Jupiter's surface

When I see an abstract painting this good I will accept abstract art as an art form..

flower of life

happy fourth of july weekend

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Fourth of July. I have a busy July ahead and plan to make as much art as possible! I have added a counter to my blog so that is exciting--it' s the little things that make me happy. If I am lucky I will have some press coming up soon which is always good, press is like steroids for a baseball player...you need it but it always makes you feel weird. Can anyone name this man?

summer read

Here is what I am reading....this and a book about the Beatles called Shout! EMC2 book is okay, interesting, but could have been better written..Beatles book is well written...

words of the day...

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to have known,
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello.

On the corner is a banker with a motorcar,
The little children laugh at him behind his back.
And the banker never wears a mac
In the pouring rain, very strange.

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back

In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen.
He likes to keep his fire engine clean,
It's a clean machine.

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
A four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway.

In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer,
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim.
And then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain, very strange.

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back.
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies,
Penny Lane.

artist of the day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Knotts

there are artists and then there are artists...

quote of the day

You are a sick, sick man.

And I mean that in the best possible way.---journalist from a major New York daily newspaper after a recent vieiwing of my last supper painting

NART VS. ART

today I created the term NART. This is my word and I created it today to specify what is art and what is not art.

For example---Dogs Playing Poker---NART

Photos of mrs. Greenbaum's Poodles----NART


Drawings and paintings by Gardgea--- Mucho ART


Photos of three legged dogs---could be Art

dumbing down

I used to worry that America was one of the few countries that was being "dumbed down" but now I am convinced that we are not alone and I am comforted by that thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhlERjW0bhw

one could hope that the audience was goofing on this poor soul but I am sorry to say they were not...

the average human or world citizen can tell you the names of the cast of seinfeld but do not ask them about the world around them outside the idiot box.

dogs playing poker

Most people know the image of Dogs Playing Poker. These paintings were painted by an illustrator (a quaker) from NY who was commissioned to paint them as advertisements for cigars. Many critics call them schlock- art. I take the stance that they were "work for hire" and created for advertisement purposes so they must be viewed in that context. The fact that they were commissioned as illustrations mean they were not created by an artist for the sake of making a statement or to change anything but rather to collect a check. I do my share of commercial/ illustration work and I do believe there is a difference between fine art and illustration... My only question is this--is that piece of Americana-kitsch any worse than the crap we are spoon fed by galleries today. Is it any worse than a shark rotting in formaldehyde? I went to the met and saw that shark and it was so depressing I had to run back to see my Rembrandt's to feel a sense of hope for humanity. I am not defending dogs playing poker, I am using it as a watermark for our collective sense of taste (or lack thereof.)

MRI

I would like to thank Stand UP MRI on 77th and 2nd for accepting my painting in exchange for an MRI scan of my squishy- grey matter. I have spent hours looking on the internet comparing my brain to other images. I have a sneaking suspicion that artist brains are like the brains of crazy people and I am excited to continue searching for such links. I do believe I have enlarged ventricles which according to "the net" seems to be common in those who have gone around the bend. Also, bright white spots are something you dont really want-- if you have your druthers (which you don't) I guess there is not a ton you can do if you find out you have a bad hunk of grey cheese upstairs as replacing it with a new one is prohibitively expensive for the average human.

headline of the day

Sunny Side Of Creative Destruction

(I found this on Forbes online.....)

MRI

today I spent the Day with a photographer and reporter from a nyc newspaper. They followed me around as I bartered my art throughout NYC. My favorite trade was a stand up brain MRI for a painting. I am very imppressed with the technology and have many ideas for artwork using the MRI images. The above image is actually an MRI of my face. It was an odd experience and took about 1/2 an hour of sitting dead still with magnets whirring around my skull. If all goes well I will have an article out as well.

website

my website www.gardega.com has been overhauled--still needs some work but It is getting there..

Brain MRI

Alex is most excited today because I have managed to trade a piece of art for a brain MRI! I am most excited because I am convinced and always have been convinced that my brain is-- how should I say---"shaped a bit different." Tomorrow I will get a stand up MRI while a reporter and a photographer watch me get "scanned." I am as excited as a child at Christmas...I have been obsessed with magnets my whole life and I have always wanted an MRI of grey matter! I will upload the actual scan when I get back home...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique that uses a magnetic field and radio waves to create cross-sectional images of your head and body. Your doctor uses these detailed, clear images to identify and diagnose a wide range of conditions.

blueberry on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290242700265

quote of the day

Steven Wright - "A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths."

blueberry pastry

Veniero's Pastries in NYC gave me a bunch of pastries to paint yesterday. Some of them got a bit mashed- up in transit but here is a work in progress of a blueberry pastry. They are really like little works of art in themselves..this painting is only about 50% finished. The inspiration to paint these came form a book of old Spanish still life paintings that had a bunch of great paintings of confections. This wil be finished today and up for bid. Contact me to purchase.

quote of the day--plato

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Plato

"Eyes of Texas" update

Here is a photo of my work in progress---"The Eyes Of Texas..." I would say that she is about 65% done...I may barter or sell her, not sure yet. If you want to buy her please contact me via email.

medieval monks and mercury

Damaged Skull

June 27, 2008 -- Medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries reveal that monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials may have been exposed to toxic mercury, which was used to formulate just one of their ink colors: red.

