HAPPY NEW YEAR!

stalker notes

my stalker can no longer reach me in email so now I get comments once again...

here is the latest (censored)


"this is my IP address. Flatter yourself into thinking I give a (hoot) about your postings online. and that I go through all sorts of trouble to read it. In the end, theres only your insanity. you are paranoid.

kisses honey,

mean it--chris..."




I agree with jim morrison, people are strange...alex

absinthe--the green fairy

I recently bought a bottle of absinthe but never opened it. Here are two paintings, the subject in both is "absinthe drinkers" I drank absinthe once and it had no effect on me, however a guy I was with wound up passing out and mumbling and sweating. (I have American Indian and Russian blood in my veins so absinthe to me is like Tang.) But I digress, Absinthe was the drink Du Jour back when Picasso painted and Toulouse limped etc...it is/ was made with wormwood which is a mild hallucinogen and that is what helps you see the "green fairies etc" I am here to talk about art-- not liquor---these two paintings share the same subject, the top is by Degas. If you look you will see that Degas puts picasso to shame here. Picasso painted a lot of hack art but was a greater genius than Degas but not a better artist than Degas. drink up...it is now legal in America...

HOW TO FIGHT STALKERS ON GMAIL

Gmail...if any one has gmail and you have annoying emails form stalkers--- you can go to create filter (next to search the web, up top) and you can send unwanted emails from stalkers right into trash and never even see them. I suggest you add them to archives legal reasons--- but it is a great feature I have just discovered! My stalker used 5 differnet emails to contact me so I had to list all of them..YOU ARE NOT FAMOUS UNTIL YOU HAVE A STALKER, SO WOO HOO

fine art...

mick

I have an ex friend who makes a living photographing animals. When he is not photographing animals he shoots birds and squirrels in his yards with BB guns and he laughs about it. I cannot understand how some people can exist on two planes of reality at the same time. To me it signifies a schism. As I grow older I have less tolerance for certain behaviors in people. The energy you surround yourself with rubs off like cheap paint. When I was in sixth grade I killed frogs and I still feel horrible about it all these years later. I cannot kills insects except cockroaches. I take spiders outside, even in winter or at night. I love spiders. I do not like rats, though, I am really on the fence about rats. Only god loves rats.

VIVA THE FUTURE

Mcsorleys...

I will do my best to finish my painting today..behind schedule but I am not settling for good enough...

video progress report--- mcsorleys painting

Another long night at the easel. If I cant nail the light the way I want it to look I am going to burn the canvas and start fresh. there are some good parts to the painting and some bad parts right now. There is no settling for okay.

the famous sign in mcsorleys says BE GOOD OR BE GONE..that is my new art motto...If it aint great I will burn it in a pile of garbage.

Mcsorley's painting

I have locked horns with the devil that is my Mcsorleys painting and the mountain side is steep, my footing sketchy, and the hour late. All paintings go through phases and I will share them with you because they parallel the emotional process of making art.

1) peaceful beginning and happy progress.

2) manual labor without much thought.

3) brutal questions and agony.

4) more agony

5) breakthrough and or utter failure and despair.


6) triumph like alexander in egypt.

van gogh

the fire in my head and heart for van gogh is alive again. I let go of him for ten years or more. Man what a god he was...Imagine living with that much passion in your guts..the only thing you could do was cut it out with a knife.

van gogh

It is tres easy to like van gogh and he is an artist who is not without his faults. He is also an artist with a heart the size of mexico. For all of his faults his passion and his heart over shine any weakness of skill or facility of technique. PASSION is the corner stone of art, not drawing, geometry, or technique. PASSION. Technique without passion is as about as useless as legs without knees. Passion without skill is equally as useless and there is a middle ground for the chess game of madness to be played. I have decided tonight out of the kindness of my heart to show my humble followers the difference between fine art and "pet fotogrpahy" (the f is intentional)

My example is played out in the two following videos, you decide...remember--- kitsch is better than irony.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

art

If you didn't care what happened to me,
And I didn't care for you
We would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain
Wondering which of the buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing.

You know that I care what happens to you,
And I know that you care for me.
So I don't feel alone,
Or the weight of the stone,
Now that I've found somewhere safe
To bury my bone.
And any fool knows a dog needs a home,
A shelter from pigs on the wing.

color of the day

My new favorite oil paint color is transparent gold ochre by windsor newton...jolly good color jolly good--right, right!! back to my easel...this color is fit for painting the golden egg of genius that is suspended just above the head of Alexnader the Great--king of macedonia.

quote of the day...

Clint Eastwood: But I -- being politically incorrect -- I find [it] fascinating because I hate the so-called PC thing. I think that's one of the things that's damaging our generation at the present time. Everybody is taking themselves and everything so seriously. If they just relax a little more and take themselves and everything else a little less seriously, they'd have a lot more fun.

