Beth Orton

Beth Orton
16 x 12 inches, oil on canvas paper, 2017

Beth Orton's new album Kidsticks is already a year old. I had forgotten to keep up with the British singer-songwriter for awhile, it took an airplane ride across the Atlantic to reengage. The interactive media display on the back of the seat in front of me offered the full album which I listened to twice. Snow is the opening track and the one going into the Top 100 2017. Just as Cat Power's latest album Sun, five years old already, Kidsticks is a departure of her earlier albums and features electronics in place of the traditional instruments. The painting, rather slick for my standards, is larger than life. Portraits larger than life are rather uncomfortable to look at and I usually make an effort to avoid this. The last time I fell in the trap was, for some odd reason, also a Beth Orton portrait.

Confusionism

Beth Orton
18" x 24.5", watercolor on poster, 2015

We have now the post-postmodernist era, post-internet art, metamodernism, zombie formalism, hypermodernism, and post-capitalism. From looking at it you can't distinguish post-internet art from post-internet non art, happily exploited by the commercialization of the internet. The characteristic of metamodernism is that it has characteristics of both modernism and postmodernism, floating between idealism and realism, between “a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity.” [Vermeulen, van den Akker, 2010] Our culture in simply confusing, we have learned that truth subjective and illusive, and that falsehood is true. We have learned that identity is flexible, we can't distinguish between human nature and the human condition, we don't know what is knowledge and what is experience. It's all a big blur. There's an overload of information and images. There's too much (art). How to navigate? Rather than to cry about it we should embrace this condition of confusion. Doesn't the lack of any certainty create a sense of freedom? We know too that this era of post-postmodernism will end, perhaps there will be a future philosopher who, like Confucius, will make sense of this mess, and provide spiritual stability. Until then: let's enjoy this period of confusionism.

The watercolor of Beth Orton was painted on a poster with a reproduction of a work by Ikki Matsumoto featuring three spoonbills. The portrait was painted in the ground (negative space) that is the bodies of the spoonbills, which is at the same time the figure (positive space). The top 100 song: Safe in Your Arms from Comfort of Strangers.

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. 

Beth Orton

Beth Orton
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2013

The third and final entry from the Sugaring Season LP, and the third and final Beth Orton song in the Top 100 2012 as well. And it's a silly painting. Once it was a decent back yard painting, but that's nothing new in these series, then it became a Bob Marley portrait playing soccer. A very awkward Bob Marley painting it was, and I added, like in the photo I used, Jimi Hendrix to the scene. The result was only slightly less awkward and I set it aside. Today I recycled it again and superimposed Beth Orton onto the scene while blocking out all that was left of Bob Marley, and now it is finished, and part of the Top 100 2012 series. As in an earlier Beth Orton painting I used the cover of Sugaring Season for the Beth Orton portrait and it is now forever attached as illustration to the song Candles.

Sugaring Season

Adaption of Sugaring Season
album cover, Beth Orton
12" x 12", oil on board, 2012

Beth Orton's brand new Sugaring Season is out and it's really great. I bought the 12" vinyl version that does the beautiful photograph on the cover more right than does the 12 cm CD. I don't typically use such an iconic image as a record sleeve, as a source to draw from but this time I wanted to make an exception. I don't recall ever painting on a 12" x 12" surface but it surely makes sense as it mimics the format of the LP.  Thus here is an adaption of the LP cover of Sugaring Season, same size, sans the title and name, but with my trademark backyard background. And the portrait, as always, is done freehand without any mechanical devices. The more realistic and true to the source material the painting is, the more important this issue is to me because all the character of the portrait in the painting hinges on small subtleties and distortions from the photographic original. In my self taught course psychology 101 I learned that involuntary distortions in reproduction tell a lot about some unconscious hidden aspects of one's psyche. So I'll add more and more material to be analyzed if someday anyone out there would have an interest. (Which most likely will be my psychiatrist after I've yet completed another thousand more of such paintings.) For the first couple of the next thousand paintings I'll stick to the 12 inch square format in order to produce some more record sleeve adaptations. The next Beth Orton song after the already discussed Something More Beautiful in the Top 100 2012 from Sugaring Season is the opening song Magpie. The song has a reference to a crow in it, which is precisely the animal I attributed to Beth Orton when, two years ago, I asked myself the question: "If Beth Orton would be asked what kind of animal she'd be, what would she answer?"

