Yeah I worry too much

It's like smoking. A bad habit. I get hooked on a song cause I am afraid that I will forget how I love it so much so I play too many times. I wear a tee shirt too many times I am afraid that it will wear out. I eat too many potato chips because I have no control. But I can stop cursing anytime I want.

So where does this leave me.

Well as I was taught, you should care about what people say, but pick and choose from who. I mean the Queen Bully didn't bother me much - oh I WAS HER - sigh. BUT a girl friend? That's a different break down all together.

Loosing sleep, dragging my tail on the floor, writing notes and dropping them in her locker... about how sorry I was... FOR WHAT?

Oh right, not caring about her stupid boyfriend.
Right.
Got it.
Sigh.
So yeah I worry too much and it's the devil's conversation.
I don't want to be a fool or look unprofessional or act immature.

"My mind is on fire. You all have no clue!" I shout. Telling me to stop is like telling a baby not to cry. Easier said than done. I try to do the process of elimination, I talk out loud and cats look at me as if I have lost my mind and I KNOW they are taking notes and stuffing them in the sofa. I will call a friend and talk it and by the time I am at work, I ready for bed.

I've been told I am filling a void. Like smokers do when they quit. Trade cigs for chips. It's all a trade off? Why? We are hooked on trading off, baseball does it so why don't us.
And oh keep a straight face as you do it.

Huh?
Day 4 ain't even over yet.

I think I will write a poem - Idle Worry is the Devil's Conversation.
Watch.

Go see this awesome Trio tonight

Tonight at the Northside Tavern will be Ike Stubblefield, Grant Green Jr and Duane Trucks playing the only way they know how... good.
show is at 10 and door is $10... easy peasy...
Get out and see these wonderful musicians!

The Weekly Skirt Report - Hear Me Out - Do You Care?

This is from last February... please excuse the lateness...

I love a good complaint because I think there's room for reasoning... And after the Grammys a successful art show and such. I think I am line for a bitch fest. So put on your helmets, your goggles and leave ears open!

I am a visual artist in the music industry that has worked with amazing talent from local bands to legends. Some you've heard of and some you haven't but most of it you've heard some how some where. I have worked with visual artists from all levels - over the past few years and if you wanna reach back to my Nexus days - I worked on one of Radcliffe Bailey's first installments. I think after almost 16 years chasing musicians I can say I am a veteran. I don't think about myself that way but...I'd like think I know a thing or two about the importance of art and how it gets under your skin.

I remember from a young age, I would watch all the music shows and then afterwards write my acceptance speech. I was 10 folks. But I wanted to be Elton John, Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt, Pat Benetar and Blondie all wrapped up in one. I have always thought if the song doesn't move me then forget it. Sometimes it wins me over note by note but not all the time. I looked the credits over to see who wrote what and if I loved the song I went back and found THAT songwriters stuff and listened to it - I would read over their lyrics see how poetic it got.

As a visual artist, I would do the same thing. I was drawn to color, texture, composition and if it moved me I'd stand there for a long time. I like work from abstract to photos - the work doesn't matter as long as the eye is good. It could be the worse colors but the composition would grab me. I thought concert photography was brilliant - capturing that second - from a 2 hour show get that inner thought on the outward face. I love layered work, I love political work - I get it more so than most because I don't know...actually - but when some one else doesn't I respect it.

And I am also an art director - so I see it the pain and joy of being in a gallery and the hardship it is to get out there and present it. It takes alot of guts. The effort to get it all together no one understands the process than artist. It's like a music show... the same process different medium.

So why do not care about the quality? One word - Acceptance.

What I am getting at is - do we care anymore - I know alot of you will argue this and or agree - but as a whole group of people. I don't think we do. That's what is missing from art- not the creating spirits but the ones that come and see. As I watched the Grammys and the Allman's - Beach Boys - Sir Paul Mc - it was interesting on two parts: 1-we aren't paying attention to the main center of it all -human connection and 2-we are cheapening something we all take seriously - our record collection...

I don't think he (Dave Grohl) was putting down the creative spirit just how it's presented wrapped up and thrown at us... either you catch it or you don't. If you gonna be creative be honest about it. If you wank a note fine... I think as a society whole - we see that as failure. When it just shows you're human. That's why Adele put everyone in their place with her voice problems after she put out her album - she couldn't do a thing. But the music spoke for her until she was healed. We are so pressured to be perfect all the time when we misspell we go back and *correct* ourselves. Dave feels like alot of artists that we are not connecting anymore. As humans with any medium. And it's not just the successful ones - uber rich - it's all over the map.

it's a fear of confidence a fear of failure a fear of losing... that's what life is about and as a creative spirit we are very vulnerable to that emotion.

So as art comes and goes, we as creative spirits, there are moments as viewers and artist where we attach our selves to that moment. And when it doesn't go the way we wanted it to go - and we let it make us, creative spirits, get miserable. Then you hear speeches like Dave Grohl's last night - saying folks it's a human thing to give you this - art - this creative thing that makes you feel - so please let us feel that too from you. There's a certain energy that comes from an audience to the artist that makes the creativity flow out. That's probably why Bruce Springsteen's shows are long... the energy is a conversation that won't stop.

As for visual art people are people just not into it anymore? Is there too much going on for our senses to stop?

So start caring about what you listen to and watch and view and read... it's important for us that created it because it's our spirit that is getting thrown about.

