Byzantine Siamese

Blog Cats

This is from one of my links I like to visit.






Getting there...CHEERS with my cup of tea.


Oops, sometimes I don't wait for the paint and glue to dry enough. Well there you go Polenta and Parsival, the Byzantine Siamese.


Okay, this is a slightly better picture.

Making: Giordano's Memory

Okay, when I paint, I get restless. I get thinking and roam, and restless. I am more productive when I paint than any other time. Yesterday I did four loads of laundry.It's like I am looking for distraction... Today, I will probably do at least three loads. I'm even doing pillows and duvet. That's how much I start to look for any reason to wander and escape painting. Even though I love it. It's weird thing. I get all furious and busy painting, but then it confronts me somehow and I land up looking for excuses to do something else...



I need to find something else to do. Get out of the house.

I know, I'll take some pictures of our cool alley. That will keep me out of the studio.


Ok, I made it to coffee shop, Beans and Bagels. The gods honest truth is, I would have gone to the bar, Scott's, but it's not open yet. These guys are so nice here and the coffee is good! I'm really working on my stalling, but I forgot to ask them their names.




Now I'm having something to eat. Salmon and butter burnt cabbage. Yum! Um, I freaked I just saw The Corporation, sure I read No Logo, by Naomi Klein, I am cool, but I just saw this movie. I freaked on Stagg, he already saw this movie ages ago...how can you buy this crap milk it has cow hormone growth shit in it. Now we need to find organic milk here. It's against the law to put that shit in Canadian cows.


We found this in alley in the garbage. Slowly painting it, I hate wood used for furniture and left with the grain. Some wood is okay, but most of it should be painted. I know, wood is trendy, whatever. I like wood on trees. But it's closing in the studio. I'm kind of neurotic, I don't even like other art in the room, I prefer plain walls while I work. The tv is okay though, heh heh.


Some of the papers I have glued together to make this big sheet of paper as
canvas" say things like "What do you like to read, Escape, Now you can buy a painting sculpture...from a refurbished cigarette machine..., Yeah yeah yeahs latest a disappointing...

I wash paint brushes compulsively when I get into the state of deep thinking about what the hell am I doing, and then how can I get away...okay wash brushes clean clean complulsive...clean brushes, what is the meaning of life, what am I painting this for??? and how can I get out of it...

All right now I'm going for the chocolate fix. There I was eating that delicious healthy choice salmon for lunch. But now, after a return trip to Beans and Bagels...I need Chocolate. This is the sweetest most lovely chocolate place. I would have got a chocolate bar, but they are a lame selection at corner store. it's tought o find good chocolate. So Margie's it is. I'm going to get terrapins Really fresh pecans in their knock off Turtles. I am hoping because its pricey its organic chocolate. I have to get to a health food store and get organic milk, cheese and chocolate. Or get vegan! Help!





I don't know. I just can't keep hanging out around here painting. I'm going crazy now.


I formulate a brilliant plan. Go to neighbourhood bar, Scott's. It's friendly, I can take in second hand smoke, and watch Ellen and read some magazines that have been kicking around the house for a few days. An alternate review and POSITIVE of Yeah yeah yeahs in SPIN. Excellent fun article in Premiere about top 100 roles in film. I was surprised Malcolm McDowell was the 100th for Clockwork orange, would have expected that to be in top ten. Other roles listed were (I'm a sucker for a list) #91 was Jane Fonda for Klute. #68 Cary Grant for Brining Up Baby. #61 Ralph Fiennes for Shindlers List. #48 for Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. #34 for Buster keaton in The General.#27 Marlon Brando in Last Tango In Paris. #16 Cary Grant in Notorious. #7 Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy (he also made it for Tootsie#33.) # 3 Meryl Streep for Sophie's Choice and # 2 Marlon Brando for On the Waterfront. No I'm not going to tell you what number 1 is...guess.


Oops, I am not used to taking pictures with this camera in the dark. Thats my leg after one beer. I moved too quickly with the camera....meant to take this instead...


There is always some new art exhibited here at Scott's in Chicago.


