In Stores Now...

Les Siècles Live: György Ligeti
12 x 12 cm, CD cover, Musicales Actes Sud

In stores now Les Siècles Live: György Ligeti, directed by François-Xavier Roth featuring cover art that was found by he publisher Actes Sud on this very blog. A beautiful CD on which Les Siècles perform Six Bagatelles, Kammerkonzert, and Dix Pièces pour Quintette à vent. I'm very excited about this and the music is steadily climbing the lists of the Top 100.

György Ligeti
6.25 x 5.6 inches, oil on wood, 2012

Neil Leonard

Neil Leonard and Kat Epple
9 x 12 inches, pen on paper, 2016
signed by performers

On August 20th, as part of the lecture/performance series accompanying the RE:SOUND exhibit at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at FSW, Neil Leonard performed in collaboration with Kat Epple, of the art-music-Rauschenberg-affiliated-band Sonic Combine. In front of a small audience, including Leonard's partner, the well known artist Maria Magdalena Camos-Pons, Neil Leonard performed a memorable set that was a mix of some of his earlier work and improvised collaborative work with Kat Epple. Leonard was in Fort Myers because of a residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation on Captiva Island, the location of Rauschenberg's home and studio. Neil Leonard is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work includes collaborations with Tony Oursler and Constance de Jong, that was featured at the Whitney Biennial, and with Camos-Pons.

Lee Ranaldo

Lee Ranaldo
11 x 8.5 inches, stencil print edition 80, 2016

It's been 25 years since Sonic Youth made an appearance at the Top 100. I've been playing their music again mainly because of an upcoming performance by Lee Ranaldo at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at FSW in Fort Myers. I was honored to be asked to provide the graphics for poster and postcard for this performance. The performance was supposed to take place during the exhibit RE:SOUND featuring the work of Glenn Branca. Ranaldo played on the iconic Ascension LP by Glenn Branca (1981). Thurston Moore also played with Branca, and together with Kim Gordon Sonic Youth soon formed. The Ranaldo performance was postponed due to scheduling conflicts and will now take place at a later date. The image below is one of the sketches I submitted for the poster, that, when the time comes, will be produced as a limited edition stencil print.

Lee Ranaldo concert poster sketch
6 x 7 inches, stencil on paper, 2016

Sonic Youth ceased to exist in 2011. Ranaldo maintains a busy performance schedule throughout the world, Kim Gordon just had her first solo exhibition as an artist in New York. Thurston Moore is active as a producer and in various musical projects, while drummer Steve Shelley is in a band called Sun Kil Moon. Shelley produced Cat Power's What Would the Community Think, launching the career of one of my favorite musicians. Here's another image, a painting.

Lee Ranaldo
9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas, 2016

Raymond Scott

Raymond Scott
9 x 9 inches, oil on canvas, 2016

Not many people today know about Raymond Scott (1908-1994) but some of his music will be recognized by many. In the 1943 Warner Brothers bought the publishing rights for his music and used it in many of its animated cartoons. Powerhouse, originally recorded by the Raymond Scott Quintette in 1937, was used multiple times in Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies, most notably in Bugs Bunny. It has been used four times in The Simpsons, in The Bernie Mac Show, The Drew Carey Show, and in many other TV productions. Raymond's Toy Trumpet became famous as In the Army Now from the cartoon Ren and Stimpy. His frantic jazz theme of Powerhouse is known now as the Assembly Line music in animated cartoons. Raymond Scott was an early electronic music pioneer who recorded a number of experimental records. Soothing Sounds for Babies is an odd but groundbreaking recording collaborated with The Gesell Institute of Child Development.

FLUXUS

Dick Higgins
18 x 24, oil on canvas, 2016

Many of the paintings seen on this site have been created on top of older paintings. Some were my own, often demos for painting classes, others are done on found paintings. The reason for this is economic and practical rather than aesthetic. Economic because amateur paintings can be found at thrift stores for a fraction of the money it would cost to prepare your own, practical because starting a painting is easier when something is already there than on a blank canvas. When making a mark on an existing painting it becomes dynamic. The act of violating a painting by someone else creates a tension between two realities. Until this week I had never used a portrait painting by someone else. My intention was to maintain a lot of the original painting in my own. At the end only the eyes of the original remained visible. The following image shows the process. I started with pastels.

