YOUNG LUCY
The debate rages on the Museum of Bad Art's facebook page. My mother's contribution fans a flame war!
Scroll down to the thumb-nail of the renamed painting (alas, Young Innocent with Giant Duck Footprint was changed to Young Lucy as the painting is now a companion piece to one of an elderly woman frollicking in a field) and click on it. The comments are a tormented closet-artist's dream!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
YIWNLAAGDF
You be the judge.
I think its new home at the Museum of Bad Art is appropriate.
The Price of Infamy
I shipped 'Young Innocent with No Left Arm and Giant Duck Footprint' to the Museom of Bad Art on Wednesday. The price of infamy? $63.10 according to UPS.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
MOBA and My Mom
I will be shipping "Young Innocent with No Left Arm and Giant Duck Footprint" to the Museum of Bad Art tomorrow. It will bring to end an incredible journey that began back in 1976 when my mother attempted to do portraits. Her niche, you see, had been autumnal landscapes with covered bridges or windmills. Occasionally there was a double masted ship on a turbulent sea. Once or twice, a winter scene that was really just a white canvas with lines.
When she turned her thumb to faces, well...whole other story. She did a fairly decent job of a pained Jesus on a cross for an amateur art competition held at the GM Tech Center back in the 70's. The close-up of the religious icon showed a man in great agony yet held compassion in his eyes. I remember being terrified by it. I know someone in the family somewhere has it- more than likely my art starved sister. But before there was that award winning moment, for she received 3rd Place Honorable Mention, there was "Young Innocent with No Left Arm and Giant Duck Footprint", a remarkable execution of a little girl in a peasant dress holding a daisy in a vast field with what looks like a giant duck foot print behind her. (Where did the duck go? It surely passed right behind the child for one can see the footprint.)
On my mother's 59th birthday, my roommate and I held an unveiling of several of her paintings. We hosted a "Name It" party. In addition to "YIWNLAAGDF", we were able to christen other classics such as "Variations on Bleak". Early last week I received notification from the Museum of Bad Art that my mother's painting of the child and duck track would hang along side the piece of bad art that started the MOBA.
At long last, ma, you're getting the recognition you deserve.
When she turned her thumb to faces, well...whole other story. She did a fairly decent job of a pained Jesus on a cross for an amateur art competition held at the GM Tech Center back in the 70's. The close-up of the religious icon showed a man in great agony yet held compassion in his eyes. I remember being terrified by it. I know someone in the family somewhere has it- more than likely my art starved sister. But before there was that award winning moment, for she received 3rd Place Honorable Mention, there was "Young Innocent with No Left Arm and Giant Duck Footprint", a remarkable execution of a little girl in a peasant dress holding a daisy in a vast field with what looks like a giant duck foot print behind her. (Where did the duck go? It surely passed right behind the child for one can see the footprint.)
On my mother's 59th birthday, my roommate and I held an unveiling of several of her paintings. We hosted a "Name It" party. In addition to "YIWNLAAGDF", we were able to christen other classics such as "Variations on Bleak". Early last week I received notification from the Museum of Bad Art that my mother's painting of the child and duck track would hang along side the piece of bad art that started the MOBA.
At long last, ma, you're getting the recognition you deserve.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
I'm in Beat to a Pulp Webzine
Broken Down on the Bonneville Flats will appear in June at Beat to a Pulp magazine. A trio of amateurs try to rip off not just a casino but each other.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Hard Case Crime Review #5: The Girl with the Long Green Heart
I'll say this for the Hard Case Crime series, it introduced me to Lawrence Block. Or maybe I'd been familiar with Block's work for a long time but never known it. (He did write under pseudonyms at times.) At any rate, I started reading through everything I could get my hands on that had his name on it.
Once again, what brought me in was the great over work by Robert McKinnon. Never mind that the girl on the cover of this paperback looked like a certain girl I dated in college. (This particular vixen seems to appear on other covers, so I wonder if McKinnon knew her as well?)
A pair of anti-heroes come together to pull off a master grift against a real estate tycoon. In order to get it to work, they need someone on the inside. They have to look no further than the man's secretary. Evelyn Stone is more than willing to help bring down her lecherous boss, but it will come with a price that Johnny Hayden and Doug Rance will pay before they realize it.
To me, this is classic Block. We quickly identify with these two grifters and not because we're behind their plan but because we all know people like Hayden and Rance, and we've all worked for scumbags like Gunderman.
And we've all known the power of a woman like Evelyn Stone.
The grift is complex and involves twists on intricate levels. But it doesn't lose you in its complexity. It brings you along and it adds suspense. The final twist is well worth the journey through the actual con.
Four out of five bullets.
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