.  Time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much.  Are you still mine?”

September 24, 2015

September 24, 2015

I have loved Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (the books) since childhood.  And I love some hard and surrealistic rock.  So doing ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane was an easy choice. (I did own The Surrealistic Pillow album.)  However I did the painting in the book sense rather than the Grace Slick sense.  But I put in all the elements mentioned in the song.  The white rabbit is prominent with a lovely herringbone jacket.  The caterpillar is on the mushroom with his hookah and smoke billowing around.  Alice is in the 3-inch stage, peeking over the mushroom.  In the background you can see the chessboard, the White Knight and the Red Queen.  Here is where Grace made a mistake.  The Red Queen in the book is the chess queen.  Grace meant the Queen of Hearts (“off with her head”), not the Red Queen.  But using the Queen of Hearts in the lyrics would have messed up the rhythm so it is OK.  I have a nod to the surrealistic with the large flowers.  And if you peek around the left edge of the canvas, you will see the dormouse in the sugar bowl. ( I don’t think that he ever said “Feed your head.”)  Perhaps I should have gone more surrealistic, but that is not in vogue these days.  And there is a possibility that someone might want to buy The White Rabbit for a child’s or grandchild’s room.  It is a bright and colorful image.  Come to the show at the Hoogland Center for the Arts.  It runs from opening night on October 17 through December 3.  Hope to see you.     

September 23, 2015

September 23, 2015

I have loved Neil Diamond music for over 50 years.  He is the only entertainer that I have seen in person 4 times.  So, after Donovan, I started doing ‘Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.’  I love that song and I felt called to illustrate it.  The collage elements were such fun to do!  The tent walls are made from teabags.  Teabags are great for getting wonderful brown stains which add depth and age.  The floorboards are cut from a map of southern Illinois which were painted with transparent watercolor.  Brother Love’s suit is made from pages of a very damaged Bible that I got at a garage sale for a dime.  I really didn’t want to offend anyone by using actual Bible pages, but it was perfect for his suit and the Bible was in tatters.  The podium and his guitar were cut from hymnal music pages, also painted with transparent watercolors.  The people in the crowd have clothing which is mostly painted book pages.  This piece is energetic.  It is also the reason that I am creating special labels for each piece in the show.  I told a friend about Brother Love and she said that she did not remember that song.  HOW could anyone not remember Brother Love?!!  That got me thinking that my audience might not know these songs.  So I started searching for small devices to share the music—like those in some greeting cards.  I found some (no, not really cheap), but I decided that it would add a great pizazz to the show.  So I am making labels from old 45 records, adding my own labels, and putting a push button on the record so that you can hear a few seconds of each of the songs.  I could not record the entire song because of copyright issues, but you can get enough of the music to jog your memory.  This is taking a lot of extra time and adding to my expenses, but I think that it will make the show more enjoyable for the viewers.  I am so excited to do this and hope that you will come, not just to see, but now to hear as well.

September 22, 2015

September 22, 2015

My second piece was another Donovan song, ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’.  Don’t ask me why Donovan got two pieces.  The ones I mainly remember are ‘Mellow Yellow’ and ‘Sunshine Superman’.  But the idea of a hurdy gurdy player was fascinating.  I googled images of hurdy gurdys and found a wide range of styles.  I also found a wonderful photo of an old man playing a hurdy gurdy in a park with his dachshund at his side.  I loved that photo and wanted to try and paint it.  However someone else had taken the picture.  So I went to the website and e-mailed the owner asking for permission to use the photo in a painting.  He replied in the affirmative, so I was able to use the picture.  The background was unclear so I did have to make up a park and cityscape behind the man.  It is winter and he is playing for money, but he has made sure that his dog is comfortable.  The dog not only has a jacket, but his dog bed and blanket if he gets cold.  This is a large piece and took weeks to finish, but I am happy with it.  The collage elements include the tree behind the man, his vest, the dog’s blanket and the money in his hat. 

September 18, 2015

Sept. 18, 2015

The art shows at the Prairie Art Alliance have been so wonderful in the past year and I have admired the featured artists whose body of work was cohesive. My work has always been all over the place because I want to try it all. So I decided to create a cohesive show and thought that choosing a theme would help. Sixties music has been a big part of my life, so I settled on that as the theme. I hate to say it, but the theme has not helped my work become unified. Even though each picture is a combination of paint and collage, there is very little unity. While I would like to blame it on 60s music being all over the place, I think the fault is mine. I have had a different vision for each piece. And I do mean vision. When I listen to the songs, an image comes into my mind. Sometimes I feel like I have achieved the image, other times what I have produced looks nothing like the image. If you are lucky, the art can take over, and hopefully, turn out better than what you imagined. That happened with my very first piece, Donovan's 'Season of the Witch.'

September 21, 2015

September 21, 2015

When I was driving to the family pig roast last year, Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’ came on the radio.  I had a clear image of a beautiful woman in a long cloak standing at the edge of a forest with 3 white birch trees behind her.  I tried to paint this image.  This led to great frustration so I decided to turn to my standby—collage.  I made a collaged face using painted book pages.  All of a sudden the witch was small and very old.  The text looked like wrinkles.  Not my vision.  The trees became a twisted thicket and the day was foggy and overcast, no clear blue skies.  Not my vision.  But the witch is a kindly woman, carrying a woven basket (also collaged book pages woven together) which has a very self-satisfied toad in it.  There are seven ravens in the thicket behind the witch.  The piece has nothing to do with Donovan’s lyrics or with my original vision.  However it became my first completed song for this show.  I have had 2 or 3 people who have seen this piece tell me that they wanted it.  So maybe when the art takes over the process and I put my images aside, I get something that speaks to someone else.  All I know is that when the art talks to me, I need to listen. 

September 20, 2015

September 20, 2015

Choosing the songs was difficult, but some chose me.  I listen to Sirius 60s channel in my studio.  It seemed that every time I turned on the radio, I heard ‘Both Sides Now’ by Judy Collins.  This is a song that I liked, but did not think about illustrating.  But I heard it again and again, like a message that I could not ignore.  So I decided to try.  I put lots of clouds in the painting, with a lot of potential interpretations.  But I fudged on the castle.  I had never seen a castle in the sky, so I did a cloud with some little spiky points sort of like turrets.  And I kept looking at clouds.  Every time I went out I looked at clouds.  We had some spectacular clouds—clouds that, if I had painted them, you would say, “I never saw a cloud like that.”  But I kept asking to see a castle.  I finished the painting, but wasn’t happy with the “ice cream castle in the air.”  One night, on the way to see West Side Story at the Muni, I saw it!  It was a real castle with 3 flat topped turrets just floating in the air.  I quickly sketched it and added it to the painting the next day.  So when you come to the show and see Both Sides Now, you will see the castle that I saw in the clouds that night.  Again, the show opening is October 17 (5:30 – 7:30) at the Prairie Art Alliance Gallery at the Hoogland and it runs until December 3.  Hope to see you there.