In Stitches Part Deux

Okay so today was totally crazy — up at dawn (or thereabouts) to get the painting prepped for Dana, super fab photographer, which I then picked up later in the morning with pal Carrie, then we high tailed it into the city to get the piece framed up and shipped off to LA (interrupted by a brief but fantastic lunch and at some point the purchase of kick ass lip gloss).  The whole day felt like some kind of relay race.

I’m so sad that I didn’t think to take a snap of the framed piece — Randy (the unsung hero of my work) always finds THE perfect frame for everything I do and man, he knocked it out of the park this time with a gorgeous and huuuuge honking frame from a discontinued line.  It is beyond the beyond and it’s killing me that I don’t have a picture of it.  (If anybody goes to the “Monsters?” show @ Copro Nason, please take a snap and send it to me!  More on the show in a minute.)

So yesterday I was talking about my exhaustive research into the ins and out of surgical stitches, and this is what I ended up doing:

It's a raccoon-ocelot-skunk-enstein!

I was trying to keep them subtle and not too distracting — just enough of a hint so that you’d get that he was sewn together if you looked closely.

And if you’re curious what the whole critter looks like with his blinged out pimp cup, here’s a fairly glare-filled snap of “Things That Go Crunk In The Night:”

I only wish you could see it in all its framed glory!

If you wanna see this little guy in person, just head on over to Copro Nason this Saturday, July 11th, from 8pm to 11:30pm and check out all his creepy friends in “Monsters?”, curated by the meticulous Travis Louie.

UPDATE:  Gary @ Copro was kind enough to send me this pic of the piece in its frame (the black outer border is part of the frame).  This is all carved wood, not resin, with little leaves and acorns n’ wotnot.  Sweet, right?

The Sountrack of Your Life

I love soundtracks. It started out with classic horror movies, which naturally expanded to include Italian horror and more contemporary fare, and now I’ll listen to just about any soundtrack to anything at least once, whether it’s orchestral or a song compilation. They are the best music in the world to paint to: you can bop along to “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” , warble with “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, swoon to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” or snap your fingers with “Crime Jazz: Music in the First Degree.” (Actually it’s pretty tough to snap your fingers and paint at the same time, you have to be a seasoned soundtrack painter to pull this off — don’t try this at home, kids.)

My friend Joe does album design for Film Score Silver Age Classics among others (I know they’re CDs but I’m still calling ‘em albums dammit, and I for one really miss the larger format for album art). He’s laid some really fine discs on me over the years including the aforementioned “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” volumes 1 *and* 2 thank-you-very-much, “Planet of the Apes,” Born Free,” “Fantastic Voyage,” “Batman,” “I Spy,” and a bunch of others.

But one of my all time faves is “The Ghost & Mr. Chicken,” a Don Knotts movie that I don’t remember quite as well as “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” (which led to a brief period of drawing sexy cartoon fish when I was kid).

The terrific score was composed by Vic Mizzy, who’s probably best known for the themes to “Green Acres” and “The Addams Family.” How can you not love an album when the first track is called “Gaseous Globe”? It’s got a great creepy organ solo in it that really sticks in your head. That seems to be a Mizzy specialty — head-sticky music, stuff you can’t shake out of your cranium for several days no matter how many times you listen to the new M.I.A. album.

My other fave funny/goofy soundtrack is “Mad Monster Party”, a Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated movie from the late 60′s. If you don’t know this movie, it’s worth a peep — Mad Magazine creator Harvey Kurtzman wrote it, and Jack Davis (also Mad Magazine as well as EC monster comics) designed the characters. This is one of those movies I saw as a kid and then spent twenty years trying to remember the name of (yeah I know, what is wrong with my brain?). When I found it again (originally on homemade VHS from eBay) I was insanely giddy. There’s an awesome skeleton band, a sexy redhead, and Phyllis Diller and Boris Karloff both *sing* in the movie (and on the soundtrack) — what more do you need to know? Run, don’t walk, to the video store (or your Netflix queue).

And speaking of soundtracks and monsters, my friend Steven was inspired by the paintings in the Monster Ballads show to come up with a “soundtrack” of beautiful ambient music/collaged sound/original compositions to listen to while you look at the paintings. He said I could share a bit of it with you here. I’ll post more if he lets me. <g>

Update 1/16/08: Another piece of Steven’s music for Monster Ballads is here.

And if you’re curious just who this Steven guy is, you can check out his MySpace page.

2nd Chance

If you missed the “Monster Ballads” show at Copro Nason, here’s a second chance to see a few of the pieces. They will be at Perihelion Arts in Phoenix, AZ, as part of an exhibition called Intrepid that runs January 4th through the 30th.  (The model for the furry “cousin itt” lady reading in the card below is my mom!)

I Fall To Pieces

Brand spankin’ new, hot off the laser cutter — a new puzzle!   Is it just me or do jigsaw puzzles really RULE?  I love ‘em, I literally can’t walk by one in progress without stopping to work on it.  I think this kind of stuff really speaks to me, a mix of art and “object”  – it goes all the way back to the lunch box and TV tray paintings I used to do and this idea of taking something from childhood and appropriating it for adult use.  (Okay the puzzles are not pornographic like the lunch boxes were.  Yet. <g>) Why should art just be this static thing that lives only on your wall? I really dig the idea that people can play with their art.

So here they are in all their multi-piece glory, just in time for the holidays!  The completed puzzles are 12 x 16 inches, the color is lush and lovely, the spiral cuts are intricate and mesmerizing.  They come in a nifty round canister, each of which will be signed and numbered.  The edition for this puzzle is only 50, they are $50 each (plus shipping), and they have 50 pieces — just kidding!  They actually have 192 pieces — *that* oughta keep you busy for a while!   Please email me if you want one (that way I can make sure I don’t run out and you can pick your shipping method — isamaras@mac.com).  I’d like to put a little “Buy It Now” button on here but this close to the holidays I feel like I need to micro-manage this a bit.

Note: These are not the same as the hand-cut wooden puzzles (edition of 10) that I had in LA for the “Monster Ballads” show — these are more traditional cardboard puzzles, 1/16th inch thick, hence they are much more affordable!  It’s still a limited edition release tho’, so if you reeeeally want one, don’t wait around too long.

Did I mention I *love* jigsaw puzzles?

When Words Fail Me…

“ I feel a very unusual sensation — if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.”  ~Benjamin Disraeli

I am constantly blown away by how completely terrific people can be, rock solid, rock steady, and rockin’ my world.  It floors me every time when folks travel to come to my openings — this last show broke some kind of informal record for “modes of transportation.”  Some spent all diggity day long on  buses, others drove across state lines, and a few flew down.  I couldn’t have been more surprised if someone had clomped into the gallery on a the back of a dusty burro.

How to thank these hardy travelers? When in doubt, I make things.  Seeing each and every ones of their faces at the opening meant so much to me, so I took the faces from the four Monster Martyr paintings in the “Monster Ballads” show and made a button set.  It took a while to get them in the mail, but they’re finally out there.