Halloween #29

Halloween #29
Originally uploaded by stevechasmar

Steve Chasmar still
has a few more days of
vintage Halloween photos on flickr.
This one is-
"Bluebeard's Wives"

The Legend of Frankenpeanut

The Legend of Frankenpeanut
Originally uploaded by snailbooty

snailbooty has some
very interesting art on flickr!

William H. Macy on Uke

link

Black Angel

I think she is standing on a bowling ball - Aurora Consurgens, Black Angel from Wikipedia commons, Angels. Thanks, Internet Weekly.

The Art of Amy Crehore
(My website sale continues until Halloween. Free signed drawing comes with orders.)

What am I up to?

In progress -painting detail- by Amy Crehore

I have been working like a dog on secret projects. There are shows coming up in Miami and L.A. and all of my efforts are going into painting. I can barely keep up with emails or my blog, but I am doing my best. Here's a partial peek at painting I am working on. It is only half finished. I am working on a zillion things all at once, so this hardly shows what I am really up to. However, I do not want to ruin any surprises, so I am keeping a lot of it to myself for now. I will reveal more later. I just wanted to give you something to look at and look forward to. The Art of Amy Crehore

Liz McGrath Has Wonderful Hokum-style Sensibility

XII, Mixed Media, Liz McGrath
XI Mixed Media, Liz McGrath


Artist Liz McGrath gets a Little Hokum Rag seal of approval for her ambitious new show at Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona. I especially like her sculptures with portholes in the bellies of the animals - where I can see things like cake and little people. You will see musical references, vintage children's book motifs, old clowns, and two-headed beasts in her work. It is all done with a good dose of dark humor and surrealism. It reminds me a bit of the wonderful world of Tim Burton.
Here's a link to the preview thanks to boingboing.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Photo of the Day

"Kudzu, US460 West" by Raleigh Powell Copyright 2008

My photo of the day is a recent one by Raleigh Powell - nature's "sculpture" -it's a photo of kudzu along the side of the highway. Thanks, Raleigh!

The Art of Amy Crehore

Vintage Witch Halloween Paper Hat

Vintage Witch Halloween Paper Hat
Originally uploaded by riptheskull

Halloween Hats on flickr.
Really cool illustrations on these.
(Thanks go to riptheskull.)

WWII Envelope Art

There is a small collection on flickr of historically interesting and humorous envelope cartoons: "A group of original and vintage WWII envelopes decorated with drawings by Corporal Weinert, an Army soldier who served during WWII. He created these works of art on envelopes he used to mail letters home to his wife." It looks like in the top one she was Miss York and in the bottom one she is Mrs. Weinert. I wonder if he wooed her with his art.

See a few more here:

ATYPICAL ART on flickr

The Art of Amy Crehore

This Is On My Dining Room Wall

Yes, it's none other than a giant Mr. Peanut. He greets me each day and does a little dance while I eat my dinner. His cane is missing, but he's still got his monocle and spats.

The Art of Amy Crehore

My Sale Continues Until Halloween...Plus Bonus!

I am extending my website sale until Halloween and I will personally include one very small, signed drawing in every order of prints or Uke T-shirts from now until then (limited to one drawing per person.) How's them apples?

The Art of Amy Crehore

Walter Schnackenberg's Surreal Drawings

The decapitated girl and the bat (1949)
The sleepwalker (1956)

You can see more of these fascinating drawings at

A Journey Round My Skull .

Walter Schnackenberg was a German artist born in Bad Lauterburg in 1880. This small body of work is highly imaginative, unique and unforgettable.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Zulus Playing Ping Pong

Missionaries taught the Zulu tribe to play games. Click on images to enlarge. More photos: LINK

(Thanks, dirty.ru)

The Art of Amy Crehore

This is Hanging in My Kitchen

These are Victorian trade cards -which I blogged about some time ago. The top one, "Brooks Spool Cotton" happens to be an image that I live with everyday. I have a metal repro-sign hanging on the wall of my kitchen. It makes me smile when I make my coffee in the morning. The trade cards for the sewing industry are among my favorites. Here's one for J & P Coats thread featuring cats teasing a vicious dog (bottom image). Right up my alley!

Thanks for reminding me of this great art BibliOdyssey .

The Art of Amy Crehore

Glamour Halloween

A collection of vintage glamour Halloween photos plus more:

Halloween 1

Halloween 2

Thanks to Confetta on flickr. So cool!

