A Letter to my Canvas

Golden Lady, acrylic on linen, 60 x 36 inches

DEAR CANVAS,

I am work,
you are art.
Together we are work of art.
An implement used in your bidding
with no brain, no train of thought,
voraciously I suck in colors all day long
and stuff myself
with starry shapes from the night
hoarding them to spew forth
like detritus out of flu's belly
when creativity beckons.

As you glut yourself
with my sensual shapes and color,
I watch them seep into your empty whiteness
until you are saturated– with me! You laugh
as you are tickled by my brushes,
sable soft hair masagiing
my spirit into you nebulous soul.
I love and hate you, vacuous sponge
screaming for my cadmium red––my blood!
Selfless hands continue love's labor
giving you everything you want
to the detriment of all else.
We need each other more than ever now,
urgently our transaction is consummated and
We are one: work of art.

But then you leave me,
alone.
Just like all the others before you,
proud and independent
sychophants gawking.
You alone are work of art
And I am nothing without you.

I could join the others
but colors and shapes collide
inside my throbbing head
in their eagerness to be born.
I must help them,
let them out.
I am work.

Yours,

Susan

Now and forever

NOW AND FOREVER, ART AND LIFE are so intermingled as to be indistinguishable. And so, for me anyway, are art and words...I hope, dear readers, that you do not think me an exhibitionist for showing off the burlesque of my skeleton in the name of art. Rather, I prefer to be thought of as an explorer of the physical world. To facilitate such exploration, I always try to put words to my art and art to my words. In this case I could think of no better way to draw the phrase now and forever than to juxtapose the "now" of my living flesh and being with the "forever" of my bones in the above split image.

I have not, as some have long suspected, taken leave of my senses or become morbidly depressed. I have wanted to do this drawing for a long time, but have been afraid that I would be hauled off to an asylum (if there are any left)–unless Halloween were impending when, for some reason, darkness prevails and skeletons become acceptable as a scary form of ersatz art.

I have no idea why our skeletal systems would be considered frightening. They are merely struts which enable our bodies to stand upright. Without a skeleton we would look like jellyfish minus the tentacles–just a tangle of gooey organs thumping around, loosely held together by a thin enclosure  of skin in a not-so-neat little wriggling blob. Now that would be scary!

I once viewed  my own skeleton during a visit to a radiologist who was assessing the damage an art- related injury had caused me. I had suddenly become unable to move my head, neck or arms after turning in an assignment to the New York Law Journal.  My doctor sent me to a radiologist who asked me if I had been in a car accident. Apparently every tendon in my neck and shoulders was torn. I wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to him because I was fascinated  by the hundred or so x-rays hanging round us as if they were art.  I was amazed when I recognized my own among them as I had previously thought all skeletons looked pretty much the same.  But mine, in fact, was a dead (oops, poor choice of words) ringer for me.

Oh, the accident...it was not vehicular at all but spilled-ink-ular. While finishing up a drawing and happily anticipating the couple of hours of sleep I would get, my formerly careful cat and faithful studio assistant, Muse, knocked over my bottle of ink, ruining my drawing. I was beyond miffed, so  I slammed my fist with all my might into the drawing board, giving new meaning to the expression back to the drawing board. And then, in fact, I went back to the drawing board. Because, no matter what, art prevails.

Today my tendons have healed,  and I still stand gloriously upright thanks to my skeleton, but I realize there will come a time when I will no longer be alive.

Life is now. Only art is forever. so I...

paint on!

The Legend of Appel and Falleisha

Detail - Waterfall, Acrylic on Board, 36 x 24 inchesXXXXX

  
APPEL ALWAYS LEFT THE FACTORY for his lunch. He canned applesauce there. It was a bus man's affair of sorts–his lunch––because he always took an apple with him. He had discovered the perfect spot to enjoy lunch. He did not wish to spend his lunch at the factory with his fellow caners. After all, he was with them all day, every day, anyway. It was just a hop, skip and a jump from the factory to the secluded site where he could escape the harrowing noise of the factory.

Had there not been a waterfall, he would still have heard the factory noises, but the waterfall drowned all that completely out. He felt at home and sometimes thought he wanted to stay in that spot by the waterfall forever. No chance of that! At the end of lunch, back to the factory he went.

Appel loved the waterfall so much, he would sit there gazing upon it for his entire lunch hour. He was transfixed by its cool whiteness and purity. Indeed, he would not even eat his lunch because he wanted to give back to the waterfall all the beauty and pleasure it gave him. So, every day just before he had to return to work at the factory, he would stand up, and whisper, "for you my dear Fall" and drop his apple into the rushing swell. It made quite a splash. Had he not been such a practical, well- balanced young man, he might have even thought that it made the waterfall happy and that the resultant splashes were laughter. He stayed there for a few moments, watching the water play with the apple until it disappeared into its mighty current. As always, he wished he could stay there forever. Alas, he was rooted in reality; he would go back.

