The Fine Art Blog of Daz and Holly

Willy Wonka: But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he he always wanted.
Charlie Bucket: What happened?
Willy Wonka: He lived happily ever after.

Sometimes the art just flows. I don’t need to suffer to do great art as the cliche might go.
Most of my art exists in glorious potential, simmering deliciously in my mind. The sketch above is a mural idea, actually the bottom part with the top part having angels bouncing on clouds.
The sketch below is a representation of the ‘attention’ concept that girls work with in their social development, without that concept we would not have dance! I suppose they invented it to keep from being eaten by bears and saber tooth tigers. I’m not really concerned about the science though, I’m just an observer of happiness and creativity.

Below is Dancer with a bouquet of flowers (The Star of the ballet) by the mighty Edgar Degas.
Degas was the original Painter Of Light!! Visit WikiPaintings for lots of good stuff from Degas!

In a lot of ways this painting symbolizes the attention concept for me. She is so happy, she is the center of attention and no bears will be able to eat her as she is loved, and the crowd would rush to save her should a bear, or saber tooth tiger were to rush the stage looking for lunch.
Speaking of saber tooth tigers, come on down to the Speakeasy Art Center this year for the Wine Share concerts in the art gallery! You bring your wine, and common sense, and have a good time!
Flyer by Holly! She can make one for your event too!

And here is a nifty liquified pic I made of a photo taken of holly this unseasonably warm January!

and here is my collage for my Facebook page cover pic!

I have sooo much art and so much abundance! Have a great day everyone!

I’ve been busy working on bringing culture to the midwest and to the world! Eventually I shall bring it to the rest of the universe, but for now what I have been working on lately…
My new web-comic called Lives of the Artists which obviously (to me!) is an homage to the mighty Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574), he, 500 years after his birth, still inspires my creativity with his poetic and often hilariously gushing accounts of the artists of his day (Michaelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo etc) and the ones that opened the door to the Renaissance, many of whom we really only have his accounts to get a idea about the person behind the artwork.
This is hardly on par with the great masters but I love art and use the principles they wrote so passionately about and practiced. I plan to do a regular series of these! Featuring art-girl Holly and art-guy Daz with assorted flying guinea pigs!

The comics will be re-printed for the paper ‘zine, GoBzine, that I like to send out to my friends and random strangers who show a shred of curiosity about my work. The comics will also have lots of my art and tie into the poetry book that real life art girl Holly is working on! Those poetry books will be distributed at the local Peoria area poetry meetings as soon as we get them done! Donations of cash and poetry are welcomed to fuel this project. Just drop me or Holly a message on Facebook or to gobzine@gmail.com (me, Daz) and Holly’s email is writeoneforyou@gmail.com.
Here is a collaboration of my art and a poem by Holly, it is a clerihew poem! (or a variant of one called a Hollihew to be technical!)

Vincent Van Gogh
potato soup swirling
The spoon, a paintbrush twirling.
Soften the gnarly spud
he plucked from ochre mud!

It is a pleasure to know artists like Holly who are dedicated to the arts and the community. Here’s Holly with her side of the Speakeasy Art Center – “Gallery Open” sign we use on the sidewalk to bring the public in! It was her idea to re-paint it for curb appeal. I did the other side.

*<3*

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Both Holly and I are graphic designers in addition to being fine art painters and poets.
Holly has been honing her Photoshop skills for photo manipulation and photo restoration work in these fun examples below (that’s our faces over the more famous ones!). You can find her at The Speakeasy Art Center a lot of the time if you have some graphic design and photo work you need done (She is a professional photographer as well as the all the other hats she wears! – Mom, gormet chef, superhero etc.)

Speaking of The Speakeasy Art Center, there was an Art Fiesta on Nov 11 2011 and here is a little spontaneous video of the band Noodles N Chicken that played! Holly put her helper hat on for that event (we support the arts community however we can but don’t have much money so this is what we do).

