Illustration Friday: I am Batman

Inks on Bristol / 2009

Today, Illustration Friday wants us to "Stay."  This week's theme makes me think of staying still, which brought me to this incarnation of The Caped Crusader from my 2009 Cult of Personality exhibit.  Batman has always been my favorite comic book hero- mainly because he walks that fine line of genius and insanity.  He's more of an anti-hero in some regards, defying and evading the law himself under his guise.

Click HERE for more of my Cult of Personality Series!

Click HERE for a stream of my Illustration Friday entries! 

Happy 65th Birthday Tim Curry!

Click HERE To Order a Print!

Tim Curry's breakthrough role in show business was penned by Richard O'brien with Rocky Horror Picture Show.  The two actors met on the stage as members of the original production of Hair in London.  This first portrait from my Cult of Personality series includes the character of Dr. Frank N. Furter (Curry) along with others including O'brien himself.  My personal favorite part of the work was getting to draw Meatloaf as his incarnation of Eddie the Ex-Delivery Boy. 

Click HERE to Order a Print!

I've always had a vivid imagination and loved activities which allowed me to flex my imagination such as reading books which take me places I'd not normally go.  Stephen King has painted these worlds for me since the 7th Grade, when I first picked up The Dark Tower series.  In my Sophomore year of High School, the English teacher didn't believe I read IT all the way through.  One of King's longest novels, it came in at just under 1,100 pages in my paperback version.  My hands were cramped from holding it for the three straight weeks I pounded through it.    IT went on to be made into a television miniseries also starring Tim Curry as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, one of King's most warped and disturbed characters.  Pennywise lives in the sewer and rips a boy's arm off within the first twenty pages of this epic which spans a lifetime for the characters involved.  I read it before seeing the miniseries and Curry definitely added a whole new level to the character's sick humor. Pennywise can be found here in my portrait of the author along with more of King's creations including The Dark Tower itself. 

There are some roles out there that only Tim Curry could have ever played including that of Darkness (An incarnation of Satan from Ridley Scott's Legend in 1985.  The actor finally won his sole Emmy in 1990 for being the voice of Capatin Hook in a made-for-TV animated Peter Pan and The Pirates which followed the story of the original book by J.M. Barie.  This was Curry's first real venture into voice acting and has now done dozens of movies and television productions. 

Happy Birthday Mr. Curry!

Click HERE for more of my Cult of Personality series!

In Memoriam: Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley

Kurt Cobain (inks on bristol / 2011)

Grunge music will always have a lasting memory and place in my spirit.  I grew up listening to Alice and Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the rest of the Seattle movement of the early 90's which harnessed the angst and deep emotional turmoil of a lost generation.  For a brief five or six years, these bands made records which are timeless to me and a lot of the people I grew up with.  It was a very brief glimmer of a rebellious, anti-corporate movement which dampened with the death of legend Kurt Cobain on today's date in 1994 at the age of 27.  A few years past the end of the grunge fever, downward-spiraling Alice in Chains front man Layne Staley succumbed to his addictions on the same date, April 5th- eight years later in 2002.

Layne Staley (inks on bristol / 2008)

My memories of hearing about the death of both of these icons will always break my heart.  Two musicians who moved and spoke to an entire generation and turned a local sound into a world-wide phenomenon died young and without a friend close enough to stop their demise.  Both bodies were discovered some time after their deaths (Cobain's three days and Staley's two weeks.)  I'll leave the commentary once again today to Joebot over at Rock Star Martyr, who is borrowing my portrait of Layne Staley from my 2009 Cult of Personality series as well as this new portrait finished this week of Kurt Cobain. 

Here's a couple of shots of the process of creating my Kurt Cobain portrait with the shotgun shell halo...

[Click here for more on my Cult of Personality Series]

[Click here for more of my portraits for Rock Star Martyr!]

Retro TV Night...

Artwork by Loyd Gant

This Saturday night, you'll get a full dose of local pop surrealist art if you drop in at No Egrets Tattoo on College Street here in ClarksVegas.  From the mind and organization of Joe Melanson comes a HUGE exhibit featuring works by artists like Brooke E, Charles Bennett, Jeff Bertrand, Chad Spann, and more.  Clarksville was long overdue for a major group exhibit, so thanks for taking out your trumpet and making the call brother.

