framed

My friend amy sent me this photo today. She bought my spirit painting and did a nice job framing it. You can tell she is a lawyer and not a photographer. I love to see framed photos. A thing well framed is a good thing.

doodle of the day

when I am on the phone I usually pick up the closest pencil and or pen and doodle without thinking...I drew this yesterday---When you are on the phone you draw some strange things.

alex's birthday

Alex is another year older next week. If anyone wants to send me a gift you can send me hot sauce. I collect hot sauce and pour it on everything I eat..the hotter the better! No wimpy sauce.


486 east 74th st. apt 2b
New York, NY.
10021

When my grandma passed away I got back some old paintings. Here is one that was in her attic, I painted this in 4th grade...all those years ago..I entered this in my first art show..Light is a constant thread in my work since I was a child.

the greatest image of all time

I realized tonight after I spent six hours cleaning up my desktop and images (thousands) that there is one single image that I believe is the greatest image ever created by a human/ artist, it is not Raphael or Michaelangelo or Leonardo or even Gardega...it is the unknown genius that was Alfred Kubin. I have little doubt that there is not a better image better image created by a human than this image. I don't want to hear about your mona lisas and the like, "there is a presence here no one denies..." I have been obsessed with pictures since I was two and I have made my call....

ebay

I have listed Lost Souls on ebay. I can probably get a lot more from my gallery in NYC but I decided to put it up for sale today.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290282032049

award winning photograph explained

Here is a photograph that won first prize in the metro global photo challenge--beating out 55,000 other photos. What I like about the whole story is that it was just a guy with a point and shoot camera, not some gadget geek with a million lenses and the like. I decided to look into its geometric composition to see why it is pleasing to the eye. I used the Gardega Method of perfect geometric compositon ot see if it follows my idea of perfect geometry. First I chose the horizon line (blue) it is facing up hill so it is a bit higher than one would normally choose. Next one should divide photograph along its diagonal. Where these two lines meet is the best place for a point of interest. I figured this method out by dissecting Goya's work over a few months time. I call it the Gardega Method because no one knows that goya used this except me and he aint telling on me. Art is much more than lines and geometry and without soul you have nothing but I wanted to prove why this picture won even though the photographer has no idea he was using the Gardega Method.

torture---the art of....

I read today that there is a large group of musicians that are upset that their music is being used to torture detainees at GUANTANAMO BAY. They play the music extremely loud morning nand night and it is a means to break down the prisoner and drive them insane.

these songs are being used.

"Enter Sandman," Metallica.

• "Bodies," Drowning Pool.

• "Shoot to Thrill," AC/DC.

• "Hell's Bells," AC/DC.

• "I Love You," from the "Barney and Friends" children's TV show.

• "Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen.

• "Babylon," David Gray.

• "White America," Eminem.

• "Sesame Street," theme song from the children's TV show.

According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo Bay bragged he needed only four days to "break" someone by alternating 16 hours of music and lights with four hours of silence and darkness.

Ruhal Ahmed, a Briton who was captured in Afghanistan, describes excruciating sessions at Guantanamo Bay. He said his hands were shackled to his feet, which were shackled to the floor, forcing him into a painful squat for periods of up to two days.

"You're in agony," Ahmed, who was released without charge in 2004, told Reprieve. He said the agony was compounded when music was introduced, because "before you could actually concentrate on something else, try to make yourself focus on some other things in your life that you did before and take that pain away.

"It makes you feel like you are going mad," he said.

all I can say that if you are some low IQ'd meatbrain from Oklahoma and you think it is cool to do your duty and torture people in such a way then it is only a matter of time before jackbooted karma knocks on your door. If you allow/ condone torture of people it is also only a matter of time before a country tortures it's own citizens. The wheels of karma grind slow but they grind exceedingly fine and true. I am not sure how people could spend a day doing such things and then go eat tacos and watch TV. Living in a box is enough torture on its own. I initially intended to make a joke about modern art being torture but I will refrain out of respect for humanity.

turner museum

here is a great website about Turner..

www.turnermuseum.org

please pay it a visit.

Brain Waves

Today I will speak about brain waves as it is a very interesting subject. My recent brain MRI really got me to thinking about the brain again. I think I am the only person who had a brain MRI "for fun." It is strange to get zapped with so much magnetic radiation. Neural activity is electrochemical, which means if you harnessed enough brains together you could (in effect) power a blender and make margaritas. This electrical energy can be measured in waves and in cycles per second. I will expand on this after my pepsi and shower.

composition

Here is a photo I took last summer. My question is--- would it be a better comp. with or without the bird to the far left...I am not interested in dumb photography rules of rules of third etc and other such bunk...I am interested in the spiritual composition...not the pet photography composition.

brooklyn bartender

I took this photo last year...(she never knew I snapped a pic.)

secret project

Here is photo reference for my latest project I am working on that I can't speak about yet.

gardega on turner---"the sun is god"

