Postcard from the Sea of Life - The Laziest and the Best

Pool, digital painting

PARADOXICALLY, MY DIGITALLY PAINTED POOL was inspired by the laziest artist I know and the best artist I know.

The  laziest artist  is Paul W, who  was a classmate of mine in the NYU graduate painting program. Fortunately for Paul, his prodigious talent compensated for his prodigious laziness.  Being one who did not put himself out for painting (or for anything else for that matter) for the entire year he set a chair in front of his studio window and painted only that which he could view from the window. (Sometimes he included stuff on the windowsill.) Despite this rather limiting approach, he produced some  masterful  paintings. After all, it's not what you paint, it's the way that you paint it

The best artist (or at least one of them) is David Hockney. His mode of working is antithetical to Paul's for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that he travels the world while producing his art.

Pulling a Paul W. and a David Hockney:

Several years ago, inspired by Paul's laziness and Hockney's ipad paintings, I decided to paint  only what I could see from from my pool chair on my Ipad.

I had no supplies with me anyway and no inclination  to move from my chair, so, I decided to give digital painting a whirl. Usually a studio artist, I  am the first to admit I left my comfort zone. More like it, I was totally out of control but managed to paint my inaugural digital painting, Pool  and loved every minute of it.  To keep myself going,  throughout my technical bungling, I kept chanting a refrain I learned from Professor Torreano, my painting teacher  at NYU"

"If you know what you're doing it's craft; if you don't know what you're doing, it's art!"

 The above painting, Pool, definitely qualifies as art!

Picasso's Model

Picasso's Model from my book, The Flyiing Unibrow

Picasso

 saw things through a prism

confounding as astigmatism

producing a major schism

between what's real and painted.

 I saw a model passing through

who looked like Dora Maar–it's true!

 reflected in my mirror view.

Here's what we two had to do:

I screamed,

She wept,
I fainted.

Just What She Always Wanted

Vincent van Gogh

ran out of dough

Concomitantly he cut off his ear.

 How drear!

When the ladies scolded him,

 Their chides emboldened him

It was clear

Vincent could no longer hear!

He queried his escort while drying a tear,

"What do you think I besmear when I leer

 I've just got this lust for life. No fear!

My brother will take care of us, dear.

I assure you I'll be able to pay some day

After I paint Sunflowers...OK?

Then Starry Night, so we won't have to fight

 Besides, I love you. You're my delight.

Perhaps, dear one, it may seem queer

That I drink absinsthe rather than beer

So out of the ordinary I do want to veer
I'm giving you part of me... my ear!"

The Making of an Artist: The Ten Second Introudction

WE SHOULD ALL PRACTICE  the 10-second introduction. I have learned that you can hold a person's attention for that long before his or her mind starts wandering. Below is the best I have come up with, and I must say, I feel a little like Robert Di Nero in Taxi practicing "You lookin' at me?"  Here goes:

"I'm a painter. I explore and rearrange the beauty of the natural world, fusing humanity with nature. The end result is more beautiful than each of them alone. Would you like to be rearranged?"

Castle in the Sky, mixed media on linen, 36 x24 inchesMMMMMMMMM

Most likely Di Nero would have said, "You lookin' to be rearranged?" OK, OK! I might not use the last sentence. I have to ask my coach.
 
I'll use the above or a similar image on a card to handout to all of the people who ask, "What do you do?" Because, we all know that a picture is worth 10-seconds worth of words!

Monmouth Museum

Catcher, acrylic on linen, 36 x 24"

THE FALL ART SEASON is upon us and I am thrilled that my first scheduled exhibit for the season will be at Monmouth Museum in its  exhibit PORTRAITS: A Juried Exhibition. 
The Museum Curatorial Committee selected, my painting Catcher.

My model for Catcher was my nephew Madison McLaughlin. While trying to get his likeness on canvas several unwanted McLaughlin faces (Madison's mother, father and  brother) appeared  on the work in progress. I gave myself a pep talk, saying, "Well, you're in the right gene pool, maybe the deep end of the gene pool, but the right gene pool nevertheless."

