Madonna for Primates

 



Madonna for Primates

 

 

 

Detail

 

 

Finally, a compassionate mother goddess for gorrillas and apes.  Animals have rights too, you know.  They have needs and emotions similar to humans.  No longer must they settle on worshiping a human Madonna, finally they have a representation from their own ethnic group.  A gorrilafication of their deep need for unending, all accepting mother love.   Apes, gorillas, and even monkeys, can meditate on this image and feel their hearts expand with the warmth of perfect love.

 

All they need now is a primate friendly church.  You may send a donation for the Holy Gorilla Tabernacle of Devine Primates Building Fund to my address.  Be generous. 

 

This is the digital picture that I am working on now.  Madonna for Primates, continues the themes, the series of Mary is My Muse, and The Persistence of Worship.  Religious mashup is the name of the game.  I am really trying to be respectful of religion, but the devil made me do it.  I mean, I think that a lighthearted approach to religion is helpful.  No disrespect intended. 

 

This px continues my artistic research into deep religious needs.  It illustrates that love is cross species.  Love flows through all cultures, ethnic groups, and many species. 

I have seen a mother cat hug a kitten.  The kitten was separated from her mother for about twenty hours. You could see that they were joyful to be reunited.  Mama cat lay on her back, with baby on her stomach, she hugged the child to her chest.

 Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall taught us much about love in primates. 

 

 

 When painting,  I continue to chase beauty.  The hues here satisfy my hunger for color.   The shapes compose interlocking circles, similar to a spiral.  You may see spiral composition in some of my other pictures.  Madonna, roughly a pyramid shape, is stable, grounded and protective. 

 

Halos, as I have mentioned before, offer room for poetic license.  Madonna Primate wears a halo which is a translation of the famous rose window of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris.  The top of the background borrows from a Clarence John McLaughlin photograph.  The bottom of the loosely interpreted jungle scene uses a vintage botanical print for reference.  This was a beautiful print until I started messing with it.  You can still identify the Venus Fly Trap and Pitcher Plants. The smiles of the mother and child are entirely my fault.  No one else should be blamed. 

Hey yall,  leave a comment, I want to know what you think.  Hate it? Love it? Indifferent?  Please let me know how you react to my babbling and dabbling.

 

 

 

   

Altar Alter

 Alter Altar 

 

 

 

 

Alter Altar with Bleeding Jesus

 

 

 

  Balloon Girl

Detail.  One of my cherubs

 

 

 

 

Bleeding Jesus and Buddha

Detail

 

 

 

Lucky Dog Cherub

 



Monkey, Hanging Out

Detail

 

Lessons from Jim Jonestown

Ganesha Kaleidoscope 

Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles

Ganesha in Blue

 

Lessons From Jim Jones-town

An extreme example of religion hijacking the deep needs of humans

Led by evangelist Jim Jones, nine hundred American people performed mass suicide by drinking cyanide laced kool aide, on November 18, 1978, in the jungle of Guyana.

How can this happen??? I know that people are crazy, but this boggles the mind.  Women gave their babies poison, and then took their own dose. NINE HUNDRED.

An extreme example of religion hijacking humanity's deepest needs. An example of people who were searching for answers, community, spiritual elation.  People who wanted to know how to do the right thing.  People who wanted to be told how to do right.  They wanted a saintly leader.  Jim Jones hooked into these needs and led them to mass suicide.

Recently I watched the documentary,  "American Experience: Jones-town The Life and Death of Peoples Temple", PBS.  I ordered the video from Netflicks because I was curious as to why 900 people would die on the command of a religious leader.  This continues my artistic research into, The Persistence of Worship.  I watched the video and saw that it had significance for my subject, so I watched it again and wrote notes.

Mothers gave their babies the poison, watched them die, and then took their own lethal kool aide.  Real life, worse than a horror movie.  How can this happen?  What does this tell us about being a human?  For on some level we are all mostly alike, sharing the same DNA, the same cerebral hills and valleys.  We may say, "Oh, I would never do that."  But we do not know what we would do in extreme circumstances.  Only six of the congregation escaped into the jungle.

Yes, I am sure that we all consider ourselves more mentally healthy than the pitiful followers of a psychopathic preacher.

And, I guess, most of us are more healthy.  People who are vulnerable to cult behavior do not have a strong and workable belief system, so they welcome a charismatic, authoritarian father figure, to tell them what to believe and what to do. They want their life to have meaning.

I have heard that  some people have good parents.

That is what I heard, some people have good parents.  But, I have come to think that parenting is impossible to get perfectly right.  There are to many factors involved in life on earth for anyone to get it exactly right.  Really, we just dont know what to do.  We are confused and ignorant and wonderfully wise.

Denial, better known as positive thinking, does help. It is better not to think about it to much.  It is better to go rake the leaves. I think that I will make a pot of jambalaya.  Chicken and sausage with jasmine rice.

 Most of us are still searching for perfect parental love. Searching for the person who will celebrate our faults. We tend to project our image of the perfect father onto preachers and Gods, (celebrities and royalty).. We see the longing movies of our minds on the screen of a person who demonstrates a few of the characteristics for which we are searching. 

The human condition, the conundrum is that we know so much, but we are unable to answer the biggest questions.  We have a need to know.  Jim Jones hooked into deep basic needs, just as any religion does.

