Fool

Cat Power
12.5 x 7 inches, oil on board, 2018

Fool from the 2003 album You Are Free is the latest Cat Power entry in the Top 100. At least one song from that album has been in the Top 100 since its release and is ranked the highest album by a single performer since that time...16 years ago already. It never gets old for me to paint yet another Cat Power painting. There must be almost 50 now, 27 of which were shown last August at Tempus Projects in Tampa:

Excavated Shellac

Dashzegiin Ichinkhorloo

7 x 5 inches, oil on board, 2018

The context for this miniature painting can be found on the excellent site Excavated Shellac by Jonathan Ward.  I don't have much to add as everything I know about this recording and the photograph of Ichinkhorloo provided, have been carefully excavated by Mr. Ward. Hats off to the record collector!

The Last Selk'nam Shaman of Patagonia

Lola Kiepja
12.5 x 7 inches, oil on board, 2018

Shaman Chant is one of 47 songs (all named Shaman Chant or Lament) by Lola Kiepja recorded in Argentina by Anne Chapman in 1964 and released on Folkways as Selk'nam (Ona) Chants of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina: 47 Shaman chants and Laments in 1966. The liner notes were also written by ethnologist Anne Chapman. The following is her introductory paragraph: "These records comprise 47 chants sung by the last true Indian of the Selk'nam (Ona) group, Lola Kiepja. The Selk'nam had no musical instruments. These chants are sung without any sort of accompaniment." In 1966 Kiepja was one of only ten survivors of the Argentinian genocide against the Selk'nam. She was the oldest of the ten and the only shaman, the only one versed in the traditions of the Selk'nam. The Selk'nam, or Ona, did not come in contact with (ethnic) Europeans until the 19th century not long before the genocide started. Lola Kiepja was about 90 years old when she died in 1966. The last ethnic Selk'nam, Angela Loij, died in 1974. Currently there are about 500 people (according to the Argentinian census) who claim (partial) Selk'nam ancestry, only one speaker of the Ona language is known today. The decline of the Selk'nam people was accelerated by the discovery of gold in their lands. Early in the 20th century, Martin Gusinde, among other anthropologists, studied the customs of the Selk'nam in depth. Even a photograph of Lola Kiepja taken in 1905 exists. The most important ceremonies of the Selk'nam are initiation rites in which their cosmology is reenacted. The masks and body paint used in these ceremonies belong (in my mind) to the highlights of art history. Beyond these spectacular impersonations of their ancestor spirits the Selk'nam are not known to have created (material) art.

M.I.A.

M.I.A.
Stencil on paper, 10 x 8 inches, 2018

New year, new M.I.A. stencil. Made for the occasion of a new semester at FSW. Made to trade with students. My intention was to have an edition of 38 (the number of students) but I had to stop at 18 because the matrix fell apart.

Dudy/Mladina

Jan Voves, Mladina (signed by Jon Voves)
9 x 6 inches, drawing stick in sketchbook, 2018

The town of Fort Myers Beach has a Plzeň theme this weekend. I figured the Czech city of Plzeň is a Sister City of Fort Myers Beach but neither Fort Myers nor Fort Myers Beach have sister cities. Yesterday I went to the FMB public library where a number of cultural events were happening, to watch a performance by the folk group Mladina. A delightful little concert it was. Plzeň, of course, is known the world around as the namesake for the word pilsner, synonymous for beer. I had my sketchbook with and made some sketches one of which is this one of dudy player Jan Voves. A dudy is a bagpipe. The Dutch word for bagpipe is 'doedelzak' and I wondered if the word is related to the Czech dudy. According to Wiktionary the word is onomatopoeic (meaning that the word derives from the sound associated with it) but upon further investigation the words doedelzak and dudy are indeed related and come from the Turkish düdük which means 'pipe.' The Polish word is also dudy and in German it's dudelsack, all these term then translate to the English bagpipe (zak/sack = bag.) The word doodle also comes the German dudel (dudeldopp = simpleton.) You can't really tell from the drawing (the doodle) but the end of the pipe of the dudy has a carving of a goat's head. Jan Voves explained that the goat's sound is compared to the dudy. The bleat of a goat sounds like maa or baa, but not dudy. (The Czech word for goat is 'koza.')