Rollercoaster Redux

I create art from all sorts of twisted inspiration. I see an image, it starts going where it's going and I follow it.  The impulse is the action.

I have an affinity for music, and sometimes a simple song inspires me, but then the materials at hand take me somewhere else, and then...I take off in another direction. 

Sweet Honey Rox...before

A few years ago, I created an image of a fabulous diva inspired by an Ohio Players album cover. Boy, am I giving away my age. Anyway, I remember this gorgeous black woman pouring honey all over herself - and so gave my subject golden skin and 

Sweet Honey Rox for a title...

{there she is on the right with her arm up in the air}

The Ohio Players were famous for the FUNK and a song called Love Rollercoaster. Click on it to hear it on UTube.

And, for racy album covers...nudity...bondage...honey.

I was in Pittsburgh in January. I visited the Warhol museum. I was really moved by Andy's early work - illustrations, cards, advertisements, shoes, fairies, etc. 

There was one piece I loved - darn, all I wrote down was this note - "GOLD DOILIES." 

And, I wrote Sweet Honey Rox on it too. 

Well, I can't share the Warhol with you...but I came home and got me some GOLD DOILIES...and my scissors...and glue... and whaddya know. Sweet Honey Redux.

Now that I looked them up,I realize the image I was thinking was my inspiration was actually a series of Ohio Players album covers... Ecstasy, Pleasure, Pain and Honey [featuring Sweet Sticky Thing].

So, here is my funky and fly Sweet Honey Rox Redux

...with thanks to the Ohio Players and Andy Warhol. 

Somewhere in the 70's, they both got under my skin and in my grey cells. Let me know what you think. And check out the DOILY details!

doily detail!

Inspiration...the memory of an album cover, coupled with a visit to a museum, a beautiful woman, an emotion and a couple of hands holding scissors and glue.

The connection between advertising and art [mine, anyway]

original ad [I found it]

An ad for Target a year ago was SO cute I hung on to it. A girl with a wistful expression and long straight hair in a cute spring dress...flowers in there somewhere.

original painting

A few weeks ago I painted a woman with long hair... and a long neck...and although I always start with a painting, my work doesn't always end up looking exactly the same [to me, anyway]. I still had that Target ad in my head. But, I didn't use it as a reference, and as someone with eidetic imagery, I didn't need it. It's not the girl from the ad.

I started the mosaic. I had drawn a lot of diverging lines, but ended up using only a few as a guide. Black, grey, white, cream... cutting all my pieces and placing them just so...

Somewhere in there, I decided on ditching flesh tones for the shadows. Gray highlights in her hair got a coating of periwinkle metallic glaze.

I found a piece of junk mail [to me, anyway] from a food bank in Israel [?] with gorgeous tones of periwinkle. That ended up being a key color, so I sorted through the "blue" box to find coordinating pieces. Nothing matchy-matchy.


What's the connection between advertising and my work? Well, for one thing, we're bombarded with images of beauty in advertising. They are the basis for the images I paint. Then, I use images from advertising to create my paper tiles.

No magazines, I use advertising that comes to me... mostly junk mail: flyers, postcards, catalog covers, advertising ephemera, fly cards, etc. Even gallery cards. 

almost done

I thought I was done. Background done. Stood back... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bored?
Did it need something else?

I revved up that eidetic imagery and "remembered: that ad again - that original inspiration from a couple of years ago and decided to use that as a "jumping off" place. I designed and hand cut flowers. And stems. I placed them where I thought they ought to be. All the while thinking, geez this is going to look like that Target ad - busted!

But, after all - I'm no longer bored. There is no story to this image. No deeper meanings. Something beautiful that hopefully evokes an emotion. I really like it, and whaddya know, it looks NOTHING like the Target ad.

"Poppy"

The Blogosphere!

So, I got a request for images for a blog. Sometimes I respond, sometimes I don't...depending on the blog. If it looks like an aesthetic fit, them seem legit, and they ask for PERMISSION to use my images, and they PROMISE to add a link back to my site, I say yes.

Am I crazy? Or crazy good?

So the latest, blog, My Modern Metropolis did a short story, but included a lot of pics. Thanks, Alice - that was wonderful.
But then... off to cyberspace! Blogs picked up the story and reblogged it all over the world.

Off it goes. Liked on Facebook, Tweeted. Somehow, Flavorpill picked the My Modern Metropolis story verbatim. On to Tumblr. From there to many other blogs including pretty propaganda and hundreds of others. Most just posted a photo of one of my pieces. Some of them included my name, some got my gender wrong [should it matter?], some got my name totally wrong! Most left my name off... and images are just floating around...

What's your opinion? Should it bother me? I'd love your opinion...