smile

ebay find! by gardega

I am always on the lookout for Dali books I do not own. Here is one I just won on ebay for a rather small fee! This is the first time in 1,500 entries in my blog I put the image on the right and words on left. I feel vertigo...this book title sounds like a list of the three things that have caused me the most trouble in life...

lipstick on a pig--by gardega

There is a great southern saying that states if you put lipstick on a pig it is still a pig....I have made art that never worked, no matter how nicely framed or makeupped. Then there are pieces like this one, when framed correctly the painting finds a life of its own. I was never too sure of this piece until I saw it framed with a black matte. The black matte really makes the piece sing as it brings out or emphasizes the breakdown of simple shapes in the work. I takes a lot of words to try to say "zen." Life is really simple at it's core, wake up, shower, eat, work ,sleep, laugh, cry...etc


This is from a collector named Amy in Colorado.

mucho thankso

the family and the fishing net--by gardega

This was my favorite song for almost ten years of my life from my teen years on...I still see the same images in my head as I did back then. (This is a re-post for new viewers..the painting is not my best but you win some and lose some.)


"burning out in sudden flashes, draining blood from the well fed faces.." It took me twenty years to figure out this song is about a wedding and the capturing of a "groom" by the family. The quote probably refers to the flashbulbs at a wedding...I am sure it had something to do with Peter Gabriel's reluctance and fear of getting married and "making the plunge" (and the whole ritual involved therein.)

framed and framed

Three things make me happy...

1) making my work

2) selling my work

3) seeing it framed correctly!

flowers of evil--by gardega

a collector sent me this image today. It is one of my paintings as it looks framed on their wall. Even though the photo is blurry it kind of works with the piece. I really like silver frames ( when they work they really work)

emails from the past--by gardega

I received an email today from the people I did my VERY first book cover illustration for ---(I guess they found me on the net.)--- It was more years ago than I can even remember---I do remember drawing a monk for a book cover but the manor drawing I barely remember. Here is the email. (note: there was no such thing as email when I did the drawing)

Hello Alex,

Think back a number of years, when we here at Maple Hill Press were looking for an illustrator to draw a medieval manor, and found you. Our client, Jarrett Publishing Co., was very pleased with your illustration and has used it in their Regents Review Book for Global History ever since.

I thought you'd like to know that the drawing has just found its way into the Jan. 2008 New York State Regents Examination in Global History and Geography. Every high school kid in the state will see it. (You never know what paths your work will take, true?)

You may also remember that we asked you to do an illustration for the cover of our own book, PageMaker 4 with Ease, in 1991; you came up with a marvelous monk, moving from work by candlelight to a computer screen. We got that book accepted as a course text in the Houston Community College System (which encompassed a large number of schools) and others, such as Northeastern University in Boston. (Unfortunately, PageMaker 5 came out earlier than we had hoped, and we missed the wave, but it was fun while it lasted.)

I looked at some of your glass work on the website -- it's stunning! Did I understand correctly that some of this work is in the Chrysler Building? Wow.

If you have a couple of minutes sometime, drop me a note.

birth of genius on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290203035130

Brooklyn Test Cover---by gardega

I made this as a test when I was working on a new Brooklyn cover for the Ambassador Yellow Pages. I decided to use a different angle and put this one in my files. If anyone wants this just email me.

spring time

Got the winter blues?

I found this cartoon in my files....thought it had some hope in it.

on a white horse--- by gardega

SOLD

Here is an oil painting on glass. Death is a common theme in my art. I am also occupied with the twin themes of rebirth and resurrection. I think I would be rich If I would paint "nicer" pictures and paint them again and again and again...I cannot bring myself to paint puppies as I have to stare into a looking "glass" over my sink each morning.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.

---revelations

queens cover

Here is painting I made for Ambassador Publishing Queens edition. It is 15 x 20 (photo is a bit off- color as it is a pure yellow background.) This is for sale for $100.00--- if you are a Queens or NYC resident then you know the landmark very well. I will include a signed actual printed cover in addition.

Birth of Genius--by gardega

What genius awaits inside this kitsch- jeweled egg?

