First, let me extend thanks to everyone who came out to the show at the Kada Gallery on Saturday night. It was great seeing some old friends and meeting some new ones. And thanks to Kathy and Joe at the Kada for their longtime friendship and encouragement–you provided me with a wonderful night. If you didn’t make it out there, you can still see the show as it hangs until December 3.
Now, today is yet another Halloween. It doesn’t have the same impact on me now as it did when I was much younger but I still get a kick out of this night and all the goofiness around it. And I have to say that the imagery that swirls around this night was very influential to me when I was a kid. You often see macabre imagery show itself in the work of student artists.
So in honor of this most hallowed evening, I thought I’d throw out some scary music but there isn’t a great selection of monster themed music. Oh, there’s the Monster Mash but that gets played to death this time of the year, much like Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer at Christmas. And the Addams Family or Munsters themes are memorable but not what I’m looking for.
But there are the Cramps.
The Cramps emerged out of the NY punk scene of the 70’s with a distinct sound that influenced by rockabilly and the B-Horror movies of the 50’s. Two guitars and a small drum kit- no bassist- and a leader called Lux Interior and a girl guitarist/femme fatale named Poison Ivy, the Cramps’ music was often called psychobilly. Many of their songs paid direct homage to old horror flicks, like Human Fly and the one I’m highlighting here, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which starred a very young Michael Landon in a pretty kitschy story. It might not be high art but the Cramps created some high energy creep-tastic stuff, very appropriate for a most inappropriate night.
Below I Was a Teenage Werewolf I’ve included their even more creepy TV Set. Give a listen and have yourself a very spooky night.
I can’t really tell you how my show went last night. I wish I could but my psychic powers have been on the weak side lately. Actually, I am writing this on Friday because I most likely won’t be back in the studio in time to put up my Sunday morning music and it is such a regular habit for me that it bothers me when I miss a week.
A quick reminder that tonight is the opening for my new show, Part of the Plan, at the Kada Gallery in Erie. It begins with a reception that runs from 6 PM until 9.
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. 
I guess most people would classify me as a landscape painter and it would be hard to dispute that statement. After all, most of my work does use the lines and forms of the landscape as its basis.
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.
There are two ways of looking at my paintings for me. During the process, I view it as an assemblage of parts, a series of decisions to be made and obstacles to overcome. It feels very much like it is part of me at that point, like I hold all the cards and determine where it will go and what it will inevitably be. I feel a bit like a mechanic or a surgeon in that time.
Never doubt that a small number of dedicated people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
Thank god that we are finally past the three presidential debates. I thought I’d have a little musical break to cleanse the taste of last night’s debate out of my mouth. Oops, I guess I can’t get away from it– I think we all know who the puppet was last night.
Redtree Times 