The next night, Holly’s friend Dana Taylor played at the monthly Wineshare event (check the Speakeasy Facebook page for upcoming events!) and while I didn’t get video of that event, I did record him while Holly and I painted on the “Gallery Open” sign a few days before! First time he played the songs it was flawless, he got a little camera shy when I recorded them though haha!

but wait that’s not all! Here are a couple of Dana Taylor’s awesome songs on MP3 you can download for free, two more originals and his really sweet Fleetwood Mac cover! He will be playing live around the area so support your local musicians by going to the gigs!

Holly, like the cool kids do, loves guinea pigs (of course) and here’s some liquify filter guinea pig art I made recently! There is a bigger (printable) version on my Flickr account!

Geez, still not done with this blog post, I really should have kept up with all this, and will *shakes fist in determination*
Below is the complete MP3 recording of the October 26 2011 Poetry night at ART SHOW on Jefferson in Peoria Illinois.
It was a weird night! NOTE: The next Peoria poetry show is Thursday Nov 17 2011 at CHAMPS WEST 515 N Western Ave Peoria Illinois. Here’s the FB event page! CHAMPS WEST REVIVAL holistic hootenanny Gala of Poetic glory
David Von Behren will be the host and will also be featured prominently in the forthcoming poetry ‘zine as edited by Holly and illustrated by Me!

I think that’s all for this blog post but lots of other cool art projects are poised to happen and are already underway! I know, I have some video art projects long overdue to post but they aren’t quite done yet!

This blog post documents the OPEN MIC POETIC GALA (confluence of NITE OWL-CHAMPS WEST POETRY SERIES) at the most poetry filled corner of the universe in Peoria Illinois on Wednesday, September 14 at 9:30pm – September Christember 15 at 12:30am. The place was Gavra Lynn’s ART SHOW (Abstract + Multiply = The Emotive Math) Civic Center Plaza On Jefferson.

Resident artist Chris Keller draped a sheet over local ‘dark ambient metal’ musician Rick Winn and he became the Ghost musician and really added an extra layer to the performance.

Coincidentally I was thinking of bringing my Ghost of the Speakeasy Art Center painting (shown) to the ART SHOW gallery since the Nite Owls poetry was hosted there but my zine art is on the wall instead!

Info on the legendary Champs West poetry nights can be found here on the Peoria Bar Blog Peoria Bar Blog and here pjstar.com

There is a nice article in the Bradley Observer about Champs West founder Will Ankrum here and his work can be found online in a poetry ghetto (I call it that because you have to subscribe and that means mostly only poets subscribe) here and a poem that Will described as ‘a piece of shit poem’ but he read it anyway (it is good of course) that you can read (out loud please!) here.

The videos I’ve uploaded so far are loading up below and here is an mp3 of all the show that I recorded (either stream or right-click to download). Will Ankrum, Jessica Stephenson, John Phillips, David Von Behren, Adam Oldfield, Chinaman and many more! NOTE: I deliberately did not record all the show as you really have to be there and it doesn’t matter where you are to hear live poetry, what matters is that you DO IT!!! make your own scene and DO IT!!!

Here are the videos. First up the powerful words of Jessica Stephenson -visit her poetry and thoughts blog here! http://inpotentia.tumblr.com/

John Phillips is a Peoria Illinois writer and wrote the classic Comfortably Nowhere which can be purchased for 12.95 from authorhouse.com

David Von Behren is a writer and poet and you can read his blog here http://miredmusings.blogspot.com/

Will Ankrum is that cool poetry teacher you wish you had taken a class from.

Next show! Night Owls – Spoken Word Strikes Again!
Wednesday September 28th 2011 ART SHOW
331 Jefferson – across from the Civic Center
Peoria, IL
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=255785044461785

and because I don’t want, in the words of Jessica Stephenson, “the plainest walls I have ever seen”, I bought this masterpiece by Chris Keller. Chris said that the black line between the couple represented the impending divorce between some friends of his and it was harsh and gloomy and depressing etc but I didn’t see it that way, it’s romantic and mystical and full of life!

