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Showing posts with label Artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artist. Show all posts

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Good Golly Miss Molly!

 She is a force unto herself. She is also, like the second side of a rare coin a force that is selfless, giving and dedicated to humanity. Her actions are especially dedicated to the oppressed of humanity; many times outcasts and the victims of the world’s multitude of oppressors. This; as a focus meaning, the rich, the one percenters. She is also an artist, illustrator, writer and film maker.  Her work is sought-out and included in the collections of institutions such as MoMa and The New-York Historical Society. She is successful at what she does. This wondrously industrious young woman, Jennifer Caban is better known by another name. Her nom de plume by the way is Molly Crabapple.


Molly Crabapple in her time has gone far beyond lip service to her causes. Including such as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, the many times illegally held and abused detainees of Guantanamo Bay, The Syrian ISIS Resistance Radicals and other disenfranchised Americans of all stripes. She’s a radical. It is more than evident in much of her art and in her approach as well. She is at heart springing for the counter-culture and fast becoming a just outside the edge main-streamer.


Molly Crabapple is a second generation artist; growing up her mother was a commercial artist. As a result she say first hand that there was money to be made using art or one’s talents for profit. Molly; never short of creative ideas, sold drawings and illustrations for profit regularly and in tough times posed unabashedly for nude photographs, pretty much for anyone (artist or not) that could come up with $100 and a camera; this was Molly the entrepreneur/ business woman.  Molly worked for several years as the House Artist at “The Box” an avant-garde Manhattan night club. She remembers that fondly as being “The Box’s Toulouse-Lautrec.”    She was also one of the original “Suicide Girls” and worked in Burlesque. You will find with Molly Crabapple there is a definite burlesque sensuality and a kind of  French/Rococo influence  tinged with her own wit and humor. These qualities are implicit within many of her most successful pieces. And sometimes; on occasion, they are simply magnificent cartoons.



Molly Crabapple is one of the most successful, engaging and productive artist in today’s art world. I highly recommend her memoir “Drawing for Blood.” It is completed with illustrations, well written, beautifully packaged and provocative.


What remains here is a continuation of “Miss Molly’s” drawings, posters, videos etc. Hopefully yours’ to Enlighten, Embrace & Enjoy!







       "A History of the War on Drugs"  
         Molly Crabapple  & Jay Z   
 
                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                              
                        
       





                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                         







                           




I think that school just isn't for everyone. A lot of people don't learn well when they have to sit in a place for eight hours. A lot of people learn best lying in their own bed, teaching themselves from books.


…and I was a bad student. I was a brat. If I was a teacher, I would not have liked myself.






















"I Have Your Heart" 
by
Molly Crabapple









                                                          

Monday, December 28, 2015

Richard Schmidt "Winter"



I love the spirit; the craft and care, the intelligence, the beauty within the art of Richard Schmidt. Schmidt has long been a creator of landscapes, architectural renderings, portraits, nature studies and on and on. There is little that Schmidt hasn’t covered and mastered. This artist/educator, painter and author is among the best in the current market and art scene. His works are academic with a very free y style.  His works are not challenging but they are a joy to behold and savor as a painterly delicacy. Many of Schmidt’s works are seasonal and are of a special interest at this time of year.

The paintings of Richard Schmidt are tonally much in line with another popular American artists; Andrew Wyeth. Wyeth frequently painted images of late fall and winter themes. Schmidt is drawn to the same. A portfolio of Schmidt’s best are here for viewing and presented as a holiday sharing. Like many great painters the works speak most eloquently for themselves and explanations can cause some distraction and are hardly necessary. Please enjoy and feel the warmth of heart that inhabits these winter works. 


There are many that propose that art has to be unsettling, disturbing, as it shatters every preconceived notion. That is wonderful in concept but it is not a prerequisite. In my mind there are no absolutes in the creation or appreciation of art. That is the true greatness found in the pursuit of truth, beauty or the absurd. Art can be for the shock of newness but it can also be moving in the familiar and possess a Zen oneness with the sublime. Schmidt is of the later; a celebration of life and sight.











