Illustration Friday: Fruit of the Earth

Inks on Paper / 2005

"Cultivate" is the theme for Illustration Friday this week.  Being one of the breadbaskets of the world, we work our land to produce a variety of different foods in our country to supply not only our own needs but other areas of the world as well.  Of all the works I have involving food, I found the most interesting to be that of the magic mushroom in this early illustration from 2005 which is included in my book, Dip and Trip .45.

Dating back as far as we know of human history, man has ingested certain natural plants for a deeper purpose than their nutritional value.  Plants we label with stigmatic names like narcotics and drugs, early cultures used  in religious ceremonies and spiritual quests.  Such substances include coca leaves, peyote, marijuana, and psilocybin mushrooms. There are over 190 species of mushrooms on our planet which can be ingested and induce a state of hallucination.  Shamanic uses of mushrooms have been documented to date back as far as a million years (discovered in ancient African cave art.)  The magic mushroom is a unique drug in the facet that it doesn't cause a buzz or intoxication to the user.  Psilocybin lifts the curtain on reality to expose what's been there the entire time and returns it's host to the wonderment of childhood when everything was new and interesting.  This unique drug experience really sobers one up to reality as opposed to drawing them away from it.

Educate yourself before you seek out and experiment with any drug.  Click HERE for a plethora of information on Magic Mushrooms from The Vaults of Erowid.

It is your right to choose to alter your consciousness through substances such as psilocybin.  Visit The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics for more informational material on drug use and freedom of thought.

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

Sneak Preview of Randy Rhoads for Rock Star Martyr This Saturday!

This Saturday is the anniversary of the death of Randy Rhoads.  Tune into http://www.rockstarmartyr.net for another wicked commentary from JoeBot and my finished portrait of this guitar legend from Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne fame.  For now, I'll tease your palate with snap shots of my sketch and line work of Randy playing one of his signature guitars...

[Click here for more of my portraits of music legends for JoeBot and Rock Star Martyr]

Fred Phelps and The Westboro Baptist Church: Burning Gay

Fred Phelps Burning Gay (inks on bristol / 2011)

Fred Phelps is a guy I've wanted to portray in my work for a very long time and recently got an artistic push via a brainstorming session with my friend and author Zach.  All of the ideas I had toyed with myself were vicious, sexual, and over the top and would have never found an audience here with you.  I guess Fred was getting to me with his hateful rhetoric.  What he was doing was working because what I was experiencing in reaction to The Westboro Baptist Church's actions was hate.  Living in a community housing thousands of Fort Campbell soldiers and families, we are no strangers here in Clarksville to this certified hate group's antics.  Last year some church members scheduled themselves a stop at Austin Peay State University to protest a speaking engagement with Judy Shepard (who's son, Matthew Sheperd was slain for being homosexual back in 1998.) The students handled the situation in a classy way making mock and ridiculous signs to counter-demonstrate the church. 

While hanging out with my buddies Zach and Nick, the subject of Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" campaign came up as did my idea to make him a subject of a drawing. Zach suggested I have Phelps holding one of his signs and sweating with terror in his own little personal Hell- Gay Land (if you will.)  What is this man so afraid of to go to the lengths he does to spread his message of hate?  Rainbows?  Butterflies?  Unicorns?  Or the pink flames of a burning gay apocalypse?

Click HERE for the Anti-Defamation League's profile on The Westboro Baptist Church

Click HERE for my article on this year's Nashville Pride Festival and my unveiling of the Fred Phelps portrait to the public!

And now for one of my heroes, Michael Moore and his showdown with the WBC...

Al Jaffee: Master of the Fold-In Turns 90!

Fold-In Portrait of Al Jaffee (inks on bristol / 2011)

Today is the 90th birthday of illustrator and MAD magazine staple Al Jaffee..  The magazine made a call for folks to send cards, illustrations, poems, and whatever you like to celebrate this legend today.  Three weeks ago, I framed the portrait you see here and shipped it up to the big guy at the MAD magazine office in New York along with a care package including some of my books and such.

Al Jaffee got his start with MAD 56 years ago, making him their longest running contributor.  To take the cake, there has only been one issue of the magazine published in that time without new content from him.  Al got his career started working under the likes of Stan Lee at Timely and Atlas comics (before Marvel was brought into fruition) before finding his home with MAD in 1955.