On one foggy day, Appel was just settling into his spot. He couldn't see very much that day, except for a rainbow which had arched through the misty grey skies to touch the waterfall. But he could feel the waterfall's presence. Suddenly, he had the sensation of being caressed, even loved, although no one was with him. It is just the spray from the falls, he thought prosaically. The fog lifted a bit and as his eyes adjusted to the prevailing light, he was startled to see that he was not alone any more. Much to his amazement and delight, a beautiful girl was sitting cross legged right in front of him. She was incredibly lovely, but so pale he felt that she was in danger of disappearing into the whiteness of the falls. He had not heard her approach over the thunder of the falls, but there she was, right there in front of him.

Appel chuckled to himself because the girl was glistening, totally wet with rivulets of water pouring down her cheeks and forehead, a diaphanous watery veil about her face. Large, sparkling pear-shaped drops of water dangled from her earlobes. He had never seen such gorgeous decoration! She must have walked too close to the Falls, he mused. She didn't say much, but he really didn't care about that. He was thinking out loud that he would love to know her name. She uttered something. He was not sure if the sound was from her lips or if it was one of the rushing, slurping sounds the Falls made. But he knew he heard something - Falleisha ... Yes, Falleisha! And he knew in his heart that was her name, no matter where it came from.

Then he noticed something odd. The girl had a plate in her lap as if she were at a picnic, yet it was empty. He reached into his satchel for his apple and placed it on her plate. She returned the favor and produced, seemingly out of nowhere, a bottle of water and gave it to him. He drank it and noted it was the sweetest, purest, most refreshing water he had ever tasted.

She did not eat her apple right away. Instead, she played with it, throwing it up in the air and catching it, spinning it, twirling it around in and out of the copious waves of her abundant pale blue skirt. She hid it behind her back, then finally rolled it down between her breasts and watched it fall onto her plate. Finally, she threw it into the rushing waters at the bottom of the Falls. They both watched it bob into and out of view in the watery foam. Then, as suddenly as Falleisha had appeared, she was gone. Having no apple to give to the Falls because he had given it to Falleisha, he stuck his face into the spray and quietly announced, "I'll love you forever."

The very next day Appel wore his best shirt to work. It did not matter to him that the guys at the factory teased him about it mercilessly. He wore it because he had a feeling Falleisha would like it. It was the rich brown color of healthy soil with a pattern of branches and leaves all over it. He could hardly wait for the lunch bell to ring. When it finally sounded, he ran as fast as he could to his special spot and awaited the arrival of Falleisha. It seemed to take forever, but she finally appeared. He placed the apple on her plate and at that very moment, the rainbow appeared and clarified what he was doing. He was bestowing youth, beauty, happiness and immortality upon the one he loved, Falleisha. When she gave him the bottle of water, she bestowed upon Appel her snow-white purity for the ages. He drank of the purity and noticed that the branches and leaves of his shirt seemed to be growing, digging into the soil and reaching out over Falleisha. They had also grown roots and were pushing way down into the earth. His soil-colored shirt had turned into actual soil. Observing this, Falleisha started laughing. Water poured off of her, bathing what used to be Apel's human limbs but were now limbs of a tree. His branches were sprouting something red. What were those red things anyway? Then a very familiar scent wafted through the air between his limbs. It was unmistakable. The scent was that of apples.

The rainbow faded away, Falleisha played with her apple a bit, dropped it into the rushing waters and once again watched it disappear. She was never to be seen again-ever! Nor was Appel ever seen again after that fateful day.

Two Hundred Years later ....

In the very same spot near the factory where Appel spent his lunch hours and met Falleisha , the Waterfall is still merrily rushing along. There is an extraordinarily huge, tall apple tree which has taken over pretty much the whole spot. The tree is as healthy today as the day it was seeded because its roots have grown mighty and reached down into the aquifer through which it is nourished and refreshed daily. Every day at precisely 1:45 in the afternoon, - you could set your watch by it - this handsome apple tree drops one apple into the waters of the Falls, where it dances and bobs as if it were flirting, until it is consumed. It is the highlight of the waterfall's day.

After that, things quiet down for the afternoon. The tree lubricates himself from the bottom of its roots to the tips of his highest branches and leaves with the falls' life-sustaining waters. When the wind churns up for the evening and starts whistling through the moist leaves and branches, it seems to be singing, "Falleisha is the apple of Appel's eye." It is said that if you are very quiet and listen carefully you can hear Appel whispering to Falleisha, "I'll love you forever."

