Archive for December, 2009

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End of a Decade:

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, homage, monotype, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on December 31, 2009 by Tom Bennett

Father Time (after Vouet)
Father Time Overcome by Love, Hope and Beauty, after Simon Vouet. monotype, 12 ” x 12″

The first decade of the century is done, and I’m Overcome by Love, Hope and Beauty. Well, that would be a change of pace anyway. I’m deep down a sentimental romantic but I’m not looking back. Here’s a monotype based on a painting by Simon Vouet of Old Father Time himself, or Saturn as some would call him, having his self-deluding ass kicked by the symbols of power, yes, women.
A couple of more monotypes after the jump.

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Welcome To The Dollhouse

Posted in Art, Photography, Toni Tiller with tags , , , on December 30, 2009 by Toni Tiller

I’ve always liked dollhouses, things in miniature, and the weird little worlds you can create with them. This artist, Heather Benning, took the idea and flipped it, taking an old abandoned farmhouse in Canada and turning it into a dollhouse.

I went a slightly more traditional route after viewing an evenings worth of wonderful creepy drunken cell phone shots of this same house by Ryan Soper, I thought I’d take a stab at it myself. Now I’m hooked.

More after the jump.

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From the Archive: Thrtee Stage Blue Cascades

Posted in Art, J. D. Hastings, Painting with tags , , , , , , on December 29, 2009 by jdhastings

Crap, it’s Tuesday, isn’t it?  The Holiday “schedule” has destroyed my sense of time.  And Space, but that’s something else entirely.

This is from 2006.

Three Stage Blue Cascades
“Three Stage Blue Cascades” Acrylic on Canvas, with Safety Pins

The size of this piece varies because you can position it in different ways, but it’s roughly 4 feet wide by 5 feet long or something like that. It’s kind of a pain to store anywhere but on a wall because it gets tangled no matter what you do and you end up having to unhook safety pins and re-attach them in their new confriguration. It is currently hanging in an upscale eyeglasses shop in Southern California. Obviously.

Next week I’ll be more responsible with my post, I promise. Happy New Years, everybody.

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Ah Hell, I got nothin: Nonsense Post Number 13,001

Posted in Art, Miscellaneous, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags , , , , , on December 26, 2009 by ssstephg

How bout this sketch from an old journal?  Chronic insomnia self portrait.

Yeah sorry I didn’t post at a reasonable hour today but you know, it’s the holidays and I’ve been busy hanging out with people I rarely see and eating like a pig and stuff.  I’m sitting in my living room right now while three friends are playing “Take On Me” on guitar, bass and accordian.   Good times.  Let’s see, what else?  Um…  Here’s a slightly blurry photo of Dermott,  my pet turtle from a few years ago.  He’s nine now so he’s about six or seven in the pic.  Handsome devil, isn’t he?

Ever wonder what the ratio of fur to body is on your cat?    It’s about eight parts fur to two parts body on my pal Buster.  I found that out when he had to have his foot shaved one time.

Coincidentally, eight to two is the ratio of beeswax to damar resin I use when mixing encaustic medium and here’s a detail from another encaustic icon work in progress.

Alrighty, I’ll stop now. Sorry bout that. I promise this sort of nonsense post won’t become a habit. Hope you all are having a great holiday season.

Big Hearts,
-Steph

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Season’s Greetings

Posted in Art, film, Tom Bennett with tags , , , , , , on December 24, 2009 by Tom Bennett

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Merry Christmas!

Posted in Toni Tiller with tags , , on December 23, 2009 by Toni Tiller

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Artist Carmen Herrera Earns Lifetime Achievement Award At 94

Posted in Art, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags , , , , , , on December 22, 2009 by ssstephg


image borrowed from Artnet
Rojo y Blanco by Carmen Herrera
Acrylic on canvas
42 x 42 inches
1986

The geometric painter, Carmen Herrera, has been painting since the thirties and is finally getting some long due recognition.   Read the New York Times article here.

My favorite quote from the article is Herrrera’s response to the idea that her husband who passed on shortly before her career began to take off is up in heaven orchestrating her success:  “Yeah, right, Jesse on a cloud.”   “I worked really hard. Maybe it was me.”

Right the fuck on.

Oh and thanks to Bruce McD for passing on the link!

