“Hearts and Daggers: A Rochester Love Story.” II

Doing some work on my second idea for Hearts and Daggers. Was thinking of Saints and Sinners as a theme for this one. So I remembered that Louise Brooks spent her final years here in Rochester and is buried just off Lake Ave in  Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

Well she was a real Saint and Sinner!

Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining the Denishawn modern dance company (whose members included founders Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn, as well as a young Martha Graham) in 1922. In her second season with the company, Brooks had advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. A long-simmering personal conflict between Brooks and St. Denis boiled over one day, however, and St. Denis abruptly fired Brooks from the troupe in 1924, telling her in front of the other members that "I am dismissing you from the company because you want life handed to you on a silver salver".^[The words left a strong impression on Brooks; when she drew up an outline for a planned autobiographical novel in 1949, "The Silver Salver" was the title she gave to the tenth and final chapter.


Brooks almost immediately found employment as a chorus girl in George White's Scandals, followed by an appearance as a featured dancer in the 1925 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway.

She then went to Hollywood and started in a number of silent films. Later, Brooks, who loathed the Hollywood "scene", refused to stay on at Paramount after being denied a promised raise, and left for Europe to make films for G. W. Pabst, the prominent German Expressionist director.

Once in Germany, she starred in the 1929 film Pandora's Box, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in his New Objectivity period. The film is based on two plays by Frank Wedekind and Brooks plays the central figure, Lulu. This film is notorious for its frank treatment of modern sexual mores, including one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian. Brooks then starred in the controversial social drama Diary of a Lost Girl (1929),and Prix de Beauté (1930), the latter being filmed in France, and having a famous surprise ending. All these films were heavily censored, as they were very "adult" and considered shocking in their time for their portrayals of sexuality, as well as their social satire.


She was rediscovered by James Card, the film curator for the George Eastman House, discovered Louise living as a recluse in New York City about this time, and persuaded her to move to Rochester, New York to be near the George Eastman House film collection. With his help, she became a noted film writer in her own right. A collection of her witty and cogent writings, Lulu in Hollywood, was published in 1982.

So here we have a really good “Hearts and Daggers: A Rochester Love Story” subject to play with.

I found a number of photos of Brooks all over the net. I think that this one may do the trick. I will however remove the lettering and just title it LULU goes to Rochester.

“Hearts and Daggers: A Rochester Love Story.”

Working on two ideas for a show at "The Shoe Factory Art Co-op" with the theme of “Hearts and Daggers: A Rochester Love Story.” So being in the city with all this snow and no sun..... I think I may use a idea from Edward Hopper, but I will use snow instead of train tracks. I have a Victorian house here in Rochester on the corner of Scio and Charlotte streets that is just around the corner from my studio. Every time I see this house I think of Edward Hopper and one of his paintings titled "House by the Railroad" that he did in 1925 and was the first purchase by the new Museum of Modern Art.

"House by the Railroad"- Edward Hopper -1925

Here is my idea. I have a number of pictures of the Victorian house in question so I used Photoshop to mock it up to see if it would fly as an image. Futzed with it for a while to see which image would get the feeling that I wanted. I think that I have what I want. The old beauty and grander of Rochester that I love coupled with the snow and dark winter that I hate.

Time to transfer to a panel and get cracking!

"House by a Snowbank"

 

 

 

Zombie Kids

Well I've been working on a commission for my nephew, he wanted a picture of his kids to look like Zombies. Since its for his significant other.... I made nice. Don't think that the kids would look good with blue skin and blood running down their chins. So I did a Zombie background and here is how it ended up.

Zombie Kids 24 X 15.5 inches

  Here are the steps that the painting went through to get finished.

Stage one

Stage Two

Stage Three

Finshed up dinner and watching NCIS then up to the studio to work.

Worked on the Pelican painting till it told me that its done.

Pelican - 24 X 13 Inches - Acrylic on Panel

Working while it snows!

Been working on a painting of a pelican that I found on the beach last spring. Here are some pics of my progress

Stage One - pencil outline

Stage 2 - Blocking in some colour

Stage 3 - Working on how to paint feathers. Its seems to be all in the type of brush that you use. Using a rigging brush and the results are nice.

Back from all the Thanksgiving trips and Wedding in Canada.

Been really busy the last couple of weeks. Hard to get work done but I've managed to piece time together so that I have some work done.

Working on getting another painting started and looking for some ideas to test my meddle. Maybe a seascape with a nude woman? More on that later.

I have finished both the painting of the Sea Monster and Annie. So here they are:

 Sea Monster - 2 X 4 Feet Acrylic on Gesso'ed board.

