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1963 Spacewalk Revisited By: The GYPSY

The Artist Life: Am I A Figment Of Your Imagination Or Am I One Of Yours

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AM I A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION OR AM I ONE OF YOURS

As I sit here watching the words appear upon the screen of my laptop I have to ask myself; Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?

I remember drawing a man walking in space. I carefully rendered the image with my 6 year old hand upon the Manila paper with the fat crayons. I remember getting a Dixie cup full of water and dipping my paint brush into the clear liquid. I moistened the small pat of blue paint and soaked my brush with the azure liquid. I rinsed the brush in the water turning it light blue. Dip, moisten, rinse, dip, moisten, rinse until I was satisfied with the shade of blue within the cup. I then started brushing the diluted water color across the surface of the paper; back and forth, forth and back I went until the large sheet of paper was covered. Years later I would learn that this was called a “Wash” but on that day I was just was trying something new.

Did I know that I was supposed to do this or did someone tell me how to do it? The sands of time have coated my memory and fogged my vision. What I do remember is my first grade teacher, Miss Pyle, making a big deal out of it. I remember the picture being on display in the Clay Elementary School hallway for a long time. I remember my Mother and Grandmother excitedly telling me that my picture won the number one place in the State of Kansas. I did not understand what that meant but they were excited and happy so I acted excited and happy too.

I remember a newspaper reporter with a big camera taking my photo and asking me how it felt to know that I was the number one artist in my age group in the country. I remember two years later when the same reporter asked me; “How did you know two years ago that man would walk in space?” I remember my Mother and Grandmother being so proud that my simple picture was on display in the Smithsonian Institution. I remember asking, “What’s a Smithsonian?”

My Mother once looked at me and said; “I don’t trust you, when I am old you will put me into a nursing home and leave me there to die.” I argued that I would never do that and that if she ever did need to be in a nursing home I would not abandon her and just “Leave Her To Die”. She did not believe me and said, “Your sister will take care of me, unlike you.” I told her, with as much conviction as my 15 year old mouth could muster, “Pat will not take care of you but I will.” When the time came Pat did not take care of her… I did.

How did I know Man would walk in Space? How did I know my Mom would need me one day? I have known these things and so much more about my life. I once heard it said that life is a canvas upon which an unfinished painting resides. No one knows what the next brush stroke may bring. But within my life the canvas is not unfinished; I know what the next brush stroke will be and where I will put it.

I cannot tell you why or how that I know what the painting of my life will be I just know that it is. Sometimes it weighs heavy on me, this knowing. I often feel like that Astronaut, coupled to his capsule by a thin life line as the void of space beckons. He cannot be distracted by the darkness around him; he must forever keep his eye on that silver metal life raft which floats high above the planet of his birth. Some day the space man will re-enter his capsule, secure the hatch and plummet at 185 miles per hour like a shooting star back from whence he came. But today he will not fall back to earth; today he shall live in a crayon Universe and swim in a wash of blue in manila space.

-The GYPSY-

Xunantunich Pyramid in Belize

The Artist Life: Inspiration From A Haunted Pyramid

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Inspired To Paint El Castillo Pyramid at Xunantunich in Belize

The moment I saw the photograph of the El Castillo Pyramid in Belize I knew that it would be on my list of future paintings I would create, People have not inhabited this site in western Belize for a thousand years, but something else is said to roam the place.

Belize is a Caribbean country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It borders Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south.

The name Xunantunich (Stone Woman or Maiden of the Rock) was given to this ancient Mayan archaeological complex in the 19th century. The name is said to be derived from the sighting of a ghostly figure of a woman who disappears as one gets nearer to her.

Other aspects of these city ruins are decidedly more solid: Six plazas and more than 25 palaces and temples are preserved within roughly one square mile, situated high on a plateau above the Mopan River.

The Maya civilization spread into the area of Belize between 1500 BC and AD 300 and flourished until about 1200. They left behind monumental cities and pyramids. Few are as awe inspiring as El Castillo.

Sometime soon in the near future I shall take brush to canvas and create my version of the ghostly and majestic giant that has survived far past it’s creators.

-The GYPSY-

Before The Storm Oil On Canvas Board By The GYPSY

Anatomy of a Painting: Before The Storm

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“Before The Storm”

By Romani American Artist J.A. George AKA; The GYPSY 16″ x 20″ Oil on Canvas Board.

