JanetBoydArt

Oprah is the Reincarnation of Cleopatra

2012-01-19T06:27:00.000-08:00

OPRAH IS THE REINCARNATION OF CLEOPATRA

Maybe, I am loosing my mind? I am seeing things, are these episodes hallucinations or visions?

(Do you know the difference between a psychotic and a psychic? Answer: The psychic knows who to talk to.)

It happened again, another visitation. This time I was on the back ten acres of our land, across Gold Creek, an area which is almost a wilderness, rarely visited by humans. I had a kukri with me. A kukri is a quality type of machete. I carried it, just in case I ran into a wild hog. I could use it for protection. Heehee. Like, I could stop a 300 pound muscle pack of charging hog. Anyway, I was kind of prepared, and the kukri helps cut through the tangles of vines.

I crossed over Gold creek, wearing my leopard print rubber boots. Made my way through thickets of brambles. Admired the landscape, which is making a wonderful recovery after being cut for timber eleven years ago, before we bought the property. I love seeing the land recover as nature does her beautiful work. There were many deer tracks. I startled a doe and a fawn, and watched them sprint away. They move with dance like grace.

When I got to the sandbar area, I sat down, to take a big refreshing drink of mother nature. Silver Creek is constantly changing. Sandbars appear and disappear. One year a magnolia tree had eroded to fall over the creek. In the spring it was dazzled with big creamy magnolia flowers. The next year, it had been washed away by seasonal floods.

I was sitting there, on the sand. Listening and watching the currents of water. And then...A woman appeared to be walking on the water. Coming toward me. I was not that surprised. I knew that it was just another visitation from the spirit world.

It was easy to recognize Cleopatra, because, she had assumed a Hollywood version of her image. Who knows what she really looked like, back in the day, because there has been so much spin put on her image. She has been idealized and glamorized by painters and sculptors and movie makers, since her ancient Egyptian rein. She never goes out of style.

Her manner was gracious, and, I knew that I would follow her regal request. She commanded that I paint a picture of her, illustrating her two most famous incarnations. Paint her as Cleopatra and Oprah, the Queen of television, all in the same body. "The people need to see this. I want them to know that I have been working for the betterment of humanity, through all my incarnations, for as long as humans have been on earth. It will give them hope. And Isis knows, they need hope, in times like these."

"And, please, dear Janet," she continued, "tell them that all women are Queens. (And some men are also Queens). Tell them to own their power. Tell them to get off their butts and create a Queendom, of peace, love and art."

I protested. "You are so beautiful. I am just an artist of lowly talent. I cannot do you justice."

"You may be right about that," Cleo said, "but, you are the best I can find, talent has kind of gone down the drain, these last few years. So you MUST paint it!" She is such an alpha female.

So here is the picture. It came out a bit better than I expected. Hope you like it.

Milton Glaser

2012-01-14T06:38:00.000-08:00

I first became aware of Milton Glaser in the early 80's, when he was a judge of an art show for the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans. Mary Strasser helped with my entry which was an assemblage sculpture. A department store manikin torso, painted pearl white, wearing a tie. I sewed faux pearls on the tie to spell the words "Well Hung".

I recently watched "Milton Glaser, To Inform and Delight", a documentary that I obtained from Net-flicks. Glaser is the originator of the "I Heart NY" icon. Which has seeped into our culture in a gazillion permutations. An icon which permeates our culture so deeply that it seems surprising that one man started it all.

He is the artist of the psychedelic hair Dylan album cover, and many other familiar images.

Here are some quotes from Glaser that come from the documentary:

"I do not want to be encapsulated in a style."

"(Art) History is not the enemy. You can use anything as raw material to make anything."

"...not about the differences in (cultural art styles) but their commonalities. Whatever we learn goes into the next project. I do not see them as separate things but as a continuum. "

"Artists provide that gift to the culture so the people have something in common."

"I believe in the intersection between religion and belief and making art and building community. Even tho it has not coalesced into hard belief. I think you have to hold your beliefs lightly."

Watching the documentary, I was impressed and inspired by Glaser's balance of idealism and practicality. His wonderful personality shined through the film. He was both modest and owned his huge contribution to humanity.

Check it out, "Milton Glaser, To Inform and Delight".

John Belushi Bacchus

2012-01-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

John Belushi Bacchus

I was lying in a hammock, under the grape arbor, when John Belushi appeared before my wondering eyes. Belushi announced that he, before his death, was the human incarnation of the GrecoRoman God Bacchus. In his inimitable humorous manner John explained that he had resided in human form on earth to liberate people from the oppressive restraints of the powerful. "I symbolize all that is dangerous and unexpected, that which escapes reason", he said. "I am the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society. I have supported liberation in many guises since prehistoric times. In the fifteenth century I incarnated as the painter, Carravagio. In that life, I was notorious for brawling, and I was criticized for using a beautiful, famous prostitute, Madelena Antoguetti, as a model for The Virgin Mary."

Belushi continued, "As Carravagio I painted a picture of Bacchus or Dionysus, would you, Janet, please repaint that picture for me using my Belushi face?" I protested that I was not competent to repaint his masterpiece. "I am sure to butcher your awesome painting, I am just not as talented as you were." John/Carravagio, agreed that since he was the greatest painter of all time, he did not expect me to attain his degree of perfection, but that he would settle for my poor efforts.

So here is my modest attempt to do as he requested. I sincerely apologize to Carravagio for this desecration, but how could I resist the charming request of John Belushi?

Charles Neville, New Orleans Fabulous

2011-11-09T06:14:00.000-08:00

Charles Neville, New Orleans Fabulous

Aaron Neville, The Golden Voice of New Orleans

2011-11-09T06:11:00.000-08:00

Aaron Neville, The Golden Voice of New Orleans

Fats Domino with his Guardian Angel

2011-11-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

Fats with his Guardian Angel

Dr. John

2011-11-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

Dr. John
The New Orleans music experience is tops

Barbie Tee Vee Head

2011-10-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

Barbie Bug Eyes Flowers

Barbie Bug Eyes

Barbie Tee Vee Head

Barbie was born in 1959. She sprang fully developed from the shoulder of Venus. Tragically, her poor little feet were deformed, she could not stand on her own. Fortunately, her perky smile was pasted on. She immediately sashayed her firm little butt into every American girl's toy box. She took her place, and Betsy Wetsy was demoted to the bottom of the box. American girls dressed and redressed Bauble in faux chic prom dresses. Little did Barbie know that she was preparing the way for medical practitioners to be lucratively employed in the "female low self esteem industry". In 2009 she was awarded "Shopping Motivator of the Year". Her contributions to the economy are only now being recognized as the breast augmentation industry is flourishing. She is responsible for 32D percent of the Gross National Product. In addition, her unrelenting perkiness sells a gazillion antidepressants each year. I created these lovely pictures of Barbie to celebrate her place as a top ranking icon.

Barbie Tee Vee Head

2011-10-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Dreaded Artist Statement

So, I wrote recently about the dreaded "Artist Statement". All my words seem foolish. It is an exercise in contracting a rich and deep experience into words. I did some web research and made a collection of words and phrases that other people have written.

List of a collection of words that may or may not be useful in an Artist Statement:

the minds eye

other realities

just suppose

whispers of blended shadows

Deepen life by creating and expressing meaning thru paint and pixil.

"Not by the fancied gift of absolute or transcendental knowledge, but by suggesting questions which help one to detect the passion, strangness and dramatic contrasts of life." This by a writer of the Bloomsbury school, concerning philosophy.

great art created in attempt to deal with childhood pain

Okee Dokee

visual textures of heightened complexities

is in fact a religious mythologist, himself

hopeless dreamer

zen koan heaven

freedom from rational control

speaks language of ancient fables with irony

deliberate passionate assault on the mundane

all history is now ours

thrill factor

desperate attempt to escape boredom (I just made that one up)

Hey, hey, have a wonderful day. Be good to yourself. Love one another.

Okee Dokee, bye now.

Elizabeth Taylor as Isis

2011-10-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

ELIZABETH TAYLOR AS ISIS

Her face is so beautiful, this was a joy to paint. I portray her as Isis, the Egyptian Goddess. Isis is the one who loved her husband back to life, after he had been turned into a tree. I put the elephant in just because I like the elephant. I combined the classical landscape, the elephant and Taylor, just because, just because, no real reasoning involved. Just a few images that interested me, that I wanted to work with at the time.

Ink jet archival print.

2011-10-22T06:27:00.000-07:00

Recently I wrote an ---Artist Statement!!--- for an exhibition. This was not a fun project. It just feels awkward to explain visual art with clumsy words. Simon and Garfunkel sang, "and all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity." That said, I think that now I will write some "artist statement" type words.

"Whats it all about, Alfie?" What IS it all about, this obsessive making of images? It is about spending my time with color. It is about interacting with the world. Art is a way of exploring this individual human on earth experience. About this particular self, exploring reality in a deep manner. About experiencing all the riches of perception. Processing these riches in my poor befuddled brain. Hallucinating pictures. And then creating unique visual communications.

We are all in this together. Here we are, lots of us humans. Bumping into each other at Wally World. Fighting over beads at Mardi Gras parades. Scrappling with the office bitches. Eating and sleeping and loving and searching for comfort. We are alike and different. Alike in that we all want comfort, want joy, and want the best for our children. We perceive each other, we talk, we produce memos.

We are all in this together, but our minds are separate.

What I intended to say, what I said, what you heard, and how you interpreted it are four different things.

Each of our interpretations of our separate perceptions is individual, is different. A meeting of the minds, that is what we say when we agree with each other. But even when we agree there are subtleties of difference. We are separate. There is between us a wide gulf that we imperfectly bridge with communication.

Visual communications bridge the gulf in a deep, richer manner than verbalization. A picture is worth a thousand words. (I am just saying, really, I love words, love to read.) Even with pictures I am reducing my interpretations to a manageable level.

With art I attempt mind to mind communion. The communion is imperfect, reduced, but it is the best that I can do.

Lucky Dog in da Quata

2011-10-22T06:21:00.000-07:00

Elizabarbie

2011-10-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Barbie, vintage Barbie face, Barbie's sixties face. Here she is, all glammed up in an antique English Queen's dress. A monarch for all times.

Marilyn Monroe Aphrodite

2011-10-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

Digital painting for print. Completed recently. Marilyn Monroe pictured as Aphrodite or Venus. This is an appropriate depiction, as Marilyn has certainly become an enduring Love Goddess. To create this picture I harvested several Marilyn images from Bing. The final figure composition stitched together several different historical photographs to create an image that pleased me. Her famous pose came from one picture, face from another, hair from the third reference photograph. The shell came from Botticelli's "Venus". While repainting the low resolution shell, I was gained more appreciation for Botticelli's artistic genius. The wave inspiration came from the famous, ancient Japanese wave painting. I experienced a frisson of delight while experimenting with the wave. I realized that by duplicating the wave and transforming it horizontally a heart shape was created. While I was distorting Marilyn's dress in the liquefy function it began to look like angel wings, and this delighted me. The two waves appear threatening, a watery heart, threatening imminent engulfment, an unintentional reference to her tragic demise. It was a lot of fun to create this picture.

Aurora Ballet

2011-08-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I havnt been here for a while. Ive been painting on canvas and dont have much digital work to post.
This is a recent photo shop work. I started with a low rez ballet dancer image, gleaned from orphan Bing images. I used the image as inspiration and as a sketch or first draft. I repainted the image digitally, set my colors, changed the figure's proportions, and added minor distortion. I enjoyed many hours of pleasant work. Background is a classic Japanese landscape. There is an airy ethereal tone to the dancer. Dance is an art just as painting is an art. The picture illustrates the artist transcending mundane reality by practicing art.

Antoinette Carter

2011-04-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

I started with a classical painting of Marie Antionette and several pictures of Helena Bonheim Carter's face. Then, more hours of jolly good digital fun than I care to count. Voila! An image that has never been seen before.

Tyra Tiger

2011-04-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

I downloaded a px of Tyra from net images. I had a few hours of jolly good fun, playing with her face in Photo Shop. I almost altered the image's resemblance to Tyra beyond recognition. I think that a bit of her essence remains, but that is not the point. The point is to push digital painting to the edge.

Squalling

2011-04-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

A little primal anger. Squalling.

Queen of Hearts

2011-04-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Cate Blanchett inspired face. Another appearance by the Cherubs. A vintage plaster angel.

2011-04-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

Hawk and Angel tied the knot, last eon, on a beautiful red brocade day. The Cherubs attended all aflitter with dreams of merry matrimony. Hawk was arrogant and aloof, but that was just a front to mask his gooey caramel center. Angel was serious and sweet. She carried a cornucopia of unnameable longings.

Elvis Hoss

2011-04-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

I saw Elvis in the parking lot of WallyWorld last week. He has a whole new look. He is all buff now, because he has been working out at the Heavenly Health Club.

Klownin Around

2011-01-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

Precious time keeps slippin away.

The holidays were a wonderful whirl wind. Finally, I've kinda caught up with all the priority shit that piled up, and now find time to post. I always have a few hour a day to make art. Always have found that time. And think that I will find it until I regress back to finger paints.

But, finding time to get it "out there" to all yall fabulous dahlins is another thing.

Beatles Bobble Heads

2011-01-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

I Heart the World

2011-01-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

Three Little Pigs Join the Circus

2010-11-16T19:14:00.000-08:00

Apologies to Disney.

Snow White and the Flying Fishes

2010-11-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

Apologies to Disney.

Magnolia Cherub

2010-10-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

Flying Lucky Dog

2010-10-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here is Lucky Dog, in the middle of an over the top manic episode.

