New Blog

ALEX HAS A NEW BLOG!

http://gardega.blogspot.com/

or feel free to cruise the memory of this one...

NEW BLOG

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a grand one and those who didn't celebrate had good Chinese food or took in a good movie or just relaxed and did nothing. This is my final entry on this blog and I will miss it very much. I really want to start new and fresh and shed the old "skin of the past." I will keep this blog for archival purposes and back it up and save it etc. It has been a long and strange journey. I am making a lot of changes in my life and in my psyche and everything I do is usually about 119% so I am not sure where I will land after I jump out of this plane.


My New Blog is on word press and I am finding it a little bit clunky to use when adding content so I may switch formats to blogger eventually if I don't get used to word. Either way it will be all New Stuff! And I will explain the new paradigm when I understand it, myself. I may actually try to edit and punctuate on my new blog.


Meet the New Blog...Not the same as the old blog. (to paraphrase The Who)

http://gardega.blogspot.com/

three priests

Here is me with various blow ups and repros from one of my large and crazy paintings from the younger days. This piece has stood the test of time and many a bidder. I never wnated to let go of him over the years as it is a symbol of my past. I posted this because it is the last post on the OLD BLOG...and Now I will start NEW BlOG. I will link after christmas.

NEW BLOG

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I finished my shopping and now I am free to spend a few hours in DEEP REFLECTION. I have started a New Blog and it will include none of my past. Everything I do or make from here on in will be of the New Thought, the New Paradigm.. I will not erase this blog as it served me well (like a leg or foot) and it will be available for perusal... My new blog is all about me reaching as far as I can into the unknown and deep inside and pushing myself as hard as I can mentally and physically. I am going to start a serious regimen of exercise that starts at 4AM and includes running and lifting weights and then meditation and finally artwork. There will be no filler on my new blog. No cheap dashed- off art or hurried work, no pet portraits or commercialized crap. I am striving for perfection (which I can never achieve.) I am reaching for quality not quantity and all the regular supporters of my art will have special access to new work etc... I cannot thank everyone enough for their support over the years. My new mission is multi-fold and it includes regular Life Drawing, A Weekly Painting, and MAJOR WORKS which will be finished when they are done and not anytime sooner.

merry Christmas to all and happy holidays as well....(unless you are a pet photographer, then the ghosts of bad art past are not done with you yet.)

Merry Christmas France!

Your Possible Pasts

They flutter behind you your possible pasts,
Some brighteyed and crazy, some frightened and lost.
A warning to anyone still in command

[Cattle truck noises]
“Ranks! Fire!”

Of their possible future, to take care.
In derelict sidings the poppies entwine
With cattle trucks lying in wait for the next time.

Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we shoud be closer?

She stood in the doorway, the ghost of a smile
Haunting her face like a cheap hotel sign.
Her cold eyes imploring the men in their macs
For the gold in their bags or the knives in their backs.
Stepping up boldly one put out his hand.
He said, “I was just a child then, now I’m only a man.”

Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?

By the cold and religious we were taken in hand
Shown how to feel good and told to feel bad.
Tongue tied and terrified we learned how to pray
Now our feelings run deep and cold as the clay.
And strung out behind us the banners and flags
Of our possible pasts lie in tatters and rags.

Do you remember me? How we used to be?
Do you think we should be closer?

a patrons poem...

Twas the 22^nd of December

And delivered by mail

Was art work by Alex

He never does fail

A lovely gift for Christmas

In any ones mind

Was an art deco drawing

That was a design

It is large and precise

The line this Alex does draw

It is intricate and detailed

With barely a flaw

It will be added to my others

Pieces I adore

My collection is growing

You just can’t ignore

I’ll frame it and hang it

I will do my part

Who knew this would happen

From Gardega fine art

My wish for the artist

Oh Alex my friend

Is that such lovely gestures

Never do end

And I heard him exclaim

From McSorley’s by light

Merry Christmas to Alex

And to all a good night

Gene

scrooge

I have a feeling this will be me in about 20 years, except I will be covered in paint and probably have a bottle of cheap booze with me. At least I will go out painting which is what matters to me in this short little roller coaster called life.

Happy Holidays

I am a huge fan of Christmas and the Holidays in general. To me it is a brief respite from the madness of the daily grind. I like to sit alone and watch Charles Dicken's Christmas Carol (the old black and white one) and drink a bottle or so of The Red. I like to eat a lot of food and then get presents (which is infinitely better than giving them, I SAY!) I like Ole Scrooge and see some good qualities in him. He is a loner and I am the same. I find life a hilarious and awful joke that should be milked for every last drop of livng and humor you can get out of it. He was just miserable...we are both workaholics. He had better clothes.

a poem for a day---by gardega

Their tidal pools grew smaller
words like sharpened knives
the desperate and the lonely
seeking out their lives.

The trap was set so long ago
existence now is all they know
swimming in a soup of lies
a circled drain, worn out eyes.

there's no way to the ocean
the tide has left for good
the escapes are short and heartless
the plot misunderstood.

You sold a dream for nothing
and that's what you got in spades
swimming now in circles
as the light of glory fades.

Mcsorleys poem--by Gardega

Ahhh, the light of Mcsorleys is fine
like Rembrandt's ghost is will shine
across the wood floors, down memorie's shore
to brighten the faces of time.


a.gardega dec. 2008

How to paint like an old master--- by Gardega

1) You cannot paint like an old master so do not try.


2) Instead, paint like yourself and perhaps you can become a New Master.


3) Do not rely on photographs until you know how to draw from life, then you can use photographs.


4) Do not become a commercial hack, hold onto the elusive and difficult squirmy worm of integrity, it is the only umbrella you will have against the rains of despair. It is like virginity--- the only thing you cannot get back after it is lost. Give not into pet portraiture unless all is lost and the wolves are chewing at your cold and naked toes and even then it is better to be brave and sketch those very wolves than paint bourgeois poodles for a handful of clammy dimes.

5) Never listen to professors or other artists, they are fools and have nothing to tell you.


6) Do not (under any circumstances) subscribe to any methods or SYSTEMS that you ape from another. This is the surest way to kill the spark of genius that smolders in inside.

mcsorleys underpainting

Here is the base of my Mcsorleys painting. I always begin with a burnt sienna base. Explain more later.

bailout notes.

WASHINGTON — It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they either can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

"We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,"' said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

"We're not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking," said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Georgia-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

Some banks said they simply didn't know where the money was going.

"We manage our capital in its aggregate," said Regions Financial Corp. spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Alabama-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.

The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which earmarked $700 billion — about the size of the Netherlands' economy — to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow of cash will get banks to start lending money.

There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money — not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that's happening and there are no consequences for banks who don't comply.

"It is entirely appropriate for the American people to know how their taxpayer dollars are being spent in private industry," said Elizabeth Warren, the top congressional watchdog overseeing the financial bailout.

But, at least for now, there's no way for taxpayers to find that out.