Joseph Daniel Fiedler

Grind House Maciste

2008-12-30T19:06:18+00:00

Maciste is one of the oldest recurring characters in the history of Italian cinema. I dedicated this new, 55-spread folio to Maciste, the cheesy Sword and Sandal hero from my youth. View Maciste Sketchbook HERE!
Back story: According to William Smith’s A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology, Macistus was a surname of Heracles, who had a temple in a town of that name in Triphylia [Ancient Greece]. Makistos [from Greek] means longer, greatest, tallest and Macis [from Latin] means rock or of the rock [Mason?]. Maciste debuted in the 1914 Italian silent movie CABIRIA as a Heracles-like figure, utilizing his massive strength to achieve heroic feats. It is the story of a slave who rescues a Roman princess from an evil Carthaginian king and is loosely based on SALAMMBO the 1862 historical novel by Gustave Flaubert [Spartacus anyone?]. Salammbô interweaves historical and fictional characters and takes place during the Mercenary Revolt against Carthage in the third century BC. Flaubert's main source was Book I of Polybius's Histories.
There have been at least 52 movies featuring Maciste historically spanning a swath from biblical times through the 1700’s and geographically covering everything from Ancient Rome, Mongolia, Peru, Egypt, The Middle East and Sumer. In 1958, Steve Reeves’ film Hercules created a minor boom in Italian dramas featuring American bodybuilders in vaguely mythological or classical/ historical situations. This “Sword and Sandal” [also referred to as the “1 Million Lire Escape”] fad continued for 6 years until overtaken by the Spaghetti Western craze [Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name series], which consumed the attention of the Italian film industry and catapulted Clint Eastwood to superstardom. Some S&S films were not released theatrically in the USA but premiered rather on television in a syndicated package called The Sons of Hercules, usually broadcast on Saturday afternoons.
I was lucky enough as a child to see both theatrical AND television versions of these sensational and poorly dubbed imported S&S classics. Although not really a big super-hero fan, I did admire the works of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Ryder Haggard all of which featured a rugged out-sider usually faced with foreign environments, adverse conditions and some really bad people. I doubt whether I was at the time aware of the parallels with my own country’s rugged involvement in exotic foreign lands but I think it was there percolating beneath the surface anyway. My friends and I would take a bus that took us to the streetcar that took us to the Garden Theater, which featured all sorts of “double bills” in pure Grind House fashion. I saw nearly all of the classic Godzilla films there on the big screen as well as Hammer horror films featuring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Before closing, the Garden had become a 24-hour porn salon. I suppose that it re-invented itself [a survivor none-the-less!] only to die the death of a burned out strip of urban anonymity. More than ever though, Maciste remains a character for our times; a low-tech hero made of real flesh and blood that’ll fuck you up good [for sure]! A world dominated by imperialistic political and corporate policies should ensure enough evil princes and rouge countries to keep our man in sandals busy for generations.
In addition the folio includes musing on various ad hoc Orientalisms, Art Historicisms, incidental location sketches and a few turtles. Due to the relative complexity of some of the images, I’m showing the pages larger than usual for more detail. Mars Lumograph and Prisma Pencils with acrylic on Moleskine sketch paper.

Noel!

2008-12-23T17:47:08+00:00

Saws and Bears or Dystopic, futureworld, blackleather, zipper, zombie, virus, retribution

2008-12-09T19:40:37+00:00

Following up on a topic mentioned recently, and a piggyback to boot, I thought… Isn’t it an interesting situation when clients ask you not to repeat cliché warhorse/chestnut approaches to visual problem solving? The current bizarro-war/econo-politic is really straining the limits on this, isn’t it? It’s quite a dilemma. On the one hand, one can easily understand it but on the other, even though there’s considerable pressure to invent new ways of saying the same old thing, have the average editor’s or reader’s minds really expanded as far as ours are expected to in the few hours we have to problem solve and sketch? I doubt it, but I could be all wrong. Eliminating certain popular or cultural icons prima facie might imply that not even knowing them in the first place might have currency and that’s exactly where I was when I started [prior to “getting” an education] and apparently where we are now! Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink minds demanding outside-of-the-box solutions designed for quick-read audiences. Think outside of the box only so long as everybody understands which box. Most likely it’s the television [like pornography, I quit television when I reached adulthood]!
Thinking outside the box, which once conjured images of Francesco Goya or William Blake, has come to mean different but quick reading. Does this address some manner of newly evolved visual intelligence [attributed to the hyper-visual digital world] OR could this be yet another example of that anti-expertise, non-hierarchical, anti-elite, and "democratic" aesthetic that’s going around [Illustration 2.0]? Or is it both? After all, “getting it” quickly and thinking might not be divergent paths but I do think that icons like shorthand imply a kind of quickness. Homer Simpson or Sophocles, which is in the box?
Perhaps Poetry Slams and Karaoke were the first hints, art-like events that common folks could understand like boxing matches or baseball games replete with scores like a fucking beauty pageant for Chrissakes! Iron Chef is more SNL than any Reality. Even Colonel Tom Parker wouldn’t have thought that up! Trying to come to terms with the multiplex convergences that constitute the current climate makes reading Derrida, Foucault et al seem like bedtime stories for children. I suppose that today more people expect, understand and even DEMAND OUTside over INside? With the comic book the dominant narrative mode today you’d think that at least there would be a greater appreciation, dare I say veneration, of the pictorial image, even if content is as thin as newsprint and has never been MORE cliché? Never the less, I see clichés nearly every time I look at major media from magazines to feature films. WTF? Has the outside become the inside? Yes, but what kind of image is it? The outside-of-the-box kind! It’s all commodity art after all, isn’t it?
Anyway, here are two examples from my recent work. The first is from Plansponsor Magazine and is about GM cutbacks: AD Soojin Buzelli. The second is from Canadian Business Magazine: AD Tim Davin. Both QP’s and in both cases, even though I had virtually impenetrable manuscripts [they might as well have been written by Derrida], the perceptive AD’s immediately tossed out simple, synoptic phrases like “cutting something” or “ bear on a globe” which helped cut to the chase immensely. Otherwise, I’d have literally spent hours trying to re-invent the wheel or whatever. No doubt without success. Twitter: Thnk U!