The show is FREE and open to the public THIS Saturday night!  I'll see you there with a dozen works, some fan favorites along with never before exhibited work.  Here's your taste of some of them...

Inks on Bristol / 2009

With the theme of "Retro TV Night," many of my Cult of Personality series' works come to mind including my portrait of Alfred Hitchcock.  This illustration borrows it's name from one of the director's famous quotes, "A man cannot live by murder alone."  I grew up with my dad glued to his Nick at Night, which ran Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  The macabre stories and Hitchcock's dry but manic sense of humor were a stable of television in my youth.  The art I created features scenes from Hitchcock's films.  Can you name them all?

Inks on Bristol / 2008

I grew up watching wrestling and my folks had one of those ancient huge satellite dishes which looked like you were communicating with the beyond to anyone who drove by the place.  We'd find obscure channels, especially foreign language ones and watch programs like Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling.  This Topsy-Turvy work is called "Luchadores of the Squared-Circle."

See these and many more works at this FREE exhibit Saturday night, March 26th starting at 7PM!

UPDATE  03/27/2011

Joe Melanson with his Sculpture

First and foremost, a huge thanks to Joe Melanson for bringing an incredibly rich group of artists together for a long-overdue major group event here in Clarksville last night.  Joe and the staff at No Egrets built these huge gallery walls suspended from the ceilings of the warehouse section of the tattoo studio's building to house some of the south-east's wildest low brow artists.  There was installation art, live art, painting, sculpture, found object art, photography, live music, and even a huge cake shaped like a television set.  Joe, you really pulled out all the stops and I certainly hope you have the calling to organize another show this year.

The Artists

Heather Bowker made a custom TV cake for the opening!

Live painting I did with Jeff Bertrand during the show.  Jeff and I have done live art together at several events over the years.

Paul Fly and Brooke E having an academic discussion I probably wouldn't understand.

Now that's Low Brow Baby!

Charles Bennett (Sick creations from a sick mind.)

Jeff Bertrand's display

Installation Art

I brought a limited edition of 5 Topsy-Turvy: Jax prints to raffle off... one ended up with the DJs.

Ain't no $ in art.

I couldn't resist also sharing a few awesome shots Ash Burress got from this past weekend...

Joey Petrone got some shots of the live painting and was awesome enough to throw this together for me...
(Click to see the time lapse!)

Happy 100th Gipper!

"Cold War Hollywood" inks on bristol / 2009

Today marks the 100th birthday of former President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.


In the early 1940's, Reagan (then an actor and Democrat) became a board member and eventually president of the Screen Actors Guild where he began his life-long mission to rid the world of Communist scum.  In the heat of the "red scare" later that decade, he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee with a vehement defense of Democracy and denouncement of all things Socialist and Communist.  As an act of his own patriotism, Reagan even served as a Hollywood informant for the FBI, providing them with names of actors whom he believed to be Communist sympathizers.  In effect he helped author the infamous Hollywood Blacklist.  


Reagan's film and television career began it's decline in the late 1950's.  He flipped sides of the isle in the 60's after endorsing Eisenhower and then Nixon for their presidential bids.  He famously stated that "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."  After giving his famous, "Time for Choosing" speech in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential run where he stressed the importance of limiting the government's role in the economy, Reagan earned the admiration of much of the public as a well-spoken political figure.  This catapulted him into the limelight for which he was nominated and elected Governor of California in 1967 and served as such for eight years.  In 1976, he attempted to dethrone incumbent candidate Gerald Ford for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.  In 1980, he succeeded in gaining his party's support and was elected President, also serving in office at the White House for eight years.


Reagan never lost sight of his hatred for all things Communist.  In 1982, he said, "the forward march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history."  One year later in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, he called the USSR an "evil empire," coining a phrase which has stood to this day.  He also stated, "Communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written." Over the next few years, he would go on to fund anti-communist efforts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  He also deployed the CIA to train and arm groups of militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan to help fight off occupying Soviet troops.  This Covert Action program is credited for ending the Soviet occupation of the Middle East and at the same time creating the resistance movements which we ironically still fight and lose American soldiers' lives and limbs to on a daily basis today in the midst of our own 10 year occupation of Middle Eastern countries. With the Revolutions of 1989, communism fell in many European countries and Russia followed suit in 1991, just a couple of years after Reagan's presidency.  