It is time for me to revisit turner and remember his July show at the Metropolitan that I attended religiously six sunday mornings in a row. Turner is one of the first artists that I liked but never really understood until I saw a large body of his works in person. It was the Met show that brought me around and opened my eyes to his glory and genius. The thing with turner was that he knew his craft and was skilled as a draftsman so when he "let go" of his roots so to speak and Became the turner we know, he had the majesty and genius of a skilled hand behind him and if not for that he would have painted soup and barley (like the expressionists) who did not possess his skill and succeeded in only painting soup and barley and whose work look as dated as old copies of TV guides from 1983. No, turner stood the test of time and was not truly understood "in his time." My favorite turners are the ones that dip one toe into the unknown and the "otherworldly" and seem to take place in a completely foreign and strange world. Like many good artists he was an eccentric and never married, lived with his pops and painted away in some studio in a corner of england. His greatest titled work was titled "colour beginning" but only because it was a work he laid down colour for and never finished so the title is an accident---I like the idea of the "beginning of colour" although the "beginning of light" would be more apropos for turner. I do like his watercolors but I still think Moran had the edge on him but I am sure Moran gleaned a lot from the master somewhere, somehow. I have included a couple of scribbled notes I made at The Met about his work.

comments

Alex,
tried to post a comment on your great post on THOMAS MORAN, I could not
conveniently find a prompt to make a comment.
That may be why you don't get any/many comments?
Douglass Montrose-Graem
Director
The Turner Museum

watercolor of the day--thomas moran

These are strange and dangerous times and it makes little sense to discuss watercolors----it is like picking flowers during an earthquake. But I am comfortable with such things and man cannot live on bread alone. Spirit must be fed and that is why bankers buy art. Thomas Moran was one of the greatest, if not The greatest watercolorists I have ever come across. He puts homer to shame and the same with turner. He is one of the great colorists as well, His grand canyon works are the height of color harmony. Here is a work called hot springs. Back in the day you couldnt just point a digital camera at things a take 40 shots and pick one and call yourself an artist you had to wrok for your art. If you did use photography it was heavy glass plates and bad chemicals o nth back of pack mules.

Fast times at Kremlin High

I have been ensconced in research about russia and the kremlin and putin and the oligarchs--not sure how I got on this tangent but I am riding the wave straight into the shore as I am seeing correlation's to our present situation..here is my rough and unedited and typo'd rough copy.

Welcome to the New Russia. The cold war has thawed like cheap chicken and the missiles and fear have been replaced with Oligarchs and men named Vlad with yachts and mansions in London and Paris. In a land where Billions are made and lost faster than a prom dress there is not much room for rule of Law, that is left to the thugs and The State.

Putin has long stated that his mistake was letting the vast resources of oil and minerals fall into private hands and his mission is to use any means possible to to grab back the the companies and get the state's fingers back in The Pie. Putin is the quarter back and his right hand man and wide receiver is a man named Sechin, his “Chief Raider.” His job is to “look into” a companies financial “health”..this code for force lets scare the wits out of your investors and you may be let off for a fine of a few hundred million (chump change in these parts of town.) The Kremlin will knock on your door and make you an offer you “can’t refuse” maybe they will stick you with bogus tax fraud or prison or worse--- When the government grabs the reins of your horse you can bet it is only a matter of time before your entire buggy is in the ditch. The K word is like kryptonite to investors and Putin and co. take full advantage of the self started fire sales, short selling In back rooms and buying up assets for pennies on the dollar..either way, it is welcome to The STATE, The New Russia ---go team Ra Ra.

“Mrs?” “We are here to inspect your home….what is this--- mold?!” We are taking your home to make sure it is safe! “But I will be homeless!—that is not our problem!… In the United States, mortgage-backed securities sank once mighty investment banks. In Russia, it is the personal business empires of the oligarchs and the loans they took out from Western banks, putting up shares in their companies as collateral, that are at risk.

The Oligarchs are worried---The ground is sinking under them like some great Florida sinkhole and the Kremlin is their only hope. Time to make the Faustian deal. Now I will get back to my statue of liberty painting.

interesting interview

http://gawker.com/5103950/touchy-artist-flips-out-on-60-minutes?autoplay=true


Here is an interview with Julian Schnabel. I think he is a good filmmaker and a weak painter. Met him a couple of times and he is nice enough but Robert hughs is right...

reality explained--by gardega

In order to understand reality one must understand PERCEPTION (Our view of what is out there) we are like a man with bad eye site looking through a key hole into a dimly lit room. Our best explanation of "The Room" is not even close to what the "real room" is. A painting of a tomato is not a tomato. Now for the strange part----there is no "out there." Everything exists in your head, light, sound, other people...all exist in your own head. Basically reality is infinite possibility and out of that you create a small chunk of existence that you believe to be true. The 5 senses are the only thing we have to interpret "reality." We only see a small part of the visual spectrum that is infinite and beyond our senses. What is there that we cant see? infrared--etc etc and these vibrations are far beyond our limited visual capacity..so then why do we tend to believe that if it is not in front of our eyes or limited senses it cannot exists? because we are humans and fools.


adios

purgatory

5 foot by 4 foot

on the easel---eternity

The ocean is a symbol of eternity, methinks. just as the snake biting it's own tail is a symbol of eternity. I am not sure where this painting is going but I will finish her soon. it is oil 51 inches by 51 inches.

on the easel--Lost Souls

I was painting for 8 hours on a seascape and then I had about ten minutes to get ready for a dinner. I put down my seascape hit a couple of shots of jack daniels and painted this in ten to 15 minutes. I normally dont discuss time (as in how long a piece takes me) as a rule but often art is about a moment and the greatest of works have been killed by over- laboring them. I am not sure why I painted this or how it came out of me but I know that is about the idea of the souls who are lost in eternity, in purgatory. The idea of forever is too much for my brain and the idea of being in a kind of hell forever is even worse. This is oil on canvas 18 x 24