SPECIAL REPORT: HOT DOG HEAVEN!

2008-10-08T17:52:08+00:00

Guitar, Bass, Drums / Featuring Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, Jim Keltner, Plus Juliette Commagere

A Benefit for the Richard deLone Special Housing Fund (which assists those with Prader-Willi Syndrome)

I had the unique opportunity to see the legendary guitar virtuoso Ry Cooder in a very rare performance last week. Sorry, no photos were allowed. I got within 7 heads from the stage [which is only about three or so feet high]. The Great American Music Hall is a dream venue, as exists only in the imagination elsewhere. Joachim Cooder’s [Ry's son] band opened [featuring Juliette Commagere up front]. Juliette and her sister are the female voices on Ry’s colab with Cuban guitarist Manuel Galvan, Mambo Sinuendo –which also has Keltner and Joachim on percussion. She's glamorous and GLAM, plays the Keytar and sings on lots of Cooder albums besides. She said that she wasn’t nervous, BUT she had just met Steve Earle downstairs [it was as exciting as all hell]! The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival was opening that very evening in Speedway Meadow [Golden Gate Park] with Robert Plant and Allison Krause so there was considerable buzz [nearly everyone who is or was anyone plays there]. Commagere's group has a heavy 80's synth sound with lilting vocals by the gorgeous Ms. C. and a quartet with cello, brass and violin. Then the deLone family came on to thank everyone for coming out to support their foundation [Prader -Willie syndrome] and that yes, both Ry Cooder and Prader -Willie are RARE! Father Austin deLone played accordion. As they thanked the musicians for lending a hand they were especially thankful to Elvis Costello [who always seems to be around here] and next thing you know there he was onstage, playing guitar and singing from 12 or so feet away, I nearly peed. He did 3 songs from so close it might have been at home. Then another break before the guys took the stage [I stood from 7pm till 12.30!]. The band was superb in every way. Ry and Lowe look ancient though, Keltner must have a coach, he looks youthful and fit. Ry used only 3 axes; a Strat, a Tele and some little electric thing I’ve never seen. [All pushed thru vintage fender amps]. The songs stretched all the way back into his early career with a heavy emphasis on country-ish poppy Rockabilly stuff [How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? From his debut album RY COODER updated with lyrics about the previous nights vice presidential DEE-BATE]. Also threw in Fool For a Cigarette from PARADISE AND LUNCH. Imagine The Everly Brothers with Steve Cropper-type-of-thing. Maybe that was for Lowe? BTW He’s great. Quite a showman. Cooder too, he’s a major mugger and overly dramatic like an old bluesman or Grand ol’ Opry country star. A real hot dog! I was surprised. I thought he’d be more serious, less Leon Redbone more Mahavishnu John Mclaughlin. No pick either. When he touched that aspirin bottle to the strings I went to another place. I’m not kidding. You cannot imagine. I aspire to that place, man! Pinky Heaven! After a rousing John Lee Hooker number [This Is Hip! from Mr. Lucky], Elvis joined them for the encore. I was lucky.

Meanwhile, I had gone with my neighbor Mark [he drove] who is a project manager for big architectural projects [SF Jazz, etc.]. He ducked out for air after Elvis played and never came back. He hadn’t eaten. I thought that because he was tall, he didn’t want to push back up front. After the show, I couldn’t find him so I called his mobile number. He was in the hospital! He’d passed out on the sidewalk! Never even saw RY! He’s OK though but it was quite a drama. I think that it’s a plus to have a sidewalk incident at a Ry Cooder concert on a balmy night in San Francisco, at least in my humble estimation [as long as it’s not TOO serious]. I’ve got Mavis Staples tix for next Wednesday. I’m hoping Ry makes a guest appearance there [he produced her most recent record].

