Supreme Court Strikes DOMA

Celebrate

My husband and I made fast tracks into Camp Rehoboth yesterday morning as soon as we heard of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike DOMA because I had read on facebook that Camp would be hosting an all day celebration. The celebration was made so special because we - along with so many other lesbian and gay couples - had crowned our 45-year long relationship with marriage in New York City in August 2012. The mixed media distressed painting above, “Same Sex Marriage,” includes a telescoped photo of our marriage ceremony with Reverend Pat Bumgardner at the Metropolitan Community Church in Manhattan. It is currently on display as part of the LGBT Pictionary show at Camp Rehoboth for the Gay Pride Month of June celebration. Joe and I feel as though the past year has been an extremely special year for us for two reasons. First, because of the work we put into creating this show. Joe put together twenty-five frames, and provided the environment conducive to the creation of thirty-two paintings over a nine-month period. Second, our marriage ceremony and the three celebrations we held with friends in various locations was conducted as one small part of the massive LGBT push for marriage equality in the United States. And now, as of June 26, 2013, for the first time in our forty-five years together we are viewed as equal to our heterosexual brothers and sisters in the eyes of our Federal government, if not by thirty-seven of the fifty states. Of course we still have far to go in order to secure equality in all the states. Never the less, this week we will take time out from that historic struggle for equality to celebrate. In fact, the song, “Celebrate,” by Kool and the Gang (1980) keeps playing over and over in my head.

Yes, Celebrate!

Celebrate good times, come on
(Let's celebrate)


Celebrate good times, come on
(Let's celebrate)


There's a party goin' on right here



A celebration to last throughout the years



So bring your good times
And your laughter too



We gonna celebrate our party with you


Lights! Camera! Action!

I leave talk of The LGBT Pictionary behind because last night, as part of June, Gay Pride Month my husband and I also attended the Gay Men's Chorus of South Florida production Lights! Camera! Action!.

Last night I got to sit in the audience and listen to the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida (GMCSF) sing in their June spectacular, Lights! Camera! Action!, Normally, I’m up on stage with the chorus. However, I haven’t been present for any of the rehearsals for this show. So, when we found that we would be here in south Florida for the summer concert we bought tickets immediately, a good thing because the two performances are sold out.*

As usual, the brotherhood was in full voice under the masterful direction of Gordon Roberts, and assistant director, Harold Dioquino. I especially enjoyed the Act I rendition of Yentl melodies (1981) arranged by director Roberts. Act II opened with the hysterically funny and scathing put down of Adolf Hitler from Mel Brooks motion picture (1968 & 2005) and Broadway musical (2001)The Producers. The featured “Tropical Wave” ensamble’s performance of “Alfie” from the motion picture of the same name (1966), and “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” Puttin’ on the Ritz (1930) was amazing. Best performance of Act II goes to Brian Ricci’s solo in “Crazy World” from Victor Victoria (1982). Also worth mention was Roberts’ beautiful Piano accompaniment to the chorus in his arrangement of “Our Love Affair” from the melodramatic tearjerker of a motion picture An Affair to Remember (1957). We had a wonderful evening to remember, and I believe this chorus is destined to become one of the top choruses in the country.



*If you wish to attend tonight's performance, Saturday, June 22nd, 2013, you might check at the door 7:30 PM this evening, at Sunshine Cathedral, 1480 SW 9th Ave, Fort Lauderdale, FL. Telephone: (954) 462-2004.

LGBT Pictionary: June Pride Month, 2013

This is the final final entry about the show at Camp Rehoboth Community Center.



 Because I designed and created the announcement as well as the artworks I've decided to include that artwork as the final blog entry about the show since the show will run for another two weeks, through June 26, 2013. Take down is June 27th. However, I was given verbal commitment this past winter that The LGBT Pictionary will be on display at one of the ArtServe locations beginning the middle of November in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

We have sold 3 of the small pieces as of this date, and I have gotten 2 commissions as a result. Signed and numbered prints of the small works are also available unframed for $45.00 / $99.00 framed. The original small works are $145.00 framed. Larger works are priced accordingly and I welcome inquiries.

