"Cast" Party

Well-known sculptor, Janice Trimpe, had her big studio bash Saturday evening at her new space on Kercheval, close to my home. I have been taking her sculpture classes and have discovered "life in the round”. So I couldn’t miss her opening. My husband and I attended and sampled the sangria.

Hmmm… interesting doorstop…

On closer inspection - hey, isn’t that Cardinal Maida? Why, yes, I believe it is…

Artists are a democratic sort and all kinds of people are drawn to the studios.

Here is Janice with her beautiful 90-year-old mother.

The jazz band was really hot.

I wonder what all those heads are thinking?

Wish you'd been there. Next time, join us.

The River Knows

(Photo courtesy of the Grosse Pointe War Memorial)

Solving a mystery
of the deep
Stolen War Memorial statue found by police divers

By K. Michelle Moran
C & G Staff Writer CandGNews

DETROIT — Detroit Police Department Dive Team divers felt “The Nude” in the Detroit River before they ever saw her.

While on a routine training dive two weeks ago to recover a submerged car off of Alter Road, one of the divers came in contact with the sculpture’s hand and head. With no visibility in the murky waters, they had to postpone the recovery until May 6... (Read Full Story Here )

Tile Be There

On Sunday I took a walk with my dog on Belle Isle. This island park sails the river between two countries - Canada on one side and the US on the other. It is a place layered with history and events, both peaceful and violent.

Ships from all over the world chug past the island. Lake freighters carrying ore to downriver steelmills and the "salties" which venture across oceans and through the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The dog is especially fond of our walks on the island. There are lots of muskrat holes to explore.

Deeply.

And new life to admire and celebrate.

There are other discoveries to be made. The seawall that protects the island from the swift river currents and knife-edged winter ice is made up mostly of chunks of recycled concrete from roadsides and torn-down buildings. Beautiful architectural details can be found under lapping waves, abandoned.

You can even find ghostly dance steps in some random pieces of concrete. I don't know how this occurs.

I wandered out to this lonely spot.

At my feet, among the blocks of plain, gray concrete, I found pieces which had been deliberately decorated with colorful tiles by artists unknown.

It would be easy to work quietly, and undetected, here. Few people venture out this way and not all reach this place. Fewer still pay much attention to a person seated low and close to the water, assuming, probably, that they are picnicing or just spending time by themselves looking at the water. One mosaic stated simply and enigmatically,"3 degrees".

The more my eyes scanned the shore, the more mosaics I saw. A kind of quiet, guerrilla art in a quiet, natural place, with the sailboats fluttering along nearby and massive freighters as the most frequent witnesses to the color and imagery. And someone willing to wander away from the crowds. With a dog as a companion.

I think I will come there again with supplies tucked into a satchel, claim a block and create a mostly unseen mosaic. Maybe several. Look for me this summer. I'll be the woman sitting low, and close to the water's edge, seemingly absorbed by my own thoughts and the sunlight glinting off the waves.

New Homes Built in Detroit!

February 17, 2009

On The Detroit River: Beavers Are Back After Long Absence

From the Detroit Free Press:

In a stunning sign of ecological recovery, beavers have returned to Detroit for the first time in perhaps a century.

A single beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at Detroit Edison's Conners Creek power plant on Detroit's east riverfront. Edison workers using motion-sensitive cameras caught photographs and video of the beaver in November.

John Hartig, the Detroit River refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said beavers were last spotted in the Detroit River at least 75 years ago, possibly as long ago as a century. Their return signals that a multiyear effort to clean up the river has paid off.

EM NEPO

This is a new garden painting for the front yard. It is two rectangular pieces of wood which face each other.

On one side is an old book with two little brown hands holding it. There is a message on the book spelled backwards, in letterpress.

On the other side is a picture of a little girl with a mirror where her face should be. You can read the message from the book in the mirror.


Views of the back of each piece. The girl has a landscape on her reverse side.

The book is a book on its back cover. The hands hold it there as well.


Acrylic paint, glass beads, automotive glass and mirror on wood.

Hieroglyphics

Shattered

It is well known that I mostly ignore the automotive industry which supports and surrounds both my life and my artistic activities.

