More Sampled Art Bouncing Back

More fun waiting for me in the PO Box the other day — another response to the art samples I sent out at the beginning of the summer.  This “Altar of Art” came from Mia Gutfreund.

Multilingual Beer

Beer by any Name, mixed media on board, 12”x16”

How many ways can you say beer?  How many languages?  English? German? Polish? Czech? Swedish? Italian? Creole? French? Latvian? Dutch? Greek? Hungarian?

I think the word “beer” is fairly universal, but just in case you have trouble communicating, this latest piece of art might be handy for world travelers.  And you can take it with you – prints, phone and laptop cases, plus other goodies are available with this image from Society 6.

The original piece Beer by Any Name will be shown in my upcoming exhibit at San Francisco’s City Beer opening October 10, 2013

Lost in the City

Going out in today’s mail a series of 16 pieces of mail art titled Lost in the City.  They include public transportation maps from buses, subways and streetcars.  The material also includes San Francisco MUNI transfers and even a subway ticket from Stockholm that I’ve saved since college.  It’s the time of the year when our cities are full of adventuresome tourists getting lost in the city.

Summer Beer

Summer, mixed media on board, 12”x16”

Even if, like me, you drink beer year round, there is something about beer that always says summer.  Nothing is better on a hot day.  The current series of beer-themed art I am working on needed a bright and summery piece.  Although, in San Francisco the bright white of summer is more likely to be fog. Prints, phone and laptop cases, plus other goodies are available with this image from Society 6.

Summer will be shown in my upcoming exhibit at San Francisco’s City Beer opening October 10, 2013

Chairs

Rancho de la Luna Chairs Series, reverse collage, mixed media on plexi, 5”x5” each

Recently I got a look at the Richard Diebenkorn exhibit at the de Young.  One of the things I was reminded of is the way many of the Bay Area Figurative Painters often included and mastered chairs in their work.  I think it was probably Elmer Bischoff that taught me to love paintings of chairs.  Ironically, I eventually worked for years in the world of interior design and custom furniture – yes, it was all about chairs.  Even earlier in San Francisco, when I was trapped in an office, one of the bright spots was working for an art collector and, as boring as my day could be, I got to sit next to a big portrait of a chair by Raimonds Staprans.  That chair kept me sane.

Inevitably I would have to paint some chairs myself.  These four little chairs were painted onto the backs of plexiglas as part of a series of reverse collages.  The chairs were all done at a friend’s home known as the Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, California.  The pieces are 15 years old now, but they remain some of my personal favorites.

Bodyscapes

Bodyscapes Series, mixed media on canvas, 6”x6” each

Grids are a common occurrence in my collages and I often create individual square pieces for different series with the intention of showing them in grids.  A few years before the 2011 Project, back in 2003, I was working on a series of what I called Bodyscapes.  They were all square format, males nudes just showing a portion of the body.  Partly the idea came about as a response to my own question of how to depict the male nude.  And, anyone familiar with my landscape work will recognize that no matter what I paint, I have a tendency to make everything look like desert rocks, hence the name Bodyscapes.  I also wanted to add an erotic element to the work.  The erotic content itself is not subtle, but only visible when one views the sides of the canvases and realizes they are wrapped in material such as old newspapers, comics and especially pages from queer, erotic paperbacks from the 1960’s and 1970s (see below).  Some selections from the series are shown above.

Bottle Caps

Caps, mixed media on board, 12”x16”

This year I have been collecting all sorts of beer-related items to make art, or as I prefer to call it “Beeraphernalia.”  I knew something had to be done with all these different bottle caps (sadly I have not been able to try all these beers myself – yet.).  Here it is, over 100 bottle caps from the familiar to the exotic.

Caps will be included in my upcoming exhibit at San Francisco’s City Beer in October.