LGBT Pictionary

The Grid of Small Works, The LGBT Pictionary, 24 words, each work is 10"x10" framed, $145.00 ea.

The show opened last evening, Second Saturday Art Night at Camp Rehoboth. The installation looks phenomenal in the space at Camp. Murray Archibald sent an image of the pieces he will use on the next Letters cover. The cover is gorgeous! Murray is such a marvelous designer and artist and I can’t wait to see this issue in print.

The four 16" x 16" works,Baby Dyke, Lesbos, Ex-Gay, and LGBT, $265.00 ea.

Should the reader be interested in reading more about the LGBT Pictionary he/she can go back through the past many months of entries that show individual works from the show, describe the purpose, methods/technique and philosophy behind the work.

The two 20"square artworks, Lipstick Lesbian and Queer, $475.00 ea.

I’ve included images of the Camp space and art on display. I am so pleased to be finished – a year of hard work, a new body of work – a relief and a pleasure at once.

Gay Pride, (30" x 30") June 2, 2013, $950.00

The Painting, Gay Pride looks a bit lost in the installation. It should be on a smaller wall, but I couldn't rearrange my work because some of the space in the gallery also contains excellent works by Michael Muller and Mary Ann Borden.

Baby Dyke

Baby Dyke, May 1, 2013 (16" x 16") actual and virtual mixed media and distress paint

This entry, about the 16” x 16” painting titled, "Baby Dyke" is the next to final entry on the LGBT Pictionary Series. I will take some photos at the opening, do an entry of those, and then move on to other “Art” matters.

It seems I’m doing all this series incorrectly, at least according to those pundits knowledgeable about “social media.” Part of the problem is that the culture has given these virtual “cybervoid” spaces the name it is now stuck with, instead of the earlier perhaps more erudite labels like Internet, Web or World Wide Web, Web pages, Website, we now have “social media,” a gaggle of spaces owned by new corporate entities that are designed around the diurnal gab of all humanity, at least that part of humanity whose governments don’t interfere with their use thereof. The "social media" are (at times) good for reporting political and social events as they occur. But, more importantly they are excellent at revealing – I suppose this makes me an elitist snob - the mundane, mostly tedious, often prejudiced reportage of every silly person on earth with a computer and/or cell phone. Sometimes the stuff one finds while cruising the “social media” is downright evil, like the terrorist pages containing bomb-building directions. Or the “tweets” and posts on “blogs,” and “facebook” of prejudiced hating folk of any/all stripes. If I wish to find anything of intellectual value, it is necessary to do a complicated and often distracting search that can take hours. Well, I could go on with this (prejudiced) rant for another hour. However, the purpose here is to end this months long reportage on my art project, “The LGBT Pictionary,” which according to one New York Times article I read recently should be defined as “self aggrandizement” rather than honest reporting upon the daily events of my boring social life.

Thus, I return to the matter at hand, the next to last entry about this series of virtual and actual mixed media distressed paintings. “Baby Dyke” is one of my favorites in the entire series. At a basic psychological level I like the colors.   I like the way the accidental qualities of the distressed paint - whether actually painted in physical space with my own real hands, or created virtually through the use of camera, computer, printed and torn paper - work in contrast to the ordering processes I go through using line, shape, and color to unite the canvas (oops, I mean in this case, wooden panel). The complex layering process adds more accident to the artwork, and also contrasts to the use of printed and torn images of the painting itself used once again to unite the entire mixed media panel. Of course this process speaks to my own perhaps schizophrenic personality, the hidden qualities I keep from others and myself, as well as the up front obvious image(s) I project to friends and family. However, in closing, all of this is a bit more revealing of actual human social and personal qualities than 99.999 percent of the banal material presented in the “social media.”