                                                                           

Elsewhere

 

Elsewhere, cropped, acrylic on linen, 30 x 24 inchesxxxxxxxxx

As an artist, I am always on the move. Whenever I am working on a painting, I am thinking about the next painting and then the next painting after that. I want to be elsewhere.

However, this dropped me into a time and location warp: when I am in the here and now, it is impossible for me to be elsewhere as well. The problem is that when I get to elsewhere, I am there, so I can't be elsewhere. So the only way to be elsewhere is not to be there. All the while I was painting Elsewhere in order to be there, show it to you, my viewer, and to clarify it for myself, I had to think of my next elsewhere, which is my next painting. I was therefore not elsewhere while painting Elsewhere; I was only elsewhere when I was not painting it–while working on my previous painting and thinking about my subsequent painting (both elsewhere and Elsewhere).

While in this state of painting flux, I always had you in mind. I took you with me. That’s what painters do. Every one of you is right there with me in the middle of this canvas in the land of Elsewhere, or what was elsewhere before and after I painted it. Wherever it is, I’m always glad to have you with me. We’ve got to stick together–here and  there and…elsewhere!

Alice's Aura

 Alices Aura, 40 x 36 inches

MY STUDIO IS ON THE SECOND FLOOR at Foxglove. Mr. Depingo rarely ventures up there, so he doesn't really know what I'm painting at any given moment. I have ideal lighting in the studio, four skylights and two walls of casement windows facing north and south. When I'm almost finished with a painting, I want to see what it looks like in different lighting, so I bring it downstairs.

Last night, after Mr. Depingo, who is naturally skittish, had already gone to sleep, I brought my current work, Alice's Aura, downstairs. I had just finished watching Local Color, a movie about the relationship between two artists. Because most of my intellectual and emotional life is devoted to art, if I am not painting myself, I watch others paint. This film inspired me to study my own painting, so I brought Alice downstairs and propped her up on the wicker love seat on the porch.

Alice Bisgood, my late Aunt Oddie, was the model for this life-sized painting. I prefer painting someone I know rather than a professional model. Doing so adds depth to the portrait because of the non-formal dimension the model's personality brings to the painting. Even when I am painting a portrait, I am painting shapes, not facial features or anatomy. The fact that I knew Alice makes the painting of her more challenging because in addition to rendering her shapes accurately, I have to take into consideration the intangible quality of her personality. After studying Alice to determine what needed to be done to complete the painting, I left her on the love seat and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Mr. Depingo was awakened by our dog, Bella, who barked to be let out. In that indeterminate space between dream and wake, he passed through the kitchen, and viewed my painting in the dim porch light. Startled, he jumped because he thought there was a strange woman sitting in our porch. I am glad he didn't try to stab her with a kitchen knife.

As a figurative painter with a formalist bent, like Edouard Manet, the father of modern painting long before me, I am more concerned with shapes and paint–its flow and the patterns and marks it makes. I know that they are the content of a painting more so than any model or subject matter. I know better than to try to paint my subjects literally or "realistically" although I have been accused of doing so. I explain to my accusers it is not even possible to paint realistically because my subjects are three-dimensional and my canvases are two-dimensional. So to even approach the look of reality, I or any other painter has to distort the subject severely when translating from a three- dimensional subject in a two-dimensional format.

Still, the image of Alice was "real" enough to scare Mr. Depingo. What does it mean that Mr. Depingo was startled when he saw the painting? Of course, it took him by surprise, but it also means that my painting techniques worked and Alice's significant form, true inner nature, or aura, if you will, rather than her mere outward appearance, emanated from the painting.

The painter's own aura can be sensed in a work as well. If you look at Willem de Kooning's Women paintings, you will sense de Kooning's aura immediately and strongly. The first time I saw one of these paintings in person, my heart raced, I hyperventilated and nearly fainted right on the floor of the Whitney Museum. The spirit of de Kooning lived on and emanated from the paintings. It seemed as if he were right there with me. It was overwhelming.

Because my use of paint captured Alice's spirit, the painting has a strong emotional pull. I am proud that this painting caused the visceral reaction that it did. It probably means that I am a competent  painter ...or...perhaps...

Mr. Depingo is a big baby.

Paint on,
Depingo

PS. The philosopher Walter Benjamin asserted in his famous treatise The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction that with the advent of mechanical reproduction, the aura of a work is diminished. I believe that you cannot experience the painting's aura by viewing it in digital form either. This in turn means that you're just going to have to come to Out of the Blue at the Avance Gallery (July 9th  opening) if you want to really experience Alice's Aura.

Uncatchable

Uncatchable, detail, mixed media on linen, 36 x 24" (click image  to enlarge)xxxXXXxXXXXx

UNCATCHABLE is one of the "guests" attending my Garden Party, a body of work containing 15 or so paintings exploring the theme of harmony between  humanity and nature. While working on these paintings, I did not know I was painting a garden party. Upon completion, though, observing the finished paintings leaning against my studio wall, I knew just where I was–at a garden party among my “guests.” And who doesn’t like a party!

