The Biblescapes

This post is to announce a new series of paintings called “The Biblescapes”.

As the name says, these will be paintings in style of my Fantascapes, but featuring parables and stories from the Bible. Believe me, I am the first to be amazed at me painting religious themes! Not that I despise religion… I was even raised as a practising Catholic, meaning I was baptised,  I had lots of religious classes, I went to Mass every Sunday , I went regularly to confession and I had my two communions…

I will tell you a personal secret though… a real secret, By that I mean hardly anybody in this world who knows me knows about it. Well, I can risk it, as most of the people who would be horrified to know this secret don’t really understand English.

So, here we go… I was about 12 years old, and my 4 years older brother and me were sent to church every Sunday. My parents seemed to think that they didn’t need  to attend the Mass themselves, what a strange way in fact to give a good example.. anyway, my brother and me – two truly enfants terribles-  collected the Mass money from my mother’s hand, with an angelic smile on our faces and the promise to give it to the priest in the church.  But instead of going to church, we spent every Sunday wandering around in the beautiful town of Carcassonne, where we lived at that time, spending the church money buying ice cream, sweets, cookies… oh, it was such a wonderful time, so much more exciting than to sit in one of these dark and severe Catholic churches! My Mother always wondered, when I went with her to the town for shopping, how well I knew each corner of the town, much better than her. She never found out why, until some decades later, when I suddenly told her! My Mother has got a lot of humour and tolerance, even with her 85 years, but believe me, she was shocked, and forbade me to tell it to my Father!

This wonderful story ended dramatically for me though… after one year we moved from Carcassonne to a little town in the centre of France, and some months later to Clermont Ferrand. My parents considered then that my brother was old enough to miss the Mass, but I still had to do my second communion and I still was sent to church every Sunday. The hell I would! I didn’t want to wander  through the city of Clermont Ferrand, I hated it, and anyway alone it was no fun. Instead, I spent 9 months hiding every Sunday in the darkest corner of our garage… a terrifying experience, but apparently less terrifying than going to church! Today I wonder what I did with the church money at that time… I can’t remember!

Finally I did my communion and then I was officially allowed to miss the Mass too. Needless to say that before I did the big step of the communion, I  never confessed my secret.. what a farce it was really!

To end the story of my Catholic life, I will say here that I officially left the Catholic church many years later, when I was living in Germany. One day I might tell why…

Anyway… back to the Biblescapes!

When I was I the States earlier this year, I was contacted by wobbywilliams from the Lake District/UK, writing to me following words:

“… Also we have a large Christian convention in Keswick for 3 weeks in July and Keswick is deluged with people. So, I wonder if you could paint some pictures in your unique style similar to Celebration of Life which will link in to the themes at the convention. ..”

I first thought, hum, how should I paint religious themes? But with time passing by and after throwing a new look to my Fanatscapes, I thought, well, some of them have a religious atmosphere, kind of, and could be slightly altered in a way to convey some bible-ish story As I came back from the States, I re-contacted wobbywilliams, and see, we have now started this project together. He is a great person to work with and to speak to, and I enjoy this project a lot.

To start the series and honour the coming Easter festivities, I simply altered an already exciting Fantascape, previously called “Dead Leaves”, and called it “Jesus from Cross”. I have done some more works in the meanwhile, even some totally new ones,  I might present them here in the future. But more probably  they will make their miraculous apparition somewhere in the net where and when you and me least expect them…

I want here to thank wobbywilliams for this brilliant idea and his input.

The artwork above, called “Jesus From Cross”,  is available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

Big Jerry in Memphis

Big Jerry in Beale Street, Memphis…

He really incorporated the kind of musicians I was expecting to see there.. strange enough, he was also one of the rare ones! I mean that I was expecting to see a lot of black musicians while we were travelling through the Southern States, and these were in fact the ones whom I really wanted to listen to, to see and to paint.. and I don;t know hot that happent, but we hardly saw one! For some obscure reason we always landed by gigs where most of the musicians were white.

