I got Cursed.

Photo by Brandon Robert

It's been awhile since I last wrote, so plenty to tell. Thankfully the summers gone...in September The Decadence parade rolled through my office. This, like plenty other events in New Orleans, attracts the holier than thou - the jesus freaks who come to save us from ourselves with hand made signs and bullhorns. Since I grew up as a homeschooler messianic Jew (jews for jesus) I know better than to argue with religious zealots. Since I'm Italian (why not blame ancestry here) I lack the self-control not to loudly refute things I find irritating and begin spasming with gestures. When I saw them coming down the street prior to the parade I talked to myself "Yeah, be cool, just let them pass..." And then they started hollering about how we all deserved Katrina happening and we're all going to hell and then the spirit took hold of me too and I started screaming back that they all needed to go home.
Bullhorn prophet stopped in the middle of the road and gestured back at my paintings on the fence,
    "And Lord Jesus, Curse this girl! Curse her business! Let her make no sales today!
In the name of the Almighty!"
Even though I was steamed up and really wanted to continue arguing this just confused me. Doesn't 'cursing' someone sound a little bit, I don't know, witchy, maybe a little pagan? Is putting a curse on someone really in the good book?
Anyhow, their prophecy didn't hold much water because I ended up selling plenty of paintings & then the parade came and made it even better.

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And then I thought maybe the hate spewing jesus freaks aren't so bad, maybe they just didn't see the guy wearing this t-shirt ----->

Later in the week I went by the New Orleans Museum of Art...and just like nearly every time, the contemporary art section elicits an audible sigh of anxious boredom.
I think an acceptable response to the 'is it art?' question is the 'would it seem out of place in a dumpster?' experiment.

The one that bothered me the most was a big blue rectangle, probably 10 ft tall by 2 ft wide, it was made of some kind of shiny plastic looking material and was displayed resting against the wall. If I could liken it to anything, I'd say it looked like a piece of McDonalds playground equipment that they had ordered in the wrong size. Just looking at it exasperated me (see! it IS art because it got a reaction out of me! But with that logic...the mousetraps in my kitchen get an even stronger reaction from me when I hear them snap across the house...therefor mousetraps must be art.) I looked at the little plaque next to me for explanation and it was titled, "Why Not?"
I'll tell you why not! Because someone had to carry that thing up the stairs! Because here I am in a museum which is supposed to house our most precious cultural artifacts and this big blue rectangle is taking up space where something that doesn't just provoke a 'reaction' (like every single thing in the world does) but provokes a sense of curiousity, wonder...maybe even 'awe'. (Remember Awe America!?! When something actually stopped you in your tracks and made you stand still for longer than 30 seconds and you didn't even have a word for it so you just stood all gape mouthed and went 'awwwwe')  Anyhow, I tried to find a picture of this piece of art to post here, but couldn't find one. So here's a rendering I made that should pretty much give you the same effect.

On the other side of things I recently discovered 2 artists who's work is really exciting to me:
 

Alex Kavensky

http://www.somepaintings.net/Alex.html

                    Awwwwwwwwwwee.........
      ...........................wwwwwwwwwwww
               ..eeeeeeee  ........ ....................

oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh....
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                ...................

Henrik Uldalen

                        http://henrikaau.com/

As for me....painting is going really well. I've gotten a lot closer to being able to visibly merge together the 'seen' world (working from reference) and the 'unseen' world (random intuitive mark making). I this is the closest I've gotten so far....not sure how well the details in the body show up through a screen.

I've got a bunch of markets coming up before the holidays. If you're passing through New Orleans anytime contact me and say Hello!