Despite its theme, Uncatchable, is translucent rather than transparent, raising many questions. For starters:  Is the model morphing into a butterfly since her forearms are comprised of emerging butterflies and she has a winged insect adorning her face?  Is the butterfly a mask or is it part of her face? The butterfly's thorax looks remarkably like a human  nose. Is she in danger of being caught in the nets of the lepidopterists behind her? Is that what's causing "butterflies in the stomach"? Or does her composure and confidence tell us that she is immune to being caught? Or, perhaps in a broader sense she is a stand-in for feminism.

As to the question of why she sports caterpillars as garters? I can answer that...

so her stockings don't fall down!

Waiting for the Comedy

My shoes? Bernie Madoff with them.

PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK ME how I got to be funny. The truth is, I don't really know. Because I like the out-of-control, exhilarating feeling and sound of laughter, I have always tried to do, say or draw things to elicit it. I could never even fall in love with someone unless he provoked me to laugh. But other than that, I have no notion of where funniness actually comes from or what causes certain people to have it while others do not. We all actually have a funny bone. The only thing funny about the funny bone, though, is that it's not a bone at all. It's a nerve–the ulna nerve–and that weird sensation you feel when you bump your elbow against something is the ulna hitting up against the elecrenon. So it might cause you to feel funny, but not to be funny.

While recently pondering funniness, I thought back to an anecdote Papa Bisgood told me some years ago about taking his little girls, Oddie and Babe, my aunt and my mother, to the Sag Harbor Cinema (which unfortunately recently burned down.) Every Saturday he would buy each of them a chocolate bar at the concession stand. As soon as the lights dimmed and the newsreel came on the screen, my Auntie Oddie would noisily open her candy and swiftly eat it. But Babe would just sit quietly, watching the newsreel, chocolate bar resting in her lap. Papa would lean over and say to her, "Babe, what's the matter, don't you like your candy bar?" My mother replied that she did, but was waiting for the comedy to start before eating it. Sure enough, as soon as the comedy started, and not a second before, my mother unwrapped her chocolate and commenced eating it. Alternately laughing at Popeye and Olive Oil and eating the chocolate, she made the bar last through the entire comedy.

I would have a really nice way of wrapping up this post if Babe had turned out to be a standup comic, but due to the smattering of journalistic honesty in me, I must tell you that she did not. She became a nurse. How embarrassing–thanks to my mother's non-risible career choice I have no clue as to how I can conclude this ...except...wait a minute...it's coming...

except ... EXCEPT ... that I finally have an answer to that baffling question about the origins of funniness. Yeah, I believe that in my sample of one I have proven beyond a scientific doubt that eating chocolate bars while watching a comedy leads to funniness. If my thesis is correct, you are probably asking yourself right now, "Then, why wasn't your mother funny?" That's easy to explain. Funniness skips a generation. That's why I'm funny! Thanks for having the discipline to wait for the comedy, Mom.

(Note to self) Great, now I have to draw a cartoon funny enough to support my candy bar thesis.

And my advice to you, dear reader, is to eat a chocolate bar while reading it.

PS If you don't think the above cartoon is funny, perhaps my thesis is slightly off and funniness actually skips two generations.

LOL

The Art Trinity: the Painting, the Painter and the Viewer

The painting and the artist at Monmouth Museum

 

The painting and the viewers

The art trinity: Painting, Artist and Viewers

MONMOUTH IS A BEAUTIFUL AND INTIMATE MUSEUM in southern New Jersey.

We, painters  and viewers, had a wonderful time at the fall 2015 opening of Portraits  completing the three-way transaction that exists among the painting, the painter and the viewer. The reason the shows are so satisfying is because the art trinity is not really complete without the viewers.

The paintings, in my case, Catcher, are the stars of the evening. For me Catcher represents harmony between humanity and nature. Once created, however, Catcher became an entity unto itself.

As an artist, I am merely the technician that made Catcher happen. I did this by filtering the model  and all the images that make him up through my mind's eye. I kept the final image translucent, so that viewers can bring their own interpretation as to its meaning.

Most of the viewers told me that they could not figure out whether it was a peaceful image or a disturbing one. That contrast in a work is what makes a painting successful. An art critic/journalist tells us which pieces he decides to write about:

"It is the paintings where I don't get what the artist is trying to do that attract me. They remain with me. I keep thinking about them, trying to figure out what the artist is up to. When I understand what the artist is doing, I say,  "Oh yes, that's nice," and move on because the work no longer engages me."

You're on your own now, Catcher; thanks for being thought provoking!