But at times there is a convergence and a symbiosis, such as when I get a bad crack in my pick-up truck windshield and it needs to be replaced. These days a serviceman does this right in your driveway and it was easy to persuade the one who arrived to repair mine to give me a bucket full of shattered, tempered automotive glass to use in collages. Carefully washed, and even more carefully picked through with bare fingers, it becomes very effective glued to a painting on wood. I think I will break up a mirror as well tomorrow.

It's pretty.

How About a Threesome? (CONTEST UPDATE)

I'm feeling generous again. So let's have another contest. This time I offer a prize of three tiny erotic prints, which should be framed together as a suite (Michaels offers the perfect long frames for this purpose.)

Find the detail pictured above somewhere on my The Art of Erica Chappuis website and be the first to email me describing the artwork and location within the artwork.

lacdevie@hotmail.com
...................................................................................................
UPDATE: No one has won the prints. Shall I offer a better clue? A slightly larger view? What shall I do for you?

THE PRIZE: a threesome of tiny linoleum block prints. Each print is only a few inches in size and would great on your wall as a suite.



Have fun searching and good luck!

In The Round

My friend, neighbor, and highly respected sculptor, Janice Trimpe , has moved into a new street-level studio very close to my house. Like, right around the corner close. So I am taking advantage of her offered sculpture classes.

I've never done classical sculpture before, so this is a really new experience. Very much more physical than painting. Last night was the first class. Nice mix of people and a nice atmosphere. Every Wednesday evening, from 6 to 9.

(Mine is the one at the far left.)

“I did my sculpture as a painter. I did not work as a sculptor.”

-Henri Matisse

So Says Cicero

“When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero

Or, as a wise woman once noted...

"I've got some sewing to do!"

(Congratulations, Sweetie!)

From "V" With Love...

The new contest is here! This time it is a puzzle. Somewhere on my Art of Erica Chappuis site is this tiny detail. Find it, identify the painting and part, and be the first to email me with the correct answer and win a signed erotic print!

Email me at: lacdevie@hotmail.com

I await your guesses!

The Aztec Mermaid

Acrylic on paper, leather, wool and silk, with letterpress V, glass mosaic tiles and cowrie shells. 16 x 23.5 cm.

Mother and Child

Acrylic on paper, leather and wool. 14 x 28 cm.

The Enigma

Do you know what this is?

The first person who emails me with the correct answer will win an erotic print.

lacdevie@hotmail.com

Hymn

Him: I see you're up to your old tricks again.

Her: Yes, indeed.

Him: Good.
...............................................................................................

I made a mold from one of the hymn plates:

The "O" in the word "LOVE" becomes the singer's mouth. A man's silhouette stands nearby.

Acrylic and coffee on paper. 23.5 x 28 cm.

I'm Way Ahead of You...

A New York Times article suggesting that artists have an opportunity to get cheap space in Detroit at very low cost. I've been doing this for the past 15 years and wondering what was taking everyone else so long to catch up.

I'm looking forward to getting creative new neighbors, if anyone besides lonely little me has the guts to try this. My street runs alongside a lovely and active park and schools are close by. Houses can be had for anywhere from $1800. - $100,000 depending on the amount of work needed. Most are around $15,000.

Detroit Houses for $100

Don't Be Coy

Another Mermaid, who shares a secret kiss with a fishy friend.

Acrylic, shells, pearls, bone and glass beads on marine plywood.

"I have heard the mermaids singing...

...each to each."


Acrylic and shells on pine wood (from recycled wine crate.) 17 x 29 cm., and 15.5 x 16.5 cm.

"...even lovers drown."

Forgive my silence, as I have been painting Mermaids. Mermaids for my own bathroom, that is. I tried to explain this away to my friend as engaging in ordinary, mundane decoration, but my friend answered that there is nothing ordinary or mundane about Mermaids. I suppose he is right.

This is the only shot that came out well yesterday, so I shall have to take some more of the whole Mermaid and the other Mermaids I have made. That's for another post. This week I am drowning in work and other of Life's details.

Detail of Mermaid with Mirror, acrylic on marine plywood, entire painting 60 x 121 cm.

The Voyage

A glance toward a studio window at a certain moment in the afternoon reveals an antique vessel, which otherwise would have slipped past quite unseen.

The Coffee Bar (story by Vanna Vechian*)

O, how ever did I get stuck in the life I have...? Hush! Don't you whinge, woman!

I need a drug.

Coffee! Coffee!

I love to drink, but it is too early to do so, you know. It really is. I have to be careful.