I continued working until I "got" Madison.  It occurred to me that this might be the main difference between artists and non-artists. A non artist will simply say that he can't draw something.  Sometimes artists can't either, but we keep on trying until we can.

I hope you all come to opening night, September 18 from 6 to 8. If you miss it, the show will be there through mid-November.  I would love to meet each and every one of you in person.

  Here's the link - http://monmouthmuseum.org/events/juried-portrait-exhibition/
 

Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale

HERE I AM SHOWING  Alice's Aura at my very first museum exhibit.  It was the Spring Juried Art Exhibit at the Museum of Art of Ft. Lauderdale AN Academy of Art and Design. It was curated by their director and lead curator, Bonnie Clearwater. The staff at the museum told me that Ms. Clearwater thought my art was a cross between Alice Neel and Frida Kahlo.

They placed Alice in a  premier location in the gallery, directly in the center of the window looking out onto the street. Not only did it look out on the street, but it looked across it to where  the paintings of Frida Kahlo  and Diego Rivera were showing at the museum's main exhibit.   I felt thrilled and humbled at the same time to be showing in such proximity to these great artists.   I hope some of their  greatness rubbed off on me!

Even if it didn't, I was proud to be there!

Here's a better look at Alice's Aura

Alices's Aura, Acrylic on linen,40 x 30 inches

Protinus

Two Foxes, acrilic paint on linen, 36 x 24 inchesxxxxxxxx

 Painting Consuelo, acrylic on linen; 40 x 36 incxx

LAST NIGHT  I had the honor and pleasure of being included in the show Protinus with an extremely accomplished group of painters right in the middle of the zeitgeist at Dacia Gallery, NYC.  The paintings of mine that were curated for the show are shown above.

Dacia is a beautiful, intimate  gallery, well located on the Lower East Side (53 Stanton Street).  There was an excellent turnout for the opening. Lee Vasu, an artist himself, is the curator and co-founder of Dacia along with his business partner, Damian Salo. Lee and Damian are very nurturing to their artists. They had all the artists give informal talks about their work at the opening.  It was very inspiring and a lot of fun! I loved showing there.

You you can view my talk at http://youtu.be/XzscztPxd4k

Beachcombers

Cropped left panelxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Cropped right panelxxxxxxxxxxx

WHAT HAPPENS IN FLORIDA, STAYS IN FLORIDA.  Um...actually it doesn't. I'm going to share with Depingo's readers what I did this winter in Fort Lauderdale.

I took the class Explorations in Painting with the excellent, classically trained  painter Natassia Loth.  She teaches painting at the AN Academy of Art and Design/ Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art. Even though I have advanced degrees in painting from Parsons and NYU, Natty is the best teacher I have ever had. The class is designed to push the painter past her comfort zone.

During the 10-week class, I produced the 30 x 48 inch diptych Beachcombers. These are the "pushing it" materials  I utilized in the making of this mixed media piece.

Beachcombers

Acrylic extender. It is much more efficient than what I was using (acrylic medium/varnish) for keeping acrylic paint wet and  is especially useful in rendering skin tones.

Rough pumice gel which creates a textured surface.

Beach sand mixed in with clear varnish for a beautiful overlay of color and a softer texture

Gak which imparts a shine to the work.

Transference which gives an iridescent glow useful for the nacre (pearlescent interiors of seashells.}

Oil stick which gives you s a gentle translucent color over existing layers of acrylic paint.

Modeling paste for affixing various broken shells, pearls, crab jaws, shark bones  and other bling to the canvas.  In my painting (above) the boy beachcomber's nose is painted but the girl's is a glued-on shell.

And my favorite - glitter.

Indeed, I was pushed past my painting comfort zone–almost to the point of no return. It was so much fun! But in the end, I love the result. So did Natty and the other painters, who compared my compositional use of shells to Georgia O'Keefe's use of flowers.

