Voina

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
oil on wood
15" x 12", 2014

Putin Lights Up the Fires, Putin Zassal (Putin wets his pants), and Putin Will Teach you to Love the Motherland are three Pussy riot songs that are in the current list of 100. The titles clearly show the main topic of Pussy Riot's music. The last one from the list of three is also the last to appear in the top 100. It was released in 2014, coinciding with the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The video shows Pussy Riot members being attacked by Cossacks. Lots and lots of media attention has surrounded Pussy Riot since their infamous performance at a Russian Orthodox Church in 2012, but it is not just their political activism that gained them this global notoriety, it is the music too that validated the fame. Two of the founding members of Pussy Riot, Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were involved early on with the Russian street-art group Voina (f. 2007). One of the most memorable pieces this group produced is the Giant Galactic Space Dick, a 213 feet long (tall, when in raised position), 89 feet wide phallus painted on a bridge in St. Petersburg.

I take any and every opportunity to bring punk rock into the canon of art history. (By my modest means of bringing it into the art history classroom—I did not show the above image however.)

A Hobby

M.I.A.
oil on wood,
24" x 12", 2014

The Top 100 is a hobby. That statement starts this site that thus far yielded over 400 paintings and drawings of my favorite musicians. There are about 2,500 of such images altogether. The opening statement then continues: the project has left the boys room and entered the realm of art. It is in that part of the statement where the trouble begins: The project doesn't work in the realm of professional entrepreneurship. The project works by virtue of the fan, the admirer, the amateur, the hobbyist. To maintain this project as an entrepreneur doesn't work, I have come to realize, but in stead of adjusting the business plan I've adjusted my expectancy level (adjusting to zero that is.) I have been able to this because of two reasons, the first of which is my new found career as an art history teacher. I have also been showing paintings that are nice and big—have nothing to do with the Top 100, that have an aura of professionalism. On top of it all I have gained, thanks mostly to an article on Lady Clementina Hawarden by Carol Armstrong, a new appreciation for amateurism. That in amateurism lies the attainment of the discipline (that this medium is photography in the article is a mere footnote.)

“In the classical sense the amateur is the antonym of the professional, and refers to those who pursue a problem for love rather than for the rewards the world may have to offer. In this sense the word often identifies the most sophisticated practitioners in a field. The other and more popular meaning (of amateur) identifies one who plays at his work: one not only less than competent, but less than fully serious...." (John Szarkozy, Looking at Photographs, 1975)

Psycho(self)analysis 101 teaches me that I thrive in amateur settings. There are no expectancy patterns, I'm free (a lot more came out of these 101 sessions but I keep that to myself:) As I celebration to my new freedom I took my paints to this open studio at a local arts center. (My own studio reminds me too often of a failed professional career.) There I picked up the joy of painting again. M.I.A., being this star with a global mass appeal, I considered an appropriate new start. Recently I bought (full price, I only do that about twice a year) M.I.A.'s Maya. I needed to do this because her song Born Free (currently residing at no. 1 in my 13/14 list) entered into the top 10 of my all time favorites. (These need to be owned in vinyl format in crisp condition.) The "Run for Your Life" source photo of M.I.A. has been a long time favorite, and I have attempted painting this several times.

T-Model Ford

Top 100 2010: T-Model Ford
8" x 10"
pencil on paper, 2009

signed by the musician

I was thinking last night about this little sketchbook drawing I did of T-Model Ford five years ago. It was drawn from a live performance in Ohio. After the concert I walked up to him to and asked him to sign the drawing. He did, and I realized then that he probably never learned how to write. Jolie Holland was on the stage too, she had him sign her guitar she would perform with later. James Lewis Carter Ford was born in Forest, Mississippi but he couldn't remember when exactly, it must have been around 1920. According to that date, he must have been 89 when I saw him perform. He was very cheerful, had smiles for everybody. His musical career didn't start until the 1970s and he didn't record until 1997. His life was hard. T-Model Ford died last year leaving behind eight records and (reportedly) twenty-six children.