Archives for category: Art
Newer Entries »

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Thirty-Two

October 10, 2014 //
42

IMG_2652People are talking about the jealousy they feel when they look at Facebook. Some are deactivating their Facebook accounts to save themselves the “drama.” The drama, of course, being the envy they feel, of not being able to afford to go to the beach, not having a relationship, not getting married, not having kids, whatever. Not having a beautiful job!

It is well known that only the high points of peoples’ lives are presented there. So why are we jealous when someone is smiling behind a Pina Colada?

I think it is because we are desensitized, due to the everyday assault of images coated in glamour. Reality TV has become a standard. We accept it as real. Reality TV came about when no one was around to write screenplays for television shows. There was a writers strike going on at the time. It was cheap, plotless broadcasting. And remains cheap, plotless broadcasting.

Given this, people actually think their ‘friends’ on Facebook are doing better than they are. And the number of ‘likes’ are there to prove it.

I guess it makes sense to brag about your child’s accomplishments rather than talk about how much yeast medicine you have to use due to a long term prescription of antibiotics. Or while you had the flu, the nearest place to vomit was a trash can right outside the movie theatre. Granite countertops do not barf, yell at their kids, have nosebleeds or smear jelly all over their jeans. We all want granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and sunken sinks with “OMG! I can’t believe it!”

Is a selfie of those people taken, straining out from a line at the pharmacy of, say, six people? Or, better yet, a selfie taken of the pharmacist and the sick person? How many ‘likes’ would a person get there?

Because real life is not Facebook. Real life is not Reality TV. And those people who seem to have everything, do not. They just don’t take photographs of themselves when they are wiping a stain off their shirt, eating chips and salsa. The people on Facebook pose for those Facebook pictures, iphone clicking away, with a face they think looks best on them.

A face that looks like they have everything too!

Copyright Hollis Hildebrand-Mills 2014 All Rights Reserved

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Art, musings, painter

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Thirty-One

October 2, 2014 //
32

DSCN0771We as a family were bumming around New York as we usually do, going to bookstores and thrift stores, stopping here and there, soaking in all the wonderfulness of Manhattan. I cannot remember the year, but our daughter was probably between six and ten at the time. Not quite up to my shoulder.

We were in SoHo, and happened upon a lovely neighborhood, as they all are in SoHo. We walked up the stairs to a consignment store. Or used clothing store, more aptly.

I picked out a particular shirt to try on. It was only $16.95. As I was in the dressing room, I tried on the simple gray plaid shirt. I honestly did not like the way it looked on me, nor did I have anything to go with it. I decided to put it back. As I was taking it off, regretting that I had to actually reject something to wear, (God forbid) I looked at the price tag. It was $1695.00!!! I silently said, “Yikes!”

I opened the curtain and the entire staff working in the store surrounded me. I merely said, “I didn’t have anything to go with it!”

We descended the stairs, walked down the block and I told my husband and daughter what happened. We wondered about the origins of such a shirt, (a celebrity owned it?Perhaps Madonna?) It looked rather worn. But in any event, (as my mother would say), we were aware that the workers in the store wanted to see who was behind the curtain trying on this plaid shirt!

Copyright Hollis Hildebrand-Mills 2014 All Rights Reserved

Categories Art, Atlanta artist, fun, musings, painter, Uncategorized

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Thirty

September 22, 2014 //
31

images I was told I would have bad karma.

A member of my family is not speaking to another member of the family. This has been going on for years. Rather than go into the drama of why she is not speaking to her, the family member just says, “She died in a mining accident!”

No further questions are asked. A look of horror passes over the questioner’s face and the subject is dropped.

We all thought this was best, since it really is boring to talk about family members’ wrong doings and such. And to play the victim is ridiculous. No one in my family is a victim. We may seek council from an attorney once in a while, but we are never victims.

One school day in the fall of fifth grade, our daughter was questioned about this family member as in, “Do you have any relatives living close by?” Our daughter answered, “Well, we did, but she died in a mining accident.” The teacher was not put off. He asked what mine. Our daughter said she did not know.

Since then we have filled in the blanks for everyone in our family, so that this second question does not throw us. Usually we just have to say, “She took one step back too far!”

