TOM WILLS PRODUCTIONS: September 2012

Saturday, September 29, 2012

No. 171: Choose Well

"31 Weeks" by Tom Wills, September 2012

The pregnant one on the right is my unwed daughter Kara. Let's right away get to that, because it's the point of this.
She'll have her son Anthony Thomas, grandchild No. 1, after the presidential election but before Christmas.
Napping with her is Keith. I call him "Baby Daddy" not out of spite, but because he is.
They are trying to get a moment of peace in this picture, because they're not getting many.
They, and other young adults like them, have much to lose in this year's election and the next four to eight years. I don't frankly believe that they will gain a thing.

"Pook" 1989, back when I was the Baby Daddy.

Think what you like, and I'll tell you what I think:

I was born in 1961 and I believe that people should get married before they make babies.

But seeing the birth lists in the newspaper every day, I know that's not realistic in 2012. So let's move that debate out of the way right off.
I'm past the point of being surprised, shocked, disappointed or angry. People get together, things happen and if things work out, they fall in love. Sometimes things don't work out, even if they do get married. That chapter here is unwritten.
They are engaged, living together, and a wedding would be nice but it's not happening right now. A baby is.

I love her, I'll love Anthony, and I'm warming up to Baby Daddy.

Click on all pictures to enlarge. Watch the picture "gestate" below.

I think people should work hard and support themselves.

There are times, however, when they cannot.
Kara is a nurse at a nursing home, where the work is hard and unpleasant. She makes decent money, but has tens of thousands of dollars in student loans hanging over her head. Some of that is her fault, being unsure at first of a career choice. Some of it is my fault, pushing her through career pipelines and worrying about the final cost later.
The reality is, her job doesn't cover the cost of her education debt -- and neither does mine -- so parents and others are stepping up until she can handle it. It's a long and dark pipeline.
We are not alone in this, in 2012 America.

Keith didn't go to college, a career center or beauty school. He works part-time, and sometimes full-time depending on scheduling, cleaning classrooms and doing other chores in a city school district. I mopped floors in a hospital for three years and I know that, too, is hard, messy, thankless work.
They have rent to pay, because another reality is, they're not going back to their mommies and daddies.

The timing of this is terrible.

I recently extricated Kara from my employer's insurance and onto her own employer's coverage. She's 24 and not happy about the switch because it's going to take more money out of her paycheck -- $50 a month, just for her. But truthfully she has to pay her share, now that it's available to her -- just like you and I are paying our shares. That's how things work in 2012. Everyone is paying more, while not necessarily making more money.

The kicker is, little Anthony will debut just three weeks before her one-year anniversary at the nursing home. That means Kara gets no family medical leave. In fact, she'll be terminated from her job on the assurance of rehiring and resumption of benefits within 60 days. So, for four or five weeks, potentially there's no insurance, no income. That's where things get really slippery and possibly awful, during what's supposed to be a joyful time.

Kara, 1991. "All the pictures on the wall serve only to remind me of it all."

Most employers with group health plans are required by the government to offer employees the opportunity to continue temporarily their group health care coverage. She can to look into that for herself, but someone will have to pay for it. She can file for unemployment too.
As for Anthony? He'll likely get a medical card. A medical card in Ohio is welfare.

I don't like welfare, I didn't come from it, and my wife is really pissed off.

But in 30-plus years of busting my own loyal ass at jobs, I have learned that sometimes people, through no fault of their own, need government assistance in the short term. Neighbors lose their jobs, natural disasters happen. and people have babies that need medical care.
With this medical card, I am not advocating a free lifetime ride over successive wasteful and lazy generations. Technically the baby is covered for 30 days on Kara's new insurance, but she'll still have to get aid, for at least a month and some days. Frankly, if it's available she should take it until she can swing the $170 a month for family coverage -- which she can't afford now.
Priority No. 1 is the kid's health and well-being. One more issue is off the table.

I'm big on child support, both emotionally and financially. I'm still doing it.