The ten eyed creature of the past--glass art

Here is a glass piece that I have never shown before. This creature symbolizes The Past---- Her ten eyes are like Medusa's and freeze a man's dreams to stone. Some eyes represent family, some friends, some lovers and the main eyes represent thy own two eyes that look back at you from the mirror in reality's bathroom. Are you greater than the sum of your past? Will still attend the PTA meetings of your possible future?

This piece is shipping out soon to a California Gallery. It is 16 x 20 3/8 inch carved glass with LED lighting in frame. Photographing glass is hard and I am setting up a photo studio in my apt so I can shoot these professionally as this one is slightly blurry. I used to be a photographer before I realized it was a charade.

It is for sale until I ship it, email inquiries accepted until the end of the week.





Chaos is a friend of mine.
Bob Dylan

bad artists

Buffet

Motherwell

jasper Johns

dekooning

rauchenberg ...

etc ad nauseum ad Ad infinitum

art history in 10 years will prove me right and has already begun to do so.

Mcsorleys

I will post the finished Mcsorleys tonight, I am a day behind as I had a funeral yesterday.

Quote of the day

The past is a fish to be gutted and left on the dry dock of history. All the ties that bind one to the past also prevent one from finding the future. Cultural traditions and heritage and even friends are well meaning soft- killers of dreams. --gardega


The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.--einstein

I painted for twelve hours yesterday. After painting for so many hours you get into a weird/ bleary keyed up state where everything seems kind of in slow motion and strange. I have been using really bad turpentine that stinks horribly because the hardware store had no odorless turps so I had a horrid headache and I was covered from head to toe in paint and turps. I went out to my local watering hole to have a glass of "The Red" to relax and decompress so I could get some sleep. I sit down and say hello to my bartender and buddy, he is talking to an old guy to my right and I notice the "old guy" looks at me a gets a bit nervous and steps away a bit (probably thought I was a vagrant or serial killer or both)Then the "old guy" leaves into the night and I make a joke to "Chippy" that I am sorry for scaring away his customers. He tells me he was leaving anyways and by the way it was Mel Brookes.

in progress...

I think I will put in another four hours tonight and call it a day around 3 or 4 am.

anyone can start a painting, it takes balls of steel to finish a painting--delacroix.

My latest video

I made this today and I cannot figure out why it became so pixelated... I saved it at high quality--oh well back to my easel..If you click on the video itself and go to youtube below the video (lower right) will be an option to watch in HIGH QUALITY

quote of the day

Hatred is a very underestimated emotion.
Jim Morrison

Mcsorleys Update--in progresso

Keep the darks painfully thin and unify them with wisdom---the light can be as thick as thieves and slathered on with the knife of restrained brilliance...

alex

Mcsorleys Update--detail

I need to set up a real system to photograph my work, I am always having issues with reflections etc. Photography is a waste of my time but it needs to be done right.

Mcsorley's Update

Here is the progress report on my painting. will update as I go...This is the underpainting stage. Much more to do.

Mcsorley's Light (detail)

Here is a detail from my piece in progress. At Mcsorleys you can only get light or dark beer, no bottles and no liquor..The name Mcsorley's light is a bit of a pun. I am trading this painting and a few others for land near Pacific the ocean in Costa Rica, there I am going to set up a home/ studio.


Someone mentioned they are having trouble leaving comments please let me know if this is the case via email. I want everything to work right on this blog.


Oil on canvas 18 x 24

here is an article on my good buddy Pepe from Mcsorleys. He gave me a VIP calendar this year.
http://gothamist.com/2004/12/29/steve_pepe_zwaryczuk_mcsorleys_barkeep.php

McSorley's is the oldest Irish tavern in New York City, located at 15 E. 7th St. in the East Village. It was one of the last of the "Men Only" pubs.

McSorley's opened its doors in 1854, although amateur historian Richard McDermott claims it really opened in 1862.^[1] In reality the first printed reference was in 1862; a document at the Museum of the City of New York from 1904, in founder John McSorley's hand, declares it was established in 1854 and a New York Tribune article from 1895, states it "has stood for 40 years. . . " a short distance of Cooper Union. A 1913 article in Harper's Weekly declares that "This famous saloon ... is sixty years old." (pg 15 Harper's Weekly Oct. 25, 1913.)