Birth of Dali---by gardega

I woke up at Two AM and went jogging and then I drove to seven eleven and got my morning big gulp. --- I had something brewing and itching inside that I had to address but I wasn't sure what! I looked atop my shelf and I found my solution. My friend Teal had bought me (for Christmas) a "musical egg" that plays the sugar plum fairy when wound. There was something missing from inside the egg so I decided to one day make use of the void--- but I wasn't sure how! Then It hit me!I quickly sat down and took an egg from my empty fridge and hollowed it out into the sink. I then painted (in black and white) a portrait of definitive genius. If anyone wishes to purchase my "Birth of Dali" you can make an offer via email. This is one for the ages.

artist of the day---chris elliot!

Here is a picture of me with one of the great masters of art. Some people know him as an actor/ comedian but they are unaware of his contribution to the world of visual art. He invented pop art, op art, pop tarts, op tarts and and even abstract expressionism. He is a true genius among the giants of art and he is happy to tell you stories about drinking with Van Gogh or how Picasso stole cubism from him. Did I mention he also invented surrealism? Notice here as he has added a floating cupcake to what would be an otherwise mundane and boring seascape. "Melting clocks are so yesterday" he muttered "but floating cupcakes are timeless." when Chris lays down his brushes the art world will retreat back to the dark ages quicker than a hillbilly to a jug of shine.

artist of the day---howard pyle

Howard Pyle was the teacher of NC Wyeth and a master of the "Golden Age" of illustration. He was a Pennsylvania based artist. He started his own school in Brandy Wine Pa. and the stress of the school was on taking great pains to get the details and realism of the accurate and to keep "life" in the work as well. I have seen many a noodler and renderer noodle the life right out of a painting by detailing it to death. (Pyle was not one of those artists.) Back in the day Artists were paid very well for illustration Even Van Gogh was a fan of his work. Pyle knew his craft inside and out was as good as any "fine artist" of his day. Photography stole the life out of illustration because magazines began to use photos instead of illustration and the golden age faded like figure in the sunset.

happy tuesday by gardega

I had a dream that I hailed a cab and that Leonardo Da Vinci was the cab driver. He didn't say much and I am not sure If I tipped him. He had a hat on that bore the distinctive look of the Renaissance. This morning I realized the hat he wore is on the cover of a book I own about Renaissance engraving. I suppose I had the dream because during the day I was pondering the thought of what would happen if Da Vinci was born today. (I guess my subconscious supplied me with the answer.) Somewhere in there is a story that someone will probably steal from me.

Big Brother---by gardega

I often think in themes and usually those themes come in fives as well. If I get interested in triangles I will usually explore five different avenues of triangles. If I am thinking about a direction to go in there are usually five paths ahead of me to be considered. Maybe it has to do with having five fingers on one hand and counting out things as a child. My gardega.com site has five crabs on it and I only own five pairs of shoes and will throw away a pair when I buy a new pair. As far as triangles go there is another triangle to consider...Outside the empire state building in NYC there is a "triangle" area where cars will often not start. It is because of the frequency of the radio tower on top of the Emp. State building. This brings me to our next topic---Big brother---The Onstar company can turn your car off for you anytime they wish and we are happy to let them into our lives and cars for "safety." If you are willing to give up your freedoms and privacy for safety and security you deserve neither. Personal liberties are not five legged star fish--they do not grow back when gone.

pattern recognition

If you look at this picture it is "obvious" to many that there is a white "triangle" overlapping the picture. In truth there is no triangle, your visual brain creates a triangle from some pac-man like circles and some smaller broken pieces. I find it interesting that our brains fill in visual blanks. I think our brains also do that with the call and response effect of music (which probably stems from the childs call out to the mother and the awaited response but I digress) I am curious if we fill in parts of memories in the same pattern. If we forget something to we add our own "triangles" to the pictures of our memories? I lived for ten years without a television so I learned to think a lot and I think the "idiot box" should be turned off often so humans learn to think again.

happpy monday by gardega

I will take a day off tomorrow to draw and paint and work on my site.

