Super Burners

"The Mona Lisa"

If you’re in the Bay Area this Saturday there’s some pretty cool FREE stuff going on over at the Shooting Gallery — a Stencil Workshop (spray paint provided by Montana) and you can bring t-shirts and stencils from home or create stencils there and work on a giant wood panel they’re installing in the alley beside the gallery.  That fun will be followed by a Street Art Lecture with Apex, Vulcan and Neonski talking about their signature “Super Burner” murals (some of which have as many as 500 colors in them).

All the deets are right here.

&%^$#@!!!

I've been doing this face for two days now...

Well I was going to post some great pics from Halloween but I dropped my external drive, where all my photos for the least several years live, and it’s totally bunk now, has to be shipped off to a hideously expensive data recovery place.  AAAAARGH!  I’ve taken my head out of the oven (at least temporarily) and if the Gods of Computers are willing, they will recover the images (aaaaaall the images, which are not backed up, I know, I know, bad bad bad) and I’ll be able to post something… eventually.  (Along with the huge backlog of other stuff I’ve been meaning to post pictures of, like APE, etc.  Sigh…)  Say a little prayer for my drive!

Your Child Is A Jackass

Nobody had heard of Groucho Marx.  No, it’s not a lost “Twilight Zone” episode, it’s what we experienced at the Halloween-Sooper-Dooper-Store in Berkeley.  This has got to be one of the 7 signs of the Apocalypse.  We were looking for a pair of classic “Groucho Glasses” only to discover that none of the three salespeople or the store manager had ever heard of Groucho, the Marx Brothers or even just “Groucho Glasses.”  The only specs in their computer inventory were Nerd Glasses with thick lenses and tape in the middle (thanks, I already own a prescription pair).  Nobody knows the Marx Brothers anymore?  Great, now I’ve got something besides global warming to fret about.

Educational Moment: these are "Groucho Glasses" and this is Groucho Marx

The other surprise was in the kiddie costume isle.  No, not the endless variations on Lil’Ho’s (Skanky the Witch!  Slutty the Cat!  Floozy the Fairy!).  Sadly those have been around long enough that they’ve lost their shock value.  What got my jaw dropping was actually in the boy’s costume section — it was a Toilet Costume.  (I guess if nothing else he’s armed and ready to t.p. someone’s house.) Unlike the model-perfect children pictured on the other packages, this poor kid was a sort of proto-geek with big silver braces.

I hope his modeling money went into a therapy fund.

Now if I had a nickel for every time my kid said “pee,” “fart” or “poo” I’d be a very rich, very annoyed gal.  (If I had a penny for every time he said “dong” I’d be a millionaire.)  But even he doesn’t want to dress as a toilet.  Was this costume-as-punishment?  Later at home I looked it up online where the text explained “Child toilet costume is also perfect for every potty mouth kid — Use as a modern day Dunce cap.” Yup, definitely start saving up for those therapy bills now.

Right next to that was an inflatable costume of an upside down donkey, with the smiling kid’s head protruding out of the donkey’s ass.  That’s right – it’s a Jackass Costume! They claim the costume is “surprisingly comfortable” but how comfortable is that kid going to be as the endless butt of donkey-butt jokes all night?

It IS surprising that it's comfortable....

Another family that should start a therapy fund.  (“No gifts this year, just donate to our account with Dr. Davenport again.”)  Somebody must be buying ‘em, or they wouldn’t bother to make the things, but I’m at a loss as to who would buy either of these or why. (“Well I really wanted to be Darth Vader but I guess a toilet would be okay…”)

I’m still working on my costume.  There will be silver, and big boots.  (And no, it’s not one of those fancy automatic coin-operated French public toilets.)

Babylon Burning

Just a quick shout out — Babylon Burning screen printing in SF has created a little gallery space in their shop, and they’ve got some very nifty stuff up right now by Clam Lynch:

as well as some posters by Lil Tuffy.  I had to pick up this one:

And I met the new love of my life at the shop, Basil:

Mike, who owns/runs the shop, has a pretty amazing story about a woman who slept with her pet boa.  Go drop in, check out the show, and get him to tell it you.

Sketch Tuesdays

If you’re in the Bay Area, you might just wanna stop in at 111 Minna tonight for Sketch Tuesdays.  (Sadly, I wont be there — I have “Scribble Every Day” here at the studio tonight.) A heap of artists will be drawing live and you can snap up (for a price) the results of their labors, while listening to DJ Sonny Phono and taking in some short films Jim Dirschberger.  Admission is FREE.

Date:	Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Time:	6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location:	111 Minna Gallery
Street:	111 Minna Street, San Francisco, CA

Double Trouble

If you’ve heard the rumors, it’s all true — Lisa Petrucci and I will be descending on La Luz de Jesus on Friday, Nov. 13th at 6pm for a double signing event!  She’ll have copies of her new book “Kick Ass Cuties” and I’ll have “On Tender Hooks.”

We’re also working on a signed, numbered, limited edition button set just for the event.  Stay tuned…

R.I.P. Vic Mizzy

Who’s Vic Mizzy?  He wrote (among other things) the theme songs for TV’s Green Acres and The Addams Family (accomplishments he was quite happy with, supposedly having said “Two snaps got me a mansion in Bel Air.”).  I’m a long time fan of some of his film work.

