|
|
Richy Vegas: A Psycho Memoir, Part Two |
|
Richy Vegas: A Psycho Memoir, Part Three A Psycho Memoir, Closing Artist's Statement: In the Spring of 2008, Whilst enjoying an alcoholic beverage, I decided that I believed in God. The artist Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt told me a few days earlier that I was a person of faith-unconventional though that faith may be. "Close enough for Rock and Roll," I concluded as I swilled my tallboys. Incidents like the one I related here at the end of this comic seal the deal. Sure, I think about purely irrational thoughts and hallucinations that I once experienced and rightly conclude that there's nothing to them. But, there's enough that I experienced that kicks into a realm where I am unable to distinguish between where my madness leaves off and where things of a divine nature begin. Why do I have to be the one that parses out what is real and what is not? I will just depict the dilemmas I am faced with and see if, like all good art, they pass the test of time.
Elvis in Wing Ding County Massacre: Here it is! I thought I lost this comic years ago. It was in storage out on ranch land near Liberty Hill, TX. The shed the pages were in had bugs, snakes, spiders, you name it. I used photocopies extensively for this series, and there were many generations of the same pages for many of them. But, these pages here all represent some version of the final product. "Wing Ding County Massacre" first appeared in Keith Ayres' Glitch News. Glitch News was the Newsletter/ 'zine for Glitch Records. "Wing Ding county Massacre" appeared in Glitch News in the mid to late '80s.
Dream: This next comic illustrates a dream that I had in 1989. I extrapolated on the dream with the dialogue and narrative to make a story. Harvey Kurtzman, founder of MAD magazine and an instructor at School of Visual Arts, looked at it and said that it was too bad that it didn't meet format specs for printing. That may be, but it works as a web comic! Like "Wing Ding County Massacre," "Dream" resided in the storage shed near Liberty Hill. When I found it like ten years ago, I had forgotten all about it. I had the foresight to cover the finished pages with tracing paper.
|
Carl Andre Series: The first of my round sequential art pieces! In the Spring of 1989, at School of Visual Arts, my graduate thesis advisor, Tommy Lanigan-Schmit, saw that I did a round drawing, a tondo, and suggested that I draw on paper plates. Over the next twenty-plus years, my layouts and presentation evolved into the books that I do today. I decided to use blue ball-point pen as a humorous take on Delftware.
Carl Andre is a Minimalist sculptor from the 60's who was arrested, tried, and acquitted for throwing his wife, fellow artist Ana Mendieta, out of the window of their high-rise apartment in New York City. This all happened in the mid to late '80s. Robert Katz wrote a book about it called "Naked By the Window," that appeared in 1990. The New York art world shunned the book, and the art magazines didn't review it. I paired the subject of Carl Andre with musings on the people at G/M Steakhouse, an Austin restaurant that I'd work at before coming to School of Visual Arts. Tommy Lanigan-Schmit rightly termed the results, "oracular ravings."
Carl Andre is a Minimalist sculptor from the 60's who was arrested, tried, and acquitted for throwing his wife, fellow artist Ana Mendieta, out of the window of their high-rise apartment in New York City. This all happened in the mid to late '80s. Robert Katz wrote a book about it called "Naked By the Window," that appeared in 1990. The New York art world shunned the book, and the art magazines didn't review it. I paired the subject of Carl Andre with musings on the people at G/M Steakhouse, an Austin restaurant that I'd work at before coming to School of Visual Arts. Tommy Lanigan-Schmit rightly termed the results, "oracular ravings."