Post Modern Shark Attack*

Digital Painting:  Hirst's Shark attacking DuChamp's Urinal

Damien Hirst

Nearly burst

Trying to out-camp

Marcel Duchamp.

To top Marcel's conceptual urinal

Damien worked in an air force terminal.

Eventually something fishy did fit

For the iconoclastic, ditsy  Brit.

Executing his fame-obsessed wish

In formaldehyde he dipped a fish

The resultant preserved postmodern shark

Enclosed in glass,  made its mark.

Bought by a hedge fund guy... funny -

Only he could afford the money

No shrieks of envy pass my lips

I'd  rather have my fish with chips.

*My poem and painting above reflect my thinking on some of the art that's around today.  If you would like to read more on the topic, take a look at Simon Doonan's article, Why the Art World Is So Loathsome. In it he quotes Camille Paglia and lets us know why some critics are calling today's art the Post Skills Movement.

Modigliani's Model

From my book of poems, The Flying Unibrow

Modigliani

Searched  nook and cranny

Looking for the perfect model.

An  emotional wreck at full throttle.

He took his search
Through zoo and  church
On a very long trek
For an elongated neck.

Stifling an hysterical laugh

His feverish quest cut in half
Modigliani
Painted a giraffe.

Botero's Model

Botero's Model, digital painting

A veritable Botero 

whose waist's not too narrow 

installs herself in my chair 

with a permanence seldom seen there

 but  in Pyramids or the Eiffel Tower.

Her bra doesn't wow her.

She throws it up in the air

with an absence of flair

poses there, weighty and immovable.

Thong totally removable.

It swings off her toe like a bower.

Lady of the Sea

 

LAH-DE-DAH, lah-de-dee
Lady on a yawl slid into the sea

Fell from grace

Off the bow did she.

Called for help not once but three.

Bobbed fore and aft

 Like a piece of debris

 Clung to a shell

Hopelessly.

Towed pell mell

 During this embrace

Wore seaweed lace

Drank algae tea.

       

Who could it be

On this ominous race

Might be you; hope not me

Lah-de-dah, shell-shocked she

Our lady...
Lady of the sea.

Liquid Feet

AMPHRODITE rules the sea

Her consort, Poseidon, thinks it's he

Encircling the sea with her blue liquid feet

She flows onto her seahorse to see who she'll meet.

I, on the shore, straddled a dolphin

Crashed through the breakers for frolic and laughin'

I giggled and grinned 'til off fell my feet

My ankles and calves to make it complete.

Where are my limbs? I can't stand anymore!

 Amphrodite answered– with thunderous roar

" I saw you enter my cobalt door

I've never even seen a girl before.

Just seals and dolphins–such a bore

The more I see you, the more I adore

I am the personification of the sea

And you're the splashing image of me."

She called me Rhode; poured me a treat

Cool foamy water replaced my feet

Now I float with my new found mother

And swim with my dolphin, for he is my brother.

Jellfyfish Hash

I WISH I WERE a jellyfish

Wish, wish, wish

Back and forth, back and forth

Swish, swish, swish

I'd wear a conch upon my head

For flash, flash, flash.

 Should Sharky want his favorite dish

 Jellyfish hash

 Thrash, slash, crunch, mash!

As if I were a piece of trash

 I'd sting him on his face and lash

He'd definitely get a rash!

Then high-tentacle it outta there

Dash, dash, dash.

Retreating from the gloom
 And doom.  Zooooooom
To my meduszoan bloom

And crash, crash, crash.

Seven

 























THE NUMBER SEVEN HAS A HISTORY of being useful for mankind. The cognitive psychologist George Miller wrote a famous article in 1956 about our capacity for processing information. His thesis was that the amount of information or numbers which people can process and remember is often limited to seven, (plus or minus two.)
Of course, seven is not really a magic number. But it really does get around. Many things come in sevens: the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man, Seven up, the Seven Seas and the Seven Dwarfs. Seven is also probably the most popular number. Studies have shown that when asked to pick a number from one to ten, most people will pick Seven.


That's six examples of the ways that seven has been invoked over the ages. There are more, but I am stopping at six because I know from reading George Miller that our digital span is about 7 and I want  readers to be able to remember the most potent use for the number 7. I learned this some years ago from my boss, who used to remind me of it every day when he came back from his seven-mojito lunches. He would invite me into his office, where I would actually have to witness him ask God to grant him the power to get rid of a rival senior partner. He earnestly, if tipsily, prayed that if God did this one thing, he would never ask for anything else. My boss didn't want much–just to be able to dial his enemy's telephone number and when he answered, press the number seven to cause his instant death. By the way, I was being paid an extremely generous salary to listen to this. (I might add that this is why I do not like working for others.)