Paint on,
Depingo

The Life and Times of Loose Ends

 

Loose Ends attacking Attorneyman, 2 x 3  inches,  pen and ink, digital color, 1992

Loose Ends for New York Law Journal, 5 x 4 inches, pen and ink, digital color, 1994

Loose Ends,  40 x 36 inches, acrylic paint on linen, 2013

I HAVE CHARACTERS IN MY COTERIE
of figments of my imagination that keep re-appearing  in my work. You can see an example of one such figment and his evolution in the above three works.  This character, Looose Ends, was created for and first appeared in Attorneyman, a weekly comic strip I illustrated and wrote for Skadden News and Notes in the early 1990's.  He was a supervillain who created loose ends everywhere he went.

Subsequently, the New York Law Journal gave me an assignment to illustrate an article regarding a  problem law firms were having at the time–Alcohol in the Workplace. The art director gave me my politically correct marching orders, which were that I was not to have any liquor bottles, alcoholic beverage glasses or slumped bodies in my drawing. I thought to myself,  "Why don't you just tie my hands behind my back?" However, I accepted the challenge and got to work.

Loose Ends was my man for the job. He passed all of NYLJ's requirements for the drawing. A lawyer trying to write a brief under the influence would certainly create many loose ends; the waving streamers visually suggest the whirling of a mind inebriated.  To drive the point home, I drew a wilting, curled pencil.

Loose Ends went on to be an advertisement for Quo Vadis, a NYC paper company. The caption was, "If only I'd used a Quo Vadis planner, I wouldn't have so many Loose Ends!"  This ad was noticed by the French blog J ai Rendezvous Avec Ma Vie, which featured  Loose Ends and more of my art in a post.  I don't know exactly what they wrote because I don't read French, but Loose Ends looks the same in French as he does in English.

Today, Loose Ends is all grown up. He is larger and more colorful as a painting, and currently making the rounds at NYC galleries. He still has the streamers but today two birds are tangled in them and flying off with them. Eccentrically dressed, he sports a dragon fly as his tie. His ancient eyes have fallen out of his head into a nest he carries around on his lap for just such emergencies. Indeed, today he shines with the densely layered patina of a highly traveled, well worn old drawing who has had a good life.

I  still care for him, in a nostalgic sort of way, but  Loose Ends is a thing of the past. I don't have any currently, and I hope you don't either.

Ear Count

Nightwings, acrylic on linen, 40 x 36 inches

Sketchbook, precursor to Nightwings, 4 x 3 inches

Vincent van Gogh wound up with only one ear.

Even Picasso had bad days when he produced works that were below his usual standard.  It didn't seem to bother him though,  so he ended his career with both ears intact.  If someone offered you a "bad" Picasso, would you turn it down because it wasn't a "good" one? It's still a "Picasso." He knew that.

The fact is that I came close  to being a one-eared artist myself during many fitful painting sessions   but stopped just short, so I still have two.  Mercifully, my artist's snits manifested themselves by my cutting up the "substandard" drawings or paintings that I was working on, rather than amputating  my ear. However, throwing out one's artwork is almost as bad as dispensing with one's ear.

Don't do either-especially throw out your work, even if you are dissatisfied with it. It is important to see the progression of your work, both technically and  hermeneutically. Not only will you learn from your mistakes, but you will be able to develop a stronger point of view. Also, there is a chance that you will be famous one day, and then everybody will want your "bad" paintings.

Another reason is that you can draw on your "sketchy" beginnings and use your seminal ideas to develop richer, more complex work.  For example, the drawing and painting above were produced years apart. The drawing is a sketch from my journal, made 19 years ago. When viewing it last year, it sparked the idea for a painting in my current series of paintings, Wings. The painting (done 19 years after its precursor ) draws heavily on the sketch, including model, background and mood. I added more color, layering, a dog and a bat. 

The most interesting aspect of the young man's pose is the expressive configuration and placement of his hands, which is why I wanted to sketch him in the first place.  I thought it was visually beautiful. Conceptually, though, his hands look dangerous because I think he might  have been giving a gang hand signal.

 I hope it wasn't the signal for, "Let's cut off the artist's ear."

DNA

Babe and Mac McLaughlin

I WAS WALKING ALONG the beach at Ocean Place with Harrison collecting seashells the other day when out of the blue, he asked, "Your mother's dead, right?"   I replied, "It's sad, but true.  Yes, she's gone to heaven and I miss her very much." He continued along these lines," And your father's dead too, right?," to which I replied that he was in heaven with my mother and I had wonderful memories of both of them.  We walked a little farther, collecting shells in silence.

