"... for a bit of colored ribbon."

Last weekend my son became a member of the color guard for his United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps unit. He was also honored at the Annual Award ceremony and luncheon for two other contributions: fund-raising and perfect attendance. Congratulations, Sweetie!

Snow Problem!

We were supposed to have our appeals hearing today. But Detroit was socked with a huge snowstorm. Twelve inches of really heavy stuff. The world is only now digging out. We did make it all the way to the courthouse, only to be told that it was closed and to report there on Monday instead. The storm was magnificent. And impressive enough to take some pictures on our way downtown.

A detail:

And more snow on its way tomorrow night...

Burn After Reading?

Today the Detroit News and the Detroit Pree Press announced that they will cut their home delivery to only three days a week. They are the first major newspapers in the country to make this decision. Newspapers will still be published daily in small, abbreviated editions, but will only be available at newsstands and retail outlets. Only the Thursday, Friday and Sunday editions will be delivered to homes. Online subscriptions will also be available. But it isn't the same as picking up the paper from the front porch and reading it with one's morning coffee, is it?

Oh, yes, the newspapers will be shaving about 200 jobs from their payrolls at the same time...

In my extremely modest little neighborhood where my studio is located, the situation has become really dire. I have lost most of my neighbors and every house around my studio house is empty. There is no life on the street. The inevitable result of all these foreclosures and inability to come up with rent money is that some homeowners and landlords simply resort to arson to rid themselves of an unwanted house. I am afraid it will become hard to tell which homes have succumbed to furnace fires, faulty Christmas lights, or the bad economy. This home met its end sometime last week.

Brush With the Law

From the newspaper that brought down the Mayor of a major American city by virtue of its thorough investigative journalism...

From one of this nation's oldest newspapers, established in 1831...

I bring you, at long last, the article in the Detroit Free Press:

Is It Art?

(photo by Susan Tusa)

Limitless

"The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep."

~Paul Strand

True Realities

"Collage is the noble conquest of the irrational, the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them."

- Max Ernst

Mîgwetchiwiiwewin

As Thanksgiving approached, I realized I had really no Fall painting with which to decorate my house.

And we have so much to be thankful for, in spite of our small problems. Even the problems are at least interesting. We will have a new hearing at Wayne County Circuit Court; it is currently scheduled for December 19. This will be our appeal of the guilty judgment against us in our Municipal Court over my outdoor paintings.

On Monday I will be interviewed by the Detroit Free Press about the issue. I'll let you know when this article comes out.

So for my Fall painting, I chose a Native American theme again. I had just been to the local annual pow-wow. It was very sparsely attended, due to the economy and the distances from which many Indians must travel, weighed against the amount they think they might earn as vendors there. While it was a little bit sad not to see the same people we see year after year, it was still good to see some of the faithful and the most dedicated dancers with their gorgeous costumes.

I used an old Edward Curtis photo as my pose and some of my own photos from the pow-wow to fill in the costume details. The zigzag wooden forms which frame the sides of the painting are stair supports (called "stringers") from Home Depot, painted turquoise blue with Native-inspired medallions. I am in the process of varnishing this painting and it will appear in front of my house by Wednesday. Just in time for Thanksgiving. And my guests.

Acrylic on wood. Image size, approx. 66 x 122 cm.

Little Queen

Shyly, she gazed at the strangers from behind the sumptuous silk curtain. The smell of roasting coffee filled the air. Her mother would soon bring out steaming cups to welcome us...

Gently tear away the curtain. All of Africa is in the gaze; in that aroma. Gazelles frolic across the Serengeti and a leopard rests in a acacia tree near a river...

...And a small girl is queen in her mother's kitchen.

This is the first painting I have developed from my series of coffee paintings (see below.) I finally got a chance to use a piece of papyrus I had been saving - the sole reason being that it had a fly stuck in it. That fly has traveled all the way from Egypt! And now it rests in my painting.

