Don't Know Where To Put One?

Give one away!

Last week, I asked you to think about where you could put one of my paintings in your home. I know a lot of you who see my paintings probably think, "That's cool, but it wouldn't really go with my decor." So you don't know where you'd put one, even if you want one.

I've got the answer. Make that someone else's problem!

Really, the majority of the commissions I've sold have been as gifts. I love that because it means people think enough of the paintings that they want someone they love to own one. They make great unique gifts because they show you pay attention and know what the giftee's favorite music is and sometimes even their favorite album. I definitely try to use the album you know they'd like. Makes for an even better story.

So, I painted Ray Charles on his Christmas album as an example of what might just be the perfect holiday gift.

And you can keep the snazzy sticker.

Peace.

The End Of Pop

What is pop?

Not generally believing in categories, I'm not sure what is considered pop. I thought pop was short for popular, no? I don't know that it matters terribly, but we should get our words straight.

Does it have to do with when something is popular? If a release is widely popular when it's first released, is it pop? If a release becomes popular over time, is it not pop?

Or does it have to do with the perception that a release is meant to capitalize on the style of music that is currently popular?

Or is it just the style of the music or theme of the lyric?

The folks at Wikipedia seem to have difficulty nailing it down too, talking about how the meaning's changed and how it refers to the musical structure, the themes of the songs, the intent of the musicians, and the commercial and critical success of the release. Yikes. Even Wikipedia's editors are looking for someone to do some "cleanup" on the article. And popular music, which is distinguished from pop music, appears to be about as vague.

Maybe we should throw pop away.

No no, the word, not the music.

What do you think?

Peace.

Kate Bush 09/16/08

Era Vs. Genre: Are You With It?

I was trying to figure out who to paint for the Waxploitation: Lost in Transit show happening at the Hip-Hop Theater Festival on Monday, July 7th. More and more, it seems people are suggesting artists from the 70's: Peter Frampton, New York Dolls, Lee "Scratch" Perry...

I know I'm a child of the 80's. I grew up listening to Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Talking Heads, Culture Club, Eurythmics, Twisted Sister, and Devo. But before you say, "You poor thing!", the sometimes outlandish music that was pop in that era did leave me very open to other music as my taste developed. What I mean is, that even though the radio hits were of questionable musical worth occassionally in and of themselves, the language of the music of that time has had a lasting and valid impact on both my musical sensibility and what has come after the aftermath of disco.

Languages always fascinate me, whether they be spoken, played, or painted. As a result of what happened to the language of American pop music during the 80's, I've ended up responding to progressive rock, heavy metal, electronica, hip-hop... you name it. If I think about it, the only type of music that kind of missed being included in my internal musical library is country pop, mostly because country wasn't really pop then. It's cool to see how the culture you grew up in has affected you.

So then, when I started to explore less mainstream music, what I liked ended up fitting somehow into that weird mashup of genres as they were in that era. This isn't to say that my initial musical framework didn't change. As I developed and changed, my individual taste changed. But everything was consciously or unconsciously compared to what I'd heard as a pre-teen. If "That sounds like..." had an answer that I knew I liked, I'd listen more. If not, I wasn't ready for that music.

I think era can influence genre and vice versa. What's popular during an era, what defines it when we look back on it, influences genres of music as artists seek to fit in to the mainstream. They also stay true to their roots though, so each unique artist and those that can be grouped as a genre influence what is created during an era. This creates what we end up using to define the era.

I think this makes sense. I don't know if it means anything. It's just something that came to mind when I realized that I have several Eminem CDs today while I still don't have The Beastie Boys first album or anything by Public Enemy. Put another way, I have a special place in my heart for Michael's "Beat It", but I don't even know the name of the song by that dancing guy, what's-his-name, that all the girls love today.

What is your music, your culture?

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?

Exposing Myself

I love doing what I do! I get paid to expose myself! Being an artist is hard, but satisfying in that my direct creative expression is getting attention and appreciation. I put part of myself, my soul, into my art, and yes, my goal has become to sell myself. I used to shudder thinking about that aspect of being a professional artist. Now, though, it feels better than working for someone else. I AM my business. It is frustrating to not get feedback and to feel ignored sometimes, but it has built my self-confidence a great deal. I believe in myself. I'm not sure anybody would recommend becoming an artist to bolster one's self-esteem, but it definitely encourages self-reliance. I have to be my own biggest fan. For me, that's big, as before now, I was my biggest critic, not cutting myself slack for mistakes and imperfections that I far overlooked in others. I still hold myself to high standards, but optimistically!