Cirque du Jour

2010-10-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Isabella, that overbearing bitch, muse of mine, leads me down some interesting paths. Now, the series, "Mary is my Muse", has morphed into another series, "Cirque d'Esprit". My french is tres mal, this series is about the circus of the spirit. What ever that means? Freaks and clowns and monkeys and The Virgin of Guadalupe and cherubs, all strutting and fretting their endless hour upon the stage.

HiLife

2010-10-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

Hot time in the old French Quarter tonight!
Spontaneous contradictions.

Stormy Wetha

2010-10-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

The Old Hotel, Fall from Grace, part nine

2010-09-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of the story, "The Old Hotel". I might rename the piece, "The Old Fart Croaks", but for now will stick to original working title. This is a multigenerational story about the busted brained, broken hearted and soul sensitive, Gordon family, living in a ramshackled defunct hotel. Set in the dark and shining heart of Mississippi in the 20's and 50's. My conceit is that it is a story of grace, fall from grace and redemption. Also, emerging is the theme of a nature based family changing to a machine based family.

With my visual art, painting and photo shop, I am continuing the series, "Mary is my Muse". Both the writing and the painting are a personal exploration of spirituality in the twenty first century. The verbal and the visual explorations are different, but related. The minor themes are different but the overarching major theme, personal spiritual exploration, is the same. This is not something that I planned, it has evolved as I follow my creative path.

I am still working on the story. It is autobiographically based, padded out with imagination and wishful thinking. Tune in later for more episodes.

I started writing the story in April. If you want to start reading from the beginning, click on April, then click "The Old Hotel". After that, to read the next part click "The Old Hotel, Dog Days of August". After that all the parts are numbered, so you can work your way through the calender. Click May, then click "The Old Hotel part three", and so forth.

Leave a comment or e-mail me. I love hearing from you.

OOOPPPS, I hit the wrong button. OK, got that glitch fixed.

The Old Hotel, FALL FROM GRACE

Light followed dark. Day followed night. Earthworld circumnavigated Sunstar. Earthworld tipped on its axis and seasons proceeded in an organized progression. The weather changed, then changed again. The only thing that did not change, was change its self.

Preacher Gordon now had more change in his pockets. Praise the Lord, and pass the collection basket. Guilt and fear are effective motivators. As a last resort people may try to buy their way into heaven. Nickles and dimes went a long way, way back in the day.

Joe Gordon was a father and a busy, hard working, righteous man of the almighty Lord. He blasted THE WORD OF GOD from the pulpit of the little brown Church in the Wildwood Dale. The hell fire and brimstone rant fulfilled a complicated need in the psyche of the congregation. Also, Joe ministered to the lambs in their homes when they had a sickness or death crisis. The people appreciated the Preacher kneeling and praying for them to have the strength to persevere.

Also, Joe scratched the skin of Mother Earth under the Mississippi sun and coaxed forth food for his squirming family.

In the elderly, virgin forest he hunted meat to feed the growthlings and make them strong. He always bagged a bounty of game. In the green gold glow, under the spreading boughs of ancient oaks he became his best self. He resonated with the harmonic hum of nature evolved to perfection. When he was in the zone, a deer would magically appear and offer itself for his family's nourishment. He brought home the venison.

He was busy from the hint of dawn until nightfall. Always working, always a bit behind.

Kat sauntered sweetly through her eldest daughters chores. She was a dewy fresh bloom of beauty given to dreamy spells. She might be drying dishes when her mind just floated away, floated away and away. She would be standing there, with the family bouncing around her, holding the rag and a dish. Her eyes glazed, she would sway gently with a smile wisp on her lips. Then, after few minutes, she would put the dish away. And stir the pot of venison and corn soup simmering on the stove.

The second daughter, Vicky, pre-adolescent, and as ethereal as a luna moth, was also subject to absent minded spells. Her biggest chore was doing laundry, in a big black iron tub over a pine wood fire outback. She added homemade lye soap. She secreted cascades of salty sweat, tugging the heavy, hot, wet clothes from the boiling tub. When that most struggling chore was done, when the clean clothes were on the drying line, she went for a dip in the spring fed creek and she was refreshed. After the sauna like chore and the shock of cold water she would be as sharp as a clear quartz crystal and her spells turned ultramarine blue.

Mother, Belle pampered the growthlings and nursed the smallest while rocking in the nursing chair. She read to them from the treasured Mother Goose nursery rhyme book. That book and the Bible were the only two books in the modest cabin. Belle sang hymns of praise to the Lord as she worked. Kat and Vicky harmonized with their mother's heart string alto voice.

All but the youngest ones of the family worked in the vegetable garden. This work was done in the early morning before the sun got too hot. The fertile earth gave forth succulent bounty. Juicy sweet, tart tomatoes. Greens and beans. Several varieties of squash. Corn, which was picked right before cooking so the sweetness was at its peak. Potatoes. Yams. Okra. Peppers. A cornucopia to compliment the venison, rabbit and freshly caught fish. The family gathered for dinner and laughed at silly jokes. They sat a rough plank table. The parents had store bought wooden chairs, the growthlings sat on planks supported by field stones.

Joe spent the collection tithes for a new horse, Daisy Jane. He mounted the bay and visited his flock. The sick, grieving and traumatized lambs felt gratitude for the prayers that preacher uttered, as they knelt in their simple homes.

In the dog days of late summer, a newborn died of whooping cough and was laid to rest in the earth. Belle crouched in bed for weeks with the covers over head. Belle and Joe slept with the still colicky toddler. Belle, for the first time, pushed Joe away when he wanted to love her. She said "No" to incubator belly. She loved each and everyone, but she already had too many children.

As a young man, Joe had been strong with the vitality of a robust animal. He had been born into this world with abundant Irish natal energy. Now, he had the responsibilities of a large family, and took on the woes of his church flock. In his youth his reserves were like a metal coil, but now he was becoming unsprung.

One mid September day, when there was a freshette of Indian summer in the air, Daisy Jane troddled Choctaw Road with Joe astride her back. Preacher Gordon was out making his dutiful rounds to kneel in prayer with the down and out. His first stop that day would be to Winifred Whitehead, newly widowed and grieving.

The red clay Choctaw Road meandered through a stand of majestic virgin oaks. The trunks of the mighty trees were twenty feet or more in circumference. Ferns and mushrooms grew in the cool dappled shade. Branches from the trees arched from both sides over the primitive red road. Long beards of Spanish moss undulated gracefully in a slight breeze.

Riding along, Joe caught up with the little whizzle whopper, young Bug Brumfield, ambulating Choctaw Road with a broody chicken tucked under his arm. Joe tipped his grey felt hat and they said "How de do?", they squawked about the weather and whut folks were up to. The hottest news on the grapevine concerned a new man, Mr. Stu Stewart, who had driven into town in his very own automobile. "The finest machine you ever seen!" Mr. Stewart was a timber merchant. "He's agonna pay Helen and Bub Tisdale a small fortune, $550, for the timber on their land. He's agonna start cuttin in October." Then Joe and Bug wished each other well and they went on their way.

Farmer McPhee rattled down the road from the other direction, driving an old mule, pulling a wagon loaded with hay. Joe and McPhee jawed about the weather and whut folks were up to. "That fine gentleman, Mr. Stewart promised Albert Sidney Johnston $700! just for the trees offin that useless piece of bottom land he owns." Joe and McPhee wished each other well and then they went on their way.

Joe heard the racket before he saw the automobile. Saw it coming and steered Daisy Jane to the side of the road. The contraption whizzed by at an ungodly rate of speed. It kicked up a storm of red dust, Joe had to rub it out of his eyes. The driver was wearing goggles and a funny squushed down hat. Joe wondered if it was the fabulous Mr. Stewart who was making people rich.

At the edge of the dilapidated little town of Weir, Mississippi, Joe came to the white painted clapboard house of Widow Whitehead. He dismounted Daisy Jane and walked to the door, noticing the red rose bush in full bloom by the porch. Winnie was wearing a fancy black dress when she opened the door. At the neck of her dress a triangle of black lace, accented her creamy bosums.

Joe had been born blessed with abundant natal energy. But, he had been feeling broke down lately. His natal energy was whittled away and he craved renewal. He wanted to feel like the giant animal spirit that he had been in his so quickly fleeting youth.

Dear readers, you know what happened. She cried on his shoulder, her heaving breast, pressed against his chest, her fragrant hair stroking his cheek. Before they had time to think about it they were committing sin.

There was talk, of course. It was the most entertaining news to hit the boondocks in a coon's age. The men said to each other, "Wal, you cant blame preacher, she's built lak a brick shithouse." It was the number one story hissing on the grapevine, surpassing even Mr. Stewart in popularity.

The women pitied Joe's wife, Belle, and treated her with delicacy. Belle knew, she could literally smell it. Belle knew how men were.

There was a double standard. Men and women were different. Men couldnt help themselves. Adultery proved their virility. The fair sex was expected to be modest (so as not to incite the male, who had a feather weight trigger) and virtuous. The man plants a seed and he may go on his way. For him, it may be no more than a few minutes of pleasure. A woman receives that seed, and it may be with her for as long as gravity sucks her to the surface of Mother Earth. The woman will go through pregnancy, labor, and for the rest of her life, a woman will be concerned with the child.

There was always and forever some scandalous talk buzzing the vine. The woman was always ostracized. She felt the freeze of the cold shoulder. The general consensus was that the man's needs were overwhelming strong, he couldnt be blamed. The little man ruled the big man. It was natural for a man to want to spread his seed all around fertile ground. It was behooven for the woman to protect her incubator belly from bad seed.

Belle had heard, that even her father was rumored to have committed scandal. She tried to reason the treachery away, but she was crushed, shattered and broken. How could he do that? Take the golden beauty that they had created under the Goddess tree and profane it so?

Then Belle deflated, like a discarded rag doll. She went back under the covers. Her ever flowing breast dried up. So, the toddler was weaned to cow's milk.

Kat and Vicky knew, of course. Their age and gender cohorts could not wait to tell them. The snickering was humiliating. Vicky's body was changing into a woman's body. She got her the curse and had to wear rags and wash the blood out of them every moon cycle. She was confused and her moods were erratic.

Joe had morphed into a man that looked like Joe, but did not think or act like Joe. He was not himself. The secret (which was not a secret) gnawed at his gut. He had a guilt of biblical proportions. Unbidden visions of Winnie flashed through his mind as he tromped nervously through the woods.

He would not let it happen again. He would not think about the woman. He would think about rotating the crops. Next spring he would plant beans in the ground where the corn had grown the previous year. A flash of Winnie sin invaded his mind. Tomorrow he would go hunting down by Mill Creek, he knew that there were deer there. He would get one tomorrow, he knew that he would. They were out of smoked venison sausage. The young-uns were cryin for meat. Belle was lookin broke down, she needed meat to put a bloom in her cheeks.

The next day, down by Mill Creek, Joe sighted a fleeting deer. He aimed. Fired. Missed. He had lost his hunting mojo.

Then one day after the last harvest was in, and after the first frost, a visitor came to the Gordon family's little dog trot cabin. The young-uns heard the infernal racket first. A few automobiles had traveled down the red clay road before, so they were getting familiar with the noise. The family rushed to the front porch to see the new fangled contraption as it sped by.

Lo and behold! The automobile screech stopped at their home. The fine driving man was wearing a squushed down hat and goggles that made him look like a deformed owl. They knew that this was the famous Mr. Stewart, the man who was making everybody rich. His belly was straining at the best suit that Sears and Roebuck catalog offered, and dangling at his neck was their best red string tie.

Belle fluttered into the cabin to steep some sassafras tea. Vicky and Kat herded the growthlings to the dog trot, an open hallway which ran down the middle of the cabin. It funneled a breeze through the house and kept it cool. In the dog trot the children were out of the way but they could watch through the open door of the front room. Kat warned the children to be on their best behavior. Children were to be seen, but not heard. They were taught respect for their elders.

Joe invited the gentleman into his "humble abode". Mr. Stu Stewart was affable, Preacher Joe was respectful. Belle served tea in the "company" tea cups, and retired to the dogtrot. Because this was a manly event, little women need not apply. The children were jostling to get a good view of the exciting meeting through the open door.

With the money Mr. Stewart offered, Joe figgered he could buy electric lights, and one of these shiny white gas burning stoves, and, Praise the Lord, a wringer washer for Belle. Surely these magnanimous gifts would redeem Joe in his wife's eyes. Surely, she would be joyful again. He was sure that this would work and there would be a return of the golden harmony. A new sunrise tinted the horizon, he dared to hope. Laboriously, he printed his name on the line that Mr. Stewart pointed out.

After the automobile left, the children ran to the spot, bent down, and smelled the ground where the contraption had been parked. They exclaimed over the novelty of this new acrid odor.

Joe breathed some relief over the guilt that had submerged him. The promise of money lifted him. He knelt, with Belle, beside the bed and prayed to God. On his knees, leaning his arms on the straw mattress, where the colicky toddler lay, quiet for a change, he promised the Lord that he would not sin again. He pleaded for mercy and forgiveness. Belle listened, and she to dared to hope.

Earthworld circumnavigated Sunstar and the people lived by natural circadian rhythms. Earthworld tilted on its axis and they lived by natural reoccurring annual rhythms.

The family awoke just before sunrise. All but the youngest had chores. The fire was stoked. Biscuits were kneaded in a well of flour in the Hoover, then cooked in the stove. Cool, perfect, water was drawn from the well in a tin bucket. Cow and horse were tended, let to pasture. The dog fed. Sweeping, scrubbing. Plump babies cleaned and cuddled. The garden was tended in the cool of early morning.

Attendance at the Wildwood Dale Church had fallen off since the scandal. Joe hoped that his flock would sense his repentance and have confidence in him again. Joe still visited the sick shut-ins and others in need. He rode Daisy Jane to make rounds and often made his last stop in Weir to pick up supplies and tune into the grapevine.