The gilded coffee beans remind me of scarabs, or large, worked pieces of African gold.

Acrylic on paper with silk, coffee, coffee beans, papyrus, glass beads, 22k gold leaf and one dead fly.

25 x 32 cm.

Yes We Did!

"...democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope."

Vigil

HOPE

A Second Cup?

I didn't quite get to to point of manipulating my new coffee paintings this week. I decided I needed to do some more to build up a stash of paintings to use in my collages. I feel I am only now getting the feel of working with the coffee, as it really does have a nature all its own.

I thought you would nevertheless enjoy seeing some of these new little paintings on their own, before they are placed into larger works. I have also purchased some coffee beans to use in the planned collages. When I say, "planned" I mean only that I plan to use these materials. I do not have any particular arrangement in mind as yet.

I painted from some vintage and fine art photos. The photographers I used included Edward S. Curtis and his famous photos of Native Americans, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston. I found that Imogen Cunningham is the easiest to "springboard" from, and the paintings I produced based on her photos seemed the most different from their original source. I doubt that one could pick out the original photo from my painting, as it has changed a lot in the process.

Same thing for Edward Weston, but his photo compositions are frequently so austere that one sees only a pose and hardly the personality of the photographer. So the painting seems actually more mine than the photo is his, due to the fact that my own touch at least inevitably has something of my own signature.

The Edward S. Curtis photos came through more as himself. I attribute the sepia tones of the coffee to this , as so many of his photos (all of the ones I have ever seen, in fact) are sepia in tone. The ethnographic details are also a dead giveaway.

A man from Margaret Bourke-White's famous photo of South African miners... Has kind of a WPA feel to it. I think.

And a nude from Miss Cunningham...


Okay, next week, for sure, I start putting these paintings through the collage process.

Manifesto

Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders and says, "Shit! She's awake!"

- Author unknown

Coffea arabica

This week I have been experimenting with painting with coffee. There are quite a few websites devoted to painting with coffee. Many of them display work which is quite lovely. But I don't look at a simple painting in an unusual technique as quite enough. For me, it is an element in a painting which should speak in some way which heightens the subject matter with which I am dealing.

As you have been able to see from my past paintings, I am speaking much about those things which are commodities of one sort or another. Things which can be traded. Among these many commodities are tea, gold, fur, tobacco, cowrie shells, and even humans. I like to put these actual objects, and more, into my painting/collages for their evocative qualities and their histories. Well, okay, I don't put the humans. I'm satisfied to put the mere representation of humans into my paintings. That is, after all, my real subject: the human condition.

I hadn't worked with coffee at all, and it is a beverage with a definitely rich history, much of it Arab and African. The fragrance of it is familiar, warm and comforting. It can signify hospitality in a lonely place - pretty much all over the world.

So this week I worked up a few paintings in coffee, to serve as elements in next week's painting/collages, very much in the same spirit as I cast many coins in my gel medium technique. I used a variety of photographic sources - primarily vintage. I don't consider them to be complete works in their own right, although they could certainly stand on their own. But you may enjoy looking at them as they are, nonetheless. They were done very quickly, and there are more than you see here. This is a representative sample. Coffee samples, as it were...

An Asian woman:

A poor sharecropper's daughter:

...and a boy praying above.

If you would like to try coffee painting yourself, it is a very pleasant way to paint, because of the delicious smell which lingers in the studio, and because it does seem to respond to one's directions very well.

Use instant coffee - I used Medaglia d'Oro instant espresso coffee, which is too expensive to be using as an art material, but I only wanted a small jar and I figured espresso might give good darks. Make the "brew" very thick - don't be afraid to use a lot of powdered coffee - much more than you would normally put in a cup to drink. As you work it will become thicker and stickier. This provides your very dark color and it is a bit shiny. You can also boil it down a bit, if you want it even darker.

Next week I will put these paintings, and others, through their paces as collage elements and we will see what happens.

Coffee on paper. Sizes from 12 x 16 cm to 16 x 25 cm.

