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.

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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.