The Day After First Thursday

Wow. First Thursday was packed!

As the weather has warmed up, there have been more and more people getting out to see what's going on. It was a constant stream of people at Art & Soul by Phoebe, even some fire fighters stopped by...in their big yellow truck! It kinda freaked everyone out a bit, like a sudden alarm, but they were just driving by and wanted to look around, they said.

Phoebe had her prom dress on display, and several other momentos from the 50's and 60's. A sculpture artist made a tail fin from a 50's car, for the front window, and a restored red 50's car was parked out front (hey, don't ask me what kind, I couldn't tell you). That sculpture artist also had on his 38 year old, patched, hippy jeans on, going with the retro vibe. Me, I embraced the tie-dye too.

The artwork was a fun mix. This First Thursday was also the 95th birthday of the grandmother of a frequent artist. The grandmother contributed some textile pieces and we all had cake with her. There was also a submission from an 11 month old! No joke! It was obviously...abstract and there were pictures of him in the process of painting. It was cute! The caption said that he liked to watch daddy paint, so they gave him a canvas and a brush and he smeared paint around. Now, if only I could get my dog Remy to quit "helping" me while I paint, and to perfect her own technique. Usually, she sits, leaning against me, while I paint, sometimes nuzzling my elbow. One time, I did have her hold a brush in her mouth, and she came up with a something on some foam core board. We'll have to do it again, I think. Her whole name is Rembrandt, after all.

Which kind of leads me to my paintings on display this month:



This one was titled "Licked By Rembrandt." Why? Because when we were sitting around trying to figure out what it should be called, Remy walked up to it, gave it a good sniff (everyone's an art critic) and then licked the middle of the canvas. I guess she approved. It was such a bizzare little moment, that phrase just had to be the title.




These four are titled "Rewind 1, 2 3 & 4." They can be sold together or separate. I'm not entirely pleased with the acutal photos that I took of these pieces (or Licked). For one thing, the colors are pretty flat and even throughout and don't have the shadows that are in the photos. I need to get a better camera. My current 5 year old one with only 3 mega pixels is a bit obsolete. But it was a graduation present, so Thanks Mom!

All five of these have something in common: Spray paint. There is actually an earlier version of "Licked" that has yellow circles with bright blue shadows, and orange around the background. I liked that one so much that I hung it in my kitchen. The colors went well. It always feels so good when an experiment comes out the way you want. That orange one was never really meant for sale, I just wanted to test it out. One both the oranged one and "Licked" the backgrounds are spray paint. The black and gold coloring on the "Rewinds" are also spray paint. There initially was going to be a grafitti art contest at Art & Soul for the month of June, but true grafitti artists were skittish about being public, and it didn't help that some over-reactionary numbskulls tried to counter publicize the event as promoting criminal activity! Art & Soul was just trying honor that art form!

I don't even know how to do true grafitti style art. In fact, these paintings were mostly an experiment to see how well I could control the paint. Now, I have three pieces of plywood that, today, I hope to paint with some grey wall paint to seal them, and then see how far I get in crafting my "masterpieces." ha. I'm just going to be happy if the paint doesn't run.

These three and two more (undecided, probably a bit more traditional, one may be political) pieces will being going to Art & Soul in June.

-Joy