a very touching story

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Queens unisphere painting

Painted by alex gardega

NYC Murals by gardega

Gardega Studios is now painting a home theater mural...23 side panels and a ceiling based of the Grand Central mural..Done soon! 18 panels have already been painted...almost ready to hit ceiling.

gardega studios 917 400 1317

Steve Jobs

Steve jobs lived on a normal street, in a normal house without "gates" and rarely lock his doors..He saw what money had done to his apple comrades..the facelifts, the Bentleys...he was too smart for such things. I knew people and friends from my hometown who "made it rich" and turned into festering fools overnight. I knew people who lost their souls in the time it takes to flip a pancake. Steve jobs could have bought these fools 8 times over but he had something they dont have,  creativity and genius. If you are an empty sock of a human I can see how the country club and the right car could fill certain holes but those holes will always remain and sand always beats the man shoveling sand.

You cant make this up

Steve jobs used to frequent a restaurant in california, he liked the owner, a balding syrian man...by the way, steve eventually found out this man was his biological father..the universe is not stranger than you think..it is stranger than you can think..

Couple Married 72 Years Dies Holding Hands - Des Moines News Story - KCCI Des Moines

Prozac Nation

One in ten people are now on anti-depressants in America.I am sure some people really need them so I do not judge them. My life in the arts has been a battle beyond words and there were some serious days in the "art gutter" I always picked myself up and got back in the ring. I always prefered the rawness of life, even if it was painful, to some brave new Soma
Pill reality. No one said it was easy and there were days when a bottle of wine helped forget that I just broke a 25k glass piece on a cement floor...I made it thus far staring down the,sun of reality and I suppose I will bring the ship home in the same manner...awake, aware and ready to box my way out of any corner.

Yours truly

McSorleys Old photo

This is McSorleys pub 1930's or 40's.

I love old NYC institutions such as McSorleys. They smell like history...

Art Forger Busted!

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/38869/forgery-for-dummies-british-art-teacher-convicted-of-selling-fake-picassos-had-an-art-forgers-handbook/

The Morgan Library drawing collection

Here is a great collection of old master drawings in the Morgan Library, NYC.  I love old master drawings, I love the way they yellow and age and get richer over time. They get better with time as opposed to modern schlock which seems to weaken with age. True beauty is a joy forever.

http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=454

                                            INGRES

Great Website! lets go to the moon!

http://www.moonexpress.com/

(also read the blog! )

Robert S. Halper: the Man behind Occupy Wall Street

photo by Robert Stolarik (NY TIMES)

The man behind Occupy Wall street is a former Wall Streeter and millionaire. He is one of the very people the protestors are protesting! Go Figure! Over a steak dinner with his friend, Kalle Lans, editor in chief of Adbusters (a Canadian anti-corporate magazine) Mr. Lans came up with the idea to create a sort of Arab spring  movement for the political left. Mr. Halper, one of the biggest donors to the mag. gave his buddy 20k and went back to his upper west side apt. A month later the mag emailed almost 100k people calling for the occupation of wall street!

Mr. Halper denies that he had any real hand in starting the protests but I find it hilarious and surreal that a man very close to the origin of these protests (his close friend basically started the movement itself over a dinner conversation) Is a "one percenter" as they call the top income earners and he hangs out with the protesters down in Zuccotti Park. Im not picking a horse in this whole race, I just admire a good dose of Lewis Carrol logic, some true NYC Surrealism...You cannot make this stuff up...By the way, the protesters will be marching to the Upper West Side tonight, maybe he will invite them inside for some bubbly and caviar. Rich guilt?

my info. from this article was gathered from a NY Times article

Geometry of Carravagio

Interesting geometric study of Carravagio's Crucifixion of St Peter by Gardega.

Obama's Teleprompter Stolen!

OUR PRESIDENT/ RESIDENT IN CHIEF HAS LOST HIS TELEPROMPTER AND JUST LIKE LITTLE BO PEEP, HE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE TO FIND IT! IT WAS STOLEN FROM AN EQUIPMENT TRUCK PARKED IN A VIRGINIA MARRIOT. I HAVE SEEN OUR PRESIDENT TRY TO SPEAK WITHOUT THIS LITTLE THINGY AND I HOPE IT IS RETURNED SOON! I AM ASSUMING THE PEOPLE WHO TYPE THE STUFF THAT IS DISPLAYED ON HIS TELEPROMPTER ARE STILL OKAY SO IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE THE TELEPROMPTER FINDS ITS WAY HOME AND LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WILL RETURN TO ORDER. BY THE WAY HIS DOG IS NAMED "BO" SO I SMELL A CONSPIRACY...

"Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,

And can't tell where to find them;

Leave them alone, And they'll come home,

Wagging their tails behind them"

 ILLUSTRATION BY WALTER CRANE--GOOGLE HIM--TOP NOTCH ILLUSTRATOR FROM BACK IN THE DAY

CARICATURE SHOW AT THE MET

THERE IS A GREAT NEW SHOW AT THE METROPOLITAN I SHALL REVIEW SOON. IT IS A CARICATURE SHOW THAT BEGINS WITH LEONARDO AND COVERS THE REALM OF THE ART OF CARICATURE TO MODERN TIMES. I AM A BIG FAN OF CARICATURE, I WAS NEVER MUCH OF A CARICATURE ARTIST "TIS NOT MY ART" AS MICHELANGELO ONCE SAID ABOUT PAINTING. I AM THE AUTHOR OF TWO CARICATURES IN PALM ONE RESTAURANT IN NYC BUT THAT IS ANOTHER TALE FOR ANOTHER TIME.

LEONARDO!!!

Infinite Jest

Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine

September 13, 2011–March 4, 2012

 

A MUST SEE! 

 

Done

Quite possibly, the hardest I have worked in my life..exhausted, laying in lawn, staring at sky, now...

Muals nyc by gardega

Five panels done

Murals nyc, by gardega

Panel 4 of 7

Two panels

Done!

Grand central ceiling mural

Rough sketch...to scale...in approx. Colors

Ornamental side panels

Seven painted ornamental side panels will grace the home theater walls...

Grand central ceiling mural

The ceiling is primed, ready to go...off to home depot for base color...we are using a martha stewart paint..a slatey blue color...and thats a good thing..

Grand central ceiling mural

I am painting a copy of the grand central ceiling mural in a home theater...work begins today...a yellow scaffold will be my home/ bed for a week..will update progress..

sideways

My cell phone posts images sideways..ha, must remedy..

a captain looks about

I have been pulled ever thinner in so many directions like the skin on a drum. Sometimes I have to spend all my focus to keep the plates spinning in the air I find I neglect other aspects of life... Such is the nature of being busy. I need to regroup and let the ole ship run aground and take stock of the sea and land. Running around is an aspect I can do without in life but I am always running somewhere, a mural in long island, a glass job somewhere, a book cover to be delivered...The only thing worse is not being busy. I just painted for three days straight (thirteen hours each day) and my client hated it..he was probably right as I look in hind site. As an artist this is a terrible feeling but what makes a professional is a man he gets right back on horse and hits it even harder. Art is no place for the weak, it will crush your soul like a bug as art is part of your soul... 

"I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes
Let my defences down
All those wounds that I can't get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain, whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide comes around "

N. Peart

Getting ready to start day

Panel one..in progress

If it is sideways ill fix later...from phone.

Mural

I am in long island painting seven panels for a mural...all tarot card themed for home theater

our sense

We take everything for granted, our family, our health, our senses...watch as the girl experiences something you take for granted...


http://youtu.be/LsOo3jzkhYA