I Heart NYC

"I Love NY" logo, designed by Milton Glaser in 1976

On a cold February morning back in … a while ago, a little red-headed baby was born at St. Vincent’s hospital on 17th Street in New York City.  One of my mother’s friends sent her a telegram congratulating her on the birth of the baby orangutan.  (Har dee har har!)  I think that’s why no matter where I go, where I live, or how long I’m away, it always feels like coming home when I return to New York.  (Because of the “being born there” part, not so much the looking like a baby primate.)

And this trip was no different.  Rain washed the city clean the day I arrived (no familiar choking urine smell) after which the weather was perfect.  Fabulous friends put me up (and put up with me), I saw many good pals and reconnected with some old ones.  Two observations:  people in general are much friendlier in New York than they ever get credit for, and it’s amazing how many people still smoke in Manhattan!  I was convinced I was contracting emphysema waiting for a friend on a corner one afternoon, cough cough.  I’ll try to post a few highlights of the trip over the next few days, but I wanted to let folks in the NYC area know that if you missed my two signing events there, I did happen to leave a happy trail of signed books behind me — I basically seeded the East Village.

There are, as long as they last, signed copies of “On Tender Hooks” at St. Marks Books, Exit 9, Forbidden Planet and the Strand.

Exit 9 was a new pleasure, but those other three are places I have spent many hours and many dollars.  It’s completely surreal to have a book of my very own in these shops — I’m not kidding, I still do a double-take when I see it on the shelves.

Go to Exit 9 -- for all the cool stuff, and for the cool 'stache!

I particularly love the Strand in all it’s completely overwhelming glory — any bookstore that hands you a shopping bag the minute you step through the doors because they assume you wont be able to get out without benefit of a forklift is my kinda book store!  Their byline is “Home of 18 miles of New, Used, Rare and Out of Print Books.”  Sorry, I just drooled a little into the keyboard.

So if you’re in the East Village, you can go on a little treasure hunt and score yourself a signed book.  And if not, I happen to have some right here in the studio — just drop me a line!

Heads Up

One of my favorite things to do when I’m back in NYC is reconnect with old friends, which is why I always block out several hours to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This painting of “Judith with the Head of Holofernes” by Lucas Cranach the Elder was the inspiration for my painting “Golden Silence.”  (Don’t you think Jeannie would have gotten tired of saying “Yes, master” eventually?  I do.)  If you haven’t been reading up on your Old Testament lately you might not remember this one.  The Assyrians were pummeling the Israelites so Judith, being quite daring, got all tarted up and went to General Holofernes’ tent, seduced him, and when he fell asleep she lopped off his head. (Just like a praying mantis!  Well she didn’t bite it off.  She used a sword.  Much more sensible.)  The Assyrians were so freaked out by this that apparently they just packed up and left.  Judith, though beset my many suitors, remained single to her death.  (Maybe those guys were just being polite — I can’t imagine it would be easy to get a good night’s sleep with Judith — “Did I close the tent flap before I got into bed?  What if I left the goat’s milk out again…”)

Cranach revisited this subject quite a few times.  (You can play “spot the differences” with those two in the top row.)

Obsess much?

“And she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him.”  The Book of Judith 13:6-9

I love that — is there some way to use it in conversation?  “Don’t piss me off or I’ll take your head away!”  or “Don’t make me smite you twice!”  I think there’s something there.

It might not be fair to say Cranach was obsessed — a lot of the paintings of this era weren’t that different from illustration in that the artist would get a commission with a directive (“We want a really BIG assumption of the Virgin right over here, I mean I want to feel myself being sucked up into the heavens.  Can you do that?  And make it fit around this sacristy?”)  But I do wonder how much of it was his own idea.  (“WTF? We asked for an assumption and we got this big bloody beheading! Nice hat though…”)

Lucas Cranach the Elder had three sons who were also all painters, John Lucas Cranach, Hans Cranach, and Lucas Cranach the Younger.  (I know what you’re thinking but it’s not as bad as George Foreman naming all five of his sons George Foreman.)  He also had a daughter Barbara — I’m sure everyone just called her Babs.

Hans was a chip off the old block, here’s his Judith:

Like father like son...

She looks a bit bored but maybe she’s just tuckered out.  And Lucas the Younger painted this nice young lady.  I like it but… I dunno, something’s missing for me…

Where’s the big bloody head? He must’ve been such a disappointment to his father.  (“Seemed like an apt pupil but he just never got the knack for viscera…”)

Chris Moore, wonderfully funny author of many books including the vampire novel “You Suck!” actually has quite a bit so say about the dozens of artists who’ve painted Judith in “History of Art IV – Judy Gets Some Head.”  Verrrry funny and well worth a peek.

Go APE!

You know you wanna be there!

If you’re in the Bay Area, get ready to go APE!   One of the country’s most popular and vibrant alternative comics shows, The Alternative Press Expo returns to The Concourse Exhibition Center (620 7th St., San Francisco), rolling into the city by the bay this weekend, October 17 and 18, 2009.

On Sunday, Oct. 18th, 5:00–5:45, come check us out for Pop Perversity: Parody in Comics and Art — “Isabel Samaras (On Tender Hooks) and R. Sikoryak (Masterpiece Comics), parodists from the worlds of art and comics, show their work and describe how their sharp, sly images blur the boundaries between the popular and the profound, the propagandistic and the profane. Parody is a familiar part of our culture, but when done right it can still shock and awe, revealing deep truths while it makes us cackle.”  (Cartoons! Naked ladies and gents! Geeky in-jokes!)

The APE programming room is located adjacent to the Exhibit Hall.  Be there or be L7!