Halfway Under The Limbo Pole

I was hoping I could tell you my big news before the long weekend. But, alas, the full information is yet to come. Drat.

Oh yeah, I have potentially big news! Heehee.

The good news so far, this afternoon, is that "they are interested". Right on. I have no idea what's next. So picture me bent backwards, knees buckled almost to the floor, nose hovering underneath the limbo pole.

I'm trying not to sneeze.

Have a good holiday weekend, and on Monday think about him and what he'd be doing.

Peace.

Roy Orbison 01/16/09

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

When all is said and done, what will humanity be remembered for, what will the ages say about you?

[EDIT - 5/15/08: To all those finding this post while on a quest for information regarding JFK's inaugural address and his famous quote, I found out that it was inspired by a line written by Khalil Gibran, the author of "The Prophet". The line can be found in "The New Frontier". It's the 7th paragraph. This isn't to take away from JFK's rephrasing it into a monster of an directive to a nation, though.

Also, the contest described below is over, but I'm hoping I get to do another one! I need your help. I need enough subscribers either by RSS feed or email so that I'll get enough entries. So make it easier on yourself to keep up with my oh-so-neat little blog, and subscribe!]

"No man is an island, he's a peninsula," said Jefferson Airplane. We are all connected and we're the better for embracing that: "Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated," said MLK. I guess my main purpose in creating and promoting Vinyl Art at all is to contribute as I can, seeking my way of bringing people together. So, I'm taking King's first step even though I definitely can't see the rest of the staircase, and starting my contest. Woohoo!

Your Grand Prize: one (1) piece of Vinyl Art of the recording artist of your (reasonable) choice, framed and delivered

The 9 Second Prizes: your entry featured on the sidebar of this blog

Everybody's Deadline: February 29th, 2008

How You Enter: I want to know your story (you feel comfortable enough to share) of when music had the biggest impact on your life, like a concert, or a song you danced to with your future mate, or an important moment in human history that changed you in large part due to music involved. It's gotta be true and about you. The entry can be in any form: you can write the story in a comment here, you can post an image on Flickr and send me a FlickrMail about it, you can make a video to upload to YouTube and send me a message there with it attached, you can create a post on your own blog with a trackback to here, or you can even use regular ol' snail mail (address available on request). Basically, any format, online or off, is acceptable as long as it's your creation and your story. Every entry will be moderated for appropriateness (my blog isn't "adult", ;) ) and listed in the comments to this post for all to see.

How You Become A Winner: On March 1, 2008, I'll start going through all the entries and pick the 10 top ones. By "top", I mean the most successful at communicating your story. I want to really "get" why you've chosen that particular story to tell. I'm not going to judge it based on comparisons of content. I'm going to judge the entries based on the whole package, kind of like how dogs are judged in Best of Show competitions. I know there aren't "breed standards", but I mean I'm going to look at the facts of the story and judge the entry on how well I think it conveys your experience of those facts and the impact it had on you. Then I'll pick one of the top 10 randomly as the Grand Prize winner!

I thought about putting the top 10 up for voting by you to pick the winner, but for this first contest, I want to keep it simple. I don't really know how big my audience is and how many hoops you'd be willing to jump through to win a painting at this point. Also, I'll see how many entries I get before committing to when I'll announce the winners. I'm going to do my best with this, but everybody has told me that contests can go haywire, so let's just make it a good one! You can always ask me questions to clarify before submitting your entry, I'll make important ones public. I don't care if I get all the entries on the last day of this month if you want to keep refining or if you just procrastinate, but if you want more people to see your entries, get them submitted!

If you want inspiration, or if you don't understand the Grand Prize:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and also the more entries, the better a contest will result for us all, so tell your friends! Peace.

King's Symbolism Stripped To Reveal His Humanity

In going through my albums to get organized this past week, I found this record of Martin Luther King Jr. speech excerpts. After digging up this beautiful photo, I decided to paint it. I can pay hommage and celebrate anybody who has a recording on vinyl, after all. "I Have a Dream" is on side 2, so it's still somewhat playable. However, a reason I paint some of these portraits the way I do is to show the person as a human being, trying to capture their soul and the spirit of their Life. As this article discusses, too often iconic figures in history become reduced to a single moment, like with King's famous speech. I hope my paintings generally counterract the flattening of culturally important people, both visually and substantively.

I'd like to know what you think! How do you think my paintings characterize their subject? There are a good number of examples here on my blog, and you can also:

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

and look through the online gallery. Do my paintings celebrate their lives and contributions to our culture?