Smile Now — Contest Over

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on November 1, 2009

Smile Now Con­test — Over…

And we have NO win­ners, but the runner-up prizes of Red­bot Loves You! but­ton sets will be sent out to the clos­est guesses.

Answers to The Smile Now Contest …

Artist Name: Willem de Kooning

Painting’s Name: Woman 1

About the paint­ing (from the MOMA web­site)

De Koon­ing took an unusu­ally long time to cre­ate Woman, I, mak­ing numer­ous pre­lim­i­nary stud­ies and repaint­ing the work repeat­edly. The hulk­ing, wild–eyed sub­ject draws upon an amal­gam of female arche­types, from Pale­olithic fer­til­ity god­desses to con­tem­po­rary pin–up girls. Her threat­en­ing stare and fero­cious grin are height­ened by de Kooning’s aggres­sive brush­work and fran­tic paint appli­ca­tion. Com­bin­ing volup­tuous­ness and men­ace, Woman, I reflects the age–old cul­tural ambiva­lence between rev­er­ence for and fear of the power of the feminine.

The Clues…

• Tues­day — Octo­ber 13, 2009 - The artist is NOT Andy Warhol…
• Wednes­day — Octo­ber 14, 2009 — The weld­ing mask and the artist’s name have a pho­netic con­nec­tion… try stretch­ing the sound and play­ing with the word “weld­ing” :) (try sound­ing that out now that you know the answer is Willem de Koon­ing — I know, it’s a really stretch)
• Thurs­day — Octo­ber 15, 2009 — This artist was mar­ried and their spouse was also an artist. (mar­ried to Elaine de Kooning)
• Fri­day — Octo­ber 16, 2009 — This artist came from Europe and did their major work in the United States.
• Sun­day — Octo­ber 18, 2009 — This artist was an Abstract Expres­sion­ist painter.
• Mon­day — Octo­ber 19, 2009 — The cut-out and attached smile is a big clue. (the big goofy smile on Woman I came from a cut-out mag­a­zine smile, I was think­ing about that when I first made the weld­ing mask smile the attach…)

Thanks for participating!

In reflec­tion, this might have been pretty obscure, it seemed obvi­ous to me at the time…

The Man Says

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on October 26, 2009

Just a reminder from The Management…

Have a nice week!

The Fly Shaker Band

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on October 25, 2009

Back in the 90’s we had some friends in a band called Fly Shaker…

Pic­tured In The Draw­ing Above: Brian play­ing bass and Tim on gui­tar as they ride on the Fly Shaker Mothership…

I just wanted to share this mem­ory with you.

Enjoy!

Street Art — An Appreciation

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on

Street Works

Red­bot, and this site — Red­bot Loves You! has grown from my love of street art…

That includes both the art posted by artists with stick­ers, sten­cils and other means, and also the art of the street, the ran­dom and anony­mous works I pho­to­graph — the chance works and other details which I find and rework — appro­pri­a­tion born of appreciation.

Here’s a Gallery of graph­ics I’ve made from images I’ve pho­tographed here in Long Beach — I call this group Street Work

Street Seen

This next Gallery is of var­i­ous pho­tos I’ve taken around Long Beach of oth­ers art work, many of them from back in 2007 at Taque­ria La Mex­i­cana on 4th Street when peo­ple could put stick­ers on the win­dows… Enjoy!

PS. I made and posted the Dick Cheney sticker on the Lost Dog flier…

A Few Redbots for Las Vegas

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on October 19, 2009

Thurs­day — Vaca­tion Time Arrives

After a cou­ple very busy weeks for Red­bot and myself, it was very nice to get away to Las Vegas (or, Lost Wages, as I often call it…) this week­end with my wife Tania and to meet with her cousin from Min­nesota, Maria, and her hus­band Mark.

We planned this trip months ago, and when the time arrived we were very much look­ing for­ward to this brief vaca­tion in that odd lit­tle city of elec­tric lights in the Nevada desert.

You wouldn’t call me a huge Vegas fan… I’m not a gam­bler, and my brain often get’s over-stimulated by all the sounds, lights, col­ors, the strange faces and out­fits of ordi­nary peo­ple cre­at­ing a mov­ing phan­tas­magor­i­cal weird-land… some­times that fills me with strange won­der and other times I hear a lit­tle voice in the back of my head say­ing, “run away, run away…”

This time was more of the lat­ter for me — the rea­son being I was on the verge of an exhausted col­lapse and the need of days of unin­terupted sleep­ing to recharge my bat­ter­ies after all the intense Red­bot fun, and other activ­i­ties of the pre­vi­ous few weeks.

I call that a good exhaus­tion. All good stuff, all great times (except that root canal thing), but I’m not a Red­bot of end­less being and energy — I just make them.

Below: That’s me catch­ing a bit of sleep with my dog Mose­ley once we got to the hotel…

But once we got out onto the Las Vegas streets my eyes auto­mat­i­cally started into the process look­ing for places to stick Red­bots — this town needs some Red­bot love I kept thinking…

Fri­day — A Small Red­bot Army for Las Vegas

Below: I pre­pared a hand­ful of Red­bots before we set out on Fri­day afternoon…

I picked up a Star­bucks cof­fee (Vinte — $3.30) as we left the Westin Hotel and headed over to The Bellagio…

Below: On Flamingo Road we left our first Redbot…

We walked a lit­tle fur­ther and found a great loca­tion on the side of the 24/7 Liquor store…

Below: Jon and Red­bot. Photo by Tania

Below: another view with me in it, from the side… photo by Tania

While we waited at The Bel­la­gio for Maria and Mark, Red­bot got into the flower arrange­ments in the lobby under­neath the great Chi­huly glass ceiling.

Below: Bel­la­gio Red­bot Flower Inspector

Fri­day Night — Other Stuff…

Our big plan was to see The Bea­t­les LOVE by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage — which we did on Fri­day night. WOW!

This is the first Cirque du Soleil show I’ve ever seen in per­son and I was in a con­stant state of amaze­ment and happy won­der at the magic of it all… this is what I would call a  “Spec­ta­cle”. If you have a chance to see it, don’t pass it up.

We wan­dered around some after the show and towards the end of the evening we stopped at a bar way down The Strip that served Chi­may — an excel­lent Bel­gian beer, said good night to Maria and Mark and took a taxi back to our hotel and our dogs, Mose­ley and Suki.

Back Home Again

Tania and I enjoyed a beau­ti­ful and lazy Sat­ur­day after­noon drive across the desert, fol­low­ing I-15 through Barstow and down the Cajon Pass where it fans out into all parts of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, includ­ing a num­ber of Free­way choices which will take us back to our home and stu­dio in Long Beach, where we arrived in time for the dogs evening walk.

It’s good to be back in Long Beach.

Las Vegas Gallery of Photos