Showing posts with label Virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virginia. Show all posts

Monday, March 18, 2019

Just the facts Ma'am


The Traveling Chicken and friends have arrived in Vermont. I didn't find the Mamma chick for a few days, I think she was hiding in the package to stay warm.

The gang has been off the road since September and the authorities decided it was time to check their passports and immigration papers. All is good and they will move on to the next location — across the street to my cousin!

The Usual Suspects  8 x 10 soft pastel

To see more of my pastels, check out my website HERE and my blog HERE

Monday, April 16, 2018

Visiting Chicks Admire the Senora Rosa Dali Statue on the Avenue of Second Place Trophies in Richmond Virginia

Weird surrealistic title, huh? Well, in a fact-is-stranger-than-fiction twist, this almost happened here in Richmond, Virginia about 50 years ago. Salvador Dali was approached about making a statue for a Civil War Erz nurse, Capt. Sally Louisa Tompkins, using (and no I am not making this up!) pink aluminum. 





Acrylic 
24x18

So I had fun combining Dali's signature style along with facets of this story...



That is why Senor Azul has become Senora Rosa just for this post, along with the requisite melting clock, waxy mustache, spindly legs and funky clouds.  I even put in a self portrait in Dali style, can you see it? 

While the Dali statue never came to be, there was one conceptual sketch made.


photo courtesy of Style Weekly Magazine

This is how his publicist described Dali's vision...

"according to a Richmond News Leader article, “Dalí sees (Captain Sally) as a kind of modern St. George and the dragon. The facial likeness would be as near as possible to Captain Sally, but the form of the actual body would depend on whether she wore a uniform or not...Probably the dragon will be an enlarged microbe of some kind, not the standard dragon of medieval times.” The entire structure would sit atop a 20-foot model of Dali’s pinky finger."

This is how it was received by the city council at the time ...

" How about Captain Sally drooling over a branch with one eye supported by a crutch and all in shiny aluminum with a red neon heart that really beats? Let’s tie a bow on Traveler’s tail and hold a happening in Capitol Square.”

quotes courtesy RVANews https://rvanews.com/news/richmond-salvador-dali-statue-folly/46807

So needless to say this statue never made it off the drawing board. But the chicks visit here, gave me a great opportunity to imagine and then paint...which is really what it is all about, right?

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