Circus!

2008-09-30T18:46:18+00:00

Considering the circus-like atmosphere of our current econo-political climate, here’s a fitting little event that I’m involved in. Many of you might know that I’ve been a vegetarian for 33 years [like Kerri says, it’s like not driving a car!] so the compassionate nature of this anti cruelty art event was very much to my liking. I missed the opening but it looks like it was pretty cool, not to mention, large. The artist roster includes the eminent Richard Downs, David Brinley, Kim Scott, and J.S. Berger among others. Thanks to Gale Hart of A Bitchin Space for a cool opportunity! Here a few pix, more can be found @ A Bitchin Space.

The 2nd Annual Circus Show & Other Atrocities juxtaposes the dark, painful lives of performing animals with the fun, amusing atmosphere of the carnival. The show has over 100 national and international artists. The performance line-up starts with Dan Piraro, creator of Bizarro, who will be joined by comedian and MC, Keith Lowell Jensen, singer Larisa Bryski, plus jugglers, belly dancers, firebenders and other performers, freaks, artist-made midway games and rides, as well as raffle prizes including original artwork and more with proceeds donated to animal protection groups.

On display in the gallery through Closing Reception October 11th.

A Bitchin’ Space
2114 19th Street
Sacramento, CA 95818

Scandal Sketchbook

2008-09-24T21:01:02+00:00

I put up another sketchbook called Scandal. Recently I discovered the Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencil and the combination of the Lumograph and the Moleskine paper is sublime. Subject wise, I’m all over the place with an emphasis on Dick and Jane, Suburbia and the natural world. This time I have a fake party sequence that has a narrative quality although none existed except in my head. I used all cribbed pix from Facebook. I’m also going back to an old study of sculpture as well as old British army barracks, if that makes any sense. Take a peek…
SCANDAL

Recent Work Post

2008-09-16T16:28:32+00:00

Here are a few SKETCHBOOK style projects that I recently completed. The Boys article was a lead piece for the Hartford Courant on the different ways girls and boys are socialized [with emphasis on boys] in making the transition from high school to college.

The Facial story is part of a series of HEALTH related topics for Hour Detroit Magazine [the Detroit City Mag] and evokes the 'balance" involved in this particular procedure.

Cardio Care is also from that series but for a different AD and basically talks about new procedures available at local hospitals. It was the only article that I actually had text for [other than just a synopsis].

Can't Help to Mention...

2008-08-06T18:38:01+00:00

In the history of warfare, only two nuclear weapons have been detonated offensively, both by the United States of America during the closing days of World War II. The first was detonated on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a (uranium) gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second was detonated three days later when the United States dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki. These bombings resulted in the immediate deaths of around 120,000 people from injuries sustained from the explosion and acute radiation sickness, and even more deaths over time from long-term effects of (ionising) radiation. The use of these weapons was and remains controversial.

I've been to Hiroshima and have rung the peace chimes over a mound of ashes of 10,000 people.

ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS!

2008-07-31T17:41:56+00:00

Art Dorks Invade Chicago August 9, 2008

DVA Gallery

The Art Dorks are a cyberspace collective with brick and mortar applications. Originally the brainchild web community of CNN’s Brendan Danielsson, the Dorks quickly evolved into a collective. Their work is really not easy to define; influences range from the 1980’s to the 1880’s and they each bring a different feel to the mix. While Dorks tend to associate with the lowbrow kind of thing, don’t define them by that. All share a love of drawing and whether they make monsters or meat, robots or rabbits, it is work that revels in and celebrates growing up in a pop, sci-fi, kung-fu cornucopia of a culture. My kind of razzamatazz!

HIGANTE Y CALIENTE!

2008-07-21T19:31:59+00:00

I got an email last week from illustrator Richard Downs inviting me up to see him in Nevada City [CA]. He said that he’d be appearing that Saturday as a giant Spanish puppet [Higante] in a children’s parade with his wife Gwyn’s Afro-Cuban drumming ensemble at the annual World Music Festival. How could I refuse, especially on the heels of the Stauffer-stock Karaoke sing-off the night before in San Rafael? It was a hippy- dippy, tie dyed weekend, that’s for sure. Here are a few pix to prove I’m not exactly bull-shittin’ you, man!

Drink'n'Draw San Francisco Style

2008-06-24T20:13:28+00:00

For a couple of months now, I’ve been attending [irregularly] a weekly session of Drink’n’Draw here in San Francisco. We go to Rickenbacker’s, have beers, eat bar food [the grilled cheese with avocado and pesto is quite good as are the garlic parmesan fries!] and sketch a bit. There’s always lots of stuff that’s new and several movies to discuss too.

Eric Joyner is a native Bay Area dude [San Mateo] living and working in downtown SF. His paintings of robots and doughnuts have made him quite a sensation on the Lowbrow set and he has a new book of his work out on the Dark Horse imprint. I met Eric through illustrator and former Bay Area bon vivant Francis Livingston but I can’t remember how [bad sign].