The finished painting is a portrait of Dick Higgins, part of my renewed interest of the sound recordings by artists from the Fluxus movement. This interest was raised by the exhibition Re:Sound, featuring the work of Philip Corner, at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in Fort Myers, Florida. The Higgins song in this year's top 100 is In Memoriam from 1961. It's the second time the track is in the top 100, and thus my second painting of Higgins ten years after the first. In Memoriam is made available for anyone to listen to on the fantastic site UbuWeb. The following are the words introducing In Memoriam: "In Memoriam was made of assembling loops a dub a phonograph record of 16th century dance music. The dance is heard, simultaneously, up to sixteen times as fast and sixteen times as slow as the original, backwards as well as forward, giving a sort of cinematic effect." 

Bajabula Bonke

Hugh Masekela
Oil on canvas, 5 x 5 inches, 2016

The Promise of a Future is a 1968 record by Hugh Masekela that introduced the world to the ubiquitous tune Grazing in the Grass. Hugh Masekela is a South African trumpet player who began his career playing for Albert Herbert in 1956. He joined the Manhattan Brothers in 1958 before joining the orchestra for the movie King Kong. At the end of 1959 he formed, with Dollar Brand and others, the Jazz Epistles, the first South American group to record a jazz LP. Masekela, always vocal in opposition to the apartheid regime, fled the country in 1960. He ended up in Manhattan two years after being a Manhattan Brother, married and divorced Miriam Makeba, all before his smash hit Grazing in the Grass made him a rock star at 29. The Promise of a Future is a great Afro-Jazz album and the Bajabula Bonke (The Healing Song) my favorite track.

Scandalishious

Ann Hirsch performing as Caroline in Scandalishious 
to Donna Summer's Last Dance in 
Caroline's Official Goodbye Video
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016

It's time to announce a textbook I've written, not about music this time, it's about art. You are an Artist! An Interactive Approach to Art History will soon be issued in a digital format and a few months later in print. There are a few places I allow my art work to be shown. These are small portrait illustrations in the margins next to a discussion of an artist. This one here of Ann Hirsch is the last one submitted. The portrait may double for the Top 100 2015/16. As part of my 'research' on Ann Hirsch, I watched about twenty of the 200 videos Hirsch posted, while still an art student, on her Caroline's fun fun channel on YouTube. These videos, created between 2008 and 2010, are five to ten minutes each and are fun to watch. They're actually kind of addictive. In most videos she introduces a song to which she will dance. The introductions are great. In her sweetest innocent voice (she plays an 18 year old character called Caroline—Hirsch was 23 at the time) she addresses her audience and talks about topics ranging from feminism, haircuts, art, her clothes, love, literature, and online bullying. Hirsch managed to get an enormous online following and over two million views. She directly addresses her audience, and interact with many through the commentary board. She dances to a wide range of music in her videos. The Smiths, Animal Collective, the New Pornographers are a few. In one video she dances laying down to Freda Payne's Band of Gold and cries. In the last video Hirsch posted in the Scandalishious series, Caroline's Official Goodbye Video, she dances to Donna Summer's Last Dance. She had to stop as Caroline because she soon would be found out. A bit later she featured as herself ("I'm Ann, and I'm an artist") on VH1on national television, in a reality show called Frank the Entertainer.

The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016.

“It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture. An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even further into its flesh. In essence, the more an ox rebelled, the more it suffered. Thus, Jesus’ words to Saul on the road to Damascus: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.” 
(Copyright 2002-2016. Got Questions Ministries.) ...I always wondered what it meant.