I wondered why my boss had picked seven to do his killing for him. I started doodling to see if I could understand his choice. I discovered that if I slant a 7 to the left, it looks like the scythe that the Grim Reaper slings over his shoulder. If I draw it upside down, the top could be the blade on a guillotine. If I draw it obliquely, its point could be used for piercing like a spear or arrow. A seven is indeed more frightening than the well-rounded 8 or 3, or 0 with their cozy interior space .

I rooted for my boss for a while because I felt this would be a good power to have. With some direction from me, and the right telephone numbers, we could get rid of much of the evil in the world. But then I thought, I can't believe I am even thinking about  this. 

So, one day after one of my boss's repetitious afternoon rants, I calmly did my duty. I returned to my office, dialed his extension and then...pressed seven. That's right - I "sevened" him!

PS. If you don't like this post, please don't  seven me.

Kernel Panic

Kernal Panic, digital painting

You'll never guess where I am!   It's colorful, wild, hot and artsy (in a Brice Marden meandering-line sort of way.) I'm here because of a  frightening computer malfunction.

While writing love letters on my computer,  suddenly big, black. scary, primal letters appeared on my screen. I usually take all things technical in my stride; I ignore them. However, this time I couldn't because the primitive type plastered itself slowly but steadily down my computer screen like some evil Barton Fink-esque kind of wallpaper, as if might consume me.  Its slow progression gave me, an alarmist in good standing, time to think and I came to a dismal conclusion. 

 It was the end of the world and it was either  God himself, Putin (sore about an illustration I did of him), or one of Trump's 400-pound hackers, sitting on a bed hacking away.  Whoever it was, he was communicating a primitive and cryptic message on my computer screen.  I believed, the expanding unrecognizable print marching down my screen might be an ancient  Biblical  tongue, the  Russian language, or hacking. Suddenly, at the top of the screen, a header appeared in English. Though blurred and written in a basic and  unfamiliar hand, it finally came into focus. It read, "KERNEL PANIC."  That's when my computer froze. Everything stopped  but those two words which kept multiplying and spreading down the screen–an ersatz army attacking.

KERNEL PANIC,
KERNEL PANIC
KERNEL PANIC
KERNEL PANIC

I didn't know exactly what the words meant, but they struck me as serious.  I called for my live-in techie, but he apparently had slipped out to buy a new pocket protector for his pens. In his absence I did what any red blooded artist facing annihilation by computer would do: I grabbed my paints and sketchbook, cracked open the computer, crawled in and started painting the wiggly anarchy I witnessed inside.

Moving along the innermost primordial slime of colored wires and other exotic, twirling electrical arthropods, I painted my way to the bottom of the problem. It was just as the print on my computer screen warned:  KERNEL PANIC!  Sure enough, there in the depths, all aglow, frightened to death, and tied up with the many different colored wires was Kernel, and, yes, he was panicking. He looked like an ear of corn, but for the fact that he was screaming.  His  contorted face could have given the screamer in Edvard Munch's painting a run for the money.

I told Kernel he could stop panicking  because the doctor  (my techie), would arrive any minute. While I was trying to cheer up Kernel, techie returned and called down a life saving prescription.

"to avoid crashing or hang issues, make sure you're exiting Scratch Live before disconnecting or turning off your Rane Scratch Live USB hardware interface (SL1, SL2, SL3, SL4, TTM 57SL and Sixty-Eight). Call me in the morning."

Kernel was paralyzed with terror, so I did the "Rane Scratch" thing for him. Much to my surprise, Kernel calmed down almost immediately.  The scream melted off his face, the mysterious  writing disappeared  from the screen  and the Kernel started doing his job again–whatever that might be.

I waved goodbye to Kernel, climbed gingerly out of the computer's entrails trying to  avoid any residual "hang issues" (they don't sound so good). I admonished my techie that he should never leave the premises again and resumed writing my love letters. 

Sent one to Kernel too, just to keep him in good spirits.

The Guild - 5 Forty Five, Ft. Lauderdale

IN ADDITION TO THE MAKING OF ART, one of the best things about being an artist is the artist's reception at exhibits.  That's where I get to meet all sorts of wonderful art lovers and talk about my paintings and art in general with them. 

Susan and George Curri at Botanically Correct

Above is a photo from my solo show, Botanically Correct at The Guild 5 Forty Five, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  That's George Curi, my self-declared number one fan and collector. Behind us is my painting, Wings, the poster child for Botanically Correct. 

 I love the amber glow of this shot from the house lights and the confusing proliferation of hands surrounding us. The hand on my shoulder looks as if Wings is emerging from the canvas to give us a giant hug, but it is actually George's hand. The hand between George and me looks like it's George's but it is Wings' painted hand. The fingers on George's shoulder look like Wings' fingers tapping George on the shoulder,  but they are mine. And  then there's Wings' hand to the right of George which looks real enough to pinch him.

