The Art of Consciousness and the Sound of Sexual Confidence
Last night was the opening at the Inner Sunset cultural mecca, the Canvas Gallery for a show called Combined Weight, made up of artists working for Pixar. I felt the most interesting work at the show was by Liz Amini-Holmes. She has been doing illustrations for some poetry at www.madhattersreview.com, where I am the art director, and find the artists to illustrate the pieces, and work with them on that process. Liz went so far as to illustrate not only each poem, but each stanza. That is true artistic passion. Some of the works created for our next issue, due online May 15th, were included in her large display of art at the Canvas. The show continues through May 22nd.
Her art at the show holds together extremely well as a whole, and makes a statement about consciousness. Almost every piece features a face,often disconnected from a body. Each face is transformed by its relationship to its surroundings. The faces represent consciousness in a non linear relationship with emotion, concept, personality, situation, dreams, the physical world around it, and life itself. Consciousness is about free association, symbols, fragments and collages of different feelings and memories, not simple, tangible straight forward local, chronological, simple, direct relationships. This is certainly how I approach life, and I can identify with her work strongly. Her images are acrylic, or giclees made from acrylics, very reasonably priced in their fine frames, and go together as a set or seperately.
There are a few images that are not faces, but the context makes them seem almost like they are. She has a few images of trees, and they seem to represent the consciousness of the trees as personalities. Only a couple include bodies, one being a distortion of the Red Riding Hood story, which is absolutely beautiful, a must see for anyone interested in that evocative fairy tale.
Also last night was the annual benefit for AIDS Lifecycle at Thee Parkside, at 17th and Wisconsin. There was a lovely mobile kissing booth with a girl sporting it whose sexy punk outfit included a fetching gashed mesh top. Sponsers had donated goodies such as tickets to Burning Man and a guitar, for the silent auction. A large contingency of the crowd was creatively gender bending, and they felt freer to express themselves more as the music warmed their blood during the course of the evening.
The Doormats had energy, and did a nice cover song at the end, which is something I would like to see them do more of. Their own music has a relentless similar casual frenetic feel, the rhythm rarely varying, always intense but the reason for its intensity was hard to discern. When they did vary the rhythm at the beginning or ending of a song, it was a relief. Their sound needed more space, as, though the sound system dynamics was not up to the usual Parkside quality last night, making it hard to tell how they would sound otherwise, the band itself seemed to also have an overkill of noise that blended together too mushily.
Rubber Side Down was more dancable, the lead singer being charmingly personable, so he drew attention subtly to the likability of this professional sounding band that moves gracefully between a cohesive variety of sounds. Some of their songs have been used in TV shows, so they have a promising career. Check out their Indie Label CD, American Romantic.
The headline band was Candy From Strangers, a hard pop rock, glam punk assault on boredom if there ever was one. Ruby Jordan, the tough, gutsy, pleasure lovin singer projects her complete immersion in life, her total oneness with her feelings, her openess to all that is around her, and her willingness to share her self with her band and her audience in a way that picks up the excitement level of living itself. While wearing stilleto heeled black boots, she manages to still come across as strong and stable, a force to be reckoned with. She is no trembling flower of a girl, but full of beautiful testosterone and panache, appealing to all sexes, bringing out their own desire to release inhibitions, to accept their hedonism, to celebrate the power of woman. Her moves were intimate, as she would crouch on the floor, bend across the stage, accentuate not so much just her undeniable beauty as her own love for sexual freedom of expression, confidence, and range. When she would move into the crowd, coming close to audience members, her eyes were wickedly impish, her smile conspiratorial, her energy scintillating.
She is balanced perfectly by Pauli Gray, lead guitarist and songwriter, the epitome of the rock star whose been around, whose played with the greats to large crowds of adoring fans. He looks like Ron Wood in a dream of being the lead singer with the dynamism and sex appeal of Mick. His moves are classic, exagerated, and he often makes them with a sense of irony, winking and grinning, including the audience as he sees them get what the song is doing, get his moves, dance up the band. His sound is searing, intense.
Jaimie Muntner plays guitar primarily, wearing his signature black cowboy hat, a consumate musician more than showman, just like Ricky Ross, the drummer, as they both dispense of ego issues and let Ruby and Pauli take center state. These two are solid team members, providing a stable cohesiveness for the band that keeps it drama free and able to tour from coast to coast, record new CD's, their latest being CatButt Tattoo. At Thee Parkside last night, they were joined for awhile by Paula, their bassist who moved on, and Chumley, who may be their new member. The band has been playing together since 99, with some changes in members along.
They can be heard on KFOG radio, so call in with requests if you feel in a tough, sexy mood. They are working on a new CD, called Bad Girlfriend, with Chris Dugan, who works with Green Day. This should lead to even more popularity for this, San Francisco's Sexiest Band.
