Little Hokum Rag

Saturday, October 04, 2008

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!

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

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