The Fugs

Ed Sanders of the Fugs
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016

Frenzy is a song from The Fugs' second, a self titled album from 1966. The song features, like their name, not so subtle references to the act of making love. They are also known for their not so subtle political satire. Frenzy was written by Ed Sanders, who together with Tuli Kupferberg, headed the band. Liner notes on the LP The Fugs were written by Alan Ginsberg.

The Russian Enigma

Nadya Tolokonnikova
oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016

Over the last few weeks this site enjoyed a spike of visitors, nearly all from Russia. I've been trying to figure what caused this sudden interest. To no avail. The only music coming from Russia in this year's top 100 wasn't painted yet, until today. May it serve as bait. I like to know ho or what linked to this site. There have been a number of Russians in the top 100 the past few years, I've painted portraits of Alexander Scriabin, Dmitri Shostakovich, Reet Hendrikson, a portrait of a Chukchi shaman, and no less than five Pussy Riot paintings. Well, here's number 6. The that's being illustrated by this painting is Kill All Sexists! in a version from the HBO documentary film Punk Singer. Can I add that Nadya Tolokonnikova is one of the most beautiful women in the world?

Mountain Oysters

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
Oil on wood, 9 x 5.5 inches, 2016

Years ago I was totally into 1940s and 50s R&B but the Top 100 has been skipping this era for a number of years. If it comes to R&B from that era, the King Records label from Cincinnati provided some of the best. Henry Glover was the executive producer for King Records, the first African-American in such position. He is also the singer on the track Mountain Oysters by Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. The tune is a classic and also features, beside Davis and Glover, the Bill Doggett  Trio. Mountain Oysters was  recorded under Davis' name in 1949 and appears on the King Records compilation LP Risky Blues from 1971. As the title indicates the record is filled with songs with suggestive lyrics. Henry Glover himself seem to have specialized in such lyrics as he penned It Ain't the Meat (It's the Motion), I Want a Bowlegged Woman, and the iconic Rocket 69. The credits for Mountain Oysters however go to Henry Bernard. Many of the songs on Risky Blues also appear on similar compilations such as Copulation Blues, Straight and Gay, and Risque Rhythm. Sex sells is the motto of the record companies, and there's enough suckers like me who fall for it. "Cause the folks in Georgia, way back home, They love that meat that ain't got no bone! Oysters, those good old mountain oysters!" Mountain oysters, btw, is a dish of fried bull or hog testicles. Bon appetit.

Chelsea Girl

Nico
12 x 5.5 inches, oil on wood, 2016

Fairest of the Seasons appeared to me three times within the span of two weeks. First iTunes on random play mode (there are about 6,000 titles in my folder), then my wife decided to watch The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001) again, then I ran across a copy of the LP Chelsea Girls (Verve, 1967) at a thrift store (I did not have it yet). Coincidence, a sign? I have always liked the song, a lot. I was going to see Nico in concert in the Netherlands in May of 1988. I didn't get tickets ahead of time because I figured it wouldn't be sold out, I'd buy them at the door. The concert was canceled because of a lack if interest. Two months later she died, on my 24th birthday!

Lithuanian Americans

Members of the Alice Stephens Singers
Oil on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2016

The most interesting traditional Lithuanian music I know of was recorded in the United States, in Gary, Indiana in 1949, to be precise. Folk traditions have vanished in many countries around the world, older traditions often kept alive only by immigrants, who, with a nostalgia for the old country are the only ones practicing the old ways. These displaced traditions too, now in the hands of second and third generation (or fourth or beyond) immigrants, are rapidly disappearing. Throughout the twentieth century American musicologists have recognized the importance of recording traditional music for prosperity, and have recorded a wealth of traditional music from peoples originating from all over the world. Baltic-Americans, Mexican-Americans, German-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, Jewish and Irish immigrants, but also Native Americans living in the US, all had their traditions documented because of the zeal of a handful of enthusiasts with a mobile recording device. Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways Records, chiefly among them. As part of a small collection of Lithuanian music, I picked up the 1955 Folkways release Lithuanian Folk Songs in the United States, at a thrift store in Florida. Of the five records in the collection it's the only one with an authentic feel to it, the only one not orchestrated and not embellished for commercial gain. A tradition is not truly lost if it's documented.

