quote of the day----H.L. Mencken

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl."

central park--by gardega

I ran a few miles in Central Park this morning. It was filled with cops and paramilitary as the pope was due to pass through. I sat down next to an old timer and we started talking about the police and the military and the erosion of civil liberties etc. He told me he spent two years in a communist prison near romania for speaking out against the government. He said they would torture him every day by putting his hand in a door and slamming it--- he showed me his bent fingers. He said America is crazy for giving up her liberties and rights. I agreed with him. If we wind up in a fascist theocracy or world communist government it is going to be like living everyday inside a dept. of motor vehicles.

orion nebula

I found this picture on the Nasa website today. This image is proof to me that there is no longer a need for abstract painting. Man has never even come close to achieving something of this power in abstract art. Lay down thy brushes.

magnetotail

This image is explained in posting below. this reminds me of an angel, a magnetic angel.

magneto tail

the earth is surrounded by a bubble of magnetism, this is in part to the molten metal "dynamo" core of the earth. this "bubble" stretches out into space into a "tail" that is basically a long mass of charged particles. If you ever look up and see it is a full moon you can know that the moon is in the middle of our magnetotail. When the moon is in our magnetotail she is being bombarded by charged particles. On the dark side of the moon this can cause the surface to raise into thousands of volts of electrostatic energy. There is speculation that this can actually create a wind, an electrical wind that raise particles into the air etc. This is one of Nasa's pictures to illustrate the tail...

bladder drugs cause memory loss

I read this morning that bladder drugs cause memory loss. I think that is how they are supposed to work. If you forget that you wet yourself then it doesnt really matter that your shorts are wet. what matters is perception. brilliant!

Update---by gardega

I have been back at my zen inspired watercolors. The more I mature in art the more I realize that there is a large philosophical difference between making art that is concerned with the "process" or "the journey" and making art that is concerned primarily with having a nice finished product to hang above and match your sofa ---Maybe the two meet somewhere on a dusty highway. It is very unlike me to leave out a lot of detail in my work but for some reason I have been working in a minimal fashion on these watercolors. I don't think it is laziness because I like to paint detail. It is more about restraint. Notice my 5 foot "priest" painting tucked behind my desk watching me paint....These are for sale if anyone wishes to buy one or all. Just state which one you would like to see from left to right and I will email you a better photo/ version of it.

article of the day

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559967&in_page_id=1770

quote of the day

Anatole France - "It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion."

how to be a great artist---by gardega

If you are determined (or have a deep rooted wish to be an "artiste") I would like to offer up the rules of engagement that I have gathered up like crumbs in a german forest over the years.

the rules:

1) First you must have a great and unforgettable name before you even take a step onto the rocky path towards fame. Names as Picasso, Dali, Goya, Magritte, Kubin. These are names that carry with them the faint yet unmistakable odor of grandeur and destiny.


2) second it is best to have rich parents as you will not have to pick old pizza out of trash bins for ten years as you strive against impossible odds that would weigh down the most heroic of figures. Gardega had not such luxuries but you can compensate with stubbornness and tenacity and know that one day after the ten thousandth try you will find the right filament to light the bulb of truth and success.


3)thirdly, you must think for yourself and avoid the groupthink of modern life and it is best to be an individual to the 9th degree if you are understood or not you will be better off as it is much better to fail as Gardega than to be another at any cost.

4) Press my friend!!! If you are an unkown artist it is because you are not putting your turkey neck on the chopping block of fear and rejection. It is best to be known and to have people read about you and to buy your art. If you would prefer to hide in the shadows and drive a milk truck down the road of failed destinies you are so entitled! It is good to be on TV and radio and in the gossips and on the pavement casting the long shadows of envy among your comrades.

5) throw out your television. If you spend your time in front of the idiot box your mind with bog down like a chicken in a glue factory. Read those little things called books and research and study and do geometry and be not lazy. If you need to visit bacchus when your mind is weighed down with problems of analytical geometry and you cannot sleep then wine is fine and as baudelaire famously said "stay drunk young man" stay drunk on art, and life and wisdom and words.

ghost of renoir---by gardega

SOLD


watercolor on Arches paper 22" x 30".

This watercolor is done on a wonderfully crafted (and expensive) sheet of arches watercolor paper. I recommend when framing it that it is framed behind glass in a "Shadow Box" type frame so the rough edges of the paper are visible to the viewer as opposed to being hidden by a matte.