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I’m a Card

Posted in Art, Collage, J. D. Hastings, Painting with tags , , , , , on December 22, 2009 by jdhastings

At least I feel like one after the last week of running around. The inanimate sort of card, not a funny guy. I’m racing to get this up before going to bed as tomorrow I have a half day of work then run to the airport to spend Christmas in Palm Springs playing game boy and/or reading. And drinking. Let’s be honest here.

Anyways, I gave a lot of these out before I scanned them. However, most of those were similar styles to these though, due to how I made them with my pazzles machine. I think it’s interesting to compare against last year’s cards, which were all made completely by hand with scissors or scalpel. As were the Free Art Cards I’m undecided whether I’m going to do that again, but I’ll let you know.

One thing I definitely didn’t get done is to mail cards out to friends. I’m the worst, but you’ll get them some day.

I scanned these all in a hurry. They are all too dark and blue shifted. There are 6 “Mini-Frames”- miniature safety-pin pieces wrapped around 3.5″ frames that I turned into tree ornaments to give out. I scanned them when they should be photographed due to their 3D nature. Again I’m in a hurry. Hope you enjoy.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

20+ more after the jump

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Sunday Sidewalk Doodles: Forgotten Jester

Posted in Art, Miscellaneous, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags , , , , , , on December 20, 2009 by ssstephg

I found this old sidewalk doodle I did in October which Ithink is new to the blog.
click pic to enlarge!

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Encaustic Icon: Dead Vespa WIP

Posted in Art, Painting, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags , , , , , on December 19, 2009 by ssstephg


6 x 6 inches
hornets and encaustic on cradled panel

Still in progress, this is another in the series of encaustic icons I’m making that incorporate remains of once living things. This one has a couple of hornets in it at present. Not sure what else I’ll add.

So I haven’t made it back to take photos of the exhibit where I’m showing the other two icons I posted here before. Hopefully, that will happen soon because there’s some really great work in the show this year. There seem to be some complications with my foot/ankle sprain combo. For some reason, it isn’t healing properly, and getting around has been tough. But I start physical therapy Monday so wish me luck. Fingers crossed! On the bright side of things, both the snake and the moth icons seem to have gone over really well. I got a ton of compliments at the reception which made dragging my sore, throbbing foot out for the night worth it. And I found out this week that they both sold! Yay!!!

I’ll add a couple of detail shots of the above piece after the jump. Read more »

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New Toy!!

Posted in Jason Gray with tags , on December 18, 2009 by Jason Gray

Friends that I work with, the Santamarias, gave me a Yashica-Mat EM for x-mas, and I am really excited to get it loaded and start shooting! Other than that, not much to report today…

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The Deserted Mansion

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on December 17, 2009 by Tom Bennett

A vivid memory from my childhood in Connecticut is the old abandoned estate across the street from the house I grew up in. It had been owned by a Miss Mary Olcott, who incidentally had been born in Brooklyn (my current residence) in 1864.
Back when I was a kid it seemed small children were left to go exploring the neighborhoods freely and unsupervised. My older brothers, Mike and Harry, and I would sneak around the huge wooded property and found ourselves inside the old sprawling 19th century house essentially breaking and entering. I was perhaps 4 years old and I remember vividly the moving bookcases that revealed a hidden room and the monstrous silo we climbed to discover bats at the top. My recollection demands that on that specific day it was midnight, or at least dusk, whether or not it was. I was thinking about that creepy house’s interior halfway through working these monotypes.

Sleepwalk in the Olcott
Sleepwalk at the Olcott , 2009, monotype, 12″ x 12″

Sleepwalk At the Olcott 2

Sleepwalk at the Olcott 2, 2009, monotype, 12″ x 12″

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Yes!!

Posted in Art with tags , on December 17, 2009 by Jason Gray

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Kenny Kenny

Posted in Art, monotype, portrait, Toni Tiller with tags , , , , , on December 16, 2009 by Toni Tiller

This is a loose interpretation of my old (I won’t say how old) friend Kenny Kenny. He’s a style icon and a pillar of the New York night life scene, not to mention a completely lovely and hilarious person. He’s earned his icon status by working the door of every worthwhile party in the last (insert arbitrary number here) years, and being a door queen is a tough job that requires expertise at being charming and confident without arrogance, but also knowing when it’s ok to let the inner bitch off the leash. I definitely learned more than a thing or two watching him over the years. Plus, he still throws some of the best parties so if you find yourself in NYC on Sunday and fancy a little Berlin in the 20′s set to dance music go check him out.