Ghiberti---Gates of Paradise

Anyone who ever studied anything about art history probably has heard of Lorenzo Ghiberti and his masterpiece-The Gates of Paradise. In the opinion of Gardega these doors were the gates of paradise as well as the entry way into the grand hall of the Renaissance itself! This is where it all started...A young Michelangelo was transformed by his viewing of these "doors." I posted this image because the trees are so well done. After a day of walking through Chelsea and staring at paintings on tin foil--- I will often restore my tired vision by viewing the Gates of Paradise. Bronze has been terribly used and abused (ala henry moore etc) and but when that humble alloy is in the right hands it is a thing to behold!

richard lacayo-----moron of the ages!

I traveled to Philly in 2005 to write about the Dali retrospective for a magazine. My article was well written, concise and had the unmistakable stamp of "knowledge of subject" --- Being a man who has read over thirty books about and by Dali and one who has studied him intensely for over 15 years I get rattled when I read reviews that are obviously just a bunch of requisite facts nicked from google and strung together to try to create the illusion that you actually know something about an artist. It is not "cool" in the elitist, ivory- towered art world to like Dali--- it is cool to praise lunkheads like Damien Hirst or rauchamburger who cant draw or paint and consider a shark in formaldehyde a work of genius. Bah to you ! Your theories will rot like the shark that must be replaced every year and unlike the work of Velásquez or Dali whose work will stand the acid test of time and ages. It would be nice to have a public debate with this writer as I would run a double helix of circles around his limited mind in regards to Dali's true value as an artist. Sometimes I understand why Hemingway would step into boxing rings with people to "discuss things" it is easier than typing! Here is his "dribble" in time magazine... My tone is not meant to be cynical, I am just fighting for something I believe in.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1027509,00.html?promoid=googlep

Landscape age 15---by gardega

I painted this when I was 14 or 15. I made it up out of my head as I was, and am, apt to do. It is the eternal, internal landscape that matters to me. Notice the lovely flowing water in this painting...Notice how it is fluoride free and pure. It is essentially wrong to add fluoride to our drinking water as I have mentioned before and will again. Fluoride is a toxin and and I would rather have bad teeth than have the government add toxins to my water. Someone left a comment on the previous entry regarding fluoride and a petition to stop the fluoridation of drinking water. I awoke at 4am to start my day and as usual I went to 7-11 to get my Pepsi Big Gulp. While there, I noticed The Post had not arrived yet. You know you are up early when you beat the paper to 7-11.

fluoride lowers IQ

As alex always suspected Fluoride is bad stuff. A Chinese study has determined that the are many negative side effects to consuming fluoride including endocrine damage and a lowering of IQ. I think it should be up to Americans, not the nanny government if we want to consume fluoride. It should not be added to our water. What does this have to do with art? NO IQ= BAD ART!

more thoughts on a glass elephant..

Scientists fully understand the process of water turning to ice. As the temperature cools, the movement of the water molecules slows. At 32 F, the molecules form crystal lattices, solidifying into ice. In contrast, the molecules of glasses do not crystallize. The movement of the glass molecules slows as temperature cools, but they never lock into crystal patterns. Instead, they jumble up and gradually become glassier, or more viscous. No one understands exactly why.

glass elephant

someone called me today to make them a glass elephant. It is not cheap to make a glass elephant. They must be fed a steady diet of genius. They never forget, either. The brain must wrap itself around a project like tortilla around a burrito before one can proceed forth into the actualization of a word or a germ or a dream into something as solid as glass. In truth glass is not a solid but rather a slow liquid. (In old houses the windows are thicker at the base than at the top.) Dali's elephants had long and spindly legs but a glass elephant will have normal legs as they are made of a slow liquid.

looking back

Before I laid down my head onto the soft pillow of an evening's rest I turned my mind's eye to the past year and rummaged briefly through her closet. Over my shoulder the fog lifted and the ghost of a landscape revealed herself to me. I could see the shadows of thoughts that were and the yet unborn thoughts that sleep deep as frogs in a winter's pond. To me, it seems, a thing in motion tends not to stay in motion but to speed up to a frenzied pace that is both maddening and modern in its nature. Progress is a relative term if the soul is not fed! We spin in orbits at speeds that electrons would envy and forget that all orbits are essentially eliptical and you never really get anywhere. All our running leads us back to the place we started and leaves us just enough time start running again. As Roger Waters once said "history is short and the sun is just a minor star..."

