"Tujaque's Sazeracs"

Oil on linen mounted on panel - 6" x 8"

In honor of Mardi Gras, I have painted the bartender at Tujaque's Restaurant on Decatur Street in New Orleans mixing up one of the Big Easy's most famous cocktails - the Sazerac. Made with rye whiskey, bitters and absinthe, it is an acquired taste. I just happen to have the ingredients on my bar so I may just have to make myself one. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Sazerac cocktail:

• 1 cube or 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 4 dashes Peychaud Bitters
• Splash water, about 1/2 teaspoon
• 2 ounces rye whiskey
• Splash Herbsaint (or Pernod), about 1/2 teaspoon
• Lemon peel for garnish
• Ice

"Mardi Gras Beads and Corks"

Oil on museum quality ampersand gessobord panel - 5" x 7"

This is my submission to the 2nd challenge of the Calypso Moon Artist Movement. The challenge was to "take only two things that you collect and make an interesting painting that reflects your personality and/or history." This was not an easy task, as I collect lots of things. To the uninitiated I might even be considered a hoarder, which is neither true nor fair. Being an artist, I see the potential in things as possible grist for the creative mill. Corks, wine foils, beer caps, wishbones, cigar bands, hats, fortune cookie fortunes and Mardi Gras beads are but a small sampling of what is in the hundreds of boxes in the basement. I have been saving wishbones since I was 11 and have thousands. I have bushel baskets of wine corks which make great bulletin boards. With the advent of the Stelvin closure, a.k.a. the screw cap, corks are fast becoming a thing of the past (insert Boones Farm Strawberry Hill reference/joke here). I know screw caps are better at preserving wine but the theatrics and pageantry of the sommelier is diminished by a mere quick twist of the wrist. I wonder - if a bad bottle of wine is "corked" is a bad Stelvin capped bottle "screwed"?

The bead collection started years ago when I was down in New Orleans (duh!) for Mardi Gras. My wife and I were walking back to our hotel after the Orpheus Ball, dressed in black tie and gown and we happened on the tail end of a Mardi Gras parade. We later found out that you must get rid of all your throws before the end of the parade, so timing is everything. You want to have enough to last the whole parade but since they reuse the floats, you have to jettison everything in the last two blocks, which is where we were. The revelers were lobbing beads by the gross, still wrapped in their plastic bags. Armfuls of beads came raining down on us. I could barely carry my treasure back to the room. Needless to say I was hooked!

Alice wanted us to demonstrate our creative process, so here are some work in progress pics:


Here is a rare photo of one the larger cork boards I have made. Rare because it is not completely covered with stuff push pinned to it as it will be is a few months time, since we just moved in and I took the old detritus off during the move. Empty vertical surfaces are almost as much a clutter magnet to an artist (at least to this artist) as a horizontal one. Note the wishbone drying in the upper left corner.

"Mardi Gras Masks"

I painted this a while ago as a birthday gift for a friend. Many of you know that New Orleans is my adopted second home and a place I visit with some frequency. We are headed down there next month, Whoo, hoo! Anyway, this painting was given away wet and very few people saw it, so here it is. "Laissez les bons temps rouler!"