I met Ellen Bland in 1989.  Ed Perrault and I attended an art event at Meredith Long Gallery and we had barely gotten a glass of wine when approached by Betty Bland.  She reminded Ed who she was and introduced her daughter, Ellen.  And as Betty engaged Ed in conversation, Ellen just looked at me and asked, “You a coonass?”  I said yes.  And then she asked, “You like pralines?”  I said yes.  A week later Ellen dropped by with pralines and a friendship was born.  It was the holiday season, because Betty’s praline business was full throttle and Ellen was a fully deputized praline elf.  And I never had pralines like that before.  They were the best I’d ever ...

Everyone knows the Blue Dog, whether they know the artist’s name or not.  Most Louisianians do.  But long before the Blue Dog with its kitsch mass-marketing appeal, George Rodrigue was celebrated for his regional stories in oil.  They are stories that no one, save Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had ever told well enough to capture the intrigue of the world.  I became acquainted with the work of Rodrigue while in high school when his work hanged in restaurants.  I also recall Mother and I having dinner when I fell in love with a painting; it was $1,300 according to the card stuck to the wall next to it; she said that was a lot of money for artwork, that dad would kill ...

The Powel House on Society Hill near the Delaware River is considered one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the United States.  Built in 1765, it stands witness to over 250-years of history as a center for political elites.  “The place General Washington danced” is the rallying cry that kept the Powel House from demolition.  I am traveling with my companion Angel.  I drag him around to this kind of cultural landmark when I can, even if I must prop him up with a stiff drink. During the American Revolution, Samuel and Elizabeth Powel were known to be amongst the most politically elite residents of Philadelphia, whom Angel erroneously calls Philippines.  But in the early 20th Century, Russian ...

Is the tradition of sending Christmas cards lost or passe’? In an age of emails, texts, and the US Postal Service hemorrhaging $11 Billion in 2024, is snail mail a forgotten tradition?  Researching the dos and don’ts of Christmas Cards is tricky.  There is not enough written about sending cards.  And often what is said is antiquated.  This post explores the art of Christmas Cards and Christmas Card etiquette.  I make my own cards and have for decades.  There were years when I would hand paint or draw every one of them.  In recent years I have made the image, designed the layout, and had the cards printed.  It is a lot of work.  I also make my own cards ...

  The Thirty Day Diet Challenge       No bread, pasta, or wheat products.       No fast food.       No fried foods.       No snacks or chips.       No sweets, candy, or dessert.     Diets are tough.  Fitness gurus advise against diets and rather advocate healthy lifestyle choices.  That’s well and good but sometimes body fat gets the better of people.  It’s easy to gain weight and tough to shed it.  Follow the Thirty Day Diet Challenge with me and see how we do.       June 18:  183.6 / 25.6  The scale can’t lie.  Weigh daily and write it down.  Weigh first thing in the morning, naked, just out of bed.  My body composition scale records ...

The first drawing of a new sketchbook can be as intimidating as that first brushstroke on a fresh white canvas. Yes, you’ve got to start somewhere but if you spoil the first page it sets a disappointing tone for the whole book. In my early years of sketching, I would just open a page and draw on any blank page, Helter Skelter like a maniac. Perhaps I was too intimidated by my skills to start at the first page.  But around 2006 I began creating a distinct first page.  And since then, I have created an interesting collection that signals a progression of my skill and direction as an artist. It is a new year. I am officially a year ...

These are wieners, and I recently shared a drawing on social media that caused a bit of a ruckus.  The sketch is explicit, and I awoke to a smorgasbord of texts, comments, adoration, and jeers.  The experience led me to consider the difference between acceptable and taboo content.  Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward famously wrote, regarding the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio, that pornography is hard to define, but “I know it when I see it.”  It’s a brilliant, concise, vague, and memorable statement.  And it allows for indefinite societal interpretation.  Unfortunately, the precise interpretation is left to us, and it is often an individualized determination.  This post examines recent pieces in my series of explicit anatomical drawings and the ...

This page contains language and images that some people may find offensive. This is an art and camping story: a disturbing homage to Courbet’s Origin of the World.   Martin Dies Jr. State Park is a 705-acre area on the northern edge of the Big Thicket, on the bank of the B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir, where the Angelina and Neches Rivers meet. Established in 1965, the forested park is home to loblolly, longleaf, and shortleaf pines, along with an abundance of water oak, red oak, sweet gum, and magnolias plus bald cypress trees in wetland areas. A couple years ago I spent a week there with my camping buddies. For background on the group and Martin Dies State Park, here is ...

How can a painting shock the viewer? How can anyone be scandalized by a picture hanging on a gallery wall? The answers cannot be strictly based on nudity–artists have painted and sculpted nudes for thousands of years and, academically, every artist begins with a nude model. Art becomes controversial when it challenges the viewer’s expectations. Considering controversial art through the ages, I have composed the TroysArt list of history’s 10 most shocking paintings.   Olympia, 1863, by Edouard Manet One of the world’s best and most beloved paintings, Edouard Manet’s Olympia caused the biggest art scandal of the 19th Century. For not only the revolutionary treatment of the subject but also the technical skill in which she is rendered, it ...

One of the topics in a recent morning meeting was the implementation of the STURDY Act.  So what is this new law that no one has every heard of?  The Stop Tip-overs of Unstable Risky Dressers on Youth Act mandates new guidelines and restrictions on the furniture industry to prevent top heavy casegoods from killing people.  Colleagues sat aghast that Congress has nothing better on which to be working but to screw over our livelyhoods. “This must be a knee-jerk reaction to the death of George Washington’s sister,” I commented.  “She was killed while rooting around in a highboy for her husband’s secret letters.”    The Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth Act, or STURDY, was passed by Congress ...