And so it goes, just as I have always thought, art and life being interchangeable!

George emailed me the day after he first viewed my work:

" I loved your use of color.  It was so bright.  I felt so cheerful in your gallery.   Especially, in contrast to the darker pieces featured in the adjacent galleries. You really are a true inspiration.  A very rare, but wonderful quality to possess."

Thank you, George!

A better look at the botanically correct Wings, The Man Under My Bed and Loose Ends. They are   currently being exhibited at the Good News Cafe, Woodbury, CT and can be purchased there through October 3.

Wings, acrylic on linen, 36 x 30" $3,500

The Man Under my Bed, acrylic on linen, 36 x 24," $4,000

Loose Ends, acrylic on linen, 36 x 24," $3,500

The Sneaker Graveyard

Dr. Mac, acrylic on linen, 36 x 24 inches

SWIMMING UP FROM SEVEN FATHOMS UNDER Candleberry Lake* at a speed so fast he would leave Michael Phelps far behind and probably get the bends, a young diver, trembling with excitement, breaks the surface and sputters to his mates, "Hey, there must have been a sneaker factory here at one time; I found hundreds of sneakers in one spot." When I hear him say that, I breathe a sigh of relief. No one knows the truth–the real truth. The diver's assumption is plausible, but it is wrong.

It is plausible because Candleberry Lake was not always a body of water. It used to be farmland at the base of Candleberry Mountain. In 1926 Connecticut Light and Power Co., in order to create hydroelectric power from the Histrionic River, dammed the river, flooding the surrounding farmland. In doing this, the utility created the extremely deep, 18-mile long Candleberry Lake. Local legend has it that if you dive down to the bottom of the lake you will find old roads and farm houses with families preserved as they were at the time the land was flooded. Some say there are entire preserved families sitting at the dinner table with their food-laden forks poised halfway up to their mouths. Other unfortunates still sit in their easy chairs knitting. This is why our young diver thought he had found (and indeed might have found, had there been one located in the vicinity in 1926) a sneaker factory.

But that is not the case. No, there never was a sneaker factory there. What the diver found is much more sinister. It is the sneaker graveyard. I might add that this final resting place for sneakers was not there when the land was flooded. I am one of an elite group of five people in the entire world who know how that sneaker graveyard came to be. And only three of this select circle are alive today. I feel I must share what I know of the events leading to the creation of the sneaker graveyard before this knowledge is lost forever. Therefore, I have decided to reveal what I have been concealing for so many years right here on this blog. Depingo's readers deserve to know.

Although I cannot reveal his name, I can tell you that some years ago a good doctor and his family lived on the lake. He was a surgeon, scholar and gentlemen, loved by all who knew him. He worked hard in New York City healing patients 11 months out of every year. He saved many lives and made many patients whole again. But when he was on vacation for the month of August... well, that is a different story.

The good doctor, escaping civilization, would drive up to his manse on Candleberry in full doctor drag, including an F. Tripler suit, cashmere socks, pinstriped shirt punctuated with gold cufflinks and a Countess Mara tie, and highly polished Bass Weejuns. Upon arrival, though, he would divest himself of this costume with haste, as if wearing it were the final human indignity. He shed it faster than a snake sheds its skin. However, while snakes shed in order to grow and advance their form, the good doctor would shed his last remnants of domestication in order to return to a wild state. Upon doing so, he immediately became feral.

This formerly manicured doctor quickly donned his summer wardrobe, which he had designed and manufactured himself. It consisted of three items: cut-off, shredded khakis (not much better than a loin cloth really); a rope which he tied around his waist, belt-style, to hold up the cut-off khakis; and a pair of tennis shoes. He wore these items for the entire month while he toiled at landscaping, building stone walls, making furniture and various other projects. He also swam, ate and slept in these three items for all of August. (OK, some nights he took the sneakers off for sleeping,)

Quite frankly, the doctor's wife was beside herself. She didn't know what to do with her severely devolved husband. She knew, though, that she wouldn't allow his shorts to go into the wash with the rest of the family's clothing. This did not present a problem for the good doctor. The one time he felt his garment needed washing, this brilliant inventor of surgical implements and procedures designed an operation for cleaning shorts. He tied one end of his rope/belt to his khakis and the other end to the stone dock and let Candleberry do the work. The lake swirled them around in its waters and its whitecaps beat them up against the stone dock. When the doctor felt they were clean (which was not very long), he put them on wet. The morning sun dried them in conformity with his body and at least they were somewhat cleaner. They didn't look so great, but he didn't care.