He then asked, "They were my great grandmother and grandfather, right?"  I told him that was correct.
"Well," he said, "They are not really dead, you know."  When I asked him how he figured that,  he replied, "Because we're alive and we have their DNA."

What a beautiful notion!

We got some beautiful shells  that day too.

Paint on,
Depingo

Wings

 

ICARUS HAD THE RIGHT IDEA about aspiring to fly, but took the wrong approach. This mythical figure thought humans could take flight by constructing artificial wings from feathers and wax. He didn’t realize that the real way to fly is through art, and specifically painting.

I am just starting to fly myself and am absolutely thrilled that my painting Wings (40 x 36) has been accepted into Self: An International Juried Exhibit of Women’s Self-Portraiture displayed in Slippery Rock University’s Martha Gault Art Gallery for February 2014. It is one of 3 images that will be on the show's poster and postcard.

I will be aiming for even higher altitudes and other destinations in 2014 and hope that my latest group of paintings, Wings, will carry me there.

Paint on,

Depingo 

Arrogant Little Piece of Linen

IT  IS GOOD to be back in my favorite studio at Foxglove.  It seems so welcoming. When I walk in, the painting I left unfinished last December screams at me, "Finish me, Finish me!" to which I reply, "You arrogant little piece of linen!"

Granted, my ersatz winter studio was not ideal. It consisted of  a pretzel-like me flopped down on a chaise on our balcony over the Atlantic, balancing my laptop between my pelvis and flexed thighs and supporting my Wacom on the underside of my raised left forearm. In this contorted position I could draw and paint with my right hand, all the while battling high winds off the Atlantic.

Perhaps it was not the most ergonomically sound method of working, but it worked long enough for me to get sixteen paintings done in the four months I was a snowbird. I also composed sixteen poems in that same twisted, gravity-defying manner.  Could it be that this very work style is why I currently have splints and Ace bandages on both my wrists to keep them from painting or doing anything else that requires finger or wrist movement?

Back to the screaming painting.  I couldn't just let it sit there unfinished, so I decided to do the finish work on it with a palette knife. I usually don't use this tool, nor do I really know how. It seemed to me, however, that this would require less exacting finger movement than brushes.

Hello! You can't keep the painter in a painter down. Even wrist splints can 't hold me back. Mr. Depingo even sat on me to stop me. (Those of you who are personally acquainted with Mr. D will understand the severity of this.) Nope, it didn't work! I squirmed out. I'm pretty sure a little palette knife work never hurt anyone.

 Just the same, please don't mention this to my doctor.

Boys Will Be Buoys

 OFT HAPPENS on the summer solstice

On the Isle of Moor,  just off Atlantis

 To cure the boys of colds and bronchitis

 Keeping them well so they can apprentice.

Captain Quack brews the boys blowfish tea

Prescribing sometimes as many as three

 Then sets sail with the lads, "Hard alee!"

(Just sayin,' seems suspicious to me.)

For blowfish puffs up inside your knee

You get laryngitis and top heavy

After the boys get their voices back

  Quack fixes them another snack.

He tells their mothers, "They're sick indeed"

They plead, "Return them!" Says he, "No need

Take head, my treatment is gratis

If you declare me loco parentis."

He knots anchors around the boy's necks

Blimey! Parents look like shipwrecks

As he tosses their children into the drink

All watch as down to the bottom they sink.

First rise the bubbles with a gushing noise

After that, the now buoyant boys

Ships tether to legs which look more like toys

No troubles, no poise, Quack's off to St. Croix's.

  Post Script

Boy ahoy! Boy ahoy!

Hope this tale won't kill your joy

Don't drink blowfish––it'll make you screwy

And if you're a boy, you'll turn into a buoy.

Poached Soul

SHE COLLECTED
The prettiest shells at the shore

Thought, "The sea won't miss those I adore

I need many more to sell in my store"

Poseidon roared, "Stop! I implore!"

'Twas written in nautical lore.