artist of the day---maxfield parrish

Maxfield Parrish was born in Philadelphia, Pa. He was mainly known as an illustrator during what was known as "the golden age" of illustration. The genius of Parrish was that you cannot put him in n artistic category, he was his own man to the end. Even though he was labeled an illustrator he is one of the great artists of all time. He used a method of painting in oils called glazing in which you painstakingly build up layers of paint to create colors and luminosity you cannot achieve by any other process. The abstract expressionists should have followed him instead of trying to chew on the leftover bread crumbs of Picasso. He has a large painting/ mural in the bar at the St. Regis (where Dali would often gather.) He was known for building models to paint from as he was very careful to get his lighting perfect and believable.

Viva Max!

irises by gardega

There is a reason van gogh painted irises---They are the best of all possible flowers. Sometimes I feel a bit commercial when I make pieces like this but then I look to the history of art and the Japanese and Lalique and I know I am in good company. I painted two new versions of my irises on gold leaf so you can inquire via email. They are approx. 1 foot by two foot and priced at 200. dollars each. Gold leaf is an interesting surface to paint on and a challenge to perfect when laying down the leaf itself. I probably wont put on ebay so you can email me if you are interested in buying these.

artist of the day--by gardega

I get as many ideas from reading as I do from using my eyeballs to look at paintings. Normally when I get a hold of an author I read every book they ever wrote. (Then I read all the biographies I can find as well) The writer Thornton Wilder is not one of those writers. I only read one book by him but it was a masterpiece I think everyone should read. The book/ play is called "Our Town" and is a work of great and wondrous brilliance. If you want to get a feel for life in America in a simpler time then pay a visit to Grover's Corner New Hampshire. I read it 15 years ago and never forgot it. It is an easy read and an important one. buy this today and read it in February.

new NYC painting by Gardega

Here is my first rough of the Ambassador New York City yellow page cover. I am going to do some more work on the design but I will keep the majority of what I have developed here. (this will soon be on a doorstep near you.) these borough covers are interesting because they force you too actually look at things you think you have seen a million times.

early work

teenage sketch book

old sketchbook page by gardega

teenage sketches

for my new viewers

scanner

my scanner is working so I will load new drawings! me promise...

breaking news!

I drove deep into Brooklyn today to pick up a large table top that I was commissioned to carve a design onto. I was unable to get an assistant so I had to carry a two hundred pound table top into my pickup truck on my own. I managed to get it safely into my truck and proceeded to drive back to long island. I managed to hit a railroad crossing too fast and watched the piece shatter in my rear view. I am still trying not to get upset as I have made glass art for twenty years and have had a good record of breakage. You have to break some eggs to make an omelette (as they say...) my scanner is back in order as well. Welcome to late January! This is the second glass piece I broke at the same stupid RR bump. I am looking forward to leaving the suburbs as this was a sign. If you cant laugh at the things that go wrong in life and art you yourself break like so much glass. It is best to bend like a tree in the wind and have a drink or two and start fresh again tomorrow...

update

Sorry for being lax on updates. I am having scanner issues so I cannot scan new drawings. I have almost solved the problem...I think...It is 15 degrees in brooklyn today. I hope my miami and LA clients are happy in the sunshine. I have been too busy to complain about the cold, maybe today I will take a break and complain. I will do an "artist of the day" today and a "color of the day" as I cannot scan images as I normally do. I received an email from a girl I have not seen since high school who had read the page six blurb.

Its friday!

It is friday! For Alex it is not different than any other day as I always work saturday and sunday. I sometimes take off tuesdays to commune with bacchus or the gods of sangria before I get back to the easel. It looks like I am moving to brooklyn in march. I am paying for a new carpet for my landlord as I unintentionally turned it into a painted carpet. No matter how hard I try I cannot keep from ruining my clothes and furniture etc with paint. I admire artists who are neat and tidy and anal and keep neat little happy workspaces. For me my art comes from chaos I live in a state of perpetual messing up and cleaning up. I am having issues with my scanner so I cannot scan my nyc cover or new drawings until I fix it..I will try to fix the issue this weekend so you are not left in the cold and lonely land of words without images.