We want control, but life can knock us down with surprising disasters.  We are buffeted by Biblical intensity weather.  Tomorrow is uncertain.  You, I, us, our life could be wiped out on the road this afternoon.  Any of us or our loved ones could disappear forever due to a very small blood clot. We can loose our jobs.  The list of blows is endless. Religions offer the impression that people may pray to God, perform rituals, and have some control and  protection.

How much of our activity is exerted in order to distract us from these hard, mostly denied truths?  We manage to live.  Even to thrive.  In spite of our ignorance. Denial helps.


Loving and creating is the best revenge. 


Here is what Wikipedia writes about the psychology of cult followers:

Under Langone's deliberative model, people are said to join cults primarily because of how they view a particular group. Langone notes that this view is most favored among sociologists and religious scholars. Under the "psychodynamic model", popular with some mental health professionals, individuals choose to join for fulfillment of subconscious psychological needs. Finally, the "thought reform model" states that people do not join because of their own psychological needs, but because of the group's influence through forms of psychological manipulation. Langone claims that those mental health experts who have more direct experience with large numbers of cultists tend to favor this latter view

At the same time, she adds, labeling a group a "cult" makes people feel safe, because the "violence associated with religion is split off from conventional religions, projected onto others, and imagined to involve only aberrant groups."^[49] This fails to take into account that child abuse, sexual abuse, financial extortion and warfare have also been committed by believers of mainstream religions, but the pejorative "cult" stereotype makes it easier to avoid confronting this uncomfortable fact. 


Yea, you may die this afternoon.  No, I cannot tell you, no one can tell you, what the fug you should do. No one can tell you, they may give you hints, but really no one knows.  Bad shit happens all the time. But, many  wonderful things can also happen.  Other people give us the gifts of their love and attention.  We often obtain our goals.  I did not say that it is all bad.  It is crazy, wonderful, sucky bad, delicious  good, all mixed together. The agony and the ecstasy, so intertwined, so very twisted.

Paintings from the "Persistence of Worship Series"

 MARY AND KRISHNA

Oil on canvas, 48"x36", 2012

YOSHODA AND JESUS

Oil on canvas, 48"x36", 10/2012

 Yashoda and Jesus

Photograph of painting on easel

 

 Paintings from the Persistence of Worship Series 

 In my blog from August, I documented the painting on canvas of Yoshoda and Jesus.  After that blog I painted for a few more weeks.  I intended to document finishing the painting, and, I took some pictures but they did not come out well.  The pictures here show the completed painting, a photographed version and a digitally enhanced version of the photo.  Since the August  documentation I mainly changed the face of Jesus.  And did several days of detail polishing. 

 The finished work is a visual feast on canvas,  intriguing images in sumptuous color. My son said,  "It looks playful, inspiring.  I think that it means something, but I dont know what? "  Which shows that he does not read my blog. He is too busy, raising a family. I liked his uninformed feed back.

Don Marshal,  New Orleans art royalty at the Contemporary Arts Center said that my work is "fresh and edgy".  I thank him for that. 

After the painting was finished I took the photo and worked it in Photo Shop.  I am better at digital painting than photography.  So the whole process went like this,  I first created the digital image, made a print and used it as a model for the hard oil on canvas, then photographed, then worked again in digital.  I am resisting the urge to touch up the canvas again.  Art is never finished, you just move on to the next project.

I re-posted the Mary and Krishna, in order to have the pair, Mary and Yoshada, in close proximity.  These two pictures are an artistic epiphany.  Following my muse, I often do not know where she will lead, I get an idea for a picture and toss it around in my mind for a while.  Some of the work is done while I am sleeping.  The Persistence of Worship Series, has been a interesting vein to mine.  The words come after the pictures.  The concept is verbalized after the series is in process. The series has motivated me to examine my personal belief system, and scan the history of world religions. Artistic process as a form of research.  Introspective research combined with not very rigorous historical research. 

The Mary and Yoshoda pictures, (switched at birth), illustrate, to put it into a nutshell, "The universal human need to give and receive compassionate, nonjudgmental love."
 

I AM CONFUSED, IS THAT A PROBLEM?

When, in my last post, I said that I am an admitted stupid human, I am referring to the humankind predicament of not knowing.  Our not knowing of the most important big questions.  "What am I?  What should I do? Will Katrina come back?"  The human race experiences a constant, mostly unconscious and denied, insecurity,  because these questions are never empirically satisfied. Personally, I am blessed with a fairly sharp intelligence and abundant creativity but must admit that I am missing a few marbles.  Oh, well. You may have noticed the missing marbles part.  I blame it on ADD, Attention to a Different Drummer. 

Clipboard Notes

 Random Musings

Question Everything!!!  It is a Quest Thing!

Soul is the same, the world over.

Take me to your lier.

If you are bored, then be grateful.  Your mind is an empty house and the world is full of furniture.

Auntie Mame said,  "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death."

I think that greed is a big problem in this market fueled culture.  Our problem is to distinguish between our needs and our wants. 

When did shopping become the highest endeavor of human kind?

I am confused.  An acknowledged case of normal human stupidity.

There are many positive aspects to organized religion.  I am thinking about making a list.  Steven Johnson listed a few benefits of church attendance.  I only caught the end of the program.   He said, on Book TV, and I paraphrase, "Feeling of being a part of something larger than oneself.  Feeling of working to make things better.  Feeling of the sublime."

