Illustration Friday: Tea

This is my husband. He fetches me tea. He treats me like a queen. Isn't he a good sport? Being raised in the south, I grew up believing tea and coffee were merely vehicles for delivering milk and Dixie Crystals to my system. I still pretty much believe that. I tried to get into the whole herbal tea thing, but it just never worked for me. I still enjoy very sweet tea, though. And I hope you enjoy my interpretation this week. Come back next week to see which family member I exploit in the name of art.

Rainy Days and Thursdays...

It is raining today, just like yesterday and the day before that, and probably tomorrow. Usually I like the rain, but here in February, when things are at their bleakest foliage-wise, it is especially dreary. When I remember the extreme dullness of the long winters I endured up north, however, it doesn't seem so bad. And the rain does have a wonderful ability to wash things clean [shades of Travis Bickel] so that is a plus. I did this linoleum print/collage/painting of a car lot in the nearby "metropolis" of Wilmington. Not terribly scenic, but I do like the rain effect. I look forward to spring.

Illustration Friday: Song, Part 2

Well, it takes a little more time to come up with some stuff. This is a linoleum block print I did specifically for the Illustration Friday "song" theme. It is a print, with collage and acrylic added. I used my son to pose playing his guitar on the front porch steps for this piece. I am fortunate to have such good-natured children who will model for me on a regular basis. They are a blessing in my life. You can catch the eBay auction on this piece here. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7392998172 The auction doesn't start until 8:45 pm tonight [Wednesday], so before that time you won't be able to click through. Thanks for stopping by, and comments are always appreciated. *

Illustration Friday: Song, Part I

I did some drawings awhile back based on various musical forms, using people and fruits or vegetables to express something about the particular musical form I was illustrating. So, I got a lot of blank stares, but am finally finding some people who understand them, which is as fantastic as it is scary. This piece is called Dirge, which is a sort of funeral march. It contains a fairly grumpy woman and a slice of a blood orange. I felt in my mind that she was rather ticked off that her husband of 52 years had left at a most inopportune time, as he often did, although this time permanently. I believe she was still berating him on the way home from the graveside. To all things there is a limit.

Business Reply Mail - Part 2

Well, today I finished "Give", the companion piece to "Take", which I published in the previous post. They are inspired by old photos from my parents, who belonged to a civic group in which they were very active. It was always very mysterious to me as a child, because they would hire a babysitter for us while they went out to their meetings. They were always giving and getting awards, too. They have tons of pictures from those days showing women in heavy glasses and polyester dresses, and men with bad hairpieces and polyester suits. Polyester seems to be the common thread, which in some strange way brings me back to the business reply mail stuff. It is odd that the two are somehow connected in my mind. Or not.

Business Reply Mail

I don't know about you, but I open ALL my mail, even the stuff I know is junk, because you never know what kind of hidden treasures are lurking inside. I have stacks and stacks of fake credit cards just waiting for an artistic inspiration that will make them into something wonderful. I rarely have to print out return address stickers because I get them free, and I never have to buy a new calendar. My refrigerator is covered in meaningless magnets that are sent to me by credit card companies and realtors, should I ever get the urge to list my house. Having read about my neighborhood, you can probably understand why I wouldn't want to leave. I love a good mystery. Then there is the ubiquitous Business Reply Envelope. They come in everything. I figured there must be some use for these, too, so I did some funny little collages with them, added a little gesso, and used them for drawing backgrounds. This is one I did this evening called Take. I'll do it's counterpart, Give, maybe tomorrow. Recycling is a good thing.

Evolutionary Misgivings

I find illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, and pretty much anything Gothic to be really cool. I like the rhythm of repetitive images, even if they only make sense to me, which is usually the case. This piece is part of a series I started called Evolutionary Misgivings. It is meant to question how it could possibly occur to anyone that we evolved from some sort of sea creatures. Or apes. Or whatever; I prefer the Genesis account. But anyway, I meant it merely to be a question-your-faith issue, but it was perhaps not so well received, which is probably why I am storing it in my friend Bill's office. It is the only place on earth more heaped with stuff than my own house. The piece is an unlikely conglomeration of stainless steel, drypoints, and antique wallpaper. I like it, and Bill seems to tolerate it well, and I imagine God will have a thing or two to say about it one day. I hope He likes it.

Illustration Friday: Simple

I am submitting a piece for Illustration Friday tonight for the first time. This week's theme is "Simple". I thought about how I would illustrate this theme for a long time. OK, well, it was only for a couple of hours, actually, but that's a long time for me. I hope you enjoy my drawing.