My last attempt at making a monotype went ok, but obviously it isn’t a medium i’m used to, much less particularly fluent in. So in the spirit of the subject I had a little wine, put on my headphones and discoed my way through this one.

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Sweet Stress Warms the Bones

Posted in Art, Collage, J. D. Hastings, Painting with tags , , , , , on December 15, 2009 by jdhastings

Tis the season!…. To freak the f#$% out trying to get everything done in time for Christmas. It happens every year. I know its coming, I think I prepare for it, and then suddenly I have to write out a hard schedule for my every activity for the next 2 weeks to accomplish everything that needs accomplishing.

Supposedly, when I switched from making Christmas Cards for everyone instead of full pieces, it was going to ease this pressure. Not really. Because they take less time, I can make more cards, and if someone gets one, then I have to give them to everyone who might get jealous that the other person got them. As of this morning, my list of people getting cards is 60 deep. I nees to finish all this by Tuesday at the latest.

I painted 20 sheets of paper last night just to have the materials. Things got hung up at a different phase, though, so I fell back behind schedule.

Anyways, here’s a preview of some of the cards I’m doing this Christmas. Not all will be this involved because someone always gets the Shaft, but I’m going to try to make as many of the multi-layered cutouts as I can.

JackJohnsonCard4 JackJohnsonCard1
jjCard2 Cards436

Each of these is 4.5″ x 4.5″. This piece is also 4.5″, but is made of 4 miniatures in a Warhol-esque presentation. Because I found it amusing to torture myself.
JackJohnson4Card

Most of the future cards will be much simpler unless they are for friends who won’t care if they get them after Christmas.

Only 55 to go. Woo hoo. Plus the work holiday party on Friday and an art opening Saturday. This is absurd.

-JD

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Tribute to the Tribute to Jack Johnson

Posted in Art, J. D. Hastings, Painting with tags , , , , , , , on December 15, 2009 by jdhastings

That’s Jack Johnson the boxing heavyweight, not the soft rock musician. My interest in him is related to a musician, however the man in question is Miles Davis, and his album, “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” (or just “Jack Johnson” since it was also the soundtrack to a film about the boxer by that name). This is the first of 2 tracks that comprise the album:

This is one of a few studio Fusion albums Miles released between 1969 and the mid 70s in which he assembled bands to play rough, extended jams that would later be edited together into epic compositions. The first of these, “In a Silent Way” is the name sake for one of my first safety pin pieces.

This time, I’m just playing with the cover:
DSC_0086

Explanation of the process, a second piece and a repro of the original cover after the jump Read more »

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Christmas in Heaven

Posted in Art with tags , , , , on December 14, 2009 by Tom Bennett

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Getting In The Spirit

Posted in video with tags , , on December 14, 2009 by Toni Tiller

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a big holiday lover, but this extraordinary display got me to crack a smile. It was created by a former amusment park designer for his son this Christmas. Pretty fantastic, but with over 20,000 lights I’d hate to think of the electric bill.

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Sunday Sidewalk Doodles: Heavenly Hosts

Posted in Art, Miscellaneous, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags , , , , , , , on December 13, 2009 by ssstephg

Sidewalk drawings on December 13th!  But these were drawn last month.
vy StephG
by StephG

by Tony
by Tony

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Holiday Stuff and Things

Posted in Miscellaneous, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags , , , , , , on December 12, 2009 by ssstephg

Christmas Angels

After reading Jason’s post I was inspired to look back through some photos of Christmas trees I’ve had over the years.  The closeup on the left here is from one of my favorites. It had a sort of Vegas meets Dr. Seuss vibe. I’ll be sure to include a full body shot after the jump.  I think this was from two years ago.    If I remember rightly, we sawed down the tree ourselves at a local “kill your own” tree farm.  They supplied us with a saw, a length of rope and a red plastic sled for the chore.  Then we headed off wandering through the fields of trees to pick our victim all special-like. There was alot of snow that year which made the deed that much more of a challenge. After the kill, cold, wet and victorious, we dragged the slaughtered evergreen back to the parking lot, crammed it into the back of the stationwagon and headed home for some well-deserved hot chocolate. So fun!

Last year, I took a slightly more humane although still very DIY approach to the Seasonal centerpiece. Read more »

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