Body Parts - I Prefer Landscapes

"I Prefer Landscapes."

Mixed Media

Early Morning Toe Toucher

I worked on this fellow for quite some time.  I can relate to him!  I am naturally a night owl and if at all possible I'd like to lead my life that way.  Picasso preferred working at night and liked artificial light better than natural light.  Isn't that wild?  There's something so peaceful at night, when you're lost in your own world.

However, my job requires that I am there during the day so I try, try, try to be a good morning person.  If I had my way, as I've written many times before, I would just be Queen of the night! (-;

Acrylic, Oil, Enamel, Ink on Board

Here's a shot of our younger Magnolia tree during Sunday's sunset.  I love those Magnolia trees, dressed in frilly purple and pink, floating on the air.

Happy Valentine's Day and Night

I've been out of circulation for awhile and have quite a bit to post.  I guess I'll have to go out of order, and begin with Valentine's Day and work my way backwards in posts.

In any event, I hope you have a lovely day.

Happy Valentine's Day (and Night)

Oil on paper

I love how this one turned out...a bit Picasso-esque I thought...

Picasso Baby

The painters I have loved most? MY influences?  Picasso, Basquiat, Van Gogh, Alice Neel, Max Beckmann, Egon Schiele, de Kooning, Clemente, Chagall, Matisse, Guston, Fischl, even the smeared gruesomeness of Bacon. The majority of them possess the strong black line and invading color that call to me.

Last night I saw that the deadline for a "nude" contest was today.  I thought, could I possibly do something to participate?  I started to draw on 11" x 14" Bristol while choosing something from my DVR to accompany me.  Well, really I was looking to clear it out since I only had 4% recording availability left, still having shows as far back as 2013 on there.  I run across Jay Z's "Picasso Baby:  A Performance Art Film" directed by Mark Romanek.  I watch it again, drawing my nude, and it flows out of me.  I give her a chain, because, naturally you know, she's listening to Jay Z.

I painted my au naturel babe tonight.  I toyed with leaving her just black and white, with a smearing of smudge and black ink.  There's something about that singular strong black line that I love so.

By the way, I couldn't delete, "Picasso, Baby."  I mean, the energy, the famous people, the genius of rhyme, the mentioning of so many of my influences and great art museums.  Guess I'll have to expand upon that 4% by deleting "Moonstruck."  Oh, the pain!

Who are your favorite artists?  Even if you have the same list as I do, or even just a few of them, we're never going to produce the same art.  We're a mixture of so many things, so many influences, our own abilities, that we'll always come up with something different.  How horrible it would be not to put our own souls and distinct talent into what we're trying to express on paper, canvas, building wall.  Be influenced.  And then be an influencer.

Completed.

How she started.

With chain.

Background in.

 Jay Z's "Picasso Baby:  A Performance Art Film"

Lust

I've thought for some time that I would like to have a separate blog for spicier drawings.  Is that bad to admit?  I don't think so... I mean, sometimes I just want to express that arena.* All the great painters did it---how many times did Picasso draw naked men and women and the act of sex?  Uh, A LOT. I mean it's a part of being human, after all.  Why does it have to be twisted around into something forbidden?

Can you imagine me posting any drawings of said nature on Facebook?  No problem, there. ha!  I remember when I included in a blog post, a clip of Tom Cruise in the movie, "Rock of Ages."  Oh, my gosh, that movie got a PG-13 rating, people!  Anyway, some woman wrote that she would not tolerate pornography and promptly de-friended me.  Just so you can check it out, here's the link to the post that caused THAT ruckus (see last film clip there)!  Feeling Awful? Have a Falafel.

Here's a tame painting of lust, just to keep on everyone's good side. (-;

 Oil, acrylic, pastel and ink on handmade Italian paper

*(Just a quick aside here--Does anyone remember Anne Rice who wrote the "The Vampire Chronicles" series?  (You know the Vampire Lestat?) She wrote, under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure--and other novels under Anne Rampling--the "Sleeping Beauty Trilogy" about BDSM--I mean, THOSE were the ORIGINAL "50 Shades of Grey."  Just giving you yet another example of someone else who had to unleash a little spice, too. (-;

Hope Floats and Soul Feels--really, there's an explanation for this!

I can just feel people worried about my mental state on this one.  I actually painted this in June, right after that "Phone Call in Red."  I did the same thing, saturating the Bristol page with copious amounts of water, but to a greater degree this time around.  I painted this one in green ink, and almost wished I had left it alone right there.  Something with the running green and starkness of white appealed to me, but I kept going. 

It made me think of the 1956 French Picasso documentary, "Le Mystere Picasso" ("The Mystery of Picasso"),--NOT that I think I'm Picasso!  But towards the end of the film, he paints a picture and you want him to just stop.  It's wonderful.  But he keeps going...and there's another moment where you think, STOP!  You'll ruin it!  And onward he goes, painting over, blocking out, on and on, until even he admits that on this one, he went too far.  He couldn't save it any longer.  But as I lost my first strictly green and white painting, the one where the eyes conveyed more apprehension than sadness, I thought of Pablo.  And then I thought, maybe you can never get to be a great artist, or at least the best artist you can be, if you're not willing to destroy your own art.

I read once where someone said you should show the process of your creations.  And I do, at times.  But more often than not, I have entered some sort of Zen zone.  Even I don't know what I'm creating.  Most of the time I don't.  And in those moments, I never think to myself to stop and take a picture of what I'm doing.  I WISH I had that green and white photo, but as Al Pacino said of the NYC rooftop playgrounds of his youth, "that world is gone."

I have some need to explain what this is about, but why?  Is it less artistic, because I feel that I want to explain?  On one hand, because I'm not a stop, take-a-picture-along-the-way painter, I think that my words are my photo timeline.