Another Stencil

Nina Simone
12 x 9 inches, stencil print, 2016

The stencil assignment continues to be a part of Art Appreciation at FSW. As I am teaching yet another section this Summer, 26 students created a stencil print in an edition of ten. They trade, one with me, nine with fellow students, and they keep an artist proof in their sketchbook. For the occasion I create a stencil in an edition of the class size +10. The subject of my print should be relevant to the young students as well as my Top 100. This semester I chose Nina Simone (1933-2003). While none of the students had ever heard of Nina Simone, the biographical movie Nina, that was just released, as well as her relevance in the civil rights movement, much discussed these days in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement, I found a teachable opportunity in choosing her. Recently I purchased my 10th and 11th Nina Simone records, about a third of her discography, mostly from thrift stores. As far as I can tell there are no bad Nina Simone records out there. If anyone is interested in owning a copy of the print (edition 37), I sell off the remaining 10 prints for $50 each, just respond to this post and we'll make arrangements.

Re: Sound

Glenn Branca
oil on found painting, 5 x 6.5 inches, 2016

The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery that shows work by Philip Corner (see previous discussion) also features a series of beautiful large drawings and altered instruments by composer Glenn Branca. For the occasion I pulled the LP Ascension (a valuable collector's item) from the shelves. The cover of the album (1981) was created by Robert Longo and one of the (many) resonant droning guitars that can be heard on the record is played by Lee Ranaldo, who in the same year went on to form Sonic Youth.

Philip Corner

Philip Corner and Phoebe Neville
pencil on paper, 11 x 9 inches, 2016
signed by Philip Corner

Philip Corner, accompanied by dancer Phoebe Neville, together with members of Sonic Combine and faculty from FSW Music Department, performed a memorable rendition of Corner's notorious Metal Meditations (1973) this afternoon. Corner was a founding member of the seminal art conglomerate Fluxus. In good Fluxus fashion the audience was invited to create their own piece using the metal instruments used in Metal Meditations that were scattered throughout the space. Then, in tribute to Ben Patterson, also co-founder of Fluxus who sadly passed away a few weeks ago, Corner orchestrated a performance of Patterson's piece Paper, in which an unlimited supply of paper is given to the audience, the only instruction given to them was to play with it. They did play (myself included), they altered the gallery installation of musical instruments significantly and, to Corner's wishes the alterations continue to be part of the exhibit that runs through August 13th at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery on the FSW campus.

In Memoriam: Benjamin Patterson, May 29, 1934 – June 25, 2016

Philip Corner
oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches, 2016

Crying and Singing

Anjali, oppari singer in Ayodhyakuppam, Chennai.
Oil on canvas, 24 x 12 inches, 2016.

For many years I have collected examples of cry singing from around the world. Known as keening in Ireland, the tradition of cry singing, as a mourning ritual at funerals, was once widespread throughout the world, and across religions. The latest addition to my collection are some recordings made in the state Tamil Nadu in India. The cry singing tradition in Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is called oppari and is still widely practiced among the fisherman caste of the Tamil population, one of only a few locations in the world where the tradition has not died out. Oppari was brought to my attention through the website Excavated Shellac. Blogger, collector, and musicologist Jonathan Ward recently excavated a disc by a certain Krishnasawmy recorded in Madras in 1916. He was amazed that a recording of oppari was actually recorded and published one hundred years ago. I'm amazed with him but I've learned throughout the years not to be too surprised by the strangeness (to our Western ears) of music put on disc a long time ago in far away places. Oppari singers are typically women, some professional mourners, but Krishnasawmy is a man. Quoting from Ward in the Excavated Shellac post of April 16: "Ethnomusicologist Paul Greene stated that 'Even when men perform it, oppari is a performance of women’s emotions.' He suggests that despite the long-standing tradition of men performing oppari, men’s embodiment of women’s grieving in an oppari performance steals women’s own voice, in a way." The state of Tamil Nadu is also known for its annual transgender and transvestite festival, in which participants act out the ancient myth of the marriage of Lord Krishna, who takes the form of a woman, with Lord Koothandavar.

