Back to roosters...

Enough with the real world, already. I need to get back to roosters.
Here are, clockwise from the upper left, "Apollo", "Mars", "Ricardo" and "Odin 2". Is this a print worthy image? I'm thinking maybe.

No further comment.

Roger Hane

Artist Roger Hane's work exemplified the look of mass media art in the early 1970s. His career and life were tragically cut short by a stupid, senseless murder committed by juveniles bent on stealing Mr. Hane's bicycle during a ride through Central Park in 1974.
His work was among my earliest influences as an art school student. His cover art for Carlos Castaneda's Ixtlan and C.S. Lewis' Tales of Narnia books were poured over like holy texts, every detail studied and marveled at.
Vanguard Productions, the publishing empire headed by my buddy J. David Spurlock, has published Roger Hane: Art, Life and Tragedy, a review of Mr. Hane's work and a fine selection of his paintings. It is available at the Vanguard web site and on Amazon.com.

A Separate Reality, by Carlos Castaneda, featured one of Roger Hane's signature paintings. Today it's surrealistic imagery may seem tired and trite, but Mr. Hane was among the first mass media artists to adopt the language of surrealism into popular art.

I have to confess I have never read a word of the Narnia series. I bought all of the books only for the cover art.

This piece was commissioned by DeBeers in the early 1970s.

Days of Dreaming

I have a show scheduled for the Fall season at Norwood Flynn Gallery here in Dallas. This piece is the direction this collection of work is going, so I'm looking forward to making more paintings like this one over the next few months. I'm posting it this New Years Eve because it also seems like a good representation of the concept of "New Years Resolutions", specifically to dream every day. I hope you have a safe transition into this new year and decade and your 2011 is a great year.

The Winter of Our Discontent

This past decade has been a decidedly mixed bag, with some really great developments and some which were really bad. Whether it overall deserves the name I gave it, The 'Zeroes, may take a while to settle. But I think there's a case that can definitely be made.
But now we're on the threshold of a new decade, with some positive things going on personally and professionally. If the year needs improvement for you as well, I hope improvement happens.
I'll be back next year with more rants, pictures and observations. Thanks for following this blog. Have happy holidays, whatever form they take.

Prints

I've added a new prints page to my web site, as illustrated by the screen shot above. This link goes to it. Clicking on either image takes you to the site where prints can be ordered. They're printed with archival inks on archival paper, of course. I'll add more images as it seems like a good idea.

Here's some coffee!

Last year I participated in "secret gift exchange" with a group of fellow artists. The way it works is a website called "Elfster" automatically picks a name for the participant, then each participant posts on the site what they like or might want. There's a price limit of $15, so it doesn't get out of hand.
I'm in it again this year, and my picked person said she wanted coffee, more or less. She listed some other vague items, but included the phrase "Coffee...I like coffee!...Did I mention coffee?". So I decided to get her some coffee. Oak Cliff Coffee is a neighborhood coffee company, so I bought a bag of their beans. I hope she has a grinder. Maybe she'll get one of those from somebody else.
To artsy it up a bit I made a package for the coffee out of 300 lb watercolor paper and painted coffee related images on it with watercolor and a Sharpie. Besides a cup ringed with birds and a coffee pot topped with a bird, the inside flap of the lid includes a wide awake eyeball. Pictures are below.