Horse Race

I've already made up my mind about this election and no one can sway me. But it's altogether too close for my comfort. It's a horse race! And that's what this painting is all about...

You have the decision as to what direction the country will take...

...and you have issues over a woman's body and her private choices...

(Yes, that actually is supposed to be a small female torso in the photo above.)

In all, it's a fine mess. Typical of American politics since the country's inception. I even left visible the raggedy edges of the French paper I use and the tattered threads of the small American flag I found on the street (I seem to remember it was after July 4th) and collaged onto this painting. I even liked the rough wood of the deck on which I photographed it.

The cast shapes are made of paper, from the same molds in which I made the gel medium forms. It works almost as well, except that the paper wants to relax back into lumpiness, unlike the gel. This gives the painting s a very rough, ungraceful look, which I think is well suited to the subject.

Vote early, vote often!

Acrylic paint on paper, cotton, silk, tobacco and postage stamp. 25 x 32 cm.

Serving God

No, it isn't art-related. But I couldn't resist this one...

Judge dismisses Neb. lawmaker's suit against God

By The Associated Press
10.16.08

LINCOLN, Neb. — An unlisted address is proving to be God's best legal weapon against a mortal but tenacious Nebraska state senator.

A Douglas County District Court judge has thrown out state Sen. Ernie Chambers' lawsuit against God because the Almighty wasn't served a legal notice. And the judge doesn't seem to think it's possible to find the Almighty's front door.

"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Judge Marlon Polk wrote in his four-page order on Oct. 14.

Just over a year ago Chambers, the longest serving — and maybe the most powerful — state senator in Nebraska history, sought a permanent injunction against God. He said the Almighty had made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are poor or have the means of billionaire Warren Buffett of Omaha.

But the judge ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a lawsuit to move forward.

Chambers, who graduated from law school but never took the bar exam, thinks he's found a hole in the judge's ruling.

"The court itself acknowledges the existence of God," Chambers, who is not returning to the Legislature next year because of term limits, said yesterday. "A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God's omniscience. Therefore, God would have actual notice of that lawsuit."

"Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."

Chambers has 30 days to decide whether to appeal the decision and said he hasn't decided yet whether to file one.

During a court appearance in August, while sitting a few feet away from an empty table reserved for God and God's attorney, Chambers argued that courts and the U.S. government already routinely take notice of God.

Courts swear in witnesses with an oath that includes the phrase "so help me God." Plus, the Pledge of Allegiance describes "one nation, under God," and U.S. currency proclaims "In God We Trust."

Chambers regularly skipped morning prayers during his 38 years in the Legislature and often criticizes Christians.

Hula Rula

Kuhi no ka lima, hele no ka maka.

"Where the hands move, there let the eyes follow."

- Hawaiian Proverb (A rule in Hula. And not a bad rule for Art. Trula.)

Poltergeist

Mine is a truck possessed by mischievous spirits.

While driving my '99 Ford Ranger, my windshield wipers suddenly come on for no reason and copious amounts of washer fluid are squirted nonstop over my windshield. Consequently, I can't see to drive. My window is now squeaky clean, but that doesn't help me get to the studio.

Fortunately, there is a Ford dealership within walking distance and I expect to get my truck back sometime today. After the exorcism. But until then, there is no new Art to be seen here. Sorry.

Technical difficulties.

Please stand by.

Crazy Quilt

I didn't have a great deal of time today so I simply began to piece together fabric at crazy angles on a small piece of Arches paper. It began to remind me of a crazy quilt, those quilts which were all the rage in the late 19th-century. Later, during the Great Depression, saving scraps of fabric became pretty crucial and feedsack and suit quilts became the fashion. One can still see examples at flea markets of quilts pieced together from men's suits. The colors are often somber and warm, but they are handsome.

My crazy quilt is a portrait of the times, in this country and others, in which everyone is stitched together into one bigger piece of work. We must be frugal, with every scrap saved and reused.