The Ballad of Marcus Dupree

11/23/2010

Burned rubber on the green green grass

Airborne into the light unknown

Covered in old Mississippi Mud Pie Clay

He sits at home looking for love

Someone to hug

Without a pick pock

Someone to love

Without a traveling bone

Given any Friday, Saturday or Sunday

Taking it all in like a Christmas Tree

Glittered from head to toe

In stickers and in rings

From a tiny town with very little

From a scar that had overgrown

Ball was the only glue that stuck

And he was the their streak of luck

All he wanted was a friend

One he could count on

Like you; like me but never again

His smile and laugh are contagious

But his fear is driving him home

Back to Phily Miss

Back to hit or miss

Good Morning Sunshine

This is a great view point on what we should do when the world doesn't get us:
http://megansbeadeddesigns.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/handeling-the-haters/

A Mid-Summer Art Reception For Helen Ferguson-Crawford

A Mid-Summer Art Reception For Helen Ferguson-Crawford

July 19^th at The Defoor Centre

Atlanta, GA- The Defoor Centre once again brings the cool to you, with a mid summer art reception with Forum Gallery artist, Helen Ferguson-Crawford and her abstract paintings. The party will be on July 19^th from 7-9PM with wine on hand.

Helen is apart of the all female artist show The Paper Dolls, with 6 other artists from all over the world. With a foundation of architect Helen walks a crooked line on her journey when she approaches the canvas. She plays with adjacencies of color, form, texture and line to uncover the sublime nature of familiar places and situations. This wraps the viewer into her story and leaves them breathless.

For more information: http://www.helenfergusoncrawford.com

About the Defoor Centre:

The Defoor Centre is located off Howell Mill Rd in Atlanta in the reviving Westside neighborhood, where a lot of local vendors that cater to the interior designers have been going to for years. The Centre has been a growing facility hosting major fundraisers to corporate meetings to private weddings all in house catering with a full bar. 100 years ago this place was a hospital for the soldiers fighting at the Battle of Peachtree Creek and to this day they are “still there.”

For more information on the Defoor: www.defoorecentre.com or just come by Tues-Friday to get something to eat and browse – 1710 DeFoor Ave Atlanta GA. On Facebook-www.facebook.com/defoorcentre or search for the Defoor Center ARTS group!

Good Afternoon Friday Clock Watchers...

Or should this be called "I'm sorry that you don't like my art but thank you for telling me, so NOW I can finally delete someone off my list": 

http://www.burnaway.org/2012/05/fluid-poetry-there-again-at-kibbee/

I saw this link on my news feed and I probably wouldn't thought much of it but Preston Synder said this before the link:

"no such thing as "bad press".....?....hmmm.......come and form your own opinion, Rich Gere's closing Saturday from 7-9...."

THAT caught my eye. I am a PR chick during the day and I've seen my share of the good, the bad and the f-ugly. BUT oddly enough, there's an unwritten law about music reviews... if you don't like it don't review it. NOW AH NOE - this happens and some writers can do this tactfully. And some can't. My husband reviewed a cd YEARS ago and it was called "I Hate These Songs" and he reviewed with: Me too.

Classic... we all loved it. Not because it was mean or hateful only because it was gonna happen and thank God we took it in a humorous manner. You know the times when you say something... some one says... "well you walked into that one..." 

NOW - I have seen/heard bashing, I've been told to expand my vocabulary and I have witnessed my canvas being destroyed all because my horizon line was off. A tad. 

And after years of being in the music business, I"ve been yelled at by the best of the best where the best words were used. So I can honestly say I have thick skin. I can refer my years of being in my high school marching band for my preparation of growing my thick skin. Thank you FCHS. 

OK now, back to the article written by Karen Tauches on Burnaway.org. 

I am all for voicing my opinon and writing hate mail when I see if it fits. BUT there's a small problem with this - it seems like she's not paying attention. She took the artist statement to heart and expected better than what she saw. And that's gonna happen. We as artists know that. Already. I get the disappoiintment factor. It happens. 

I can see her suggestions aren't too crazy and I too have a HARD TIME with titling work. It's unfornate we can't just say this is it and be done. We have to put a title to it so the viewer can be guided towards a conclusion. And for songs it's usually the hook, the main line of the chorus and it's just for organizing at stores and on radio... or we'd all hear the song " I Love You and You Love Me" a million times a day. 

But after a few paragraphs of the massive let down she had she began to turn her head towards the Ponce Crush galleries which are located down by the Poncey-Highland area of Atlanta. If you eat at Fellinis on Ponce you can see it. 

BUT what she doesn't understand is this: Galleries are already hurting. Artists are STARVING. And to kick the dead horse one more time and REMIND US is tacky. We are working on being more financially succesful, better at promotion and bring an "experts" is probably harder than you think.

Being the Art Directior at the Defoor Centre I am in charge of over 20K square feet of keeping art on the walls. The artists are DIY when it comes to the hanging, their display cards and the over all presentation. We're aren't the High or the old Nexus buidling but we are there. We are supporting local and emerging artists, where we could just go buy hotel art and be done with it. Then you'd have something totally vaild to talk about. BUT until you have walked a mile or a just a few feet in our shoes.

The musicians, the visual artists, the book writers, the journalists...we are paying attention to the world around us with magnifiers. We are what you say back: "Wow I love it or I hate it." but do us a big favor lay off the snarky comments. Please. 

So when I read this type of thing it seems lazy as if she was done with gallery showing and had extra room to write, so she babbled a little to far... if she had a problem or wanted to express her disappointment she should've made an appointment with the gallery and discussed it with them. 

As for as the artist, I am sorry that he had to endure this... I mean getting press for anything anymore is truly the hardest thing to get so we get desparate and take it all. Why? Cause it makes US feel better. 

In the wise words of an old client of mine once said: "They didn't get me..." 

So to Karen Tauches I say, please rethink and see if you have one article or two or maybe one article and a good meeting with the gallery.... and we are truly sorry that the lighting wasn't up to par.