Chuck Close

You know how you can always tell a Barry White song in the first few bars?  There's that Barry White essence in the music, distictively him?

That's one of the reasons I love Chuck Close's paintings.

Chuck Close is an American photorealism painter who mainly paints ginormous portraits, mostly of family, friends, and collegues. 

Here is a self-portrait from 1968.

I first learned of Chuck Close watching a documentary about him one Saturday afternoon several years ago.  I had never heard of him before.  The documentary (I think it was a South Bank Show) described how in 1988, he suffered a spinal artery collapse that left him paralyzed from the neck down.   After much physical therapy, he regained modest use of his body.  He discovered that he could still paint by taping a paintbrush to his wrist and by applying thick blotches of paint to the canvass essentially creating "pixels."

The documentary was interesting but then I kind of forgot about it until a couple of years later during a visit to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.  I remember wandering upstairs away from my friends to one of the big modern art rooms.  At the room's entrance, directly across from me, was an enormous almost floor-to-ceiling Chuck Close self-portrait.  This isn't the exact one I saw, but similar.

I then walked up closer and saw the pixels.

Then, I'll never forget....I looked down at my Chuck Close leaflet and saw one of his watercolors from before his artery collapse and I could tell it was the same artist.  I mean, obviously, I KNEW it was, but the thing is was that I could TELL...His essence could not be repressed.  

Even though he could not paint at all in the same way that he used to be able to, both paintings had that Barry White distinctiveness.

I tell you it gave me chills, and I felt this beautiful glow.  It was one of those moments I'll always remember.

A great book about Chuck is Martin Friedman's "A Close Reading." 

Marion Cajori's documentary "Chuck Close:  A Portrait in Progress" is fantastic too.

Bill Monroe

There's a blue moon tonight, which reminds me of Bill Monroe. 

As a teenager, I saw Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys at Armadillo World Headquarters.  I enjoyed the show, but it didn't blow me away at the time.  It was just another fun night out with the gang.

When I was 38, I decided I didn't want to turn 40 without ever having learned to play a musical instrument and picked banjo.  I had never been a big bluegrass buff, but had a friend years before who played banjo and I always loved the way it sounded.

I bought a 300 dollar banjo and signed up for lessons at South Austin Music.  I didn't want to become a great musician, just be able to play O Susanna on the back porch if I felt like it.  After six months of lessons, I could play a few songs (pretty slowly), but I was never disciplined enough to practice my rolls so my playing was just what I aimed for...light picking on the back porch kind of thing.

Around that time I learned of this cool place in Maryland called Common Ground on the Hill that holds a week-long music and arts summer camp for adults.  Fun!  I signed up for the banjo classes and booked my plane tickets.  

My teacher was Bill Keith.  Yes, THE Bill Keith!   Can you believe that?!  There were only seven or eight of us in class and I was by a million miles the least learned, but I could have cared less.  Just to sit and hear Bill Keith tell stories of being on the road with Bill Monroe in the 60s.... To listen to Bill Keith and all the other fantastic camp musicians/instructors hold jam sessions until 2 to 4 a.m. every night... 

Bill Keith told us about Bill Monroe's makeshift softball team, and the old station wagon they toured in, and Bill Monroe's unfailing dapper dress.  But the main thing I really GOT for the first time was how dramatically Bill Monroe changed country music forver.

He said that before Bill Monroe, country music had been one of two things:  light and sweet (lots of doofy skits) or gospel-centered. 

Bill Monroe revolutionized country music in inventing bluegrass.  He introduced hard-drivng, fast, hardcore, country music on steroids...with the most incredible playing you ever heard in dapper suits.  No cute overalls and straw hats for Bill Monroe.

Bill Keith told us it was the punk rock of its day.  Shocking initially, but soon spread like wildfire.  This new bluegrass sound infused the industry with new blood that elevated country music to heights it had never seen. 

I returned home and bought Bill Monroe's boxed set and listened with fresh ears.  Kentucky Mandolin, Roanoke, Lonesome Road Blues, Pike County Breakdown...

Ahhhh, happiness....

So tonight, under the blue moon, I'll think of Bill Monroe and how grateful I am to have come to appreciate bluegrass (better late than never).

Here's a little clip.  It starts slow, but wait for it!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffhqOy_A8KM

Bob Dylan

When I was five or six I decided I didn't like pizza.  I can't remember the exact moment, but I knew I didn't like it, and would never eat it.  This is what happens sometimes to only children living in a house with five adults (mother, grandmother, grandfather, uncle, and housekeeper).  Eh-em.

Fast forward to my first semester of college.  My roomie Vanette saying, "WHAT?!  You don't like PIZZA?!   We're going to Conan's."

Oh!  Mi!  GOSH!  Pizza is good.  Hey Mikie!

It was kind of like that with me and Bob Dylan.  I never paid him any nevermind one way or the other through school, then I moved in with a guy (Peter) who worshiped him.  WORSHIPED.

We lived in a tiny, teeny, squeezebox of an apartment at Speedway and 35th.  Sunday mornings, Peter woke up, pulled out his guitar, sat on the couch, and "Isis O Isis," only louder.  Much, much LOUDER.

Lordy.  That very first time he did that I decided I hated Bob Dylan.  ickyeeyuckypoopooargh.

Make it STOP!  Please!  HEP ME!

Fast forward ten years.  Peter and I have long since broken up and I now am living with Ryan, who is in a punk rock band that practices Tuesday and Thursday nights in our spare bedroom. 

O Irony, thou white dog!  Anyhoodles, I'm driving home from work one crisp, cool, sunny fall day and I'll never forget the moment....

I'm listening to KGSR and Tombstone Blues comes on...Hey!  HEY HEY! 

Hey Mikie!  Up until then I always quickly changed the station if Dylan came on...but no more baby!

Oh, was I a fool....

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper is one of my favorite painters.  Depending on my mood, I'll look at his solitary figures and feel sometimes peaceful, sometimes alone.  I love the way he paints light.  I love the way he paints shade.

Each year, I receive an Edward Hopper calendar from one of my closest friends. 

Calendars and coffeetable books never show the exact colors and shadings of the real deal. So in spring 2008, I went to Chicago for the first time primarily to see the massive Hopper exhibit at the last of its three-city tour.  I had only seen one Hopper in person before then (in San Antonio's McNay), so I was excited to go.

The actual paintings were incredible, just wonderful.   May I also say that I was very happy to see all the crowds and long lines to get into the exhibit.  I was there toward the end of the Chicago stay, and asked one of the museum staff whether the lines had been that long the entire show.  He told me they had. 

That was very heartening.