Stratacaster Stack With A Percariously Perched Eagle...

Oh, yes, I finished a commissioned piece. Yippeee. I was asked to incorporate a Stratacaster Guitar and an Eagle. We all have a unique way of filtering directions as well as our own personal vision. Given the subject and my style I created a piece with the desired components but also added an assemblage of a Bridge, Tuner Keys and Electric Guitar strings. This painting was

an adventure and I also found it a challenge. It was fun and I especially like the unexpected moment of the painted strings mounted on the bridge and strung to the tuner keys at the top. Fun and somewhat musical in the visual sense.
Thoughts to ponder... Is the Eagle swooping down to grab and take the Stratcaster or is it trying to balance precariously on the unstable stack? Like the music industry it could go either way! Also incorporated into the piece is a 1945 map of Los Angeles/Hollywood. Rising up between the torn/painted hills of LA and the somewhat painted lyrics of Dylan's "A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall" is the foundation of the Stack of Stratacasters. (Seems a bit shaky considering it rests upon the LA music scene and LA!)
The Eagle is Audubon, Stratacaster Guitars, are Fender.
Thanks Nancy Coleman & Tom Babbit for commissioning this piece.(These folks are the driving force behind the band Funky Stella.)

To The Moon, an Empty Nest...

Finally, I have finished what turned out to be quite an ambitious piece of art. I have been working on this piece since August. This painting incorporates Assemblage, Layers of Paper, Antique Maps and opaque Layers of Paint. The piece measures 31 x 18 and is 3 inches deep.
The inspiration for this painting was the idea of an empty nest with clear


possibilities (egg= new life). The eggs are placed in a box all in a row, in an almost, but not quite, perfect line, a nod to Wabi Sabi, the line is just a bit askew. The large egg on top is merely a touch of whimsy.
The layers of paint for the nest itself were painted onto the canvas one color and one layer at a time. The effect is like that of a nest built one string and one twig at a time.
Then came the splatting of the paint,(fun and nerve-racking) using layers of the colors used in the nest and a bright pop of Blue created the wild energy I was going for. I then found a piece of paper from a book, published in the 1860's, painting a Robin's Egg on this paper, and then placing it on what feels like a trajectory to another dimension finished this piece.
The canvas is wrapped with string and ribbon to complete the "Nest Effect".

This painting can be viewed in the Main Hall of my home at Melcher Place.
This is the first in a series of exploratory painting integrating Assemblage, Paint, Paper, Canvas.



Click on the arrow below to view slide-show of the process of this piece being created.