My cool friend Chris Keller is living for the entire month of September 2011 (we call it Christember) in an art gallery called ART SHOW in Peoria Illinois!
He is making lots of art, as you would expect, and bringing in bands, guest artists to collaborate on ‘live art’ (to raffle off for charity) and even dogs from the local shelter to find humans for adoption. Yes, it’s that cool!

Chris asked me to be the guest artist for live art last Saturday the 10th of Christember and just so happened to have my friend J.D. Greving of Memorial For A Dove on the bill and Dave Omega Moses too (whom, if you read my last blog post, DJ Disaster and I wrote a song for -to inspire him to ‘get of the couch’ and he did, and the rest is history!).
This photo is of me, Darren Daz Cox and Dave Omega Moses! We are both fat and like the Ramones.
Below is Chris Keller, the ember of Christ, working on the live art pic (I created an angel with a guinea pig to match the zines I brought to share and Chris painted an alien and spaceship).

And now some gratuitous nudity videos of the event!


Dave Moses doing his original song “Outback” and JD Greving doing his original song “Scene”! Both really great tunes!
The Two above were filmed by DJ Disaster of Riverfront Media.
Below is for historical reference and not so groundbreaking in a musical way, but hey, it’s my life and I am very thankful for all this awesomeness! You can hear Something With Trees warming up in the background before Dave goes solo!
and here is a little clip of Something With Trees (I really should have turned my I-Phone around doh..

I added a 20 ft tall girl on this 10ft high mural so the rodent of unusual size will have its own human! You can see this mural on the 3rd floor of the Speakeasy Art Center in Pekin Illinois!

I am going to publish these blog posts from my I-phone so this one is kind of a test!

I got my art mural mojo back after a couple of months hiberating this past winter and here is the first days work on on the new mural 10ft high by about 15ft long!

That’s me, Darren Daz Cox in front of the new mural in progress! and below is a detail of the transition between the two murals. You can see a rodent of unusual size motif with the beginnings of a dandelion field! There is also a hole in the wall on the angel’s leg there. It is the honesty of the medium rather than a design choice.

This pic below shows a life sized spontanious painting I did sunday night, January 30th 2011, on the walls leading up to the third floor at The Speakeasy Art Center 353 Court Street where I have the coolest art studio in Pekin Illinois I mean The World.
It took me about 2 hours and way too many listens to the same James Brown funk mp3 that is now burned in my brain.
An angel leads the viewer up the stairs, her pet bat sits on her back it’s wings gently wave.
I’ve been working on a huge 8ft by eight foot canvas oil painting it currently looks like this! That’s a giant guinea pig, the largest ever painted on canvas in the history of art history!

I drew a whole bunch of guinea pigs recently in preparation for the big painting and the big painting is preparation for the next 20 feet of my psychedelic wall mural. And that’s to proove to myself that I could painting something monumentally huge. I always liked guinea pigs and flying guinea pigs rule! So I painted on my living room wall as practice for the big 8ft x 8ft canvas.above is on the canvas, below on the living room wall! It started in black and white then I painted color over it.Below is the bottom figure on the canvas.and more from the wall at home. and one more thing, the Bored Angel sketch that will now be on the big canvas!…update tuesday morning before the killer death storm blizzard from hell that will indubidedly destroy civilization as we know it, I decided, or rather I got a very strong idea for my next 20ft long mural scene, angels with an army of unicorns vs. faeries with their army of guinea pigs, featuring a scene from back in the golden days when they were battling for the supremacy of rulers of Earth!

I am going to allow everyone to download and print out, if they choose to, as much of my art up to this point as I can share.
Here is the first one, I call it “Treasure Box” and you can download it from this link http://99daz.com/art/jpg/treasurebox.jpg
I love the idea of opening a box (or a book) and finding treasure. Here I went with a silver and emerald theme! The liquify filter in Photoshop allows some very nice and shiny effects!
So download from the link above if you want and I will be adding as many as I possibly can!
Here is some technical info to show you how big the download file will be. I’m not getting all uptight about copyrights and all that but if you want to use bits and pieces of my art in your own work, go for it, just let me see what you have done! I love the idea of inspiring creativity!