The bronx zoo

I mailed my bronx zoo painting to the wrong client. It went south instead of west. (I mailed it to the wrong attorney.) I think that was my second screw up in a year of mailing so I am confident neither will sue me.

nyc cover by gardega

I finished my painting of the statue of liberty and delivered it to publisher today. I will try to upload the image tonight as I had no time to do so earlier...so it goes...

update

I got an email from a nyc gallery today, they want me to come talk to them. That makes me happy because I am not an artist who ever approached a gallery with slides or any of that because I could never put together the whole artist package and bio etc. Some artists live for the networking and openings and such but I am not that person. I usually stumble into galleries by accident or they find me somehow. I dont really even have a body of consistent work, I have made thousands of paintings and drawings and glass carvings but I sell most of it and I am always jumping around from experiment to experiment and throwing away boxes of art when I move etc. I am not proud of being like I am--- I often wish I was the organized guy who mailed out his slides every week and had a data bank etc. anyways...

statue of liberty by gardega

I am very tired tonight but I have to work on a NYC painting of the statue of liberty for the cover of the yellow pages. I have posted a copy here of my first statue of liberty painting for the yellow pages. This was not long after sept. 11th so I tried to give her a defiant (if not angry) look that would still be acceptable for the publisher.

nude

Here is a new drawing I am working on. I am in Brooklyn again today but I will update from "the road." I am getting back to life/ figure drawing as I am rusty as a nail. use it or lose it.

signs of genius

upon returning from brooklyn yesterday I was too lazy and tired to stop to get gas and ran out exactly as I pulled into my parking spot. Last week I ran out as I pulled into a gas station. I am not sure why I always have to push things right up to the edge of the cliff but I suppose I like watching the pebbles fall over. I am also not sure why I decided to illustrate this with my teenage painting of Saddam Hussein--- I made this painting before I knew who he was....premonition?

The eyes are the windows to the soul. I've seen windows covered in the sad rain of winter and Ive seen them bright in the light of a summer's noon. Stained like glass or closed for the nights eternal shade. --ag 2007

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free."

james douglas morrison

renaissance crab

I made this in an experimental time in my art (which is always) all art is experiment, If you are painting the same picture day- in, day- out, you may as well bake bread for a living (at least your bread will taste consistently the same.)

ebay store...

there are two pieces of art for sale in my ebay store.


click below:

ebay

naturalism

Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries. One example of Naturalism is the artwork of American artist William Bliss Baker, whose landscape paintings are considered some of the best examples of the naturalist movement. An important part of the naturalist movement was its Darwinian perspective of life and its view of the futility of man up against the forces of nature.

Naturalism began in the early Renaissance, and developed itself further throughout the Renaissance, such as with the Florentine School.

Naturalism is a type of art that pays attention to very accurate and precise details, and portrays things as they are.

NOTE FROM ALEX: people often use the word realism in place of naturalism and that is a mistake-- realism does not mean it looks realistic, that is a misnomer. I will explain realism later.

artist of the day--Carravagio.

For those interested in art and by art I mean "real art" you can do worse than to research Caravaggio. I always had an affinity for him as he was very unconventional for his time and very much a rebel against what was going on around him in both his life and his art. Religious art was often stilted and stale and he breathed much life into the genre. He was often criticized for being a naturalist (meaning he painted things realistically and as they really looked.) He was a master of light and chiaroscuro and he rejected the traditional methods of study favored in italy to actually painting live from a model in a very direct fashion without a million prep-studies. He is truly one of the greats and an inspiration to anyone who follows there own path in art.

1572-1610

good morning...

I will upload new work today as I promised. Here is a glass carving I call "swamp angel" I will be at my art table and computer all day until around 4--- so check back for updates.

mission statement--- or not

I don't have a mission statement and I don't read self-help books or listen to motivational tapes. My only commitment is to keep drawing and painting and raising awareness and doing my damn best to help change the art world from the neomodern-con game it has become--- when people are being sold the dream that a shark in formaldehyde is worth more than a Raphael drawing then something is indeed "rotten in Denmark ." As the art world loses its collective soul to greed and market forces we all lose out in the bargain. I am not saying I am the right guy to bail the boat but I am saying it's sinking...

quote of the day...

"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."


— hunter s thompson "Extreme Behavior in Aspen," February 3, 2003

the emperor never had any clothes!