I'm realizing this on a day with little visible progress. I painted Otis Redding because I wanted to, not for a client. I added an XML sitemap to my website for search engines which already have me indexed. And I created yet another profile/gallery for a free artists' directory with no other posts in its forum since September. Yet, the more things I do to promote my online presence, my artwork, myself, the more I realize that I must consider myself worth it! I'm spending all this time on me!

This post, then, is meant to share my inspiration. Not quite an epiphany or anything too profound, just a simple acknowledgement of how lucky I am to be my own business. My ultimate goal in being an artist is to spread my idea and creativity to as many people as I can, to bring people together by communicating about our collective culture, and to live a human life. It's why we're here I think, to be humans and to be understood as the individuals that we are within humanity.

What do YOU think?

I also submitted a press release to AP.org regarding Newport Nights this October 27th at Primitive Kool in San Diego. Hopefully they'll find it suitable for distribution, but in the meantime, if you haven't:

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

and see the 16 pieces that'll be on display and for sale!

Otis Redding 10/19/07

Some Like It Hot

I was amazed that I found an album of her recordings for her movies that was in bad enough shape to paint. I hope I did her justice. I wouldn't want to offend Joltin' Joe's memory of his Marilyn. What the American public has considered "beautiful" has sure changed over the years. I've considered many very different actresses to be gorgeous. I used to draw and sculpt the figure from live models, so I became aware of the subjectivity and individuality of beauty. Here is a group of publicly known women that helped shape my sense of feminine exquisiteness:

Audrey Hepburn
Lauren Bacall
Rita Hayworth
Marilyn Monroe
Barbara Feldon
Shannon and Tracy Tweed
Gillian Anderson
Michelle Pfeiffer
Anna Nicole Smith (as the Guess girl)

So American... oh well, that's where I grew up! And near Hollywood. I suppose, then, these really capture what I consider the beautiful celebrity, not feminine beauty in general. How shallow is that? This is, however, a part of who I am and of my pop culture, so it's definitely relevant to this blog.

Also relevant to this blog about my trials and tribulations as an artist, the glass of 2 of the 3 I sent to Wild About Music broke in transit. Blast! This is the third time. I am switching over to plexiglass for everybody now, for sure. It's just not worth the worry every time I send one with glass. Plex is lighter anyway. The practical issues of being an artist are trying. I just want to be able to paint and make people happy, not be bothered by packaging concerns. If you'd like to see the ones I sent to Austin even though they aren't displayed for sale yet, you can:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and look through the online gallery.

The Purpose Of Education In Life

It's hard not to question myself. I do it all the time, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I end up talking myself out of doing things and taking chances. I got lucky and was sort of hit on the head with the realization of who I am. Before that, I was floating, unsure of myself because I didn't know who that was. I suppose everyone goes through that during their formative years.

One of the main reasons I got anywhere was my sense of commitment. It also made it difficult to start anything, because I would try to plan out the whole thing in my head before even attempting it. But I did do school well, really well. Academics was my commitment from an early age. I've since realized that that wasn't who I was meant to be, so I stopped after getting a B.S. at UCLA. However, after elementary, middle, high school and university, I've come to understand what school was for, at least for me. I think my understanding would benefit others and help avoid the frustration many have with academic education, so here goes.

School is a framework built to teach how to learn and how to communicate. At least up until grad school, the content of education, in and of itself, isn't as important as the structure. Every field of study ended up being another language, another way to communicate about humanity and our place in the universe. It seemed all academics basically sought to understand who they were and where they fit into life, but did that by focussing on just one framework of understanding. I characterize myself as mostly a "big picture" kinda guy, so the best pieces that I gleaned from different areas of study ended up being those that were new ways to learn and communicate about life as a whole, not those simply useful as independent frameworks. I think schools should begin to realize their place in people's lives as providers and facilitators of communication and understanding. The purpose of learning the 3 Rs is not just to learn them independently of each other and separated from all other aspects of a student's life, but to begin to provide students with a common language and way to learn about themselves and society. Tools, they're tools.