Copyright  Hollis Hildebrand-Mills 2014  All rights Reserved

Tags , , , ,
Categories Art, fun, musings, painter

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Twenty-Nine

September 15, 2014 //
70

People seem to like different kinds of pie. My husband believes that the type of pie you like is reflective of your personality. Since we’re entering into the holiday season where pie is often served, take a look at what the pie-o-logist has to say:

I’ll start with Apple: You are a fairly basic, conservative person. However, if you are specific about the type of apples you like in your Apple Pie, such as Granny Smith or Macintosh, in any way specific, you have a secret side to you. Like you have a crush on Sean Hannity. Whose favorite pie, I am sure, is Apple.

Cherry: You are a Liberal sort of person. You like National Public Radio. And you follow the party line. If you prefer a deep crust on your Cherry Pie, you are not as Liberal as you think you are. Like you might secretly have voted for Donald Trump, (whose favorite pie is Pumpkin with a golden crust-real gold -) but you like to look poor and publicly put down anything Republican.

Lemon Meringue: A fellow blogger loves this pie and announced he would celebrate his art opening with eating lots and lots of Lemon Meringue Pie. What does this mean? My husband says if you like this kind of pie, you are a little acerbic, droll and witty. Not necessarily political. Judging from what I know about my internet friend, I would say this is correct. A few more. Banana Cream Pie, as featured in the photograph above: Your jokes fall flat. And there is a hint of exploration in the things you do. You go off the beaten path, a little. Like you might wear a safari congo hat. (An example of a joke falling flat!)

Sweet Potato Pie is a bear hugging type person. And Key Lime, you are a kook. (Although I have been known to drive to the grocery store and buy Kenny’s Key Lime Pie at 10:00 PM.) Trust me.

There are just a few more: Rum-Raisin, can be something you love, but don’t eat very often. However, if it’s your favorite pie, get ready. You’ve got a problem. You light candles instead of using electric lights. And… no offense, you are probably into the Satanism. And you like taxidermy as decor. You may even have a room full of dolls. Whipped cream on top of any pie tones down the characteristics. Pecan Pie means you are nutty. I guess loving a nut pie would be emblematic of nuttiness. But seriously, in Pie o logy, if your favorite pie is Pecan, you are on the off-beat side. My personal favorite is Blackberry Cobbler. He says that if you like this pie, you are wild. Blackberries indicate this. The crustiness of cobbler hints at being conservative, possessing humanity, and being centered or grounded. Lots of sugar forming a glaze on top means that you are sweet, but with resistance. My husband’s favorite is Strawberry Rhubarb: Meaning, if you like this, you are clever, brilliant and an off-the-wall radical! You might have a gun under your bed. You may be a Libertarian. I really don’t want to know this about him. We do not have a gun under our bed. Does this make me doubt the science of Pie o logy? You decide.  

copyright 2014 Hollis Hildebrand-Mills All rights reserved. copyright 2014 “Pie o logy” Douglas C. Mills All reserved.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Art, Atlanta artist, Ceres Gallery, Chelsea, New York City, collaboration, collage, collage and paint, fun, MoMA/NY curator Anne Umland chose Hollis Hildebrand-Mills' painting for NYC exhibition, painter, refrigerator poetry, studio life

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Twenty-Eight

September 7, 2014 //
31

Image When I was living in Philadelphia, after attending art school and between jobs, I wandered down the street to a bookstore with its doors open. In a massive pile was the first edition of the book “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again).” I bought the book.

This very famous artist, Andy Warhol seemed so accessible! We think alike! And how far is New York from here anyway!?

After a bold moment of courage, I called Andy Warhol Enterprises in Manhattan. The man answering the phone was very nice. I wanted to work for them, I said. In the Art Department of Interview Magazine. He said, please send us a tape of your voice. Andy would really like your voice.

So I did. But as the saying goes, I never heard back from them. And, to be honest, I was a little afraid of The Factory and all the goings-on there. Not the man himself, but those who associated with him. I never pursued it.

After reading subsequent books of Warhol’s, I learned that he kept time capsules. Andy Warhol was an organized hoarder, much like I am. That everything he received by mail or that which was given to him, he put in a box, marked with the year.

When he died, the time capsules were put in the soon to be built Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

My voice is in the Andy Warhol Museum!