Dear Mr. Gardega,

For the past twenty years or so, I've been saying that
modern art is shit. I majored in art history at Chapel
Hill in the 1980s, and was always locking horns with
some of my professors.

I was always the one who would ask "what, exactly, is
it?" The teachers didn't like such questions.

So, reading your quote in Page Six made me laugh.

GOOD LUCK AND BEST WISHES TO YOU!

Sincerely,
R. B.

my studio

this is my art table in my studio.
I bought the cow skull off ebay and use his horn for my lamp because I am too lazy solve my ever- existing lighting issues. I use my easel less and less but I am not sure why as it looks much cooler to paint at an easel than at a desk.

high school drawing

I received an email today from a girl from my high school (many horseshoe crab moons ago) and by chance today I found a drawing I made for the high school literary magazine. Someone bought this in may so I only have the scan...Alice in wonderland was (and is) a work of inspiration for me.

“Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose”

comments etc

feel free to leave comments by clicking on comments under pics and you can use the chat feature to the right as well. Dont be afraid.

Salvation--- final drawing by Gardega

Here is a final sketch for my "Salvation" piece. I believe that human salvation (at least our medicinal salvation) is to be found in the blood of the horseshoe crab and in its DNA and I also believe that it is indeed a sacred animal or "power animal" as the American Indians used to call animals that held magic properties. I intend to make a glass carving of this piece and also a painting as well. This is the second and final drawing/ study that helped me understand what I am dealing with visually. It will be a very difficult glass carving but I will cross that bridge later. Somebody mentioned that this resembled female anatomy but that is not conscious on my part. It is pieced together from scans as the piece was too big to scan in one pass. that will account for lines that do not meet in the photo but does not occur in original piece.


to buy: click here

alex is back home

I have just returned from my Brooklyn studio and look forward to loading up some work tonight...For my regular readers, there may seem a bit of repetition as I want to show some chosen works to my new viewers.

You can do a lot in a lifetime
If you don't burn out too fast
You can make the most of the distance
First you need endurance
First you've got to last----N.Peart

ceiling painting

http://www.nigrophoto.com/rooneyarchitecture/


for my new viewers here is a mural I recently completed . It is in progress in these photos and I will update soon...

ophelia carving

For new viewers I have uploaded a picture of my carved glass "Ophelia." I will put prints of this on ebay this evening...

how to buy a gardega

If anyone is interested in purchasing an original gardega you can contact me via email at top of page and I will help you on your path towards artistic salvation. I will also load work into my ebay store tonight and tomorrow for sale.

archives

The nature of a blog is a linear one and the nature of alex is decidely non-linear and spiral like. If you wish you can look through my archives below right or scroll down continuously and view that way. I hope you enjoy my gnomic meanderings and continue to read my daily postings of art and wisdom.

new drawings up tonight

Alex is busy making glass art in Brooklyn (again) I will load up some new art for sale tonight! (About 8 or so) and will be drawing all day tomorrow as well. I will try to get a few pencil lines in my sketchpad over lunch today as well. There is a nice article in the post today about the first man to photograph a snowflake. His name was wilson bentley (for the record.) please note my www.gardega.com has a lot of old art that is going to be torn down and replaced soon....

gardega quoted in page six

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01142008/gossip/pagesix/endquote_634815.htm

quote of the day

"modern art is like a Hollywood whore on her last legs no one loves anymore. She needs a savior to drive drive a stake through the foul heart of modernism to bring painting back to lofty planes of the Renaissance"

gardega--page six january 14, 2008

mark twain quote

Hunger is the handmaid of genius.
- Following the Equator

new idea by gardega

I have decided I need some uniformity to my "blog" (I hate that word---it sounds cheap.) I have committed myself to one drawing a day no matter what! If I am working on a twelve hour deadline I will still upload one picture a day for sale or at least posting. I think if people take the time to log in they deserve to have interesting work to look at. I will start tonight with a drawing. If I make a painting, so be it but there will be a new piece every day even if I have to draw on a napkin. If you like a piece you can email me or bid on ebay. If I miss a day or two I will load the drawings/ art from the missed days so there will be 365 drawings a year plus my ramblings of genius and other nefarious posts...

ascension

I found this painting in a shipping tube tonight.

it is called "Ascension."