In other news, I have built and primed my new 8 foot by 8 foot canvas and will be painting on it soon! I have many of the motifs planned out from the central figure of a girl washing a unicorn to the guinea pigs frolicking! Here is a pic of the virgin canvas laying on the floor of my studio in the Speakeasy Art Center located at 353 Court St. In Pekin Illinois, cultural hub of the midwest!

I am also working on a follow up story to my Love and Robots short story that at least one person a year loves! So maybe you will be the one this year that reads it haha, it’s really short sci-fi and I’m a bloody genius so do yourself a favor and read it! More on this later as it progresses!

Back to the big printable jpg thing, I will create a page and have them all on one page for download soon. Oh I forgot, i have a cool holiday dragon pic to upload next!

Here is the latest stage of my huge oil painting across from the art studios of Alec DeJesus, Doug Halstead and Doug Goessman.
Tree of life – oil on canvas 30 feet by 10 feet – by Darren Daz Cox 3rd floor art studio Speakeasy Art Center in Pekin Illinois 353 Court St.

Above, detail of the center ‘tree’ motif. True ‘more is more’ art!
Below is a mermaid I painted on the wall on friday night to help people wind their way through the labyrinth of rooms on the 3rd floor of the art studios!

Right now the Speakeasy Art Center is showing (some of) the work of Eric Cooney and Gene Mialkowski!

Nov 2010 Speakeasy Art Center Gallery show

I now need a wall to paint on about the same size of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

Below is an excellent pic from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel

Michelangelo’s Last Judgement fresco in the Sistine Chapel

I have proven to myself that I can paint big with my 20ft by 10ft oil paint mural in the Speakeasy Art Center and gallery in Pekin Illinois. Now I wish to go bigger and really expand the ideas I started. Here is a detail of my current work that you can see on the third floor of the Speakeasy Art Center, across from the courthouse in Pekin Illinois (there are many other cool artist’s there too with lots to see but please don’t disturb their work!).

Pekin Illinois trippy mural at the Speakeasy Art Center July 12 2010 by Darren Daz Cox

I’ve been working on some smaller paintings with the idea to have something I can sell but you can’t get the detail in a small work that you can with something huge. It is nice to share art and allow people to own something that I put time and effort into.  Below are some of my current small works that will be available to whomever wishes to own them for a modest contribution. I figure I’ll sell my small paintings for $99.00 US which is a sum most anyone with a job can afford and will appreciate in value as my work gets more and more noticed.

Angel of Ambiguity oil painting by Darren Daz Cox

Angel of Ascention oil painting by Darren Daz Cox

Fern Faerie oil painting by Darren Daz Cox

These oil paintings are obviously unfinished but I work on as much as I can without forcing the work. If it becomes a chore or a "job" then it doesn’t turn out well so I take my time and slowly build up a picture while I think good thoughts! It is important to me that the quantum intent associated with my art is of a positive nature and while that has no apparent relevance in a world where scientists cannot measure such things it is very important to me,,,

So I rented a corner in an old crumbling building called The Speakeasy gallery in Pekin Illinois. It’s located right across from the courthouse on Court Street! I’m on the 3rd floor with some other cool artists (go up the stairs in the corner in the bottom gallery turn right and go up again!).As you can see from the pic I have started some paintings that are 9ft high and 6ft wide, two panels that size in my corner! I have another space right next to this where I will do another oil painting on the wall approximately 10ft high and 9 feet wide, wow! Scale can be an awesome factor in art! On the scaffold I feel like Michelangelo painting the Sistine chapel!

Here is me, Darren Daz Cox, in front of the work in progress "Allegory of an Artistic Inspiration".