La Monte Young

La Monte Young
oil on canvas paper, 20 x 16 inches, 2016

 Alright then...here's the real thing.

Watermelon Man

Herbie Hancock
oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches, 2016

Rock It, Watermelon Man, 2 iconic tunes from jazz-man Herbie Hancock. Always liked the tunes but, until today, they never made the top 100 and thus Herbie Hancock I never painted before.

The Mayor of Shiraz

 Moshir Homayoun
20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas, 2016

Any new post on/by Excavated Shellac is guaranteed to pique your interest and rekindle your curiosity in the exploration of music history. This week another jewel from the forgotten history surfaced. A 78 disc from 1933 by the Iranian pianist Moshir Homayoun was discussed and, as usual, greatly researched. Homayoun, aka Habibollah Khan, is known as the first Persian piano player who lived a storied and influential life as musician and politician. The following links direct you to, first the Excavated Shellac piece, and second the Wikipedia page on Mr. Homayoun.

Music in the News

Giovanni Battista Granata
Oil on canvas paper, 12 x 16 inches, 2016

The copyright infringement lawsuit, filed by the estate of Randy California (from the band Spirit) versus Led Zeppelin, has gotten a lot of media attention the past two weeks. Indeed the iconic guitar intro to Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven sounds a lot like Taurus by Spirit which is two years older. Unfortunately for Spirit the case brought to light many more riffs that sound just like the two contested and are much older. Dave Graham used the riff in a version of Cry Me a River ten years earlier, but the chord progression also appears in Mozart, Bach, and—oldest of them all—in Sonata di Chittarra, e Violino, con il suo Basso Continuo by the 17th century Baroque composer Giovanni Battista Granata.

Horns of Plenty

Aluar Horns (Uganda)
8.5 x 11 inches, oil and pastel on paper, 2016

30 years ago I was introduced to traditional African music. A friend, Esther, had a record from the Nonesuch Explorer Series dedicated to ceremonial and folk music from Africa. I taped the record and still have that audio cassette. A recording made in Uganda near the border with Zaire (DR Congo) of about 60 horns, drummers, and singers, was one of the first tunes played by anonymous musicians to be listed in my Top 100. Last week I found the original vinyl and had to buy it. Ethnomusicographic records like the Nonesuch Series used to be plentiful but you don't see them much anymore. I hadn't heard the tune, called Aluar Horns, in twenty years.

Hello Gallo

Vincent Gallo
oil on canvas board, 8 x 10 inches, 2016

As I was rummaging through some records on my shelves, my eyes stopped at a record by Bohack. I had never really listened to that record (It Took Several Wives, 1982) even though I've had it for 18 years. I bought it at the time, cheap, because of the cover that I (in 1998) immediately recognized as a painting by Francesco Clemente. I think I only played it once when I bought it, and not even all the way through. I guess I was not impressed and left the record in near mint condition on my shelf. So I pulled out the record and looked on the back where I spotted the name Vincent Gallo. And I knew of Vincent Gallo, not because he's so famous (which he is, especially after the cult classic Buffalo '66 of 1998, which he directed, played in, and provided the soundtrack for), but because he's a friend of Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) and appears on many a photograph together with her. It was the Gallo of the song Mr. Gallo from Cat Power's first album Dear Sir (1995). So I found information about It Took Several Wives on the Discogs website and to my surprise I found that the record is heavily sought after, worth about $200. I played the record (all the way through this time) and really liked it. Of course the value, and reference to Cat Power, really helped me appreciate the music. The record now, with protective plastic jacket, has been moved to the "important" shelf. 

Nina Simone!