She used to make trinkets and rings galore

Sold  them recklessly; she wasn't poor

Got locked in a shell–spit up on the shore
For another collector to pick up off the floor.

'Twas written in nautical lore.

Laughing, she sticks her head out the conch

Upon her paunch she hides her tranche

Skin's the color of poached soul–or a blanch

For eternity she's lost her panache.

Probably end up as somebody's cache.

How The Mollusk Got Its Stripes

A HAUGHTY HIGH-HATTED ROYAL named La La

Rode on the beach calling, "Ta ta, ta ta"

Her prosaic pale-yellow mollusk carriage

'Twas a vehicle which I have to disparage.

Though powered  by zebra

Of stripes that would please ya

This lack-luster shell did not ring my bell

A visual fact that made La La unwell.

She stopped at El Mar

Where the azure spread far

To water her zebras

Dried out from their seizures.

A flock of magpies fond of her hat

Nested in there and that was that

One of them pecked at La La's cranium

Out came her brainium, hue of geranium.

It flowed down her arm right onto the mollusk

The stream was robust; she lamented, "Tsk, tusk"

Startled, the zebras reared up and down

 Imprinting stripes on the shell all around.

Now the ride of the Queen of Zebras

Outshines that of the Queen of Sheba's

La La's mind is now vacant; but I've no gripes–

Small price to pay for the mollusk's stripes.

Mc Laughs

If you hold it to your ear, you can hear the subway.

McLaughs

Jeeze! We forgot the kids!

Darwinian Repurposing

DARWIN repurposed the horseshoe crab

Far better than Post-its, tray or tab

He classified the crab as Nelson

And stacked his research on Nelson's telson

A desk accessory may seem a bit drab

But it's far better than being a crab.

Then he designed a canine shredder

Pieces of paper never seemed deader

The wind took this occasion to play

Before blowing the confetti away.

Tired after his doubleheader,

Darwin took the dog home and fed her.

If you must work August through July

Do grab a crab so you won't have to cry

Through Darwinian brilliance it's not out of reach

to set up your office and work at the beach.

Darwinian repurposing -- don't be shy

Next on your list, repurpose your guy!

An Octopus Lives in the Sea

AN OCTOPUS  lives in the sea

Along with you and me

Tentacles and limbs forever entwined

In perpetuity they'll never unwind.

And the ocean just keeps rolling in.

The octopus severs a diver's line

What does it matter, your line or mine?

Or should we fall from a fiscal cliff

Financially adrift? Might  happen. What if?

And the ocean just keeps rolling in.

The years pass by with truths and lies

A day, a month, a year–time flies

We hold this life of ours so dear

To celebrate! a tear? a cheer?

And the ocean just keeps  rolling in.

Happy New Year to all of Depingo's readers

Paint on,

Depingo

And the ocean just keeps rolling in
And the ocean just keeps rolling in
And the ocean just keeps rolling in
And the ocean just keeps rolling in.

and that's what I like about the ocean

Dear Santa,

A

ll

I  Want

F O r

Christmas

 This  Year  is  

Peace on Earth

Good Will toward All.
 Leave It under this Newtown Norway 

Spruce and I will see that everyOne

GETS A

SHARE

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good life,

Depingo

 

Vent, Vent, Vent

TWENTY-SIX ANGELS–gone

In a better place

A tragedy we all have to face

Shot by a demon who fell from grace

And all I can do is pace, pace, pace.

But the littlest angels are the most potent

With their store of energy as yet unspent,

Led by heroic angels when they went,

Only to return–heaven sent, sent sent.

In the stars, and the sky, I see each face

Twenty-six are gone but not without trace

Their spirit remains to save this place

All we can do?–embrace, embrace embrace.

The Energizer Bunny School of Art

Harrison at Foxglove

LIKE THE AMERICAN IMPRESSIONIST, MARY CASSATT, who often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children, and Sally Mann, one of my favorite photographers, I am content to spend a great deal of time painting family members and family life, past and present.

