Value Vs. Color: Which Side Matters?

I usually paint on the 1st side of an album. There've been a few times, like with John Lennon's "Imagine", that I've chosen the 2nd side. In Lennon's case, "Imagine" has different labels, with a less distracting open apple half on the 2nd side.

This is the 2nd LP of the Dave Matthews Band's recent release. When I paint on the 2nd LP of a double album, I don't worry as much about which side. In this case, the other side is a much brighter green. The brighter the label, the harder it is to see the white paint, lessening the contrast, muddling the image a bit. The value is too high.

So the color doesn't matter. It's the value that matters.

Tell me art doesn't teach tolerance.

Peace.

SOLD - Dave Matthews 12/03/09

Baby Barter

Thank you John Lennon! His beautiful drawings for his son, Sean, are the inspiration for our entire nursery, which I finished painting yesterday. My wife, the planner, found the Carter's collection a few years ago and knew she wanted it for our nursery, when we would make one. We stored away crib sheets, bibs, a playard, a bouncer, blankets, sleepers... you name it. It was really smart actually, because not only do we now have a super cute nursery, but we have a bunch of the stuff we need.

But not all. Not by a long shot.

So that's why we decided to do a sort of a barter deal. We've registered at Babies "R" Us. Here is the registry. What I'm offering is a framed piece of your choice, custom painted and shipped, if you buy $150 worth of items from the registry. Pieces are usually $175 plus shipping.

Besides the discount, you'll get to tell people you helped out the artist's family by providing really helpful and adorable things for their new baby, Abbey Grace. How cool is that? Get an awesome personal piece of art for yourself or as a gift for the holidays and make a very real difference in our lives.

Please share this offer with whomever you think would be interested, as well.

Thank you so much!

Peace.

P.S. My wife had 2 great ideas. 1st, if you do buy items from the registry for us, please forward your confirmation email to me so we can remember what people bought when we send thank you cards. 2nd, though not as fun, you could also do gift cards the same way.

Someday We'll Move There, You'll See

2 paintings, clear-coating 4, wrapping and shipping all in one day! Whew. Well, I want to make the deadline!

See, I just found out about an invitation only, art on vinyl show in London next month. London! I was tagged recently on Facebook to do a list of concerts I've seen. Turned out most were British bands, Peter Gabriel, Arctic Monkeys, Verve, Oasis, Kasabian, Gomez, Stereophonics... Heck we even WENT to London to see the Verve. Best show my wife and I have seen, and she's seen over 50 bands!

I WISH I could've seen Pink Floyd. One of the few bands I've sought out live bootlegs on vinyl, to be engulfed by their show would've been incredible. Like Jeff, who entered my contest with his story about "Wish You Were Here", Floyd was the first prog rock band I got into.

So I've been waiting for a show in London. These are the pieces I sent today, having painted Page and Lennon this morning. Strummer I'd painted before, as well as Hendrix. It should be a cool show, with some artists I've met on Flickr. We'll see how it goes and I'll share any pictures I get of the event.

Peace.

David Gilmour 08/08/09

Seeing Faces Is Instinct, Hearing Music Is Primal

As our baby develops inside my wife, eyes are sealed shut while ears begin to function.

We hear before we see.

Peace.

Baby News(letter)

We're pregnant!

I had to just blurt it out. Couldn't think of anything else to say! Woohoo!

We went to California this past weekend to get some stuff my parents had been keeping for me in storage and the timing was perfect to tell them we're expecting. We'd just had the 1st ultrasound last Thursday:
Heehee! So cool. We got to see the heart beat for a couple seconds. It's amazing on SO many levels. Wow, I'm telling you.

So, I'll tell you a little more about it and about the deal with Rob Dyrdek in my newsletter this week. Again, if you want to get my newletter in which I'll ramble in more detail about stuff going on, send me an email. I won't use the list to sell you my art, it's just for the newsletter. I do enough selling here.

I will say, though, that because my wife's an amazing planner, we're already registered at Babies''R''Us and I'm open to barter, ;)

Peace.

John Lennon 05/26/09

Who Would You Recognize At 70 MPH?