Catch Pauli tonight at the Dolores Park Cafe, and Candy from Strangers with Michael Graves at Cafe du Nord, Tuesday, May 11th, at a benefit to free the West Memphis Three.
by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko
http://www.thecanvasgallery.com/
http://www.candyfromstrangers.com/
Her art at the show holds together extremely well as a whole, and makes a statement about consciousness. Almost every piece features a face,often disconnected from a body. Each face is transformed by its relationship to its surroundings. The faces represent consciousness in a non linear relationship with emotion, concept, personality, situation, dreams, the physical world around it, and life itself. Consciousness is about free association, symbols, fragments and collages of different feelings and memories, not simple, tangible straight forward local, chronological, simple, direct relationships. This is certainly how I approach life, and I can identify with her work strongly. Her images are acrylic, or giclees made from acrylics, very reasonably priced in their fine frames, and go together as a set or seperately.
There are a few images that are not faces, but the context makes them seem almost like they are. She has a few images of trees, and they seem to represent the consciousness of the trees as personalities. Only a couple include bodies, one being a distortion of the Red Riding Hood story, which is absolutely beautiful, a must see for anyone interested in that evocative fairy tale.
Also last night was the annual benefit for AIDS Lifecycle at Thee Parkside, at 17th and Wisconsin. There was a lovely mobile kissing booth with a girl sporting it whose sexy punk outfit included a fetching gashed mesh top. Sponsers had donated goodies such as tickets to Burning Man and a guitar, for the silent auction. A large contingency of the crowd was creatively gender bending, and they felt freer to express themselves more as the music warmed their blood during the course of the evening.
The Doormats had energy, and did a nice cover song at the end, which is something I would like to see them do more of. Their own music has a relentless similar casual frenetic feel, the rhythm rarely varying, always intense but the reason for its intensity was hard to discern. When they did vary the rhythm at the beginning or ending of a song, it was a relief. Their sound needed more space, as, though the sound system dynamics was not up to the usual Parkside quality last night, making it hard to tell how they would sound otherwise, the band itself seemed to also have an overkill of noise that blended together too mushily.
Rubber Side Down was more dancable, the lead singer being charmingly personable, so he drew attention subtly to the likability of this professional sounding band that moves gracefully between a cohesive variety of sounds. Some of their songs have been used in TV shows, so they have a promising career. Check out their Indie Label CD, American Romantic.
The headline band was Candy From Strangers, a hard pop rock, glam punk assault on boredom if there ever was one. Ruby Jordan, the tough, gutsy, pleasure lovin singer projects her complete immersion in life, her total oneness with her feelings, her openess to all that is around her, and her willingness to share her self with her band and her audience in a way that picks up the excitement level of living itself. While wearing stilleto heeled black boots, she manages to still come across as strong and stable, a force to be reckoned with. She is no trembling flower of a girl, but full of beautiful testosterone and panache, appealing to all sexes, bringing out their own desire to release inhibitions, to accept their hedonism, to celebrate the power of woman. Her moves were intimate, as she would crouch on the floor, bend across the stage, accentuate not so much just her undeniable beauty as her own love for sexual freedom of expression, confidence, and range. When she would move into the crowd, coming close to audience members, her eyes were wickedly impish, her smile conspiratorial, her energy scintillating.
She is balanced perfectly by Pauli Gray, lead guitarist and songwriter, the epitome of the rock star whose been around, whose played with the greats to large crowds of adoring fans. He looks like Ron Wood in a dream of being the lead singer with the dynamism and sex appeal of Mick. His moves are classic, exagerated, and he often makes them with a sense of irony, winking and grinning, including the audience as he sees them get what the song is doing, get his moves, dance up the band. His sound is searing, intense.
Jaimie Muntner plays guitar primarily, wearing his signature black cowboy hat, a consumate musician more than showman, just like Ricky Ross, the drummer, as they both dispense of ego issues and let Ruby and Pauli take center state. These two are solid team members, providing a stable cohesiveness for the band that keeps it drama free and able to tour from coast to coast, record new CD's, their latest being CatButt Tattoo. At Thee Parkside last night, they were joined for awhile by Paula, their bassist who moved on, and Chumley, who may be their new member. The band has been playing together since 99, with some changes in members along.
They can be heard on KFOG radio, so call in with requests if you feel in a tough, sexy mood. They are working on a new CD, called Bad Girlfriend, with Chris Dugan, who works with Green Day. This should lead to even more popularity for this, San Francisco's Sexiest Band.
Catch Pauli tonight at the Dolores Park Cafe, and Candy from Strangers with Michael Graves at Cafe du Nord, Tuesday, May 11th, at a benefit to free the West Memphis Three.
by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko
http://www.thecanvasgallery.com/
http://www.candyfromstrangers.com/
posted by Tantra Bensko at 1:30 PM
2 Comments:
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