A Throwback Thursday offering. This painting from 2006 was my first attempt at painting a seascape. I had always shied away from seascapes but on this particular day I was feeling adventuresome.
I originally had not intended to make the clouds so bold and dramatic but as I started layering them I could not help myself. The sea was originally calm with gentle waves but with the boldness of the clouds I could feel the approaching storm. To offset the drama of the clouds I gave the water it’s own boldness as it rolled in “Before The Storm”.
I do a Christmas giveaway every year of one of my paintings and this one went to a sweet lady in Coffeyville, Oklahoma who had some health issue. She said of the painting, “I feel like I am the sea and once I get to shore I will be calm. This painting makes me feel peaceful.”
-The GYPSY-

Pore Richards Watercolor Painting By The GYPSY

The Artist Life: Pore Richards

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“Pore Richards”

Watercolor Painting By Romani American Artist J.A. George AKA: The GYPSY

As a child my Saturdays and summer breaks centered around youth activities at the YMCA located, at that time, at SW 8th and Quincy in Topeka, Kansas. The youth area was in the basement of the one time USO building and was a virtual boys club. No girls were allowed in this sacred area that included pool tables, lounge area with large color television, which most homes did not have at the time, hobby shop ran by the wise, talented and noble Mr. Anderson and an Olympic size swimming pool.
Activities included Judo lessons, handball, basketball and trampoline in the gymnasium. Field trips ranging from tours of Frito Lay and Coca Cola to Flights on small planes at Billard airport. My first flight on an airplane was captured on a front page story in the Topeka Capital Journal during one of these field trips. And let’s not forget swimming lessons from Louie the Lifeguard (I eventually obtained the Junior Life Saver level after Louie threw me into the pool after I refused to swim but that’s another story for another day) and open swimming in the afternoon when the pool became no mans land.
Yes, for a boy the YMCA was a world filled with opportunity, education, wonderment and fun. Now days there is a parking lot located on that southwest corner that was once a bastion of a boys life yet that is not what this posting is about, no it is about the business that once sat at the opposite corner from the YMCA; Pore Richards Beer ’N Stein Café.
When I would walk to or leave the YMCA I would always notice the big black sign with the neon lettering and the caricature of the funny little Hobo on top with his “Toe Peek A ing” out of one shoe. I had always assumed that the silly little Hobo with the large round spectacles was the fabled “Pore Richard”. I always found it funny that the adult who had made the sign did not know how to spell the word “Poor” and I wondered if Mr. Richard had been upset when he first saw the sign.
There was never really anything about the sign nor the exterior of the building that would appeal to your appetite to invite you in yet it was a Topeka tradition and a Topeka gathering place. My grandmother would sometimes take a business lunch in this mysterious restaurant that was off limits to one of my tender age.
Yes, almost everyday of my young life I saw Pore Richards and his image became such a familiar sight to me that even to this day when I hear the term Poor Richards Almanac a vision of the funny little Hobo comes to mind.
I had vowed that one day, when I was an adult, I would have a “Beef ’N Stein” in the famous Café. But alas, that was never to be. As with so many things and places held dear to so many peoples heart “Pore Richards” passed into history and the pages of the past.
Sometimes I think about the iconic sign and wonder what happened to it. Is it collecting dust in someone’s storeroom that swears, “I’m going to do something with that someday!” or was it recycled for the metal that was in it. I personally would like to see it in a museum where future generations can smile at the friendly little Hobo but barring that I think the recycle scenario would be the best thing that could have happened to the sign.
I smile when I imagine the stoic little Hobo being the front grill of an expensive recreational vehicle rolling down the highway, freed from the confines of the sign and doing what a Hobo does; traveling the highways and the byways of America. I lift a Stein to you my dear unknown friend and your memory; Pore Richards.

-The GYPSY-

The Blue Albino Woman Of Topeka By The GYPSY

The Artist Life: The Blue Albino Woman Of Topeka – By: The GYPSY

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The Blue Albino Woman Of Topeka

Watercolor Illustration and Story By Romani American Artist J.A. George AKA; The GYPSY

This Watercolor Illustration Was Used In The Blue Albino Woman Episode of Discovery Channel’s Monster’s and Myths in America.

