Here's the conclusion to my interview with Amy Crehore, Painter of Pierrots and Monkeys; you can read Part 1 here. Me: What are Hokum Images and how do they play into your blog, Little Hokum Rag?   In what way do you use Hokum Images in your paintings? Amy: Well, hokum images are full of humor and double entendres. Hokum is a certain kind of black music from around the 1920’s. It’s a dirty, funny blues. Jugband , rags and early jazz. I played this music with my significant other, Lou, for many years. My paintings are sometimes about my experience with this music and they are the visual equivalent of hokum music. Me: Noticed you published a comic book at one time, what are your favorite comics and how has comic book art influenced your paintings? Amy: Well, yes, my friend Tom Campagnoli and I published a comic book in Richmond, VA the early 80’s called, “Boys and Girls Grow Up”. We did five issues. I suppose R. Crumb and Robert Armstrong were my influences at the time. But, I have always loved comics like “Little Nemo in Slumberland” and “Tin-Tin”. Cartoonists Jack Cole and Charles Addams and contemporary artists Daniel Clowes and Seth are favorites of mine. I have always looked at and absorbed everything in the history of graphic arts and comics as well as old childrens books. I simply like art with humor and illustrative art. I guess my paintings reflect that somewhat. I would like to say that films/theater/music have also inspired me throughout my life. Me: How does the Monkey Love Series differ from the Little Pierrot series of paintings – is there a difference in mood?   Noticed that often one of the Monkey’s is wearing a sailor’s cap – any significance? Amy: The girls are a bit more sensual in the Monkey Love Series. They are not entertainers or assistants to clowns. The mood is different because the setting is different. The Monkey Series takes place outdoors. The girls have a sense of freedom and relaxation that they don’t have on stage. They are alone on an island basically with monkeys for friends. I suppose the monkey takes the place of the pierrot and the sailor hat makes the monkey a male figure. The viewer will have to decide for himself what it all means. (Note: the painting above is called "The Charmer" and is both a painting and a small print in limited edition).  Besides Amy Crehore's blog, her main site, www.amycrehore.com, has pictures of her latest work and and an online store to buy prints of her work. Me: In many of your Pierrot paintings a red curtain appears as a backdrop – why is that curtain always red (instead of blue, or green or gray, or yellow or any other color)?  Amy: Red is the color of passion. And it’s a passion play in a sense. Besides, any other color would just not work! Me: Do you usually sketch a painting out first and then start painting or have you painted without a sketch? Amy: I have painted without a sketch. I did that for years on my larger works. But the last couple of years, I have gotten into drawing the ideas out first on paper and then transferring the drawings to canvas. And I have had a real breakthrough in my art because of it. Drawing is so important to me now. It brings my ideas into focus. Me: You admire a painter called Antonio Donghi (1897-1963) who was not well known in his life and even today.  Were Donghi to do it all over again now, would he be more successful given the internet? Amy: Maybe. I hope they will re-print the book on him in English! He’s fantastic! I think he’s well-known in Italy. Final Question - Me: Comment on how the internet and blogs have helped nurture your work? Amy: It gives me a way to get my work out there and seen by many people globally who normally would never see it without the internet. That’s simply amazing! And I get to interact with people whom I never would have met in a million years. It gives me hope and keeps me company, too. I don’t live in a big center of artistic activity. My blog has opened things up even more as far as networking goes. It enhances my website and keeps people up to date with what I am doing. A blog is sort of like publishing your own magazine and it immediately reaches an audience as soon as you are done typing. Wow. End of my Interview with Amy Crehore, Painter of Pierrots & Monkeys.   You can read some more about Amy Crehore at  Celebrity At Work, a sister blog to ArtNYC. 

I have been admiring Amy Crehore's paintings ever since I came to know her through Boing Boing.  I recently had a chance to interview Amy Crehore and we decided to cover something different than the normal interview - in this case -  Pierrots & Monkeys. Me: What attracted you to paint Pierrots?  While paintings of Pierrots (The Pierrot is traditionally a love sick clown in a white costume dating back to the 16th century Italian Commedia dell'arte) have a rich history in European art, with paintings of Pierrots by Watteau, Picasso, Derain and Antonio Donghi, most people are not familiar with Pierrots.   What can we learn from Pierrots and what in you is so attracted to them? Amy: Well, I painted my first pierrot over 20 years ago in a large painting called “Banquet Days”. The title was a reference to Henri Rousseau and a book about his era called “The Banquet Years”. This painting was inspired by a tin-type of my great, great Uncle Stanley in costume who was a performer on the Great White Way (pre-Broadway) in NYC.

