Hammering Woman a/k/a Yael depicted in Bartolomeo Veneto's "Woman With A Hammer"

By Jack Brummet, Visual Arts Ed.

This fascinating painting is Woman with a Hammer by Bartolomeo Veneto, painted in roughly 1500.  The painting depicts Yael from the Book of Judges.  Yael killed Sisera to deliver Israel from King Jabin:  “While he lay asleep Yael crept stealthily up to him, holding a tent peg and a mallet. She drove it through his temples with such force that it entered into the ground below.”

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Stazzi paints with Tonia Calderon

By Jack Brummet, Art Ed.

I had to share this photo of a budding young artist. On the left is my great (some people believe the correct term is "grand") nephew Stazzi working with the artist Tonia Calderon [http://www.toniacalderon.com/#!/home] on a painting of Malcolm X. Is this cool, or what?

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Three paintings by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower

by Jack Brummet, Studio Arts Ed.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a painter (as we have also recently discovered about former President George W. Bush - click here to see his paintings).

Ike in the studio

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The paintings of Ex-President George W. Bush

By Jack Brummet, Painting and Drawings Editor

The artist at work [Guccifer is the hacker who stole these photos]

A hacker recently broke into some of the Bush family's email accounts.  From GWB's sisters account, comes images of paintings that Dubyah has created...  A report from The Smoking Gun is here.

For my part, the best revelations were of George W. Bush, the artist--one shows him naked in the shower, the other of his legs and feet in a bath, with the tap running. The Smoking Gun said that Dubyyah  sent them to his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch.  There was also a photograph showing him at his easel working.

 George W. Bush, self portrait in the shower

 George W. Bush, self portrait in the bath
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Painting: Mojave Highway

by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Happy 150th birthday to Gustav Klimt

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Coulrophobia: [Don't] Send In The Clowns (warning: includes clown painting)

By Jack Brummet, Pop Culture Editor

On their radio show yesterday, Dave Ross & Luke Burbank  discussed clowns going extinct.  From my generation forward, people now perceive of clowns as being frightening rather than amusing or distracting.  This may have something to do with both John Wayne Gacy and Stephen King's novel, and movie, "It."  There have been more than a few scary clowns in movies over the last few years (like The Joker and his band in The Dark Knight, for example).  Our parents loved Emmett Kelly and Red Skelton, and clown cars at the circus, but somewhere along the line our generation and the following ones no longer much cotton to the clowns.


This is a painting I bought at a thrift store fifteen years ago.  It may be Emmett Kelly. . .

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Cathie Joy Young paintings on "Portlandia"

One of our favorite artists,  Cathie Joy Young, has a couple of her paintings appear in the background of Season Two, Episode Eight of "Portlandia."  You can see a clip of the scenes with her work here.

You can find out more about CJY, and see more of her work, here, on her website. . .   /jack

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Paint by number at Bumbershoot

By Jack Brummet
Visual Arts Editor

One of my favorite Bumbershoot art exhibits this year was "an interactive and fully immersive paint-by-number art" exhibit put together by two Seattle artists, Marlow Harris and JoDavid. The centerpiece of the exhibition was an interactive paint-by-number version of Manet's "The Picnic" by the artist Ryan Feddersen. Anyone who showed up could paint on the Manet homage. As it turned out, kids mainly worked on the lower part of the painting, and to paint the very top, you had to be fairly tall. By the time I stopped by, it was making great progress, and there was still ten hours of audience participation left to complete it. . .

There were also "remixes" by various artists, who took paint by number kits and did not follow the instructions! There were paintings by Joey Bates, Greg Boudreau, Jim Blanchard, John Brophy, Chris Crites, Max David, Jim Dever, Janet Galore, Art Garcia, Kurt Geissel, Troy Gua, Nancy Guppy, Robert Hardgrave, Aaron Huffman, Sean Hurley, Mary Iverson, Elizabeth Jameson, David Kane, Rick Klu, Charles Krafft, Mike Leavitt, Rich Lehl, Kelly Lyles, Jeff Mihalyo, Ryan Molenkamp, Lisa Petrucci, Demi Raven, Cathy Sarkowsky, Tim Silbaugh, Joey Veltkamp, Jim Woodring, Jenny Zwick, and others.

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Dr. Suess show in Laguna Beach

I went to a show of Dr. Seuss's fine art works on Monday in Laguna Beach.  It was pretty cool to see his work on a large scale, along with about a dozen sculptures of his unique animals.  While the prints were nice (many of them come from actual paintings he did that he never sold), it was also clear Seuss himself had little to do with the prints.  He didn't supervise the making of screens, or even select the works.  It was also clear that they were being marketed as investments (similar to all the prints of, say, Dali and Chagall that have flooded the print markets).  The guy who worked in the gallery said they were a good deal.  $1,500 to $3,000 for a work where--"some of the early prints have gone up in value to $25,000 in a few years."  Which, naturally, made me suspicious.   Worth seeing, but not buying...

From a press release:  "In 1997, The Chase Group acquired exclusive worldwide rights to publish the work of Dr. Seuss as limited edition prints. Along with publishing certain book illustrations, Chase is making available editions of Seuss’s, "Secret Art". These are paintings that Geisel painted for his own pleasure and never before shown to the public and exhibit a more sophisticated, technically accomplished and quite unrestrained side to his talent."

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Painting: Balance of Power

Painting by Jack Brummet - Balance of Power (click to enlarge)

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Cathie Joy's Pro Keds shoes

Cathie Joy, a friend and fantastic Portland-based painter has new shoes out, based on details from her paintings.  You can order her custom Keds here.  
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Joseph Griffith's painting of George Washington - The Surrender

[click the painting to enlarge]

According to Joseph Griffith, "I painted this for the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown when George Washington and the Continentals traunched the British. The county would not dignify it with a response, however, George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate kindly wrote me an e-mail saying they would “pass it along to the staff”.

I think I like Fonzie the best...
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Two paintings by Narboo, a Seattle artist

For my birthday, Keelin bought two paintings by Narboo. I had seen paintings at a Vera Project show. Thank you Kee!

Click to enlarge:





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Painting: The Beach at San Pancho

click to enlarge

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Artist Brude Elliott follows up naked Sarah Palin painting with nude Rod Blagojevich

Click Governor Palin to enlarge


Brude Elliott with his Governor Palin painting - click to enlarge

Brude Elliott, the Chicago artist who had fifteen minutes of fame following his nude painting of Sarah Palin is about to finish a new painting featuring a naked Rod Blagojevich. Rod's portrait will hang next to the Palin painting (sorry folks...we have been unable to uncover an uncensored version of either painting).

In Palin's painting, the governor wears her alternate swept back 'do, and holds an automatic rifle while standing naked on a bear-skin rug."I don't see how she could be offended by this," Elliott said. "I made her into a sex figure." [ed's note: You might have had a little help, Brude! And truth be told, she's homelier in your painting than in real life. . .your painting of Rod, however, seems flattering. ]


Click Governor Blagojevich to enlarge

Elliott's nude portrait of Blagojevich is nearly complete and will hang on the wall of Elliott's wife's bar, the Old Town Ale House, next to his nude Sarah Palin.

The Chicago artist who drew crowds, and notoriety to his wife's bar with his nude painting has begun referring to the paintings as a series, the "nude governor series."

Blagojevich nude painting Video
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Painting: "Oh say can you see?"

click to enlarge

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Painting: The Sage

Click painting to enlarge
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Painting: Purple nude with tiger skin background

click painting to enlarge

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Digital painting: 16 heads (from a drawing by jack brummet)

click to enlarge

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