Yashoday and Jesus, oil on canvas

August 9, 2012

 

 Yashoda and Jesus

Creating Something that has Never Been Seen Before

A Picture Totally New to the World

Painting Process Documentation

May, 2012.  My muse has been leading me down a golden path of visual exploration and discovery. For many years, I dallied with graven images of ancient gods and goddesses. I began to see that celebrities inhabit the Hollywood pantheon of early twenty first century chaos. So, I wrestled with the features of celebrities. Following Queen Muse, step by step, I came to the place were celebrity faces inhabit the bodies of deified concepts. Celebrities were matched and mated with ancient deities and pictures created.  Belushi Bacchus,  Angelina Medusa,  Oprah Cleopatra, (Cleopatra not technically a goddess, but close enough).  

I thought, who is the biggest celebrity of all times?  Mary Madonna became my muse.  I gave her a modern day makeover.  Her look was sooo unfashionable. 

In May this year, I discovered that Jesus and Krishna had been switched at birth in an alternate reality. I visualized the two pictures and started working them with Photo Shop. 

August 9, 2012.  I start the Yoshoda and Jesus painting on canvas on a quiet, overcast day. The creation of this image began earlier when I made the digital version.  I print out the digital version and use it  as a draft, a reference, a study.   The first marks on the 36"x48" canvas are conte chalk,  to map out the primary lines.   I do measurements on the study,  to translate the proportions to the canvas. I have dyslexia for the measurements, finally I guesstimate placement.  I have a nice studio where I can work, mostly undisturbed, in a beautiful setting.  An estimate of the hours that I work in the studio is 30-40 hours per week.  I do Photoshop almost daily.

August 12.  After the third day,  I have the main areas of color blocked in.  The dogs,  Harpo and Princess Fou Fou, hang out with me.  When it rains, almost everyday, the weather cools slightly, and I open the two sets of double doors of the studio, the north side looks onto a small scraggly lawn and trees, and the west side looks into the Louisiana jungle.

 I work all over the canvas.  I use large brushes first and work my way down to tiny red sable brushes for detail. Brush techniques include lines, scrubbing with the ragged bristles of old brushes, scrumbling (which was a favorite of  Monet),  dancing brush, and lots of glazing.  I want the style to be painterly, but often that desire is overruled by the wish for fine detail in some places. The small brush is annoying, I consider changing my style.  I wont change, I like this style. It is pop art influenced.

There are many Yin/Yang decisions to be made.  Painterly vs detail.  Realistic vs expressive design.  Saturated exciting color vs elegant muted tones.  For the past few years I have exploded with saturated colors.

 August 16.  Continuing to paint all over the canvas, I refine and define.  I think that my current style looks like vintage illustration for children's books.  My Mother read to me when I was a child and I read to my children. I give my grandchildren books.  This is one of the best things that a mother can do for a child. "The Color Kittens", was a preschool favorite of mine. It taught me the color wheel early. I was tuned into color as a baby, I remember.

I just gave you advice on child care.  That correlates with the interest in mother and child icons.  This image is a visual metaphor for the human longing for joyful, comforting, totally accepting, supportive, heavenly, motherly love.   The use of figures from different cultures emphasizes that this longing is global, a desire of all humans. The image comforts us because it portrays ideal compassion.

Even excellent mothers sometimes let their children down.  It is the most challenging job in the world. The care of children gives us a second chance, to attempt the creation of perfect love.

Here is a vast generalization;  Mother love is accepting, father love challenges us to be better. We need both the Yin and the Yang. 

 August 17.  The digital version of this image has a camellia flower for an aura.  Aura's allow lots of  room for play.  I used to see aura's in time past, when I was doing a lot of meditation, fasting and yoga. When in an altered state, I saw lights around people.  Somehow, I have moved away from those spiritual practices.  I always plan to get back to it.  But, I would rather paint and garden.  Maybe next week.

I think that you might call me an explorer of inner consciousness.  This is part of my artistic practice. 

August 18. Auras appear as ethereal, transparent, colored light; with flow, movement.  Here I made large halos with floating flowers.  The digital study has a tree, here I put the figures in heavenly clouds.

The baby face really does not please me.  I change the features many times.  But, still trying to get it right.  I wish that I could paint better. 

Weather remains hot,  but if I dress lightly, I like the doors open.  Love bugs land on the canvas, while doing a flying fuggle.  The love bug season comes every year to Louisiana.  They can be annoying, their gism gets tragically splattered all over our cars.  They come in swarms.  But, what an inspiring reminder that this creature on this amazing Earth, exists simply to do the Flying Fruggle.

 Adjusting placement of features, and detailing take a lot of time.  Pleasurable time.  I like the clouds, they get better everyday.

To be continued

MARY AND KRISHNA

MARY AND KRISHNA

Oil on canvas,  36"x48", July, 2012

This continues the themes of  "The Persistence of Worship", "Luminous Femme", and religious mash-up.  Previously I published the digital version of this px, which I used as a study for this painting on canvas.  In the digital version I used a cosmic Hubble image for the background.  When I started painting I blocked in the Hubble image, but as I painted I saw this fiery aura developing.  So, I went with the biker tatoo inspired aura.   As I work, I often see unexpected things happening with the paint.  These surprises are one of the things that keep me making art, year after year.  

So, this fiery aura appeared,  woven by the paintbrush in my hand.  This is no soft ethereal aura, it is a blast of strength.  It is an explosion of fire. This is a visual metaphor for a spiritually strong Goddess.