I have many photos from his collection of theater images. He was a character who walked down the street in a top hat and cane and sang in a bass voice on stage. He even performed in minstrel shows. Aesthetically, the Pierrot is my favorite clown, with his pointy dunce-type hat and simple pajama-type costume. He’s a lovable fool and a fool for love. He represents all of us. He’s got history behind him. He entertains us and he also makes us feel something. He’s sad and happy at the same time… like we all are.

Me: We hear that you like Leonard Cohen’s music and listened to his music while painting the Pierrot Series (http://amycrehore.blogspot.com/2006/05/okay-i-admit-it.html). 

Tell us more about how Leonard Cohen has influenced your painting?  You mentioned that we should support the man and his music – what are we missing about Cohen?

Amy: I think his poetry resonates on a deep, emotional level and his music is romantic and sensual. That helped me get in the mood to paint these particular new paintings. His music ages gracefully like he does. He’s a genius creative artist and he inspires me.

He’s been in the news lately with new work, a new movie and recent stories about an unfortunate financial situation….so I wanted to let people know about him. Me: Why are your Pierrots always wearing blue and sometimes have their faces painted black?  Is there any symbolism? Amy: Well, they started out in white, but ended up blue. I needed some color, I guess, to contrast with red. But, blue is appropriate, I think. Like Picasso’s blue period. My pierrot is a mischievous and melancholy imp. He gets into trouble a lot. But, the girl is fond of him and they have a sort of ambiguous relationship.

 

The black face is a twist on the white make up that he usually wears and also relates to music/entertainment that was popular back in the 1920’s. And I think the black face adds something graphically to the paintings. Amy Crehore's blog contains many of her insights while at her main website, www.amycrehore.com you can see pictures of her latest work and buy prints of many of her paintings. Note: I'll continue this interview with Amy Crehore, Painter of Pierrots & Monkeys - Part 2, my next post.

I was thinking about a couple of details I left out of my last post about my interview with Olan tonight. Olan Montgomery is very tuned into people's eyes and in his paintings he focuses on the eyes, esp in the portraits.  In one case Olan showed me the eyes of a portrait where all the details of that person's concern with recognition and copyrights was shown in symbols reflected in her eyes.  I don't think this is the portait he showed me but it's as close as I can find on his site.

When you look at the eyes closely you'll see all kinds of things. Speaking of seeing the soul of person in their eyes, I asked Olan to tell me what he saw in my eyes.   Honestly, being a Scorpio, I usually try to read others and don't want them to see into me.  But I think we all really want to be known as well (and it would be curious to see what kind of Portrait Olan would do of me). Olan did not really want to say at first what he saw in my eyes - he sorta brushed over it.  Then I asked again - and he said I was afraid of dying without having really lived and done things I wanted to do in my life yet.  He said he could see, in my eyes, that I was pre-occurpied with that - and that I did not need to worry so much about it - that what I wanted I could have now. We discussed a couple of other things about why I started painting again and Olan said he'd like to own one of my paintings - he liked them.  Olan talked a lot about his childhood, his family, the way he was brought up, and his Mother, Eslye .  He's very close to his mother and feels she is more charitable by nature than he is (which is saying a lot because Olan appears to be a very charitable person - so if his mother is more than that, she must be very charitable).  He talked about how his mother would take his sibelings and some of the orphaned children near where he grew up to Museums as often as she could and how her life was devoted to art - and is devoted to art.   He mentioned that his father had a stroke 12 years ago and she takes care of him but never talks much about it.  Olan also talked about his twin brother and how they took very different paths in life, his brother being in the army at one time, and really going after totally different things - and their orientation was different as well. So, my first part of the interview was more concerned about the outer things -  but this part of my interview is more concerned about the inner part of Olan's life. Olan is also a cosmetics specialist and is called in for model shoots and that explains his relationship with M.A.R. Magazine- where his painting graces the current issue with a portrait of Anne Hathaway, whom Olan has met.  In fact, you can see the relationship between the models of M.A.R. magazine and many of Olan's paintings over the last year or two - it looks like his portraits, in some cases, grew out of his contacts with the models and his use of color and focus on the face grew out his work as a Cosmetics Specialist - which is a model's best friend. I would not have written this second post on the Olan interview tonight - were it not for needing to present, as much as I could, a fuller account - and while I did not take photos, which I could have, I focused again, on just talking and letting the conversation form itself - much as a painting takes form. Another thing Olan did with me tonight is take the areas of my life and drew them out as themes as they related to me (ie: Art, time alone, 9/11, Job) - it reminded me of the way a web analyst would segment traffic coming to a website or page - but in this case, the website/page is me - and the categories are part of my life. So among the things Olan can call himself - a psychic, a soul reader, a keen observer who looks into the eyes looking for the soul. And that's the end of my interview of Olan Montgomery - for now.

