The 52 Project: Week After Week of Riffing

Take a look at the 52 Project. It’s created by Chrissy Deiger and Brian Ralph Short as a venue for artists to speak to each other; to make things that would not have occurred otherwise occur; to mix media so that it melts, stumbles, smolders, erupts; to both interrupt and prolong the creative process; to enjoy the multitude of ways we have to communicate with each other, to make meaning, to insist and react and be still.

Each week for a year a different artist riffs on the art that was posted the week before. Mine’s up now, called “Work Chair.” Check out the guy before me, week 26. He did a dumpster dive, on video, and resurrected a chair (the one I drew below), on the fly.

"Work Chair"

Now get to it. Go do your work, fearlessly.

The Audacious Statue of Robert E. Lee: a Postcard from New Orleans

New Orleans is a city of contradictions.

At one time it was the most racially liberal city in the south. Then, after the Civil War, the tide turned. Post-Reconstruction the Confederacy was re-glorified with a vengeance. This meant statues. TONS of statues, and of course one of Robert E. Lee. It’s atop a doric column at Lee Circle, near downtown, and recently I was eye-level with General Lee, so I snapped a picture. Here’s my interpretation of that shot, rendered in pen, ink and watercolor:

Lee Statue at Sunset © 2011 John Tebeau

I took the photo at an event on the rooftop of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. There was a fine little cocktail party up there, and the sun was setting gently, the sky behind the general peacefully aglow. Lee stands like he won the war, one foot perched audaciously over the edge of his platform. Modernity is audacious, too. It intrudes on this stately scene in the form of the streetlight to the right.

Lee Circle from an actual old postcard:

Lee Circle, fron an old postcard

Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, a Legitimate Bidniz, and Another Postcard from New Orleans

“Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop” by John Tebeau © 2011

Yeah, Jean LaFitte. What a guy. Murder, robbery, pillage and murder. He liked murder. It’s alleged that he and his bother used a “blacksmith shop” as a front. A Legitimate Business, if you will. A place to hold sit-downs, make deals and, probably, party.

The joint (now a pub) sits at the quiet end of Bourbon Street, and is a fan favorite to this day. I rendered this little picture in ink from a photo I took recently. Enjoy, and when you’re down in New Orleans, stop by Lafitte’s. Grab a cold drink and cop one of the chairs outside on the sidewalk, facing Bourbon. I recommend sunset time. Watch the sky fade from blue to pink to black as the clouds cruise overhead like plastic shopping bags blowing over the rooftops. Then make the short hike over to Frenchmen Street and catch some local jazz. The odds are strong that you’ll have an excellent evening.

The Mighty Jackson Brewery, another Postcard from New Orleans….

"Jackson Brewery," hot off the press. Er, the drawing board.

Once the home of Jax Beer, the Jackson Brewery still casts an iconic shadow over New Orleans’ French Quarter.

First Postcard from New Orleans: Liuzza’s

"Liuzza's" John Tebeau, 2011

What’s the first thing one should do when attending the famed New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival? Run to the Acura stage and get good seats for the unique jazz stylings of Sonic Youth or Bon Jovi? NO! You FIRST stop at Liuzza’s for a Bloody Mary, foo.’ How many times I gotta tell you that….

Anyway, this little 5″ by 7″ painting (watercolor and ink on heavy acid-free paper) is first in a series I’ll be doing called Postcards from New Orleans. Any other subjects you’d like to recommend? Recommend away, mes amis! Recommend away….

The Big Monkey…

Finished yesterday in about 12.5 months less time than it took to build the original, which still stands proud at 34th and Fifth Avenue. The Pride of the City. The Big Monkey. The ESB.

It will be for sale, too. I’m setting up a website called “Postcards from NY,” where I’ll either auction it off or sell it at a set price. More on that later. For now, ladies and gentleman, I give you…

THE BIG MONKEY!

(crowd cheers, flashbulbs pop, chains break, crowd gasps, etc….)

“The Big Monkey” J. Tebeau © 2011

I Got Ya GRADUATION INVITATION Right HEAH.

Just finished a design for a graduation announcement. That’s about it. Enjoy!

Sneak Peek: New Painting, a Postcard from New York

I carry a decent little camera with me pretty much all the time. Okay, pretty much when I’m wearing a jacket or shorts with big pockets. Pretty much then. The point is to take pictures that are better than you can get with a (“my’) crummy little phone.

A couple blocks from the Empire State Building I took a snap of an incongruous view: the ESB surging into the sky from behind a couple smaller, ornate buildings from an earlier era. I’m working on a b/w version of this picture, done with ink and brush. It’s not completed yet, but here’s a peek:

taken at the studio with "Photo Booth"

Power of Imagery: Wish Paintings

Colleen’s Wish Painting

Ever hear of a “vision board?” They’re where you cut out pictures of things you want from magazines and paste them on a piece of posterboard. The idea is you see it every day, and magically draw these things to you. I don’t know the science, people, alls I know is that through some kinda metaphysical whattaya call it… “Law of Attraction,” things will come to you.

Anyway, Wifey and I took this a step further and turned the junior high girl’s locker exercise into art. Excuse me… AHT. The fine kind. The fine cartoon kind, anyway, as I was the AHTISTE behind the endeavor. As a gift, I designed and executed a “wish” or “spell” painting for her, incorporating elements of things she wanted more of in her life (music, dogs, socializing with friends, booze – I mean fine wine, etc.). The result is below, and here’s the thing: it works. Oh, yeah! Consider it proven. Ask the wife.

So, you need a really special holiday gift for someone? Let’s go! Contact me (johntebeau@gmail.com) and let’s get the ball rolling. We’ll confab, I’ll work up some sketches, and we’ll get this done by December. I can even have it framed for you and shipped right to the recipient. I only have time for a couple of these, so let me know by November 1. We can work out an EZ installment payment plan and work within your budget.

Oh, and holiday cards? I’m doing those, too. You can have an original design for as low as $125. Again, let me know by Nov. 1, as time (as we perceive it) is of the essence.

Here’s one I did based on the It’s a Wonderful Life poster for Wifey and me a couple years back:

Xmas Card

American Parody: Gothic Gets a Makeover

 

"American Gothic" by Grant Wood

 

Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” has got to be the most parodied painting in the world. Must be the appeal of tweaking an icon, over and over and over….

I like parody. I’d rather see parody with purpose, but ever since I was a kid and discovered Wacky Packages, the idea of transforming a well known visual into something new has had major appeal to me. Even for no reason at all, it’s kind of fun. It mesmerizes people… trips up the brain for just a second, if it’s done well.

It took a while for the painting to achieve icon status. Painted 1930, Wood entered it into a competition in the Art Institute of Chicago. It earned a bronze medal (plus a $300 prize for the artist), and the Institute bought the painting. Backlash arrived like a fist in the face when Iowans (the painting was set in the Hawkeye State) felt that Wood was mocking them as grim, bloodless rubes. Wood insisted he wasn’t, but many assumed his work was part of a trend toward caricaturing rural American life as old-fashioned, repressed, backward. The artist denied this charge, aligning himself during the depression with Midwest artists like John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, who celebrated the tough, straightforward American spirit in their works.

Parodies of the painting started popping up soon, from the serious to the the frivolous. Here’s a slew of ‘em for you.

 

Gordon Parks (1942)