Daniela Yew is a freelance writer and artist based in San Francisco. Originally from Munich, Daniela Yew draws on her lifelong interest in China as well as nature and fabric design to decorate painted eggs, following a tradition popular at Easter time in her native Bavaria. She is also a librarian at the SF Public Library in the Mission and an avid practitioner of collage sketchbookery. She is married to a Chinese American native of the Bay Area whom she met while studying in Taiwan. Her husband, Anselm Yew is a freelance illustrator/animator in SF and is descended from an ancient line of fierce Mongols.

Drink’n’Draw is held @ Eddie Rickenbacker’s Bar on Second Street every Monday night 7-10pm. Eddie was the famous flying ace of World War I. He was also a cousin of Adolph Rickenbacker, co-founder of Rickenbacker Guitars. Rickenbacker’s is filled with antique motorcycles [hung from the ceiling], model trains and various other memorabilia, making it a good place for D’n’D! On my first visit, the waitress asked if we’d mind it if people smoked cigarettes and pot! It’s pretty mellow and there’s a giant cat too!

Bo Passed!

2008-06-02T17:17:39+00:00

The legendary Ellis MacDaniel [Bo Diddley] is dead at 79. NYT story.

Lyonnaise potatoes and a pork chop! Shave and a haircut - 2 bits! The barnyard chicken scratcher is gone! Here's a model of innovation and style that has impacted generations! In addition to his ground breaking branding and singular guitar styling, his album covers from the 1950's and '60's are among the great gems of commercial art.

RIP Bo baby!

New Sketchbook Images too!

2008-05-21T17:48:22+00:00

Awhile back I bought my first Moleskine Sketchbook, you know, the one that Hemingway used. Now I've become addicted to making pictures in them. I draw mostly from 2 dimensional images, images that have already been translated from 3D to 2D. Images like old Dick and Jane readers, my Golden Guides, a 1960 Matchbox Cars catalog, etc. I also try to draw from real objects as well [much harder to do].

I read that as a superstitious Spaniard, Pablo Picasso thought that making pictures would help stave off death. Here I go.....you can check it out @ Scandal, the Narrative Sketchbook and Regular Sketchbook. You can also look at the Sketchbook page on my website.

Marin Studio Visit: John Hersey

2008-05-12T17:03:25+00:00

Bayside ArtBeat Berkeley had the opportunity to check out the studio of Bay Area illustrator John Hersey this sunny Saturday during the San Anselmo Open Studios tour. Hersey, originally from Vancouver, BC, has been on the San Francisco scene for quite awhile and is considered to be one of the founding “fathers” of computer illustration. Besides juggling illustration jobs for practically every major client in the universe, he also teaches “ digital tools” at The California College of Art [CCA] in addition to being a husband and father of four. San Anselmo is a sleepy leftover hippy town nestled in the lush greenery of Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Quote: " When you hear the term Small Business, well, illustrators are the smallest!"...J. Hersey

HELP THIS MAN STAY IN BUSINESS! WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND OPPOSE THE ORPHAN WORKS BILL HERE!

Hey You!

2008-05-07T22:18:18+00:00

RIGHT HERE!

High Desert Piggybackin�

2008-05-04T20:49:45+00:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, in 1996, I made a serious quality of life choice: I moved across the country to rural, northern New Mexico, where I didn’t know a single soul. I was living in Pittsburgh, PA and had just divorced [18 years], had a lethal break-up and felt as if I needed to simplify and reorganize my life course. I chose to live amid the stark tranquility of western America’s vast High Desert, the very same desert that, as a child, had appealed to me in my Golden Books and coincidentally, the same desert used as a location for the filming of Denis Hopper’s epic film Easy Rider. I could actually walk to the Hippy Commune site known as New Buffalo [Dennis stills maintains a house and studio in Taos] from my front door! I found a home at 7,000 feet above sea level with coyotes, jackrabbits and horny toads right in my yard. I was only a few miles from the Carson National Forest on the Western Range of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, halfway between US Hill and Outlaw Hill off NM Rt. 518. A heartbeat away from a wilderness so vast as to be almost incredible. The population of the state of New Mexico is LESS than that of the county where I’m originally from...and New Mexico is the 5th largest state. I was so rural, that my house didn’t have a numerical address [I had to use a PO Box]. Since Fedex doesn’t do PO Boxes, I had my packages delivered to Herb’s Lounge and Mini-Mart out on the highway! Herb’s family had lived in the region for nearly 400 years and believe it or not, they still spoke Spanish! It was a rough spot. The locals who drank there hated white people. They are still mad about losing the war with Mexico. Once, they broke the arms of 2 sheriff’s deputies in the parking lot. Well, it IS the Wild West for sure!