A bis exception being of course Pinetop Perkins in Austin, but this is another story… for another time and another painting perhaps!

The Dogs Parade in New Orleans

It was this year in February in New Orleans, some days before Mardi-Gras. We were attending our first Parade, on Canal Street, and  had a great time, watching at all the floats and the marching bands, and trying to catch the beads the guys and girls from the floats were throwing into the crowd. On one occasion,  Kevin was even almost knocked down, getting a great bunch of them smack in the side of his head! – but well, my Kevin has a hard head, and he survived… but he was really pale after that! A woman close to us also got a lot of beads in her face, and was sporting a black eye soon after… Mardi-Gras in New Orleans is really dangerous, although, when I think about it, I wonder that there were not more accidents during these days, above all after the victory of their Saints in the Super Bowl… this tells me again that as crazy they are, the people in New Orleans kind of care for each other, and pay attention not to hurt people or destroy things, even in the middle of their wildest emotions… not like our football Hooligans in Europe!

Anyway, heading back to the French quarter, in search for a place where we could watch the Super Bowl final between the Saints  and The Colts from IHaveForgottenwhere (who cares!    ), we bumped  into another Mardi-Gras Parade… a dogs parade! It was incredibly funny, people had dressed their dogs in the most bizarre ways and were proudly parading them around. In fact a wonderful thing to see… I guess animals protectors wouldn’t agree with me, but really, they should relax a little bit… dogs are not THAT different from us and really seemed to enjoy to be the centre of attention!

So, this above is my painting of that day. Crazy and chaotic as everything seemed to be in New Orleans during that time…

Playing with the Moroccan Light

So, I am back to my series of Fantagolf, which I started last Autumn. Our champions from the European PGA Tour are playing in Morocco this weekend (Trophée Hassan II, Royal Golf Dar Es Salam), and I hope to get some inspiration for new art works. It is quite a difficult thing with golf paintings not to get too repetitive, and especially for me not to get bored after a while. But well, golf courses are generally beautiful landscapes, and each one has its own peculiarities, which are surely worth a painting. And anyway, each golfer has his personal swing, generally a beauty of movement, and it is always a pleasure to paint them.

Making a fast psychological analysis of my golf paintings, it is easy to see that I mainly react to a beautiful light on the golf course, to colourful outfits and to elegant or dynamic movement. With regard to painting above, which I did tonight, I was basically inspired by the light on the tree trunks… it was just wonderful! Then I added to the composition the spectators and the golfer and a ball flying around… some might argue that the light falling on  him does not correspond to the light on the trees, but really, I don’t care, it is my artist’s freedom… It just looks so transparent like that, almost spooky… but happy spooky, like the trees, so in this sense, all fits together.

PS: And if you want to see my last golf portrait and read about Men in The Pink…

My USA Travel Diary in Mugs

We have brought from our recent trip through the USA 15 new coffee mugs (for those who still don’t know: we love mugs!) and I have started one week ago to present them in form of paintings in Cafe Crem. I have already painted 3 of them, in the order we bought them: a Strabucks mug in New York Airport, a Starbucks mug in Nashville, and today I have done my first Memphis mug.

Here they are (click on each of them to read the connected post in Cafe Crem)

Mardi-Gras in New Orleans

A new painting in the series “The Music of New Orleans”… like my jazz paintings, certainly not in my usual wild free style, but this work is based on photos I took there, and I can’t work the same way from photos as from sketches done live on the spot. But it does not matter,  the result being one more painting style in my eclectic body of work, and one reason more for the critics to say that my art is all over the place…   I frankly don’t care, I am free, I have my own  gallery, I have no boss of any kind (except myself…  surely the most demanding boss in the world!), so I can really paint the way I want. And this eclectic way as they say certainly reflects my own character at best, so it is really me painting the whole stuff, and not me in search of myself. And as my brother answered to some people criticizing his new blog  ( “Je vous ecris de Tahiti”):

“… Ceux qui prétendent le contraire, je les emmerde.”

