Painting: Georgia On My Mind

Georgia II, 2001, acrylic on hardboard, 16x20. Click for bigger!

I generally dislike Georgia O'Keeffe, and not just for professional reasons (she instituted a policy at my workplace which is the bane of my existence). What's hilarious about her –actually, the only hilarious thing about her– is the way she used to deny that her flower paintings were vaginal. The suggestion upset her!

So I decided to make a painting that was absolutely ridiculously genital, and achieved this goal by using the Nestlé and Lawry's logos.

This is the second version. The first was a reverse painting on plexiglas and quite a bit wider (with the Lawry's Ls farther apart).

Flyer For Art Show, 1995

I should point out that the Nancy panel used here is unaltered.

Painting: High Colonel-ic

Click for bigger.

Above is a picture I made in 1995. It's 18"x24" and is a reverse painting on glass. It's a difficult technique,  but the end result –so flat! So clean!– makes it worthwhile.

I haven't made one of these in a long time. I used to show them in San Diego and Los Angeles, doing mostly coffee shop shows in the former and being included in group shows in the latter. It was fun for a while, but I ended up being more comfortable "behind the scenes" in the art world.

Never say never, though; those greyhounds are a powerful pull!

Reprint: Betty Crocker

Click for bigger, more pretentious.

I have only the vaguest memory of doing the above. Some people I sort-of knew in downtown San Diego made a freebie newsprint "nightlife guide" thingy called CLUE?  (with the question mark), because, duh, everybody wanted to make a magazine, a weekly, a nightlife guide, and you know, it's a good thing the internet came along and stopped this kind of nonsense.

Anyway! I think they offered me a page to do whatever I wanted because they liked my paintings. I guess I probably painted the image above in reverse on a sheet of acetate and then asked then to invert the colors, or maybe I painted it in white and put black paper behind the acetate. I don't have the original anymore, so I have no idea. It's sloppy, but I still like the sentiment!

I painted the Greyhound Bus logo for years, and if I ever start painting again, I'll probably paint almost nothing but Greyhound Bus logos.