Heel Moster

This monster is the Foo-Foo type that walks an expensive white dog in the neighborhood. Perhaps she is a bit like the madame in "101 Dalmations," but with the single word of "Heel," she keeps the spoiled beast on the thin and narrow.

Not in the Mood

The ruffled head gives this monster a pensive, thoughtful stance. Could you imagine putting all the energy in this stance over something as mundane as asking oneself "Is tomorrow going to be a good day?"Why even waste the effort asking such a question? Tomorrow is what you make it. Tip: Get a planner.

Working with Genius Pablo Ferro

My article on Blogcritics about my lucky break working with artist Pablo Ferro. Here is a collage of 2 pictures of the model I painted for a Rolling Stones live concert in VA, while working with Pablo.

Working With Genius Pablo Ferro

Written by Larry EstesPublished April 16, 2009

For one evening in 1981, I was working with someone that famed director, Stanley Kubrick, calls a genius. I call him a willing accomplice in my first lucky break.
His name is Pablo Ferro. He pioneered techniques for editing hand-drawn titles for such classics as Dr. Strangelove, Clockwork Orange, and Beetlejuice, among others. He won an Art Directors Hall of Fame Award in 2000. You will be hearing more about him next year as a documentary about his creative contributions to film comes to completion.

In December of 1981, the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia was a stop on the Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You tour, which featured a nationally televised HBO-broadcast of the concert. I was working at a record store as a display artist when I got the call that I had several hours to “tattoo” a nude model, part of the opening act for a live Rolling Stones concert.

Needless to say, I was a bit nervous. Not only had I never painted on the fleshy surface of a human body, I never had to perform work under the scrutiny of Hollywood types and under the pressure of the strict deadline of a live concert by musicians billed as the “greatest rock and roll band in the world.”

I stopped at the local five-and-dime store and purchased brushes and some acrylic paint, then I sped off to Hampton. Like clockwork, a bus met me in the parking lot and Pablo opened the door to let me in. We pulled up to the backstage entrance to the coliseum.

Within minutes I found myself in a small room with Pablo and a drawing table. I was informed I was replacing the original artist that was just fired because the letters he stuck on the model kept peeling off. The model was fired, too, because she was too curvaceous for the letters to adhere.

Within minutes, the new model walked in and disrobed. I asked her to lie on her back so I could “tattoo” her face like Mick Jagger’s is done on the Tattoo You album cover. Another woman kept making the rounds with a tray full of grapes and other fruits. After I finished painting her face, I started adding similar black patterns to her nude body.

Pablo had been busy sketching letters on paper, but after a while he gave me full creative freedom, saying, “You got it.” Finally, I was told to add in color, the radio station numbers where the concert was being broadcast.

Soon, the videographer began a serpentine sweep from her feet to her head, scanning the numbers, while I was doing last minute touch-ups. It was a surreal experience to be in this fast-paced, creative zone where one action overlapped into another.

In retrospect, I can look at that experience as a privileged peek into the working mind of a genius. I have a new appreciation for text because of Pablo's obsession to treat it as more than just labels, and unleash its hidden magic as if it were some kind of dormant hieroglyphic yearning to erupt.

Years ago, I tried to find some information on Pablo, but I couldn’t. Last night, in pursuit of something to write about, I tried again, and was surprised to find so much information on his impressive career.

Lingering questions about who he is will continue to be edited out of our collective consciousness. In my case, my memories of working with Pablo have just become a lot more meaningful.

No Cussing

This monster looks confidently adamant about enforcing violations on his beat. No badge, no medals, no walkie talkie. Just good old intimidation. O yeah, he is carrying a stick of sorts.

Magnetic Personality Monster

Some monsters have their personality types incorporated on their body designs, sort of like wearing a sign on one's forehead that was given at birth that describes a dominant feature about the wearer. Would it make it easier to find a mate? An employer? Or would it be too much information too early, defeating the "getting acquainted discovery" stage of a relationship. Anyway, here he is - Mr. Personality wearing his namesake on his arm, or rather, head.

RAIN DANCER MONSTER

What happens when a monster is getting ready to do the rain dance and it is not neccesary to do so, and even detrimental to area crops? For those Trickster-dominant monsters, we have the "Don't Dance" Rain Non-Maker Monster. History books have stubbornly ignored their importance in the survival of tribes and their painstakingly nurtured crops.

Candy Sawhead

That awful candy from Christmas - that's what his colors suggest to me. This monster has a saw head, thus his name "Candy Sawhead." He is coming out of his wrapper - a sort of rebirth, yet his facial expression reveals his anxiety at still being imprisoned in the form of a consumer product. Is he freer without his wrapper? Who knows for sure. He needs a home - buy him and use him as the framed mascot above your candy dish. Original and full of personality - Candy Sawhead. Only $149.

Caliko Monster

The name "Caliko" was inspired by my fondness of cats that color and the speckled patterns on carpet foams. What's in Caliko's hands? That's one of the things I want to ask him. I would guess he has a needle, thread, and an arrow, but who knows, I was only the drawer. Original monster drawing $185.

Easterman Monster

From my monster pages around April in the mid 1990's. I just named this one Easterman, not only because today is Easter, but because he brings to mind the Easter Island statues. I went bike riding today with my wife in the neighborhood I grew up in and there was a replica about 2 ft. tall of one of those statues in someone's front garden. I will sell this pen and magic marker drawing for $195. I can't tell you why I was compelled to draw some 100 monsters in April in the 1990's.

