Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Final Draft - DIA DE LOS MUERTOS ART SHOW - OCT. 2, 2009

Here is the final version of my piece for the Autumn Society of Philadelphia's upcoming show at Proximity Gallery in Fishtown: "Die De Los Muertos" (Mexican Day of the Dead). I took off work, so I will be at the show hanging out.


Had a decent morning chugging coffee on my back deck and finishing this piece. I tried to keep the background colors bright and playful. I've never been to Mexico, but when I was in college, I used to shop at Eyes Art on South Street, where they had a lot of Mexican Day of the Dead art for sale.

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Hoagy Carmichael songs, and I recently received a book on his life and music for my birthday. The song "The Nearness of You" has been striking a chord, so I have been using it in some of the "romance" themed pieces I've been doing. My favorite version of the song is by Keith Richards. He sings off key, like Hoagy, but more sullen. While drawing this piece, I made a playlist that hade several versions of that song mixed in with an album called, "Mexico: The Real Mexico In Music And Song".

Special thanks to Aaron Luis Levinson and Katie Hill for helping me with the translation. They both agreed this is the best we can do in context and dialect for translating the song title.

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