The sawing had started in the forest. When he passed the raped gaps in the forest, he would not allow himself to feel grief, he would not allow himself to feel anything at all.

Joe avoided the Widow Whitehead. Daisy Jane trotted by her house while Joe mumbled prayers, "Dear Father, please remove this temptation." But after a few weeks---

She was weeding the flower bed in front of the porch. He could not just ride by without speaking to her. He needed to talk to her, explain things. As her minister he needed to tell her how he had repented, and that she should repent. Her immortal soul was in danger of everlasting fire. He dismounted Daisy Jane. Winnie stood up and looked at him with those dark exotic eyes---

Dear Reader, you know what happened, they sinned again.

Leaving the widow's house Joe headed toward Weir. Drained, morose, self flagellating. A tempest in his head. He was not self aware, did not observe, examine his inner radio. He would not do it again. She had been crying, here she was a grieving widow, it was his duty to console her. He would visit Mrs. Sherman now. She couldnt even get out of bed. Pitiful. Her poor selfless daughter, Pearl, cared for her. Couldnt even have her own life. He would pray for Pearl.

Next thing he knew, Joe was in Weir, sitting on his horse. Busted brained, broken hearted and soul sensitive. He was by the railroad tracks, in front of the new hotel. "Hey, Preacher, Preach, how ya doin? Can you har me?"

It was that old codger Badger Broomstead speaking. Joe knew him as the man who lurched into church only twice a year, for Easter and Christmas services. Joe needed to talk to him. Badger was a notorious sinner, the worst of the worst, a moon shiner. Joe had to try to help him see the error of his devil ways. It was Joe's Christian duty to show Badger the way of salvation. The poor man's immortal soul was in danger of burning forever in hell. Joe was a man of God, a vessel for the spirit of the Holy Father. He dismounted Daisy, there was no need to tie up the patient horse.

"How ya doin today?" Old codger Badger leaned all lanky against his old ragged out wagon. His broke down mule chomped at a bit of scraggly grass growing in the shade of the oak canopy. "Hey Preach, come shoot the bull with me?"

Brother Badger, I need to talk to you. Joe leaned against the wagon and crossed his arms over his chest. "Jesus is knockin at yur door. He is tenderly waiting fer you to receive the blessed light of redemption."

"Sho nuff, Brother Joe. You lookin lak you could use a drink. Here, try my latest brew. Just a little nip will sure cure whut ails ya." Badger said, and poured a generous portion into a dented dirty tin cup.

"Brother Badger, alcohol in an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. It's a signpost on the road to perdition", Joe stammered weakly, and turned that tin cup up and drained it. Preacher coughed and sputtered. Now he knew why they called it firewater, it burned all the way down.

"How ya likin that, Brother Preacher? Here let me pour ya anotha one. It'll help that cough of yourn."

The next thing Joe knew was relief. The guilt of biblical proportions faded and he thought, "Maybe things aint so bad."

A train chugged in like a fire spitting dragon. Three city people in fancy clothes, disembarked and walked past the drunkards to the new hotel. "Look at them city folks, goin in that fine hotel. Ya know its got 32 rooms, an each one has its own e-lectric light. Its got a fancy kitchen and four bathrooms wit runnin water and flush toilets. Whatcha think about that? Yur shit just disappears down the drain?" The sign hanging from the balcony said, "The Deluxe Hotel".

They watched the people walk across the porch past the freshly white painted rocking chairs. Then Badger said, "So you been bangin the Widder Whithead. You old son of a gun. Wish I could get me some of that. Aint no way even a preacher could resist that temptation."

Something Twisted in Joe's mind, "It aint my fault, that wicked Eve, she seduced me."

"Hell no, It aint yur fault. Aint no man on earth could resist that. Not iffin he has real American red blood pounding in him", the old codger spat a gooey wad of tobacco on the bare dirt ground.

"I am a man of God, she turned me from the ways of righteousness."

From their vantage under the shading oak, the men could watch, on the other side of the tracks, the one block strip of shops, lined up along the elevated board walk, that comprised the town of Weir. In the other direction they could see the city folk rockin on the porch of the new hotel.

Soon they were joined by the dilapidated farmer, Johnny Johnson, who bought a jug of white lightenin from Badger and then passed it around.

Johnny socked Joe's arm and said, "You been pokin Widder Winnie, you ole devil you. I thought you wuz just a sissy preacher but, by God, you are a real man."

They were joined by a few other men as the afternoon progressed toward twilight.

Joe's head was foggy, but not so foggy as to prevent his surprise that they all knew about his adultery. He was flabbergasted that his secret was no secret and even more amazed that the men admired his sexual prowess. Previously, Joe had seen the gathering of sinners under the oak. He would tip his hat as he rode Daisy Jane to the general store. Previously, he had whispered many prayers for their doomed immortal souls.

Now, he felt different. Masculine camaraderie, other than the churchy kind was new to him. The invisible barrier between preacher and flock was knocked down by the booze. He was one of the guys now, something that he had not known that he had missed.

The sky was reddened by the setting sun. Codger Badger said, "Preacher, you better git goin while the gitten is good". Badger didnt want the preacher to pass out right there on the bare ground in town. He sold Joe a jug and helped him mount his horse.

When he got home, Belle thought, "Land o sakes. Hope Joe aint sick, he stumbled in here and fell on the bed fast asleep. Surely he dont smell lak likker."

The Old Fart Croaks

2010-09-12T05:15:00.000-07:00

Madonna Sketch

2010-09-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

Bella Donna

2010-09-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

Japanese Bird

2010-09-12T05:12:00.000-07:00

Graceland, The Old Hotel, part eight

2010-08-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Mississippi Forest was elderly and virgin. A primeval paradise. There was perfect balance in all the elements of ecology.

Back in primordial time, seeds dripped from the bosom of Mother Earth, took root and grew with rapture. Over centuries, each element found its function, in an infinitely intricate pattern of interrelationships.

There were creatures flying in the sky, the bird people. Four leggeds crawled the surface, the deer people, coyote people and rabbit people. Submerged in the water, the fish people swam. Creatures burrowed in the deep rich loam. Two legged critters ran on the green green skin of Mother Earth. Some of the two leggeds could sense that the forest throbbed with Grace.

The Forest was bountiful with food for all the creatures.

Two legged critters harvested berries, herbs, mushrooms, roots and meat. Logs from the forest made strong homes and warmed those homes with fire. The people were blessed with all that they needed.

Mighty, mighty trees pierced the sky and formed a cathedral canopy of dappled shade. Abundant water flowed in stream and river systems. Water evaporated, formed clouds and rain. Rain returned to the streams. The circle was unbroken.

The Earth spun on her axis and circled the sun. There were brilliant days and velvet nights. There were seasons, coming, going, and returning. There were beautiful patterns of time and substance.

In this Forest of Grace, there ran a two legged critter as wild as the day and night. Belle, the beauty with bare feet and tangled hair. She was scantily schooled and her manners were simply basic. She was free from irony. Consumerism and the media tools of consumerism had not yet invaded the land.

Belle's brain was just an embryo of potential. Her rare thoughts, just wisps in the breeze of her emotions. Her occasional ideas, just wispy clouds in the winds of sensation.

Her element was air. Fueled, she was, by blood buzzing joy. Jossled by the music of symEarthony. From her nose to her toes swooshed sun warmed blood. She was free of fashion, free of fastidious grooming. Barefooted, hair tangled, freshtooned. So pretty, she made the aunts cry; so wild, they shed more tears. When her breast buds bloomed, the boys began to cry.

Joe Gordon was gawky and graceful. A human animal respiring wild. Muscled, taunt, strong. Rooted, roaming Eden, the endless elderly forest. His element was metal, as in a spring coiled with energy.

He hunted the forest with an old, perfectly maintained, shotgun. Proudly providing meat for his family table by conspiring with game. He put venison into broth simmering on the wood burning stove. Gusto eating of his catch, souped up with just picked corn. Younger siblings stopped squalling and slurped the broth.

The Forest was the heavenly stage of Belle and Joe's short and shining golden time.

Belle and Joe were biologically magnetized to each other.

Belle in her home, Joe in his, they awoke with the first hint of dawn. Awoke in a bed of siblings squirming like a basket full of puppies. They completed their chores quickly. With the sun still early in its climb from the horizon, they ran for the woods. Joe with his shotgun. Belle with her berry basket.

There was no need to plan a place to meet, hormonal magnetics brought them together. They ran into each other. They would discover each other, on a trail, or at a cross path, or under a stand of almighty pines. Together, they foraged the forest for food. They filled game bag and basket.

When the sun passed its zenith, they drifted to the cool shade of the Goddess tree. Down by the river where breezes danced. There, they playfully explored their changing bodies. Simmering, sizzling, ignition, combustion. They did what comes naturally on a bed of emerald moss.

And thus began Belle's "incubator belly" years.

A literal shotgun wedding. Both bride and groom as ignorant as the day is long. Both required coercion to do the right thing. Manipulated by wiser adult relatives. Kat was there, Katherine Carol Gordon, attended the country wedding, floating in amniotic fluid in her mother's belly.

Mary Victoria Gordon, Vicky, entered the next year. As the earth circles the sun, babies were painfully pushed out with annual regularity.

Life followed an immemorial plan. The couple refreshed the webs of glow that is existence. Lots of babies, fresh from the Goddess. Over populated the log cabin. Squirming, silk skinned, critters to cuddle and warm the heart. Adorable, maddening, constantly needy newborns and toddlers and growthlings.

Joe plowed and planted and sweated soil. He loaded giant watermelons and blackeyed peas and a growthling or two, onto the wooden wagon. Hitched up the hand-me-down horse and drove to town. "Gee, haw."

Money was as rare as blue cows. They used very little cash. Change from selling the garden produce covered their modest needs. Store bought items consisted of flour, sugar, and seeds, with an occasional splurge for calico.

Joe met farmer cronies in town. They gruff talked of weather and seed varieties. Joe spotted the Nursing Chair, a rocker, made of smooth varnished walnut, in the general store. The price was $3.00. He spent his life savings on the elegant chair as a present for Belle.

Rocking soothed Belle and the latest suckling infant. Crawlers, toddlers and growthlings were tended by Kat and Vicky.

Then one day, the sun was shining, Joe was plowing, and the huckleberry bush was burning, without being consumed by fire. That was when God called Joe to be his agent in that neck of the woods.

It started well. Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.

Joe was first a guest preacher, and soon, master of the flock, in the little brown church in the Wildwood. On Sunday mornings, the earth rooted farmer families put on their best clothes, and met for Sunday School. Then the choir sang, and then Joe preached. "Amen, Brother Gordon." The log walls, the air and even the surrounding woods began to listen when the children whispered their sweet Sunday School prayers. When the choir sang, the environment would hum along.

Then Joe would preach. God spoke directly to the small congregation through Joe's mouth. The sky god berated the flock for their sins. In the Bible it is written that god said "Vengeance is mine."

Oh yea! God was pissed off. He created people, but his children had not turned out the way that he planned. Early on, the very first people, ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent made them do it. They developed a mind of their own.

When Joe sermonized, the Almighty, vengeful, God possessed Joe and spewed forth hell fire and damnation. The air vibrated. The logs were a furious drum beat. The forest quivered in fear.

The congregation was a flock of lambs. They masochistically felt purified by the punishful criticism. Yearning heaven and fearing hell, they were grateful to be shown the way. Motivated by guilt, they put their pennies and nickles into the collection basket.

To close the tongue lashings, Joe walked from the pulpit, down the aisle, to the door with his arms raised, while pronouncing the benediction, "GO AND SIN NO MORE." The lambs felt cleansed, confident that they could make it through the week sin free.

Change from the collection basket made money as plentiful as brown cows. Which were not really all that plentiful. Joe saved up to buy the family's first brown milk cow.

The milk, squirted into a tin pail, each morn by a growthling, gave Belle a bit of a break from her own, cow like duties.

My Dog is a God

2010-06-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

My dog, Harpo, looks like the Egyptian jackal God, Anubis. Harpo is a loyal companion, and a wonderful watch dog protector. She is very beautiful, athletic, with a shiny black coat. In some ways she is a very lucky dog. She is an inside and outside dog, coming and going, in and out, almost as she pleases. She chases deer. I think that it must be a thrill for her to make such a large animal jolt away. She loves to swim in the creek to cool off. She wishes that I would walk the woodland trails with her more often. The worst part of her life is that I sometimes go on trips for a few days, leaving her with an automatic feeder and water. She hates it when I leave. When I come back she is needs reassurance and attention for a while. She gets jealous when we have visitors and needs attention and treats. SHe never has to wear silly clothes, just a collar.

I would post a picture of her, but have lost my camera charger. I think that I have a good pix of her in my files, will look for it.

This picture is digital, photo shop. 2550 px x 3300px. Completed today. The Anubis image was a low rez, harvested from Bing and completely repainted digitally.

The background is a vintage picture of Florida magnolia trees. The photographer is A.T. Styles Burlington. I didnt do much alteration of the photo, just made repetitions of it and changed the color. I have magnolia trees in the woods.

Paris Courtyard

2010-06-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

This is a digital collage of photos that I took in Paris. The gargoyles are fragments of old statues that were lined up on the floor of a covered walkway. The angel is holding garlands of flowers.

Paris Courtyard

2010-06-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

A digital collage of photos that I took in Paris. The gargoyles were fragments of old statues, lined up on the floor of a covered walkway. The angel statue holds leaf garlands.

Tossled Tree

2010-06-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

An impasto acrylic painting on canvas, 16"x24". Sold

Da Vinci on Stamps

2010-06-24T15:45:00.001-07:00

From the series, da Vinci Goes Digital.