The study, which will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, also describes a previously undocumented disease, called FOS, which was like leprosy and caused skull lesions. Additionally, the researchers found that mercury-containing medicine had been administered to 79 percent of the interred individuals with leprosy and 35 percent with syphilis.

Since the monks, who were buried in the cloister walk of the Cistercian Abbey at Øm, did not have these diseases but contained mercury in their bones, scientists believe the monks were either contaminated while preparing and administering medicines, or while writing the artistic letters of incunabula, or pre-1500 A.D. books.

Kaare Lund Rasmussen, a University of Southern Denmark scientist at the Institute of Physics and Chemistry, suspects that ink used in the abbey's scriptorium was the culprit.

He told Discovery News "it is very human to lick the brush, if one wants to make a fine line."

Even today "one should really not touch, or much less rub, the parchment pages of an incunabulum," Lund Rasmussen said, adding that mercury "was used in the first place because cinnabar (a type of mercury) has this bright red, beautiful color."

It is also known that metallic liquid mercury was given in vapor form to diseased patients. So if the monks "were just a little careless, they would be exposed this way, however, they might also be exposed during the preparation of the medicine."

For the study, Lund Rasmussen and his team drilled bone samples from the buried individuals, some of which were also friars buried in the cloister walk of the Franciscan Friary in Svendborg. Unlike the Øm monks, the friars showed no signs of mercury poisoning.

FYI--the flourescent bulbs everyone is cheering about in america are full of the same mercury

viva millet!!

Yesterday I went to the met and viewed some Millet paintings I had not seen before! This painting stopped me in my tracks---He was a true master and another artist I hear very few people speak about anymore. This painting is a true masterpiece (bad photo) In fact, this is one of the great works of all time!


Mystery 10

color 10

Mood 10


skill 9.5


drawing 9

I was standing next to a person mumbling about the artists Gerome and his "genius" and I knew they were blind to the genius of what was in front of them.

Gardega on Painting

Most artists are not writers nor are they philosophers but rather they are “noodlers” pencil and brush “pushers” whose work is severely limited by their lack of learning in the areas of literature, philosophy and humanity. Leonardo lived a life of shame because his name was not “high born” as was his rival's Michelangelo. Michelangelo need only to look back in his rear view mirror a few miles to see a line of princes and dignitaries who shared the Buonarroti name. Leonardo was a bastard child whose “low born” name simply meant “from the town of Vinci.” Leonardo spent a lifetime trying to learn and better himself to fill up the hole left by this “embarrassment.” The point that alex will make here is that to be a great artist you do not need to be “high born” nor “low born” but rather hungry-born to learn all you can about the humanities and science and the world around you. Modern society and her artist spawn have been dumbed down by modern life and media to the point that they have lost site of what an artist could (or should) be-- that is a man of learning and letters with more than a passing understanding of science and literature and architecture. One need only walk around the “modern galleries” of our cities and see the art of emptiness and nihilistic nothingness that is scarcely better than the well painted white walls on which they hang. They are well meaning but they are empty and can therefore only produce works of “emptiness” I often speak to other artists and inquire as to who were the great painters of the past and they will inevitably dribble off name after name of some second rate hacks who followed one or another system and they will use words like “buttery paint” and “wonderfully reckless” and so on, ad nauseam…I will then ask them further questions regarding their understanding of geometry and literature and science and I will find I am standing before a befuddled fool with no such understand save a methodology they learned years ago by another buffoon. I often try to throw a lifeline to such lost souls as throwing pearls before them results in only the snorting and chortling of a mud covered barn swine. I say to the, dear reader, that without an understanding of literature and the classics and science our art will remain in a sewer and the unlearned will continue to slop their slop onto the trays of our “assembly line minds” and that a revolution of learning is needed, a renaissance of art and thought so we can return to the lofty plains of great art and taste we once knew…If you are not a learned person, a thirsty scholar of the humanities you are like a race car driver in a 1974 Pinto--- Your intentions are good but you are in the wrong lane.

barter project

I will update my barter project!

update

I am 90% finished with my "Eyes of Texas"painting--- will upload photograph tomorrow. My 90' glass wall has been delayed a week (not my fault.) It looks like I have some NYC press coming up soon which is always welcome. there is still time to bid on my Mcsorleys painting in my Ebay store.