I might have the opportunity to create a billboard design! A local company gives artists a chance to put up work cobranding an empty billboard. My brilliant wife came up with both design and message I'm going to work with, but I'm still playing with which paintings I'm going to use. Right now the list is Eminem, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Bob Marley.

What do you think? Who are the icons of music that someone driving at 70 mph would recognize fast enough to also read a couple phrases and maybe catch a website?

It's a weird question to think about isn't it?

Peace.

Record Store Day - Your Contribution

I bring up The Beatles' "Revolver" a lot. It's really important to me largely because it started me out on my journey into music and vinyl. So it was vital to leading me to do what I do today.

All the records in my collection that I bought after my dad introduced me to "Revolver" came from used record stores. I would still, today, rather wait until I find the record I want at a local independent used music store then to point and click on eBay for albums I want to add to my collection. I talked earlier this week about how much those stores in West L.A. meant to me.

Tomorrow is the second annual celebration of Record Store Day. Last year I posted this about it. I'm so glad that it's grown in strength and reach along with the dramatic increase in vinyl reissues. Those reissues are mostly stocked in those independent record stores.

So I need your support of RSD09 because I need those out-of-print hard-to-find albums to be reissued, so I can paint more pieces, connecting more people like you to your music, your culture. Basically, buying music at your local shop directly and indirectly makes the world better. You get the music you love and humanity gets the creativity it loves.

Go to the organizer's site if you don't know a local store, and tomorrow go buy your favorite album on vinyl or even buy that CD you just found out about. Feel good! You know you will.

Me, I'm buying Gomez's new album, along with maybe Tricky's "Knowle West Boy" and Gnarls Barkley's "The Odd Couple". At least.

Peace.

Now, I Know I'm Not Warhol

Yeah, I'm still trying to find photo credits for those that have inspired my pieces. I finally found the original photo with credit for this iconic John Lennon image.

On the left is my painting of John Lennon on a copy of his "Rock 'n' Roll". On the right is Warhol's album cover for Lennon's "Menlove_Ave.". It's pretty obvious we used the same photo.

But did Warhol take the original photo? The Wikipedia entry linked to above uses the word "effected" to describe how Warhol created the image. It, and no other link I could find related to the album cover image, said anything about the original photo.

So who did take the original? I really had to dig online to find this poster. And I could really only make out "Macmillan" there in the upper left corner. It's Iain Macmillan. He also took a companion photo of Yoko. He also took the photo for the cover of "Abbey Road"!

Halleluiah! Why was that so hard to find? Here's an image that everybody knows, that's used on commemorative coins and t-shirts. Now, Yoko took the cover photo for "Imagine" and certainly owns the copyright on this image as well, but man! Well, I guess I could be overestimating my online searching abilities. I dunno.

Anyway, I did find a bunch more today along with this one, so that's good. But, I'm planning on painting Kanye West tomorrow, inspired by a photo that, yet again, I could only find one online copy and it was on a blog that gave no source or credit. *Sigh*

Peace.

And You Know That For Sure

Love is a flower... you got to let it grow.

Yes is surrender... you got to let it go.

Peace.

SOLD - John and Yoko 02/03/09

Yes We Can!

I'm not one to talk politics much, not nearly as much as John here. That's for sure. But I've gotta say that THAT was one heck of a speech last night from President-elect Obama. It was moving enough to see Jesse Jackson cry. Being a skinny, Jewish, white boy, I don't feel the enormity of the day in the depths of my soul the same as a black man. It's not ingrained in who I am. But I could certainly feel the passion from those there in Grant Park.

I wonder what he would say. Or him.

And now we can officially call W a "lame duck". ;)

The message from Barack that I most respect is that he wasn't counting on our belief in his ability to bring change to Washington, but ours. Most inspiring. I hope people realize that we get to work together to make a better tomorrow. Challenges, yes, but faced with hope.

Helped me get out of bed this morning.

Peace.

John Lennon 11/05/08

Get On thegoodfoot.com

I didn't do James Brown like last year, but I did do a bunch for this year's Vinyl Killers show up in Portland, OR. Half sold! Woohoo! Happy Halloween!

The John Lennon on the top row and the three with blue backgrounds on the second are still available at http://thegoodfoot.com/gallery/artist/daniel-edlen/. You can buy them online there.