Emotionally, Keith has been right there and he gets strong marks from me for that. Financially, we'll see.
He is waiting on a permanent school district gig but really should also be looking elsewhere for work, and we've had that conversation. Allegedly there's a shale boom and an economic resurgence in northeastern Ohio. Uh-huh.
For now, what good does it do to lawyer up for child support if he can't offer up much financially? The ice is pretty thin, but if it firms up I'm not gonna let him skate, and neither will she.

Did I talk to Kara beforehand about this post? Yes, she read it and said OK, asking, "What prompted this?"

MY frustration, finances and fear.
Plus, I'm tired of televised election blather every seven minutes, 24 hours a day -- all of them looking out for us.

This is a perspective on what I call "the full catastrophe" -- the tale of three families (hers, his and soon theirs), with a lot of baggage and much at stake. It's a mess of hard reality, with both working parents-to-be riding on the backs of their own parents and grandparents -- and soon, a little bit of government aid until things hopefully get better.
I simply don't want it to get worse for us, and others like us.

So, what do we know now?

These two young adults (and many more like them) do not want to be dependent upon government.
They don't want to think of themselves as victims.
They do not believe the government has a responsibility to care for them forever.
They DO believe -- as do I -- that they should have health care, food and housing.
They want to work for it and make a decent wage.

Any candidate (at any level of office) or voter who thinks otherwise is completely out of touch with reality in America 2012. So choose well.

Keith and Kara get to keep the sketch, for their apartment. They can tell Anthony, "Grandpa did that!"

Thursday, September 20, 2012

No. 170: Song For Devadip

A Song for Devadip, September 2012. Watercolor and acrylic. And automotive paint.

Carlos Santana was supposed to be a pencil drawing.
I had, however, a chunk of foam-backed poster board that wouldn't work for a sketch. I'd have torn right into it with the pencil tip.
First I turned to a fine Sharpie marker, then to the paint kit.

Click on all photos to enlarge.

Mmmmm. Chunky.

Turns out that chunk was also wrong for watercolor paint -- but that worked to my advantage. The colors beaded on the surface and created an interesting, rough texture. Also, those blobs of color, when dried and touched by another color, ran together just enough to create a blending effect. (But I will never use it again!)

Before the background.

Santana's music is a blending effect, too, running together rock, jazz, blues and latin music. I have always loved "classic" Santana, particularly the instrumentals -- and especially the ear-splitting guitar solos. I'm glad his new release, "Shape Shifter," is a return to the old school form. I want to check it out.

Santana vinyl includes the elusive 3-LP "Lotus" from Japan.

I chose to shift between natural and unnatural colors for Santana's hair, skin, clothing and instrument. He writes and speaks at length about light, so I tried to make him glow a bit.
The background was a real risk, and I could have ruined the whole thing had it gone wrong.
I cut out a template of the watercolor painting, and then spray painted extra-glossy black and blue around it.
With a few slight touch-ups, it worked. (Whew.)

Dusk? Dawn?
The effect is to create light in the foreground.

Devadip means, "The lamp, light and eye of God." It's the name given to Santana in 1972 by his former guru Sri Chinmoy. It was an experiment, like this painting. As Santana later remarked: "It was a good learning experience."

Follow other steps in the painting's development from ink to paint, below.

Inquiries at hankbonesman@embarqmail.com or willstom01@gmail.com.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

No.169: Pug Life

Together again. Click on all photos to enlarge.

This picture never happened.
It's an example of how I can take two images, from different times, and make them one.
He looks really amused by the dog, Princess. But she's not there.

I have roughed in the faces using the photos and photocopies.

I was given two snapshots of the man, and two photocopies of his beloved dog. The buyer's request was for me to put them together, for a birthday gift. He even drew a little cartoon to show me how he wanted it, and the approximate scale of man to canine.

Kinda sorta like that.

I am very happy with this one, mostly because of the challenges it posed. There are a lot of shadows on the man's photo; getting them onto paper while not obscuring his features was tricky. Also, it's easier to grow a beard than it is to draw one.
Princess has a lot of folds and follicles. I think I got most of them, but stopped counting.

This is a happy picture.