Paring the Christian Mary with the Hindu baby Krishna continues the religious mash-up vein that I have been mining.  The companion piece, "Yoshoda and Jesus",  indicates that Jesus and Krishna may have been switched at birth.  A harassed nurse switched the little bead name bracelets on the babies.  It seems that someone in the hospital nursery would have noticed that the pink complected baby belonged to the pink complected mother and the blue complected baby belonged to the blue complected mother. Oh well, glitches worse than this have occurred in hospitals.

Anyway, these two paintings are companions.  I am currently painting the Yashoda on canvas.  One might wish that companion paintings look similar.  One can wish all one wants, but the brush has a mind of its own.  The Yoshoda painting is coming out all ethereal, light and airy, it is developing heavenly clouds.  While the Mary px is fiery and earthy.  Maybe that is the point?? Yin and yang, the interweaving of opposites.

I am taking photographs of the Yoshoda as I work.  Will try to document the step by step, creation of the painting.

Keep those cards and letters coming, folks. (Dean Martin).

Yoshada and Jesus

Yashoda and Jesus

 

According to  Hindu myth,  Krishna was born to Devaki. He was conceived without sexual union, by "divine mental transmission" from the mind of  his father Vasudeva and into the womb of Devaki.  The couple's first six children were killed by Devaki's brother King Kansa because prophecy foretold that one of the children would kill him. Before the birth of Krishna,  Kansa locked Devaki and Vasudeva in prison. Krishna was born in prison and secretely taken to foster mother Yashoda for protection. Yashoda is often portrayed as his mother.

Lets look at this.  Krishna was born without sexual union.  A King wanted to kill him.  These are parallels with the story of Jesus.  Even the unusual birth places, a prison and a manger have similarity.  Hinduism is older than Christianity.

Joseph Campbell studied and wrote about comparative mythology.  He found similarities between creation and salvation myths all over the world, in many different cultures with different religions.

Here is what Wikipedia says about Campbell:

As a strong believer in the unity of human consciousness and its poetic expression through mythology, through the monomyth concept, Campbell expressed the idea that the whole of the human race could be seen as reciting a single story of great spiritual importance

 

Its ultimate meaning relates to humanity's search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return and is considered to be "unknowable" because it existed before words and knowledge. 

Myth fulfills basic human needs, the needs based on the human condition of not knowing. In the words of Gauguin, the not knowing, the source of deep insecurity, are derived from these mysterious questions,  "Where do we come from?  What are we?  Where are we going?"

In my recent art work I have been mashing up, mixing up, different religious stories.  I have switched the characters around.  Mary is holding Krishna and Yashoda is holding Jesus. 

Here is Reggae musician Bob Marleys take on this subject:

One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
As it was in the beginning (One Love)
So shall it be in the end (One Heart)
Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right   

Gauguin's oil painting,  "Where Do We Come From?  What Are We?  Where Are We Going?"

Peace, Love and Art,

 Janet

Babee Hapee

Babee Hapee

Here is a smile for your day.  Put it in your pocket to keep it handy.

Audrey Ascending

 

Audrey Ascending

What is Inspiration?

This is a px of Audrey Hepburn in clothes and a setting similar to traditional Christian Mary pictures .  I am wondering if people find this px inspiring?  Are the clouds and halo inspiring?   Mary has been a subject of art for close to two centuries. By substituting Audrey's face for Mary's face, the legend of Mary is removed.  If the legend of Mary is divorced from the gilding, the clothes and environment of her traditional paintings, does the px still inspire?  Is it the visual effects that inspire, or is the inspiration derived from the belief thoughts assigned to Mary?

Celebrities are our current idols.  We have a vast pantheon of revolving deities.  A few like Audrey have survived for over fifty years. Mary has been worshiped 40 times longer than Audrey.  Still, maybe Audrey inspires you.  She inspires me to work at being classy.  But, I still reserve the right to be tacky,  if the mood hits me. 

 Speaking of tacky and celebrities, please, Dear Goddess, deliver me from the Kardashians and Paris Hilton.

Humans have a need to be inspired, because, as you may have noticed, life on Earth can be tough.  When the going gets rough, you want to believe in something.  

In a documentary about George Lucas a fan told him, "Thanks for giving me something to believe in."  That surprised me.  I thought,  "This guy's belief system came from a science fiction film??? Oh wait, he was talking about The Force.  Of course, I believe in The Force."  This fan illustrates the human need for a belief system to explain the phenomena of life on Earth.

The comedian W.C. Fields said,  "Everyone should believe in something, I believe that I will have another drink."  Hey wait,  I also, believe I'll have another drink.  

Classy, inspiration, and another drink,  maybe I will survive life on Earth for a few more years.  Put that in your survival pack.

So, we have three references in this px:  1)  The legend of Mary.  2) The clothes and environment that Mary's stylists, many stylists, thousands, over the centuries, have developed, and 3) Audrey Hepburn.   Which of the three elements makes it inspiring?

 I would like to hear what people think about this px.  I am aware that some people will find this picture sacrilegious.  I would especially like to hear from my Christian friends and relatives.

If you have been following me you may have noticed that I am confused.  And, I want to know if that is a problem?  

I have more questions than answers.