The Art of Amy Crehore

Vintage Halloween Part Two!

Tuck Series 150 postcard
Barton and Spooner postcard

If you liked the collection of vintage Halloween photos by Steve Chasmar that I blogged about about earlier, take a look at this extensive collection of old postcards by

riptheskull on flickr.

(Thanks, Dave) This collection goes on for miles and it's simply beautiful! What a great way to get into October and the change of season. I love flickr!

The Art of Amy Crehore

Halloween in the Time of Cholera

The older the better, I always say. This is a Halloween photo from 1911. Steve Chasmar with his seemingly never-ending collection of wonderfully weird photos of times past is uploading one vintage Halloween photo a day for the month of October to

flickr

The Art of Amy Crehore

Ukulele Orchestra

This is a sweet little video -"Brand New Key"- performed by the Bastard Fairies accompanied by the Uncle Lincoln Ukulele Group. LINK

Rolling Stone:The Illustrated Portraits

"Rolling Stone: The Illustrated Portraits" 2000 (Chronicle Books) with cover by Mark Ryden
Jewel and Alanis Morrisette double portrait by Amy Crehore 1998

Every now and again, I look back and realize how lucky I have been. With all crazy the ups and downs of this career, there were some really nice moments. Being included in this book was one of those moments. Only about 100 illustrations were published in this anthology from 30 years of Rolling Stone magazine. Looking at the list of names again - I see Gottfried Helnwein and Thomas Woodruff, both of whom I just blogged about. I see Charles Burns, Laura Levine, Gerard Dubois, Blair Drawson, Anita Kunz, Risko, Ryden, Steadman, Burke, Brodner, Glaser, Hirschfeld, C.F. Payne, Vivienne Flesher, Greg Clarke, Rob Clayton, Jason Holley, Janet Woolley and even Joni Mitchell. There are many more- too many to list! I apologize for that.

There were no hoops to jump through to get into his book, no fees to pay, no contests, no politics of exclusion. My double portrait of Jewel and Alanis Morrisette (illustration from Dec 1998) was simply chosen by the editors because they liked it. It represented an era, and being in this book is an honor that no one can take away from me. Rolling Stone even purchased my original art for their corporate collection.

The book is out of stock now, but you can buy it used or "like new" through amazon.

The Art of Amy Crehore

P.S. My portrait of Alanis started out nude, hiding behind hair like Lady Godiva. But, at the last minute I painted a green shirt on her. I decided that I needed more color.

Free Music- Hokum Scorchers

(Hokum Scorchers Band tape cover in the '90's)

Well, myspace finally worked out the kinks in their new music players, so the Hokum Scorchers' music (my band) is available for free download. I'll try to switch up the songs when I can. Here is the
Link
The Art and Music of Amy Crehore
Be my friend just for fun!

New Ray Caesar Book and Memories of NYC

Ray Caesar Book

While I was in NYC over the summer, I went to visit my brother's recording studio, Dubway, near the Chelsea district and I took a tour of it before heading off to galleries. You can take a virtual tour of it here.
I made my way over to the Ray Caesar show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery (link of exhibit). It was everything I hoped it would be. The large pieces were really impressive. They had vintage sci-fi presence. Some of the smaller works were more painterly, using digital brushstrokes (almost Degas-like) and there were some line drawings, too. All works were like Victorian/1960's hybrids with perversely punked-out, ironic narratives. He used red lipsick-colored accents a lot in his compositions.I found myself stopping to gaze at finely-tuned details in each work and enjoying his sense of humor. What an imagination! And now I have his new book. It came a few days ago and it was worth the wait. Designed and produced by Mark Murphy and available at his site, it is a beautiful piece of art itself and I will savor the contents.

That same day in NYC, I also stopped in at the Joshua Liner Gallery for the Jeremy Fish and Josh Keyes shows. I was impressed by the ambitiousness of the Jeremy Fish pieces with their exotic frames with companion-piece sculptures. Josh Keyes' paintings were beautiful in execution and design. I got to meet Joshua Liner that day as well...lovely space and nice people at this new gallery in Chelsea. And, as a bonus, I stumbled into a small space nearby with two Morton Bartlett photos and a Henry Darger drawing!

I have more stories of NYC. I went to 3 or 4 different gallery districts. I will save them for another time.

The Art of Amy Crehore