Nina Simone
oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches, 2016

To Be Young, Gifted and Black is a song written by Nina Simone with Weldon Irvine in memory of the author, and friend of Simone, Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun). It was just released as a single in October of 1969 when Simone performed it live at the Philharmonic Hall in New York. The concert in front of a white audience (which Simone does not fail to mention in her introduction to To Be Young, Gifted and Black) was recorded and released on the album Black Gold of 1970. I found the album together with 'Nuff Said of 1968, at the local Goodwill Outlet Center—the last place items exist before being crunched in a giant garbage machine. The album existed on a shelf, or in a box, in someone's house for 46 years, hardly ever played, before being rescued from its destruction. And now it has a new life, and a painting dedicated to it. "Her picture is painted in my memory without a color of despair, and no matter where I go she is always there." (added lyrics to Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair.)

For those of you who ever visited the Koreshan State Park in Estero might recognize the background as being the generator building interior.

!Kung Bushmen of Namibia

!Kung Bushmen women singing
oil on acrylic on found canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 2016

The !Kung Bushmen are a San people (see previous post) living in Angola and Namibia. The exclamation point marks a clicking sound that is part of their language. Miriam Makeba popularized the sound in her 1960 hit song The Click Song. For anyone interested in the music of the San peoples with their ancient roots I highly recommend the Folkways album Music of the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert from 1962. As always, and this is the great thing about Folkways, their albums are always available. On their fabulous website you can listen to outtakes of every song before purchasing.

The San of Namibia

San women singing
oil on on acrylic on found canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 2016

 The depiction of a human being, the only one found at Lascaux, is widely interpreted as an image of a shaman. A nineteenth century photograph of a (Californian) shaman clearly shows a similarity with the figure depicted in the caves of Lascaux some 17.000 years earlier. Literature accepting the shamanic interpretation focuses on the depiction of the man in an ecstatic trance state as opposed to the earlier interpretation as a man in the throes of death. A shaman symbolically dies before entering the spirit realm. Georges Bataille uses the term little death (la petite mort) in discussing the state the human at Lascaux. David Lewis-Williams and Jean Clottes, against the archaeological taboo of making inferences by ethnographical analogy, first forwarded their theories linking cave paintings with shamanic ritual in 1996.31 Lewis-Williams had studied the San since the early nineteen-eighties. Research by Lewis-Williams into trance ceremonies performed by the San people in Namibia has shown that the shaman in a state of trance figuratively dies. He collapses and his soul leaves the body and travels to the spirit world. Before the San were studied in Namibia they had lived near Drakensberg in South Africa until the late nineteenth century, when they were displaced by the South African Government. The San had a long tradition of cave and rock painting while at Drakensberg but in their new home in the Kalahari Desert this tradition ended. There are no caves in the desert and the San stopped painting but still live according to their traditions. South African rock paintings by the San peoples bear striking similarities with cave paintings found in Southern Europe. German philologist Wilhelm Bleek, together with Lucy Lloyd, studied the San people at a time when they were still active at Drakensberg. They left behind an enormous archive of transcripts of interviews, giving a detailed account of San customs, beliefs, and language. The assumed analogy of the San people and the Paleolithic cave painters provide us with valuable information on the lives and works of the latter, but shamanic interpretations of cave art are still disputed. Through an analogy with shamanic cultures, that have been studied in Siberia and North America in the early twentieth century, and with the San people of South Africa, researchers sketched an outline of the first known artists that existed in southern France  and Northern Spain about 40,000 years ago. Lewis-Williams and Clottes speculate that the shamans of southern France and northern Spain were the first professional artists. Individuals who have been designated to perform the function of artists within a community can be distinguished by their psychological traits, often at an early age. The individuals were chosen to be artists through their character of otherness. They could be men or women. 