Allow me to relate the strange tale of the Albino Woman to you my faithful readers. The story of the Albino Woman is a ghost story that has touched me in the past and will again become part of my story in the future. The cemetery she haunts, Rochester Cemetery, is located on the northwest outskirts of Topeka, Kansas and is the final resting place of my family as it will also someday be the final resting place of my wife Raychel and I.
This ghost story has its roots in the life of a strange albino woman who wandered her north Topeka neighborhood at night and glared at children on their way to school during the day. As a child she had been mercilessly teased by her classmates. That taunting had followed her to adult hood as the neighborhood children would call her names and yell insults at her. After the friendless woman died in 1963 of mysterious circumstances residents began reporting a glowing white female figure walking in the area after dark especially along Shunganunga Creek.
Often the sightings were near Rochester Cemetery where the woman was buried and near which Shunganunga Creek flows. To this day employees of the nearby Goodyear Tire Factory claim to see her regularly, and some neighbors see the apparition as often as once a week.
It was August of 1964 and I was trying on clothes in the dressing room of the children’s department on the second floor of Pelletier’s Department store which my Grandmother was Manager of. It was time for me to get my new school clothes. School was going to start soon and I would be entering the second grade.
Suddenly the door to the dressing room flew open and there stood a tall veiled woman dressed entirely in black. her red eyes were visible through the dark veil as she reached out a gloved hand towards me. As the arm came closer I saw with horror the pale almost bluish flesh of the arm between her sleeve and glove. I let out a scream and she froze in her movement. Appearing behind the tall frightening figure was the small stature of my Grandmother. Summing up the situation quickly my Grandmother forcibly ordered, “Leave! You are not welcomed here!” The veiled woman slowly turned as I crouched back against the wall. I heard my Grandmother repeat, “You are not welcomed here.” She then ordered, “Now leave!” The tall figure with the red eyes and bluish skin silently glided past my Grandmother and towards the stair well. I ran to my Grandmothers arms and watched, along with the employees that had come running when I screamed, the frightening figure descend the stairs and quickly disappear.
I was to learn later that this was the Albino Woman who had died the next year. I was not to learn until four years later why she had sought me out.
The Rochester Cemetery’s caretaker and his wife had a close encounter with the ghost of the Albino Woman late one night in 1968. As they pulled their car into the driveway they saw a figure scurrying among the gravestones. Thinking it a child playing a prank, they aimed the car’s headlights at the figure, which was then kneeling before a grave. When the caretaker got out of the car, the ghostly figure stood up and glared angrily at him and walked deeper into the cemetery. The caretaker was so upset he called the police but the officers found nothing.
The ghost’s route was so regular that one resident began watching for it as it strolled across his lawn on clear nights. Eventually, he claimed, the figure began to pause and gaze at his house as though it wished to speak to him. It began to pass closer and closer to the house until one night it stood at his children’s bedroom window and watched them as they slept. The man was badly scared, but the apparition never harmed his children.
This was not the only house that the Albino Woman looked within the windows. One hot summer evening in 1968 as I lay asleep, my bed by the window to catch what little breeze drifted into the bedroom. We were poor and air conditioning was not a luxury we could afford so a rotary fan moved the stagnant air around the room. I was awakened by a scratching sound at my window. In my groggy, half asleep state I thought it was my cat, Blue Boy, scratching at the screen. “Stop it girl,” I mumbled. That is when my cat hissed. I opened my eyes to see Blue Boy, her back arched, her hair on end and hissing at the window. I rolled over and looked into the glowing red eyes of the Albino Woman who was standing right outside my window glaring at me with an intense stare that was without emotion. I screamed and scrambled out of my bed.
My Mother came running into the room and saw the hideous apparition standing at the window. “Leave us alone, damn you,” my mother screamed, “leave us alone!” My mother grabbed my arm and shoved me from the room. “I am sorry, OK?! I am sorry! Now leave us be!” My mother yelled as she exited the room and slammed the bedroom door close.
I found out that night that the Albino Woman had lived in a house in my mothers childhood neighborhood. My mother and her friends had taunted the poor hapless woman everyday as they walked to and from school.
I have not had an encounter with her since the night my Mother apologized almost 40 years ago now. But it is said that she still walks along Shunganunga creek and prowls the interior woodlands of Rochester Cemetery at night. Do me a favor will you? If you are ever in Rochester Cemetery and you meet a tall woman dressed in black with piercing red eyes and pale bluish white skin, don’t tell her that you know me or that you know where I live. I’ll have a word with her after I am laid to rest there.