Jason, the owner of the Goodfoot Pub and curator of this year's show did an amazing job. Below is a picture of just one wall. Mine are kinda in the middle with the blinding reflections.

You can see all the pieces in the show here. There's also a news story here about the show with a couple sentences about my work specifically. Looked like a pretty cool scene. Hopefully I'll be able to go next year!

Peace.

Think, Act, Spread Peace

Happy Birthday, John!

Join Yoko and millions in celebrating.

Her statement about art and peace is beautiful and inspiring.

Indeed, Peace.

SOLD - John Lennon 10/09/08

Truth Is... (Picture Tommy Smothers' Look Of Bewilderment)

... what you get other people to believe.

The political content of Smothers' acceptance speech harkened back to John Lennon's era.

The thing that plain sucks is that it still is relevant today.

I caught snippets of the Emmy's last night and Smothers' speech was the only moment that stuck in my mind, other than wondering where Goldie Hahn was in the Laugh-In wall. He still can nail that look, that look like he's got no clue what's going on for a split second and then lets us have it. It's, dare I say, even more subtle than Bob Newhart's delivery.

Anyway, back to Lennon. It turns out that I am the only artist being featured at Primitive Kool this coming Saturday. It's my first solo show! Pretty cool. So we're definitely going to be there.

I also decided to do some more pieces to take to the show. A week of the "J"s: John, Jimi, Jim, Jerry, and Joey. I've got to find a Ramones album to paint Joey, but I found a great, well, clear at least, photo of him unexpectedly. These will all be new images.

So here's John. I know he'd've been at yesterday's Peace Day concert. Peter Gabriel performed along with Annie Lennox and other passionate musicians. Despite the counterpoint of the bombing in Pakistan, I hope the day reached some people's hearts. I think, like Tommy Smothers, that we need to resensitize people to the conditions in the world, to the conflicts between peoples believing their truths, to the ever present need to seek

Peace.

John Lennon 09/22/08

Blues For Thee, Vanilla

Value = you. You'll see
where I'm going, eventually.

Last year I participated in Vinyl Killers 5, a show of artwork using vinyl records as canvas in Portland, Oregon. I sold a James Brown and Bob Dylan. I've got a link to the show's website in my linkroll off to your right. This year I'm sending Afrika Bambaataa, Miles Davis, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and this one of Tom Waits.

I first found out about Tom Waits when I watched him in Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, a great movie that also stars John Lurie and Robert Benigni. All 4 of these people are brilliantly creative. If you aren't familiar with their work, I'd urge you to explore.

I'm noticing that all the creative types mentioned in this post are distinctive, strongly individual, unique, and defiant. Types that live on the edge of creativity and culture. Remarkable.

But you are remarkable too. Even if you don't have a page on Wikipedia or a cult following, you are perfectly valuable as a human being. Think about the people killed back in 2001 on this day, each with a story, each with value.

Anything that you do or create, any ripples you send off, any effect you have on those around you, is your value, is part of "you". I was sitting listening to this Tom Waits album while my iRecord turned it into a reasonably accurate digital version and started thinking about everybody involved in creating the piece of art I was going to create using the record.

I end up thinking about that a lot, as I realize how we share our value. The people who have a part, any part, in your story have value to you. I mean the people who made the steel that became the machine that pressed the record that got released by the record company, bought, listened to, and sold to the store where I bought it are important to me. And so are all the people along that path. Get it?

So be remarkable as you are. Be you, the best, the most authentic you that you can, even if you are vanilla instead of homemade pumpkin caramel with whipped topping.

And thank you for being part of my journey, for as you read this, you exchange your attention for my creation, mutually sharing value, neither seeking gain.

Peace.

SOLD - Tom Waits 09/11/08

Re(issue)

I went to buy The Verve's new album on vinyl at a local independent record store. I bought it to listen to, not paint on.

I decided to check out what else was available new.

There's a lot! It's really exciting to see so many popular and obscure records being released on, well, record!

I realized that I feel differently about new vinyl as compared to old vinyl, though. I'm not totally sure why. In the back of my head, I kind of wondered why they were pressing new releases and remastered old ones.

