manhattan house

http://www.manhattanhouse.com/mhvideo.html

On memorial day I was asked to fill in for a video about the Manhattan House. It is a famous building in NYC. I was paid a lot of money to pretend I was rich and married and to sit on a couch and read the paper. I am somwhere in this video but I havent seen myself yet.

my friends band...

mcsorleys cell phone photos

lost souls second version

I started a second lost souls painting after I packed up my first one. I am going to stick to this series for a bit.

my birthday present

Viva the ostrich!

blueline glass

I have recently partnered with a major NYC glass company and we now offer anything you could want in glass.

http://carvedglass.blogspot.com/

Leonardo Learning---by Gardega

The Gardega Newsletter

I have finished my hard copy newsletter that will be snail mailed to galleries etc...here is a scan of it. I am not good at MS word, must learn more.. Tedious thing that MS word...

Uncle Sam has fallen and he cant get up. My friends used call me crazy conspiracy guy but now I am now vindicated and stand right as rain. I predicted three years ago that the American economy would collapse on herself like a red white and blue souffle. My friends laughed at me and went back to watching their televisions and sports but I stayed steady at my research and saw the Great fall coming from afar. I am not an economist and I cant balance my own checkbook but I understand the workings of the Big Clock and I knew the hour was getting late. I was chicken little except I was right. The sky was falling. Most artists have no sense and are best left alone in paint smeared rooms muttering about being misunderstood. I am not that, I care about our country and our people and my art as well. Horses run wild long before a storm is even on the horizon and the brain of alex was running overtime because I sensed there was big trouble ahead. No one would listen to me and now they wont even say I told them so...I am not here to be right but I knew why it was coming and how it was coming I knew the dollar would be intentionally tanked and that big industry would be nationalized. The worst is yet to come and there it is not time to hide in TV and sports and diversions. How did I know all this? that is a story for another day...

Gardega on Math

Math does not exist, math is simply the pepperoni we throw down on the "pizza of life" to make sense of things. There is no math in God's mind. Math is simply man's map of "the territory" and if you have read Descartes you will know that the map is not the territory.

nineteen

I have decided that it is of no small importance that the Flower of Life geometric construction contains 19 circles. (the outer largest making 20 total.) I am going to decode this thing in my lifetime as I will live to 300 and seven years of age.. I have already determined that the center circle (which I shall label one is symbolic of birth. )I will explain this later in illustrated form as to why I believe this to be true...1 down---19 to go.

1) birth
2)
3)

etc

I woke up at 4:27 Am today to start my day and Have my pepsi and read my six newspapers online andthen to my emails. I canot read the post online for some reason I have to hold it in my hands so I go out into cold morning of NYC and buy one. I find it funny when I read my emails that people comment that I am either A) liberal or B) conservative or C) insane--- Alex is neither, although C is another story. I have dipped my toes into the cool waters of both schools of thought and I have decided, in the end, that it is best being alex and that is the school of thought I prefer which is 100% independent, unadulterated, non homogenized , and onlypartially dumbed down by flouridated water and TV. Alex- think is free of groupthink and cares little for consensus. Alex- think requires me to mentally push the envelope at all times as far as I can in order to discover the fruits that lie beyond the grasp of normal-think. As a caterpillar on the end of realities branch, I reach outward into the emptiness of space time and half the time I have no clue.

I have decided to make a little movie retrospective of most everything I have done up until now in art. I will then remove all those images from my computer and take any remaining art I have and give it away to friends and sell the rest. I want to start FRESH. I want to turn my collar to the past and start a new canvas. I will only know that path by sitting down and studying intensely where I have been. I am going to spend this week in the cleansing and cleaning of my files and my closets... What I cant bear to part with will go to Mom and Dad's. I want to purge all visual reference to my past which even means slowly replacing my websites with images of THE NEW. I have already started mailing surprise packages of art to those who collect my work.---Keep an eye on your mailbox...

post number 2,347

As I head towards yet another birthday I find myself reflecting on the available light of The Past. I also look to the future to a light that doesn't yet exist but is (in a quantum sense) infinite possibility. This is my 2,347 post in roughly two years which probably qualifies me for some category of obsessive behavior but that is a twice told tale and means little to me as I enjoy being obsessive and compulsive and sometimes impulsive and occasionally repulsive. As a teen (and then some) I was a fairly crazed reckless person/ artist--- I had the market solidly cornered on rebellion inc. and had my share of bumps bruises and scrpaes and I had more laughs and good times than a man can count on all the marble toes in The Met. There were times I had so much fine I scarcely remember the fun I had. Even the few nights in the "house of bad decisions" make for damn good stories I can still laugh about--- (as Geddy Lee once called it.) It is strange to feel you are putting your days as a young and wild man to bed and strapping on the sensible shoes of "solid citizenship." Even huck fin grew up eventually but he sure lived a hell of a life. I think in the end of life as you sit in the chair of "summation" the things you will remember are the good times and the laughter and the craziness and crazy plans and the daring and black eyes and bumped heads. I think the flourescent light of corporate obedience and "things done right" may not be at the forfront of a lot of people's brain as they reflect in the shadows of their "final years." There are no guarantees in this life, the only guarantee I know is that a life lived against what you were really put here for is like beer without alcohol in it. Near life...