-The GYPSY-

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Thank You For Looking At Our Listings. May God Bless And Keep You And Yours Always.
-The GYPSY and Mad Hatter-

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Along The Shunga Trail Oil Painting By The GYPSY

The Artists Life: Along The Shunga Trail

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“ALONG THE SHUNGA TRAIL“

Oil Painting By Romani American Artist J.A. George AKA; The GYPSY

I get bored easy. Because I get bored I have to constantly be doing something which may explain my artistic nature. I create to keep my hands, eyes and mind from becoming too idle. But I do not create the same things over and over again for to do that would once again bring me back full circle to boredom. So it is that as I create I explore. I explore new ways of doing what I do best; Create art.
When I was a child growing up in Topeka, Kansas I explored not knowing that my explorations would bring about a lifelong need to see what was behind a closed door or around the next bend in the road. Growing up always near or by the Shunganunga creek which meanders through the Capitol City afforded me many opportunities to explore, learn and reach out to a world I would embrace not only as a child but also as an adult.
Long before Shawnee County Parks and Recreations conceived of a pathway following the Shunganunga there were those, like myself, that knew of and explored the many twists and turns that ran alongside the creek. Shawnee County did not create the Shunga Trail, it has always been there since the beginning of time; all they did was to cover it with concrete and put up pretty signs.
So it was as I started out to create my painting, “Along The Shunga Trail” that I sat out to explore a new path I had not traveled before. I usually will create the background for my paintings using acrylics. They are fast drying and allow me to move ahead quickly with my oils on the foreground. With this painting though I had in mind to create the entire scene using oils and a pallet knife. Unfortunately for me however that exploration led me down a path that I did not enjoy.
I laid the canvas to one side and stepped away from it, my attention drawn off on to other adventures and other artistic explorations. Then one day I placed the canvas back onto my easel and let it occupy my mind for a few days. I let it call to me, pleading to be explored and finished. Today I answered it’s call.
Forever the explorer I looked at the path I was to create and follow and thought to myself; What can I do different? Looking at the textures the failed attempt with the pallet knife had left on the canvas a solution came to mind. I determined that the best way to forge this trail was to create the scene with one brush. When I paint I usually use a large assortment of brushes to complete a painting especially when I am painting a scene. Yet this day I would attempt to explore my memories using one simple brush; a number 6 half inch flat synthetic bristle brush.
As I child I would poke and prod at the tadpoles and crawdads that inhabited the calm pools along the banks of the Shunganunga. As I had once poked and prodded at the creatures of the creek I poked and prodded at my canvas until I was satisfied that my hand had captured what my eye had seen within the flowing waters of my mind.
So without further ado I present to you my newest exploration; “Along The Shunga Trail”.

-The GYPSY- January 21, 2022

“Art must evoke an emotion in order to be art. If it only creates indifference then it is not art, it is garbage!”

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The List Acrylic Painting By The GYPSY

The Artist Life: The List

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The Night Santa Saved Christmas By: J. A. George AKA; The GYPSY

The wind rustled the plastic on the windows at 433 East High popping the artificial storm windows in and out like the breathing of some transparent rectangular monster trapped within the window frame. This was made even more unsettling by the fact that the plastic adorned the windows on the inside of the house and not the outside.
Jimmy and Patty sat on the couch, a blanket wrapped around their bodies to insulate them from the cold. The floor heater cracked and groaned but did little good to chase off the cold in the drafty un-insulated little house on Topeka’s east side. Jimmy and Patty watched the old GE black and white TV reflect back images of Bing Crosby as he, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen and Danny Kaye sang about a White Christmas. Jimmy looked over at the little tree in the corner, the red, green and gold bubble lights sending their tiny endless stream of bubbles up the tubes to go nowhere and disappear in the glass tip of the cylinder. He then looked back at the black and white image of the tree behind the four singers and though their tree was gray within the flickering image Jimmy knew it was a grander tree than he would ever have.

“Is Santa coming tonight?” asked Jimmy’s seven year old sister. “Yes”, Jimmy assured Patty, “But only after your asleep”. Jimmy was 13 and had stopped believing in Santa Claus when he was 9 or 10. Jimmy did pray however that if Santa Claus was real and he was wrong about his existence that he would brave this cold Kansas Christmas eve night and visit their house. Jimmy got up off the couch and led his sister to the bed room she shared with their Mother, Shirley. Tucking her into her bed Jimmy went back into the living room and curled up on the couch to wait for his Mom to come home from work.

