Saturday, June 16, 2012

"Seeing Red"

The Art Center did a show to coincide with the Red Carpet Corridor event and we gave each artist the theme "Seeing Red" - it was fun to create pieces to fit and even more fun to see how everyone interpreted the theme.
I did two collaboration pieces and one simple little portrait.

"Red, Red Wine"
This table was a collab between myself and ed lipinski. I had gotten the piece of wood with notches from another artist and it inspired this table - i got to thinking of how the wine glasses would fit into the notches and the song Red, Red Wine and i asked ed to help me construct the table. We found and scavenged EVERY piece of the table. The wood, the base of the table was from a different broken table and even the glass was found in the basement of the art center building (couldn't believe it was in perfect condition). the spacers are of course used wine corks.
Next, I created the Neil Diamond stencil (no UB40 did not write Red, Red Wine - Neil did). I painted the image and then wrote the lyrics to the song all around it. We sealed it and then found mis-matched wine glasses (from thrift stores). 
I imagined this table sitting on a porch. You and a friend are enjoying a glass of wine and a neighbor or friend stops by - no need to get up and get another glass, just take one off the table and pour.

happy to say this piece sold the weekend of the show.




My second piece is the "Seeing Redd Foxx" - created my own stencil graphic and did a layered effect on canvas.

This piece sold the weekend of the show as well.


This was the second collaboration i did - it was with john fitzgerald. John has a really whimsical sense of humor and a very folk/outsider art style of painting. He has only just started painting in this past year and is self taught.
I asked john if he wanted to do a painting together - i really liked the idea of our very different styles juxtaposed.
i gave him the lead to come up with the idea - he had this round board and said he was thinking "red planet" and that evolved into the first music festival on Mars. Soooo, he titled the piece "Fourth Festival:2037 (the first music festival on mars)"

My first thoughts when he told me this were "hmm, if I were at a music festival on mars, what sort of bands would i expect to see?" I brainstormed and came up with "The Rolling Moonstones, Mars Wind and Fire, King Crimson Planet, and the Alien Parsons Project" - my friend Ali suggested "Ricky Martian" and i loved it.
so, i created the lettering (the martian language is an actual code and can be translated) and made it into a poster style piece - i painted the whole thing red with the swirls and craters and then john started painting his alien musicians (he has the rocket man, the rockettes, the star wars cantina band, michael jackson doing the moonwalk, and a few other characters). I filled in with some alien hippies and added some google eyes (because i believe there are probably some floating eyeballs in space).

this wacky piece is still available at the art center.





The whole show was a hit and I wish I could post other people's pictures but I didn't ask permission.

We just got notice that we'll be doing another group show in October called "Nightmares" - can't wait, i have so many ideas floating around my noggin.