Acrylic on paper, silk and leather. 16 x 25 cm.

The Dancer

Acrylic on paper and silk, with shells, bone ankh and glass beads. 25 x 32 cm.

Guilty!

Nearly a year after our trial in Grosse Pointe Park's Municipal Court, Judge Carl Jarboe has found my husband (not me!) guilty of "erecting signs without a permit". They are talking about my paintings, friends, not any kind of "signs" that I've ever seen before. The only sign I have on my property is a "Beware of Dog" sign.

Meanwhile, of course, all around me I see campaign signs, Halloween decorations and lawn sculptures, none of which required a permit and no one else has ever received a ticket for their decor or their particular forms of expression. Later, we will see Christmas decorations, including huge Nativity scenes that stretch from one end of the lawn to the other, and yes, painted flat cut-outs with Santa Claus and the Holy Family. What is the difference between those displays and mine? Only the City knows...muhahaha...

We are appealing, naturally.

Criminal Art

The Sieve

This is a painting about offering someone your best - poetry at your lips - and having it all go through their head like water through a sieve. This has been my experience lately.

Acrylic paint on paper, silk and leather with 22k gold leaf. 16 x 25 cm.

Man of Flowers

Basically I did this very fast little painting because I wanted to paint a man, instead of my usual feminine subject matter. It is merely a piece of burned-out velvet silk and two pieces of flowered silk. The profile of the man was suggested by the accidental cut edge of the burned-out velvet scrap, and it reminded me of one of those massive Easter Island sculptures. I painted gold metallic paint into the silken part of the fabric and let the velvet pattern stand.

Years ago there was an Australian film called, "Man of Flowers" (dir: Paul Cox, 1983) about an elderly man who pursues aesthetic and sexual (the two are equated in the film) satisfaction from three things; art, flowers, and the nude female form. He is considered eccentric, lonely, and in need of psychiatric help, until he proves that in fact he is more a whole person than most men.

Acrylic paint on silk and paper. 20 x 27 cm.

The Knight's Tale

I'll upload this video to my blog later, once I get the file from my son. In the meantime, you can watch it here:

The Knight's Tale

I have noticed a great number of Brit Lit class assignments on YouTube. It was suggested in this instance that students upload their work to YouTube due to the vagaries of DVD compatibility. I imagine it is so for classes across the country, and perhaps across the English-speaking world. So you can watch, if you so desire, a multiplicity of artistic expressions (and license) in the interpretation of The Canterbury Tales.

Have fun!

Sea Monsters

Yes, he's a Sea Monster. But he's OUR Sea Monster.

After spending the weekend making puppets and supporting the efforts of the younger set (see; "The Canterbury Tales", below) I was not really ready to get serious at the studio. So I pieced together this not-very-scary sea serpent from scraps left over from other projects. I think it looks a little bit like one of those illuminated manuscript illustrations depicting monsters at the very edge of the known world.

Acrylic paint on paper, leather and silk with very tiny sea shells. 16 x 25 cm.

The Canterbury Tales

When one is a mother, one is called upon to do some unexpected things. My son came home with a project dealing with the Canterbury Tales, which he is covering in his British Literature class.

Teaming up with a classmate, the two boys decided to do a puppet show, running through the entire Knight's Tale segment of the Canterbury Tales. They are in the middle of filming the puppet show this afternoon and will upload it to YouTube once it is complete.

I made the puppets the day before from wool felt, gluing and lightly sewing on costumes, and then painting the faces. I even made a couple of horses, for the battle scenes. And after all, what is a Knight without his trusty steed? The boys have written the script, will film and edit it, and add music.

The cast of characters, among many, includes Theseus:

His new wife, Queen Hippolyta:

And her sister, the fair Emilie:

I will let you know the YouTube address as soon as we have one. Should be pretty good. Due in class on Wednesday!

Human puppets are about 30 cm tall, by about 20 cm. wide, cruciform. A variety of fabric scraps, yarns and trims on wool felt, with acrylic paint.