Another staple of the Reagan Years (and the inspiration behind an element in my illustration) was his contribution to the War on Drugs (began by Nixon in 1971, who The Gipp supported.)  In 1986, he kicked the program into high gear by signing a $1.7 Billion drug enforcement bill, which also created a mandatory minimum sentence for drug charges.  This bill led to the overcrowding of American prisons and was criticized for creating racial disparities among inmate populations..  Drug trafficking in America and street sales only increased along with the inmate tolls nation-wide.  Nancy Reagan championed her husband's effort by creating the Just Say No campaign to attempt to educate America's youth about the dangers of experimenting with narcotics.  She appeared everywhere from Dynasty to Diff'rent Strokes to Good Morning America to music videos on MTV to campaign her cause.  In the end, a catch phrase had as insignificant of an effect on drug use as throwing money at the "problem."


During his terms as President, Reagan quadrupled the national debt while seeing through a peaceful end to the Cold War (mainly due to the eventual collapse of the USSR, not from "winning" the Cold War.)  He created "Reaganomics," changing tax brackets and policies nearly every year of his presidency.  The American taxpayer was footed with the bill to fund a bulging defense budget and combat drug use among our youth.  We created the largest weapons arsenal in human history and then signed a bill to curb those numbers and destroy a portion of the weapons we paid to manufacture.  All of this, after building a career around the idea of limiting the government's role in our finances and economy.  Reagan passed away on June 5, 2004 at his home in California.  His body was moved to Washington D.C. where nearly 105,000 people filed through his viewing. 

My portrait, "Cold War Hollywood" is available in my Print Shop! 

And now for the star-studded music video your tax dollars from the mid-80's paid for....

Rock Star Martyr: Sid Vicious

"Anarchy" inks on bristol / 2011

JoeBot has launched a brand-spanking new straight-talking, outrageous site at Rock Star Martyr.  This new site is now the home of his article about Hank Williams, for which I made a portrait earlier this year (click here if you need to catch up.)

Without any ado, here is my new portrait for JoeBot's article he posted today for the anniversary of this Sex Pistol's death.  Check out the site linked above to hear what he had to say about the Vicious one and bookmark or subscribe to him while you're there because we have a few collaborations lined up for your viewing and reading pleasure this year!

Click HERE for Prints of Sid in my Web Store!

In Loving Memory of Andy Casali III

Manatee Epic (for Andy Casali) inks on bristol / 2011

The arts and tattoo worlds lost a prince last weekend with the passing of Mr. Andy Casali.  Andy popped into my life about seven years ago.  Since then, we've traded art, exhibited art together, and of course, I had the displeasure of him drilling ink into my flesh on several occasions (the man was a sadist and loved his work.)  Casali was one of the funniest people I've ever met and we'd have to pause during our tattoo sessions for bouts of immense cackling.  Andy made me cry not in pain but with joy and laughter.    I was compelled to create an illustration for him in his wake and here it is for your viewing pleasure.

The manatee was a source of inside humor between Andy and myself.  There were a few stories based on manatee tattoos and we'd often joke about coming up with the most ridiculous ideas for such a tattoo that we could think of.  The imagery along the left side of the work begins with the great mother of creation at the bottom with a Dali-esque door coming from her (which is an element of the surrealist artist's work we both admired and Andy had tattooed a few times.)  The figure standing on the books in "ascension" is Casali himself with the mismatched socks only he could pull off.  Andy obsessively included the number 4 in his work, the reason behind it on the manatee's chest. All of these things will always make me think of my friend and fellow artist.  A common theme we shared was the idea of the light bulb in our work- rendering the inspired moment.  This piece will join my series of light bulb and lampshade-headed figures entitled Random Acts of Vibrance which I'm currently working on. 

Two of my tattoos from Andy (Left: Hurdy Gurdy Man holding my brushes in place / 2006) (Right: Buddha in a Flying Light Bulb / 2008)


And here is the process video of The Manatee Epic...

 

UPDATE 01/15/2012

Today is the one year anniversary of Andy's passing and I was compelled to translate an image I've had bouncing around in my head for the past several months.  Here is my portrait of Andy Casali III In Memoriam...