The Old Hotel, Part Seven, Rude Awakening

2010-06-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

My earliest memory is set in Belle and Joe's dog trot log cabin. I remember floating out of the baby cradle. I had been in that constrictive human baby body for four long earth months. I wanted to return to my home of light. I escaped the tight flesh and moved about freely. The room flickered with oil lamps. I floated over my mother and her mother, sitting close to the cast iron wood burner. I saw Mama Gordon rocking in the nursing chair and Mother sitting in a straight wooden chair, beside her. Out the window I soared. Out to the night. Below me the ground glistened with moonlit frost.

Their front sides baked by the fire, while their back sides were cold. Belle Gordon drowsed while Victoria droned on about a dress that she was planning to sew. She had the Butterick pattern and a length of striped linen from the Woolsworth in Jackson. Belle snored once, then jerked abruptly alert. She went to the little crib in the far corner of the room, where new baby Jan slept. The child was as cold as ice and her breathing slow and shallow.

Returning to the nursing rocker and the small circle of wood heat, she clasped the fading infant to her love beating heart and wrapped herself and the babe in a wool shawl.

"Victoria, your baby is almost frozen to death. No, I will hold her, she will warm up soon."

I was joyous to be back to my true home. Vibrating to a symphony of light. Then after only an instant of peace, I was sucked back and anchored in that infant flesh cage. Waves of healing circled from my grandmother's heart. I was resigned to the body, and then, I glowed with Belle's love, and knew that I would be in that flesh vehicle for many Earth seasons.

Puzzled Child

2010-06-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

Digital picture, created a few years ago. From the series, "Time and Space". The girl is my sister. The detail of her face was pulled from a photograph from about 1950. Father was stationed to a Air Force base in the north west. We lived in Maryland. Mother took her three daughters to Washington D.C. We toured ALL the national monuments in one day. This photo was taken at the end of the visit to our national capital. I love Kathi's two year old, pist off expression.

I scanned the snapshot. Pulled out the face. Integrated that into the puzzle pieces. Added a lotus and the Roman numeral clock numbers.

Have a fabulous day dahlin!

18nineties

2010-06-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

A personal digital picture. From the series, "Time and Space". 2400 px X 3000 px. Created a few years past.

The woman's face is from a family photo. I guess the time to be eighteen nineties, but I do not know. There is no date on the old photo. I should probably do some research. It would not take that long, but I would rather make myself a "croque monsieur"

This beautiful child/woman struck me from a group of school children. My grandfather, from my father's side is the teacher in the picture. The picture was taken with about twenty children of all ages, sitting outside, where the light was better. My guess, is that it was taken by an itinerant photographer. I think that he had to put a black cloth over his head. I consider this old photo to be a family treasure.

The girl's face struck me. She looked the most alive of all the people in the photo. I have no idea who she is. She looks like she is in a spiritual trance, with her eyes rolled back.

Via techno majic I pulled her face out of the photo, worked it in photoshop, and added other elements. The dragon thingie is a ivory incense burner, that my mother brought back from Japan. (One of the few things that survived the fire.) I scanned the ivory. The letter is an old scanned letter, from my mother to her mother and sister. The date is 1967. The flowery looking things are chanterelle mushrooms that I digitally photographed on my property.

I hope that this art connects with you.

The Old Hotel, Part Six, Belle and Joe

2010-06-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Joe Gordon and Belle Presley were wizened teens when they hitched up. They grew up on dirt farms in the shining dark heart of Mississippi.

Belle had spent her 15 child years doing her full share of chores. Cooking biscuits on the wood burning stove; washing laundry outback, over the fire, in a big cast iron pot with homemade lye soap; and helping out in the fields during planting and harvest. She walked three miles to the one room school house and learned to read, write and figure numbers. Still, there was plenty of free time to run wild in the woods like a graceful doe. She visited with her woodland friends; flowers, birds, deer and rabbits. She marveled at the yard rooster, mating thirty times each day, mounting the patient hens. She picked blackberries and could make a delicious jelly with nothing but sugar and the free bounty of the earth.

Joe was a strapping eighteen and magnetically driven to marry the beauty with blackberry thorn scratches on her shapely legs. He was prepared to provide for a family from the cornucopia of the land. He could plant and harvest. He shot meat, rabbit, deer and, as a last resort squirrel. Could dress and smoke game. His short attendance at school gave him the ability to write his name and read the Bible slowly. He just didnt take much to book larnin. Belle was drawn to his soulful, long lashed blue, gray eyes.

They were American peasants of sturdy Irish stock.

In the mid 1800's much of poor Ireland depended solely on potatoes for food. The Imperial British had taken all the best land to grow beef that was imported to England. The subjugated Irish were left with only small plots of the poorest soil. They were forced to mono crop potatoes in order to eat.

The potato blight hit about 1840. An estimated one million people starved and another million emigrated on coffin ships. A mortality rate of 30% occurred in the fetid holds of the coffin ships. Driven from the Emerald Isle, emaciated and weak, they were stuffed into the bowels of ships. No sanitation, scant food. Even cattle were treated better. Even Africans, bound for slavery were treated better. Cattle and slaves have monetary value. The ships purse already held every last copper the Irish could scrape together. They had no value, dead or alive.

In America, the immigrants had sufficient fertile acreage to support large families.

Joe and Belle were strong, healthy, sentient animals. Well fed, hard work made them strong. They could help feed the family and eat the rewards of their labors. Living close to the earth and running the forest, gave them confidence of their blessed place in the great scheme of Mother Nature.

Joe's father gave them land. Joe felled timber and built a cabin, with help from his brothers and cousins. Belle's belly became an incubator, as they were blessed with many children. Children who could help with farming and take care of them in old age. They ate well. Sunsets were their TV.

Joe received his calling from God as he plowed the corn field with Sally, the mule. It was just like Moses, as described in the Bible, that he pondered nightly. A huckleberry bush, to the east of the corn field, shined with fire, but was not consumed by the fire. He saw himself in front of a congregation, leading the lambs back to their father.

In the little brown church in the wild wood dale, Joe often recounted his calling to the flock. It gave him credibility. Everyone knew that a man must be called, chosen by God, the Almighty, before he could preach.

God spoke directly from Preacher Gordon's mouth. Booming out shame and burning brimstone. The brothers and sisters of the Holy Commandments Church had been born into dispicable sin. With their first breath, even as new born babes, they were drowning, lost in sin, owned by the devil. Salvation came from deep repentance of sin and being washed in the blood of Jesus. Bathing in blood made them white as snow. Their garments were spotless.

On Sundays, morning and evening and on Wednesday evening, Preacher Gordon belted out the voice of God. He did not write out the sermons, (he was not good at writing) he let God use him as an instrument of voice. "Hallelujah!" "Amen, brother."

The log walls vibrated with God's voice. Then the Holy Spirit entered the congregation. The logs vibrated with spirit. The congregation cried quietly. Then the call was made to the alter.

"Jesus is here to help you. He will walk you to the alter." Preacher said in his tender voice.

The choir sang, "Are you washed, are you washed? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?"

I was eleven years old.

Mother was by my side. We were visiting, staying with Aunt Laura, on her farm. Victoria was conspicuous, out of place in her up to the minute stylish clothes over swelling belly, among the people of her roots. Daddy was on a secret Air Force mission. It was before the Old Hotel. Carol, Kathi, and I clustered around Mother.

Then the choir sang, "Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War." People were kneeling at the alter, tears flowed. "Forward into battle". "Hallelujah!"

I was entered by the Holy Spirit. I was in a deep trance. I lost consciousness of the surroundings. I was in the channel of No Words. My neuron jell directed my feet up to the alter where I succumbed to wracking tears. I cried for hours. I sobbed on the alter. Flowing an ocean, I was gently walked to the car. Aunt Kat took me home with her that night. This was before the Old Hotel, she lived in a shack with only clap board and tin to repel the elements. She had a deep front porch with rockers and a utility back porch.

I cried in her arms like a dejected baby. I would forever be her baby. Eleven years old and sitting on my Aunt's lap! But my consciousness was still not connected to the commonly agreed upon channel, called "reality". Gradually, with musical voice she soothed me. I went into deep sleep.

The next day Sister Carol, Cousin Banty and I went to the watermelon patch. Banty thumped the melons with middle finger until she found one that was ripe. She broke it open by banging it on the ground. It tasted red and sweet and sun warmed. Thirst quencher.

We walked towards the piney woods. There was an ant bed, about 12 inches high, between the watermelon rows. Carol kicked it. Ants scattered, looking anxious. Carol began crushing the ants with her thumb. Banty joined in, giggling.

I had been saved, the night before, in Papa Gordon's little brown church in the wild wood dale. I said, to my genome and age cohorts, "You should not kill ants. They are God's creatures." They laughed at me.

The Old Hotel, part five; I am Confused, Is That a Problem?

2010-06-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

I awaken, sticky with sweat. Brain waves slowly pick up pace and I come to beta consciousness. Reality coalesces slowly, through the fog of surreal dreams. My sister, Carol and cousin Banty awakened earlier and have left the shabby room. Some of the clay wads still stick to the ceiling. Others fell to the floor during the night, thuds which punctuated my dreams. The fallen ones lie, like plastic turds around the floored mattress.

I dress in my designated room, #10. Find cold pork and eggs and grits in Aunt Kat's kitchen. Then wander down the front steps to Mama Gordon's room.

Grandmother's room is one of the ones that get cleaned. Aunt Kat is sweeping. "You will always be my pwecious babee," says Aunt Kat and envelops me with a perfumed hug. She wears Avon's 'Ruby Silk" that comes as a cream scent in a spiffy red jar. Kat's face is expertly painted with Avon products, which she sells, she is a walking ad. She wears a blue on blue floral print, cotton shirtwaist dress. Patent leather ballerina flats and matching belt. Her hair is permed, tortured into stylish curls. Silver locks streak the brown curls. Good Christian women do not dye their hair, like hussies. That is just wrong. Wrong even though Aunt Kat doesnt believe that God is as mean as some people say that he is.

"Look, Mama, it is our wuverly babee Jan," Kat hollers in mega decibels to get through to the old lady, Belle Gordon.

Kat looks like my Mother. Strangers recognize Victoria and Katherine as sisters. Same blue-gray eyes, finely wrought bodies, dainty features in perfect oval faces. Both look beautiful and are good Christian women. The difference is that Kat is a sweet soft heart, a Christian saint; and Victoria is a devout Christian soldier, battling evil devil influences daily. God assigned the souls of her four children to Victoria's care and she takes this mandate very seriously indeed. Belts and supple switches are the weapons to drive the devil from her children and make them as pure as white snow. Red whelps on tender bottoms prove her allegiance to the Holy Father.

This sweat dripping, August, 1956, day in the dark heart of Mississippi, Kat is cleaning her ancient Mother's Old Hotel Room. Victoria is in an office across the rail road tracks, typing up a legal brief.

Belle Gordon wears a clean, faded, old fashioned, long cotton dress and a sweater. She is rocking in the Nursing Chair. A low, dark polished wooden chair designed for breast feeding babies. This chair has accompanied her along her wanderings on the path of broken hearts and busted brains.
Belle nursed nine children at her bountiful breast, rocking in that low chair. Actually, eleven children, if you count the two angels who went back to heaven after only a short earthly stay.

Mama Gordon asks me to thread needles for her. She can still hand sew and mend clothing, but she cannot see the eye of the needle. Her hands have a fine tremor. I thread three needles with thread measured by my extended arms. I knot the thread and place the needles in a pincushion home made from bright scraps and stuffed with cotton from the field.

Then my grandmother sits peacefully as I fix her hair. I pull out hair pins. Her white, charcoal streaked hair falls to her waist. It has never been cut. It smells like fertile earth. I brush for one hundred strokes and then, retwist the bun.

She is a heart. A big sweet heart. Her heart has been tempered by pain and sorrow and joy. Preacher Gordon was not an easy person to live with.

Oh, What a Night

2010-05-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

I hope that all of you have had the privilege of experiencing a wonderful night of romance like this.

The Goddess Diana

2010-05-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

This lady, Diana, knows how to take care of herself. She can also bring home the bacon, I mean venison. My favorite thing about her is that she inhabits the forest.

The Old Hotel, Part Four

2010-05-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

That night the three muffinteers slept in room #116. They had several rooms to choose from in the sparsely populated Old Hotel. Some of the rooms had actual chairs, chests of drawers and beds on frames with sheets that had been changed within less than one year. The girl cousins slept in different rooms on different nights whenever Mother would allow it.

Some nights Mother would punish her bad daughters and make them sleep with her in the designated bedroom. Room #10 at the back of the first floor had three beds for Mother, Hank, Kathi, Carol and Jan. Daddy was away, TDY at a Greenland Air Force Base.

Luckily, Victoria was in a good mood after work and didnt want a crowded bedroom on such a hot night.

Room #116, on the second floor, was furnished with two deflated mattresses thrown on the dusty floor. Banty opened the window, but not even a wisp of air stirred. To the girls it was not a dismal flop room, but a grand chamber of sizzling mystery. They were in the exact same room where Bernice had committed the forbidden act with her boyfriend that very same day. They could not stop giggling.

Back then, sex was a sin. God did not approve of his men and women joining bodies and spirits. God made very strict rules governing sexual intercourse. Only reproduction between a husband and wife was allowed and only because God wanted a bigger flock. It was committed infrequently and quickly with the lights out. Christians were not allowed to think about it to much. It was definitely forbidden to enjoy it. If sex was done improperly then the humans were sent to hell. There in the underground Kingdom of the Devil they would be painfully tortured forever and ever.

