twirl-factor

another buffalo exchange find.  twirl-factor based purchase.  i wore this vintage Friederike orange one on New Year's Eve (there MAY be photo documentation of the outfit at some point... but for now see my attempt at Ronettes make-up below).  ah, the pride of thrifting.  unfortunately extremely unoriginal thanks to this shitty economy.  i can't wait for people to get rich again so i can have my Goodwill back, all to myself. 

 

 I just read Ronnie Spector's autobiography, Be My Baby, so I'm heavily influenced by her right now.  On my to do list for this week is to acquire a comb and hairspray so that I can finally get some sort of beehive going.  After that I'm going Klute-era Jane Fonda with my hair!

I also finally hired someone to help me understand how to create an image-map, so I should have my website up in a few weeks.

F.U.N.K.

a lil' mixtape to accompany the invitation
The Raver by The Troggs, one of my favourite bands. Reading Lester Bangs' writings about them made me crazy and now I can't have it any other way but this honest, raw, dirty way. If anyone can find "I Want You," it's worth their time.

Lekar Ham Diwana Dil by Asha Bhosle and Kishore Kumar for epically intense dancing mania

Jimmy Mack MARTHA REEVES AND THE VANDELLASszzz there's a video of twiggy dancing to this on youtube.

For fucked-up pre Love-making ridiculous seducing:
Let's Do It Again THE STAPLES SINGERS, a group who happens to include my one true love--Mavis.

Let's Straighten It Out by Latimore. it's blues/r&b from 1974.

Astral Weeks by Van Morrison of the album of the same title


and to leave it at an up:
F.U.N.K. by Betty Davis--one of my top three most amazing women of all time. get ready to have your mind DESTROYED.

Being Back

Good things:

dancing to (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction with Emily, singing it like we mean it.  a girl pulling me aside and telling me i'm the best dancer, she means it.  purchasing those dark green velour hot pants with belt loops.  wearing them with my cougar belt buckle and platforms.  Yesterday finding a carbon copy of the vintage fake fur jacket Alicia and I shared when we went to go see Orange Sunshine.  not eating as much and enjoying not having a stomach.  walking a shitton.  listening to Hawkwind right now.  changing his mind and behaviour pattern just by being me YEEah, baby!  feeling wild again.  walking all day in San Francisco, partying every night in the ballroom.  the neon lime green vintage micro Emily brought back from Australia for me.  drinking jack daniels from teacups.  my cousin taking it on as a personal mission to smoke my sister and me up with the best CA has to offer.  Being an animal and biting lips.  the bruise under my right shoulder.  riding a motorcycle with my kind of driver down the great highway and experiencing the most sublime happiness i've ever felt (well, tied with orgasms and Orange Sunshine shows).  living in delusion that this isn't boston.

bad things:

being real nasty to guys that i think are lame.  wanting the plane to crash coming into boston knowing i'd at least die happy.  deciding that i don't want to illustrate.  hurting one of my friends and getting the saddest poetic e-mails from her missing me.  having a terrible time writing my research report because so much has changed.  realizing the technical impossibilities of my installation.  not being on the west coast.

i puta spellonyou becauzze yer mine! YEAHHH

This is by Klaus Voorman, you know his work for the Beatles' Revolver album.  Klaus was a total biscuit and this is one of his pieces.  He was also the bassist for Manfred Mann, played in the Plastic Ono Band (woo.hoo.) and blahblahblah.

i had a nightmare and i want to paint it.  it involves a peacock feather, not the fancy head part but one of the skinny bits, and a white porcelain rabbit with a girl climbing into it.

i want to do a painting of the wolpertinger drawing

AND finally do a new version of the legs and guitar thing i did that 11 year old children RIPPED TO SHREDS before i could scan it.  i don't know how terribly original it is but i don't care.  it was a fucking cool painting before it was destroyed.

tonight i felt alive again. 