Something More Beautiful

Beth Orton
12" x 24"
oil on canvas, 2012

The wait is over—we have our new Cat Power CD called Sun, and Beth Orton's Sugaring Season is about to hit the markets. The opening track Cherokee from Sun entered the Top 100 2012 list last week and Beth Orton's Something More Beautiful did the same thing weeks ago–ever since it was released as a sneak preview for Sugaring Season–and breezed through the ranks all the way to top the list. It is such a beautiful song, I can't wait to hear the rest. It appears as if Something More Beautiful keeps Bet Orton at no. 1 following last year's Shopping Trolley from her previous Comfort of Strangers CD. I will be painting my next Cat Power soon but first here's my next Beth Orton painting. Together with Bob Dylan, Orton and Cat Power are the most painted musicians in my top 100 history over the past 5-6 years. Dylan too, came out with a new CD (Tempest) so he'll get another portrait painted too at some point in the next few months. I checked on Beth Orton's tour schedule to promote the new CD but the closest she scheduled to appear is Atlanta, Georgia. (So...if you happen to read this, Beth, please add a show in Miami, or Tampa, or St. Petersburg, or anywhere in South Florida to your schedule, because I would really like it to have the chance to see you perform live. Thank you, I will certainly reward it with some more paintings. Hope you'll like this one in the meantime—it already has the appropriate background to get you in the mood. Yours truly, Berry:)

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: #83, Beth Orton

A sixteen inch Beth Orton head on the wall

Beth Orton
16" x 20"
oil on canvas, 2011

Just as with Cat Power (see previous) I'm also waiting on Beth Orton's new album to come out. Both their last releases date back to 2006. Maybe not as anxiously anticipated as Cat Power's new one, Beth Orton's sure will make a splash in my rankings. Orton's last album Comfort of Strangers now tops the albums' list for the second year running, while for the time being the track Shopping Trolley from it resides at #1 in this year's counting. While awaiting her new one I've been listening to some of her older ones. Stolen Car from her 1999 release Central Reservation entered the list and as a consequence I picked up one of the many paintings I did of her last year and gave it a brand new look. Needless to say I wasn't too happy with the  painting's original look. Now it's good and I learned a lot about that particular painting, that particular photograph it is modeled after, and about portrait painting in general. Not that 16" is all that tall but when a portrait fills it up it is quite big, bigger than life size. I've made many much bigger top 100 portrait paintings but none ever larger than life. Now it's hanging on my wall and a face that big has quite some presence. More than ever before I'm confronted with the spirit of a painted portrait. The look of the eyes, the curve of the lips, every patch of hair, it all has to be just right or else... the painting will complain. I've never met Beth Orton, never seen her perform, just like the music, her videos, her humor, and I painted a dozen portraits of her.

A do-over

Beth Orton
48" x 12"
oil on wood, 2011

Not happy with last week's Beth Orton portrait I decided I needed to do a do-over. A painting hiatus of almost a month caused a rustiness that only could be loosened by painting a large painting. Such was my conviction after reviewing that portrait published in that last blog that I had worked on for so many days. So I set off with a 4ft plywood in front of me and this do-over on the left is the result: the brushstrokes are more decisive, it is looser, and the colors are more vivid than in the previous one. Still not that masterpiece that I'm always striving to produce but I'm back in the studio routine and I'll proudly include it in the series of a hundred paintings that make up the Top 100 2011. The song Shopping Trolley is a repeat from last year's list of one hundred and comes from the CD Perfect Strangers which was one of last year's top albums.

Shopping Trolley

Beth Orton
20" x 12"
acrylic on canvas, 2011

It has been a while, a little too long perhaps, since I painted. We packed up our belongings, the home, and the studio, and unpacked it some 1200 miles south. It will all be worth it in due time. From the Olentangy tom the Caloosahatchee, from pine to palm, from rent to own, it’ll be just fine, all in time, all in time. I think I’m going to paint the palm trees in my backyard. It’s all about them you know, and her.

Beth Orton’s Shopping Trolley has been my theme song for this move we’ve been through. Just watch the video for it on YouTube and I don't need to say no more.

“I think I’m Gonna Cry, but I’m gonna laugh about all in time, all in time”.