Mapping Her Contours

A man's silhouette gazes down on a woman's body as if she is a map of the world. Below this scene, a glove is delicately painted with a toile de Jouy scene.

The two scenes are contrasted - the pastoral glove below with the contemplation of a violation above. The man above is capable of treating both Woman and World in the precisely same way; the woman is mapped out according to his plans with longitude and latitude and borders clearly demarcated. The scene below is one of courtship and playfulness.

Acrylic paint on paper, microfiber polyester, leather and tile fragments, with 22k gold leaf. 25 x 36 cm.

Flights of Fancy

From the Greeks, to the Maori, to Native Americans, the World is filled with legends of Birdwomen. Sirens, harpies, and sharp-tongued, grasping, snatching women - to encounter a Birdwoman was never a good thing, and always potentially very dangerous.

“The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.”

-Walter Savage Landor

This Birdwoman spreads her wings, while her Sisters perch in the corner above. She took only four hours to do today, from collage start to painted finish, as She is quite small. 16.5 x 25 cm.

Acrylic on silk and paper, with 22k gold leaf.

Kid Gloves

This really was a one-day painting. I did it today, from 10am to 3pm.

Still on a musical theme, a Lady curls around a piano. Her legs are Music and the notes, Abalone, again. A white-gloved hand spills money into her lap. So she becomes a kind of Danaë figure.

Gloves have an ancient symbolism, particularly white kid gloves. They are seen in Masonic rites. A glove thrown down is a challenge. A Lady gave one of her gloves to her Knight before a tournament to show her favor. And "kid gloves" treatment is always the gentlest.

An interesting site about gloves, their history and symbolism, and some beautiful hand-made examples: Estrella Gloves

Acrylic paint on paper, with silk, leather, wool, abalone and "pearl" button. 25 x 32 cm.

Endlessly Rocking

I am involved in a fundraiser for the local art association, which takes place this Sunday. In this instance the fundraiser takes the form of a chair auction, in which each artist receives a chair to refinish or restore, usually artistically. The chair can be functional as a chair, or it can be deconstructed completely and end up bearing no resemblance at all to anything one could sit on.

I received only an interesting chair fragment for the chair auction. Immediately I thought I should do a wall piece in assemblage form. The stanzas from Walt Whitman's poem, “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking” kept coming to mind. I determined to make a piece essentially illustrating this poem. The three main characters in the poem are a young boy, and a mockingbird. The Sea is also a character which communicates a message in the poem. The bird nests with its mate on a beach on Long Island, which Whitman always referred to as its Indian name of Paumanok.

The fragment of chair I received was the back of the chair with legs. I scavenged an old wooden rocking horse for parts such as the rockers and the head of the horse, because a chair can also have rockers, and I attached them to the chair. Therefore, there was a connection between the chair as a rocking chair and the childhood toy as a rocking horse. So one could see the beginning and end of life as well, I thought.

In the course of the poem, one day the female of the pair fails to return to the nest and is lost forever. The plaintive calls of the male and the sense of loss in his song cause the boy to wish to learn to be able to communicate this loss, and all losses, to others in the form of poetry. It is a coming-of-age poem.

In order to make the chair into an illustration of the poem, I carved a bird from basswood and gilded it with 22k gold leaf. The bird perches on one of the rockers.

The young boy is painted into a “window” in the back of the chair.

And the Sea is depicted as all around, endlessly rocking, and endlessly whispering.

Bidding begins at only $35.-

I include a link to, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking , for your pleasure.

Principles of Music

Okay, so this painting took two days, instead of one. My days are a little shorter once school starts, and sometimes things need drying time. But you'll forgive me.

This painting started out with very little plan. Only some pieces of silk fabric with flowers and horizontal lines. It reminded me of sheets of music and so I collaged some 18th century reproduction musical papers, cut out a heart in chamois, and sprinkled some tobacco and tea here and there. Small bits of abalone shell made up musical notes across the page. I added a cork paper canoe and some muskrat fur to give it a sense of period. Still, it was missing something...