Annie

Update on my two paintings that I have been working on

Here is where we are with "Sea Monster" after two days:

Above is a painting of Annie that I have been working on for my wife. Shes in the studio every 5 mins telling me what to fix or change. Looks like I may have a painting by committee.

Latest from the Cabin up north

I just noticed that I did not post any pictures of my finished work at the cabin from last summer. Lets fix that!

View from the river side out to Mud Bay. What a thing to wake up to every day!

 My finished book shelf dividers with my fake birch tree logs glued in. 

 Kitchen is all done and ready for massive parties next summer.

 Full view of the new space.

Master bedroom is done!

 Breakfast bar set and ready to go.

 And this is how it all started back in Oct 2009.

Talk about a lot of work! Ye Ha!

“Rochester Contemporary Art Center Members only show”

It was two weeks to the show and I had to either pick some older artwork to submit or start a new project. Well at the end of 2 weeks I had finished the four paintings seen here.Nothing like a dead line to get you moving.

I could only put one painting in the show and after much deliberation, I slept on it, I picked "You keep making that face.... and I'll paint it!"

"You keep making that face.... and I'll paint it!"

21.5" X 24"

Acrylic and pencil on gessoed panel

Election Night

24" X 16"

Acrylic and pencil on gessoed panel

Masked Man #2

9.5" X 12"

Acrylic and pencil on gessoed panel

Pumpkin Baby

16" X 10.5"

Acrylic and pencil on gessoed panel

Back to work!

Getting back in the grove last week and then layed low with Sinus Infection. Yeck. So much better today with my amoxicillin pills wortking their charms.

So here are the three paintings that I have been working on last week that I have to finish up so that I can select one for the Rochester Contemporary Art Center Members only show. I'm thinking that I will get all the paintings done and then let my Facebook gang pick which one to submit to the show. Lazy man's way to make decisions.

Anyway here are the latest shots of the artwork in progress in the studio:

Back and forth from the Cottage

Well back from Canada so that we could move our daughter for real this time. So thats done.

Been working on the cottage and getting a lot done and having time to think about what it means to be an Artist in this day and age. Still thinking about this subject and I will expand when I get back from the cottage.

But in the meantime if you aren't selling then you need to get better or change your methods. :-)

Here are the latest pics from the cabin that now has a functioning kitchen and electric. Yee Haa!

Back and forth from the Cottage

So here we are an other 7 days spent bashing my thumbs and cutting my fingers doing Electrical work and deconstruction. Did a whole bunch of stuff and feel pretty good about it. Right now you can't see a couple of days worth of work since its all underneath the cabin where the spiders hide. Even my dog Boo will not come under to visit me.

So rest up this week and then back for 3 weeks of work to finish the inside of the cabin. This means new kitchen, from Ikea, more plumbing and then I can start to put up the knotty pine boads on the wall. I have to remember to put in my speaker wires so I can mount them on the walls high in the corners. That will be nice.

Well this is my last post till the end of Aug. I will return with new pics and sore body parts but it will be all worth it in the end.

Kitchen on its way.

Back to Canada for a while.

Well back up to the cottage to do more deconstuction/reconstruction for a week and a half. Just me and my dog Boo. I hope to get some drawing done during the day and night. Show you what I have when I get back.

Missed my first 15 mins of fame.

Hats off to Andy Warhol. Well I was at the cottage doing the worker bee thing it seems that I got mentioned in the local paper. Nice. Here it is:

Back from the Cottage!

Back from Cottage last night. Had to unload truck and then go change my daughters flat tire. Long day. Posted new pics of my work on the cottage on facebook and now back to doing Art.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=232548&id=582472246#!/album.php?aid=232548&id=582472246&ref=mf

Back to the Cottage.

Cabin setup after coming of the back of the Flatbed Tow truck.

Free! From my neighbor! Love that Bob

Gotta get more done up there before I can move to the Studio to work.

Here are some pics of the inside of the studio.

More when I get back.

More on the current masked man

Here is an update on the painting.

Hauling Art

Well enough about my other jobs.

I have been working on 3 ideas for paintings and have started a series of Masked portraits of people I know. Bet they will not see themselves.

So here is the first in the works with 2 progrees pictures for today so far.

After a few more hours.

Now to start in on my Gin and Tonic and continue to define and edit the painting.

I have been following some of the posts from a LinkedIn professional group of artists and the one that has the biggest action and bile has been the question “Why Do Artists Fail?”