As he watched a Cockroach scurry across the floor he prayed that his Mom would remember to pick up some bug spray when she came home from work. The roaches had been bad for the past few days ever since they had ran out of the deadly aerosol the week before. Jimmy watched the little brown creature explore the floor and wondered what went through a roaches head as they scampered to and fro. He hated cock roaches and had no remorse as he picked up a shoe and smashing it flat upon the bare painted plywood floor. Ah, thought the boy, a heel goes through their head. He chuckled at his own small joke. Jimmy left the carcass lie and turned his attention back to the old TV where the Norelco Santa was sledding down the hill on an electric razor.

Jimmy had dozed and was dreaming of dancing mice and singing slugs when the sound of the front door opening jerked him awake. “Hi Mom”, he said rubbing sleep from his eyes, “what’s for dinner?” Normally Jimmy would not ask such a question as he was perfectly capable of fixing him and his sisters meals when his mom wasn’t there but there was no food left in the house and the two children had not ate that day. Shirley looked at he son with a forced smile and said, “Tonight we are going to do breakfast for dinner.” She held up a bag that contained a loaf of day old bread and a carton of a dozen eggs. Jimmy knew what that meant for he had to eat breakfast for dinner before. It meant mom had no money so she had scraped together some change to buy the quarter a loaf bread and the thirty five cent carton of eggs. It was the cheapest meal his mom could throw together outside of a box of Macaroni and Cheese which was also a staple in this home.

Jimmy took the brown paper bag from his mom and headed for the kitchen to drop bread in the toaster and heat up the skillet for eggs. Before he dropped the bread into the toaster he turned it upside down and gave it a shake. The cock roaches liked to hide inside the silver box to feast upon the bread crumbs on the bottom. Jimmy hated the smell of cooking roach so he always checked to make sure none were in the machine before inserting the bread.

Shirley sat down on the couch exhausted. She worked three jobs and still could not make ends meet. She would finish her shift as a proof reader then rush across the street to Pelletier’s Department store where she would assemble bicycles for rich children and wrap presents for even richer parents. On Saturday and Sunday she worked as a PBX switch board operator for answering service near Washburn University. If it wasn’t for the “Aid To Dependent Children” check she received from the state every month to pay her rent and the government commodity allotment she received she might have had to give up her children to Social Services to be placed in foster care. Sometimes she wondered if the children wouldn’t be better off.

Shirley felt fortunate to have her job at Pelletier’s especially since her and her mother had exchanged words three years previous which had led to the eviction of Shirley and her children from her mothers home. Her mother could have fired her from Pelletier’s but didn’t. Her mother was the manager of the large upscale department store. Maybe, Shirley would often think to herself, she keeps me on to alleviate her guilt for kicking me and the children to the curb. The truth of the matter was this however; Pearl, Shirley’s mother, did not feel guilty nor had she tossed her grandchildren out. She had told Shirley to leave but that the grandchildren could remain but Shirley choose, through stubborn pride, to take her children with her. Though Pearl refused to speak with her daughter until Shirley apologized for what she had said to her mother during that argument 3 years hence, Pearl kept Shirley working. Shirley was a phenomenal gift wrapper and a skilled assembly person and Pearl knew it would be bad business to fire such a person from the Pelletier’s team, daughter or no daughter.

Shirley could smell the eggs Jimmy was cooking and looked up as her daughter exited the bed room rubbing her eyes. “Mommy I’m hungry.” the little girl said rubbing her eyes. “I know dear,” Shirley said as she brushed the child’s hair from her face with her hand, “Your brother is fixing eggs.” Shirley looked at her daughter and hoped she would go back to sleep quickly after eating her eggs and toast. Shirley wanted to finish knitting a poncho that she was making for her daughter. She prayed that Patty would believe that Santa had brought it to her for Christmas. Shirley did not know what she would tell her son but she hoped that he would understand why he was getting no present this particular year.

Shirley sighed and laid her daughter on the couch. Covering her daughter with a knit blanket she had made and told her that she would call her when the food was ready. Well, thought Shirley, I better go back and let Jimmy know that there will be no Christmas presents for him this year. Shirley was standing in the kitchen at the back of the house explaining to Jimmy how it is not important to receive gifts on Christmas when the knock came at the front door.

