JANIS JOPLIN

The late 60’s

 

THE ROCKERS

                                                   



                                                  



                                                    


                                                



                                               























In the beginning....                                                 

    I was watching a documentary about Janis Joplin late one night.  More than half way into the film I was in a trance watching her ethereally heaving herself across the stage deeply immersed in the blues.  Her hair was flying fiercely about and quite suddenly, like a light wave, my mind saw everything with brilliant clarity....I must put all this energy on canvas.  Not just paint her, but somehow convey the emotion and the visceral effect of that music....of that time.  I envisioned her hair whipping thru tie dye color.... and thus became the birth of the Rock Series. 

   

Fast forward to the present....

  

     That’s how the series began for me six years ago.  Life got really busy and the road I traveled changed dramatically.  It took me several years just to get the first three together.  But when I did, it was magic!  I have since then sold Jimi Hendrix to a designer in NYC, who placed him high upon a brick wall of an upper East side Manhattan home...perfect!   And Jim traveled to Florida, to live with a musician, again, perfect  Janis is still with me, it’s hard to let her go.  I attempted to keep painting three to a group to represent each decade.  The last being Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and Elton John, from the early 70‘s, all with the Union Jack as their back drop.  But I wasn’t getting my mojo jumpin, my heart kept wanting to go into a different direction, I found that attempting to stick to a format, limited what I needed to express.   

   

        I realized I needed more from the experience of my work.  I began getting restless and wanting to mix it up a bit.  In the past I had done a lot of work around guys and their bikes.  So after a photo shoot I did for an ad of an attorney with his pristine classic, I admitted that I still had an expression I needed to address in this area.  So that opened up the whole field for me.  I decided to do a gritty painting of Jessie James and show all the boys just what I could do with men and their tatts and toys.  However, right in the middle of painting, he decided to tarnish his reputation for a bit...but I think the air has finally cleared and now I’m ready to move forward with this idea.  I changed the name of the series to


“    Rockers, Bikes and Tatts”

I think that pretty much says it all.  


    Now I just needed to extend my artistic muscles and do something more with texture, layering and color, and see what boundaries I can cross.


    That’s where I’m at today....pushing my limits to see how far I can go.  So stay tuned, things are a brewin...and  this could finally be the thing that really sets me free.   Rock On!


                   











THE ROCKERS