MONDAY #3672

One Of My Very Own

<>

EMAIL: ralph.henry.at.folio.olio@gmail.com 

<>

My wife found these images. One of me in my Pastafarian regalia and the other of my grandson doing the same without instruction.

<>

NEWSY BITS

<>

J Crew

<>

<> 

VISUAL PUN

288

<>

NEW VIEWERS MAY NEED BACKGROUND ON THEIR HOST

ABOUT ART

I eat, sleep and dream art. It's in my blood. On her deathbed, I thanked my mother for letting me know at an early age that it was okay to be an artist.

But you can't just declare that art is what you like to look at.

You have to understand what the artist is doing - and that takes education.
My first wife was a classical pianist and I accompanied her to dozens of concerts. Many times she would cringe when she detected one missed note by the performer - a note I had no way of detecting because I had not educated myself.

Most people have heard stories like the one illustrated here:

But none of those people declared that great art. They were simply inquisitive. Nothing wrong with that.

Early on in my career I hit the streets and seldom went back to my studio. But I come from a very long line of public artists.

I don't spend a bunch of time thinking about it, but doing things that will outlast myself is rather important to me.

My art fills that need, as does my teaching. Now I have this blog that I assume will far outlive me.

Public art takes many forms.

I lean toward an appreciation of the unexpected.

For years I looked down on photography as an equal art form to, say, painting or sculpture. I did the same with computer-generated images. Now I consider a camera or a computer as just another art tool.

I have no problem with clandestinely spraypainting words on a wall.

I just want the words to be worth reading.

This guy combines poetry with images and he's very good at it.

http://www.davidfullarton.com/

I once collaborated with a poet from NYC on a few pieces. We were only able to salvage two - one for him and one for me.

I most appreciate the public artist with a social conscious. 

Banksy is my god.

But then there is graffiti.

All I ask is that they evolve as artists and that they use their brain to offer me something I haven't seen a thousand times.

<>

I was always pretty good at art in school, but it was in a biology class that I learned I saw differently.
We were shown many slides of microscopic images of such things as bone...

And muscles...

But then we got to use the microscope and our task was to draw what we saw. It was my drawing of cotton fibers that was my claim to fame.

The instructor said that I was the only student he had ever taught who drew the spiral in the fibers and, explaining further, that the spirals were what made cotton so valuable.

This is not one of mine, but in high school I drew all the time.

Then after a stint in the military, I became an art student at the University of South Carolina, eventually earning a master's degree.

In my sophomore year, the professor moved me up to critiques sessions in the graduate school. I quickly learned the difference between good and bad art.

I wish I had images of my studio paintings that I created in graduate school, but I had a studio fire that wiped out all my photos...and unsold paintings.

<>

Now a few things you new viewers may not know about me.

While growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Bart Starr was my next door neighbor and I've been a Green Bay Packer fan all my life.

I am a collector.
I have hundreds of Hearts of Stone and they hang all over my studio and home.

I also collect holy moly, which I make into all sorts of things.

I have taught many a young child to help me gather them.

I have done several mosaic murals. This is my 4'X8' dining room table called Steak For Eight.

I also write and loved it. Hardest work I've ever tried.


I have painted many murals all over the country. I stopped counting at 500 - some large, some small.

That has historical significance that need not be discussed here.

Now that I am too old to climb the scaffold I have moved back into the studio for less taxing work.
This is a paint brush made from my own ponytail.

I have used a stencil to spray paint messages on sidewalks and such.

Then I discovered the label maker and I never go anywhere without a pocketful of various messages.

I have installed hundreds of my packets.

It was a pretty cool way to publicize my blog, plus to give a thrill to the discoverer.

The key has no significance. I just used them as cheap washers.

Besides the real one dollar bill, each packet contains my blog address and a trinket of sorts.

I even tried mailing them with less than stellar success.

FYI: My spellcheck

A sign of the time.

Moving on...

Years ago I made a tutorial for my packets. Here is the link if you are interested.
http://folioolio.blogspot.com/2015/07/key-packet-tutorial.html

Now I make art out of one dollar bills. I create ways to store, display or tote legal tender. The is a dollar dispenser made up of about 2,000 dollars.

I hung that piece on a door frame in my home.

As a side note, there is a framed piece directly above the lamp shade. That is what is left of the notecards I made to describe all of my paintings. There were slides that didn't survive the conflagration.

Here are but a few of my Dollar Art.

Those are two-dollar bills in plastic tubes and they are presented as if treats in a doctor's office.

When I was a child the doctor had a jar like this full of lollipops.

I just wondered what would happen if the doctor handed out cash.

A typical Toter.

That one is, of course, in progress.


<>

<>

<>

<>

<>

<>

I love theoretical arguments over things like this...both equally as implausible. 

<>

Ouch!
<>

From the internet:

And there are those who think that the wealth disparity is just the natural order.

The game is rigged folks. There are those who can afford to buy the government which will then enact laws to make them even richer.

<>

<>

<>