Lots of typical talk about being non-commercial, I create for me and I’m not going to whore myself out. Very few state the need to be able to make enough money to continue to make art. So I got to see a lot of the same stuff that I heard in College while sitting around drinking cheap wine and even cheaper beer. Seems that nothing has changed in the minor leagues of the Art World in 30 years or so.

Art is really a business and should be approached as such, you never hear this much emotional discussion on “Why do Farmers Fail? If you want to be able to create art as a carrier you got to sell your end product.

So when are you going to start buying some of mine so that I will not be a total loser?

:-)

Back from the Cottage!

Well the weather was nice and I got a lot of work done. It was great to spend an hour every night in the hot tub with a glass of whiskey. Live is good!




I’m going back up next week to do some more outside work, siding on the front of the addition, and then working on the electrical wiring. If there is enough time I’m going to work on the new addition floor to raise it by ¾ of an inch since the chuckle heads that started the addition did not line up with the original floor. More $ and time.

Here are some pics of how it all looks now.

Big addition!

Worked on the Truck yesterday and did the front rotors/pads on both sides. Getting new tires put on all around on Friday. Thanks to TireRack. Com. Best place to get tires.

Now back to painting!

More later.

Doug is off to the cottage for the week.

Got to go to the cottage this week and work on the new addition. This will almost double the size of the cottage and make it easy for everyone on a rainy day. All the windows are in and now its time to do the front siding and drag the deck back in front.

Going to move my studio about 20 feet and add on a deck on the front with a roof of clear fiberglass panels. That will have to wait till late August for that to start.

I will have to take a picture of the Studio. Seems that I don't have one yet. Post when I get back since there is no internet up there. Elec and Phone  but thats about it.

Landscape is done. Once its signed its ready for shipping. :-)

Worked some more on my big landscape (40 x 34 inches). If I worked on it any more I would just muck it up. So here it is.

You like? Well then contact me with a request.

More of my wrestling with landscape painting.

More musing on my issues with landscape painting.

Had a good day working on my landscape painting. So far about 8 hours in, but not all at once.

I now have the birches done right and now have to work on finishing it.

BTW if you click on any of my artwork pictured  in my Blog they will go to a full size view and you can even save them and print them out if you wish. I will still retain any copyrights, since this will have to make me some money soon. :-)

Rochester Contemporary Art Center 6X6 show

Hey want to see Doug's art work in the 6X6 show at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center ?


Artwork number 61 - 68.
 
http://www.roco6x6.org/6x6x2010.php?artwork_id=61

New Post

Well I have two new paintings from Surf City NC. One nice and one not so nice.

Here is the nice one.

Here is the not so nice one. We walked on the beach one morning and found lots of dead Sand Sharks on the beach from the gill net boats that were still off shore. Over 100 million sharks are killed annually. The shark existence of the east coast of the USA decreased in the last 15 years substantially. Millions of sharks die as non-usable catch (bycatch) in the nets and longlines of the swimming fish factories.


So along with the BP oil spill going in the Gulf on we have everyday enviromental disasters going on around us.

Thus the painting to point out that all is not good in the Ocean. There will be more since I also found more dead sharks and even pelicans.

 
Comments welcome.
 

Computer is back up and I can now start posting again.

Well I fiddled around with Photoshop to create a "cartoon" of my self. The result was rather interesting so I put it up as my profile picture on Facebook. Someone commented on it and followed up with a Van Gogh painting. Ah a challenge!

So I was sent this Van Gogh image as a jest. (I used to have red hair oh those many years ago.)

So to take up the challenge I did this painting yesterday with Acrylic on boad. Kind a hooked on this. Might do another next week.

Comments as always are welcome!

The painting is Acrylic on streached canvas and is unframed. Its 14" by 11". Subject is of Sterling Moss driving a Lotus Climax 21 at the Italian Grand Prix 1961.

Click on the photo for a larger view and then....

Click Here To Purchase/Bid

Stirling fought a long race only to have to retire with a bad wheel bearing and then be informed of the tragic death of fellow racer Wolfgang Von Trips.

The Italian Grand Prix in 1961 was marked by one of the most terrible accidents in the history of Formula One, when on the end of lap 2 at the approach to the Parabolica the German driver Wolfgang Von Trips lost control of his Ferrari and crashed against a stand full of spectators, killing 14 and dying himself. The race was not stopped, allegedly to assist the rescue work for the injured.

Purists will note that the Lotus that Sterling was driving in this race was really black. Sorry, but I did not find this out until the painting was done. In my defense I can't really see Sterling drive any Lotus that was not English Racing Green. :-)