Today I found a new artist that I love.  Photographer Nan Goldin.  CHECK THIS OUT!!

just to pepper all of you with some MORE EYEBALL CANDY.  I want to say, none of you know how badly i want the following to happen to me, but some of you probably want this just as badly.  you know... the whole riverboat concert, awesome dancing, creedence clearwater revival live thing.  as harriet would say, 

Dannggg

STUFF

STUFF







for people who like to read boring stuff:
Alameda Outlaws (band name for wolf piece, not sure about the lines yet but we'll see
the Don Juan pieces... uncomfortable with the colours, want to completely redo
I like the Johnny Cupcakes concept but i need to execute it better.

i went to this rock and roll cowboy wine tasting/show/southwestern jewelry thing and got asked for a business card i do not have yet. i told the woman i liked to draw anthropomorphic creatures in transgressive situations. when i think about that i get excited to do art. i want to show that in my review, but the workload this semester didn't allow me that. the illustration department works against itself.
anyway she works with turquoise and silver and coral and it's all beautiful and southwestern and i bought two cards from her, one with radiating porcupine quills and one with three feathers from a little dead bird she found on the side of a road when she was riding her horse. she buried it and thanked it and everything.


where I'm at on the juxtaposition piece for advanced drawing:

it's kind of meaningful to me... especially since this summer. becoming an animal, skimming the fringes of realities, feeling out of place/changeling. earlier today somewhere i felt like an alien. not like the movie kind but you know



an artist i like. gustaf tengrim




somehow, we all seem connected
i kinda want to work with this collective: http://nationalforest.com/site.html






uschi and bockhorn's bus


i'm reallyreally tired.
aurel schmidt: http://www.tinyvices.com/Aurel_Schmidt.html
i have a lot to say but i don't have internet at home right now because some people didn't pay the bill.

wild child

there's nothing like coasting home after midnight, a blues program on the radio, no commercials--pigs don't scare you because you've got nothing on you...just this magical dazed coasting. exhaustion like thick glasses
except with that weight inside your chest of the impossible week. i'm slipping back, my priorities are getting tired. i miss my rock and roll.
king khan & bbq show
darker my love, viva viva
bill kirchin
coyote kolb

i'm sorry.
i'm too worn-out. i know i can't lead these two lives right now.

It's the first Advent tomorrow, my parents gave me a gigantic chocolate pretzel, and advent calendar with chocolate behind the doors, an Entrance album ("Prayer of Death," which includes liner quotes taken from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Uwais El-qarni [a Sufi mystic], and James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time), and my mother gave me her old motorcycle gloves!

Anyway, "Prayer of Death" is kind of all about death, and, being artists, we're probably all kind of healthily (or unhealthily) obsessed with it. I love Guy Blakeslee's lyrics, they are rambling and passionate and honest and reflective and powerful. They are complete on their own, yet fit into the structure of the music in such an unexpected way. Right now I'm feeling way more inspired about music than about my art. I dislike everything I'm drawing, except the Don Juan cover. Everything's from this photographic reference and it just looks so fake, it makes me ill. The things from my mind freak me out too much to draw, it's shit. fucked-up bodies limbs and patterns that don't make sense. i don't have a cute cartoon-y style, just freak disjointed rambling line experimentation. i hate looking at it or drawing near it. i have to skip a page in my sketchbook.

i want a wild man for the winter

let's get together tonight

C'mon Everybody
Eddie Cochran

I've been really getting off on old rock and roll this year.
Link Wray, Dick Dale, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Wanda Jackson, Ernie Chaffin, Gene Vincent, Bill Haley, Carl Perkins.
It's attractive to me because it's easy to dance to and it's pretty badass in the context of its time.
I still don't like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis and nothing's gonna change my mind on that.