Back then, sex was even more treacherous than it is today. Today, you can get diseases, unwanted pregnancy and a broken heart. All bad stuff, but minor glitches, compared to eternal burning fire.

Back then daughters of good Christian families were kept ignorant about the basic facts of reproduction. Girls were especially at risk from the horrible dangers. Good Christian parents structured their daughters with a wall of silence. Some taboos are talked about, children are warned, but the strongest taboos are kept vaulted in an unmentionable vacuum.

God did, however want men and women to multiply. He needed a large population to satisfy his gluttony for abject adoration. Thay is why he programmed humans with a magnetic drive. God did not make mistakes. However, he did realize that he needed to control sex, because it was one of the most empowering things that humans had. Sometimes sex made people happy and that was not good. Happy people tend to get uppity. Also, God had detailed plans for social structure and unregulated sex could play havoc with societal organization.

To assure that his people did not wander from the straight and narrow God invented Church. Certain special men, like Papa Gordon, heard the direct voice of God, they recieved "a calling" to be preachers. After that they could boss a flock around and threaten the lambs into following God's commandments.

Humans were required to go to church at least once a week. Mother dragged us there about three times a week. That is why I know so much about devine rules. What I am telling you is not what I learned in Sunday School. The preachin' teachin' confused me so much, that I had to think about it a lot. I am telling you about the conclusions that I deducted, after many years of working to make logical sense of it all. My hope is that this will help you to straighten out your own thoughts, if you are confused.

God invented SHAME to assist his children on the righteous path to heaven. Heaven is the place with the pearly gates and streets paved with gold. You get a harp and praise God the whole day long, every single day, for eternity. God needs a lot of admiration, I havnt figured out why yet, but am still working on it. Shame is the short chain leash on pleasure.

Papa Gordon, in his prime (when his brain still worked, before the oldtimers disease kicked in) could fill a congregation with such shame over being human that they would get down on their knees and beg the Almighty Father for forgiveness. Papa Gordon spoke the Word of God, he channeled the fearful threats from the Gread Dictator in the sky. He was devinely inspired, direct from the Lord. He still had the power to make me shiver in my Mary Janes.

He raised Victoria with a righteous loathing of her womanly flesh, and Mother tried to pass that on to me.

Yes, girls were especially at risk for falling from grace. Their sweet ripening fruit drove men, even preachers, mad from lust. Really, this was a situation that had to nipped in the bud. Budding females must not realize the great power that they had. Holy old adult males hated the persistant lust. Girls were the cause. Sin was their fault. Ever since Eve ate that apple.

To be continued when I get around to it.

The Old Hotel, Part Four

2010-05-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

That night the three muffinteers slept in room #116. They had their pick from several rooms in the sparsely populated Old Hotel. Of course they chose 116 that night. The room where the forbidden mysterious activity had taken place.

Back then daughters of certain Christian families were kept ignorant about the basic facts of human reproduction. Back then, sex was an unmentionable sin. God did not approve of men and women connecting their minds and spirits. However, God did want people to multiply. He needed a large population of humans to satisfy his gluttony for abject adoration.

To assure reproduction in the human race he programmed them with an obsessive magnitism to fit their parts together and unite sperm and egg.

Breathe

2010-05-09T06:43:00.001-07:00

Here are four paintings from the large digital file 'Cosmic Debris'. The four different pictures use many of the same elements. It is so cool that photoshop images can be used again and again. When I have created elements, such as the two that you see here, they can be reused in different ways, expressing variations on a theme.

Pheonix

2010-05-09T06:32:00.000-07:00

The Phoenix is a mythical bird recognized by the ancient Persians, Greeks, Chinese and Egyptians. It lives for 1,000 years by eating frankincense. After 1,000 years it builds a nest in an oak tree and lights the nest on fire. A new Pheonix arises from the ashes and renews the cycle.

Cosmic Rose

2010-05-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

From the ongoing series, 'Cosmic Debris".

Ether

2010-05-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

I just looked up the word 'ethereal' in wikipedia. It means, light, airy, spirit, pertaining to a higher atmosphere. This is a pict of ethereal images. From the series "Cosmic Debris". A digital file started a few years ago and worked on sporadically.

Mardi Gras Queen

2010-05-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

A loopy French Quarter scene with a wobbly Luck Dog cart. The anime kitten face shows up again, this time on a woman's costumed body. A photo-shop collage.

Click on the picture to see it larger.

Magnolia and Dragonfly

2010-05-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

Timetary

2010-05-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Two low rez stock images loaded from the web. Painted in photo-shop. New Orleans icons, masks and ornate raised graves. Spoooky!

The Old Hotel, Part Three

2010-05-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

Banty, Carol and I, giggling from sheer animal vitality and sunshine, skip from the porch. Black velvet and cobalt butterflies land on Papa Gordon's pajamas, drying on the line.

At fifteen years old, Banty is way ahead of me in sophistication. She wears a very tight dark skirt. A three inch leather belt cinches her waist, accentuating an hour glass figure. Dark brown, long wavy hair and electric blue eyes. A few pimples. She limps on feet disfigured by the mysterious illness she suffered in her fifth year. The boys are crazy about her. On a chain around her neck hangs the class ring of Bobby, the cutest boy at Weir Middle School.

Carefully, we climb between the barbed wires of the fence. We run across the field, screaming and sweating, and startling the cows just for the fun of seeing them run away. We dodge cow patties. On one pile of shit, a covey of butterflies dance. I think that they are eating cow shit. I am disillusioned, how can such elegant creatures eat shit? The field crossed, we climb through the fence, and out onto the baking red clay road. A little way down the road, we come to the forest path.

I feel a frisson, both apprehension and excitement just before we enter the forest.

It is cool in the deep shade. Virgin pine trees. Thick trunks reach straight and tall to the sky. High overhead, a canopy of blue green needles, underfoot, a carpet of red brown needles. We walk quietly, subdued by the forest grandeur. My consciousness switches to the channel of evanescent mist.

The path skirts a sandy bottomed, clear amber creek. Then, we arrive at the swimming hole. Because of the depth of the water, it is black. Blue sky, white cloud and green pine reflections flutter on the surface. I am transfixed by the liquid color play.

Faintly I hear Banty, "Jan, Jan".

Carol says, "She cant hear you. She is unconscious, nothing in her head but air". They laugh at me and I am saddened with embarrassment.

We sit on the pine needle carpet and light cigarettes with wooden kitchen matches. Banty shares her cigarette with me. "Here," she says, "smoke some of this coffin nail." She fingers the ring hanging from the chain. We swat mosquitoes.

"I saw Bobby talking to that prissy ass Sally Jo. I told him that if he does that again I will break up with him."

Carol says, "I saw him talking to Irene, the slut".

Banty says, "I am gonna kick his ass. She eats cock for breakfast."

I know that they are talking about sex, but I do not understand the mechanics. Burning curiosity gnaws at me, but I do not ask questions. Questions would expose my ignorance, and that, would be just too embarrassing.

"Why did Bernice pay you?" I ask.

"She gave us a dime and cigarettes, not to tell you, Miss Vacuum Head." says Carol in a self satisfied, mocking tone.

"Please tell!" I beg.

"She didnt want us to tell, that her boy friend came to the hotel," Banty's voice glitters with excitement. "We were suppose to watch the kids, while they 'did it' in room 116." She pokes me with her elbow, "He put his dick in her pussy and pumped up and down". She laughs with gusto. I am satisfied to put some of the sex puzzle pieces together.

"We listened outside the door and heard them moaning and grunting and banging." Carol says, "Ha ha. You missed it, Miss Cloud Head. Miss Stuck Up, nose in the air."

"Woo-hoo" Banty yells. She runs and jumps into the swimming hole, clothes, leather belt, and all. Carol does a butt busting, cannon ball into the water. I ease in the icy water slowly from a shallow edge.

Invigorated, splashing and whooping. The black silk water sparkles. We are shiny birds of youth, and the earth is new.

Walking back to the Old Hotel, on the clay road, a car passes us and kicks up dust. Red clay mud clings to our wet clothes.

Woman's Back

2010-04-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

This image started as an acrylic on canvas painting. A photograph of the painting was worked in photo-shop. That is when the wings were added. Hi saturated color. The original is 24 megabytes. This version completed today.

Iris Eyes Shining

2010-04-20T15:29:00.001-07:00

Digital image. Original 23.3M. Stock traditional Japanese picture from Dover Cd. The round thing started as eyes with iris and pupil, but as they were worked and reworked turned into something that looks more like flowers.

The Old Hotel, Dog Days of August

2010-04-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

She silly sally down the hall way. Skip and dip. Stutter, flutter. Kicking up little dust clouds. Aroma of human effluvium.

As I leave the sunny corner room, Aunt Kat is efficiently dressing Papa Gordon in his pajamas. Her soothing voice calms him down. Changes his mode from Hell Fire to quiet rest.

I am wearing pedal pushers and a polka dot blouse sewn for me by Mama. The hall is long, gray, receives sunlight only at the two ends. My mind slides to its channel of choice. A dreamy, wordless place. I drift past Aunt Kat and Uncle Jack's rooms, numbers 113 and 115. Aunt Tilly and Boo Ray live in room 117. On the right are a string of desolate vacant rooms. I pass dining room and kitchen, and at the end of the hall, the communal bathrooms. Then, down the outdoor back stairs and through the screen door to the first floor hall. Feet navigating, mind in clouds. The August southern heat is oppressive.

I enter my family bedroom. Hank is driving his cars over Peggy's dolls. Bernice is tuning the radio. Hank grins and joggles to me with arms reaching open. "Sissy, Sissy, read book. Read Buzz Bunny."

Bernice is the babysitter for Hank while Mama works. Mama is secretary a few hours a week to the only lawyer in Weir, Mississippi. Bernice has a cushioned body, a long dirty blond pony tail, pale blue eyes. She is wearing a flowered blouse and a faded green gathered skirt. She sits in a straight wooden chair and turns the imitation ivory dial of the brown plastic radio. The radio emits weird zippy sounds as she scrolls the stations.

Three year old Peggy lurches to Bernice, squeezes between her legs, and tugs at her mother's blouse. Bernice stops turning the radio dial when she finds Elvis singing, "Warden threw a party in the county jail." Her soft shoulders see saw to the rhythm of the music. Peggy is trying to get under her mother's blouse. Bernice lifts her blouse and pops out her huge milk melon. Peggy slurps at the pap while standing on sturdy plump legs.

"Sissy, Sissy, read Buzz Bunny!" I pick up Hank and the book and carry them to the back porch. Sit in big wooden rocking chair. Snuggle three year old boy chub. Read, "Hoppity, hoppity." The over worked electric washing machine spins with death rattle noise. Beside it is an old wringer washer.

The back porch looks onto a big cow field. In the near distance are lines of scraggly drying laundry with butterflies swarming about. In the far distance is a thick woods, veined with a creek. One area of the creek has been dynamited to create a deep black swimming hole.

Hank and I doze dreamily, gently rocking. I dream that I am trying to water a flower bed, but the hose is stopped up. I shake and squeeze the hose, but water only dribbles out.

Noise of flip flops and screen door slam. "Where have yall been?" I ask Carol and Banty as they jiggle from the hallway to the porch.

My sister Carol is eleven, two years my junior. To my humiliation, she is more developed than I am. She always wins our rivalry fights because she is meaner and stronger willed than I am. Her bangs frizz over her high forehead and tweezed eyebrows. Mischief jets from her blue gray eyes. The sides of her hair fall obediently straight to poufs of tight curls just below her ears. She wears a blue boat neck blouse and a gathered skirt sewn from cotton by Mother. She eats a Snickers bar. "We wont tell you!" she snickers.

"Bernice paid us a dime to keep our mouths shut," Banty says. "And," she says waving two cigarettes, "look what else she gave us." I beg to know why they were paid, but they will not tell me. Banty says that we should go to the swim hole to smoke.

I carry the sleeping Hank to the double bed where Peggy is napping. Bernice is singing along with the radio. "One for the money. Two for the show. Three to get ready, now go cat go."She tosses her pony tail in rhythm.

Dozo saunters in. Sniffs. Lies down beside the bed and immediately falls asleep.

I Talk to Trees

2010-04-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

SPRING! Drink in the beauty of spring green leaves and sparkling flowers. See it, feel it. Enjoying beauty has a holistic effect on your being. Taking time to appreciate spring will make you feel better. A minute or two will lift your mood up a notch. The better you feel, the better you perform. Could have a spiral effect on your whole life.

The Old Hotel

2010-04-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

I need a plan, man. I need a blog plan. I need focus. I need a cohesive concept. I need to win the lottery. I need a face lift. I need to get my shit together.

I plan to write some biographical material and I plan to post pictures. Dear reader, please dont expect it to be organized or reasonable. I have "art brain", that is my excuse. The pictures will not match the written material. Life is too short. And, life is too complicated to tie into a neat bundle.

Specifically, as to the writing, I plan to write about a period of time in my life when I lived at the Old Hotel. Coexisted there with my mother, two sisters, little brother and a whole caboodle load of extended, busted brained, family. I was 13 years old and the year was 1956.

Naturally, I plan to take poetic license with the facts. Thank the Dear Goddess for spell check. You will not be pummeled with too much creative spelling.

I plan to write as I go along, completing one or two short episodes a week. More if time permits.

This morning I drafted the first episode, handwritten, on old fashioned paper.

Please indulge me my corny alliteration.

I tried to unify the time frame but it kept getting disorganized. So, am going with the mixed past tense and present tense. Whatever.

THE OLD HOTEL

The Old Hotel was dim, dusty and delightful. The pea sized town of Weir, Mississippi, was weary, wan and wonderful.