Nuke Thy Neighbor

We moved from Los Angeles to Castle Hayne, North Carolina in 1994. It was a big improvement, since there was a meth lab next door to us in LA, and the neighbors shot at us, whereas here everyone in our neighborhood appears to be in the Witness Protection Program, and they only shoot the deer and squirrels. I honestly have neighbors that I have not seen in all those years since we moved here. The cars occasionally park slightly differently, but you NEVER see any people. There's something very odd about that. However, that doesn't keep them from shooting at something, and gunshots are not uncommon. Castle Hayne has a Piggly Wiggly, a post office, and a bank in a double wide trailer. It's a far cry from the traffic on the 405. It's a nice quiet place to raise kids, and I know that if we are ever attacked, my neighbors will have the weapons to defend us. And know how to use them. I did this piece called Nuke Thy Neighbor. It's what I suspect my neighbors might look like, should I ever catch a glimpse of them.

Bird of Paradise

OK, so I love old wallpapers, and I've garnered quite a collection of them over the years. One roll just happened to be this wonderful metallic silver vinyl with yellow and strawberry fluff stripes, and bright orange flocking. It takes me back to my childhood in a way that only an avocado green stove and matching refrigerator can do. Anyway, I knew it was made for some sort of campy art moment. How that evolved into this woman bird, I'm not quite sure. You can see her, and others like her here. http://stores.ebay.com/Natalie-Schorr_Paintings_W0QQcolZ2QQdirZQ2d1QQftidZ2QQtZkm It reminds me of the days of astronauts and tang and deviled eggs. I had a poncho with Spanish ball fringe on it. Really.

Aura of the Perfect Hostess

I love bouncing between collage, drawing, and printmaking, which is either evidence of my versatility, or my inability to concentrate on one thing; probably the latter. Anyway, I use a lot of old magazines for my collages, most from the 50's and 60's. In going through these aging volumes, it occurs to me that what we eat has changed quite a lot. I see more advertisements for peas and peaches than just about any other food. Why was that? Were the pea and peach lobbies so strong back then that it was all anyone knew to eat? I tried to remember when was the last time I ate canned peas or peach halves, and I couldn't, so I had peas for dinner tonight. No one else would touch them. Figures.

Parallel journeys

I went to my 25th high school reunion a couple of years ago. Few things in my life have been more surreal than seeing all my high school compatriots again. While it was very interesting to catch up to some of the people, it was also weird and disconcerting, like the feeling you get when you eat too much chicken vindaloo. I was glad to go home. How much peace, love, and disco music must one person endure? I did this drawing awhile back. It is of an area of Pittsburgh near where I used to live. I have not been there in many years, and I suspect I would no longer know it now. Would the city remember me? Probably not. And in a strange way, that's good.

Linoleum revisited

So I'm back here, destroying the purity of the print world much more. This is the linoleum block print I was working on a few days ago, although it is almost unrecognizable as a lino print because of all I've done to it. I collaged and painted into it a whole lot, which I think and hope improved it a bit from the stark B&W I started with. It was fun, so I don't care. It is a street scene in Pittsburgh, in a rather notorious area called the Hill District, an area for which the series Hill Street Blues was named, but that is a different story. I lived in Pittsburgh for 9 years; three years getting an MFA at Carnegie-Mellon, and 6 more years because I was too stupid to realize that it was too cold and grey for me to survive. But at some point, my mind thawed, and I retreated to points south, never to shovel out my car again. All in all, Pittsburgh is a lovely city in its own way, and I'm glad for the years there. Go Steelers!

On the merits of letting go

Like a lot of people my age, I have a couple hundred record albums dating from the mid 60's to the mid 80's. Somewhere there, I stopped buying records, or they stopped making them; I can't remember which. Anyway, I was at the Goodwill the other day looking for books to destroy for my Dreams Project, when I spied it. Crates and crates of old record albums. What could you do with these things? I don't even own a record player anymore. I flipped through a few, looking at their artistic merit, or lack thereof, and then it hit me. I bet you could spiff up these things and they'd be a great wealth of cheap ideas. So I went home and found my album collection, and decided that yes, it was time to let go. Here is my first altered album cover, Steppenwolf's At Your Birthday Party. I suspect there are several more of these to come. I am already ruminating on Breakfast in America. That woman needs some tattoos...

Printmaking

I love printmaking, although I am sure I would be classified as the lousiest printmaker on the planet. I took a printmaking class once at our local art museum. The teacher was a VERY SERIOUS maker of etchings. She made sure her editions were complete, perfect, and properly numbered and signed. OK, very nice, but where's the spontaneity in that, I wondered? I tried to conform to her rules, but in the end went my own way. I enjoy etchings, drypoints, and especially linoleum. It's fun to print on all kinds of things, smear colors on afterward, and in general use the print as merely a starting point for a piece. I'm sure the print police are shaking their heads and saying "Oooh, that's baaaaad!" I only decided to go off on this tangent because I had carved a street scene yesterday, and was printing it tonight, and plotting what I would do with it tomorrow. Of course, I can't show it to you now because it's wet, but I will show you other linoleum prints I did recently. They are printed on old book pages, collaged, painted, and so forth. I enjoyed doing them. Just don't tell the print police where I blog. *