"In the Spirit of Christmas"



Sunday, September 14, 2014

The Batman and Mr. Finch



                               
David finch has been a fixture and a mainstay within the comic book industry for more than a few years now. He is too with some certain consensus one of the most popular, prolific and persuasive talents to grace the covers and pages of said books dating from the mediums inception to this; the modern day. Publishers including Marvel, DC and independents have all benefited from Finch’s output of phenomenal product and material. Take a pinch of Jim lee, a dash of Brian Bolland mixed with David’s own originality and edginess and you have what is a treat to all aficionados of the form.



Just a few years ago the cover of the September 2010 issue of Wizard magazine would announce a new beginning for Batman. It was graced by what is possibly the single most compelling rendering of Bob Kane’s creation since Detective Comics #27 many years previous, “way back” in May 1939. The five chapter single issue inaugural run “Batman: the Dark Knight” would prove to be some of Finch’s most remarkable and collected works. Finch would take on the writing credits along with penciling on the landmark title. 


Highlights of the featured novel “Golden Dawn” would include appearances by Bat-villains; The Penguin and Killer Croc along with guest–star Jack Kirby’s creation The Demon.  The books would be the last published by DC linked to the original line of comic books. This was achieved before the complete revamping of the entire collective DC titles dubbed by the company “The New 52.” Without losing a step Finch would relaunch his title this time solely as penciller with Paul Jenkins writing a truly bizarre Scare Crow tale both sweeping and entertainly disturbing. The very thing we expect a Scare Crow story arc should be.  




David Finch’s tenure as Bat-Artist/Writer would produce a number of iconic covers; panels and chapters. The graphic story-telling form is much enriched by Mr. Finch and his talents; particularly his artistry. He has moved on from the Batman and is currently developing; along with his wife Meredith, what promises to become a classic version of Wonder Woman. A husband wife team of co-creators is a first for the field and is deservedly and eagerly anticipated.  


Friday, December 28, 2012

Andrew Wyeth: The Observer's Eye


The works are stark, real and beautiful. They exist in something of an eternal state of winter and barrenness. The chill of the air, the sound of a slight wind blows through the leafless trees and the unfiltered light of the almost warmth less but sustaining sun reveals all. This land is drawn to the bare essentials and survival. The faces and character of the inhabitants reveal the austerity of this monochromatic place that must be worked; by all the inhabitants including the artist. There is nothing of adornment, nothing of the baroque in these works. The artist’s power of observation is great, his attention to detail immense and he is without rival. He; Andrew Wyeth is an artist for the ages. His works tell a tale of dedication and love of craft, of art and life.


In addition to landscape and still life, portraiture was among Wyeth’s favorite forms. He painted his neighbors religiously in the spirit of the “American Scene” artists. His love of sight and seeing was formidable and women were among his favorite subjects. Three of note were Christina Olsen, Siri Erickson and Helga Testorf. “Christina’s World” is in many ways his seminal work. It is included in the MoMA collection in New York and reproduced in countless books, magazines and was my introduction piece to Mr. Wyeth. It is magnificent! The young Christina is placed alone in the distance from her home in an expansive field. She is seemingly unable to walk in what appears to be a noon that could rapidly become twilight and night. Wyeth has masterfully painted the complexity of the foreground grasses and the distant buildings in equal manner without losing a feeling of depth. This is a great feat of painterly skill and invention.

The Helga series consists of 45 paintings and 200 drawings. The works were done in secret and it is safe to say Helga was his favorite single subject and devotion. Wyeth painted Helga from many angles and points of view, many are nudes. The Helga series was scandalous, entertaining and richly vibrant. Wyeth was thrust into the limelight of the mass media and for a time the world’s most talked about artist.

The Siri paintings are probably the least publicized but none the less beautiful and intriguing. They are much fewer in number than the Helga works. They are equal to the “Helgas” in technique and are visionary pieces.    

Wyeth has not been universally loved and appreciated. It is the curse of popularity to be derided by some. He has been accused of being an over glorified illustrator.  His father was the great N.C. Wyeth who essentially home schooled his beloved son “Andy” after recognizing his incredible possibilities as an artist/draftsman. Wyeth was a child prodigy; one that lived up to and surpassed his youthful potential. His works are of the sort that the viewer can become lost in, transported to a place of unequaled skill, achievement and grace. He was and is the Best.

Slected From the Artist's Portfolio