Anyway, people think I'm off my rocker, but it's my blessing/curse of feeling deeply that's at work, not mental illness. 

I WAS watching the 2008 film, "Hope Floats" with Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr. two Saturdays ago.  That film is a tough one to watch.  I think it's great, but there often is one humiliating event after emotional upheaval after another.  I have to admit, I was crying hard, and that green running around the nose--well, it couldn't be more apropos, because that's the exact, snotty cry I was having.

I saw shapes within the background of ghostly, strange figures, and I brought them forward.  I wanted to post this pic, but I actually feared people would think, "Geez, she's SO depressing."  OR, it could be like the old lady, who upon seeing a painting of mine (which is a little scary) in a recent art show, loudly saying, "Oh, I don't like this kind of art."  Oh my gosh, I actually cracked up on that one as I watched and heard her reaction.

You see, my sweet paintings are much more popular, but I don't always feel that way.  And I don't always want to paint that way.  What I want to do is get rid of the knot inside of me that builds with more complex emotions, and that only happens by painting and releasing those feelings.  See the basket on the girl's cheek?  I wanted to indicate that I feel the need to catch all of my emotions--not just the happy ones.  The curious, critical figures to the right?  They're the ones I feared judgment from.  The woman creation is frustrated--she just wants happy art.  The man is trying to figure out what the hell is happening.  Look, these people represent no one.  Just the meandering contemplations of my mind.  At this point in my life, the majority of time I am pretty much past the judgments; but for this one, one that is so personal, I felt overly exposed, raw...I didn't want to post it, and I actually was surprised at myself for feeling so trepidatious.

To the left...the hands and arms encircling/supporting "HOPE" that is floating.  Seems good in theory, but sometimes, you eye that concept from a distance...is it really possible?  Because I'd be lying if I didn't say at times I doubt it (Hope, that is).  I think, try to recall all I've watched and read in "The Secret," but baby, a veces (sometime), it's hard.

 

My favorite line of the entire movie comes from Harry Connick, Jr.'s character, Justin Matisse.  Sandra Bullock, upon realizing how talented he is with building houses, tells him he should try to make money from his talent rather than just going around painting walls.  He tells her (regarding the exploitation of your talent/dream) the following: 

 

"You find something you love and you twist it and torture it and try to make money at it. And at the end, you can't find a trace of what you started out loving."

 

Maybe that's what I'm trying to say, too.  I have to make these, non-pleasant things.  In the end, they mean more to me than all the pretty ones.

Day 363. Picasso and Chicago and Guitar on Table with Girl

One of the most amazing events for me in 2013 was going to see the Picasso and Chicago exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Alice Neel are my most favorite of artists, and to even stand in the presence of their incredible work reduces me into a shaky puddle on the ground.  I have a hard time controlling my emotions, tears, and extremities peering at their pencil marks or brushstrokes.  When I look at their signature--RIGHT THERE!  My gosh, I... Well, I barely have words.  That they once were standing in front of this canvas or paper, and now I am, too...  Typing these words, I can feel myself at the museum once again, feel my heart speed up, feel my eyes becoming wet.

My husband and I went on the very last day of the exhibit.  It was one of those, "I CANNOT miss this."  No question.  So we made it up there (does anyone remember my posts of my computer blowing up during this time period?  That's when we went.), and of course, it was packed.  All the other procrastinators were there with us.

Here's the funny thing about public events.  Whether you're in a gallery, at a play, or at an opera, you experience these intense events with complete strangers, and yet, through the experience, you somehow bond with them however momentarily.  As you slowly move along, throngs of people will speed and blow past you, as if on a race to get to the end. This action I don't understand and won't ponder at all.  However, there are a few people who move right along with you at the same speed.  You pause within feet of each other throughout the entire exhibit, slowly reading every wall post, examining each picture or sculpture for approximately the same amount of time.  Why, here is a soul mate in art!  All of our hearts are beating together and sometimes we'll look at each other and smile, silent and euphoric in our shared wonderment before us.  This is what it is.

And so, there was a young woman with dark hair in a blue and gray shirt, purse slung across her body, who flowed with us.  I would be taking pictures, and in front of one of Picasso's "Guitar on Table" the girl stood back so I could click. We laughed, because she, my husband, and I had been swirling around each other for quite some time, and she said, "I'm trying to get out of your shot," and I said, "I'm always ridiculously taking so many pictures, but I can't help myself.  I'll just call the picture, 'Guitar on Table with Girl.' "  And so people, here you have it. (If you have the time, please read to the end to get the whole feel of the day.  Click on the pictures to enlarge.)

On our way up:

 

 His SIGNATURE people!

 

Critics at the time accused him of imitating Van Gogh (below left).

See the girl in the 2 pics below who will soon be sitting at the table with the guitar? 

I know it's hard to believe, but I'm only posting about 1/3 of my pictures here.

P.S.  In the very last room, a guard accused me of having my flash on--which I didn't! I showed the guard my camera that clearly had the flash off.  That is the second time I've gotten in trouble at the Art Institute.  Another time I was inside a taped off box around a Cy Twombly.  I didn't see the tape, because I was looking at the Twombly!  Lost in the moment is my defense.

FINALLY, when we came out of the museum on Michigan Avenue, there was a street musician, a saxophone player, playing "Close to You."  Cars were rushing by, there was a definite chill in the spring air, flowers were just starting to bloom, the saxophone's notes were twirling over the street to us, and I had just seen Picasso!  A moment of utter and complete magic had just happened to me.  Heaven, I am here to tell you, can be here on earth.

Leaving the Art Institute:

Michigan Avenue

A wedding party I spotted from the car: