Buy My Art!

I've set up shop at etsy, http://www.etsy.com/shop/funonmars and am adding new pictures frequently, so please stop by. Sorry, no refreshments!

If I were free

My sister- Carol Cruikshank- was a very talented artist, even from a young age. I scanned one of her sketchbooks and put it up on Flickr- it plays as a slideshow
http://www.flickr.com//photos/funonmars/sets/72157629106907167/show/
(As long as you keep your mouse away from it the bottom tray of pictures won't show.)

She drew this when she was 15 or 16 in a little booklet tied together with yarn. This was in 1957! So many of the ideas are still fresh. She died twenty years ago. Today's her birthday.

The Dogs of Italy

When I saw how welcome dogs are in restaurants and hotels, I was sorry we hadn't considered bringing Molly along. But not sure I could deal with a dog's jet lag as well as my own. "Sally, It's 2 am! Time for our walk!"



This ancient Roman dog is making the same gesture Molly makes when we're driving in the car and she sees a dog on the street. Dogs have been helping humans back to the earliest days and many artists honored them. This was in the Etruscan Museum in Rome. Now when Jon and I are driving in the car and we see a dog, we make the gesture too.

Most of the dogs in Italian art look like Italian greyhounds. Surprise!



This old dog lived in the Cinqueterre on the Italian Riviera.

I'm surprised dogs don't smoke cigarettes in Italy. Everyone else does.

Mother's Day

Jon took this lovely picture in the courtyard of the National Etruscan Museum, in the Villa Giulia part of the Villa Borghese Gardens. Gone were the miserable shuffling hordes at the Vatican Museum, (which Jon described as the tenth circle of hell though Dante only knew 9!)

This museum was peaceful, nearly empty, and full of wonderful art by the Etruscans, an early Italian civilization about which much is not known, even now. They even had an alphabet that's never been decoded.








The image below is the style of art they're best known for.



Beautiful sensitivity to horse and riders' poses.

I called my mother the morning I got back and the S.S. Dementia had docked. "I'm in London," she said. "Where are you?" She was upset I hadn't gone to London to meet up with her and sounded very agitated.

This morning she didn't sound agitated, but she answered by saying, "Have you heard the terrible news?" "No, what?" thinking uh oh.

"The beads are missing, and everyone's in an uproar. Without the beads the race can't be run.
People have looked for them everywhere. They've even called in the FBI."

"It's like some cheap mystery novel" she added.

She had to get off the phone because she was off to New York, but she'd call me when she got there, around noon. I'll be at the races then, hmm, maybe I'm a suspect. I do have some goofy beads I sometimes wear to the racetrack . But don't tell anyone! Don't tell the FBI!

Veni Vidi Vici

In our house in Northridge, above the ice machine, there's a special feature pointed out to us when we bought the house long ago. It's a slide projector shelf set up so you can show slides of your travels when guests come for dinner, while they're still stuck at the table.

The Power Point presentation of its day.

"Hey, why's everyone leaving so soon?"

Faced with 600+ pictures from our trip to Italy I hope I have the good sense not to pull out the slide projector here on the blog.

We saw some great art, really great art, first in New York at the Frick and the Metropolitan, and then of course in Italy.


This parrot painting was in New York.

In Italy there are way too many paintings of John the Baptist's head on a platter. People, please! Or of Judith doing the same thing to Holofernes. Why did artists think this was something they should paint?

The platter paintings were especially awful because the whole concept of Italian eating in restaurants is based on course after course, platter after platter, and they never let you start with dessert so we never reached that course.



This was the only dessert we ordered during the trip, and it was at an obnoxious restaurant in NYC on the lower east side. The waiter was a bully and we only ordered this so called "Baked Alaska" because they seemed to have an "eat it or beat it" policy in effect and we wanted to yell at our friends a little longer. It wasn't really Baked Alaska which is meringue baked around ice cream but they can get away with calling it that because they're so hip and the restaurant is so noisy no one would hear you if you complained anyway.

