Also, my friend Jen Hykes introduced me to the work of John Brosio, an artist who paints intense, dramatic, amazing tornado images (among other things, including giant monsters and flying saucers)--often incongruously paired with tranquil, sometimes warmly pastoral scenes of everyday normalcy in the foreground. Staggering and absolutely unique. I am reminded of Edward Hopper in some of his work. Please check out John Brosio's website. I did a few new tornadoes myself this past spring. The green one against the yellow background became a wedding gift for my friends Zoe and Alex who recently married in Philadelphia. This is the second time in about a year that I've given a newly married couple the gift of twister, painted with vivid colors and almost cartoonish subtle abstraction. I admit that it's a little bit unusual--and promise that it isn't meant to foreshadow things to come or cast some sort of creepy meteorological curse on the couple. All I can say is that it's a very Mike Jehn kind of wedding gift.
Other new art from the spring of 2014 includes an affectionately splattery visual expression of how I feel about Valentines Day; a bright pastel spiral thing (how else to describe it?!); and a tranquil early evening sky over hilly plains called Barren Blue:
Before Christmas, I attended a really cool DIY craft night for adults (plus food, cocktails, and really good beer) at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum called MAKEnight with my friend Kris Keller. Aside from getting to explore part of the museum while intoxicated and act completely like kids again, we all got the chance to create customized holiday cards with LED lights, craft metal tree ornaments utilizing soldering techniques, and build wild wreathes with all manner of materials at a giant table accommodating no fewer than twenty people crowded around it like Santa's elves. Here's mine, made of plastic bags, plastic beads, twine, leather string, and twist ties:
For Christmas, my mom received a little wall hanging made of hand-burnished keys screwed onto a wooden base in the form of a cross, updating--but also greatly simplifying--the gilded regal aesthetic of Old World religious artifacts using modern found objects:
Meanwhile, my friend Amanda Amodio received for Christmas the latest example of what I consider one my signature (and favorite to make) assemblages: a bottle cap sculpture. I collected the caps from all corners of my territorial range, and the laminated particleboard base came from an old computer desk that belonged to my grandfather.
This next piece was an assemblage that I donated to an art auction benefiting a fantastic new literary 'zine called B.E. and held as part of a fundraiser/poetry reading/celebration at my little neighborhood coffee shop Biddle's Escape. It's constructed of a wooden base that I bought at the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse and spray-painted blue; a deer antler and a dog jaw that I found and bleached; keys, which I love to use and have collected probably thousands of; chain; a little brass padlock to be used as a bell chime; and the bell itself from a dismantled telephone. I heard that this assemblage went to a very appreciative and excited owner.
These last images are of two small oil pastel drawings that I created for my sister Kathleen as companions to a larger drawing called Stained Glass Flower that I drew in 2003 and that Kathleen purchased a couple of years ago. I actually drew these new companion drawings at Kathleen's house in Groton, CT a few days after Christmas; and my three year-old niece joined me for a creative art session. (Well, she joined me for about twenty minutes before losing interest and free-wheeling into another room as young kids will do!)
PS: this post has nothing to do with a 'landlocked lighthouse.' I don't even know what that is. I just like the idea of it--a lighthouse nowhere near water. A lighthouse that exists simply to express the idea or image of lighthouse. The words have a nice cadence to them. It would be a great title for a novel or an album. Blogging is weird...