But, New Mexico, as anyone who’s been there will tell you, is a magic place. Here is Mabel Dodge Lujan writing in 1917 about her first night in new Mexico; “I had a sense of renewal and a new awareness...I lost all track of time and place. I was an unidentified atom pressing forward in space, a wide perfumed space that was dotted with white stars, liquid and bright as dew. I felt humble from a kind of unfamiliar richness and savor the universe possessed and as my body grew numb, my heart grew clear.” Believe me, that isn’t bullshit! Taos is the southern most point of the San Louis Valley. The San Louis Valley is also known as “the mysterious valley” because there are more para-normal incidents reported there than anywhere else in the world! UFO’s, Unidentified Animal Mutilations, Black Helicopters, Aliens [remember Roswell is in New Mexico-and so are Los Alamos, Alamogordo and White Sands]! Factoids: Buddy Holly and the Crickets, originally from Lubbock, TX, recorded their biggest hits in a room across the border in Clovis, New Mexico! Oh, yeah, and Scaryjoey was invented at ICON 2 which was held in Santa Fe [Bradlt Bralds gave the welcome speech. I was the sergeant at arms]. It was the dawning of a new age.

From my desk I could hear roosters, donkeys, chapel bells and sometimes Native American drummers along with the aceqias of the Rio Chiquito in summer [incidentally, there were a lot of gunshots as well]. I could see the Milky Way as I listened to the plaintive call of Coyotes on vivid, moonlit nights. Halle Bopp was my friend. It was as nearly perfect a place to output as you could ever hope to find. Besides a raft of editorial and corporate work, I did 3 children’s books [One of them was actually about New Mexico and it’s history and folklore] and filled a 7X10 foot storage space with paintings during my stay in the mountains.

Here are a few photos [converted from non-digital sources].

Braldt Sighting!

2008-05-03T17:48:10+00:00

I just got this in: Braldt Bralds @ Meyer East Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

When I moved to New Mexico in the mid-nineties, there was one guy who was a touchstone to the industry for me and that was Braldt. [Dutch]. He and I had done a similar "escape" to the desert. He lives just outside Santa Fe with his wife Margaret and man, he knows everybody [he's Mr. Santa Fe]! Braldt is a great guy and has more industry stories and of such high caliber that it makes your head spin. Not as active in the industry as he used to be, Braldt continues painting away and showing here and there. Talk about "tight"! Christ! This guy makes Hans Memling look loose! It must be the weather?!

Note: The Carol of "Carol's Apples" is fellow Santa Fean Carol Anthony-her painting of an apple is on the wall behind the bowl of fruit.

I thought some of you might enjoy...

Two Cool Dudes!

2008-04-01T20:55:07+00:00

I want to introduce 2 cool dudes from the West Coast, who just happen to be former students [College for Creative Studies, Detroit], David Chung [aka The Chung] and Serge Gay Jr. David came to the program from Hong Kong via Buffalo and Sege came from Haiti via Miami or something like that. Right now, David is working on [sounds like DOING it all!] Spaceballs TV, designing and laying out the animated series [images are actually animated elsewhere] for A DAY JOB and painting for various exhibitions at night [in this, his first year out of school he has been included in the Miami Art Basel fair as well as many others]. He is a participant in the new TOYS show [sponsored by Mattel], which opens in LA @ 1988 Gallery tomorrow night. Each artist was asked to alter a Volkswagen mini-bus model. The Chung turned it into a vibrator! Check it out!

Serge was the whiz kid at both his art magnet high school in Miami and at CCS. He can draw so well and so naturally, it makes adults feel queasy. He’s living in San Francisco and doing T-Shirt designs, painting for exhibitions and music video art. Recently, he did pieces for Snoop Dogg and The Bled.

Mike Davis @ White Walls

2008-03-18T22:32:24+00:00

I caught up with the opening of Mike Davis’ exhibition Solo Flight [Charlie Christian/Benny Goodman anyone?] at White Walls Gallery in the Tenderloin this past weekend. Art Dork Kim Scott and her posse took me. I know absolutely nothing about Mike [he was absent – at least while we were there] other than that he does live in San Francisco and he is a proponent of the burgeoning West Coast Narrative scene out here [I overheard the term Pop Surrealism used by one of the owners]. Solo Flight is like a meditation of the Northern Renaissance, especially painters like Bosch, Breugel, et al. with a slight psychedelic twist [they don’t need much!] and a nutty preoccupation with niggling, high impact rendering [not uncommon among these folks]. Mike uses some very ornate frames [some of which appear to be hand made creations that reminded me of water bed designs from several generations ago] to reinforce his historicisms. Concurrently opening next door at The Shooting Gallery was Joshua Petker [another first time for me]. Although I’d not known either artist, there were an awful lot of red dots. Check out the pix and links.

White Walls Gallery
835 Larkin Street
SF, CA 94109

Photos courtesy of Rachel Scott and White Walls Gallery

Hollywood Notes: Art Out the Wazoo and More!

2008-03-11T16:22:36+00:00

La Luz de Jesus Gallery's
11th Annual Group Show
"Everything But The Kitschen Sync"
March 7- March 30, 2008

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323) 666-7667

See the whole show online: laluzdejesus.com

Some of the many, many artists

LOU BEACH, JOSEPH DANIEL FIEDLER, BARRY FITZGERALD, MARY FLEENER, JOHN FORTES, HAL MAYFORTH, JOEL NAKAMURA, ERIK SANDBERG, KIM SCOTT, MARK TODD, DANIEL LIM, NATHAN OTA, JOHN BERGER...