The first picture is an Etruscan sculpture. More on Etruscan art later. No, you can't get up from the table. Sorry.

boodatude: yes

terrific post tonight by boodatude here.

Cool artists wherever you look: Cindy Hunt!

copyright Cindy Hunt
I got a friendly email out of the blue from Cindy Hunt, and took a look at her blog and her artwork and thought they were both intriguing and delightful, so here's an introduction. She lives in L.A. This picture is cut paper- ow- never felt that safe around exactos! There are so many talented women blogging and creating interesting artwork- the world has no idea!

Rainy Day

so I had to draw a little sunshine. (still using Sketchbook pro trial.)

Marti McGinnis delights me!

UPDATE: Another blog feature on Marti with pictures HERE!

Marti McGinnis, aka wegwag on twitter, fabulous fantasy horse artist, has been doing some wondrous little unicorn pictures which she sells at ridiculously low prices through her etsy shop to help cover the costs of her equine rescue network.

These are GREAT VALENTINE GIFTS!

I find them irresistible and have bought several. When I opened the package that came from Marti today she'd done an extra, above, a portrait of my Pet Society character, toxic dump. I LOVE IT! Thank you Marti! Toxic never looked so good.

Out of nowhere I heard from a few people I really cared about from long ago in the last two days, thanks to facebook. One is my absolute favorite horse buddy of all time...

We're going to meet tomorrow and I'm going to give her one of Marti's pictures. Serendipity!

Marvelous Marti McGinnis!

Marti McGinnis painted this exquisite lyrical magical picture for my niece Allyx, who's enduring the toxic treatment required to defeat Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Marti writes about it here. There's so much depth to this joyful picture- I adore it. Thanks, Marti! You are a wondrous talent!

One size too small

credit Elliott Swanson

These shoes could be mine but they're one size too small. Elliott Swanson is a brilliant guy whose specialty is lenticular images. Go ahead, look it up. Sometimes we collaborate.

WegWag: Marti McGinnis

One of the most appealing horse people I've encountered on the web is artist Marti McGinnis who painted this wonderful cotton candy pony. .. yes a cotton candy pony!

Her joyful paintings really capture the lyrical goofiness of horses.



All these wonderful paintings are for sale at her Etsy shop. Be sure you read her comments on each picture.



One of her web sites is happy art.. This is her blog. Take a look at her amazing art car and she's painted others.

In addition to all that, she is very involved with horse rescue work and lives in Kentucky. She has a darling miniature horse. She's on twitter as Wegwag and on Facebook too. She's a Pet Society queen. I'm sorry we don't live closer. I'd love to have her as a friend. Cheers Marti! You're amazing!

Thanks!

Thanks all around. Kevin Stafford won the Ultimate Rachel Alexandra Fan Contest and will get all the goodies tomorrow at Monmouth Park. If you get TVG you'll see him walking with his new favorite horse. I know many of you voted, and that was so nice of you.

And I started this twitter drawing chain and wonder where it's going, and what's the protocol. We had Linda Davick, (ldavick), Namowal (othernamowal), RussellSteeleOH, wegwag (Marti Mcginess), tinyowls, and tasha26 all drawing.

If you choose to start a chain or continue one, be sure to add the @biz in the box at the bottom, otherwise the others may never see it or know anything was drawn. It seems to spiral out.

All were based on one lumpy drawing at the start. It's fun to run the playback over at twitter and see what was changed. I don't even know how tasha26 ran into the picture or who tasha26 is, but a nice contribution.

Have a good Saturday. I'm reading an excellent mystery, "Don't Look Back" by Karin Fossum, a Norwegian writer I found by accident in the library.

Twit Draw Chain

No, that isn't a command. On twitter they have the same drawing program available, Graffiti, but they have an option to do a drawing chain, an idea which is sort of fun, or is it just annoying?