At first it was ever so soft and could have been just the wind shaking the door when the knock came again. A little louder and more urgent Mother and son both looked towards the front door as Patty cried out, “Mommy, someone’s at the door.” Shirley and son headed for the front of the small house. Shirley was concerned for it was almost 10:00pm and she couldn’t imagine who would be knocking on her door this late on a Christmas eve. Jimmy got to the door first and flung it wide letting a blast of cold air fill the house.

Jimmy stood slack jawed looking at the box upon box upon box that filled the front porch. Shirley was speechless and could not imagine that what she was looking at, dozens of brightly wrapped packages, was real. Patty put a name to it as she scurried towards the front porch and the gifts it bore. “SANTA” the little girl cried out, “SANTA” Jimmy, his mom and sister spent the next few minutes bringing packages into the house. As they got towards the bottom of the stack Shirley discovered several boxes filled with food including one box just full of wrapped meat from a butcher shop. One box had canned goods while another had things like pasta and cereal. But the box that fascinated Jimmy the most was the one that contained a turkey that was almost as big as his sister.

The children begged their mother to let them open the presents but she told them “NO, Santa wants you to open your presents on Christmas.” But the children weren’t listening all they knew was that there were presents to be opened so Shirley relented and let them pick one package each to open. Patty’s package contained a new “Malibu Barbi” doll while Jimmy’s package contained a Zorro Hand Puppet. How did Santa know that I like puppets? Jimmy wondered as he fell off to sleep later with a full stomach.

Christmas day the packages revealed a Cornucopia of presents for the children. Dolls, Games, Slot Car Race Tracks, Hot Wheels Cars, Doll Clothes just to mention a few of the children’s items. There was also clothes for the children from socks to shoes to sweaters to coats. New dresses, new pants and new shirts galore. Shirley watched as the children ripped open and revealed their presents and she knew that Santa had, in her hour of need, visited her children. She was a little sad, thinking that Santa had forgot about her when she saw the small Robin egg blue envelope at the bottom of one of the boxes with her name typewritten across it’s face. Shirley picked up the envelope and with trembling hands opened it. Inside was a note that read;

Josten’s American Year Book, Mass Ave. Topeka, KS 8:00am Monday December 29th. Shirley E. Stewart report to Proof Reading Department for orientation. Starting Salary”..

Shirley sat down hard on the couch and read the starting salary again. It was $50.00 per week more than she was making holding down 3 jobs. She swallowed hard and began to cry. “What’s wrong mommy?” Patty asked. Shirley looked at her children in their new clothes holding their new toys and she could smell the turkey cooking in the kitchen where the cupboards were full for the first time in a long time. “Nothing,” she said, “Not one damn thing.” She grabbed her daughter and pulled her close as Jimmy stepped on a cockroach. “I wish Santa had remembered the bug spray!” the boy said as he sent the pest to bug Heaven. They all laughed together, and each in their own way, would forever know that Santa Claus was real and had visited their small home on Christmas Eve of 1969.

******
In March 1981 during the last visit I had with my Grandmother before she passed away the subject of this visit from Santa Claus came up. I asked my Grandmother what she knew about it and if she had a hand in it. She smiled that smile that let the world know that she was up to some sort of mischief then sweetly and innocently said, “Now Jimmy as I recall I may have said something to Santa about Shirley needing some help but it’s been so long ago I hardly remember”. She then changed the subject and the matter was dropped and never brought up again until Christmas of that year.

Grandma sent a small package of presents to me, my wife and daughter for Christmas. For my wife she sent a antique silk hanky with a Parisian print on it. For my daughter, who is a Christmas miracle herself being born on Christmas eve, she sent an old fashioned small plastic doll with a knit outfit. My Christmas package from my Grandmother contained a Zorro hand puppet and a card that merely read “Ho, Ho, Ho”. I held that puppet close to my chest two months later when news came of her passing.

Is Santa real? Yes he is and I will never think otherwise for he once saved Christmas for my family.

-The GYPSY-

“Art must evoke an emotion in order to be art. If it only creates indifference then it is not art, it is garbage!”

This story is included in my Book “Blogging Kansas: Musings From The Land of Oz” Available on www.Amazon.Com

Copyright Tatman Productions LLC – All rights Reserved. No pictures or text may be copied and or used without the express written permission of the artist and author.