I find it much easier to write an interview of Olan without looking at my notes from tonight's dinner meeting; I met Olan down at his Gallery and we had dinner next, and he game me one of his small paintings as well (the painting was based on the image below - of a young, homeless, gay woman the artist befriended).   I was attracted to the face of a larger painting of this model and he gave me a smaller version of it.

We spoke about his current show which will be coming down soon and it's success.  I asked Olan to define the metrics for a successful show - that started a conversation where different arragements of sponserships and other commissioned works leads to a profitable show.  The money part of art was something Olan did not really want to focus on  - he wants to be free to do his art and not have to get involved with the politics of gallery dealers and collectors.  We talked about how difficult it is to do art and live in NYC and that society, as it is today, is focused on the wrong things - like getting ahead at the cost of hurting other people.  Olan thinks deeply about this and tells me he did not care for what happened recently on The View and how Star was replaced. We moved on to another subject, using the internet to go past dealers and reach fans directly - Olan was intrigured with the idea of The Long Tail and using the internet to sell his work - but did not really know how to go about it. I mentioned Amy Crehore, and her devoted fan base plus the writeups in Boing Boing as an example of reaching fans and buyers without going through dealers (though she also does have dealers of her work).  Also the recent addition of Charles Saatchi’s Your Gallery website which Olan Montgomery used to create his own mini-site with his work.  Olan found out about the Saatchi online gallery through me, as did a friend of mine, Drew Knapp, who did the same thing (posted his work). In fact, I used the Saatchi online gallery to discuss the first instance, to my knowledge, of a Major Gallery Dealer getting involved with Social Marketing, Viral Marketing - it's as if Charles Saatchi gets it - he understands that many artists want a legitamate way to reach dealers like himself and Saatchi also wants to discover new artists - so he makes it possible to do so with the Your Gallery website - and become the most progressive art dealer.  Yes, I give Charles Saatchi credit for seeing something that needed to be done in social media and doing it (and he did a good job with Your Gallery). Olan mentioned the Chelesa art galleries in the West 20's where some artists are able to get sponsership but to just survive and do their work, is such a struggle (it always has been).   Olan mentioned that being an Art Dealer was a good business to be in - but being an artist is much harder.   I interjected and said it was always like that with a couple of artist superstars (ie: Picasso is a prime example) making a most of the money while most other artists can hardly make anything.   In fact, with the Long Tail, created by the economies of the internet - many artists can thrive in ways that would have been much harder even 5 years ago (and that is not generally understood yet) - I think Amy Crehore is an example of that - an artist with a strong fan base - who really can do well with internet publicity - and you don't need to be a Picasso (or the modern version of that - or even be part of the Whitney Biennial (see my review of the Whitney Biennial here) to utilize the power of internet to magnify your brand. In fact, there's much that I did not discuss with Olan tonight - I will have to cover in the next interview.  For example - Olan's site uses AdSense and Affiliate Marketing, along with a series of articles and news - and it was only by looking at it in detail tonight - after speaking with him (where he mentioned he does write articles and post to his site and on other sites as well) that I went back and took a look at some of what he posted.  What I see is we need another interview do discuss how he approaches his website marketing of his own work and brand and what kind of volume of visitors his site generates.  These are questions for Webmetricsguru.com but they apply here as Olan clearly is using the power of Google Advertising and Affiliate Marketing to  make part of a living.  Olan suggested we get together again, on a monthly basis to continue this conversation.  We also talked about having me interview his mother, who is also an artist and a very interesting person.  Getting back to the interview I did tonight -I found out an interesting metric - it takes Olan about $700.00, or more to produce one painting using the techniques and media he employs (there's often the cost of the paints, strecher, linen, photo transfer, etc) and that he sees all the work he does and what he makes off it as a way to continue painting - in other words, much of the money made on a show is re-invested back into this work - and I think that's the right thing for an artist to do, personally. The meeting ended with a walk back, next door, to Ward-Nasse Gallery where Olan showed me the work of other artists in the Gallery and introduced me to the Art Dealer who runs Ward-Nasse.   I also took the opportunity to look at some more of Olan's paintings near the back of the Gallery that I had not really looked at as well as some of the other artists who have shows at Ward-Nasse. By the Way, Olan did treat me to dinner which included Pasta and two glasses of red wine each.  Olan had his dog with him, and the dog was begging us for food - I ate all of mine so Olan put out part of his pasta plate - about a third of the dish and the dog finished it. And that's it for tonight's interview with Olan Montgomery.