It's not too early to start thinking about owning an original for the holidays. Prices are reasonable; turnaround is usually quick. You can get them framed (by me), or unframed and shipped in a roller tube. All I need is a good picture. Or two.
Contact hankbonesman@embarqmail.com or willstom01@gmail.com for details.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

No. 167: We Are All Together

We Are All Together, September 2012

This is a happy Beatles picture.
That's why I chose it. Nice smiles, arms around, thumbs up. Friends. Cool threads.
Celebrating completion of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
May 19, 1967, original photo by John Pratt.

The guy who bought this has loads of Beatles stuff!

"Excellent work, Tom. As a teen, my bedroom wall was adorned with a poster of an alternate photo from this event (which was the Sgt. Pepper release party at Brian Epstein's house, May 1967). I always enjoy seeing images from the 1966-67 era of the Beatles."

My parents liked The Beatles up to the "Hello Goodbye" period, and "Magical Mystery Tour." At that point the Fab Four suddenly were "on dope" and dressed weird.
I listened to the full Beatles catalog, front to back, while drawing We Are All Together. Their progression was short and remarkable, musically and lyrically.
I liked them better "on dope" and weird, loud and hairy.

We had, in the 1960s, a Westinghouse portable record player that I was eventually allowed to haul upstairs from the rec room. There was an "on" knob, a "tone" knob, and three speeds (78, 33 1/3 and 45 rpm). I put it square in the center of my bedroom floor, where I could sit in front of it and spin "Hello Goodbye" backed with "Penny Lane" and many more. There was a big spindle for the 45s, or singles (big hole) -- and I could stack 'em five high then watch 'em drop.

The Westinghouse mono unit (one speaker) was wrapped in tan and brown vinyl and was full of tubes. It took a while to warm up and smelled funny but worked swell until the tubes died and the music stopped. It was replaced by a solid state Arvin stereo with fold-out speakers but it was never the same.
Initially those Beatles 45s on Capitol Records in the USA had a bright yellow and orange swirl that folded into itself as the record spun. It was cool to look at. Those old Capitol LPs, with 10 or 12 songs, were fun to watch too: A rainbow of colors on the rim fading in and out for infinity.
I loved being a Beatles boy.

Apples. And a rainbow.

In 1968 the look of those records changed, as The Beatles themselves changed: heavier, more serious, jaded and maybe a little mean. A fat green apple replaced the happy swirls and rainbows, almost daring young minds to take a psychedelic bite -- Dorothy-like.
Apple Records was founded that year, part of some grand trip to change music, film and fashion.
Apparently the Apple Corps. logo evolved from a painting Paul McCartney had acquired. René François Ghislain Magritte (1898 -1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist.. He painted the fruit realistically and then denied it was an apple -- only an image of an apple.
Apple album and single labels displayed a bright green Granny Smith apple on the A-side. The B-side was sliced open, to the core.
It was genius, and it remains beautiful.

A red apple. Bad news.

That's when my record collecting bug began.
The first Beatles Apple album proper was "The White Album" (SWBO-101) but the Apple Films logo had appeared in a different incarnation on the inner booklet of "Magical Mystery Tour" in 1967.
The first single was "Hey Jude" backed with "Revolution" in 1968 -- not from "The White Album" but from the same period. I was 7 years old.
My God, "Hey Jude" is still one long song. And "Revolution" still gives me a headache.
Bunches more little Apples followed. "The Ballad of John & Yoko." "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison (the flip side was also a green apple, not sliced: "Isn't It A Pity."). "Day After Day" by Badfinger.

It was like a magic factory.
(Actually FOUR factories: Scranton, PA, Los Angeles, CA, Jacksonville, IL and Winchester, VA.)
On the U.S. issue of the "Let It Be" album, the Apple was red. Being the soundtrack to the United Artists movie of the same name, it was manufactured and distributed by United Artists Records, not Capitol. We learned in our adult years that the red apple wasn't really to mark the difference -- but to signify that "Let It Be" was the end, and was a bloody mess.
I remember that my mom took me to Woolworth's in the Austin Village Plaza in Warren, Ohio in the rain at night to get that record. I opened it up in the car and saw the red apple and the booklet full of Beatles leaning over all sorts of studio hardware.
"This is a New Phase Beatles album," the sleeve note proclaimed.
It was a lie. The Beatles were done.