I have not left the house today, nor seen anyone here. Again. None of my friends were interested or able to meet, sadly. That is: the few that don't have careers. I don't. My dear husband is away again. Should be back tomorrow, or the day after, I don't remember.

Of course I have a dynamite Italian coffeemaker at home, but I won't have the coffee alone. I need contact, if only to see warm living bodies. I dress for the occasion. A hat, a suit, earrings. A lady. Femme fatale. I want to be noticed.

I let the taxi drop me off just some place we happened to pass. 'Stop! Driver, stop!' It seems like a nice little establishment. Old shop front, two large windows, a door in the middle, a few scattered clients and a waiter. And a pianist, I notice as I enter, who plays French salon music – nostalgic, with the restrained energy of a tired dance master. The place is intimate. Nice. The smell of coffee is heavy, but just right for me.

But the waiter! He is ... He is a star. God! 'Yes, yes, a coffee please. Make it strong. Wait! Potent. And sweet.'

How can he refuse? I noticed he noticed me. It does take a minute or two before he comes back to me. Other clients present themselves at the till and he takes their pay. Only one other person remains, besides us and our friend the pianist - someone that has sat there scribbling all the while with intense concentration. A writer? He could be writing about me, for all I know. He has thrown me one single, but piercing and extended glance.

My waiter returns with the coffee. And a pastry. 'Courtesy of the business, madam!' And another coffee. 'I will join you, if you don't mind. I feel you won't.' The cheek! Yet I don't. Mind. Far from it. I keep my cool and smile. 'You are a cheek, young man. That is all I will say. Now then. Talk to me.' I will not repeat what he tells me. Only that he compares me to Anna Karenina, had she lived a little longer. Hardly a direct insult, as she died young. Should I mind that he finds me tragic? As long as he finds me attractive. He is amusing.

Is it he or the smell of coffee that seduces me? The writer remains in his corner and the pianist plays on as my waiter turns the 'Open' sign over to 'Closed.' To 'Open' on our side.

-----------------

I stretch out luxuriously and naked and truly satisfied and at ease on his bed in his room. His room is right above the café. The Venetian blinds filter the light. His smell remains, mixed with the masculine smell of coffee. So does the sound of his music, dance music of faded days.

I feel his seed drip down my loins.

He has treated me like the queen I am. Not as a servant, but as the young king he is. The homage is all the greater.

The queen dresses in front of the windows. Languidly, without haste, savouring the moment, deeply inhaling the scent of coffee.

She descends the stairs and renters the café. With a nod to the king, she strides through and leaves. Her yellow carriage is waiting.

copyright 2009 Vanna Vechian
***************************************************************************************************
* I asked my old partner-in-crime, Vanna Vechian, to write a "micro-story" based on these two new coffee paintings. I think she came through splendidly, don't you?

You can read more of Vanna's tales at her very own website: Vanna Vechian's Erotic Fiction .

As for the paintings, they are done in coffee and acrylic on paper, silk and velvet, with fur, coffee beans and glass beads.

Between the Whip and the Shield

Another of the coffee paintings, used along with the new letterpress molds.

Some interesting details are an actual bill of sale for a "Negro Slave", next to the Declaration of Independence as it appeared in the Virginia Gazette in 1776. And a small piece of a real, very worn leather whip, which came off the end of one I happen to have in my possession. (Artists collect the oddest bits and pieces, but the rest of said whip still functions quite perfectly. I'm just saying...)

I'm too tired to think of a narrative for this painting, but if you can come up with one, I will publish it here.

Acrylic and coffee on paper and silk, with Cowrie shells and leather. 28 x 38 cm.

At Sea

Earlier in this blog I wrote that, "Ideas Arrive By Ship" (see, January 7, 2008). In this case, although I have purchased a set of very beautiful wooden letterpress type forms, I do not possess a complete set of letters, matched or unmatched. Therefore, I cannot spell out words all at once with my gel medium impressions. I must either piece them together by using several molds of the same letter, or else come up with a different way to spell them out. In this case, I did not have an extra "c", and I do not possess a "y" at all.

Some ideas are better, and grow stronger, if they are made to set out on a voyage. To trade and haggle, bicker and dissent. Come to agreements, handshakes, and terms. Some words need to set sail and go trading, if they are to become what they are destined to be.

Acrylic on paper and silk with 22k gold leaf. 16 x 24.5 cm.