in progress

5 more hours until I am finished with the "Birth of Rachael"

the birth of rachael

down by the river evoo
on a day both bright and fair
arose the light of beauty
and lit her darkened hair
the people sang and wept for joy
as the goddess sang her song
enjoy the drink and wine, people
for love cannot be wrong
the people ate and drank
and many had their fill
and when again the dawn came
she served another meal
but soon the night came down
and caught them unaware
we need to find shelter
from the dark and cold
the people spoke together, this life is getting old
so they looked for reason
and logic near and far... (enter a new god)
I bring safety, I bring shelter
I bring wisdom fair
I am the god of reason
and reason will I share.
so the people walked together
and security they had
days and days they sat and
knew reason was not bad.
but soon they missed the goddess
of love and wine and song
who floated on a river
like a bright ancient swan.
they left the god of reason
and returned from whence they came
and there they found the goddess
in the olive oil rain.
I will make you dinner and clothe you in my love
you will know not hunger
though the clouds may stir above.
and then there came another
a god who shined a light
I am the god of balance
between the day and night.
his name he said was alex
and he sat up on chair
I will bring both reason and
and love the fruit I bare.
so the people the all gathered
and balance there they found
between both love and reason
their hearts and mind were bound.
their hearts and mind united
the ego/ id as one
and they ate and drank all evenings
and worked beneath the sun.

alex

Blairs Hotsauce

Through my art travels I make many friends and acquaintances. Many I never even meet--- it is an internet friendship. The internet is great for a recluse like myself. I can be a hermit and still talk to a lot of people and communicate with the world. I am lucky to have become friends with the king of Hotsauce--- his name is Blair and he is to hotsauce what billy gates is to computers. He is also a really nice guy.


Here is his website.


http://www.extremefood.com/shop/home.php

memories of summer

I had ( I think) about one day off last summer---I went to coney island and built a 10 foot Bernie madoff sand sculpture---That is how I roll on a day "off" I met some people after I finished in a boardwalk bar and we had a bernie madoff hot sauce eating contest. Probably the most fun I had in years--- we were drinking beer, doing tequila shots and downing dangerous amounts of habenro hotsauce. I am a true pepper-head and Ilove hotsauce. I was talking to people from all walks of life, some from the bronx, some from brooklyn and even the projects. They were all great guys and you realize there aint much difference between people when it all comes down to it. Hot sauce burns like hell no matter what race color or creed you are. Memories are made---they dont come and lay in your lap like a dog. You go out and make memories. I have enough crazy stories to laugh/ last a lifetime and I plan on making many more. I have friends who have lived in a sheltered box for most their years and the idea of heading out to coney island alone and turning it into a bar- wide hotsauce party would never enter onto their radar screen. When I was a kid I read all the works of hemingway and it instilled in me a true sense of living as deep as you can in life. One day the tide will wash away your sand castle and there will be only the memories of a life well lived or a life wasted on the side of a road, watching. Make art, eat hot sauce, laugh your ass off, paint some pictures, get up early and always be ready for the unexpected turn that spins a normal day into a memory you can write about for a lifetime.

update

I am setting up a facebook, blog and twitter account. I am not really into that stuff but It is all for the work and for my studio, (not for personal rants against politics and vaccines). I have a great new agent helping me and we actually have meetings and deadlines. I am reviving the ten dollar art/ drawing scam I created that put me on the "art map" and I will keep this blog as well. I would like to stay focused on a single blog or website but it makes a lot of sense to have multiple ports of entry---clean up your mind!

american paintings at the met 1765-1915

There is a great exhibit at the Met. I am very fond of these older american paintings of life. There is something hopeful about them, a kind of innocence and charm. I especially like this work and the work of sidney mount from long island. I consider these and the Hudson river paintings to be the "real" american legacy of art--not the crass modernism and abstract depressionism that I like to call "the puke and dribble" school of art. I would love to have a time machine and slip back into an american main street around 1900. I would like to see life before the auto choked up our streets---Time moved slower then and you were able to live in a moment and not run after your own tail racing some mad clock that ticks ever louder with each new technology designed to make life "faster." Life to me should be a quiet river and box full of good books. Half our lives are spent chasing and catching up with deadlines; the globalists prefer it that way---Keep the sheep moving so there is no time to think, stress em out so you can get em on pills and sell them on sports and tv. Our only refuge has become an escape into drink, or movies or a big pharma daze, our river is a class 5 rapid and there is no time to watch the scenery--- there are too many rocks. For me an escape into a piece of art or a drawing is a way of touching a moment, of slowing the gears down and actually tasting the meal in front of you. Then again I often feel that I lose so much stuck alone in a studio trying to dig into my own dirt.

"Im not looking back but I want to look around me now, see more of the people and the places that surround me now. Time stand still..."


http://www.metmuseum.org/special/americanstories/objectView.aspx?oid=21&sid=3

quick art primer

Before you paint a picture paint the whole canvas a "base tone"` (brown or grey etc) why? because generally in painting you want to paint from light to dark. You want to leave your shadows and darks fairly thin and transparent and your base tone helps with this and it can serve as your shadow areas with very little messing around. Your lights and whites will be thicker and you can pile them on like mashed potatoes if you wish. If you are new to art go easy on colors--- use only a few so you can focus on drawing and tone and not everything at once. The life of a color is generally dependent on what is beneath it. If you paint (like I tend to) with a lot of glazing then you will lay/ glaze down a red and let dry then paint a transparent blue on top (for a powerful purple) as opposed to just painting a "lifeless" purple...if you are an abstract expressionist then you have nothing to learn about art and you can just be willy nilly and free like the crazy man on ice rink in Central park I remember seeing as a kid. There are no rules, only consequences.