After the heyday of train travel, the hotel fell from relevance. It no longer made sense. In the time when travelers tumbled about in automobiles, capillaries of commerce switched from rail to highways. The Old Hotel was bypassed.

For a few years the hotel was not occupied. Then, Aunt Kat bought the decaying heap for a song.

Papa Gordon's room was to the right of the hallway that led to the second story balcony. Just past Aunt Kat's and Unkle Jack's rooms. The old man's room had more light. On a corner, it had twice as many windows to coax sunlight.

Just as I walked through the open door, Papa Gordon shouted, "You are going to Hell!". He was sitting on the end of his bed. Scrawny knob knees angled over the foot board. "Your sinful ways on the wide and crooked are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord." A gnarled finger, like a shot gun, hurled shame on my sinful soul. Then he slammed his fist on the ragged King James Version of the Bible. "Repent", he bellowed.

The air marinated in an intimate odor of chamber pot under the bed. His voice boomed from a ribbed chest thinly drapped with crepe skin. I did not look at his, 'you know what'. My small voice claimed only a sliver of space in the righteous airwaves. "Papa Gordon," I murmured, "let me help you get dressed".

"REPENT!", the vindictive voice almost knocked me down. "REPENT! The way of the cross is the only way. Jesus is preparing a mansion for you in heaven."

Repentance, curiosity and revulsion clatter in my brain. Curiosity is winning. Well, admittedly, I did get a quick, indelible, view of his "thingie" before editing my eyes. Now curiosity is urging a better look at the shriveled pod. Just as I have my courage worked up Dozo walks in. She is dutifully making her rounds.

Dozo assesses the situation like a professional nurse. She sniffs my quandary. Things are not right. She pads out the door.

I drift to the front facing window. Beyond the balcony, across the railroad tracks I see the Saturday, go to to town, country folks. They shoulder bags of feed and seed from the farm store. They buy flour and sugar in bulk from the grocer.

Saturdays are lively days in Weir. Old fashioned subsistance farmers make a weekly outing to pick up supplies and glad mouth. There are two horses harnessed to wooden wagons tied up by the tracks.

Weir, this small dot of earth, is off current, mired in time warp quicksand. Even in 1956, a few farmers still drive horse and wagon to town. They own a few fertile acres. They raise luscious vegetables, fruit, chickens, milk cow and beef cow. They raise abundant barefoot families. The children beg to go on the Saturday trip for supplies. Town is exciting. There are new things and strange people to see.

Deep in the back woods they live in their own little bubble of self sufficiency.

Beyond the balcony, on the near side of the tracks, I am captivated, as I watch a gang of brawny teen boys playing a game of penny toss. My mind disconnects, drifts to the place of nameless longing. The hell fire and damnation fades to quiet static. Standing in my Mary Janes, my body sways gently.

Dozo returns her head held high with self importance. She is followed by Aunt Kat. Dozo has summoned Aunt Kat to handle the naked preacher situation.

I am pulled back to the sunlit room. "Jan", Aunt Kat orders, "go see about your little brother." She is trying to protect my girlish innocence by sending me away. Ive seen my brothers perky pee pee and my grand father's limp ding dong. My protected, guarded innocence is still mostly intact. Aunt Kat picks up Papa Gorden's pajamas from off of the floor.

I wander down the long hall way to the back stairs.

B 52 Egret

2010-03-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

Now I will try to think of something to write about this picture. As an Air Force brat I heard a lot about B 52's from my Dad. Osmotically absorbed impressions of impressive airplane performance. Fascinated by the rubberized pig hair stuffing in scrounged B52 cockpit chair Daddy used in his workshop.

Recently wanted to do an image of a vintage airplane. Searched Bling. Harvested pict of B52 being refueled in the air. It could fly a very long distance. And it was big. Worked the pict in photoshop. Upped the saturation. Increased contrast.

Then, wanted more interesting picture. So added other flying things. Egrets from an actual acrylic painting. Anime Kitten Cherub. Starry background created a few years ago. Luv layers.

There you have it. "B 52 Egret" picture. It works for me. Hope it works for you.

Love Letters to Japan

2010-03-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched a PBS historical documentary about the last part of WWII between USA and Japan.

I was conceived while my father was on leave from the war. I was born the year before the A-bombs were dropped on Japaneses cities. When I was six I lived in occupied Japan. Activities of first grade for me included air raid drills. This is like a fire drill except you line up in fox holes.

I have so many associations and emotions about Japan that it would be impossible to write all about it and still get my home ready for family to come for Easter.

Many mixed feelings. Hyperactive monkey mind running out of control again. The horrible devastation of WWII. The beauty of Japanese culture. The discipline and honor bound pre WWII Japanese personality. The culture that created a national determination that prefered suicide to surrender.

"Shibui" is a Japanese word that means refined elegance. Shibui design is distilled to to the bare essentials of beauty.

"Wabi" is a Japanese word that means, refined rustic. Tea houses are wabi. Built like peasant huts with humble natural materials and superb craftsmanship. The tea ceremony is a ceremonially choreographed group meditation. Every move and every word carefully edited to produce an experience of serene harmony.

And now, the post WWII Japan gives us Anime and Murasaki. There is a focus on being shallow and infantile.

Sorry, I have to go now. Lots to do. Want to get my forest pruning exercise. Leaving you with another disjointed entry.

Have a wonderful Easter. Spring. Life renewal. Winter (death) is overtaken by the vibrance of fecund Mother Nature. Jesus was crucified at this time. Death. Resurrection. We celebrate with bunnies, renowned for their sexual addictions. Renowned for their fecundity. And eggs, symbols of birth, rebirth. May there be death to your personal gunk and rebirth to you light filled potential. Whatever.

Louvre Mask

2010-03-24T16:43:00.000-07:00

I took the photograph of this mask in the Louvre. The mask was in a glass case and a reflection of the mask showed up in the photo. I wish that I had made notes on the origin of the mask, and have now forgotten when and where it was made. It is made of terra cotta. The background is scanned French wallpaper with the colors changed in photoshop.

Zephyr

2010-03-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Whatever Happened to Poor Cousin Boo Ray?
A Fractured Southern Gothic Tale

Aunt Tilly drove her beat up old Dodge hell bent pell-mell from Buford County, Mississippi, to New Orleans that drizzly evening in the mid sixties. I guess she had to escape her sweltering moldy family and explosive Uncle Model T before her rocker totally off tracked.

Cousin Boo Ray played quietly with his hot wheels in the back seat. I was all of sixteen years old, with my drivers license and white lipstick. Aunt Tilly let me drive until I scared the holy shit out of her. Then I was demoted to shotgun. Tilly chained smoked Lucky Strikes, gripped the stirring wheel with fingers thin as nails, while jibber jabbering under her breath. She was skeleton thin before it was chic to be afflicted with anorexia. Ahead of her time. She checked us into the Airline Highway Motelarama after midnight.

From the dingy room-smelling of human secretions-she phoned my mother to tell her that I was safe, not to worry. Then hung up on Mama when the phone began to sizzle. We all three slept in one crappy bed. Cousin Boo Ray tossed and kicked. I awoke disoriented, with Aunt Tilly hitting me. She apologized after I shook her, "Sorry, I thought you were Model T."

The next day was a number ten on the weather scale. A refreshing crisp of autumn in the air. I was about to pee my pants with excitement. I had only been to New Orleans once before, to attend a Billy Graham revival meeting with my fanatical Christian parents.

After cafe au lait and beignets Aunt Tilly bought me a padded push up bra for my breast buds. I didnt have much to push up but the bra had flattering foam rubber.

At Ponchatrain Beach Amusement Park we waited in line to board the Zephyr. Aunt Tilly said, "This is a very old roller coaster, I hope that they have replaced all the rotten boards" Sitting in the car with Cousin Boo Ray in the middle we jerked, ratcheting skyward, up a creaky ramp. "Hold your arms up," Tilly ordered when we reached the top. I screamed with delight. Falling, falling. Zooming down.

Boo Ray didnt know what to expect. He was overwhelmed by the force of gravity. After that he was broken. I think that terrifying roller coaster ride was the straw that broke the camels psyche. Too many nights crouching, trembling, under the bed while Tilly and Model T hammered and degraded each other.

In this picture you can see him before and after. I only visited him once at Whitfield, Mississippi State Hospital for Mental Diseases. He did not even know that I was there. Did not acknowledge my gift of Whitman's chocolates in the stunning box.

New Orleans was a thrilling day for me, super cool Aunt Tilly bought me a Mai Tai in a pagan idol glass at the Bali Hai Restaurant and Lounge. I was dazzled by the sophistication of the lounge decor. Back then, in New Orleans, they did not check ID, except for when it was close to election time. And the bra and cigarette made me look older. Tilly got tipsy and so did I.

Back home I hid the bra and pagan idol glass in the back of my closet with the birthday present carton of cigarettes that my Airman boy friend had given me. I began scheming about how I would move to New Orleans after graduating high school.

We did not notice that Cousin Boo Ray was broken until after we got home; and after we faced the family furor fireworks. He always was a quiet boy.

NOLA Kaleidoscope

2010-03-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

Two photoshop images using the same elements. The streetcar named Desire, St. Louis Cathedral, and an alligator. The kaleidoscope also uses the Psychedelic Virgin of Guadalupe as a centerpiece.

Having fun with photoshop! Make images, combine them in different ways. I was an artist long before computers changed our world. When I heard about photoshop, about ten years ago, I knew that I must have it. At first I did not even know that to start, you must open a new file. I was immediately addicted. Taught myself during fascinated hours.

When I do something unpleasant, like paying bills, time is heavy, slow. When I paint or do photoshop or garden or spend time with my peoples time is light and flows.

In my ideal world (I have utopian fantasies) we would only do those things that inspire us.

Silver Creek

The robins are here, I watch them from my back porch. They hop in the yard graceful and jaunty. Kind of like Meg Ryan's walk, in that movie where she faked an orgasm in a restaurant.

Yesterday, I did my woods pruning. I call this gardening. I wear rubber boots. (I want a new pair, with a leopard pattern) Cover my head with kerchief and hat, wear leather gloves. I am still dealing with Katrina debris. Dead branches stuck in a string ball of thorn vines. Fallen trees. All this dead vegetation is now rotted and soft so that I can pull the dead branch mats out with gloves. I kick and stomp other debris where it crumbles to the ground. I prune lots of privit. Mark the fragrant Carolina Allspice with bright metallic ribbons.

I look at the changes. Changes that I and my peoples have done. Changes that Mother Nature has created as bushes turn into trees. With my arty sense I envision how this woods wants to look. I collaborate with Mother Nature to create geometry and kid friendly spaces.

Have a flowing day. Peace, Love and Art, Janet

Virgin Lucky Dog

2010-03-03T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here is the psychedelic Virgin Mary blessing all the wienies in the Lucky Dog cart.

I have been making prints with my new Epson Stylus 14oo printer. They look beautiful! Rich color and wonderful detail. I get excited when I see the digital paintings on paper. Getting ready to start working art markets. Plan to start at Mandeville Trail Head Market soon. Will post dates when I know when I will be there.

Silver Creek

Spring coming! The clearing floor is dotted with sweet purple violets. My doggie, Harpo, flushed an armadillo. What funny critters. They prove that Goddess has a sense of humor. The creeks are high and muddy after the rain. Maybe next week I can start planting. Want to put out the fig and lemon trees that I have been babying in the guest bedroom. Chickies gave four brown and speckled eggs today.

Hell's Aliens Grand Master

2010-02-25T08:28:00.000-08:00

An old friend from Los Angeles gave me the complicated web address and pass words to a highly confidential website published by the Congress of Deep Planet Archeology. My friend asked to remain anonymous. When I asked him if I could blog about the material on the web site he hesitated. "Janet, you may blog this, if you feel that you must. But, I must warn you not to expose yourself, there have been murders! It is just too dangerous."

Dear reader, you will soon understand how I was dumbfounded at the bizarre story revealed on the website.

At great risk to myself, I will tell you the implausible facts of the case. It is dangerous to publish this hidden information, but I believe the world should know the truth.

In July of 2008, archeologist exploring a labyrinth of tunnels beneath Los Angeles, discovered a luxurious underground bunker mansion. They found a subterranean structure encompassing 33 opulent rooms with fantastic furnishings.

The mansion had its own electrical system powered by magnetic waves from earths core. The advanced technology was eagarly examined by engineers.

Scientist discovered many mysterious machines. Artifacts inventoried included some of the earliest Harley Davidson motorcycle models. Enigmatic electronic equipment baffled the explorers. Strange machines with unknown configurations of micro technology were studied by a handful of scientists from the electronic and engineering fields. The scientist were skeptical but after careful examination, they had to concluded that these were devices for interstellar communications.

Lying close together in one large, beautiful room, the scientist found 69 unusual skeletons.

Autopsy of the skeletons brought even more unbelievable surprises. The humanoid bones fit into no known anatomical categories. It was whispered that the remains were human/alien hybrids, but none of the scientists wanted to risk their academic credentials by asserting this implausible fact.

The professors only had a few short days to examine the bunker before the ACI (American Control Institute.) heard about the find and sealed the site. The explorers were captured and transported blindfolded to a site more secret than area 54. Most of the archeologist and scientists involved endured painful cranial "treatments" at the hands of the ACI Department of Memory Enhancement. Which is code doublespeak for a team of vicious memory erasure experts.

Gilbert Ford, PhD, eluded the ACI captors. Then, he escaped by sailing with his wife and children to Belize. From a secluded villa he was able to contact other members of the Congress for Deep Planet Archeology, and publish his findings and photographs to the top secret website.

Dr. Ford's extensive research lead him to courageously propose a theory about the case. He believes that circa 1948 the bunker was home to a highly unusual motorcycle gang. The members of this club were human/alien hybrids.