"Fritz Durien Hall Of Fame Warehouse" By: The GYPSY

The Artists Life: Fritz Durien’s Hall Of Fame Warehouse

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THE ARTISTS LIFE: “FRITZ DURIEN HALL OF FAME WAREHOUSE”

Water Color on 9“ x 12” Cold Press Paper By Romani American Artist J.A. George AKA; The GYPSY

What Carry Nation did to keep Kansas dry, Fritz Durien did to keep Kansas wet. From his Hall of Fame Saloon Topeka Barkeep Fritz Durien kept stashes of the good stuff at various locations under the floor boards of his Saloon. Not one to go down easy Ol’ Fritz fought the battle against Kansas Prohibition all the way to the high court.

The photo that this painting is based on struck me for it’s stark simplicity of an act of defiance. Fritz is not making a grand gesture rather the gesture is simple and speaks volumes. You can almost hear Fritz thoughts as he stashes his treasure; My customer’s will not go thirsty. But more importantly neither will I. 

Fritz’s battle with the government hit’s close to home for me. I also had a battle with church people and a city government that wanted to close down my little neighborhood tavern in Baxter Springs, Kansas because of the evilness of liqueur and beer. I fought the good fight but eventually grew tired and moved on. Fritz also eventually gave up the good fight, closed his Saloon and headed off to Germany. In a strange twist of ironic fate the “Hall of Fame” Saloon went from selling hard liqueur to selling soda pop after Fritz had left the building.

-The GYPSY- July 7, 2021

“Art must evoke an emotion in order to be art. If it only creates indifference then it is not art, it is garbage!”

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Copyright Tatman Productions LLC – All Rights Reserved. No pictures or text may be copied and or used without the express written permission of the artist and author.

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Sealion Women and Mermaids Doing Autopsies on Things While The Bad Ass in the Corner Looks On - Oil Painting By The GYPSY

The Artists Life: Sea Lion Women and Mermaids Doing Autopsies on Things as the Bad Ass in the Corner Looks On.

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The Artists Life

“Sean Lion Women and Mermaids Doing Autopsies on Things as the Bad Ass in the Corner Looks On.” By: J. A. George AKA; The GYPSY was inspired by the writings of artist Baroness Ampersand and the sinking of the Titanic.
 
Inspirations From A Baroness
 
My friend, artist Jana Jones AKA; The Baroness Ampersand has a way with not only the tip of a brush but with the written word. She paints with vivid color in both mediums visual and literary. I sit fascinated and enthralled by all she writes because she writes of The Artists Life, as she calls it and which we now carry on with our art blogs. I understand her ramblings and can relate to the depth of the soul from which they pour for I live the Artists Life daily.
 
Understanding her metaphors and similes (is that redundant?), is like deciphering a foreign language for the beginning student unless of course you are fluent in that language. Which I am! For so long I did not use that language, then one day I discovered Jana and rediscovered my artists tongue. So long unused I, at first, stumbled over the phrases, words and inflections. But I am again becoming fluent with that language of cryptic images and layered meanings.
 
I slowly fell out of use with the language during my relationship with my first wife. She could not understand and thought that it was crazy that I insisted that she not talk with me when I was creating. My concentration was such at the time that any disturbance killed the soul of my work. She was not an artist, she did not understand. Over time my art took a back seat to the desires of my penis. My brushes and pencils laid virtually untouched for years. Once in awhile I would pick them up, brushing off the dust and cobwebs but the passion was gone and I had forgot the language and they would, before long lay again untouched.
 
Oh if she had just understood and had not suppressed the language what art I could have made. She was an exotic dancer and was art in motion what paintings I could have created, what magic would have been revealed upon the canvas. But alas she had no understanding and I allowed her to engulf me in her desires instead of my own. After twelve years her needs became more than I could fulfill and she, like the Succubus she is, left me to drain a new victim.
 
As I began to recover and was starting to rediscover the language I fell prey to another Succubus. This one envisioned herself an artist, a decorator if you will, but never understood that lime green and burgundy are not complimentary colors. She continued the draining the first demon had begun and I started to shrivel and my soul started to wane. She drank and drank until I had no more to give. She drained my emotion, she drained my passion, she drained my bank account and when all was drained that she could drain she left me, as the first one had, for her new victim.
 
Oh, I fought her, I strived in numerous ways to regain the language, I did not succumb easily but in the end I lost the battle. I knew I had lost the battle the day she said, I feel nothing when you touch me. Her draining was complete. She left me with, I was looking for a good father for my children and I at least accomplished that. Used, abused and thrown away I lay crumpled, broken, drained. The language was, or so it seemed, forever lost to me.
 