Half Moonie Boxer Monster

One of the creatures from my monster pages, sheets that I just drew monsters on. When I title them, I use my own well of memories of imagery and literary elements. This one I drew in the mid 1990's, but just named it minutes ago - "Half Moonie Boxer," influenced by half moon shapes and the word "moonie." My first run in with the Moonies was when I was in Florida way back when - they would stand on the busy streets, like Sunset Blvd, and sell flowers from a basket. They wore 60's style garments and seemed very happy. This boxer is ready to fight and go ahead and try to break his nose - he don't have one! This original magic marker & pen drawing, "Half-Moonie," $195.

Magic Marker Monsters

From left to right, Quaad, Inca Ray, Diplo, Magi Blue, Rye Catcher.

In the 1990's, pages of monsters emerged in my art journey. They became a magnet for color as I used magic markers to give form to my penned shapes. They had an eerie nature that suggested that the right spell could bring them to life. I wrote in my notes, as a description, "...combining the primitive with the technological, the ancient with the present." I will be posting more soon.

Hard-Knocks Drawing Style Featured at International Show @ Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

My drawing "Here" made the International Show. It already won a "Best in Show" Merit Award (Three were awarded) last Spring in the Madison National in Madison Georgia, juried by Sylvie Fortin of ART PAPERS. I explore passionately the relationship between the fragility of the surface - paper, and the harshness of the drawing tool - a pen. The bliss expressed here is a result of a strong devotion to the medium. There is a geometry of the corrugated paper from the rips that contrasts with the seemingly raw "rush through the fields." Paradoxically, I "destroy" the very surface, including the linework, I was creating. Held together by a keen sense of timing, rather a sense of urgency, this is representative of the fast-paced times we are moving through.

Setback

Now that my laptop has been stolen and my camera, I will have to go through a lot more trouble to access my pictures to post on this blog. No, I didn't back up everything. I'll have to manually search for material that is boxed up in the "art" room. But some things like saved emails are gone for good. Years ago, around 1990, a similar thing happened, when a friend's trailer I had stored art in was vandalized. One day after work at the factory, I walked through the overgrown grass and towards the tree where the trailer was. Leading up tp the trailer were balled up pieces of paper. My heart dropped when upon closer examination, they proved to be my drawings. This discovery was a hint of things to come - a trailer where my works where scattered everywhere, varnish and paint splashed here and there, and the windows busted out on all sides of the trailer. Perhaps, the most disturbing finding was a few early drawings of human forms imprisioned by box-like framen - they were found stuffed in the bottom of the trailers non-working toilet. I tried my best to salvage them, but it appeared useless. I never found out who did it.

The Green fields of a Blue-collar dream

Those little seconds-long installations on a dream begun over twenty years ago is beginning to bear fruit. The rocky steps from the mill, where the call was heard to the opening exhibition of an international show, I knew if I kept with it, didn't give up, I would have a voice, that is directly related to its beginning, that like a seed, unfolds into a strong expression of itself. However simple it is to the human eye, it has a rich tapestry of archetypal patterns. "The world is your oyster," I say in each of these drawings.

The International Show at Summit 2009

The notification call came December 22 - that I was selected for final judging, meaning I'm in the show at least. I should like to frame the work to express a bit of my thoughts on my medium. Something to this effect - "Paper is not a surface, it is my dance partner..."

Art History in One Picture

From the dust-filled, noise-filled, factory floor, where dreams were broken and life beyond this black hole was hardly imagined, emerged my drawing style. A small gesture - mounting a flip-top drawing board next to my machine on the line, sealed my path. My original drawing board was torn down once by management, but weeks afterwards I mounted this less conspicuous flip-top version. Pictured here is a very abbreviated summation of the series that emerged. I will show how hieroglyphic, figurative, and abstract fragments eventually came to completeness in my continued unfolding path towards achieving a voice, a language in the visual arts. I will expand upon it for world-wide exhibitions. Mark my words.

Gillette Razors Landmark

Conceptual works offer food for the thinker. And to a passionate artist, it offers a bit of a counter weight to his/her usual mode of expression. For this proposal to Gillette, I took a piece of aluminum, resembling a chunk off the production line of a number of razors and cut a diamond shape out of it, pointing the upper half towards the sky, revealing a split-level design of the background architectual wall.

Smallpox Monument Working Design

Using art to promote a sense of healing and historical commemoration as in the case of the Eradication of Smallpox Monument is the most fulfilling experience. I can put my mind and soul to its best use in concocting a design that addresses symbolism as well as aesthetics and a sense of majesty. I had to work the evening of the submission deadline, but after stopping to get gas and rushing through traffic with my working scale model and my pictures of it, I made it home in time to write the proposal and download the jpegs.
In my piece, I have humanized 4 Bifurcated Needles, the technological heroes of the eradication fight of smallpox. With joined arms raised in a victory stance, these 4 figurative, stylistic needles stick straight into Mother Earth, healing the Earth itself. The concentric rings within the 4 figures representing the 4 "corners" of the Earth, represent the various stages of the disease Mandala-style, from the red initial bumps on to the darkened scab in the center, which I propose to be lifted at the ceremony to reveal a pockmark on the Earth. The rings are composed of beads in the working model, and will be offered as souvenir amulets at the ceremony, to raise money and awareness. For the actual monument, colored rocks from 4 "corners" of the Earth will be utilized. It is an Earth sculpture to symbolize the breadth of the scourge. The raised arms symbolize the wave of life (as on a hospital screen), as well as victory. I've given a spiritual tone to this monument that blends the science, the Earth, and humanity.