By Thursday I'm usually completely worn-out. Wednesday is my break-down day. Last week was pretty bad in Advanced Drawing. I felt really guilty and so much of an under-achiever and then Margot yelled at me and I started crying in class and I just can't wait until all of this is over. Maybe I will stay in Boston an extra day over Thanksgiving break and try to catch up for those two junior classes. Last Thursday my mama came down to visit me after class and we walked around the North and South ends and Chinatown. I revel in the real dirty, gritty parts of cities and she hates it, but I still went the same way I normally do, down that loading area, stench of fish and garbage, concrete so filthy you wouldn't want to pick up a quarter if it was there. We went down into the Channel Cafe (positives: really pretty, well-designed, has live music and a gallery! negatives: does not have any liquor other than beer and wine, is expensive, is out in the middle of nowhere) to check out what was in the gallery but what we were REALLY in the area for was the ICA. The Tara Donovan exhibit was amazing!
It was a total visual trip. I was like, WHY IS THIS BLURRY??? It shouldn't be blurry.

All of a sudden I'm having trouble with the Johnny Cupcake's design. I don't like his line and I really don't want what I think is cool to be sold to the people that buy his stuff. How bad is that? Yeah, it's bad.

me in a year:



i can't get over this.

i'm sorry.


I got a squash court for the senior show! I feel good about degree project. I'm havin' fun, baby.

shake shake

This was my first monochromatic piece and I'm still not sure how I feel about the colours, it's so alien to work that way.



I don't know what sort of music you guys are into, but I love dron-y shoegaze-n-roll psych and one of the best bands out there doing it is The Morning After Girls.
This is a segment they did for a radio show, it's quite long but if you don't have time to listen to all of it, go to the middle and listen to the song because that one is really beautiful. I wrote them this a while ago:
i was putting together a short (there are four) list of songs that are currently, purely auditorily literally turinng me on and getting me off
and you've got two. so here's what i think
Lazy Greys: breathy count-off ...3, 4. the bass line is so interesting, i imagine it is fingers flickering over your warm skin and a body rolling around with you coming in and out of you, the reverby guitar i'm a junkie for is like the feeling in your throat you get when you're real turned-on and kind of nervous and the vocals are the way you breathe in when someone touches you just right. the harmonica is you trying to control yourself.
i can picture how you would play this, it's slow but i don't think that's less sexy, i think it's more because of the passion you can put behind everything. it'd be like grinding yourselves into your instruments, it's a total seducer song, i'd love to listen to this and panther-seduce someone
and Run For Our Lives i would just have a lot of fun fooling around with dancing to that live. the guitar makes me move and the bass line is such a perfect backup to fall onto plus the tambourine's has that killer backbeat that's the easy way
yeah!

you can find those two songs on youtube.


ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE:
Stop looking for approval in others.


As Mavis Staples would say, Respect Yourself.

(from Wattstax)

my art has been a direct reflection of my life

RTX
Cheap Wine Time


and "Knightmare and Mane"

This woman kicks so much ass. Who WOULDN'T want to be her??
I introduce you to: Jennifer Herrema




I've "discovered" RTX through my friend Amanda. Who is a new friend as of our "interview" two weeks ago. I feel like I should post my topic proposal for Degree Project so you guys know how all this fits together. Amanda is about RTX like I am about Spindrift or Orange Sunshine. We just get injected with this unreal excitement and convey so much insane enthusiasm about them that the person we're talking to rides on our energy straight to giving the group a listen.
Okay, here is my topic proposal. Hope it's not boring.
HAHA

