Amsterdam - 4/10/15 - Image-a-day

Today's image is another in the series of sculptures that I did of Chet Baker inspired by the Bruce Weber documentary "Let's Get Lost". This was the last of four pieces that I did called "Amsterdam", which was where Chet Baker died under mysterious circumstances when he fell (or jumped) from a hotel window. I love the rhythm of the lines in his face. The paint job was fairly simple washes and then some steel wool to accentuate the texture and then another wash. Of the four pieces in the series, this is the only one I still own.

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Chet EXCU - 4/9/15 - Image-a-day

Chet Baker's moody, blue jazz music entered my life through the lovingly black and white gaze of Bruce Weber's documentary, "Let's Get Lost". I knew nothing of Baker or his music before seeing that movie, but became an instant fan of both his music and sad, tragic life. Bruce Weber's stark, black and white images emphasized the tortured crags of Baker's face and I explored that landscape in a series of four bas-relief sculptures. It was the early 1990s and I was working on the moniker of "Kan-Ken Studios" doing a few outdoor art shows and making a very modest living with my art. This piece is called "Chet EXCU" and was sculpted in oil-based clay, then molded and cast in dental stone and painted with acrylics. It lives in a collection in Richmond, Virginia now.

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Hello Monkey Boy - 4/5/15 - Image-a-day

I was back in the studio today doing a little whittling. Well, I don't know if it technically qualifies as "whittling" but it's close enough. Here's a WIP (work-in-progress) photo of my latest Lo-Fi-Ga. I haven't given him a name yet, but I was thinking of gorillas and apes and monkeys when I was working on him, so that will factor in. I really love making these silly little faces. I don't know if they amount to a hill of beans in this crazy old world, but they make me happy and I hope they put a smile on somebody else's face too.

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I Hate Moving - 4/4/15 - Image-a-day

My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. There was rarely any preparation, just talk of the move, then one day a U-Haul would show up and we'd start loading, usually packing as we went along because nothing was ready. Early on there would be talk of being done in time to have some lunch before hitting the road, but as the day wore on and lunch turned into dinner and then we hoped to finish before midnight. By then of course, it was too late to leave so we'd either crash on the floor in the empty apartment or go ahead and get on the road, only to pull over at the first rest stop for a few cold, restless hours of semi-consciousness before rolling off into the pale dawn light toward you next big adventure. Where ever we were going to was always going to be better then the place we were leaving behind, until that place turned out to be a dud and nine months to a year later we were loading another U-Haul truck. As a result of this repeated experience, I got really good at packing and loading trucks and I cultivated a deep animosity toward moving.

Today, I wasn't the one moving, so I was able to keep a handle on my move-rage. I helped my old pal Casey of COG-Photo blog load up a truck of stuff, so he benefitted from ninja-like packing and moving skills. It's never any fun to pack and move stuff, so that's the true test of friendship. The folks who show up to help are the keepers.

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