blue period

gold leaf detail
mutiple exposure polaroid
my christian dior scarf
blue shoes
La Châtelaine, Henri de Tuolouse Lautrec
French Ultramarine, Marcia Hafif

The Land of Milk and Honey

As a child I could see the Sutter Buttes from my grandmother's backyard, but over time an orchard grew and now obscures the view. I took this photograph in the Summer 1997 near her house with my Dad's Olympus OM-10. California is the land of milk and honey.

Can you breathe under water?

In Sacramento, California we are punished with excruciating heat. However, there is ample water here and sometimes all you can do is flock to it and enjoy the cold, cold, cold mountain runoff. That is what I did this Monday. I brought a bottle of Sutter's Home White Zinfandel and I placed it in my purse. At some point the cork came out and filled my bag up with half a bottle of cheap ass dessert wine. My wallet, moleskine, pens, phone, and camera were soaked. The bag is leather so the wine didn't drain out and all of my stuff just marinated in it. My camera is six years old, which for a digital camera is almost abnormal. It's outlived all of my other digital cameras, so of course it was fine. Unfortunately my phone is not, even my sim card smells like wine. I've had a cell phone for at least eight years and this is the first time that one has ever perished because of negligence on my part.

summer

Living crazy, that's the only way!

I know everyone is tired of hearing about Michael Jackson, well, I am not! I didn't start my love affair with Mike until a couple of years ago.

I didn't like him growing up, my parents weren't into him, and I was just a little too young to get into the hype. I do remember seeing him on television from time to time. It was Rob who got me into Mike, Rob still has the Thriller vinyl he listened to as a kid. The first album that got me is Off the Wall. It's the perfect culmination of Motown, disco, and everything that the eighties held for Michael, and for music. The production is immaculate, you can't find that anymore. It has real instruments layered together perfectly. Pop music today is made with a workstation!

It kind of breaks my heart to see so many people tire of hearing about him. I feel like people are missing the point. When he died most of the internet slowed to a halt. Millions of people googled him at once, AOL instant messenger crashed for 45 minutes, Wikipedia, Twitter, TMZ, Facebook all experienced problems with crashing. His music took over the top 20 spots on Amazon.com and itunes. The video for Thriler alone has over 40 million hits on youtube. All of his other videos come in around 20 million views.

Enormous pressure is being placed on CD manufacturing plants in various countries as Jackson's work goes back into full scale production to meet the popularity! I saw R5 Records, where Rob works, on the news yesterday. Huge vigils are being held around the world, with people buying his records up all over the world!

The reason this is important to me is because you won't see this again. I strongly doubt that anyone will ever outsell Mike. The music industry has change, so has pop music. The emphasis on albums has been replaced by itunes singles, musicianship replaced with workstations, and vocal skill replaced with auto-tune. Thriller became the best selling record of all time a little over a year after it's release. 7 out of 9 songs became singles! He wanted every song to sound like a single, to be strong enough to stand on it's own.

the annunciation

Come to my art show and see all of the new paintings I have been working on. It's going to be a tribute to all of my favorite queens and queen consorts. Among the lucky; Marie de' Medici, Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth I and Mary I, and last but not least, Mary Queen of Scots. Also, I have been working on my own illuminated manuscript. Come check it out June 13th from 6:00pm-8:00pm at the Javalounge, due to unforseen circumstances my art will only be up for about a week and a half. Preview photos coming soon!

Klimt and Demitasse

Using the square template of my dear friend Richard St. Ofle I compiled a few images of things that inspired me this week.

1. Pierre Bonnard's Montmartre in the Rain was recently acquired by the Van Gogh Museum. I would very much like to see it as this is the first Bonnard I've seen that I really like. This painting is more atmospheric than his usual jarring indoor scenes.

2. This is embroidery from a garment that belonged to King Gustav III of Sweden.

3. I finished Balthus' memoirs this week. He may have been the very last artist to approach painting as a craft. He mixed paint according to Delacroix's formulas. There is more to be said about him later.

4. This is the Revolving Miniatures Faberge Egg, it's my favorite.

5. This was taken by Arthur Elgort. I have twins on both sides of the family. I used to think it would be really wonderful to have a twin, but now I see that it's just creepy.

6. This is a detail from a painting of King Louis XV, of France. It was painted by Justinat Augustin in 1717.

7. This is beautiful, I found it on a website that just had a list of antiques that are for sale. I couldn't figure out where it came from.

8. Another Balthus. Joan Miró et sa fille Dolorès, 1937-1938.

9. I love Demitasse cups, I am starting a collection. They're so delicate and detailed, each one is a little work of art.

10. A detail from Gustave Klimt's Beethoven Frieze. Recently another Klimt was returned to it's rightful owner. Another painting of his, the infamous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Blauer was auctioned off for 135 million dollars. The story of that painting is very interesting, complete with a surprise ending!

The painting was confiscated by Nazis. Somehow it fell into the hands of Austrain government. Adele's niece and nephew, who lived in the United States were the rightful inheritors of her estate. They waged courtroom battles in Austria and America, eventually they won. They displayed the painting for a short time before selling it to a gallery owner, who promptly returned it on the condition that he could hang it in his gallery whenever he wished. His gallery, Neue Galerie, houses recovered art that was seized during the Holocaust. They refer to this painting as their Mona Lisa, I like it much better than the Mona Lisa!

11. It's summer, the heat is horrible. It's time for escape; the ocean, hiking, aimless drives, swimming, and hopefully staying away from sun burns.