NYC CARVED GLASS---shower door etching

I made this shower door for a gallery owner in NYC. The subject is the Oedipus Sphinx. I remember well that this was an enjoyable process/ piece..There were no tears or grey hairs associated with this piece!

NYC Etched Glass---racehorse etching

not sure if I ever posted this-- I carved this for a client in NYC. I carved this on the back of a smoked mirror for an amazing apt on 52nd st.

link to my glass website:

www.bluelineglass.com

www.gardega.com

my webman has been slowly overhauling www.gardega.com it is coming along and soon the bad apples of past art will fall from the tree and it will be ripe and heavy with the golden apples of the art of the present!

howdy

sorry for being lax on my blog..I am on another "brooklyn project" and will load some new stuff when I return tonight. I saw a lemon tree in a store window today, I spent ten minutes staring at it as it was full of lemons. Artists like me can never invent something as clever as a lemon tree, we can only do our best to copy the mind of the great architect upstairs. I sometimes think a blank canvas is symbolic of the universe before it was The Universe. I am not religious but I think there is a certain intelligence out there that made lemon trees and that the best an artist can do is to paint a lemon tree and by doing this we can briefly step into the pajamas of the creator.

I will be posting a few links to my etched glass work. I know they are a bit repetitive. It is for search engine optimization etc....and other such techie terms... More art tonight, I am in brooklyn again. please bear with my techie test.

etched glass nyc by gardega

my etched glass work can be viewed at:

www.bluelineglass.com

nyc carved glass by gardega

you can view my carved glass work at.

www.bluelineglass.com

www.gardega.com

I have someone working on www.gardega.com, FINALLY! Should be revamped in a week or so.

sad eyed lady by gardega

Here is a framed watercolor I never had time to photograph correctly. I believe it is about 22" x 30". If anyone wants a price on this email me. I may put on ebay at some point.

alex

art is shipped

I shipped out all art today..everything is shipped except one ophelia print that will go out tomorrow.

artist of the day-- arthur rackham

My whole life I have been a huge fan of the 19 th century illustrator Arthur Rackham. He was a huge success in his time and remained a very hardworking , humble, english gentleman. He was one of the great artists of his generation regardless of the fact that he was an illustrator and not a "fine artiste" He was much better than most artists of his time (the ones read about in the art history books) free to google and learn more about the underrated artist whose subject matter of fairies and elves will never be accepted by the elitist art world. His line was a thing of wonder and it still resonates with the unmistakable touch of genius.

Happy Wednesday from Gardega

Today I will spend some time loading up a few new drawings. Thanks to Jennifer from Houston for buying my "Salvation" Drawing!....Will hit post office today to get out artwork as well.

good morning america--from gardega

I (alex) have to go to Brooklyn today...Back tonight--It is supposed to be 70 today in NY so I may run in the hydrant. talk amongst yourselves while I am gone, I may be able to update from the road...check back...

adirondack watercolors--gardega

Today it is surprisingly warm out, which got me thinking about spring, which in turn got me thinking about the Adirondack Mountains and my need to get back up there and paint with my watercolors. Watercolors are a nightmare and require great focus so as to not to make a muck of your work. If you hit it right, there is glory and if you miss your target then you have a piece of paper useful for lighting a campfire. If you visit the Adirondacks, it will never leave you.(not unlike insanity) The Saranac lake region is beyond words but not beyond watercolors..

clay

here is a picture of a friend and collector of my work named Clay. He sent me a picture of himself working on his T-shirt/ fashion line...I dont want to say the name without permission...another person I got to know well but never met personally...

finished drawing---gardega--SALVATION

Here is the finished drawing of my new piece. I have to scan it in pieces so it has a few jagged edges that break up the flow. I will paint this and carve it in glass . The first study is in my ebay store.I may sell this drawing as well as I am not sure If I will paint onto the paper or trace it to canvas...it is 22 inches square on Rives BK paper.

ancient super-glue...

It was recently discovered that ancient roman warriors held together their battle gear with a "super-glue." It is an unknown substance that they are now trying to figure out the composition of. So far the German scientists have not been able to reproduce the glue..