I started one and sent it on to Linda and her talented pal Lisa Horstman. Namowal, I couldn't find your twitter name. Anyone else who wants to join in on another one, or start one, great. I have been feeling utterly uninspired, a regular blank canvas, and something like this gives me a little push. My twitter name is funonmars. Lately I'm enjoying twitter more than facebook. It's not such a load of information and prying questions.

Dots, anyone?

Ganapati Studios

credit Ganapati Studios

Along with an order for my dvd I received a nice note from Phil at Ganapati Studios. I took a look at their site and must order some of their cards. On real paper!

This is just an excerpt. They have other charming looking products too. Somebody at the studio is a postcard collector, I guarantee!

Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies

How many of these do you remember? We had a Grapho-Scope in the basement when I was little. It was really hard to make sense of.

Thanks Eric Knisley for link.

Wondrous NYC Trashbags

Thanks to my pal Jane (prb here) for alerting me to this wonderful use of trashbags and stinky subway air. wow!

French Rabbit

Every week or so when we've driven to Montrose for our groceries, there's been a big sign up outside City Market: "We Have French Rabbit 1 L. Boxes"

French Rabbit? Ooh, sounds kind of down and dirty. What could that be? Are the folks in Montrose getting so citified they order rabbit meat from France in big boxes?

I had to know.

Turns out it's a gloriously packaged French wine in a box that's entirely recyclable and just the thing for campers. We bought a box but haven't tried it yet.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

In no particular order, but I have to say, of all the many old mining towns we've visited, Leadville is the sorriest.

The town has an incredible history, and still a lot of fine old buildings on the main street, but you can tell there's never been any zoning in the town and it just looks uncared for. Their water system is still affected by a Superfund cleanup attempt. The entry to the town is miles of debris and dumps and trailer parks, and the land is barren because it was over logged long ago and nothing grew back.



There are tourists in the tourist part of town, but there aren't many tourists and there aren't many restaurants either. Around dinner time we saw the same sorry group of folks crisscrossing our path, looking lost and hungry, wondering where they should eat dinner.

The favored spot had only one thing on the menu, beef filet, and some of the hungry ladies we talked to thought this was just the thing, because you told them exactly how many inches of filet you wanted and that's what they'd serve you. The image of the cook in the back room with ruler and giant slab of beef turned me off.

The sign in the window of the Chinese restaurant was peculiar- was it trying to be cute? Restaurant is hard to spell, so hmm...



Or there was the Italian restaurant and gifts-- the gifts part rang the wrong bell for me.

We ended up having our dinner delivered to us at the famous Silver Dollar Saloon-- slab of ribs and salad, though no utensils came with it which made it tricky at first.



This art gallery seemed completely out of place. The owner beckoned us inside, including Molly.



The artwork was really nice. I noticed that two different artists whose work I liked a lot both were favoring extremely asymmetrical compositions- one was doing pastels of horses in black and white where the horse was only partial and in a corner of the image, and the other acrylics that made me think of Albert Pynkham Ryder but again with the odd compositions where everything is happening way off on one side or the other. I didn't think it was right to take a straight on shot of the pictures, but maybe I should have.



I believe the second artist's name was Frank Sampson. His paintings are on the right.

(to be continued maybe)

Looking for my Missing Cult

whew, hope I don't pick up that telephone when it rings! Might be Werner Erhard!

This self portrait was taken in a motel room in Sarasota Florida at a very far out film "festival" around 1981. A wealthy young guy invited a small group of artist filmmakers to come to his motel for a goofy get together. Films were projected on a raft on the gulf. We were all supposed to get along, as Rodney King might have said.

It was awkward, it was fun, it was weird. It was all paid for by the host. Southwest Florida at that time was a very sleepy place, strictly seniors and locals and miniature golf. 16mm films. SERIOUS artistes in a silly place. Films you'd watch and try not to look back at the projector to see how much more was still on the reel.