This is Dan, he's so nice. He's making me a drink someone else at the bar ordered me a drink. I am going to be loaded when I get home. I change from beer to gin and tonic. It's spring. Someone else at the bar buys me a drink. Uh oh. I love this bar. It's a neighbourhood gay bar and they go all out for customer satisfaction.


I don't know why, but the back of our building inspires me. It could be the drinks.


More glue. Some fashion t-shirts.




Some kind of resolve, thats about it. Giordano's Memory-done!

Byzantine Pets

Slice of cake and orangutan. His halo is a little too subtle in this perhaps...


We had a pet spider monkey when I was a kid. His name was Jeep. I thought of him as a little brother. He would pee on any men that came over, and he would do things like tear apart the linen closet. He had the best sense of humour!!!I have a scar where he bit me on a finger. He was the funniest guy. I used to love all those ol Disney programs where the bears or raccoons would break inot the cabin and tear up flour and bedding. Jeep was just like that. I would laugh and laugh. Our mum would say, stop you're just encouraging him!I loved him and all his crazy adventures. I am going to do a painting of a spider monkey after making this little thing.




Stagg did the drawing aspects after hearing me rant about farming being among the stupidest choice humans ever made. I painted it into a Byzantine pet subject.

Here is abit of progress series of Randy, who is up for adoption, I think! Click here for

photo.

Byzantine Randy all finished.

Sunday power walk.

Who can understand the mind of an artist?

Globetrotters

Pagan Eucharist

Mithras

had a supper and a kind of eucharist ritual in its belief system/myth. I'm in heaven with the Johnny Depp cereal. Okay, I don't eat cereal, but I get the package when Stagg is done! I tried some. I did feel closer to Johnny. And pirates.

"If the tauroctony did not represent an Iranian myth, what did it represent? Starting in the mid-1970's, several scholars (including Roger Beck of the University of Toronto, Stanley Insler of Yale University, Michael Speidel of the University of Hawaii, Alessandro Bausani of the University of Rome and me) put forward new interpretations of the tauroctony (and of Mithraism) based on the hypothesis that the picture is actually a star map." from

Scientific American 1989.

"This remarkable explanation of the tauroctony is based on two facts. First, every figure found in the standard tauroctony has a parallel among a group of constellations located along a continuous band in the sky: the bull is paralleled by Taurus, the dog by Canis Minor, the snake by Hydra, the raven by Corvus, and the scorpion by Scorpio. Second, Mithraic iconography in general is pervaded by explicit astronomical imagery: the zodiac, planets, sun, moon, and stars are often portrayed in Mithraic art (note for example the stars around the head of Mithras in the carving of the tauroctony illustrated above); in addition, numerous ancient authors speak about astronomical subjects in connection with Mithraism. In the writings of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry, for example, we find recorded a tradition that the cave which is depicted in the tauroctony and which the underground Mithraic temples were designed to imitate was intended to be "an image of the cosmos." Given the general presence of astronomical motifs in Mithraic art and ideology, the parallel noted above between the tauroctony-figures and constellations is unlikely to be coincidence."

a sweet little film

about migrating swans and the constellation Cygnus.

And some traditional academic work on sun/moon activity in the

Irish

swan spa area.

Inter-faith and inter-society understanding in an interdiciplinary

approach?

Cool shit!

Freak show

Pop Surrealism

The wily coyotes of Canada er, ah, New York.

The wily coyotes of New York | Salon.com News

This is a good article in Salon magazine...

but then I wondered did I miss some big news this week...?

"Today, coyotes live in or near every major American city. They are reported in Atlanta, Toronto, Portland, Maine, running across a schoolyard in Philadelphia, hiding under a taxi in Chicago, and everywhere in the metro west, including Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. A landmark study from Ohio State University, to be published this spring, tracked coyote behavior in urban Chicago for six years, concluding that the Windy City's coyote population was vastly larger -- at least 2,000 and growing -- and more successful than ever expected. Urban coyotes, the study found, live longer than their country cousins, their range per pack is more compact (much like urban humans), and they hunt more often at night (also like urban humans). The study also found that the creatures likely do not pose a threat to people."

When did Toronto become a major American city? Boy the new Prime Minister worked fast.