Thursday, June 12, 2014

Beth Orton – Something More Beautiful

Beth Orton, 24" x 16", oil on canvas paper, 2014
Something More Beautiful, the number 3 from the previous top 100 is back in the list. After supplying the number 1 for two consecutive years, Beth Orton plays this year a modest role with just this one song in the bottom half of the list. It's a great song nevertheless, and it's always fun to paint her. This is the twelfth painting I did of her, by no means a record, but it's the most since I started reproducing these paintings on this site in 2010. 

Monday, June 9, 2014

Steve Lacy – Momentum

Steve Lacy, 24" x 16", oil on canvas paper, 2014
Momentum is the title of a record by the Steve Lacy Sextet recorded in 1987. Beside Lacy the sextet include his wife Irene Aebi, Steve Potts, Bobby Few, Jean-Jacques Avinel, and Oliver Johnson. The group was based in Paris, but most musicians are American. Steve Lacy was from New York. A seminal figure in contemporary Jazz he was a prolific recording artist. More than a hundred records were released under his own name, and then a hundred more as a contributor or side man. Momentum, a  recent thrift store find, is the first I own. The cover, as is often the case with contemporary jazz records, features a work of Abstract Expressionist art. The artist Oliver Agid is French. The portrait was done in a few hours, emulating the Edith Piaf portrait of a few weeks back. The silhouette is Cat Power's (see previous post).

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Cat Power – Names

Cat Power, 24" x 16", oil on canvas paper, 2014/2017
 There are several Cat Power songs in the list this year. Recently I pulled You Are Free from the holdings to be included in a small stack of records next to my player. You Are Free is my favorite Cat Power record but I hadn't listen to it in a long time. Most of the songs from the LP have featured in my Top 100 but curiously enough it was the song Names that made the biggest impression on me this time. Names had never featured in a Top 100 list but is as beautiful, intense, and interesting as some of the mainstay songs. The song is a counting song in which a series of children are described who progress in age—one year for each new name. The process of the painting is rather curious, as I seem to switch between styles and processes and attitude about three times a month. Cat Power was painted over the course of five days. While I'm in the process of reroofing my house I took five minutes her, five minutes there to work the painting. Every time I needed to go to the studio to pick up a tool or a piece of lumber Cat Power greeted me upon entering and invited me to take another five minute break. The first three days of the process the painting existed as a monochrome purple but after that colors fit in real easy. So it's a bit of a casual painting, without stretches of real focus. Well, the painting is done but the roof is not even half way there yet. (To be continued...)