One of the neighbors was a kindly grandmother from an extended Italian family that summered on the peninsula. She had a hammertoe that bothered her and asked the world-famous trauma doctor if he would take a look at it. He needed an office, so he set two canvas-covered folding chairs on the dock, washed his hands in the lake and examined her while dressed in his summer outfit. It was comical to see patient and doctor sitting on the dock, she with her hammertoed foot resting in his lap on top of the torn shorts. She didn't seem to mind; in fact she seemed very grateful. When she asked how much she owed for the visit. the doctor replied, "Do you make clams casino?" She did indeed; in fact the dish was her specialty. The following day she delivered a tray of homemade clams casino, hot from her oven, for the doctor's lunch. Good thing, for by this time, his wife had decreed that he was not to come to lunch without a shirt on. Because a shirt was not part of his summer wardrobe, he enjoyed his clams casino while sitting on his favorite tree stump, accompanied by Peter, and Taffy, his cocker spaniels.

Word spread throughout the Italian summer community and he saw many more patients on the dock. He never had to don a shirt because he had a steady stream of clams casino, lasagna and pasta fagioli coming in daily.

There came a day when the doctor's daughter, who was coming of age, requested that her father put on proper clothes (perhaps at least a shirt) to meet her date when he came to pick her up. The doctor said, "I'm not putting on clothes– just tell him I'm the handyman." She was quite concerned about this antisocial turn her father had taken. She hoped his behavior was within normal limits for vacationing surgeons. Maybe this is how surgeons relaxed ... or was it? Maybe ... it was something else ... something far worse! Then, on their last night at Candleberry before the family returned to New York for school and work, she followed him and saw what he was doing. She actually witnessed it with her own eyes!

Before the ceremony started, her father sat quietly on a willow twig bench he had made himself and stared across the lake. Then, he slowly rose and moved toward the end of the dock. Was he carrying something in his arms? No ... it couldn't be. Yes! She could see them clearly now, for unsuspecting that he was being watched, he had moved into the moonlight. There were two of them and they were both badly decayed. You could almost discern the souls separating from them. The odor was unbearable even in the fresh, pine-scented night air. With a hint of hesitation and what looked like regret, the doctor raised both hands high over his head and heaved his decomposing, moonlit burdens to their watery doom. They sunk promptly because he had filled their orifices with rocks and bound them with their own laces. Then he waved goodbye, went up the stone steps to the house, took a long, hot shower and carefully laid out his full doctor's drag for the next morning's ride back to New York. Through careful observation, I learned that he repeated this morbid ceremony annually.

In retrospect, I believe that the doctor actually was very fond of them. After all, they were his sneakers.

*About Candleberry Lake, Candleberry Mountain and the Histrionic River: I changed their names so as not to get my father ... er ... um ... that is, the unnamed doctor, into any trouble.PS. I wonder if anybody has discovered the cigarette "factory" adjacent to the sneaker graveyard yet?

Madame Garden Party

Cropped Image of Madame Garden Party, acrylic on linen, 50 x 40 inches
Click to see entire image

MADAME is a party girl. Her full name is Madame Garden Party. Let’s face it. She gets around. She has been in two gallery exhibitions and one museum exhibit already and she only came into existence last year. She’s probably one of the most popular paintings I have ever made.
     

I am not sure what makes one painting more successful than another.  I do know, though, that at my last exhibit Madame stole the show. Gallerygoers told me that they could not take their gazes off her, that she drew them in with her one exposed eye.

Despite her name, she can’t even attend Garden Party, my solo exhibit opening on April 14 at the Gallery at Westfield Broward in Plantation, FL, with the other paintings in that group. We had to pick her up early from this month's Out of Thin Air exhibit at The Guild 5 Forty Five  in Fort Lauderdale because she needs to get to the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY,  where she will be part of the 75th Regional Juried Art Exhibition. That exhibit will run from April 15 through August 13.

I try to give all my paintings an equal share of my skill set which consists of both traditional technical skills and my own non-traditional personal vision, which lets me see and paint things in my own idiosyncratic manner. However, only one will be basking in the limelight at the Arnot Museum for the next four  months,

Apparently, Madame got what she needed to be the star !

Foxglove

Foxglove was painted in my Manhattan studio which is surrounded by concrete, steel and glass high rise buildings on three sides.  Since my studio is on the first floor, I have a small garden on the fourth side  (somehow the builders missed that little piece) I nurture the garden, commune with nature and study it there while dreaming of a better place. When I bought a lakeside, wooded home in Connecticut, I named it Foxglove.

 Foxglove  depicts humans and animals coexisting in a natural utopian democracy. The animals function as symbols and provide subtle clues and playful suggestions about the  meaning of my work. Viewers have a  glimpse into a more perfect, peaceful  world––a world in which they are can find beauty in places where they never before thought to look.

You can find more paintings of my imagined world on my website. If you see one that you love, you can  purchase it by  contacting  me on my About page. Please have a look - http://www.susanmclaughlinart.com/