Pop culture is humanity's most immediate and purest communication of what it's about at any given time on a large scale. One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that it's making more facets of our culture widely available more rapidly and generating more communication, which pushes our popular culture in new less explored directions. It's very inspiring to me and it's why I'm trying to be a part of it. Everybody's got something to say and school's job should be to facilitate that communication and others' understanding of it. The actual knowledge passed on is so much less important than passing on the ability to access and understand new knowledge. Hence, communication and learning to learn.

I think following this would create a more satisfying educational experience for everyone. Students wouldn't be made to feel inferior/superior to others by focussing so much on test scores, but instead would revel in being able to find out who they are in their own lives and to share that with classmates, receiving acknowledgement and understanding. Teachers wouldn't have to concentrate on regurgitation, but instead would get to use their subject matter to connect with their students' lives and help them relate to their own culture to future generations' cultures. Then students would have the desire to seek new knowledge and see how it can enable more understanding of life and a greater sense of belonging to the world.

I hope this ramble isn't ill-conceived. I certainly mean well. I'd like to think that communicating my viewpoint, sharing my passions, and being creatively productive is worthwhile. I value it in others. I do also seek acknowledgment and understanding, so please give me feedback, whether it be a comment here or an E-Mail or phone call. My E-Mail address and phone number can be found on the contact page if you:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

Like all artists, I just want to be heard.

Speaking Of Soundtracks

I saw a bit of Batman directed by Tim Burton yesterday and it reminded me how much I love soundtracks. I even took a class in soundtracks at UCLA that looked in depth at Pulp Fiction's collection of songs with dialog interspersed. Such great music! Over the years I've ended up buying some soundtracks that I love listening to even without the movie:

Passion: The Last Temptation of Christ by Peter Gabriel
Get Shorty by Booker T. (among others)
The Fugitive by James Newton Howard
Slaughterhouse Five performed by Glenn Gould
Jurassic Park by John Williams
Romeo is Bleeding by Mark Isham
Dick Tracy by Danny Elfman
Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me by Angelo Badalamenti
Elf

Had to get one great collection of Christmas songs in there! Those certainly are some powerhouse contemporary soundtrack composers. Good movies too. In any event, just another sampling of what has sunk into my pop culture subconscious for you.

I think I'm rounding the curve before the home stretch as far as setting up all my online accounts and profiles having done LinkedIn, Bestuff, and Flickr. I'll get there. I'd love to know how I'm doing, so if you haven't, please:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and also leave me comments here! I'll respond, I promise.

The Clothes Make The Man

I needed to inspire myself this morning, so I started thinking about what has influenced me. My culture has been formed by music, art, books, movies, television, clothes, and other creative media. In one of my favorite movies, Joe Vs. The Volcano, Ossie Davis tells Tom Hanks that to ask someone what kind of clothes they should wear is like asking them to tell you who you are. I'll get to other movies in later posts, but today I want to address my dress.

It is fitting that my style has been primarily influenced by 3 musicians in bands that my wife and I are crazy about. They are the most passionate and seemingly pure creative people I've seen perform in a long time. In no particular order, they are Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, and Jack White of the White Stripes. Their attitudes toward life and music are so inspirational and contemporary. It's great to see individuals contributing positively to popular culture by just being who they are and doing what they do. And of course, they look so cool doing it!

I don't want to over-analyze these influences, so I'll list'em and keep the rambling to a minimum. I just want to share with you who and what has made me what I am today. I hope you'll be interested enough to see what it all has led to and:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

Wearing a black cowboy shirt with white piping, a black necklace, and narrow black-striped slacks, I wish you a good day!

Comedians Too?

"But, Daniel, comedians aren't musicians," you might say. True usually, but, they are part of our pop culture. An important part, I think. So I've painted George Carlin, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, and Bill Cosby to start. The owner of the Tempe Improv is going to take a look at them this weekend hopefully! Leave me a comment if you want me to paint another comedian on commission for you! All they have to have is an album out on vinyl.

Also, if you don't have a clue about what these are, don't worry, just:

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

and also, please let me know how you found me! Thanks!