Rummaging around in my collage supply I found a card from a local guitar store, advertising a course of lessons. It consisted of a photo of a guitar with just the center sound hole and some strings and frets. It was the kind of thing you'd find hanging on your front door when you arrive home - there was a space for the doorknob. I attached this ad to the side of the entire piece and placed one of my gel medium cast coins on the hanging hole. So now I had a "pay the piper" idea going. I painted into the center hole of the guitar a woman undressing. Her garter has already been loosened (a broken string?) More coins and a lover's portrait in the center of the heart and the piece was complete.

Play on...

Acrylic paint on paper with silk, leather, fur, cork, abalone shell, tobacco and tea. 27 x 43 cm.

A Glimpse of the River Beyond

In spite of the renewal of intense activity surrounding the start of the school year, I actually have had time to paint. And, in fact, to return to some "one day" paintings. I will post them here as I photograph and scan them.

This painting was only really a half-day painting, as it is quite small - only 16.5 x 25 cm., and composed of very simple elements. A shepherdess lifts her head over a dry landscape to catch the sight and scent of a refreshing River beyond the desert which surrounds her.

Acrylic paint on Arches paper, with cotton, silk and beads.

Spirits

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Acrylic paint on small boulder, nestled in red lava rocks.

Departure

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
-William Shedd

The Long, Hot Summer

It has been a hot summer, with too many large-scale projects that don't lend themselves easily to blog photos. And I've been lazy about keeping up with my photography and writing. But here are two of my most recent projects. The first is a new outdoor painting of four horses, designed to hang on my garage wall. (Get it? Horsepower..?) It has a much more narrow companion piece which is an abstract of manes and tails. I'll show them in place once they are hung.

The second project was for a neighboring young man who wanted a large, meaningful tattoo to cover an older tat which he had outgrown, emotionally. He had a pretty solid idea of how it should look, but could not execute it as a drawing in order to show it to the tattooist. So I helped him out. Never thought I'd be designing tattoos, but fresh from this one he is already thinking about the next one. I guess I'm in business, so to speak.

Sorry, Ladies, I cannot compromise the gentleman's privacy, so his identity, which is displayed across his (well-formed) shoulders, is obscured in this photo. I gotta do what I gotta do.

Oh, yes, the work of art (the horses) is 36 x 80" (91 x 203 cm.)

Hollywood Comes Here

Governor Jennifer Granholm signed a tempting tax incentive bill to encourage filmmaking in Michigan. It is, in fact, the most lucrative package for filmmakers in the nation. (See Editorial )

The result is that offers are now pouring into Michigan and there is hope that this will create a new industry for the state.

In my little corner of Michigan, the result is that Clint Eastwood has set up shop for the making of "Gran Torino", a quiet drama about a Korean War veteran who attempts to reform a Hmong teenager who covets his prized car. One scene was shot in a medical center half a block away from my house, during our Saturday farmer's market. (It wouldn't surprise me to see some candid shots of the crowd somewhere in the movie.) Other scenes are being filmed in other locales in and around my neighborhood.

This is attention to which we are unaccustomed. Grosse Pointers have traditionally desired privacy more than film fame. But bad economic times have changed a lot of minds about this, and as it turns out, it's really a lot of fun.

There's Gold

There's gold 

in the hills 

of California. 

 But, my son, 

there's God 

in the alleys of Detroit. 

 - Jackson Solo (Poems of Jackson Solo ) 

The Detroit Industrial Gallery and The Heidelberg Project, outdoor art installations by Tim Burke and Tyree Guyton. Winter, 2007, Detroit, Michigan. (The Heidelberg Project ) 

Tim Burke

Tim Burke

Tyree Guyton

Tyree Guyton

Tyree Guyton

Tim Burke

Tim Burke

Tyree Guyton

Tyree Guyton