To my mind there’s nothing like a ripping, art weekend spent in Los Angeles to get my culture on. Make that Hollywood and you’re communing with the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Raymond Burr and Wink Martindale along with the Lowbrows, pimps, rockers and club hoochies. First stop: Musso and Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard. M&F is Hollywood’s oldest eatery, celebrating 89 years this year. They feature old fashioned martini’s [gin, vodka, lemon drop and Manhattans only PLEASE!] and have served them to just about everyone that you’ve ever heard of. The ceiling is varnished with cigarette smoke. Luckily, I dropped by just after the Johnny Grant memorial held earlier at the Pantages Theater [Monty Hall and Bob Barker were there]. Johnny was the “honorary” mayor of Hollywood and an M&F regular. Many spillovers came back for another round and to chat with Manny the bartender [reputed to be Johnny’s double] just about the time I got there. Man, it was worth charging admission for but I only paid $5.00 a beer. The martinis are only $7.50 for a 3-ounce drink and the things that I overheard were gold. When was the last time you heard the name Mamie Van Doren in real time on Hollywood Boulevard?

Of course the real reason I was there was for the opening parties for the annual group show at La Luz de Jesus Gallery [also on Hollywood]. Thursday was a sleepy press preview, some Los Feliz street grub [Cobras and Matadors, Fred’s 62-visiting with The Chung who is currently working on Spaceballs TV and several exhibitions] and then early to bed [energy conservation off-sets carbon footprints].

Friday was a whole day [noon-4pm] of galleries. We [Univ. of Kansas’ Barry Fitzgerald, Sac Town artists Kim Scott [Art Dork], John Berger-all artists in the show-] covered the entire Culver City art enclave: Mandrake Bar, Blum and Poe, Black Market, Corey Helford, Lizabeth Oliveria, and of course, Billy Shire Fine Arts. Note: Dave Cooper’s show BENT @ BSFA was fabulous! Next, Happy Hour at the open air Cabo Cantina on Sunset. Man, is this ever the place to adjust your attitude! 2 for 1 margaritas [they ran out of margarita glasses so I got mine served in a pint glass!] and a customer floor show worth passing over TV for. For a little while and $40, you’re Chet Baker in Baja. Whew! After re-grouping, we hit Another Year in LA Gallery [housed in the former Capital records pressing plant on N. San Fernando-I bet that they pressed MEET THE BEATLES there!] where an exhibition of new work by David Wetzl was opening before moving on to La Luz.

As always, La Luz delivered the modern art party vibe in all it’s LA lowbrow tattooed glory. Also popping in late were Nathan Ota and Daniel Lim [Illustration faculty @ Otis] Martha Rich, Freda Gossett Clayton, Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd [Art Center, all]. The late night Hollywood crawl included a stop by The Frolic Room [featured in LA Confidential], Big Wang’s [for a whiz-John said that there was “something*” going on in the bathroom before he got in-] and pizza slices on the street while watching the clubs disgorge at 2am. Chick Fights. Shaky, Shakin’, Shake. Thumpa-thumpa.

No visit to LA is complete without a slice of banana cream pie for breakfast at Mel’s on Sunset [the diner which served as the drive-in in George Lucas’ American Graffiti]. Yes, they have valet service and psychopaths screaming about how Tom Cruise brainwashed Katie!

A fitting ending to my trip: as I approached Oakland on the drive home, I was passed by a large posse of Hells Angels [a first for me!]. Here’s to Sonny Barger, Jack Nicholson and Hunter S. Thompson! Gonzo man!

* A drunken emo couple humping. It was cute in a Cameron Crowe, bad white kids, The New York Dolls down the street, in-door out-door wings bar, garish lights, TV interviews and palm trees kind of way.

Share Your Hollywood Faves....

Drawgers Night in Hollywood

2008-02-25T16:51:25+00:00

NEXT MONTH AT LA LUZ de JESUS GALLERY

La Luz de Jesus Gallery's
11th Annual Group Show
"Everything But The Kitschen Sync"
March 7- March 30, 2008

ARTISTS' RECEPTION
Friday, March 7, 2008 ~ 8:00-11:00 pm

Drawgers night in Hollywood with Hal Mayforth and Joseph Daniel Fiedler [among others] on the red carpet [literally]. Come join in what Details Magazine calls "the biggest and best party in Los Angeles." You should’a seen us the last time!

From the La Luz website

La Luz de Jesus Gallery was established in 1986 in Los Angeles, California as the brainchild of entrepreneur and art collector Billy Shire. Shire is considered largely responsible for fostering a new school of art in Los Angeles prompting JUXTAPOZ Magazine to dub him "the Peggy Guggenheim of Lowbrow."