Tags , , ,
Categories Andy Warhol Enterprises, Andy Warhol's time capsules, Art, fun, painter, Pop Art

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Twenty-Seven

September 5, 2014 //
28

IMG_1674oSome of the trees in our woods were cut down yesterday. Maybe thirty trees. The tallest one was taller than our house. I felt like it had feelings. The man who owned the arbor company said it was a “weed.” I guess he knew. A lot of pruning was done. And now when you look at our woods, it’s not thick and black like a jungle. Which is good.

He was very knowledgable about the trees. As we made our way into the jungle a day before the buzzsaws and tree shredders started, he pointed out the different varieties of trees by name. I swatted mosquitos. He talked about this one’s leaves being good for making tea. And this one needing to come down because it housed insects that killed the other trees. One, he said, was even struck by lightening!

Among all this learned pointing, was a Southern Coastal monologue about almost everything else. He used the expression, “She was as country as a ham sandwich!” He made me laugh as I itched, wanting to get the heck up the hill to air, daylight and bug spray. He spotted a little patch of something and he said, “That’s a white oak.”

White oaks surrounded The Twin Towers in New York. When we were at The 9/11 Memorial, the permanent one, recently completed, white oaks were replanted around the Memorial. The leaf was used in the museum. Every person killed in the attack was represented with a photograph, several times. Those whose picture could not be found, were assigned a white oak leaf with their name underneath.

I thought about the footprint of the North and South Towers and their massive box like fountains, which is now the Memorial. The space above them remains empty in honor of the people who had worked in those buildings.

Sort of like my tree that used to tower higher than our house. Its spirit still there. But this big empty sky now visible.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Art, musings

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Twenty-Six

August 25, 2014 //
37

ImageOn television, when there is a haunted house show being shown, featuring a
“specialist” carrying around something like a ghost detector and the black and white video is shot so that spirits can be spotted with infrared heat, I am too scared to watch.

When I go to New York, I go for business, hanging my art show and then I go back three weeks later, to take it down.

I used to stay at the Salisbury Hotel. The staff knows me by name. It is centrally located in Midtown and the breakfast is luxurious, very inexpensive and on the second floor.

But during the last three or four years, I became fond of staying in a boutique hotel in the Lower East Side. Close to SoHo and Little Italy, and the new gallery district on Orchard Street, I could do a lot of walking. It had been the hotel of choice for rock stars. I have the love of celebrity in my blood, therefore seeing Kirsten Dunst on the steps was exciting also.

Nostalgia has its grip, though, and one New York stay, The Salisbury beckoned me back. Just for the weekend, it said. It was to be a very short trip since this solo show consisted of a video being shown across a seventeen foot wall, and most of the take down was fairly simple.

That night at the Salisbury Hotel, in my room, my by nightstand, I became unexpectedly cold. In fact, at first, only cold in one spot of the room. Intensely cold. I asked the front desk for extra blankets. Then more, more. I think I had ten extra blankets piled up on my side of the bed. I kept trying to jump out of the cold spot, but it did not release me. My husband, who was with me this time, was not affected. In fact, when he was in the bathroom, I screamed “Come out this minute!” Terrified he came out. I told him about the intense cold and he was annoyed at something so trivial.

You would think the hotel staff would be irritated at having to send up so many blankets to one room. Maybe it was because they knew us.

I put a camera next to my side of the bed the second night (I can’t believe I stayed there another night!) I told myself, I would aim in the darkness and take a picture when I woke up. I woke up in pitch black, aimed the camera but was too afraid to take the picture. More precisely, too afraid at what would show up.

The next day as I was leaving, I called the front desk and said, “Our room was abnormally cold the last few nights!” “What room were you in?” I told him. He pauses and let out a sigh. “Ah!”, he said with a little mischief in his voice……….“Room 237!”

After I wrote this story and I was searching around for a visual, I found out most of the horror movie, “The Shining” took place in non other than Room 237! I knew nothing about this! Never saw the movie! It was a total surprise. But let me caution you, the weirdness of this tale is true and I would not book my honeymoon hotel in a room with the number 237!

Categories Art, fun, musings, Uncategorized

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Twenty-Five

August 20, 2014 //
31

ImageMy roommate in art school, Judy LaBrasca took this photograph of me. A headache caused me to lie down. I had drawn the blinds, she said. Giving this picture a silent film star quality.

