Today’s studio closeup is from the continued museum series that is presentable but not completely finished. Unfortunately, having completely finished pieces every Wednesday is proving to be a bit impractical for me. As I've said before, even though I’m constantly working on a number of pieces at one time, creativity often doesn’t care about self imposed deadlines and expectations. So as I go along here, Wednesday's Studio Closeups will start including more "works in progress". Art takes as long as it takes and I’m trying very hard not to view that as some kind of failure. The important part is that at least I'm making something and I need to be ok with that. The old "progress not perfection" concept still remains a challenge for me. Please enjoy this week's closeup and some internal dialogue to go along with it.

Title: Museum Series: Bewick's Wren
Year: 2020
Media: Acrylic Paint, Paper Diorama and Wood Panel
Total Dimension: 8" x 8"

Wow. Let’s talk about today’s general energy and how metallic, loud and chaotic (shitty) it seems to be. I cannot be the only one experiencing this or noticing it. Last night was super bad. Today is more just angsty and annoying but still bubbling. They are doing VERY LOUD street work right outside my house and my parrot Toby has decided his screams sound better today than I do, so for today’s Music Monday, let’s have another look into the past.

Today we visit “Bathtub Mary”, a Sweet Jelly tune Mr. Lance Dobersek and I worked on together once upon a time. Lance is an amazing visual artist and guitarist; I love watching and listening to him play slide guitar especially. We had a lot of fun getting together for music weekends putting songs together on the Fostex machine. As for the lyrical content of this tune, I never understood why anyone would put a holy relic, let alone THE MOTHER OF GOD, inside of an old dirty bathtub. I’m sure there’s a reason. I’m sure google could tell me but I feel like living inside the unsolved mystery instead. Lawn ornaments in general are intriguing. I go back and forth on this issue personally. I have some, yes…but…let’s just say that there’s a plastic goose that lives in my neighborhood who’s dressed for every occasion and holiday. He’s never late with his special outfit. N-E-V-E-R. I admire that in a way but I also wonder about that. That means the plastic goose has its own wardrobe. That means you need a place to store the plastic goose’s wardrobe. And keeping track of when he needs a costume change.

That’s a lot to keep track of for a...

That’s all I’m saying.

Sadly, Bathtub Mary’s artwork perished in the 2018 flood but remains forever on slide film(!) White China Marker was used to outline the bathtub; I wanted that old dusty clawfoot bathtub feeling of a porcelain tub but I also didn’t want it to rub off by just using chalk. China marker is not as gooey as oil pastels or dusty and elusive as chalk, and depending on the surface you can still make it look like a rugged dusty chalkline. The consistency is right in the middle of those two materials. Remembering that this was the first time I started experimenting with flat panels instead of canvas panels and I remember really liking the way the brush and paint felt in comparison. More direct contact, I guess is the best way to put it. Please enjoy and keep well out there.

I’m sure it’s no secret by now after reading my posts that this blog is a form of therapy for me. My emotions and creativity have been all over the board again but that’s nothing new. An unexpected surprise; a renewed interest in music continues after a very, very, very long sad draught so I’m happy to report that I’ve been hanging out in that world again lately. Visual art is still being made, but there are a lot of pieces in limbo so we’ll be taking another trip down memory lane for today’s studio closeup.

Today’s painting died in the flood and is the artwork intended for the song “Forbidden Fruit” by my old band Sweet Jelly. Our writing process was unique. Aaron lived in Milwaukee and I lived two hours away. Aaron would send me MP3 scratch tracks of songs he’d come up with out of nowhere and I would add lyrics and vocals. I really enjoyed it. The internet made it possible to write songs together despite the distance and that was new at that time.

After singing this past Monday for my Carolaoke project, I decided I was finally in a place where I could revisit Sweet Jelly Land again. I started going through the old lead sheets Aaron had painstakingly put together in Illustrator and I thought I’d revisit those old tunes we wrote together. Oh, boy that was a trippy trip trip. I’m not promising anything, but perhaps some of these 70+ old abandoned Sweet Jelly tunes might show up in a new way on Music Mondays here.

Title: Forbidden Fruit
Year: 2000
Media: Acrylic Paint, Paper Collage, Canvas Board
Total Dimension: (2) 6 x 4" Canvas Board Panels 1/4" apart

Let’s talk Doris Day. I already knew of Doris Day before hearing the lyrics of Stockard Channing’s performance of “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” in Grease. That may have been my father’s parents doing because what 12 year old knows of Doris Day in the 1980s. This weirdo.

So as I was first seeing Grease; hearing the words to this song, I kept thinking to myself “What’s wrong with Doris Day!? Why are they making fun of Doris Day?! And while we’re at it, why are they being so crappy to, and about, Sandy? She seems like a very nice...” and then I had an ah-ha moment and went “Ohhhhhhhhhhh. I get it.” That’s how I usually navigate in life. It takes me a while. I never seem to grasp the obvious right away and that has always made me feel stupid, secretly. At any rate, in college, I was really into listening to the songstresses of the 1940s and 1950s and Doris Day was one of my top ladies. I loved that songs back then were a full production which usually involved the singers being in movies, dancing and singing on beautiful sets while wearing colorful costumes. Every detail was accounted for.

This karaoke track already had the backing vocals of someone singing the main part during the round in the middle of the song. This bummed me out because I like the challenge of building different harmonies myself. Last week’s tune had no backing vocals added to the karaoke track so it was a lot of fun trying to reconstruct that tune and all the different vocal parts. Seriously though, I’m just grateful to live in a time where being able to record your own music with readily available karaoke tracks finally exists in present day. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for this moment. At any rate, please enjoy my scratch track cover of Doris Day’s, “Everybody Loves A Lover”. Stay safe and please keep well.

Today’s art closeup centers around animals that can change colors because that has always fascinated me. The fact that some animals can do that is sort of magical really. I tried to convey the difference in seasons not only with the overall color palette, but also describing the “personality types” of the seasons by keeping the winter panel sparse and quiet and the summer panel busy and colorful. Please enjoy! I had a lot of fun doing this piece.

Title: Museum Series: Snowshoe Hare (Diptych)
Year: 2020
Media: Acrylic Paint, Paper Dioramas, Wood Panel
Total Dimension: (2) 4” x 4" Wood Panels 1/2” apart