Two other facts about me that may account for my current artistic subject matter. 1)  My muse compels me to do things that my rational mind understands to be, perhaps, counterproductive. And, no, I do not think that I am hallucinating.  Well, that all depends on your definition of hallucinations.    2)  I was raised by fanatical Christians who beat the hell out of me.  Oh wait,  here I am a grandmother, and I still want to raise hell. I thought that they beat the hell out of me.  But, I still get notions to raise Hell.   It is stressful to be so confused.  I thought that God told my parents to lay onto me with belts and other instruments of red ass because I was so bad. This experience alone may explain a lot about me.

 Next fact about ME;  I now have a good supporting peeps.  Maybe, I am doing something right.  I dont know what.  Maybe, LOVE.

I am still trying to decide what..."I believe IN....."

Here is one thing that I believe:

If anyone ever tells you that you should not ask questions,  you should  turn around and walk away quietly, and with dignity, and a swan neck, and do not go back.  

QUESTION EVERYTHING!

Am I putting the apostrophes in the right place?  Hey,  I have questions,  talk back to me. 

I like to prune bushes.  That is easier than making art on canvas.  Thank you, Goddess, I have a lot of bushes. Thousands.  Pruning relaxes me after a hard day on Earth.

What do you like to do?

Rosie, Roller Girl

Rosie, Roller Girl

This is a new 24M Photoshop painting.  The inspiration came from an "orphan" vintage photo.  Called orphan, because the provenance has been lost.  The original photo amazes me.  It is a black and white recording of a euphoric girl. What is her story?  Where is she now? A bit of intense past tense has been preserved. The back ground looks like a bombed out city, with piles of masonry rubble.  

I imagined a story for her.  I think that the picture was taken in a European city just after WWII. Rosie was born in a bomb shelter. She came into a world where the air reeked with  fear and death.  The bombs fell everyday until almost everything was destroyed. Fire and grief rained from the sky.  Anyone could die at any minute.  For Rosie's first few years, she lived in hell.

Just when it seemed that the world would and should end, when every soul was bruised or broken, when  depression and dread were a daily diet,  then, D-Day dawned. The good guys won. The adults celebrated,  the horror was over. There was a rebirth of Hope. Mom found skates that fit her daughter.  The new skates were the best thing that ever happened to this precious child.  She could zoom.  So this is how pleasure feels.

 Original Photograph

In my picture of her, I put her in a rose bower, because she has been with the disaster rubble for long enough.

. 

I worked on this digital version over a period of a few weeks.  I would like to do an oil painting version.  It takes me varying periods of time to do a canvas painting.  I have been working on "Mary and Krishna", for six weeks, hope to finish next week. Then I will photograph the finished painting, tweak it again in photoshop, and publish it. The digital version is already in this blog.  I like the circularity of repeating favorite images in pixels and paint, paint and points of light.

  Several digital pictures are completed for every canvas painting that I have the time to do.  The digital px's serve as detailed plans for the oil paintings.  I have more images than time, they hover overhead, as numerous as copters over Louis Armstrong Airport after Katrina. It is nice to be able to choose the best image.

I have been practicing Photoshop for eleven years.  I have been painting all my life.  Photoshop is a medium that offers some versatility that does not happen with real paint. You can make new versions without destroying the old versions.  I  get excited when I print out a new pixel px. It is a better experience to see it on paper than on a monitor.  Oil on canvas is even more immediate and more intense than the prints.  

Oh, that business, my family apology, in my last blog. Not sure I want to air my dirty laundry publicly.  Can I erase it? And the apology?  The children say they do not read my blog.  Most likely they are wary of being embarrassed.  They should be concerned,  I am not finished paying them back for throwing raging baby tantrums in Walmart yet.

We had a wonderful 4th of July.  The food has been so good.  The place is looking wonderful.  The creek is cool for swimming.  

Elizabeth Taylor, Gazing

Elizabeth Taylor Gazing

 

Liz Taylor Eyes

 

I distorted her face, but I think that she is still recognizable.  I say that she is gazing, but that is too soft a word  to describe her penetrating  eyes.  She is sizing things up and holding her ground.  She says,  "Dont mess with Liz."  I think that she could vaporize you, just by turning  the electricity up one little  notch.  She was a real bitch in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".  I would rewatch that film tonight if I had it. 

She is a Medusa, you can almost see the snakes!

I had trouble finding my inner shark.  People were running all over me, I had to learn to stand my ground. Maybe that search is why I made this picture.

An Event at the Ice Cream  Place

Recently Dave and I were waiting for our ice cream orders. The sun was too bright for comfort, but in the shade of the restaurant porch it was lovely.  Sitting at the next picnic table from us was an adorable family.  A young Mommy and Daddy and a beautiful girl, about 10 months old.  The child was sitting between the two parents on the table, playing with car keys.   She gurgled with happy.  She put the keys in her mouth and her father took them away.  Baby went from happy to throwing a hissy in less than ten seconds.  She cried a few minutes and Daddy gave the keys back. She put the keys in her mouth, and he took them away.  There were several repetitions of: playing with keys and happy, keys in mouth, keys taken away, loud screams.  Father was embarrassed by the crying and soon let her keep the keys just to avoid a scene.

 Did she get bad germs from the keys and get sick?  Daddy was trying to protect her and teach her.  Or, maybe the germs on the keys stimulated her immune system. Children need to be exposed to some bacteria, this causes their body to create immunity that will be with them all their life. It is hard, sometimes impossible, to know what is right.

Driving back to our Dauphine Island Cabin, Dave and I talked and agreed that it was wrong to aggravate Baby with the keys. She was too young to learn to keep things out of her mouth.  Infants are hard wired to put everything in their mouth. If I remember right they are only ready to learn to keep things out of their mouth at three or four years old.

