Unkle Saxie Skelly

Drummer Riff Raff Skelly Kat

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

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

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

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

Prebirth, Winter

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

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