It is not always easy for me to get family members to sit still long enough for me to see what they really look like. So I have to paint them from memory and photographs and catch the occasional ephemeral real life glimpse when I can. The difficulty is to to capture their spirit as well as their physical attributes, bringing out their intangibles such as character and mood. But I do have an advantage, because I know them intimately.

 Cassatt's Sailor Boy

It wasn't easy for the painter Mary Cassatt, who had to leave America and go to Paris to learn to paint. She felt she was not learning anything in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, because she, as a woman, was not allowed to draw from live models. Women at the time were restricted to drawing from plaster casts. She said there was no teaching there and she also tired of the ridicule from the men in the program.

Sally Mann was actually accused (ridiculously so) of creating kiddy porn when she published Immediate Family, a book of black and white photographs of her three children taken at a remote spot where they could skinny dip and generally run wild.

Mann's  Family

I, too, have had my share of disrespect and discrimination from the not-so-fair sex while working as a painter. Once when I was bringing my portfolio around, the male gallery owner wondered out loud why I was showing him my paintings. He asked, "What! Is your husband out of town on business this week and you need something to do?" At another gallery on a first visit, a male gallerist, whom I did not know, asked me if I would make him a cup of coffee. I did, because I really wanted to get into that gallery. In retrospect, I wish I had served it by pouring it on his head.

We women artists are pluckier than we seem. Like the Energizer Bunny, we just keep on ticking. Tick, tick, tick. Our lives, our families and our art go on ticking too. Besides, we simply won't let ourselves get ticked off.

Paint on,

Depingo

See more  Depingo family portraits by clicking here:

Alice's Aura
Painting in the Deep End of the Gene Pool

It would be foxy if you'd buy my book,

Depingo Ergo Sum!

Mr. Pluck vs. Sandy

Sandy,

IT'S ALMOST TIME 

To rock and roll!

Like Mr Pluck

We've got luck

Besides, you suck.

So rain your heart out

Let your winds wail

For it  will be

To no avail.

The East Coast will prevail.

Stay safe everyone!

Ode to the Working Woman

Put up coffee

Feed the cats

Scramble eggs

And wake the brats.

Clothes to cleaner

Kids to school

Kiss the boyfriend

Now stay cool.

Type and file

Fetch and phone

Write some prose

You're all alone.

Forget the fun

Fun? 

What's that?

Remember Hon?

You used to sing

And dance and paint

Now you work 

Until you faint.

Out to market

Buy the food

Are you cross?

Watch your mood!

Toss the salad

There's the phone

He's not coming

All alone.

Pack the kids

In the sack

Were you charming?

He'll call back.

Scrubbing floors

And vacuuming

Could that have been

The doorbell ring?

Start your freelance

Hand wash lace pants

Here he is

No more Ms.

Feeling, sharing

Almost caring

It's so late

Don't be rude.

It's your fate

Play an etude

Be enchanting

Now he's panting.

You're so tired

You're a wreck

You'll be fired

What the heck.

You're the working woman!

One Stilletto

She's got soul. He's a heel.

Made in Heaven blurred sex and art

Jeff Koons' wife got the part of the tart

He thought, "in flagrante delicto - perfecto!"
 I'd rather see them dining alfresco

And would rate it only:  *One Stiletto*

His porn-star wife soon split and he let her

A puppy of flowers would be so much better

 Complete with irrigation system to wet her!

(Cicciolina now makes him shudder
He wishes he never met her.)

Extremely fond of appropriation

Koons used the banal for his kitschy creation

Got sued for recycling but throughout the strife

Festooned the world with his in-your-face trife

Borrowing from low cultural life.

Koons hired goons to make his cartoons

Sold them for millions to Philistine tycoons

The factory approach I'm told really sold

His balloons never pop and they're hard to hold

For the price, they should be made of gold.

  

 Ms Sarah Middeleer

Chef Dave 

cordially invites you

for cocktails
and  dinner

at Foxglove

Saturday,

the 12th of May

at 6 p.m.

Raw Edges

Magda 40 x 36 inches

ONE of the most fascinating aspects of painting is the process. The painter mixes various pigments to the colors and consistency she desires, spreads the buttery substance on a canvas, layers it with glazes which are comprised of translucent pigments mixed with varnish, and this buttery substance, though still paint, magically morphs into something else --whatever the painter wills-- a tree, a face, a sailboat or in the case of an abstract painter, shapes.