For this piece I have connected different elements which caught my eye in New Orleans on the Sunday 7th of February 2010. We were at our first parade in Canal Street, and I was of course fascinated by that colourful dream world. I am sure it will inspire me to some more work soon. I saw then the silver guy with the guitar in the French quarter after the parade, with a lot of folk around here. By the way I saw him again later on in the bar where we watched the Saints winning the Super Bowl, he was quite excited… hi YOU, if you happen to see this post and recognise yourself!

I have no idea if the New Orleans natives will like this kind of art featuring their town and their festivities. From what I could see there, their own art is very different -more caricature-based I would say- although we certainly have in common  the explosion of colours… how could we not!!! Somebody commented on one of my jazz paintings saying that much of the art there is tourist oriented. Even if it is, I guess it does not mean automatically that it is bad. If most of the art is like that, it means that the tourists like it, that they find in it what they felt being there, which is surely a very positive point. But anyway, I paint myself the way it comes to me, I have no intention of any kind when I start. I remember a painter telling me that my art is commercial, the reason being that we were regularly exhibiting together and I sold much more than he did. If this is the definition of “commercial”, then I am glad that my art is commercial! But I think it was his way of comforting himself…

The Jazz Vipers in New Orleans

I had the nice surprise yesterday evening to be contacted by Bruce from New Orleans, he had found my last post with the painting of the trombone lying on a chair, He sent me following mail:

“Hi Miki,
I posted your article on today’s Ladder (down toward the bottom of the post with the Music).
We would really be honored to Hang your painting there as well? Your permission and Aw’Dat?
I used to live around the corner and hung out on Frenchman all the time before the Flood.
Here is where we have placed another fan’s work:
~Route 66 from my living room window by Polly Jackson
We are a daily Nola blog and clock around 250 hits/day.
Let us know, if not that’s of course cool too. Folks can just go check it out anyway on the post!
Thank you,”

Due to the cheerful sound of the words, especially the “AwDat” I felt at once transported back to New Orleans, and felt a deep nostalgia for that place. We definitely have to go back there, and we are already speaking of October perhaps, if nothing is in the way…

Anyway, I sent him back the following mail

“Hi Bruce,

nice to meet you! I am very glad to hear from somebody from New Orleans, I am back in Spain now and missing your town, the people and the music quite a lot (although Spain is great too!).
Thanks for posting the link to my blog, and yes, of course you can hang the painting there. I have just finished 2 paintings of The Jazz Vipers in The Spotted Cat, let me know if you want to see them and post them in your blog another time.
Be sure that I will regularly visit your blog, this will surely help to keep the great memories alive.
Take care “

So, if you want to see my painting in the New Orleans Ladder and read some good words,   “Yay Here!”

Here they are, my first two paintings of musicians in New Orleans. Both belonging to the Band The Jazz Vipers, whom we saw in our very first night in New Orleans, in The Spotted Cat, on Monday the 1st of February 2010. It was for me the first time that I attended some jazz live, and I simply loved it. It was a real delight to my ears, the playing as well as the singing, and to my eyes as a painter. These guys look really great on stage, and their connection to their instruments looks really symbiotic.. If he happens to read this,  I send a particular hello to Jack Fine, the trumpeter, with whom I had the delight to speak French. And I hope with all my heart that we will meet again there, one day… perhaps in October this year?

“

I  have also merged the two paintings to have all Jazz Vipers together, I’ll publish it next time.