 If they had been really super doooper parents they would have brought a chew toy for her. They would have been acquainted with developmental stages.  They were loving, attentive parents, out for ice cream.
Their mistake was small, and may not have much effect on the growing human. But simple, innocent interactions like this, if repeated,  may have long lasting consequences for the child. 

This is a small incident, the parents were obviously doing the best they knew how.  Parents make mistake like this every day.  No one knows exactly the right way to raise a child.

Once, I remember thinking, perhaps when I was in my forties,  I thought, my parents made me neurotic, and I am making my children neurotic.  I mean, no one is qualified for such a serious job.

 I have many pleasurable and informing memories from my childhood.  My parents were loving and took their parenting responsibilities seriously.  They wanted me to turn out well so they raised me up according to strict Christian ethics.  Daddy had a good Air Force job.  We traveled and saw the world. We were part of the military, fighting for right.

I went to 13 schools before I graduated high school.  I never belonged,  in the north they called me a southern rebel. The war between the states was still in collective memory, that explains the rebel part.  In the south they called me a damn yankee.  Damned, because the north won the war. My accent was always wrong.  I was in fifth grade before I realized that the north won the civil war.  My father's family remembered the boys that fell in that war.  The boys were heroes.  Talking about the loosing part would have subtracted points from their hero status. Hell, they just did not want to admit that they were losers.

My mother was relatively attentive.  My father was gone away on Air Force assignments.  I was born about 1 month before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Did I, on some level feel the screams of the victims?  Like Jung, I believe that we are all connected.

My mother and father were loving and relatively attentive.  They were sure that they knew the right way to raise a child.  The Bible told them what to do, people are born into sin and it must be whipped out. They were not confused, they had certainty.  They had hard and fast rules.

I was a relative attentive parent.  I made many mistakes that my children must try to sort out.   I really wanted to be a good Mom, but there was a lot of static. I was not sure what to do. I was confused. I just wanted to break all those damn righteous rules that I was raised with.

I made many stupid mistakes.  I am sorry.  This is my public apology to my children. I am sorry.

 I am still trying to get things right.

But back to the family on the porch.  They were loving and attentive, just uninformed.  If it is this easy to make a parental mistake, no wonder that we are all screwed up.

Excuse me!  You are not screwed up?  You are insulted that I would include you in with the confused masses of the world.  Your parents did everything right, or  you have overcome their stupidities?  Well, good for you dahlin' I hope that hasnt made you judgmental and superior. Arnt you the epitome of perfection.

We must examine and accept our own faults so that we can understand the faults of others.  Compassion for ourself and others is the basis of learning real love.

It is so disappointing to realize our human  condition of not knowing. We want to know,  "Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here?".  This is a quote from Gauguin.  We ask questions and want them answered.  We NEED to know. This is the attraction of religion.  The preacher tells you exactly what is right.   Uncertainty is just feeling ignorant. But there are no concrete answers.  We are left with just the consolation of appreciating Mystery. 

Enough blathering.  I will sign off now.  I hope that you have a stellar day.

The Contemporary Arts Center, NOLA Now, Part II The Human Figure exhibit, curated by Don Marshal,  last night was fun, inspirational and nostalgic.  Inspirational, because I always want to see what other artist are doing.  Fun, for the people watching.  Nostalgic, because it reminded me of my wonderful bad old days,  the 80's.

Art openings are see and be seen social events.  Steppin' out,  stylin',  making a fashion statement.  The fashion choices making a life style statement. Dave and I saw flocks of punks, bevies of sleek lesbians, pods of posturing artists, video camera faced recorders,  aging flower children,  fashionistas, and that slinky black clad group slouching toward alienation.

I saw only a few people that I knew, in contrast to my bad years when I ran with a pack of socially inappropriate high jinxers. When everyone worth knowing knew everyone worth knowing.

Hot children in the wild New Orleans night, exploring the Bacchanalian side of life.

I ran into old eighties friend Kenny Harrison,  the wonderfully adept Times Picayune artist.  He was clad in a good ole southern seer sucker suit as was George Schmidt.  Kenny introduced us to the artist Jim Dine, his name was familiar to me, but I had to Google him to see how famous he is.   

I spend most of my time like a hermit in the woods.  In my old age I seek peace and quiet, the better to contemplate messages from my muse.  The better to commune with mother nature, which is necessary for my sanity. Going to New Orleans, to an old stomping grounds place, is a big stimulating contrast. 

Oh, oh, oh, back in the bad old eighties, we had some legendary escapades.  I Belonged, belonged to a tribe.  The Contemporary Arts Center was one of our play houses.  A dusty warehouse, it was unkempt and unpolished. I sometimes did studio work there.  Messed around with Sandra Blair (Kween of Krewe of Klones) and created happenings.

 The core of my tribe were The Hemorrhoids, you heard me right, The Hemorrhoid Marching Club.   Our uniform consisted of long john underwear dyed purple,  a hemorrhoid donut pillow as a hat, and an enema bag filled with cocktails hung around the neck. Purple ostrich feathers and purple satin and sequin capes were optional.

Once, at the CAC, The Hemorrhoids danced on stage with Professor Longhair percussing the piano.  We were having so much fun, acting like fools, that they had to run us off the stage for the next act. 

