One On Each Side: The Day Art Was King





Lighthouse On Truck With Inscription



Slice Of Pizza On Metal Panel With Inscription

Bum Rogers Insisted On A Female Sook Even Though I Tried To Talk Him Out Of It
  

OK, it's not exactly fine art.  But I'm showing these in response to Katharine Cartwright's recent post on starving artists.  That and the most impressive response by Linda Roth, who essentially spelled out the story of my life.  What a fantastic forum.   This is one of my career iterations that I did to keep from having to starve, while protecting my fine art from compromise.  One gravitates to where one is appreciated in the money for art game.   Besides as a process artist, what difference does it make what the product is as long as the process is being experienced?  Same materials.  Same thoughts.  You know, lighthouse with crashing waves, gestural scribbles, portraits, pizza, crabs, whats the big deal?  

That pizza was for Larry Farrago, a former creative director at one of the big ad agencies.  Quit all the stress and started a pizza business.  How he found me I'll never know, although I was not unknown in transportation graphics.  Anyway, the piece was done in a Truck equipment firm--about a dozen mechanics, sales staff and office people.  As the painting reached it's final stages people started moaning in hunger.  Then around lunchtime Larry showed up with a few cartons of pizza and a portable oven, and treated the whole company to all the pizza they could eat, being so happy with the looks of his truck.    Art was king that day.

The illustrations were done in OneShot lettering enamel with Naz Dar Screen Printing Varnish as a glaze medium base,  drying times being manipulated with other types of varnish.   Hand lettering is done with Langnickel quills and OneShot Lettering Enamel.   Scale drawings of each truck were approved in advance, with the full sized patterns prepared in this studio. 

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PS  I don't know what the puffy art colleges teach now, but in my day they didn't teach any of this.   I agree with Linda, and add they need to be ashamed of themselves for extracting all that money and not teaching people how to get by.   That said, my AA laid a firm groundwork in commercial art for which I have always been greatful.   Then there's the BS I've discussed in other posts.  My Freudian slip is showing.  Sorry.

One Never Know Do One?

Wells Beach Summers, 18 X 24, Prismacolor, Print inquiries.

Fats Waller, Your Feet's To Big

Old Mrs. Denby's Cottage at Wells Beach, Maine, had a floor model crank up Victrola, and dozens of ancient 78 speed, scratchy old records.  They were album sized but they were singles, and were an eighth inch thick. While the old folks were out strolling the beach after dinner, we would sneak in and put on this record.  We played it endlessly until we knew all the words.  Sung it endlessly for a lifetime. Thank you Mr. Waller wherever you are, for all the good times. 

Hey Katherine it worked!!! (she helped me figure out how to imbed one of these videos into a post).  Thanks so much for your help! 

About twenty years later I was one of the "old folks" strolling with my buddy John's old SLR, rolled up my jeans and snapped this image from the surf.  Ten years after that I made this piece from the old snapshot.      

Wm

A Tribute To Stratty, Whoever He Was

Lake Montebello, 20" X 26", 1983, inquire here for print.

Stratty was the quintessential hobo.  At least that’s the picture burned into my memory.  We lived in Irvington (Baltimore), I was 11.  He was huge—about 6 and a half feet tall, unshaven, un-kept, big round torso.  He wore a giant overcoat (year-round as far as I could tell), untied combat boots and sloppy clothes.  He was old, and all he did was walk around Irvington--aimlessly.  He eyes were set into a ruddy face, but if you looked into them, they were crystal clear blue, full of animation, always darting everywhere.  His face was magnificent—full of color (all blotchy), and topped off with a coif of white hair thinning out towards the top, never combed.  To encounter him was always a shock.  He was weird.  He was a living cartoon—looked like a flasher.  He was a formidable looking character.  

One could just imagine the rumors and mystique all built up around this crazed old man in the minds of the neighborhood kids.  And it’s not like we were the only ones that noticed.  He was famous beyond our world—Stratty was notorious for miles around.  He would turn up anywhere when you least expected it.  Like an apperition. 

And you never knew what state of mind he would be in.  Sometimes he would be full of laughter, hollering out a joke to a make believe audience.  Sometimes he would look right at you, deadly serious, eyes flaring, and speak in gibberish.  Sometimes his face grew red and angry—and sometimes his eyes lit up in fright. He would holler and flail around and scare you into running away.  He was the butt of a lot of jokes, ridicule and taunting—as one might imagine. 

But the other part if the mystique was that he was completely harmless.  Some say he was a drunk.  Some say he was retarded, whatever that meant.  Most just dismissed him as a goofball. Some say he was a head injured WWI soldier with a metal plate in his head and to just leave him alone.  And the legends grew and grew.

One day my big sister walked down to the Rexall Store, and here comes Stratty half a block away, crazed as usual, yelling out at my sister, “Hey lunch!”  Nothing subtle about Stratty.  He couldn’t restrain himself around a pretty girl.  Just right out with it every time—"Hey lunch!”  It was downright mechanical—became his by-line.  To this day "Hey lunch!" and Stratty are synonymous.

I don’t know if anyone really knows the truth about Stratty, his circumstances or whatever became of him—or even what his real name was.  But his memory is etched in my mind.  One thing is for sure though, if it is true that he did loose his sanity (and part of his head) in World War I, he was hero.  My mother kindly reminded that this was probably the case one day when I was making fun of him, that I should show him some respect.  Ever since then I’ve had a great respect for this bum, a man whose memory still fills me with joy, laughter and gratitude.

Wm

PS—I have no earthly idea what he has to do with art or sunsets other than, absurdly, he's still in my head.