In 1964, nearly a decade into his career at MAD, Jaffee created his first Fold-In, a full page illustration which could be folded in over itself to reveal a hidden image.  This feature turned out to be his longest-running contribution to the publication and largely, what he has become famous for.  These works serve as the main inspiration for my portrait (which could be folded in on itself to make the birthday cake, peach (Jaffee was born in Georgia,) and of course, the "90."  The peace sign is a reference to "Hawks and Doves," a Jaffee comic strip ran in MAD during Vietnam where a soldier, Private Doves tags peace signs all over a military base amidst his run-ins with his commanding officer, Major Hawks. 

Never done a Fold-In?  Click here for a New York Times interactive feature where you can drag some of Jaffee's illustrations and fold them with your mouse!

Illustration Friday: Grinner Repitition

"Grinner Repetition" inks on paper / 2006

Illustration Friday wants some creations under the theme of "Stir" this week.  Here's another work from my Topsy-Turvy series where you can stir, turn, twist, and rearrange the works on the wall to get a fresh look at the art...

Remember to stop by each Friday for my weekly entry for Illustration Friday, keeping us slacker creative types on our toes to share our work with the world!

[Click here for more on the Topsy-Turvy series]

Trade and Barter

I'm an art lover- I have been since I was young, which is probably one of the oldest driving forces behind my creativity.  I own dozens of artworks from everywhere you can imagine.  Most of the artwork and prints I have come from trading my art for something I fall in love with.  Here's some of the great creative works which have found a home with me through trade...

Jeff Bertrand is a low brow artist out of Nashville who paints on all sorts of wild surfaces including guitars, found wood, light switch covers and flasks.  Recently, I lent my graphic design skills by designing his new business cards.  In return, I got a flask featuring one of my favorite authors, Charles Bukowski!

Here is a really sweet book from printmaker Jesse Shaw.  I traded some of my own art books with him for it.

Of course, his is much cooler because it's completely hand made.

Jesse cut out detailed portions of his prints and bound them with a patterned page in the back to provide a background as you lay it behind the pages of the book.  Each page is hand printed from wood blocks and lino blocks

Jesse explained that these were really repurposed works because it was scrap prints so to speak.  If a print had a bad spot, he hated to just throw it away so he cut out the good parts for these books.  Each book is unique with different pages.

This low brow painting was shipped to me by Unka Chuck of the Amazing Hancock Brothers.  After seeing their macabre style and mix of printmaking with low brow, I just had to have something.  These guys gut out old mattresses and print on the casings and do all sorts of wild work.

I emailed both brothers and Chuck hit me back, expressing his equal enthusiasm for a trade.  He even went as far as to let me know he'd have something in the mail for me to paint.  What arrived was a box similar to the one he painted and printed on for me.  I did a portrait of Chuck and his brother as one of my siamese faces which he had complimented in our digital conversations.

Here is what I turned out to ship back to Texas before getting "Strutter" in return...

The brothers are known to wear shriner hats at their shows and openings.  I put shriner hats on the little power animals on their shoulders as well.  On the other side, John's hand is holding a gun.

I'm a junkie for the creativity of others... I love to trade prints and even original work so if you are a creative spirit as well, hit me up at dregstudios@gmail.com and make me an offer I can't refuse.

Illustration Friday: Bad Pig, No Donut

Inks on Bristol / 2009

"Warning" is the theme for this week's Illustration Friday entries- something I wish more coppers would do in our police state.  In a capitalist country, nothing is free and everyone has a quota including our police forces town to town and state to state.  "I'll let you off with a warning," is a phrase which has practically disappeared over the past couple of decades.  It's all about the money, kids.  Lawyers, court fees, fines, probation fees, even racking up a daily tab by being imprisoned by the state are all forms of government fund raising. 

My illustration for this week is "Bad Pig, No Donut," which comes from a small series I made for the 2009 Southern Low Brow Extravaganza show [click here for more about the show.]

The US has incarcerated over 1/2 Million more of it's citizens every decade since 1980 and the rolling out of the War on Drugs.