When I find an old used copy of, say, "Imagine", I treat it like gold. If I found an original release still sealed, no way would I open it, let alone paint on it. I have a hard time even painting on copies of that album that look like they were used as frisbees. Is it my sentimental connection to the music?

I don't think so. When I found out a couple days ago that "Imagine" was going to be rereleased on vinyl and it would be available on Amazon NEW, I didn't really cringe at the thought of buying one, if need be, to paint on. It's not the price, because they'll be more expensive than those used copies I wouldn't use as my canvas.

Then, maybe the key is the "original" part. I do tend to collect things, and I, for whatever blasted reason, do value originals more than copies. But it's not like the original release is better. In fact, remastered versions can be better and most rereleases are now digitally remastered. Oo wait.

I think that's it. When I typed "digitally" I felt something. Why would I treasure, let alone buy, an album released on analog media if the music has been processed digitally first?

That's why I had no problem buying the Black Eyed Peas "Monkey Business" on vinyl, the original release on vinyl, and painting today's piece. It is a digitally recorded and produced album that they simply pressed on vinyl.

You can't add back in the warmth and reality of analog.

So, that's it. I don't mind terribly using vinyl pressings if it's a digitally processed recording.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. What do you think?

Peace.

Black Eyed Peas 09/04/08

Religion Is Broken

I personally don't participate regularly in a traditional organized religion, so I might not be well-suited to discuss the topic, but I feel like I have something to say. Pardon my diversion from the usual topic of my artwork.

This might be more of an internal dialog I'm having with myself, so who knows, at the end I might truly care about the actuality of the facts behind religious teachings. Right now though, my question is why do people in organized religions to get so caught up in faulting the facts of other religions and fight to the death over them, when they generally look to their own religion as a source for lessons on how to live, not questioning or even really paying attention to the authenticity of the stories?

Human language, words, inherently lie in so much as they can't put the actual thoughts from my head into yours, only a representation of them. Religious texts are words. They are in general brilliant words chosen not for the *truth* of their content, but *for* their content. They convey abstract ideals. Through allegory, they codify ways to live well. Truly, most religions teach very similar ways. There are contextual differences due to the time and place the text was written, but the purpose, the intent is the same.

Why, then, has it come to matter so much what the words are, who said and wrote them? Why has the intent been largely lost? So much media focus is placed on archaelogical research proving or disproving events used to illustrate lessons in religious texts, making a mockery of the lesson. This feeds the distrust and hate felt by devout believers for people in every other religion. Maybe my internal head-fake is that the media actually would do well to recount the stories, teaching the lessons anew unreligiously. How do we teach morals secularly? Would we turn off the news if they added intent in their stories, ending each one with "and the moral is..."? We trust ancient religious texts to convey morals for some reason. Why? And why don't we trust apocryphal texts?

This is why I don't like the categorization of people. Race, sex, and religion are used to exclude. We're all human, all deserve to be included in humanity, but by categorizing and basing actions on those categories, we're really denying the humanity of people by comparison. "My religion is better than yours because its lessons are true and good, and the stories you listen to aren't factually true so your lessons can't be right."

Maybe though, if we turn over moral conveyance from ancient texts to currently living people, stories would come alive. We're taught human nature is good in religious texts. So let it be. Let people be free to listen to their conscience. Let people be the perfect creation of God that they already are. Let people love instead of teaching them to hate. Let people accept fear and find tolerance of that which they don't understand. Take away the power of fear by undemonizing it and hate will cease. People will accept themselves, others, and Life, and love.

Even in teaching love, religions exclude and qualify. They teach to love others even though. Even though what? Even though they believe in the same lesson, just use a different story to convey it? Just love. We are all individuals, we are all Life. When categorizing humanity stops, when "you're wrong" is replaced with "your intent is good", when stories of the ancient and recent past serve purely as a means to teach rather than as the end to be hallowed, when people listen, then there can be

Peace.

ON CONSIGNMENT - John Lennon 06/25/08

FMF2008 Rock Walk: Music-Inspired Passion

So, these are the 7 I'm sending off to Florida. You can click on the photo to see it bigger. They laid out pretty nicely for this photo, I thought. Took it out on the pool deck.