Some of the past shows have been groundbreaking, introducing unknown artists who have become great names in the modern art world such as Manual Ocampo and Joe Coleman, and hosted Robert Williams' art exhibits before he became a household name.

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323) 666-7667

Some of the many artists

JOSEPH DANIEL FIEDLER
BARRY FITZGERALD
MARY FLEENER
JOHN FORTES
HAL MAYFORTH
JOEL NAKAMURA
ERIK SANDBERG
KIM SCOTT
MARK TODD

Berkeley Notes 2: Recent Openings

2008-02-19T19:43:49+00:00

Gilbert & George @ The de Young Museum

The flamboyant Gilbert & George retrospective opened this weekend at San Francisco’s de Young Museum with a ripping party in the museum’s gorgeous Golden Gate Park facility. Gilbert & George is the largest retrospective ever organized by the Tate Modern in London. The de Young Museum is the first venue in a tour that will visit San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Brooklyn. If your family likes very large images of turd crosses and uncircumcised penises, this is a great show for you! Mind boggling on a technical level and dazzling on the wall, this large retrospective is a bit like visiting a cathedral, albeit a rather twisted one. I over heard one couple as they left the exhibit say…”why do you want to punish me?”

Enrique Chagoya
Borderlandia

BAM/PFA [Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive]

Chagoya has taught printmaking at Stanford University since 1995. His work is included in the collections of many major museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Library of Congress Print Collection and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia is organized by the Des Moines Art Center.

Berkeley Notes: Point Reyes Bleu Cheese

2008-02-11T19:19:27+00:00

The first time that I had heard of it was at Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Zingerman’s style is much in keeping with today’s’ manner of explanatory-storytelling-marketing. Each specialty item is explained and illustrated on the walls [Today, we want more information before we decide to buy or eat something]. Point Reyes Bleu Cheese was one of those wall items. I’m a 90% vegan. I don’t typically eat cheese if I can avoid it but Point Reyes [California] looked awesome to me from the descriptions. I once lived within walking distance of the Rio Grande River in Northern New Mexico [where they filmed Easy Rider]. I now live a short day trip away from Point Reyes! I wondered how many folks out there have ever been to Point Reyes? I was out there this weekend to help bust out of the February blahs. PR is an odd mixture of rolling heath, historic dairy farms, dramatic cliffs, seals, whales, elk, deer, mountain lions, soaring raptors and a raging Pacific Ocean. It’s a little like a safari where you can get the best garlic fries and local field greens salad [at Drakes beach] while watching the water and sky for critters. How’s your February? Here are a few pix.

They Still Make Annual Reports!

2008-01-30T19:40:01+00:00

Now that it’s on it’s way from the printer, I can post about a project that I worked on this fall. In September, I was fortunate to get to do the Harvard Medical School Annual Dean’s Report. The Report required a conceptual cover and six interior illustrations. The piece was done through in-house designer, Rachel Eastman. Over all, the project took about 2 months including concepting, various back and forth minor revision type stuff and finished paintings. We also did a separate scan of textures for the back cover. The staff at Harvard was well-prepared and easy to work with. It was exciting giging with them, I barely graduated from high school! Also, two previous Report artists have been Luba Lukova and Drawger homie, Brain Stauffer, so I knew it had five star potential!

The theme was rather challenging: Systems Theory as it applied to the various departments and programs at the medical school. Systems Theory! I might add, that in addition to the obscure subject matter, there was no actual text [only links to articles about the stuff that would be written about!]. Essentially, it’s about how parts effect wholes and that wholes are parts of greater wholes, something like that. I read about a guy named Waddington who had a theory about how marbles roll downhill and that clicked with the molecular component and that’s how I came up with a motif that could be used throughout. All work is made by hand via outmoded technologies.

Booker T. Jones @ Rancho Nicasio

2008-01-28T18:25:00+00:00

I had the cool opportunity to catch the legendary master of the Hammond B-3, Booker T. Jones, [yes, that’s Booker T. from the MG’s] Friday night at one of my favorite watering holes, the Rancho Nicasio roadhouse in Marin, County. Turns out that BT lives in Tiburon. Although not backed by Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn [from the MG’s], the vital Mr. Jones threw down a rousing set on his B-3 portable. It was chilling to hear those deep earth, throaty organ rumblings live and close up [he couldn’t have been closer in my living room]. Those chords have permeated the rock’n’roll firmament since 1962 when Green Onions was released. The MG’s were the Stax records house band and backed almost every great southern fried soul song in the great American songbook [Dock of the Bay, Soul Man, Knock on Wood, Midnight Hour, etc.]. They were the tightest, badest mother fucking rhythm section ever in the history of the world!

I first heard of Rancho Nicasio when Van Morrison open his US tour here a few years ago [I missed it] for an audience of 200 [I think that he lives in nearby Fairfax]. It turns out that for the past 10 years, the rancho has been owned and run by veteran Texas blues stalwart, and “the Queen of Texas blues”, Ms. Angela Strehli [Lubbock] and her husband [I don’t know his name but he was in the band Pablo Cruise and managed Huey Lewis and the News].