Inks on Bristol / 2012

CyberCasualty: January 1: The Death of Hank Williams

The Death of Hank Williams (inks on bristol / 7in x 5in / 2010)

Last week I had the pleasure of illustrating a portrait of Hank Williams for JoeBot's article about this musical pioneer and wild man on his site, CyberCasualty. Williams died of a morphine overdose on New Year's Day 1953 in the back of a baby blue drop-top Cadillac.


I'll leave the words to JoeBot today [Click HERE for the article] but I have to say this- (and I think he'd agree) some men become gods in death and most of them go young. 

I met JoeBot when he walked through a couple of my art exhibits in Nashville.  Based on the content of my artwork, we had plenty of fertile ground for conversation. The man is good with words and has a way all his own of putting his commentaries down.  Being an illustrator himself, he also has his own line of greeting cards which will make you absolutely piss yourself.  Embrace the same joy I get of reading it all and visit him today. 

Also check out JoeBot's articles at...   Disinformation / Taki's Magazine 

Greeting Cards will be back soon at The Smiling Machine

I'll leave you today with Hank Williams' last #1 Hit... 

Merry Clayton (Music to My Ears)

I first read about Merry Clayton a few months back after hearing The Rolling Stone's Gimme Shelter for the 1,372nd time. I don't know what it was about this particular run-through but it hit me like a tidal wave of emotion. I'd always liked the song but man did it do a number on me that day. One of the things that got me was a background singer whose name I've mentioned. Waves of goosebumps overtook me starting behind my ears and traveling down my neck into my shoulders as her notes belted out against the apocalyptic forefront of the song...



Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

and Merry comes in...

War, children, it's just a shot away

The true beauty in the structure of this classic song is in the progression of the chorus. In the next portion of the song, it turns even more macabre with Merry taking over (before she's just backing up Jagger, now she's in control and sings...)

Rape, murder!

It's just a shot away

It's just a shot away

Three times she belts these lines out, and each time the emotion grows. On the third murder, her voice cracks and my body explodes with pins and needles. This might be the all-encompassing thunder of an entire generation in one note that can never be replicated. (I found later, that if you turn it up loud enough, you can hear Jagger in the background yell, "yeah!" when her voice cracks like that.

It turns out that you and I have heard this amazing voice many many times before and in places you'd never expect. Aside from The Stones, she sang for Lynyrd Skynyrd (Sweet Home Alabama), Neil Young, Carol King, Tom Jones, and Joe Cocker on one of my all-time favorite songs, Feelin' Alright! She also played The Acid Queen in The Who's Tommy. The most interesting song I found her on that I'd heard a million times is Tori Amos's Cornflake Girl...

And the man with the golden gun

Thinks he knows so much

Thinks he knows so much

Yeh, her again... and a new take on another song. (And a new portrait for your fresh eyes.)

Aldous Huxley Rolls in His Grave

Monday will mark what would have been Aldous Huxley's birthday (well... his like 114th). Huxley explored the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction alike over his amazing and proficient career. Huxley was a scientist but when a condition in his early twenties left him blind for a few years, he turned to writing. Huxley infamously penned Brave New World in 1932, which is what's really always blown my mind since I read it as a teenager. This book which deals with a controlled society and pharmaceuticals and book banning, was sooooo far ahead of it's time.

For my Cult of Personality exhibit at MIR Gallery in Nashville this past December, I illustrated some of my favorite authors. Huxley of course made the cut. Many of the elements of this illustration center around the visionary side of Huxley's work (via the use of mescaline.) The central theme, however, is the concept of him rolling in his grave at his prophesies (really urgent warnings in the form of fiction) taking hold of our world today. Behavior-altering medications are common-place and many societies are facing constant stifling of their freedoms of speech and expression (even in the U.S., there is now twittercide where people are losing their jobs based on tweets they made or blogs they wrote on their own time.) Huxley was one of the most unique voices and minds of the past century. He brought to the forefront of the arts world many issues which effect us today including mood-controlling mediation, the role of government in spiritual freedom, and our cognitive liberties.

Click HERE for Artist Prints of this Portrait from my Web Store!

Filling the Nail...

