Show #105 August 10, 2013

This one's for Georgia O'Keeffe and all artists everywhere!

Georgia O- The Nields Play 
Modern Art- Art Brut Top of the Pops
Sun In An Empty Room- The Weakerthans Reunion Tour 
A.R.T. Art- Advertising Advertising Jingles 
Paint By Numbers- Code Blue Code Blue
Art School- The Jam Direction, Reaction, Creation 
If Lonliness Was Art- Allo Darlin' Allo Darlin'
Paint Her Face- The Records Smashes, Crashes and Near Misses
^Vincent- Don McLean Vincent 
Postcard of a Painting- Maximo Park A Certain Trigger 
Pop Art- Screams Screams
(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures- The Rezillos Can't Stand the Rezillos: The (Almost) Complete Rezillos 
Artists Only- Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings And Food
Abstract Art- The Flying Colours Abstract Art 
*Meet James Ensor- They Might Be Giants John Henry 
*Goodbye Toulouse- The Stranglers Rattus Norvegicus 
*Pablo Picasso- The Modern Lovers Most Fun You Can Have with Your Clothes On: Beserkley Story
*Max Ernst- Mission Of Burma 12 Classic 45s 
*Escher- Teenage Fanclub Thirteen 
*Magritte- John Cale Hobo Sapiens
*Interiors (Song For Willem De Kooning)- Manic Street Preachers Everything Must Go
*Lichtenstein Painting- Television Personalities Mummy Your Not Watching Me
>Andy Warhol- David Bowie Hunky Dory
*Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)- Superchunk Here's to Shutting Up 
*Jeff Koons- Momus Stars Forever 
Art Must Go- Future Dads 24 Winship 
Night Windows- The Weakerthans Reunion Tour 
Modern Art- Matthew Sweet Modern Art
Hello It's Me- Lou Reed and John Cale Songs For Drella 

^Power Pop Peak:  #12 Billboard Hot 100 3/18/72

*SacroSet:  ArtistSongs

>Power Pop Prototype:  1971 

Maple Oak, our cabin

The Love Family recently returned from a week long Art and Music Camp at River's Bend in Philo, CA.  Jaime taught drama to a super cute group of little girls who were obsessed with ABBA and I helped out with the afternoon music class.  Like many of my fellow campers, this is the only time all year that I indulge the "artist" within.  Along with a startling lack of talent, I am way too much of a perfectionist to be any kind of real artist.  I become overly focused on the final product and it never meets my expectations.  Even this year, I was initially disappointed with the raku teapot I worked on all week.  Yet as I look at my teapot now (see photo at the top of this post), I don't see its flaws as much as I remember the fun I had helping mix up clay in a kiddie pool with my feet, forming it around a river rock I picked out myself, building the feet, spout, handle, and lid, then glazing and firing it.  All of this amid conversations with my fellow pottery classmates.   

My time at Art and Music Camp inspires this week's ALL KINDSA GIRLS salute to visual artists.  I've had the idea in the back of my mind for a long time, going back to 2011 when I saw The Weakerthans play "Sun In An Empty Room" live.  Edward Hopper is my favorite artist and band songwriter John K. Samson seems to feel the same as this is one of two songs on the Reunion Tour album inspired by a Hopper painting:

Sun In An Empty Room- Edward Hopper 1963

"Sun In An Empty Room"- The Weakerthans

Now that the furniture's returning to its Goodwill home
With dishes in last week's paper -
Rumors and elections, crosswords, and unending war
That blacken our fingers, smear their prints on every door pulled shut
Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit,
 
Take this moment to decide (sun in an empty room)
If we meant it, if we tried (sun in an empty room)
Or felt around for far too much (sun in an empty room)
From things that accidentally touched (sun in an empty room)

Hands that we nearly hold with pennies for the GST
The shoulders we lean our shoulders into on the subway, mutter an apology
The shins that we kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry
The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified

Know the things we need to say (sun in an empty room)
Have been said already anyway (sun in an empty room)
By parallelograms of light (sun in an empty room)
On walls that we repainted white (sun in an empty room)

Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room

Take eight minutes and divide (sun in an empty room)
By ninety million lonely miles (sun in an empty room)
And watch a shadow cross the floor (sun in an empty room)
We don't live here anymore (sun in an empty room)

That's one of the things I love about great visual art; it just sits there and we make of it what we will.   Here are the other artists that inspired songs on tonight's ALL KINDSA GIRLS:

Blue and Green Music - Georgia O'Keeffe 1921
"Georgia O"- The Nields

Vase With 12 Sunflowers - Vincent van Gogh 1888
"Vincent" - Don McLean

(My memory is a little hazy, but I think my mom had a reproduction of this van Gogh painting hanging in our kitchen in Brockton, Mass.  I remember eating breakfast and staring up at it.  In fact even as I look at now, I'm tasting Fruity Pebbles cereal....)

The Bad Doctors - James Ensor 1892
"Meet James Ensor" - They Might Be Giants

Jane Avril - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1893
"Goodbye Toulouse" - The Stranglers

(Mum was big on the Post-Impressionists, along with the Van Gogh she also hung a couple of Gauguin reproductions, and a print of this Toulouse-Lautrec poster was in our family room in Duxbury for years)

The Old Guitarist - Pablo Picasso 1903
"Pablo Picasso" - The Modern Lovers

Celebes - Max Ernst 1921
"Max Ernst" - Mission of Burma

Print Gallery - M.C. Escher 1956
"Escher" - Teenage Fanclub

The Lovers - Rene Magritte 1928
"Magritte" - John Cale

(My favorite song discovery this show is John Cale's "Magritte" - I love the line "pinned to the edges of vision" and he offers great advice with "somebody's coming that hates us/better watch the art")

Gotham News - Willem de Kooning 1955
Interiors(Song For Willem de Kooning)-Manic Street Preachers

The Melody Haunts My Reverie
Roy Lichtenstein 1965
"Lichtenstein Painting" - Television Personalities

(Back in the early '90's my friend Francie introduced Jaime and I to a woman who worked for Roy Lichtenstein.  I figured that meant stretching canvasses or mixing paints but she actually painted on the canvas herself.  I was shocked!  You'd think that 25 years after Warhol introduced the "Factory" approach to art I would have been hip to the concept but I still pictured the lone artist sweating over a canvas in a tiny studio looking out over the rooftops of Paris....)

Self Portrait with Skull- Andy Warhol 1978
"Andy Warhol" - David Bowie

Polka Dot Madness 4 - Yayoi Kusama
"Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)"- Superchunk

Michael Jackson and Bubbles - Jeff Koons 1988
"Jeff Koons" - Momus

(I know a lot of people think Jeff Koons is a charlatan but I get a kick out of him.  I saw this Michael Jackson sculpture while it was at SFMOMA fifteen years ago.  I'd been looking at it for five minutes or so before I noticed that MJ has three arms!  This, of course, made me love it even more.)

I'm going to wrap up this post by thanking all the teachers at Art and Music Camp, especially pottery instructors Joel and Michael who started our week with a trip to the river to dig up clay and ended it with a brilliant raku firing Saturday night.  Thought it didn't turn out the way I planned, my teapot has really grown on me and now I'm actually proud of it.

Also, my first try on the pottery wheel!

I'll leave you with the second Edward Hopper-inspired song from The Weakerthans' Reunion Tour

Night Windows - Edward Hopper 1928

"Night Windows" - The Weakerthans

In the stick count for the song with knowing you're gone
Glancing up at where you lived when you lived here
I see you suddenly alive and nearly smiling
Stop and hold my breath and watch the way we used to be

The full moon makes our faces shine like over-ironed polyester
Then disappears behind the clouds
And leaves me under empty rows of night windows

We could walk to where these streets get pulled together
Blinking, lined with gravel, shoulder squared towards an end
Where the radio resounds from doppling traffic
Where the power lines steal lessons from the hourly news

Depluralize our casualties, drown the generals out in static
We turn and watch our city sprawl and send us signals in the glow
Of night windows

But you're not coming home again, and I won't ever get to say
"Remember how I'm sorry that I miss the way it could be"
"Remember how I'm sorry that I miss the way it could be"

Night windows

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ALL KINDSA GIRLS #105