viva dali!

the restless wind
has seen all things
in every kind of light
rising with the full moon
to go howling through the night

the sleepless wind
has heard all things
between the sea and sky
in the canyons of the city
you can hear the buildings cry

oh the wind can carry
all the voices of the sea
oh the wind can carry
all the echoes home to me

Run with wind and weather
To the music of the sea
All four winds together
Can't bring the world to me
Chase the wind around the world
I want to look at life --- In the available light

play of light
a photograph
the way I used to be
some half-forgotten stranger
doesn't mean that much to me

trick of light
moving picture
moments caught in flight
make the shadows darker
or the colors shine too bright

oh the light can carry
all the visions of the sea
oh the light can carry
all the images to me

Run to light from shadow
Sun gives me no rest
Promise offered in the east
Broken in the west
Chase the sun around the world
I want to look at life --- In the available light

All four winds together
Can't bring the world to me
Shadows hide the play of light
So much I want to see
Chase the light around the world
I want to look at life --- In the available light

I'll go with the wind
I'll stand in the light

Met Photos

I have been taking photos of details of classical sculpture at the Met. These were only made for reference but I am thinking about expanding the series after I am done with my poodle series.

I have sold my lost souls painting and must ship it out tomorrow. Selling paintings is like selling children, never easy to let them go but then again there is one less kid to trip over... I think I may have sold my last supper and that is a good thing--That child is very large and consumes a lot of my space and stares at me when I sleep. She was in the NY Post and got me in a little trouble. Like children you can always make more paintings but the government sends me no checks for squeezing out more each day.

happy Holidays!

george inness--early autumn montclair

Here is a painting by the great artist (and philosopher) george inness. You know he is great because he made jersey look so pretty---Not even God managed do that. Is it me or is there something interesting in the reddish tree? take a close look and get back to me, I have a theory...alexgardega@gmail.com


If my theory holds true it will be a great discovery in line with ice cubes and chocolate milk.

great video series on egypt

"The mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980."


People get mad at me because I sometimes tow unpopular lines. I have never cared for the popular view of things. I like to the think there should always be one guy out there like Copernicus--pissing people off with his ideas.

illustration

I am almost done with this illustration--Cant say what it is for. This is for sale if anyone wants to buy it. What is inside the box? I am not saying.

in search of the sacred buffalo with arisman

Here is an article a wrote a number of years ago for a magazine as I went in search of buffalo on Long Island with my artist friend Marshall Arisman. He is a great artist and was my professor in art college. I think he could speak to my previous post as he is an artist of great integrity and I have yet to see him paint a poodle.

art vs. cheese

As an artist there are many paths one can walk down in life. At various times in my life I had opportunities to make a lot of money doing various things that artistically didn't "feel right." I always had trouble sitting with myself when I attempted to "sail the seas of cheese" I never felt right when I turned my back on myself and what I believed art could be or should be. Idealism is a single man's game and a family often changes that perspective. Part of the reason I have traveled on my own for most of my life is that I knew that if I answered to myself alone I would never have to "prostitute" myself to support others. I never understood those people and artists who jump whole heartedly into a commercial-crap lifestyle and milk for all its worth and then one day find themselves in some identity crises because they never followed what rang true to their own hearts. I can understand a family man doing whatever he has to do to survive but Icannot understand a man who doesnt at least have a "go at it." In so far as what really rigns true to them, artistically. I have done my fair share of hack work and bad paintings but for the overall sense of what I am after and what I have done I can sit with myself. I look to those who came before me to keep my spirits up and even though I sometimes think about the monetary gold versus the alchemical gold of the spirit. I can say that I kept the course and paid a lot of dues and I have a lot of funny stories about the stairs I have fallen down. I think the illustrations for this rambling are self explanatory.

cell phone photos

I always try to rely on a sketch book and not a camera but sometimes I am lazy and forget my pencils. There is a light (at times) that comes through the windows of Mcsorleys that is like a Rembrandt painting. I took this Brooklyn subway photo at 7 Am---that light is a little less warm and comforting.