Conceived

Beth Orton in Conceived
6.5" x 11"
oil on wood, 2011

Singing train attendant, Japan
7.75" x 11"
oil on wood, 2011

They may not be the best, certainly not the most ambitious but the latest two paintings are happy for sure. Smiles and joy and springtime and sun conceived in the midst of the darkest and coldest of winter. Both these paintings are based on video stills from very happy videos. Let me tell a little about both videos:

• The video to Beth Orton's Conceived features many creatures—Muppets they are, some fashioned after real animals, some fictional creatures. I painted her with a deer Muppet. I painted Orton together with animals before, a fox being the most prominent. When I wrote about it (see Beth Orton and the Animals) I asked the question if Beth Orton were an animal what kind she would be. The question was picked up by an on-line Beth Orton forum and one subscriber thought it would be a giraffe. Personally I decided it would be a crow. I also painted a deer before: a painting of Bambi graced the Top 100 2006 and my friend  Ryan Agnew thought of it as the greatest painting ever. He bought it. Ryan is an artist too, he does performances. In one of his most notorious performances he enacted a worm and wore a worm suit. And to make the story come 'round, it were worms in the first place that started the whole Beth Orton/animal ordeal. Worms is one of five Beth Orton songs this year.
• The video of the singing Japanese train attendant/tour guide was posted on facebook by my friend Enny Kleikamp. She recorded him while touring Japan. I imagine him singing about the beauty of the Japanese landscape and its spiritual nature as opposed to the dry factual "on the left you see..." tour guide of the west.

p.s: The year of the rabbit starts today! Happy rabbit year everyone.

Beth Orton Wearing a Blue Sweater

Beth Orton
16" x 20"
oil on canvas, 2011

Featured in the last top 10 is the song Conceived by Beth Orton. The song was already on its way up the list and resides now at #5. I posted the official video for it on my Facebook page. It's a very happy video with lots of creatures in it. There are five Beth Orton songs in the Top 100, most by one single musician since Cat Power a few years ago. The painting with the blue sweater is the fourth painting of her this year, the fifth one is on its way. All songs come from the CD Comfort of Strangers which actually is the only CD I have, the only one I know. Before this Top 100 year I never even knew any Beth Orton songs but currently she's appearing in all the lists I keep. Because of the additional points for Conceived, Beth Orton climbed to #1 in the list for musicians in 2010. Comfort of Strangers to #3 in the list of albums (highest by single performer) and entered the all time list of albums (a top 50 that I keep for a decade now.) Conceived entered the all time list of recordings (that's a top 500, counted since 1983) and Beth Orton herself just made it in the 200 that keeps track of the musicians.

Top 100 2010: top 10 #60

1. Sergey Ryabtsev - Improvisation    —Ryabtsev is a Russian born violinist for the band Gogol Bordella. Last week I helped install the exhibition Crossing the Boulevard at the Urban Art Space in Columbus, Ohio and the violin tune is found on a CD that comes with the catalog.
2. Be Good Tanyas - Waiting Around to Die   —Cover of the Townes Van Zandt classic that is found back at #10 in the Top 100. I also posted the video for this on Facebook.
3. Beth Orton - Conceived    —(see above)
4. Atman - The End of Philosophy    —Question: What do you do when you have a Polish co-worker? Answer: You bring in your Polish CDs from your collection.
5. M.I.A. - Born Free    —And that propels this to number one in the Top 100 2010! 
6. Beth Orton - Shopping Trolley    —After Conceived this is the second track from Comfort of Strangers for which a video was made. Very happy and funny once again.
7. Alela Diane - Dry Grass and Shadows   —There were three Alela Diane song in the Top 100 2009 last year, all from the CD To Be Still. With these four points Dry Grass and Shadows is the sole survivor.
8. Yael Naim - New Soul    —Again a very happy song. It's one of Maria's favorites.
9. Elizabeth Cotton - Freight Train    —A classic and long time favorite of mine.
10. Cat Power - Wonderwall    —From the John Peel Sessions, a really great radio performance from quite a few years ago. I'm waiting on a her new album for a while now. Waiting... waiting... waiting...

Beth Orton and the Animals

Beth Orton
10.5" x 10.25"
oil on wood, 2010

If Beth Orton would be asked what kind of animal she'd be, what would she answer? I asked myself that question the other day. And why you might think? Because earlier on in these pages (see Varg and Vark, April) I declared this the year of the aardvark. I may have to reconsider this now Beth Orton has three songs already in the Top 100 2010. The answer would definitely not be an aardvark (or would it?), and neither a chicken nor a worm. The latter two figure in the song Worms from the CD Comfort of Strangers, while she drew a butterfly to go along with it. But she'd be the opposite, she'd be a fox, or a crow, or a weasel. Suggestions? I am a chicken, remember? (see Varg and Vark again), I don't have what it takes to knock on her door, "Chickens don't fly but they've got the wings/no matter how hard they try/they bump into things/they're all running around/with their heads on the ground/They got a wish bone where their neck bone should've grown".

