Welcome to today’s Carolaoke Song #26. Today I chose to cover vintage Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”. I know I’m no Madonna, not even close, but I love this song and I love to sing this song. ESPECIALLY in the car. IN FACT, I still have the original 45 and its original paper jacket it came in as you will see below. I remember I had my learner’s permit and drove downtown to “Mainstream Music” in our 1984 stick-shift Pontiac Phoenix on a beautiful spring day and bought this 45. When I got home, I opened my bedroom windows and proceeded to play this song over and over all day pretending I was Spanish Madonna. The Latin-esque music was what really caught my attention when I heard this song on the radio and I just couldn’t get enough of it. I also kept this record jacket in mind when I needed inspiration for my senior pictures in 1990 which I've also included. So, I guess I always was nuts, living out loud with my heart on my sleeve, trying to find the good in everything weirdo. Although, finding the good in everything in modern times is more of a “Well, hm, let’s try to find some (any) positive aspect of this current shitstorm we’re experiencing” approach. I’m also trying to rebuild that wide-eyed ambitious living out loud with my heart on my sleeve girl who got lost in Life’s fray. I know she’s still in there, it’s just a matter of coaxing her out, little by little by slowly.

Thanks for stopping by today! Please enjoy this homemade scratch track cover of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”.

Last Friday I posted some cards from the Bird People Tarot deck that I've been working on in no particular order because that’s the way I do things. It occured to me that we could all learn Tarot together as I go. For example, the first 22 cards of a Tarot deck (The Major Arcana) are the most powerful cards that are in the deck and “are based on the Hebrew system of numbers and the alphabetical sequence of its 22 letters. In fact, the name Tarot [pronounced “ta-roh”] is closely related to the Hebrew word Torah.”

I also was mistaken last week when I said I need to make 72 cards. I actually have to make 78 pieces of art, but I'm cool with that because it’ll help me learn and remember the meanings of the cards rather than using books during a reading. I’ve decided to break each card down to five words that describe the card in its upright position and five words that describe its reversed position in a reading. After the Major Arcana there comes the Minor Arcana (which are all the suit cards) that have elements attached to them just like in Astrology. For example:

Wands: Fire
Cups: Water
Swords: Air
Pentacles: Earth

For today’s Freaky Friday installment, I decided to reveal three more cards from The Bird People Tarot Deck. Two cards are from the Minor Arcana and one card is from the Major Arcana. I’m hoping by posting this weird shit, it will motivate me to continue working on the deck and learn more about Tarot. And really, what else are we going to do right now.

Enjoy and please keep safe and well.

Upright Meanings:
An active man
Obliging
Kind
Helpful
Important
Reversed Meanings:
Apathy
Peace
Tranquility
Discouragement
Carelessness

Upright Meanings:
Choices
Sincerity
Friendship
Love
Empathy
Reversed Meanings:
Hindrances
Obstacles
Separation
Covetousness
Dissatisfaction

Upright Meanings:
Innocent
Foolery
Intoxication
Irrational
Extravagance
Reversed Meanings:
Bad Decision
Distraction
Mistakes
Hesitation
Absence

My energy and concentration has been all over the place (again) these days so today’s studio closeup is a piece I did in the 1997-1998 range and lives forever on an old school slide. Yes, I could show you things that I’m currently working on , but most of them need a LOT more work to be even remotely presentable but I am in fact creating and that’s the important part. I need to be happy about that. I believe I sold this piece to a friend and I am happy to report was NOT a casualty of the flood. These are the little canvas board panels I was starting to experiment with at the time. Shortly before this piece, I remember I found out the hard way that you cannot straight up varnish paper collage without preserving it first somehow. That was definitely was an idiot moment for me. Think of newspaper soaking up grease from French fries and that’s what my vintage collage piece had turned into.

These days I know to use a medium first and THEN varnish over it with an acrylic based varnish. Duh. Big duh. But this is how you learn (I keep telling myself). You learn way more from your failures than you do your successes. The important part is not to get discouraged by all your failed experiments and keep making more experiments regardless of the outcome. My inner self and I argue about this on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis but I think some of it is finally sinking in. Now back to my experiments with no preconceived expectations. That’s the goal at least. Thank you for stopping by today. I hope the rest of your week is a good one!

Title: The Beauty We Can't Seem to Find
Year: 1997
Media: Acrylic & Collage on Canvas Board
Total Dimension: 5.5" x 23.5" (Triptych)

I really needed Sonny & Cher with their trumpets and trombones to shake this funk I’ve been sitting in. I remember bits and pieces of The Sonny & Cher show in the 1970s most of it funny and colorful. You were the shit if you had a Cher doll at the time. I did not have a Cher doll so I was not the shit, but my cousins did! I couldn’t get enough of combing her silky long black hair, all her colorful sparkly outfits, and the fact she could hold a microphone (if I’m not mistaken). Or was that the Marie Osmond doll? They had her and Donnie too. My cousins had all the toys that made you the shit. I was never really into dolls and always pictured that Cher doll as more of an “action figure” but what’s really the difference anyway I suppose. I personally think everyone should get their own action figure.

Please enjoy my scratch track cover of Sonny & Cher’s, “The Beat Goes On” and I hope this week treats you well.

Carolaoke Song #25
The Beat Goes On ~ Sonny & Cher

Freaky Fridays are the wildcard day here on carolkroll.com where I post anything I want to. This week while rummaging through more of my crap, I came across the project I started before I started on The Museum Series. That would be the making of my own tarot card deck. And yes, it’s a bird themed deck but if birds had a wardrobe. And had human hands and such. And were way creepier than they already actually are. Some books suggest one makes their own tarot deck to learn the language of and familiarize themselves better with what the cards mean and how to do better readings for people so I thought I’d try that. I have to make 72 pieces of art for this to happen. Thus far, I seem to have 10 done so this is going to take a while.

Here are three cards out of the deck in no particular order because that’s how I’m working on the deck. Normal people would probably start with the Major Arcana 0-21 and then go to the Minor Arcana suit by suit, number by number but not me! My brain doesn't work that way and it's annoying. I’m also finding all these image pieces of birds and humans inside all my old magazines and books and sometimes you run across something you know has to be for a specific card that you need to create right away that isn’t “in numerical order”. And so you do.

Now back to tending to The Museum Series, although after posting this I want to pull out my dyes and figure this deck out some more.
MUST FOCUS.

Keep well everyone.