Someone once asked me,  "Why were you called hemorrhoids?"  I said, "Because it is disgusting",  wasnt that obvious, self evident? 

When you slaughter that part of your social mask that maintains "good taste" a bigger world opens up. Boundaries are broken, it makes you more free. You have many more choices.   You can suck cocktails out of the business end of an enema bag.  I guess most of you may, understandably, reasonably, not get it.  I was raised to be a Southern Lady, I needed to bust that constrictive mold.

I am currently reconsidering "good taste" and allowing it back into my mode of operation.  Now I do it by conscious choice,  previously it was a conditioned habit.   Also, I am a grandmother, so I suppose (I am not sure) that I should set a good example, what ever that is. 

Of course my picture,  "Portrait of Charles Neville", is the best in the Human Figure show.  There is a lot of inspirational art work to see.  Two stand out amid all the static.  Under the heading, "I wish that I had thought of that first", is Jane Talton-Ayrod's "Odalisque Plastique".  A satirical redo of a classic odalisque, showing a Barbie doll lying voluptuously on a divan. Behind her, an Aunt Jemima doll (no un P.C. intended) displays a bouquet of flowers from an admirer.

Under the heading,  "I wish that I could paint that well" is Michael Deas oil, "The Frayed Dress".  Michael Deas also sent me to Google for research.  A New Orleans royalty of art, his work is amazing. He has created many impressive portraits for the USA postal system stamps.  Seeing his website, his picture of a woman holding a torch for Columbia Pictures, reminded me again of the bad old eighties.  Through purple clouds of smoke and time, I remember being at Molly's Irish Pub, with my tribe, about 1am, one steamy night.  A man brought in this beautifully rendered painting of the familiar Columbia Pictures logo updated. He had just finished it and wanted to show it off.  Now,  I know that man was Michael Deas. He wasnt quite on my radar before, how could I have missed him?  There are so many creatives in New Orleans.

Time brings interesting changes.  I, previously a tacky trollop galloping with a disruptive bunch of hooligans, now, a sometimes tasteful, usually well behaved grandmother traveling quietly with my third, and best husband, sweet Dave. The Contemporary Arts Center, previously a disheveled playhouse for unruly artists, now, an orderly, structured, architecturally interesting place of recent political upheavals, that is strangely familiar/unfamiliar. 

Peace, Love and Art,  Janet

Charles Neville Communications

I am so delighted that Charles Neville answered my open letter.  Charles is the much loved Grammy award winning  saxophone musician. In a city bountiful with musicians, he is New Orleans musical Royalty. His album "Diversity" is phenomenal.  The best way to hear him and the bro's is when the Neville Brothers close the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. 

This is what Charles wrote:

Dear Janet,
Your painting is wonderful, full of wonder and quite beautiful.  You really captured something of the Spirit of the "Mystic" Charles Neville. I would love to have a copy, if that's possible.  I'll be in N.O. for one day in late June.  I'll get to the C.A.C. then.
Thanks,
Charles

I wrote back:

Dear Charles,
Yesterday I mailed out four prints for you.  The prints are made with archival paper and ink.  ....
Thank you very much for your kind e-mail regarding the portrait.  I hope that you do not mind if I quote you in my blog and on other internet entries.

Art is communication between individuals.  As humans we speak, we gesture, we touch, but we never really know what is in the mind of others.  My art documents the introspections of my cognitive processes as I muddle about, trying to understand what it means to be a human on Earth.  Our communications demonstrates this process.

ART IS THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO MINDS

Your art, music inspired me and about a million other people.  I responded with a portrait, which speaks to you.  We craft verbal communications, and share them with others.  We are trying to close the gap between human minds. 

Have a blessed day,
Janet

See my web site and blog which illustrate my quest.

Charles wrote back:

Thanks Janet,
I looked at your website and liked everything I saw.  The crying baby was my favorite.  Thanks for thinking of me as being a subject.
Charles

Charles Neville, Open Letter

Charles Neville Portrait

36"x48" oil on canvas

An Urban Shaman

Open Letter to Charles Neville

Dear Charles,

I hope that you like your portrait.  I took liberties while painting it,  hope you don't mind.  In order to paint you,  I wanted to know about you.  I reviewed times past when our paths crossed. We met only once, that was in the early 90's at a spiritual retreat.  And, back in my bad old days, the 80's, in New Orleans I saw you and the bro's many times. At the best damn bad place on the planet, Tipitina's, with the sweat dripping off the walls. To research for the px, I surfed the web to gather some info and images of you. I found a snippet of information and some low rez publicity px's.

So, really I did not have a lot info to go on.  Not to worry, under informed?, not a problem.  I just used my hyperactive imagination.  

 

The cool hat and tie dye t-shirt, came from publicity stills attire.  Of course, there had to be your magic wand, sexy sax, close to your heart.  The mustache, which reminds me of a Chinese monk, is exaggerated,  because it looks so effin awesome.  High cheek bones reveal your Native American genes.

 I studied the low rez images of you harvested from the web, and converted the blurry face to paint on canvas.  Time consuming, fun and satisfying work.  While painting, stories floated on the screen of  my mind.  I saw you as mythic man,  a heroic urban shaman. A powerful explorer of life on Earth  An adventurer on the highway of consciousness.

There had to be a gator in the px.  He is your totem, a spiritual animal power partner. Gristly Gator, the mighty, mighty Honey Island swamp beast,  the cohort of Loup Garou,  is your unseen supporter. Do you sense him?