The Spotted Cat in New Orleans

The Sotted Cat in New Orleans 04 - by Miki

Yesterday I started a series of paintings, called “Music in New Orleans”, based on photos and memories from my stay there, from the 1st until the 12th of February 2010. It was an accident that we arrived  in the time building up to the Mardi Gras festivities, and, even more special, to the Super Bowl Final featuring The Saints from New Orleans against The Colts from Indianapolis. The ones who were in the town during these days know what an exceptional time they have witnessed…

Due to the town itself, and to these special events, we spent an incredible time there, full of extremely emotional moments, with the result that we have now declared the town as our second “home town”. Another important factor was that we were re-acquainted there with a wonderful guy called Ted, whom we had met for the first time last Summer in Sanlucar de Barrameda (Andalucia, Provincia de Cadiz) on our way to Portugal. Ted is originally from New Orleans and is actually spending his life between Sanlucar and New Orleans, As we met him in Sanlucar, we both, Kevin and me, felt that we were on the same wavelength, and it was so touching to meet again in New Orleans.

As he says himself, we are now “friends for ever”.

I have been confronted with New Orleans music in some different ways, in live gigs in bars,  in the street, at the Mardi Gras and the Saints parade. Unfortunately I did not do as many photos and sketches as I should have done, being much too busy enjoying the whole stuff! But well, I will make do with what I have. And anyway the memories are still very alive within me, it should help!

I start the series with 2 paintings from a bar deliciously called “The Spotted Cat”, on Frenchmen Street. This was one of the first places we went to, the very first night in New Orleans,. There was a Jazz band playing there, called “The Jazz Vipers”: they were simply wonderful. I am generally not a jazz fan, but I must say that these guys amazed me, all of them, not only in their instrumental playing, but also in their singing and general attitude. They just sounded and looked TRUE. If we come back to New Orleans one day -and we will do everything we can to make it happen!-, this will be the first band I want to see again, this is for sure!

In my portraits blog you can see a painting of two of the Jazz Vipers. But you know, even when they were not playing, they were extremely artistic: my eye was caught by this wonderful still life in the break…

If you are interested in buying a print of these paintings, you can order them directly online,  on paper or canvas, in many different sizes, also as Greeting cards just click on the widget below

And if you want to see all the stuff I paint, simply enter my Enchanted World

Back from the Blues

Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, where should I begin?

I have  abandoned this blog for a long time now, precisely since the end of November 2009, apart from a brief appearance on Christmas Day to politely wish everybody a “Hairy Christmas from No Man’s Land”. Don’t ask me now why I wrote that from No Man’s Land, I can’t remember. I just know that these had been tough times for me, in fact not really for me personally within our Paradise, but well, being part of a loveable but quite complicated family, I cannot avoid to share their problems… and believe me, there was a lot of them at that time, the result being that I gradually stopped doing anything, writing, painting, laughing… yes, it was a hard time. The only thing which kept me going was the thought of leaving soon, Kevin and me having planned and booked an 8 week trip through some USA Southern States, starting in Nashville/Tennessee, down the music Highway and back. On many occasions I thought we would have to renounce to it, but eventually we took the plane in Almeria for Nashville on the 9th  of January.

Kevin has written many interesting posts about our trip, in Cafe Crem as well as in his own site mooremusic.biz. I had not the energy to do the same, my only intention there being to relax and to enjoy. I didn’t even sketch much there, perhaps the only thing I regret. But well, the things I normally like to sketch when I travel were not there (lovely artistic or historic villages/towns), and what I would have liked to paint, the music world there, I couldn’t do it. Most of the places we went to to listen to live music were dark, and if by chance there was some band gigging in the street, the temperatures were too low to enable me to draw.

The following sketch is one of the few I did, it was at our first gig in Nashville, in the afternoon, in a bar called “The Second Fiddle”. At that time, I was amazed by “the size” of some Americans, and by their cowboys/cowgirls hats, this is why I couldn’t resist to draw there (almost blind as I could hardly see what I was doing)…

By the way, Kevin has started writing a new album, “Blue Odyssey”. According to his own words:

” it will be a musical diary of our 2 month trip around the American south, specifically in Nashville, Memphis, Clarksdale, New Orleans, Austin and Little Rock – and the musicians and musical influences we encountered along the way…”

If you are interested, you can follow this new musical adventure in Moore:Music