Beings from a distant, as yet undiscovered galaxy crashed their ship in Death Valley about 1922. Unable to return to their home planet they resigned themselves to life on earth. Traveling by night they made their way to Los Angeles. They called themselves Hell's Aliens.

Earth women were recruited into the club where they were treated like Goddess Queens. Just as all earth women should be treated.

Unions between the aliens and human women produced a small race of extremely intelligent and superbly athletic beings. They built their bunker mansion and lived covert lives of creativity and joy.

They were able to mingle in the world, disguised with motorcycle helmets. They founded Harley Davidson, invented and developed motorcycles. Hell's Aliens could ride like the wind.

The ET's saw the stupidity, the confusion of humans. They empathized with the suffering of life on earth. They saw great potential for the human race. They began to instigate reforms. The Hell's Aliens discovered gentle, meditative, mind enhancing techniques. They meditated as a group and sent positive love vibrations to the whole human race. IMAGINE was the name given to the meditation project. These vibrations helped humans improve emotional intelligence, decision making skills, and interpersonal skills.

They were on the brink of wonderful evolutionary changes. They would help humans create paradise on earth. The potential was there, it just needed a little, psychic nudging. AND... more time.

The Hell's Aliens maintained their anonymity for several decades before being discovered by the ACI.

In the few years that operation IMAGINE was performed astonishing changes occurred. Small groups and individual humans benefitted from their interventions and took evolutionary psychological jumps. A lucky few people absorbed the vibrations and began to fulfill the utopian potential that Goddess intends for her humans.

Sadly, the peaceful Hell's Aliens were gassed in their beautiful bunker mansion. The hybrids were stalked by the ACI. Poisoned gas was released, contaminating the dwelling for thirty years. They were killed by ignorance and prejudice. (A typical occurrence on earth.) They were destroyed by human fear.

I was able to download this fantastic portrait of the Hell's Aliens Grand Master before my computer began to crash. The image degraded to a certain extent but I restored it with photoshop.

Dear reader, I understand your difficulty in comprehending this implausible incident. I, too, could not believe what I read. Then a strange peace came over me and all the puzzle pieces fit in place. I knew that this was not just another alien hoax. I knew the full truth.

Please let me know how this effects you and what you think. If you have any information about Hell's Aliens or the subterranean Los Angeles bunker mansion, please share your information.

We need to investigate this occurrence. The future of the human race depends on it.

Aunt Moonbeam and Unkle Apple Skelly

2010-02-20T09:42:00.000-08:00

Unkle Saxie Skelly

2010-02-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

Drummer Riff Raff Skelly Kat

2010-02-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

Skelly Kat Series
Now for something different.

I created the three pieces in the Skelly Kat Series in 2006. This was my response to that bitch Katrina. The skeleton characters are a metaphor for the rebirth of New Orleans. A movement that has gained momentum this year of 2010. Bless you boys!! Who Dat?

Gotta love New Orleans. Unique in all the world.

The pictures started first as pencil and then water color sketches on paper. I developed the concept and then worked them in Photoshop.

The Skelly Kats are a large boisterous prototypical New Orleans musical family. A bit like the Marsalis family with the respected patriarch Ellis Marsalis. Like the Neville family. Wow!!

Skelly Kats grow up in a home filled with musical instruments. It looks like a up side down music store. This is a shining place where the family spontaneously breaks out in song, standing around the kitchen, singing in harmony. Memaw's overloaded shrimp gumbo simmers on the stove. Papaw is jiggling a cranky baby.

The Skelly home is a cacophonic catastrophe, jumbled with rusty tricycles, scratching dogs, keyboards and guitars stacked on the coffee table, dirty laundry draped over the drum kit, fluorescent Mardi Gras beads in a Pat O'brien's hurricane glass, roach spray, Jerry Springer blasting from the television, loud friends raiding the fridge, blessed unwed mothers, drunk uncles, someone's ex who will not go away, stray neighborhood kids who sleep on the couch, stylish transvestites struttin' about in size fifteen red patent leather high heel boots, ol' broke down cats, three phones all ringing at once, bill collectors, run away teens who sleep in the backyard junk car, the priest wolfing down gumbo, feuding Aunt Moonbeam, stinky diapers, yard eggs and fresh juicy tomatoes from the country, crumpled comic books, and unidentified crusty objects under the bed.

The Skelly Kats family, these colorful musical skeletons, defy death and destruction and bring back New Orleans, one song at a time.

SILVER CREEK

I love it best when my family gets together at Silver Creek and makes music. The band is set up in the breeze way. Derek singing and playing guitar. Ben drumming. The little children get their turn with instruments and microphone. How fun! The best! Ryliegh, three years old grandniece, showing her dance moves (How did she learn that so young?.) Katie and Sydnie struttin' their stuff, singing and dancing. Thank you Goddess, for these peak experiences.

Queen of St. Lou

2010-02-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Here is Mary in her Queen of Heaven ensemble, visiting St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.

Silver Creek Notes

There was frost again this morning. I can tell you that we southern wimps are totally fed up with the cold. The sun is out now and it is turning into a pretty day. In the early afternoon I will go into the woods and do my pruning and clearing. I will work on my "Natural Meditation Walk Garden", that name might be a bit pretentious for the scraggly woods that I "sculpt" with pruners. It is a long term project requiring patience. I do so enjoy it. And I do see results. And, for my pleasure, the place does get compliments. I also get friendly ridicule from my family because the work is so slow. They can not believe that I want to examine every little plant. Last fall there was a beautiful growth of oyster mushrooms on a dead oak. They were delicious. Next time they crop I will make a yard egg oyster mushroom omelet.

I collected four eggs today. The chickens feeder was empty. When I filled it, the chickens acted like they were starving to death and put a guilt trip on me.

The huckleberries are blooming. When the berries come out I hope to get some before the birds eat all of the berries. There are more blooms since we cleared the canopy around the bushes and let in sun. I will make huckleberry muffins and say triumphantly, to my critics, "A bulldozer clearing would have destroyed these berries!"

I wish that you will find some joy today.

Peace, Love, Art and Nature, Janet

Gory Jesus

2010-02-18T05:59:00.000-08:00

After doing several Mary pictures my Muse said that I should do Mary's son Jesus. We had a little argument and the Muse won. Then she said that Jesus should be like the ones I saw in Mexico, that he should be bloody. I resisted the gory blood thoughts, for more than a week.

But, it kept coming back to me. My muse insisted. I said, thought, "I am committed to painting positive pictures. I want to paint Love, Light, Peace and Harmony". Muse kept putting this violent picture in my mind. I would see the image when I woke up in the morning.

"Muse", said I, "I want to feel happy when I paint, so therefore, I want to paint happy pictures. Like Matisse, he did Luxe, Calme and et Volumpte. All his picture are positive. Pictures of harmony make me feel light and spread light to the people who look at them. This world needs more light. Goddess knows, there is already enough blood and gore. Dont you watch TV? And, also, who wants a bleeding victim for a deity??? Look at Buddha, he is fat and happy. Isnt that better?"

My overbearing muse won. I photoshopped the crucifixion. Now putting this dramatic digital image on the net. Muse insisting that I use the same image to make another collage on canvas with acrylic paint and cut out digital image.

Cant get this going until I get a new Epson Stylus 1400 printer. (Glitches with my order. Must be prepared to confront glitches everyday and still maintain good attitude.) Another story.

Now irritating, controlling, bitch muse is showing me that collage should be bloodied up with bright red Golden tar gel dripped all over the canvas. I have never even used this gel before, so will have to experiment to learn how to use it. Is there no end to the bother?

What does it mean?? Maybe, it means nothing, its just art, no big deal. Art for arts sake. It does not have to be deep. Havnt I learned anything from Jeff Koons?

My inner radio keeps masticating over this issue. Maybe the Christians are right. Maybe human require a suffering martyr to find redemption. Is this what Muse is trying to show me?? Oh, go away!

Denial is my favorite coping mechanism. Just pull a curtain over things that I do not want to think about. If necessary, block the thoughts with a heavy locked door. I think that this works well. Why even go there?

Just think positive and spread love and light.

Do humans require a suffering victim martyr to achieve redemption?? Well, I can not totally deny that we are effing messed up creatures that inflict damage all over the place. Everything from cutting remarks to gruesome brutal wars. Maybe it does take a sacrificial God to elevate us.

Confused, as usual. Just wish my verbose inner radio and Muse bitch would shut the shuck up and let me watch a stupid sitcom in peace.

St. Ann, Digital da Vinci

2010-02-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

From the series, da Vinci goes Digital. I do not know what to say about this picture. Just look at it.

Prebirth, Winter

2010-02-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

From the digital series, "Time and Space", created a few years ago.

A puzzle that has various sayings depending on how you read it. "Quest thing" and "Question everything", and "Thing question". An embryo in utero, a skull, a clock.

What do you think about this picture? Leave a comment, I would like to know your impressions.

Kitten Cherub on the Beach

2010-02-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

A cool thing about photoshop is that images can be made and reused with different pictures. I am working on a picture called Gory Jesus. I intended the cherub to be collaged onto the crucifixion canvas. But with photoshop I can pop that cherub in anywhere.

I painted the traditional cherub, but it needed pizazz, so, it got an anime influenced kitten face.

The beach scene is a digital painting that I have worked on sporadically over a period of years. I kept making little changes, aiming to illustrate the glowing mood I feel when at the beach. It looks nice (but cliche) as a simple seascape. I wanted a jazzy picture, so I put the two images together.

Life on earth is a tough gig. Art has made it bearable for me. Been through lotsa effing tragic drama. Making art has kept my spark alive.

There are no engraved in stone rules to art. In fact, art is often made just to break the old rules. Each generation asserts a new paradigm.

I have Art Brain. This is similar to having ADD (that means Attention to a Different Drummer).
Yesterday on TV, I heard a woman say that she likes rules. They help her to feel that she is on the right track. Variety in personalities keeps the light spinning around.

To me, rules are made to be broken. I want to expand, shuck constraints. My spirit longs to sparkle and glow. Throw off the shackle shit. Be surprised with new phenomena in the labyrinth of experience.

Course we gotta have some rules. Like driving. My son say's "Hey, Mom, watch this, trick driving." As he jumps a curb and zooms thru a parking lot to negotiate an illegal left turn. He gets so many tickets, and struggles to keep his drivers liscence. Genetic, flagrant disdain of rules.

In art you can make up the rules as you go along. Art, the land of freedom.

Art keeps my movie fresh. I paint in changing styles. Formulating fresh rules for each series. Fear of boredom. (The gallery says, "You need a distinctive style." But repetition phobia cant be beat.) Need for novelty. Surprise myself. Surprise you. Explore. Yet another different drummer rhythm.

Painted the traditional cherub. Give it a twist. Thought about the cuteness of kittens. Thought about how I drew kittens when I was six years old. Thought about cuteness. CUTE. Is cute OK in art? Avoided cute in the past. Inner rule, no cuteness. Break thru that, do cute. Anime is cute. Study anime style. Make cute.

Worked on the beach scene, sporadically for a couple of years. It is cliche. Cliche happens when a a reoccuring human theme is repeatedly expressed. Finally, my beach glows. Uplifting ions in beach air, from all that agitation of water. Got two digital files. Put them together, for no other reason than I want to use both of them.

Hey! are you out there? Please, leave a comment. Lets have some web interaction.

Peace, Love and Art,

Janet

NOLA Rising

2010-02-16T04:44:00.000-08:00

New Orleans rising. Like a lotus with roots in the mud and flower rising for the sky, Louisiana is rising from the Katrina mud. I just wanted to celebrate the new, improved New Orleans, so I painted this digital picture.

Woman with Crane

2010-02-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

This is a digital painting from the series "da Vinci goes Digital". I downloaded a low resolution da Vinci sketch. Low rez images encourage me to totally repaint the resource pictures, giving them my personal imprint. The sketch was sienna toned, I added more color. Warm earth toned schemes are a favorite of mine. I updated her hair. The face indicates sensitivity and introspection. I think that she is beautiful.

The crane and background are Japanese influenced.

My Air force father was stationed at Yakota Air Force base in 1950, when I was six years old. The Japanese experience has been a huge influence for me. Children are so impressionable. Experiencing a foreign culture at a young age expands the mind. Between oriental cultures and western cultures there is a million miles of difference. Knowing that there are alternatives for everything has given me a wide range of choices all my life.

Traditional Japanese aesthetics are beautifully elegant. Before western contact, Japanese art was tradition based. Revered craftsmen and painters refined what had been done before. The old ways were respectfully studied. An artist worth his chops assimilated the masters and built on the past.

Western art has a long history of breaking the rules. Creating new aesthetic guidelines every generation. And WOW! we have created some mind bending art.

Now we have exciting easy access to a long tradition of world wide aesthetics. We can easily see pictures that span art history, from Lascaux cave art to current global trends. An embarrassment of riches. A visual buffet to satisfy the most omnivorous appetite. So little time, so much art.

As an artist I happily create syncretic images. Reference what ever is available to realize the concepts in my head.

Art is communication. Visuals transfer intimate, deep information osmotically from one consciousness to another. Art spans our separate minds. With art, I am able to make visible my rich inner life. Growth occurs when there is a true meeting of minds. All parties are holistically advanced.

It is good to be an Art Goddess!!!

Puzzled Child

2010-02-05T04:55:00.000-08:00

Puzzled Child

Here is a digital image that I created a few years ago. From the "Time and Space" series. The little girl is my sister Kathi. I love the innocent anger in her face. My mother had taken us to see ALL the monuments in Washington, DC, one long hot August day. A photo was snapped before we headed home. This face image is from a small , old photograph. Two year old Kathi is burned out on tourist sites.