The above is a section from my forthcoming textbook You are an Artist! For the very reason the text is included in an art textbook, the San are one of the most interesting peoples to look at, and listen too, in the context of musicology. Deemed unscientific to form any conclusion on prehistoric arts by inference of the ethnography of recent cultures, listening to San ceremonies one can nonetheless sense what music like was during Paleolithic times. Personally I don't see a reason why the traditions of the San aren't many thousands of years old. The tune in the top 100 is from a giraffe hunting ceremony found on Youtube. The ceremony is performed by five female singers surrounded by dancing males and children. All five singers are depicted within the smaller circles of the painting above, one of the larger ones I've made in a while. The painting is superimposed on a found canvas that was originally used to paint a family portrait on. Footsteps, hand prints, and the ages of the family members were painted and printed onto the canvas that also had a bunch of circles painted on it. The circles I used unaltered to paint the portraits of female San singers, the composition thereby was predetermined.

Internet Art

Princess Nokia
12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas paper, 2016

Internet Art, a movement in the tradition of subversive anti-art groups going back to the Dadaists, is a fairly recent development in art art history. Even though there already is now "Post-Internet Art," the artists associated with Internet Art (or Net-Art) are still young and vibrant. The most interesting artists to emerge from this movement are a loose conglomerate of women, all now in their early thirties, associated with third-wave feminism. Recently I presented a two hour talk at the Art Center of Bonita Springs on 21st century art which was centered around three of the artists involved in the group mentioned above: Genevieve Belleveau, Ann Hirsch, and Jillian Mayer. Other noteworthy artists associated with these include Angela Washko and Faith Holland. To my own surprise I found the latter included within my Facebook friends. I had met her in New York in 2008, when both of us had exhibitions at White Columns. While a nice platform to follow one's career, she also provides me with updates about what's new and interesting in cultural New York. That's where I found the video Tomboy by Princess Nokia.

When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts...

Fiona Apple
10 x 8 inches, oil on wood, 2016

Air Sitar

Zohra Bai (of Agra)
8 x 1o inches, oil on board, 2016

From a photograph that may depict Zohrabai Agrewali (1836-1913). Zohra Bai is from Agra, not to be confused with another Zohrabai, who was a classical singer in Hindi cinema. There are many pictures of Zohrabai Ambalewali (1918-1990) available. Zohra Bai of Agra has amazing long hands and in interpreting the photograph I purposefully left out the sitar to focus attention to her right hand. Later I also removed the toddler on her knee and held in place by her left hand. Not just air sitar then but also air baby. The left hand was left in place and feels strangely out of place (it still needs a little work but the position won't be altered). The song represented, Dadurwa Bolay Mor Shor Karat recorded in 1910, is of course not about her hands but about her voice, which as sinuous as her hands.

M.I.A. Stencil

M.I.A.
stencil on paper, 2016

A stencil per semester to trade with students, this will make it six. The second of M.I.A.

The Competition

Jennie Williams and Natalie Frost
12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas paper, 2015

Jennie Williams and Natalie Frost (separated in the painting) are holding hands while performing a Katajjaq, a throat-singing game of imitation. A boy holds up a microphone. The singer who first laughs or misses a beat loses. I don't remember who wins, it doesn't matter.

Medieval Music

Barbara Sukowa as Hildegard von Bingen
7" x 7.5", watercolor on paper, 2015

Women, during the middle ages, attained influential and high ranking positions. Hildegard von Bingen was the head of a monastry, communicated with the highest authorities, and wrote a number of important books both on secular (medical and herbal) and religious topics. She was the composer of a number of musical works including what is considered the first opera, and was also a scientist. As a woman she could be considered as a so called ‘Renaissance man.’ The film Vision (Margarethe von Trotta, Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen, Germany, 2009) is based on the writings of Hildegard von Bingen and maintains therefore a high level of historical accuracy. The film has a strong feminist vantage point. Hildegard von Bingen is played by Barbara Sukowa. The music in the film is not von Bingen’s but the group Sequentia, an ensemble specializing in medieval music, recorded the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen in the 1990s. Eight CDs were filled to the max, O orzchis Ecclesia is the 15th and final song from the second CD Voice of the Blood.
The watercolor depicting the actress Barbara Sukowa will be reproduced in You Are an Artist! to be published in August of this year.

2016