Be Good Tanyas

The Be Good Tanyas
16" x 20"
oil on canvas

Three weeks to go until completion. The Top 100 2010 now has 85 songs and 80 paintings I consider done. The date for the countdown and exhibition is set for March 12th. It will be at Skylab, 57 East Gay Street, Columbus, Ohio. It'll be a party. The Be Good Tanyas are back in the list for the first time since 2006 when The Littlest Birds claimed a #40 spot. Jolie Holland used to be a part of the Be Good Tanyas, she sang the The Littlest Birds and wrote it too. After six years of a whole lot of Jolie Holland songs and paintings, she has not made it into the list this year. But there is time: February 3rd she plays in town and I sure will be there. She plays on a big black guitar that has a signature of T-Model Ford on it. I'm sure she'll bring it. I'll keep you posted. The Be good Tanyas this year, without Jolie Holland, score with a cover of Townes Van Zandt's Waiting Around to Die, the original's already high up the list.

Marie Osmond
11" x 5"
oil on wood, 2011

I'm a busy, busy painter so I don't have much to write today. I'll finish up with this brand new painting of Marie Osmond that I thought I should share. It's meant as a follow up of the chapter last week called Marie Osmond. Just one little interesting anecdote to add to that story: Several times during the painting of Marie Osmond on old friend named Sunny Taylor came to mind. She happened to e-mail me a few days ago and I replied that I was just thinking about her and why. I wrote her it had nothing to do with the fact that both the Osmonds and her hail from Utah. "Funny" she replied back, "I used to be neighbors with Donny."

(I am not so sure it had nothing to do with it.)

Marie Osmond

Marie Osmond
7" x 5"
pen on paper, 2011

Had I had the foresight to start making top 10s when I was ten years old, I certainly would've had the Osmond Brothers in a Top 100. I was crazy about Crazy Horses; I was playing air guitar and mimicking the brothers' horse imitations. English did I speak not. But I started making top 10s at 18 and never gave the brothers a single point ever. Let alone their little sis Marie.
But then comes April, I'm 45 now, and all of a sudden the name Marie Osmond pops up. And now when I'm going through some songs that almost have enough points gathered to be in this Top 100 I play her Hugo Ball recital once more and decide to reward this recording from a Ripley's Believe it or Not broadcast with a spot between the Top100 elite.
Not committing to painting yet I was searching for pictures of Marie Osmond when I suddenly recognized Sarah Palin in her image. I don't know if I made this association because of similar features or gestures, poses, or just a spark in the eye, but I could not separate the two anymore. I made a number of sketches in my drawing book, some more Palinesque than others. Those with Palin in mind seem to be more vibrant, a more sexualized celebrity type image than some others. I probably do a small painting informed by one of those sketches. Until then I'll make do with this one little sketch of the sober portrait variety, it's the best one of the set I just made.  In it I don't recognize Sarah Palin at all but rather her brother Donny. I do not recall, but I must have seen The Donny and Marie Show on TV quite a few times. I was 10.