Enter the next moment in my Artist Life; Debbie. One day Debbie said to me, I wish I could paint. With those words the lock was turned within the door that held her artists soul. That door was flung wide and Debbie discovered, more and more, her own artists soul. Yet the day came when Debbie had no more use for me and tossed me aside like an old rag used to clean the paint off your brush. I was old, worn, tattered and of no further use to her.
 
I was crushed, my artist soul wounded and in danger of being lost forever then into my life stepped a true artist that had suffered similar triumphs and defeats as I had, someone that understood the Artist Life struggle; Raychel AKA; Mad Hatter. Being a caring beautiful Native Queen she took pity upon this poor peasant nursed and healed me at a time when I felt I was forever lost. Though neither her nor I knew it at the time, she as an artist, nourished me with her artistic soul. She fed me small amounts so that I would not become greedy and engorge myself and slowly I gained strength and started to again understand the passion and language I had lost.
 
As Mad Hatter breathed life back into my artists soul Jana reminded me of my native tongue. And in reminding me of that language so long forgotten she has struck up, within me, inspiration with her words. One example has already come to fruition and started with this phrase;
 
“A series of narrow doors, painted green, still line the side of the building, and if you don’t look too closely you can see the whores leaning on the door frames, smoking Lucky Strikes, back lit by the dim light of the interiors, calling out into what was an alleyway.”
 
This phrase from a writing of Jana’s inspired my painting “Whores In The Alley Smoking Their Lucky Strikes.”
 
Musings by Jana are the inspiration for two works I will be completing in the near future and one already completed derived from the same writing;
 
“Miss America contest, circa 1950, when it actually meant something and I thought about Mermaids and Sea Lion Women, and wondered where they must live, in the ocean. – I also thought of my father he is the bad ass sitting in the corner, waiting for somebody to fuck up. – And I imagined two Sea Lion Women, pecking at the drama because they like to perform autopsies on things.”
 
These phrases led to a work that I had, within my mind, “Sea Lion Women and Mermaids Performing Autopsies On Things As The Bad Ass In The Corner Looks On.” It took over a year to complete the painting. I kept getting blocked; my mind would not communicate with my hand and I could proceed no further. Outside of Jana’s phrases of inspiration I was missing the key element that would bring the work together. That element was found when I visited the Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri.
 
The next inspiration came from one of Jana’s writings in which she states;
 
“The local Madame DeFarge laughs and knits.”
 
When I show off my knowledge of Dickens Literature with a follow-up comment soaked in metaphors from “A Tale of Two Cities” Jana shoots back with;
 
“GYPSY I wonder if you will paint a Madame DeFarge, knitting and laughing wickedly. Don’t give her red hair. But hopefully, you’ll paint black tights with a little hole in them, on her legs.”
 
This has inspired a future work which is bouncing around in my head as “Madame DeFarge Laughs and Knits as Madame Guillotine Sings.” I find black tattered tights sexy so they will somehow be included in the work and whether or not the antagonistic Madame DeFarge has red hair remains to be seen.
 
Last at the moment, but certainly not least is a inspiration derived from a quote in one of Jana’s writings today. It seems as though the Baroness Ampersand has lost a very dear friend whose pleasant memory is a piece of her artistic soul. The memory and force of the loss is evident within the writing as you read the cryptic passage from her past;
 
“I’d read a book during that time that talked about The Third Reich’s entry into France . The title to the book was, Is Paris Burning? I don’t remember the contents of the book, except for one particular fact. Hitler called his general every day and asked the same question, until he got the answer yes. Is Paris burning? And I linked the three questions in my head, at the time. Every day when The Art Teacher asked, Are you still a virgin? Have you been in his bed? I would answer, Is Paris burning?”
 
The work that is even now germinating in my head will simply be called, “Is Paris Burning.”
 
Mad Hatter breathed life back into my artistic soul and Jana breathed life back into my work. Neither of these women set out to intentionally help me to rediscover my artists tongue but just by their words and actions both have helped me to rediscover the passion that lies within the language of the “Artists Life.”
 
Who knows what future inspiration they will give birth to within my fertile soul but I anxiously await that next rush of creative erection that will climax in what I refer to as “A Mental Ejaculation Spewing Forth Creative Juices.” Thank you for the artistic ménage trios Ladies you both leave me spent and satisfied!
 
-The GYPSY-
“Art must evoke an emotion in order to be art. If it only creates indifference then it is not art, it is garbage!”
 

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