Women were not allowed until 1970 when National Organization for Women attorneys Faith Seidenberg and Karen DeCrow took their case to District Court and won (Seidenberg v. McSorleys' Old Ale House). It did so "kicking and screaming." ^[1]

McSorley's serves only two ales, light and dark - $4.50 for two (2007 pricing, each glass is a half pint). The aged artwork, newspaper articles covering the walls, the sawdust floors, and the Irish waiters and bartenders help give McSorley's Old Ale House an atmosphere that many consider, correctly or not, reminiscent of "Olde New York." No piece of memorabilia has been removed from the walls since 1910. After the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, they took the cup to McSorley's and drank out of it, the resulting dent caused the NHL to take the trophy back for several days.^{[citation needed]}

Famous people have imbibed at McSorley's, including Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Boss Tweed, and Woody Guthrie. Literary figures like Brendan Behan, Paul Blackburn, LeRoi Jones, Gilbert Sorrentino, George Jean Nathan have been cited as regulars.

In his 1923 poem "I was sitting in mcsorley's," poet E. E. Cummings described McSorley's as "the ale which never lets you grow old." He also described it as he describes the bar as “snug and evil.”^[1][2]

McSorley's was the focus of several articles by New Yorker author Joseph Mitchell. One collection of his stories was entitled McSorley's Wonderful Saloon (1943).

Much historical paraphernalia exists in the bar, like Houdini's handcuffs, which are connected to the bar rail. Also one must take notice of the wishbones hanging above the bar. Story has it that they were hung there by boys going off to World War I and when they came back they would remove them, so those that are left are from the men that never returned.

Two of McSorley's most famous mottos include "Be Good or Be Gone", and "We were here before you were born". Prior to the 1970 Supreme Court ruling, the motto was "Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies." The raw onions can still be had as part of the famous McSorley's cheese platter. The prime condiment is some extremely spicy hot mustard found on each table in a beer mug.

New York magazine considered it to be one of New York City's Top 5 Historic Bars.^[1]

Lola

This is my ex girlfriend's dog. I promised no art from my past on this blog but I thought I would start with a simple snap shot that signifies dignity and simplicity and beauty as that is where I am heading in the New Work. I miss her (the dog...) I used this picture as a stepping stone because it took me my whole life to understand the idea of a Zen approach to art and that life and art doesn't have to be hard, it can be simple and graceful. This was a Sunday morning snapshot with a ninety dollar camera in the available light of a Brooklyn Morning.

New Blog

ALEX HAS A NEW BLOG!

http://gardega.blogspot.com/

or feel free to cruise the memory of this one...

NEW BLOG

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a grand one and those who didn't celebrate had good Chinese food or took in a good movie or just relaxed and did nothing. This is my final entry on this blog and I will miss it very much. I really want to start new and fresh and shed the old "skin of the past." I will keep this blog for archival purposes and back it up and save it etc. It has been a long and strange journey. I am making a lot of changes in my life and in my psyche and everything I do is usually about 119% so I am not sure where I will land after I jump out of this plane.


My New Blog is on word press and I am finding it a little bit clunky to use when adding content so I may switch formats to blogger eventually if I don't get used to word. Either way it will be all New Stuff! And I will explain the new paradigm when I understand it, myself. I may actually try to edit and punctuate on my new blog.


Meet the New Blog...Not the same as the old blog. (to paraphrase The Who)

http://gardega.blogspot.com/

three priests

Here is me with various blow ups and repros from one of my large and crazy paintings from the younger days. This piece has stood the test of time and many a bidder. I never wnated to let go of him over the years as it is a symbol of my past. I posted this because it is the last post on the OLD BLOG...and Now I will start NEW BlOG. I will link after christmas.

NEW BLOG

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I finished my shopping and now I am free to spend a few hours in DEEP REFLECTION. I have started a New Blog and it will include none of my past. Everything I do or make from here on in will be of the New Thought, the New Paradigm.. I will not erase this blog as it served me well (like a leg or foot) and it will be available for perusal... My new blog is all about me reaching as far as I can into the unknown and deep inside and pushing myself as hard as I can mentally and physically. I am going to start a serious regimen of exercise that starts at 4AM and includes running and lifting weights and then meditation and finally artwork. There will be no filler on my new blog. No cheap dashed- off art or hurried work, no pet portraits or commercialized crap. I am striving for perfection (which I can never achieve.) I am reaching for quality not quantity and all the regular supporters of my art will have special access to new work etc... I cannot thank everyone enough for their support over the years. My new mission is multi-fold and it includes regular Life Drawing, A Weekly Painting, and MAJOR WORKS which will be finished when they are done and not anytime sooner.

merry Christmas to all and happy holidays as well....(unless you are a pet photographer, then the ghosts of bad art past are not done with you yet.)

Merry Christmas France!

Your Possible Pasts

They flutter behind you your possible pasts,
Some brighteyed and crazy, some frightened and lost.
A warning to anyone still in command

[Cattle truck noises]
“Ranks! Fire!”