The Groupie and the Rock & Roll Lifestyle
I’m teetering on the verge of completely immersing myself in the shallow, delightfully wicked pool of the rock and roll lifestyle known as the reality of tour. I open my arms to its delicious trappings. It’s been several years since I’ve dared to dream of this unconventional lifestyle, but from sheer passion and self-belief I finally managed to crawl to the edge of this fucked oasis and lap at its outer ripples.
Rock and roll is a poisonous, addictive culture, fettered with romanticism and glamorization. Rock and rollers are outlaws not by choice but by the necessities of their passion. Unlike any other existence, musicians are encouraged to wallow in negative feelings. The only true romantic bit of the rock and roll lifestyle is being in a bed of creativity, where it is conceived, and being a part of that conception. And that bit overrides almost all the darkness, the unnatural stress on the physical that tour demands, the emotional rollercoaster, running dry and yearning.
At 17 I found that there was a name for the way I felt about music. I wanted to be a groupie because music had saved me and had grown into such a beautiful beast within me that it gnawed at every inch of my expression and that from then on, I knew I could only make it with people who felt he same as I did. Shows became a platform during which I could crawl out of my stomach and become this pure thing; it was like I could finally breathe.
It took years to get to where I am now, at 21, and I’m still sort of floating in the middle, trying to live two realities, trying to balance priorities with this innate need for the live music experience. For those of us that wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for music, we are intrinsically tied with it. There is a community whose members all possess that same edge. The communal nature of music is unique, as it affects multiple senses and willingly or unwillingly involves anyone in the area. It is malleable, alive, and interactive. It is a passion that everyone loves but few live. It takes an enormous amount of drive to live music, you have to let every atom of your being become absolutely possessed by it, it has to consume your life completely, you have to willfully give yourself over. There is no pretending that you might have the freedom to do anything but. This is why I can never completely be myself, never be happy or comfortable with someone who doesn’t share this passion. Music is in my blood, it is my savior and my lover, it is everything. People who don’t feel this way will never fully understand that. I have no choice, I didn’t choose this path, I accepted it.
I find that I have an incredible amount of love to give, and I want to give it to the people who create what moves me. As much as I want to be their muse, I need them to be mine. The relationship between a musician and a true groupie is a symbiotic one.

I want to visually explore my experiences as a groupie, and I plan to do this in a myriad of formats, culminating in an installation that will utilize the sense of hearing. I am especially interested in creating transgressive art and manipulating the viewer into having an interactive experience with my work. I will explore the different aspects of being a groupie and will discuss these aspects with other groupies. Topics of discussion may include, but are not limited to, how being possessed by this manic love affects our lives, how we see the world, how we create our own world, the addictive nature of rock and roll, inspiring and being inspired, the aesthetic, the image, the love and the loneliness. I’d like to give people a look inside one of my existences.
I’m a collector of images, and I want to continue to collect images that speak to my topic and fit them together. I will stay away from literal interpretation and will create and use a dictionary of personal symbols to represents concepts and people. I will read memoirs and watch documentaries and make lists of the aesthetics and potential symbols, and look at how they relate to my own.
I’m not interested in using traditional formats to present my art, and this project will also be an exploration of alternative presentation formats for my illustrations. I plan to work chronologically through my history with the rock and roll subculture.
I want my art, like humour, to shock me in a dry, honest way. I like art that involves the fourth dimension of time and decays and disintegrates and that is functional. I need to keep my art organic and imperfect. I need it to be in a constant state of flux because I cannot allow my creations to be stagnant.

Amanda fits into this because she was in Pamela des Barres' latest book "Let's Spend the Night Together," she's not really a GROUPIE, she just happens to have relationships with musicians, and she's the coolest rock and roll girlfriend EVER.  She's also a professional photographer so it was incredibly enlightening to talk with her about how she goes about balancing and interweaving her passions.  I aspire to be like her one day.  Soon.  It'll be soon.

This is not about my art.

I'm just going to show everyone these pants because i'm absolutely in love with them. If they were a man I would definitely lay them. If they were a man and they rode a motorcycle and they danced to rock and roll and we ate greek yogurt with honey and strawberries and he played on the swings with me and brushed my hair and we went skinny dipping in rivers and he played a mean slide guitar and harmonica, I'd make love to him over an extended period of time.
but alas, they are not. so they'll just make snug-glove-love to my legs.



if you like at least three things in this picture, we have really important things in common.

SONG OF THE DAY section.
I've been listening to The Kills lately, and I'm not usually one. Actually, I'm NEVER one for drum tracks or overly-electro elements, but there's something real dirty and authentic rock and roll about The Kills that just fucking makes up for it.
It was their video of "The Good Ones" that turned me on. Maybe it will do the same for you.



I guess I just like the level of intensity of their interaction.
I've liked every other song I've heard, but my favourite right now is "Last Day of Magic"
I just want to talk about music but I know you guys are going to get bored so I'm going to contain myself.