 Here is the original pencil sketch I drew as a starting idea. I wanted to show "inspiration" in an allegorical form, the angel grabs inspiration from "heaven" and throws it to the girl painting. The girl sleeping is sending her inspirational dreams up to heaven or the collective unconscious etc. It is a loose concept with plenty of room for exciting things to happen, like the dragon who just magically appeared!

Sketch for the walls of The Speakeasy Gallery in Pekin Illinois by Darren Daz Cox

In case you just found this post randomly, here is the next phase of the mural!

and here is the most current version! I need to take a better pic but you can see how much detail was added!

and now I am working on the next section of wall so the whole thing is getting to the size of a Thomas Hart Benton mural yea!

One of the turning points in the history of art, from art being the domain of the elite to art being available to the masses was when the printing press was invented and the common man could afford a copy of a work of art that an artist had duplicated many times in a printing press.

Yesterday, myself and a few brave volunteers from the The Shore Institute of The Contemporary Arts (20 Third Avenue, Long Branch, NJ) transfered the entire contents of Ocean County College’s long defunct printmaking department to the SICA building. Classes will be offered soon!

We filled a 20ft moving truck with things (A litho press is mighty heavy btw!) and  used our vehicles for the remainder, here’s one of the intaglio presses sticking out of my car at the SICA.

and here’s an intaglio print I made back in the day, at Mississippi University in Columbus MS, hmm almost 20 years ago! It will be fun to see what I can now! Thank you Thomas Nawrocki – best art prof ever!

"Egg magazine #1" one of a kind color proof intaglio etching by Darren Daz Cox

and here’s some of the details of a hand tinted (with watercolor and florescent tempera paint) on another intaglio print from the last time I had the pleasure of being in a printmaking dept which was at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale!

"Sha Na Na, Star Trek and Sunsets are Awesome, and so are you!" Intaglio print by Darren Daz Cox

 I’m referring to a metaphysical concept of big rather than about scale of artwork but I am striving to make paintings as big as I possibly can to really maximize the effect of the grandeur of art (and as they did in the Renaissance, the grandeur of mankind imbued by the gift of creativity from God).

Look at what happened when the Medici decided to take their personal love of creativity and invest heavily in it – The Renaissance, resulting in  art that has dominated the art world for five centuries due to the saturation of mega-talent given a chance to flourish.  For those of us living in the Peoria and Pekin Illinois area in the 21st century we have people like Todd Thompson to thank for a re-birth of culture in Pekin Illinois.

Todd and Steve Foster took a chance and invested in the building at 353 Court Street and with the help of Pekin Main Street Director Leigh Ann Matthews and the legendary artist and teacher Doug Goessman that investment is paying off in ways far beyond mere money.

Last night was the opening of the show for the artist’s that have a studio within the Speakeasy Art Center and the show will be up until Aug 28 2010 when another great group of artworks will be exhibited. See the flyer at the end of this post that I took from the Speakeasy Art Center Facebook page (please friend them!). I also borrowed this picture that they posted of the show to show how well they lighted my huge painting, which really made me happy! Thanks Doug! (he also made the Warhol-esque silkscreen on canvas painting next to mine in this pic)

Speakeasy Art Center Pekin Illinois 353 Court St. Resident Artist Show August 2010

Check out Ed Emmons’s blog http://www.ourtimesinpekin.com/ for some great photos of the show and just about every Pekin Illinois cultural event of the summer so far! Awesome artist’s like Alec DeJesus, Trinidy Patterson and Nikole and Eric Cooney (all of which have art at the show!) have really been putting in the time and effort to make this excellent for all of us and it’s a wonderful thing.

Below is a painting I have at the show that I will send to my friend Jane who was literally there when I decided to become an ‘great artist’, not to just do art for fun like I did but to make art my life and I have stuck with it ever since. Jane has become pretty famous under her alter-ego of Wynx Whiplash and is still the same sweet goth chick I knew back then. In fact, pretty much all the artist’s I knew from that time period have stuck with art and have really excelled. I will honor you all in a future blog post!