Not much has changed since this classic bar and restaurant opened in the 1940s. Nestled in the beautiful, rolling hills in the heart of Marin County, Rancho Nicasio boasts a saloon, dining room, showroom and outdoor barbecue pit. The place is as big as all Texas and furnished with a fireplace, stuffed deer heads, wagon wheels and cowboy memorabilia. The large bandstand and dance floor are the heart and soul of this unique place. Live blues, rockabilly, country and swing music are served by local and national acts. Dinner-and-a-show packages are available in the main showroom. A huge outdoor patio, complete with picnic tables, open barbecue pit and beer stand is the place to be on hot, sunny afternoons. The gold and silver record studded bar has a tradition where regulars buy drinks for each other, even when they aren't there. Folks are pleasantly surprised to see their name with a drink next to it on the white board behind the bar. You really have to see the Nicasio Valley in daylight to appreciate it’s awesome beauty. It looks just like the set of an old western with rolling pastoral hills, cattle grazing, a ball field and a white church steeple.

The funniest parts of the story are that one, rock writer, cultural documentarian, Greil Marcus was at a front table, and two, I was grousing [as usual] about how old the audience was [ the guy on the left knew BT from a Heart Attack Class they both did together and the woman on the right did “Engery Work” including non-surgical face lifts]! The dance floor looked like a geriatric hospital social! I hate getting old. Man, 40 was great, but...BT can really kick some ass! The closer was Time Tight. Killer!

Booker T. Jones

Rancho Nicasio

!PEACE!

2007-12-18T17:50:16+00:00

It's been a whole year on Drawger! Thanks to all those busy readers and Santa's helpers! It's been a blast. Do I owe some money? JSD, I owe you one.

!PEACE!

Beer & Pencils Special Edition Part 2

2007-12-05T19:34:16+00:00

Gott und Vaterland: Das Blud

“One Eye Laughing, One Eye Crying”.
Gordon Brook-Shepherd The Austrians, A Thousand -Year Odyssey

Although I don’t play the Astrological card, I am, in fact, a Gemini, an Austrian Gemini. Well anyway, at my age, these things weigh deeply on my mind. So, as I said, I decided to do something about it. I decided to drink a beer in the village of my ancestors. Maybe it would allow me to commune with the past and understand the primordial call of the blood and soil? I had only some sketchy information about the origins of my paternal family [I don’t know the maternal side at all other than that they were Austrian as well] and so built my journey on the mere hint of reasonable accuracy. My father died last December having never seen his homeland. I did not want the same for myself.

My grandmother was Louisa Wolf. She immigrated to the USA in or around 1902. She came from a small village in western Hungary called Mogersdorf. Mogersdorf is the site of a historic battle between Austro-Hungarian forces and Ottoman Turkish invaders in 1664; The Battle of Mogersdorf. On the land where my family lived, 20,000 Austrian and 40,000 Turkish soldiers died in vicious fighting. It is said that the nearby river Raab was filled with the corpses of men, horses and camels and that the water ran red. It is also said that coffee was introduced to Europe, scavenged from the dead Turks [this is why Vienna is famous for its coffee houses].

My grandfather was Franz Fiedler. He immigrated earlier than my grandmother but I’m not exactly sure of the date. He came from a nearby village. In 1921, many years after my grandparents’ immigration, Hungary redrew its western border [extending Austria to include those villages in what is today the eastern most state, the Burgenland]. Am I Austrian or Hungarian? Maybe you can tell me. I do know that my grandparents spoke German as was mandated by law in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I’ve heard that even today there are entire valleys in Hungary where people still speak German. One village has a German name, another an Italian and still another a Croatian, and so on in the borderlands.

The nearest large city is Graz [Austria’s second largest] which is in the state of Styria [about 70 miles west] adjacent to the Burgenland, so we based our operation there. The train from Munich to Graz takes you through ethereal, breathtaking alpine panoramas. Graz is a very Eastern city with hints of Slavic [It’s just north of Zagreb] culture evident everywhere, in the food, the accents and the architecture. It is the borderland, the porous terrain where cultures [Roman, German, Austrian, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Slovenian…] collide and absorb and assimilate. We rented a car in Graz and drove to Mogersdorf through really rural farmlands and forests in a misty atmosphere with light so electric that you’d expect Vlad Dracul to pop up anytime soon out of the rolling fog. Yeah, that blood connection too. At the end of the line: graves and a beer. Although I’ve had really terrific times traveling, I have never had a direct connection to the lands that I visited. This was an entirely different feeling, different than anything that I’ve ever experienced before. Maybe it was because it was way more beautiful than anything I had expected? Maybe it was the fog? Maybe it was seeing your family name on gravestones in a borderland cemetery thousands of miles away from my own home? Or maybe it was drinking beer directly from the wooden barrel? You should try it if you haven’t already. Really.

Here are the annotated pix.

Gasthaus Klaus Werner