Judy and I were in Philadelphia’s Roosevelt Hotel together. On the ninth floor. At 23rd and Walnut. A grim corner. We painted the walls of our nine by twelve foot bathroom with Chinese Red enamel. The pale green toilet, sink and tub were just the right hue to interact with the Chinese Red. And my friend Bill Cohen ruined the aesthetic by drawing a peace sign on the light fixture. A by-product of Bill’s education: no appreciation of the color interaction.

My roommate and I had been collecting metal bottle caps. I think Judy started it. Soon we had so many, we dumped the bottle caps all over the floor. We placed our black throw rugs over them. A sign outside the bathroom door said “Before Entering, Put On Shoes.”

Behind the closed door, while our visitors were in the bathroom, we could hear the slushing of metal being plowed through. A heavy but slightly tinny sound. After all, the bottle caps were at least four inches deep! When not stepping on the rugs, which protected a person’s feet from tipping, one had to get footing by stepping on the floor and pushing the bottle caps in the direction one wanted to go! Kind of like walking through snow. But not on snow.

Art school, I am learning, is a very different sort of education. This suddenly is on my mind because our daughter just went off to college yesterday! What I lack in critical thinking from not having had a liberal arts education (such as my daughter and Bill Cohen), I make up for in creativity.

All those hours of life drawing, design and constructing modular pieces that “worked!”
These classes went into the young art student’s brain in ways still waiting to be revealed.

Judy LaBrasca is now and has always been an artist. She lives in Maine. I am sure she, like I am, is tired of the bottle caps and doesn’t decorate with them anymore. I cannot speak for her usage of that wonderful color combination. I still have deep respect.

And while it may seem like I am trashing Bill Cohen, he received a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and then went on to law school in Boston. He has his own successful law practice in Pennsylvania.

 

Copyright 2014   Hollis Hildebrand-Mills   All rights reserved.

Categories Art, Uncategorized

“Piece Of My Heart” Number 23

July 14, 2014 //
30

The Shredding Skirt

The Shredding Skirt

<!
My daughter goes off to college in a month. I have been getting her ready and this involves many trips to different doctors. On this day, I was on my way to a few of these necessary doctors’ appointments.

Putting on one of my favorite skirts, one I had not worn in a while, I was happy. It is a long black skirt of many tiers. Made out of Indian material. I bounced downstairs and out the door. To take my daughter to the dentist. Getting out of the car, I was still happy I had worn my long black skirt. At the dentist’s waiting room, I was still enjoying the skirt.

However, in the car on our way to the next doctor’s appointment, I noticed there was a split in one of the tiers. Oh, I thought, this can be remedied easily! I just had not noticed it before. Then, at a stop light, pulling up the skirt (It is a full skirt.), I saw holes in it. And more rips in the tiers. In fact the entire skirt was coming apart. This was like an scene from a science fiction movie.

Stepping down from my SUV, the skirt tore by way of one its holes. Mind you, these holes were not present when I left the house.

At the doctor’s appointment, I let my daughter go in by herself.(After all, she is eighteen years old anyway!) I stayed huddled in the waiting room as the skirt gently unravelled and left me with no lower garment.

Needless to say, I greeted the doctor in the waiting room, not getting up. And as I had its remaining pieces clutched to my lower half, I got in the car and drove to the nearest boutique.

Categories Art

Piece Of My Heart

May 10, 2014 //
10

Piece Of My Heart

The Hambidge Center For Creative Arts And Sciences. Every year, for 19 years now, Hambidge has had an auction to raise money for its wonderful artists’ mountain retreat.

This year, the Goat Farm Arts Center in Atlanta will be hosting the auction on May 31st. I have been asked to donate two pieces, one you see above. It is a drawing on Reeves paper, done with pencil. Reeves paper is so soft and special, it is an artist’s secret for making the pencils and erasers glide over the page. Darks are darker, and it is easy to erase. Lovely.

Some of you bloggers are familiar with my dislike of titles, but this one I just had to name “Water on Paper.” I think it is appropriate.

If you are in the Atlanta area May 31st, there is not a more interesting event to attend. For more information, click here.

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Art
Newer Entries »