Of their possible future, to take care.
In derelict sidings the poppies entwine
With cattle trucks lying in wait for the next time.

Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we shoud be closer?

She stood in the doorway, the ghost of a smile
Haunting her face like a cheap hotel sign.
Her cold eyes imploring the men in their macs
For the gold in their bags or the knives in their backs.
Stepping up boldly one put out his hand.
He said, “I was just a child then, now I’m only a man.”

Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?

By the cold and religious we were taken in hand
Shown how to feel good and told to feel bad.
Tongue tied and terrified we learned how to pray
Now our feelings run deep and cold as the clay.
And strung out behind us the banners and flags
Of our possible pasts lie in tatters and rags.

Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?

a patrons poem...

Twas the 22^nd of December

And delivered by mail

Was art work by Alex

He never does fail

A lovely gift for Christmas

In any ones mind

Was an art deco drawing

That was a design

It is large and precise

The line this Alex does draw

It is intricate and detailed

With barely a flaw

It will be added to my others

Pieces I adore

My collection is growing

You just can’t ignore

I’ll frame it and hang it

I will do my part

Who knew this would happen

From Gardega fine art

My wish for the artist

Oh Alex my friend

Is that such lovely gestures

Never do end

And I heard him exclaim

From McSorley’s by light

Merry Christmas to Alex

And to all a good night

Gene

scrooge

I have a feeling this will be me in about 20 years, except I will be covered in paint and probably have a bottle of cheap booze with me. At least I will go out painting which is what matters to me in this short little roller coaster called life.

Happy Holidays

I am a huge fan of Christmas and the Holidays in general. To me it is a brief respite from the madness of the daily grind. I like to sit alone and watch Charles Dicken's Christmas Carol (the old black and white one) and drink a bottle or so of The Red. I like to eat a lot of food and then get presents (which is infinitely better than giving them, I SAY!) I like Ole Scrooge and see some good qualities in him. He is a loner and I am the same. I find life a hilarious and awful joke that should be milked for every last drop of livng and humor you can get out of it. He was just miserable...we are both workaholics. He had better clothes.

a poem for a day---by gardega

Their tidal pools grew smaller
words like sharpened knives
the desperate and the lonely
seeking out their lives.

The trap was set so long ago
existence now is all they know
swimming in a soup of lies
a circled drain, worn out eyes.

there's no way to the ocean
the tide has left for good
the escapes are short and heartless
the plot misunderstood.

You sold a dream for nothing
and that's what you got in spades
swimming now in circles
as the light of glory fades.

Mcsorleys poem--by Gardega

Ahhh, the light of Mcsorleys is fine
like Rembrandt's ghost is will shine
across the wood floors, down memorie's shore
to brighten the faces of time.


a.gardega dec. 2008

How to paint like an old master--- by Gardega

1) You cannot paint like an old master so do not try.


2) Instead, paint like yourself and perhaps you can become a New Master.


3) Do not rely on photographs until you know how to draw from life, then you can use photographs.


4) Do not become a commercial hack, hold onto the elusive and difficult squirmy worm of integrity, it is the only umbrella you will have against the rains of despair. It is like virginity--- the only thing you cannot get back after it is lost. Give not into pet portraiture unless all is lost and the wolves are chewing at your cold and naked toes and even then it is better to be brave and sketch those very wolves than paint bourgeois poodles for a handful of clammy dimes.

5) Never listen to professors or other artists, they are fools and have nothing to tell you.


6) Do not (under any circumstances) subscribe to any methods or SYSTEMS that you ape from another. This is the surest way to kill the spark of genius that smolders in inside.

mcsorleys underpainting

Here is the base of my Mcsorleys painting. I always begin with a burnt sienna base. Explain more later.

bailout notes.

WASHINGTON — It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they either can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

"We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,"' said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

"We're not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking," said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Georgia-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

Some banks said they simply didn't know where the money was going.

"We manage our capital in its aggregate," said Regions Financial Corp. spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Alabama-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.

The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which earmarked $700 billion — about the size of the Netherlands' economy — to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow of cash will get banks to start lending money.

There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money — not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that's happening and there are no consequences for banks who don't comply.

"It is entirely appropriate for the American people to know how their taxpayer dollars are being spent in private industry," said Elizabeth Warren, the top congressional watchdog overseeing the financial bailout.

But, at least for now, there's no way for taxpayers to find that out.

manhattan house

http://www.manhattanhouse.com/mhvideo.html

On memorial day I was asked to fill in for a video about the Manhattan House. It is a famous building in NYC. I was paid a lot of money to pretend I was rich and married and to sit on a couch and read the paper. I am somwhere in this video but I havent seen myself yet.

my friends band...