Goth Girl oil painting by Darren Daz Cox

I wanted to put the painting below in the show but the frame I had broke and it really needs to have a gold frame to make the blue really blue!

Time Traveling Dolphin oil painting by Darren Daz Cox

and here is the flyer (I didn’t make this so all rights reserved by whomever did) for the resident Artist’s show going on until August 28 2010 at 353 Court St. Pekin Illinois (across from the court house!).

Residential Artists show until Aug 28 2010 at The Speakeasy Art Center 353 Court St. Pekin Illinois

 Art for me is sort of like working out, you have to rest in between the work in order to get stronger.  I do not force my art and have pretty much thrown out any plans or goals when it comes to my art as they just create tension.  I started the painting below some months ago and it’s just been sitting until I suddenly attacked it and now it is getting done! What a great feeling!

oil paintings by Darren Daz Cox Speakeasy Art Center Pekin Illinois

This one is a random ‘portal’ oil painting. It is evolving nicely…

Below are some pics of graphiti at the Speakeasy Art Center! I am guilty of them!!

Graphiti at the Speakeasy Art Center Pekin Illinois!

I have been filling my head with great stuff, music like Biff Brown and Dave Omega Moses, podcasts such as Diet Soap, Red Ice Creations and Mysterious Universe.  Binaural beats and meditation are also filling my head! Been watching lots of Netflix to fill up my time (suggestions welcome) and this one below really inspired me, I love Gustave Courbet!

 You really do create your own reality, I set out to be a ‘great artist’  a long time ago and I am one. I want you to inspire me by being what you want to be and doing that well! 

"Become The Creator by creating!" – David Wilcock  (check out his website for cool inspiring things!)

Yea! I got my studio time at the Art Alliance (Redbank NJ) today! and tomorrow I’ll submit some paintings for the new exhibit with the concept of ‘fauna’,  which is totally what I paint!

I was hoping my new oil paintings would be dry enough but I just couldn’t resist that last layer of color arrgh but no mind, as Bob Ross says "we don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents" – Bob Ross rules!♥

I got a new plant today, well three herbs in a pot, I love mint! I also got a crystal pyramid from the New Age Center store nearby to the Art Alliance! Here’s one of the paintings I’ll enter tomorrow, I went crazy on the frame with gold leaf flakes and glitter haha! The concept is to have the owner of the painting put something in the frame so the horse is looking at it, like a feather or a photograph, I wonder if anyone will think to do that? Imagine how much of a focal point something red or pink would be with all that gold and green around it…

The other one i put a little pic of in the sidebar cos i will work on it some more tonight and photograph it tomorrow!

I’m really excited about having some studio space, it’s been a long time since I shared an area with other artists, but i remember how that creative energy inspires me. here’s an old poem about an art building i wrote (actually i scratched it with a metal stylus on a found sheet of lexan and made monoprints with florescent tempera paint added as the inked sheet of lexan went through the press!)

The Art Building

the art building at night

is a glorious sight

full of mayhem and wonton destruction

the building at day

is a dismal display

of a brain without form or function 

the quality of line

aint seen all the time

when the hangovers shadow

the lecture, but the time

when the mind is churning sublime

some ART is produced,

YEAH, YOU BETCHER 

(thanx to Carrie, a fun, dedicated artist…)

Amongst the ferns 

amongst the ferns -

shaded deep within

the redwoods power

and timelessness

the sunbeams kiss your tinted skin

and the gentle air

breathes a new caress

rabbit quiet and squirrel still

we twitch and smile

and breathe and glow

tho’ we’ll be gone ‘for winter’s chill

this spot will remain,

too warm for any snow

♥

It was totally warm today, almost 70 degrees here on the east coast!

Just a note for you SecondLife historians and fans of the tiny avatars, Wynx Whiplash was an art student at that art building at the time I wrote that poem!