I wait for your comments before I once and for good establish the animal of the year. If I should stick with the aardvark or not. Aardvarks in the meantime, live in South Africa, and it couldn't be the year of the aardvark without music from South Africa. To follow up on the last post; here's the painting representing South Africa's Miss Smodern as I had promised.

Africa Jazz 1959
(after a photograph by Gunther Komnick)
6.5" x 8"
oil on wood, 2010


p.s. —It dawned on me that the answer to the question posted above (what kind of animal Beth Orton would be) had to be a crow.

Heart of Soul

Beth Orton
10.5" x 8"
oil on wood. 2010

Heart of Soul is the second Beth Orton song to enter the list of 100. It's the other song, besides Heartlandtruckstop (see the July post with that title), from the CD Comfort of Strangers in the list to start with the word 'heart'. Thus it is also the second painting of Beth Orton, and I have to say they make a nice pair. The two paintings are the same size, the ratio background/portrait is similar, and are each other's opposite in terms of light: dark figure on light (yellow) background vs. light figure on purple ground. They also look opposite ways: when placed next to each other they 'look' at each other. None of the above was planned out. The painting, from a black and white photograph, looks like it's done rather quickly. This is an illusion. I worked all week on it. Little by little the nuances on the photograph made themselves known, each important to the way they were rendered. The black form on the left made itself known to me to be a bird, once I figured that out I had to change the blob in the painting into a bird-like form, it also altered the dynamics of the pose. Most nuances were within the figure though: I found out (very late in the process) that she was pregnant, and that she had a tattoo. Which lines belonged to her hair, to her back, or to the tattoo, was instrumental for successfully painting her shoulders and back. Unlike the photograph in which every line is taken equally, and for granted, the painting chooses the importance of certain lines and shapes above others, and omits ones not essential or confusing. Heart of Soul is more upbeat than the rest of Comfort of Strangers and has this sing-a-long hit quality to it. I started to sing-a-long the first time I heard it, so much so that I thought I've heard it before. But it's not the Yardbirds' Heart Full of Soul, and not Stevie Ray Vaughan's Heart and Soul. It is not, although I thought it was for little while, Put a Little Love in Your Heart by Jackie deShannon. It's nothing but a great Beth Orton song.

Heartlandtruckstop

Beth Orton
11' x 7.25"
oil on wood, 2010

During my time off work I undertook several road trips. Driving long distance is great for music listening. The best music for driving is popular music, with the occasional sing-along hit. It so happened that not too long ago I purchased a whole stack of popular music from the discard bin at the library. The problem often, with popular CDs is that besides the hit song the rest of the CD is hardly worth listening to. In the old days of popular music the artists went into the studio to record but a few tracks, singles. A whole album, more than an hour, is often too much for a band, any band to be able to hold my attention. Usually I'm done with listening to a CD after about three songs (the best song is often the first track). The notable exception from the recent stack of CDs is Comfort of Strangers by Beth Orton. It is one of those albums that you can play over and over again and it only gets better. I have a history liking the songs of a certain female singer-songwriters; in the last decade there have been one or two albums each year that I played many, many times (something I don't usually do). The Beth Orton CD, purchased for only a dollar is bound to be one of this year's top albums as I listened to it more than any other album thus far. Heartlandtruckstop is the first song from the CD to be included in the Top 100 2010 and several others are close behind. I just got done with the first painting of her and I'm looking forward to painting two or three more. The following list represent ten albums from singer-songwriters that yielded multiple songs in a Top 100 of recent years. The list is in no particular order.

• Cat Power - You Are Free
• Alela Diane - To Be Still
• Lucinda Williams - Essence
• Jolie Holland - Springtime Can Kill You
• Joni Mitchell - Blue
• Jessica Lea Mayfield - Blasphemy, So Heartfelt
• Beth Orton - Comfort of Strangers
• Cat Power - The Greatest
• Jolie Holland - Escondida
• Marianne Faithfull - Before the Poison