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

Illustration Friday: Syndrome of a Down

Syndrome of a Down (acrylic on found wood / 2008)

This week's theme for Illustration Friday is "Dusty."  The first thing that popped into my head for this was my painting.  I don't paint that often any more other than for specific projects which call for the medium.  Several years ago, I loved to paint on found wood.  I had a couple of friends (one a house framer and one who worked for a company which built closet organizers) who would bring me scrap wood often covered in mud or sawdust.  I usually wouldn't clean the panels but rather take a Francis Bacon inspired approach of letting the grit and grime go into the paints to create one-of-a-kind textures.  Bacon is one of my favorite painters and he would often mix dust on the surface of his work with his fingers and paint on the raw side of the canvas where it hadn't been primed.  He was old school low brow!

(Click here to see all my Illustration Friday weekly entries) 

Top 10 Gangster Films of All Time

"The Hit" Inks on Bristol / 2008

Today in New York City, the FBI executed its largest one-day bust on organized crime in history.  127 people were arrested in connection with organized crime- that's a pretty large-scale operation.  A small business in the United States averages about 25 employees with wages under $50,000 per year.  Frank Lewis (American Gangster) was worth over $50 million.

This is just one reason we're crazy about Gangster cinema in America.  Money is glamorous baby and people will go to extremes to secure it (and its sources.)  Mafioso in all forms across the world for hundreds of years have protected their communities (often times against local authorities and governments.)  Gangsters are in a sense revolutionaries going against the grain and against the rules.  They provide simple but effective services.  If the local system of law can't do justice to a situation, they step in.  This is also also why eventually much of their action got focused on illegal businesses such as gambling and drug trafficking this past century (again, just providing a service where there is a demand.)

Cinema in America and gangster culture have a give and take relationship.  This is prevalent in literally every race and culture here in our little melting pot of a country.  Movies glamorize the stories of men who get rich quick in a morally questionable capacity... and sometimes they don't make it look too hard (especially if you got the guns.)  I find it no coincidence that the sale of certain brand firearms in our country among inner city youth skyrockets as they are represented through various entertainment medias.  People learn from watching these movies which set up entire business and power structures, leaving little to the imagination.  You can rent a half-dozen movies, take some notes, and essentially know how to run a criminal empire.  The more the stories are produced, the more films will get made about them.  Wild huh?

So here's my own Top 10 Gangster Films of ALL TIME...

Read more »

Illustration Friday: Bacon 'n' Eggs

Bacon 'n' Eggs (inks on found card / 2008)

This week's theme for Illustration Friday is "Chicken."  You can't have a chicken without the egg (or is it the other way around.)

My entry this week is from the same series I posted from last week (click here for last weeks where I explain the series.)  

Human beings absolutely love them some chicken.  You can't narrow it down to any racial stereotypes either, since worldwide, we slaughter 70 billion chickens annually, of which we consume their meat and eggs.  Only tens of millions of these are breeders and all male chicks are killed at hatching.  So we are sexually biased in our choice of the chicken we eat apparently but these baby chick corpses don't go to waste.  Alas, we turn them into fertilizer and pet food.  That's right- we even feed our animals and plants chicken as well!

It is estimated that the domestication of the chicken began about 10,000 years ago in Southeast Asia.  Today, there are more of them in the world than any other species of bird.  In the wild, a chicken has a pretty decent life expectancy of 5-10 years.  The marvels of modern meat processing have that down to just six weeks now.  Amazing what we can do with technology and world-wide demand for poultry... kinda scary though huh?    A chicken only lives .3%... that's three-TENTHS of a percent of it's expected lifespan.  To put it into perspective with that same figure and same scientific method, theoretically we could harvest fully-grown humans in just a few months, right?  Good thing we aren't cannibals.  

(Click here to see all my Illustration Friday weekly entries) 

Vote Teapot PASS IT!

The fever is sweeping the nation as all 50 of our great United States now have their own branches of The Teapot Party!

And why? Well, 'cause Willie said so!

People are volunteering and lending their time and opinions to let the government know the public wants and needs decriminalization of marijuana and drug reform laws.  Sparked by a recent bust of Country legend, Willie Nelson, the movement is in full swing!  Many free-thinking societies across the globe have never placed a prohibition on this natural plant which contains many medicinal qualities, both mentally and physically.

 CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL TEAPOT PARTY WEBSITE! 

CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL TEAPOT PARTY FAN PAGE ON FACEBOOK

Local organizers and Teapot Party members:  Drop a line to  dregstudios@gmail.com with your information and which branch you represent so I can email you a print-ready file for use at your rallies and events!

CLICK HERE FOR MY SPECIAL 4/20 POST OF THE

TOP 10 STONER MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

Click HERE for my article on the dangers of street drugs vs. LEGAL pharmaceutical drugs!

Be informed, know your rights and get involved...

The Top Ten Reasons Marijuana Should Be Legal  

The Vaults of Erowid:  Cannabis   

Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics 

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Sarah Palin Made Me Do It

"Sarah Palin Made Me Do It" (inks on bristol / 2011)

"Buck up or stay in the truck."

-Sarah Palin

Today I was compelled to compose a portrait of Ms. Palin lending her hand to the now infamous, Jared Loughner...

Jared Lee Loughner opened fire with a Glock 9 on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was hosting an open house for her constituents at a supermarket over the weekend.  She recently narrowly defeated her Tea Party opponent in the mid-term election to retain her Democratic seat in Arizona.  The shooting killed six people, including U.S. District Judge John Roll and Giffords' aide Gabe Zimmerman. Among the 14 wounded was Giffords, who was shot through the skull. 

Loughner was unhappy with the government by all accounts and preached extreme right-wing rantings to anyone who would listen.  This young man (barely out of his teens) orchestrated this- the most recent bloodbath our country has seen carried out by one of it's own citizens.  Every now and then, the every-day Joe buckles under the pressure of choking down their own little slice of the American dream, spoon fed to them by the media and government all their life.  We all know it's tough.  We all know our government is mismanaged and big business sucks us just dry enough so that we keep creeping along and making that next check.  Why does this guy snap?  Why does he decide to go on his own assassination crusade in the name of overthrowing the government?

Let's start with what he preached... you saw him carry it out through his practice.  Loughner was known to often quote a real national treasure of a right-wing mouthpiece with the rantings of Mr. Glenn Beck.  The problem with our new gods of the modern media is they don't report a damn thing.  Reporting involves communicating facts to the public.  Over the past decade, Fox News gained a large viewer base by having news personalities who spoke their opinions to fill their segments on the air.  Much of this was their own meanderings and pure speculation with little facts mixed in... just a little "news."  The success of this formula infected the other news networks so now you get no true world news in our county.  Beck feels free to tell his audience how much he distrusts the government and keeps them coming back for more with his wild theories and claims standing on the soapbox of freedom of speech.  He and Alaskan political glamor queen Sarah Palin are just a couple of examples of the mouthpieces worshiped by our new media.  Being opinion and not news, I feel such public figures should be held more accountable for their messages.  They should own what they say when people act on it. 

Sarah Palin loves her guns.  She's made it no secret her advocacy of Americans arming themselves to the teeth.  Over the past year, she's provided the world with countless soundbites in reference to her beliefs on the subject.  Last year, the image posted below was used on her website.  Rep. Giffords who was shot this past weekend was one of the targets.  Palin also held voter rallies where they let people fire assault rifles on target ranges set up for the event.  What a way to find the true pulse of your followers.... and what a way to forebode the tragic event of this past weekend.

"Don't retreat... RELOAD."

-Sarah Palin

Illustration Friday: Same Old 25th

This week's theme for Illustration Friday is "deja vu." The term is French in origin and translates to "already seen." Emile Boirac coined the phrase in his book The Future of Psychic Sciences around the turn of the 20th century. It is a reference to the compelling sense of familiarity which many people seem to experience occasionally throughout their lifetime. Deja vu is a very uncanny feeling when something about a situation triggers an ambiance in your mind that makes you believe you've dreamed about what is happening. Some say it's a simple glitch in the brain's wiring; some say it's a small glimpse into to the dormant portion of our mind which holds psychic abilities. Some people are more tapped into this than others . It's even believed by some that the feeling is us syncing into different alternate universes with different versions of our selves in the same exact situation. The only thing we know for certain is that it is a common unexplainable phenomenon which most of us experience several times throughout our lifetime.

"Same Old 25th" (inks on found card / 2008)

My entry for this week is from a series of illustrations I composed a few years back on index card dividers I found in my office. I've exhibited several of these in different shows themed around re-purposed materials and found object art. This work's character is in an exasperated state, probably after a uninhibited and uninspiring party and we get the feeling it's probably happened to him before.  The feeling of repeated disappointment led to the works's title listed below...

(Click here to see all my Illustration Friday weekly entries)