I've been a Stephen King fan and avid reader for as long as I can remember. I picked up the Dark Tower series in the 7th grade, my Sophomore English teacher in high school didn't believe I read IT for my book report because it was 1100 pages long, and I ended up writing my final essay on him my Junior year. I was at the bookstore the day the last Dark Tower book came out and read it more slowly and patiently than any other book in my life, savoring every scene. And if you are a constant reader of his, you'll understand my glee in the manner the Crimson King was "erased." (And of course, now Marvel has me hooked on these gorgeous hardcovers they're putting out of The Dark Tower comics.)

In King's On Writing, he mentioned a nail he kept in the wall next to his typewriter, which he posted rejection letters. After a couple of years, he had to replace the nail with a spike. I've had a nail next to my drawing table for just over two years now. I guess I need to start looking for a spike...

A Happy Little Hitler

"A Happy Hitler" 2010 / inks on paper


Adolf Hitler will forever be one of the most notorious faces and images of hate, evil, and racism to ever exist. In this recent illustration, I posed him painting on a canvas. Hitler's application to art school as a young man was infamously rejected. This fact has sparked trivial debate about whether World War II would have occurred had he been accepted.

Initially, I had my subject with the classic cold stare you see in photographs. My wife and I decided to opt for a smile to not only make the work less menacing but to give face to another side of him (the sick bastard had to smile sometime in his life, right?) For my photo reference of a painter, I used a picture of Bob Ross... which also inspired the work's title. The work is curtained at top and bottom with the flags of all the countries Hitler invaded, conquered, and controlled during his reign.

In my portrait, Hitler is painting an image I found in a real Nazi propaganda cartoon depicting The Giant Jew-Bug taking over the world. The Germans used cartoons as propaganda just as the Americans did even via Disney cartoons.

Order an Artist's Print of "A Happy Little Hitler" by Clicking HERE for my Web Store!

UPDATE 10/07/2010

Here is the thumbnail sketch of the original concept for my Happy Little Hitler. I found it rummaging around this morning and thought it was neat to compare. With more complex works such as this, I'll often do a couple of thumbnail sketches before I move on to my final sketch.

Iron Eyes Cody

Iron Eyes Cody was an American actor who was famous for his role in PSA's Keep America Beautiful commercial back in the 1970's (for which he's referred to as the "crying Indian".) Cody in fact, was not Native American at all, but Sicilian. His parents were immigrants who ran an Italian restaurant. Near the end of his life, his ancestry was made public (not even his wife who WAS Native American knew).

My portrait of Cody portrays the  Sicilian flag burning in the background and with the actor in his full Native American getup which he wore publicly his entire life... and gave a new meaning to living the role.

Woody Guthrie

A few months back, my wife and I were fortunate enough to visit the Ryman Auditorium and see The Counting Crows, Augustana, Michael Franti & Sprearhead spend three solid hours on stage and wow us beyond belief. The bands sent out an email before the show warning fans not to show up late expecting an opening act... all three bands would perform together all night. This jam session began with Van Morrison's "Caravan" and ended with a cover of Woody Guthrie's famous tune telling us "This land was made for you and me." I had never expected to see such a song in that sort of context and I developed a relationship with the lyrics since.

Click HERE to Order an Artist's Print of the Woody Guthrie Portrait!

At an art opening recently, I was mingling with a friend, Jonathan, who inquired about a portrait of Woody Guthrie. I had no idea what the guy looked like or anything about him aside from this song which came up again and again to me since seeing its inception on stage. Being well schooled in Socialist thought, Jonathan also schooled me on the meaning behind my new lullaby and Mr. Guthrie's roots with Socialism in America as well as his guitar reading "This Machine Kills Fascists."

Beasley buddy, this was a true delight to work on!

CULT of PERSONALITY

Cult of Personality explores our society's obsession with celebrity. Each drawing illustrates characteristics of some of our most prominent cultural icons incorporating imagery from the subject’s own work and life. These works draw from 20th century celebrities from all ends of the entertainment and art worlds including authors, visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, politicians, and even scientists. Part satire and part homage. 

-MIR Gallery






CULT OF PERSONALITY opened at MIR Gallery (44 Arcade Building / Nashville) last Saturday evening for the Nashville Art Crawl. I'd like to thank everyone who came out to make it a wonderful evening for both myself and the gallery!

My Mother and I and the opening

My Cousin Sam and his Wife Nancy

The Beasleys

Jeff Bertrand

Ben and Bev

Aurora and Shannon