The best way to see the painting process is to look at the edges of a painting. If you look at these beautiful, uncontrolled accidental abstract compositions of spilled or splashed colors, you will see unadulterated painting in its purest form. I love to look at those inadvertent compositions the paint makes on its own.

Recently, I delivered paintings to be considered for a local juried exhibition. I know it is not the Whitney Biennial, but you have to start somewhere. The entry form lays out very specific directions that the painter must follow. She is allowed to submit two paintings which may not exceed a certain dimension in any direction. I am hard-pressed to find any paintings among my current work, that fall within the mandated size limits, but I finally do. The submissions must be framed or have finished wrap-around edges with no staples showing. This necessitates my eliminating all the paintings (no matter how good they are) which have exposed staples on their sides, but I do that also. Like Lucy telling Ricky, "I want to be in the show!"

After selecting paintings which fit the criteria, I become really worried. If the sponsors don't like staples showing, they probably don't like all those wonderful drips and dabs and blotches and splashes of paint which occur all over the edges of the canvas either. So, to even achieve a semblance of societal painting propriety I now have to get out the white paint, tint it with black and ochre to match the off-white of primed canvas and paint over all those wonderful drips, dabs and splotches. I happen to love what happens on the edges. These free-form splashes serve as a map or diagram of the image and afford the viewer a glimpse into the process. While concealing the edges, I become both bored and miffed because it is labor intensive and requires many coats of paint to hide the " blemishes." Also it keeps me from real painting. I keep covering the edges though, watching the paint drips fade anyway so that my work will be accepted. "Ricky, I want to be in the show!"

The entry rules state that if your work is not deemed show-worthy, the Society will notify you to pick up your rejected art before the show starts. Were that to happen to me, I have a plan. I will disguise myself by wearing a pair of Groucho Marx glasses--the ones with the bushy eyebrows, mustache and big nose-for the pickup. I will be grouchy but I will also be Groucho, so no one will know it is I.

I did not have a plan for what actually happened. While registering my two large-scale pieces of art, a cluster of animated committee members surround me and my canvases and engage in an extended discussion among themselves. I keep hearing the phrase "raw edges," so I glean that the argument must be about my paintings' newly painted edges. Most of the arbiters seem to believe my edges are not finished. Although I have concealed the drips, spills and splashes, I did not paint over the l/8 inch scallops of paint bleeding over from the image side of the paintings to their edges. I didn't miss them. I did it by design. I chose not to cover the scallops. They were neat and orderly, so I left them. Also I didn't want a straight line of white paint that close to the image. It would not have looked right. Mercifully, a higher ranking official appears and rules that the edges are sufficiently finished to meet the standard. Whew! I'm in!

At the time of the writing of this post, the show has come and gone and the awards have been awarded. I am sorry that I cannot write that I won "Best in Show" or even placed. But at least I didn't have to wear the Groucho glasses while slinking away with my raw-edged art.

Ladies of the Fright

Depingo  left, Woman right in  homage to de Kooning

Willem de Kooning

Misogyny looming, blended flesh into ground

Uncommon ground! I would not tread if no one else were around

He painted wild-eyed, menacing girls...ladies of the night

Who angry vigor transformed into ladies of the fright.

Willem rendered sharp, fierce teeth with a hard jagged poke

Gaping eyes stare out at me as if I were a joke

Dismemberment, distortion born of his  hooked stroke

Bodies shredded, heads imbedded; all hope goes up in smoke.

These unfinished records of an extreme violent encounter

Show the action painter's wrath coming down upon her

Her body's deconstructed, disfigured face is fuming...

An expressionistic masterpiece, she's shameless, all consuming.

Engorged, Woman on a Bicycle is apt to split her seams

She seeks my adulation while listening to my screams 

With densely layered color this lady's been conceived

As a conduit to nightmare. All women have been grieved.

Sinister smiles scare me more.
In Women One, Two, Three, and Four 

Medium and subject converge

 Painting myself with Woman to purge.