I've gotten a couple commissions that I get to work on: Peter Frampton and Melanie Safka. Both are for people passionate about music that touched them growing up. The people I want to reach the most. Whomever your favorite is, I want to know. I want to create something for you to show off what that music means to you. Make people stop and think, "I know that face... isn't that...?" and then get to talk about why you love them so much. Connect.

Peace.

Reluctant Enthusiasm

More paradoxicalness. I don't think that's a word, but in any case, another pair of opposite feelings acting simultaneously. I'm getting great feedback on Flickr about my pieces for Art on Vinyl 3 and I am excited about the show in New York, but at the same time I'm still struggling with the demons brought on by Jason's death. So it's hard to really focus on my artwork while trying to find acceptance.

Maybe I can look to Dylan and Lennon. Both resisted being iconic figures in New York, but both continued doing what they did, figuring out a way to accept the unwanted role. I liked finding the new photo of Bob from a promo poster for his book, "Tarantula". Made for a nice pairing with the one of John. Maybe somebody'll buy both together at the P/Art Show. Like pretty much all the paintings you can see in this blog, they're also available on commission.

Speaking of commissions, I already got the New York Dolls album from Canada to paint for the guy I connected with in The Vinyl Engine Forum. Now I've got to find a good picture of the pre-punk rockers. I also found the Grateful Dead album to use for my contest winner's piece on eBay for cheap and it's on its way. So those are next.

1 For The Money, 2 For The Show, 3 To Get Ready

[EDIT - 5/15/08: To all who arrive at this post looking for information about the song, it's "Blue Suede Shoes", written by Carl Perkins. It was also performed by John Lennon (GREAT video!), so it ties in nicely to the rest of this post as well.]

I am so lucky to get to do what I'm passionate about and to share it with others. Getting to give back is amazing, a great feeling. A whole bunch of things are coming together to make me feel really good about what I'm doing. Just one of those confluence of events that seem to mean Life, the universe, karma, is on your side. John Lennon, George Clinton, and Joao Gilberto are for Free Art Seattle Exhibition, which, after a month on display, will be given away. "An opportunity to make someone's day." Indeed. I love it.

I saw Brad Pitt on Larry King, and along with MadeByGirl, I'm very impressed with his genuine caring for New Orleans and strong desire to give. And speaking of John Lennon, it's the anniversary of his death on 8 Dec and Yoko sent out an e-mail inviting people to Imagine Peace and remember we are all together... now. Then the planning of perhaps the coolest thing for my wife and I related to my artwork yet. As I mentioned a while back, Roger Steffens has invited me to paint Bob Marley for his archives as he prepares them to become the founding collection of the Bob Marley wing of the National Museum of Jamaican Music in Jamaica. Hoo boy. To have my art included as a contribution to the history of such a source of pure love and unity as Bob Marley will be amazing. SO wonderful. Just a good feeling.

Anyway, I do have a Bob Marley painting in my online gallery, so if you haven't:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and do remember John with love.

GIFTED - George Clinton, Joao Gilberto, John Lennon 12/07/07

Family And Friends

Stevie Ray for my brother-in-law in Austin and Lennon for our friend down in Tucson. I love giving gifts! I'm painting these for music-lovers who share our passion, so why not give them away too? Obviously I need to sell some, and the holiday season is the perfect time to get your commissions in, but sharing the love of music is what it's all about. This weekend I'm going to try to find the ones I'll do for Free Art Seattle. More giving. I'm looking forward to participating in other shows like it. If you know about art shows in your area that you think my work might fit into, please let me know!

I also created a profile at XING, kinda like LinkedIn. We'll see what connections I make there. Also, happened upon LiveVideo, so I created my channel there too. Basically, it's a duplicate of my YouTube channel, but it'll reach a whole new group of people. I'm tellin' ya, if I ever have to change E-mail addresses with the number of accounts I have... yikes. I just want people out there to know about what I'm doing and to give you all as many ways to find and connect with me as possible. I'm hoping to get more regular subscribers to this blog, but I'll take what I can get. Just give me feedback! Also, sorta important, if you haven't seen my online gallery, please:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and E-mail or even call me. Don't be shy, I won't bite.

GIFTED - Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Lennon 11/30/07