More work in Progress
Today I've been listening to WWOZ wind down the last hours of Carnival before lent. Fat Tuesday is a day to get yer yayas out. Since I can't be there I've been conjuring my muse during the past few days. The quicktime show above is of a new body of work which addresses the history and language of portraiture. It's very different work for me in since it reverses my process and the drawings become photographs! Very appropriate for my dyslexic, ambidextrous state of being...
If you like the new work or find it interesting please share!
To really appreciate the day turn your digital dial to wwoz. They are broadcasting from Cafe Brazil on Frenchman St... with the best horn sections in the world. An on-going titles in my work evolved from the coffee shop that was run by the same crew of bohos that opened Cafe Brazil back in the last 80's or early 90's. Does anyone remember "Until waiting Fills?" It was the black hole of hip when Reagan was running the country and Edwin Edwards was gambling with Louisiana tax dollars in Vegas under the name of Wang Chung. It would be a much simpler felony to commit these days... now that NOLA has casinos.
This photo was taken back in the day... with the lucky bead lady standing in front of the cafe. I pulled it from the Fare Grounds website. The photo is from an exhibition at Fare Grounds which presented art and artifacts from the history of NOLA's great coffee houses.
Labels: ambidextrous, dyslexic, Mardi Gras, muse, painting
posted by "" at 5:25 PM
2 Comments:
"The coffeehouse is Until Waiting Fills, on the corner of St. Philip and Chartres. The doors open onto the street. The room is chipped plaster and brick, amber-lit, and decorated in over-stuffed Salvation Army and thrift store kitsch. Amzi calls it "a gold mine of maniacs." As David, the furry waiter, put it, some of their patrons are "definitely on the starting team."
Sister Liz is a clairvoyant and a psychic. I am trying to pay attention as she turns these strange cards and says things like, "Someone will come to you in three weeks." However, a person named John is trying to introduce himself to Larry, the Cathouse Piano Player. Larry used to bill himself as Minthaven Wilson, the World’s Greatest Deaf Piano Player. "John! John! John!" the person shouts.
Ron Cuccia, "There’s No Success Like Failure," Oct. 3, 1981"
I just found this description of Until Waiting Fills in the 20th Anniv issue of Gambit, the NOLA weekly. I love Amzi's description of the place. It was great seeing him featured in the American Experience: NOLA on PBS last week.
I discovered Until Waiting Fills when working as a freelance artist at an artists studio just above the coffee shop, it was something straight out of Cuba… with garage size doors open to the street on both sides with artists upstairs cutting stencils on large tables for serigraph designs by Alessandro… there was an upholstered couch in the open air on a roof beyond the open window… and big fans blowing air around…rustling the leftover Mardi Gras beads. It was a far cry from the gray skies of grad school in Ohio.
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