Kathi was brutally murdered before she reached 21 years of age. I do not want to write about the details. That room of my mind is barricaded.

He was a casual acquaintance. How did he become a subhuman monster? A despicable childhood? Psychosis? Was he possessed by the devil?

There are subhuman monsters in this world.

At two years old she seems to be saying, "WTF, why is this planet earth so stained with horror?" She is puzzled about the dark side of human existence.

The clock numbers remind us that time is our constant companion. Time is always ticking out. Start each day with reminding yourself that it is good to be alive.

In the background is a beautiful water lily. Water lilies are a Buddhist symbol, lily roots are in the mud but the flower is reaching for the sky. There is a lot of mud, static, glitches and occasionally downright horror to this earthly gig. So I remind myself to meet the challenges with a good attitude and focus on the positives.

Quan Yin

2010-02-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

This painting is 18"x24" acrylic on canvas. Completed October, 2008. Modeled by Shawyuh Karen Wang. The painting does not look much like Karen. Karen is much thinner. For this I apologize to the model. I was going after a stylized, jolly, round, female Buddha look. Karen also posed for The Source, which is more flattering to her figure.

Karen was such a good sport and adventurous. She drove all the way from New Orleans to Silver Creek for the session. I took photos and we did some nude shots in my private woods. Delighted, Karen said, "I'm naked in the woods." If you have never been naked in the woods or skinny dipped, I suggest that you try it. It makes you feel free to occasionally break through boundaries. It expands your view of self.

Quan Yin is a Goddess of Compassion. The eastern equivalent of Mary Madonna. She is sitting on a lotus, which I painted with impasto gold petals. The impasto contrasts with the flat paint of the figure and background.

The overhead arch is also impasto gold and set with "jewels". I have worked, trying to make jewels out of paint for years. I use Golden interference paints, Golden mica flake paint and a little glitter. Layers of gloss medium give the faux jewel depth.

Mary by de Bayou

2010-02-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Mary by de Bayou, May you be merry by you bayou.

Here in the Louisiana boon docks there are signs of budding spring approaching. We have done a lot of clearing work over the winter. The chopped places look scraggly now. Soon the spring greening will start. Trees and privit bushes will leaf out and polish the rough edges.

Dave and Janet's Adventure

Recently Dave and I explored the "far side" of Silver Creek property. We have 15 acres here, with two creeks. The larger creek, Silver Creek, runs along the northern border of the property. The smaller Gold Creek runs through the property and divides it into the "near side" and "far side".

We have been here eight years. The house is built on a small knoll. The rest of the property is subject to flooding. Ecologically rich, inland, Louisiana wet lands. I bought the property primarily because I have a strong NEED for nature. Communing with nature is necessary for me to maintain joy. Also, I wanted a place for my family to gather and feel Mother Nature. I want to retire in a place with grandchild appeal.

The property was clear cut for timber before it was sold to me. The first phase of secession wove an impassable tangle of privit and vines. It is so jungly and thick that people cannot walk without bushwacking. The vines include fox grape (delicious, steeped to make juice) and muscadine and a savage fast growing thorn vine.

The near side is about five acres. We have cut trails and clearings in this area where the two creeks meet. Clearing with hand tools and chain saw is labor intensive, but, this is a really good way to discover the land intimately. I want to identify every wild flower, herb and mushroom. (One of those unrealistic goals, but at least I can try.) There are culinary and medicinal plants to protect.

One of my favorite activities is clearing with hand tools. To justify spending hours every week at this laborious, slow activity, I review my reasons. It is good exercise, it is meditative, it is good for the ecology, and it is helping my family to stay connected with Mother Earth.

I am not coordinated enough to use the chain saw. When asked what I want for my birthday I tell the guys "chain sawing".

Recently my sons, Derek and Ben were chainsawing to widen the trails. I thought, "Oh, how wonderful, they are helping to make my beautiful dream of The Silver Creek Natural Walking Meditation Garden come true". Dave pulled me back to reality, "They are doing that so they can ride their buggy in the woods." Oh well, whatever their motivation, the trails were improved.

We enjoy the five acres on the "near side" but very rarely cross Gold Creek to get to the "far side". There are whole acres that I have never seen. A nice sand bar is located at the western property edge. Previously we waded the creek and walked a narrow trail to swim there. The trail was destroyed by that bitch, Katrina with a tornado.

Dave and I start out midmorning, the weather is perfect, cool and sunny. Dave carries a branch cutter and I have a machete. We walk the back trail to a place where the shallow creek banks on both sides are gently slopping with small sand bars. We cross easily in our rubber boots. Immediately on the other side we start bushwacking our way through, doubling back north west, toward the big sand bar.

The barriers are Mother Nature's thick weaving of privit and vines. I find more Star Anise (or Carolina Allspice) trees. Another big Tupelo tree. Magnola. Lots of Water Oak. What joy, to see the land recover from the timber cutting. Deer tracks are everywhere. We do not see any deer because we are making noise and we smell like humans.

We transverse swampy bogs and higher ridges. I look for areas of shallow digging, for signs of wild feral hog wallows. People say that they are surely on the low lying areas of the property. Two hundred fifty pound monsters that may charge intruders. I have the machete; like I could stop a charging hog; for Goddess sake, be real. I look for a tree to climb. I do not know if I am relieved or disappointed, but, we do not see any wallows or hogs.

Bushwacking, we finally make our way to the big sandbar. I am happy to see that it is still beautiful. Big pine tree still standing. River birch. This is a good place for family swimming. Sand gently slopping into the tea colored stream. We must have good access to this private petite bijou. I have been campaigning for a cable crossing the creek for years, no luck yet. We can swim up the creek and take the children in the little boat, but we need something more convenient.

Once when I was alone here, sitting on a mini island, a large owl landed on a branch and stared at me for five minutes before flapping away, swooshing its strong wings. Another time a deer waded toward me and then turned into the woods without even noticing me. This is what I need to make my day worth all the glitches and bullshit.

Dave and I bushwack back toward the house. He is doing most of the cutting. Really, I am klutzy with the machete. I whack at a branch, to make him think that I am helping, but nothing is cut.

In some places the going is easy. We go down a gulley, and up to white sand ground area with a low canopy of privit and willow trees, where the cleome will bloom come spring.

The place where huckleberries grow. Beaver sticks, knawed to eat the bark. Blue Heron fishes the water. Kingfisher glides above the water surface.

Close to where the creeks converge, Dave cuts through a thicket of thorns. Then we see that it is too deep to cross there. Make our way back south and cross close to the Witness Tree.

Back in relative civilization, my appreciation for our trail cutting labors is renewed. I see the beauty that we have sculpted from tangled vegetation in a new light. Our little adventure has shifted my perspective just a few degrees. Feeling grateful.

Fats with his Guardian Angel

2010-02-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

Fats Domino's angel, (code name, Pink Cadillac) belongs to the Celebrity Elite Angels Corp. They have special training in skills related to guarding famous people. They protect their charges from things like paparazzi pandemonium, spotlight blindness, tabloid notoriety, and sociopathic fan stalking. They also try to prevent the famous one from "Big Head Celebrity Arrogance"a prevalent psychological condition . BHCA does not distress the celebrity but causes severe stress to the people surrounding him.

Pink Cadillac prevented uncountable traumas that the Devil tried to instigated against Fats. She was especially vigilant during Katrina. When we whine and moan about our life, we do not give our guardian angels the credit that they deserve. We are not even aware of most of the tragic shit that they have prevented.

Mary in de Nint Ward

2010-02-02T04:52:00.000-08:00

Here is Mary in the Ninth Ward, she is looking for a rockin sockin, go to Sunday morning meeting at that church with the hallelujah gospel choir.

BETTER THAN SEX

***We human be-ins have a cerebral area that lights up on MRI when people meditate in the cold tube of examination. We are hard wired for spiritual states. That brain spot itches to be scratched. Some of us itch like crazy, others have a barely noticeable tickle. There are many ways to get a spiritual high. I spend time in the woods and make art. It feels so good when the spiritual neurons fire up.

***People will do the strangest things to activate this biochemical neuronal event. Think of whirling dervishes, snake handlers, pilgrims crawling up mountains on their hands and knees, think of raves.

***Sometimes people crawl into tiny huts with dangerous hot glowing rocks. They pour out quarts of stinky perspiration crowded in with other stinky wet people. Recently three people, in the Sedona Arizona USA, died in a sweat lodge, longing for nirvana.

***I must tell you sweat lodges have worked for me. During and after sweat lodges, smelling like a skunk, I have had visions, inspirations, dazzling euphorias.

***Humans also create magnificent art to activate those nerve centers. Think of St. Louis Cathedral, Notre Dame, Zen gardens, Stone Henge. Think of Aaron Neville singing "Amazing Grace".

***Dali's "Last Supper" in the Washington National Museum of Art did it for me a few decades back. Zapped me to cloud nine.

***Seeing Monet's water lilies for real, the first time, in a Boston museum, I began to glow. Salty water dripped from my eyes. I was transfixed. Were people staring? I do not know because my consciousness was in another realm.

***Here's to that nameless longing to rend the curtain of so called reality, and join "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Spiritual states are Better than sex.

The Source of Water

2010-01-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

"The Source of Water", is an acrylic on canvas painting completed in October, 2008. Size is 18"x24". The painting is after a painting by John Auguste Dominique Ingres circa 1820. Ingres' painting was after an even earlier painting, I can not remember the resource now, but I may do the research on this later.

In my painting the water goddess is standing in a canyon. A shaft of light streams across the canvas in a diagonal. A waterfall cascades from the upper right of the canvas. The waterfall is impasto paint with some Golden brand mica paint to add a touch of sparkle. The figure is painted with flat paint. From the classic jug on her shoulder pours an eternal stream of water to nourish the earth.

Starting with the jug there is a circle, a metaphor for the earth water cycle. On earth water comes down in rain, flows into streams and lakes, evaporates to clouds and then rains down again. In the painting, starting with the jug, water streams down and connects with the waterfall splash, the circle continues up the waterfall and reconnects with the jug by way of the shaft of light.

Water, sun (fire), earth, air. The basic elements of life on earth. This painting celebrates the life giving purity of water.

Mary at Cajun Camp

2010-01-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

Mary dropped by Cajun Camp to deliver some blessings. She is in luck. Boudreaux invited her to share the venison sausage jambalaya steaming on the wood stove.

Virgin in Paris

2010-01-29T11:04:00.000-08:00

"Virgin in Paris" I took the photo of the Eiffel from a batoboat on the Seine. The sun had gone down and the Eiffel lights came on, surprising me. Mary was there. Of course, she is everywhere there is beauty and compassionate love. Unfortunately she did not show up in the photo so I had to add her via technomajic.

Mary Queen of Heaven, detail

2010-01-27T07:05:00.000-08:00

"Mary, Queen of Heaven", digital painting, 24.1M.

Mary is my muse." This is what I have been saying to myself. Kind of surprised to find myself making images of Mary. These spiritual images. Thinking about spirituality as I work making art. A lot of thinking goes on because a lot of quiet, alone, time goes into making the pictures. Now here I am with a blog, publishing to the web. Feeling vulnerable. What do I say to all these people out in web-land? The pictures are a personal exploration of spirituality.

Religious imagery is trendy in art at this time. There are many motives why people are into religious icons at this time. Irony is often implicit in recent depictions. My images are only slightly ironic.

As this series of Mary evolves, I wonder where is this going? I am so full of ambivalence and uncertainty and somewhat confused. Taking all this confusion into account I must be ker-ray-zee to be trying to communicate my stumbling thought processes to an unknown number of unknown people. But there you have it. Where ever you are, that is where you are. I am just following my muse.

Artist are mining historical religious images and stating that they attatch no spiritual connotations to the pictures. And I think, that is cool. That is a current detatched view with emotional coolness. Sophisticated. Maybe I should be like that. Cool.

But I am not like that.

Do you know that there is an area of the brain that functions as a spiritual processor. We have an anatomical, neurochemical system for spirituality. (There is also an area of the brain for profanity and dirty words.) Spirituality is physically based, similar to cursing, sexual arousal, bonding with infants. Everything that we experience has an internal physical action. Neurochemical actions are produced or repressed with every action, experience, emotion and thought.

The spiritual area of my brain is very active, Has always been an irritating itch that must be scratched. I have been through so many paradigms. Every decade seems to bring another belief system.

Japanese monk haiku, "My dreams are faded now, and I am through with dreaming. But I know the Iris will still keep its gorgeous hue."

Mary Queen of Heaven

2010-01-27T06:18:00.001-08:00

Mary Mother of All

2010-01-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

"Mary, Mother of All", is an acrylic paint and digital print collage on canvas, 22"x 28". Finished recently. Shown here are the full painting and two detail images.

Mary is my muse. The concept evolved over time. I harvested the iconic Mary image from the web. Created a large photoshop file. I took the smaller images from digital files that I have created over a period of years. Some of the images came from my paintings that I had photographed and reworked digitally. Some of the images came from my personal life photographs that I had worked on in photoshop. Other images I got from Bing web images and repainted digitally.

There are about thirty small images. All were imported to the large file. They were arranged, color adjusted, and fit into the large Mary image. Then the large image was broken into segments that fit the 9"x 11" format of my Epson printer and printed out. The segments were cut into pieces to fit into the final picture. A canvas was prepared with paint and gel mediums. I wanted to indicate a summer sky. Self leveling gel was applied to the canvas to give a slight actual depth between the ground and the collage elements. The segments were fixed to the canvas with gel medium. Gel medium finishes topped off everything. The "sky" is glossy and the central image is matte finished.

Next I photographed the canvas. The photograph was not very good so I again reworked it in photoshop to create a the focused digital file that you see here.