AHPPY RITHDBYA

GARDEGA SAYS "THINK OUTSIDE THE MAILBOX!"

another chance apparel

a good friend and collector of my work sent me an email about her clothing line and I thought I would share it on here. Her name is mary and she is a popular DJ in Westchester NY on 103.9 WFAS..

I have a side project to tell you about - Another Chance Apparel - with my co-worker, JJ Kennedy. It's a line of shirts that have been recycled from cotton waste and plastic bottles spun into fabric and made into shirts. The concept is: Everyone and everything deserves Another Chance - people deserve another chance and so do 'things.' Manufacturing tee shirts made from recycled fabric requires 2/3 less energy, it keeps plastic soda bottles out of landfills, and is just as soft and cozy as regular cotton or organic cotton shirts. Plus, since the cotton is recycled, no pesticides or chemicals were used to grow and maintain cotton fields for these shirts.

Please check out the Another Chance Apparel website at www.marydesilva.com (it's very bare, I built it myself, the real site will be up as soon as my webmaster is done with finals!!) and on MySpace at:
www.myspace.com/anotherchanceapparel


feel free to view/ buy her shirts!

color of the day----green

I chose green as the color of the day because there is a large amount of focus on the environment and the green movement. As an artist I like to keep the planet in good shape myself and worry about the oceans etc. The downside of the whole thing is that if we are not careful with how we legislate we create greater problems. Because of the mandates on Biodiesel many very poor countries are losing their main source of food---CORN. There are food riots and the price of the foodstuffs many of these countries survive on is through the roof. I would rather stick to oil if it keeps these third world people from staving and eating tree bark to survive. Also, a global carbon tax and all the talk about carbon footprint etc is a great way to simply throw another tax on the plate of "the little guy." If you do not think that the "global elite" are getting an extended chuckle out of a "global carbon tax" you are mistaken---If you really peel back the layers and use your grey matter you will see that a carbon tax is essentially a tax on our breath---We exhale carbon. I hope you see the humor in that one... I hope we solve our planets enviro problems but I do not want idiots writing impactful legislation that causes more problems than it solves. I feel like drawing a political cartoon of a poor family at a dinner table and the mother telling the young child to drink his biodiesel....

kilauea--by gardega

Here is a great photo of a lava flow in Kilauea Hawaii. This reminds me of the mouth of hell as it is depicted in many old Flemish paintings and by the Bosch "school of art".

amused to death---flicker rate

I have totally given up watching television. I got rid of mine and I often miss it. I feel that I have to replace the "zombie time" with other things to keep me occupied. FYI, it is a little known fact that the flicker rate of a television was optimized to create an hypnotic effect in humans----Increase flicker rate and you can bring on epileptic seizures.

update---by gardega

Long day in the salt mines trying to wrap up loose ends on projects. I get a big kick when I look at my blog map and I can see where people log in from. Someone from Brisbane, Australia has caught on to the site. I have no idea how people find it but it motivates me to stay on my toes and stay out of the bars and work away. I have taken another photo of my Ghost of Renoir and will post tonight.

ghost of renoir

I finally attacked my 20 dollar sheet of watercolor paper (22 x 30 inches). It is nice to work with good quality paper and supplies. I finished this last night at 3am and this is a really bad photo and I must re-shoot tonight. This piece is concerned with and influenced by the novel "the other side" by Alfred Kubin. It is influenced by that novel in spirit, not in a direct visual fashion to the story line. I chose the name for this piece the ghost of Renoir because it brings to mind the paintings of Renoir's women with umbrellas. I wish I had a better photo but I am off to Brooklyn and I have no time to re-shoot.


On a sullen and blighted shore
where the hands of time can reach no more
there walks the ones who came before
as if the sky had never changed
as if the blood still flows in veins---gardega

quote of the day--carl jung

Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves.

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.

That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.

– C.G. Jung, 1959

buddha statue

no one thought the buddha statue resembled Bush sr. which I thought was an obvious likeness---Not that I consider any politician to have Buddha nature...

wine cellar mural--by gardega (longview)

here is a long view of mural...

wine cellar mural---by gardega

This is a shot of the finished wine cellar. I think the room itself is a work of art. It was a six month labor of love by the homeowner to create this room.

mural photos---by gardega

I went back to the wine cellar I painted today to take some shots (now that the wine cellar construction is 100% completed.) It was strange being in a room again where I spent three weeks working on a ceiling, the room felt like an old friend.. This is the Da Vinci inspired center of the 16 foot mural---Specifically it is the Battle of Anghiari. For any issues I have with the painting itself I forgive myself because I painted standing and straining my neck for three weeks.