I had painted St. Louis Cathedral previously, so, it went in the picture as the spirit of New Orleans.  Radiance from the crosses borrows technique from Van Gogh.  The crosses are a salute to the many righteous people who gather solace and joy from churches.

After painting for a while, I looked at the px and saw that the Cathedral looked Gothic.  Kinda spooky.  I was mystified by what I had painted. The dark blue arches looked like ghosts.  They reminded me of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" painting.

Just as an aside, I have frequent arguments with my muse, my artistic inspiration.  My intention is to paint pictures filled with light and love (and a bit of humor).  However,  dark images sometimes creep into the paintings.  I blame this on my muse, she takes over my brush.

The Cathedral,  supposedly a beam of hope, looked like a set from a cheap horror movie.  Then I saw the justice in this. The horror stemmed from millennia of  abuses perpetrated by organized religion.  So, I was OK with St. Lou as painted.  The good side represented by the radiant crosses, the bad side showing up in the creepy ghosts.   

St. Louis Cathedral is reflected in your glasses.  The glory and horror is in your eyes.  This is the experience of your soul.  

There is a water fountain in front of St. Lou.  Maybe, this signifies the baptism of the spirit.  Or maybe, I am reading too much into it.  Maybe, it is just a beautiful picture.

This portrait will be exhibited at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, for seven weeks.  Opening reception Saturday, June 23.  Closing reception, White Linen Night, Sat August 5.

Thanks, Charles, for this picture.  It was a joy to paint.

Sincerely,

Janet

MARY, MOTHER OF GOD

I am confused, is that a problem?

This ancient picture was recently discovered in catacombs beneath the Galilee Chapel of Tears. It is painted on tanned goat hide and painted with  pigment of  huckleberries. Professor Doctor Fulloshoot placed the time of its creation in the early thirteenth century.  He states that the realism of Baby God is unusual and amazing for that time period.  

Mary looks like she is resigned to caring for this cranky Baby God.  She is looking patiently out of the picture, saying,  "Can you believe this little tyke can make so much noise?"

 Poor little Baby God, crying at the top of his lungs.  I wonder why?  Is he pissed because, now he has to spend some time on the planet that he created.  Or maybe he is angry because he is in a human body?  He made the Earth, way back in the day.  You have to give him credit for making a wonderful globe.  He thought up some fantabulous critters,  like tigers and rolly polys.   He created awesome things like mountains, swamps, and beaches.   

He also created humans.  They say that God does not make mistakes,  but that is just  spin, a claim instigated by his publicist.  

Humans did not turn out so well.  They are almost totally irrational and self serving.  Their emotions run amok and cause them to act stupid. They are always trying to improve social organization but the race just continues to create chaotic communities.  In their petty, but deadly, never ending wars they destroy nature. They refuse to learn the ways of peace.   Rampant greed impedes learning cooperation.  You know, they just stomp on each other every day.  They kill each other like flies. The only thing that they do better than killing is reproducing, infecting the earth like fleas on a mangy dog.   

God realized that humans were deeply flawed.  His spinmeister released a statement blaming the hominid disaster on the female human. Her name was Eve, she was blamed for the whole fan hitting disaster.  The devil made her do it.  The mother of the human race fed Adam a bad meal, and women have been blamed for every hiccup since that time. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that is how they got so screwed up.  However,  I want to know, what was that tree doing there, in the first place?  The Garden of Eden, it was suppose to be a perfect garden, but it grew a tricky Cassandra tree. Isnt God the original source of human curiosity?  Didnt he know he made critters that want to taste everything?  It was blamed on the serpent.  So,  who is this serpent devil?  Why did he fall into evil?  I mean, if God is so almighty almighty why cant he keep these things under control

Spinmeister concocted a scheme to redeem the stupid race.  God should go to earth in a human body and make a grand gesture of sacrifice, to show them the right way.

God impregnated the pure Virgin Mary, then he was born to her.  So he was his own dad.  To avoid confusion his human incarnation is usually called Jesus. 

Baby God is crying because he realizes what a mess he has gotten himself into.  He is a human, for Gods sake!  Buffeted by hurricanes of emotions and desires.  He makes plans that go awry.  He doesnt even know where he came from, where he is going, and what he is suppose to do while he is here.   God's spinmeisters, AKA prophets, lay down a lot of rules but people are not very good at following rules.  Maybe they dont really believe in the rules,  maybe they suspect that the power freak humans, (Kings, politicians and Popes) are continuously concocting ways of controlling communities. 

So, Jesus was birthed and he grew up. Then he bummed around the Holy Land, talking to everyone that he could get to listen.  He was kind of like Socrates who also tried to teach people and was rewarded with a drink of poison.  Yea, the people killed Jesus.  They dont even know a good thing when they see it.

So, just in case you were wondering, that is why Baby God is screaming his head off.

WASABI

WASABI WITH POSIES

WASABI WISTFUL

WASABI

This Geisha like creature looks elegant and sweet, but her name tells you that she is also spicy.  Her dragon companion, declares,  "Dont mess with Wasabi."  A Photoshop painting which I may use as a draft or sketch for a painting on canvas. 

Madonna and Krishna, detail

Madonna and Krishna, detail

Recently completed painting.  Christian Mary with baby Hindu God Krishna.  For Mary's face I used Elizabeth Taylor for a reference.  For the background I used a NASA photo.  For Krishna I used a traditional Hindu picture.