Producer Phil Spector had been drafted to take piles of not-so-great music and cobble together a just-OK record. John Lennon said: "He took the shittiest pile of shit and made something of it." It was 1970 and I was 9 years old.
("Let It Be" was released last but "Abbey Road" (1969) was actually the final studio effort, and it is magnificent.)
The Fab Four apart, however, and their arty pals were soon everywhere.
I took John Lennon's "Instant Karma" 45 to Emerson Elementary show and tell in the first grade. Everyone dug "we all shine on, like the moon, the stars and the sun." Even the teacher was into it -- Miss Bette Steele, who was kinda young, kinda wow.

Soon Apples were in every record store, back when there were record stores. The Beatles, also being businessmen (though not necessarily good ones), re-released all of those old Capitol swirl 45s and rainbow label LPs on their own Apple imprint. Some of the glossy black sleeves said "The Beatles on Apple" but most just proclaimed "Apple."
There also are many logo variations that drive collectors goofy, namely involving the factory, the printing, the manufacturing line and its placement on the label:
West Coast, "Mfd. by Apple." "Apple label with Capitol logo," West Coast.
East Coast, "Mfd. by Apple." "Mfd. by Apple" on B-Side, East Coast. "Apple label with Capitol logo," East Coast.
"Mfd. by Apple" on A-Side, Jacksonville pressing. "Apple label with Capitol logo," Jacksonville pressing.
"Mfd. by Apple" on A-Side only, Winchester pressing.

John's custom Apple.

Light green, dark green, dull green, shiny green. A few blue ones from Ringo.
It gets even more maddening when you consider all of the EMI Records variations in Europe.
A pal of mine makes a science of Beatles collecting. He has a Beatles room and it's awesome. And he pays in cash, thank you.
The very last Apple single was George Harrison's "This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)" in 1975, and it tanked. I was 14.
The very last LP was Ringo Starr's greatest hits, "Blast From Your Past" in 1975. It featured the return of the red Apple label, by now mired in financial disaster. More blood. Another goodbye.

Blood red.

The bright green apple returned for Beatles compact disc releases in the 1990s, following initial CD releases on Capitol or Parlophone.
There's a hole in the middle of an Apple Corps./Capitol-EMI CD, too. But like the Arvin solid state stereo that replaced the Westinghouse record player, it's not the same.

The illustration is SOLD.

To inquire about buying Beatles vinyl and other artists' LPs, contact hankbonesman@embarqmail.com

Friday, September 7, 2012

Consider An Original


BEST FRIENDS, March 2012, No. 193

BILL AND CHARLIE, March 2013, No. 191

DADDY & NINA, May 2012

"Your picture was a huge hit. My husband loved it. I wrapped it in a large Star Wars blanket with a ribbon. Very talented you are, he says. My kids loved it too. Especially my daughter."

BILL and RAIDER, September 2012

What better gift for your family or friends than an original sketch, from a photograph, nicely framed with a personal message affixed from you?

I've been building my client base since 2008 and have amassed a diverse collection of people and pets, as well as performers.

Prices are reasonable; turnaround time is prompt.

An overview of some recent Tom Wills Productions (click on the pictures to enlarge):

VIOLA, October 2012

JON AND ELISE, February 2012

FOUR KIDS, TEN DAYS March 2012

POULTON WEDDING

GWEN, April 2012

SADI AND NIGHTMARE

FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES

ASHLIN, October 2011

"Mike's parents were in N.C. this week-end and Rebecca and Mike showed them the picture. They were blown away.

Then since Mike's sister lives down there too, they had a

family get together and Mike and Rebecca gave them the picture early.

Rebecca told Anna that Paula was speechless for a minute or two. They were all amazed at the job you did."

BRO AND SIS

SMOKE UP, December 2011

PAM, KENNY & KEIFER, October 2011

LITTLE BROTHER

KARA 'n' KATE, July 2011, 2' x 3'

JENNIFER, May 2011

DUBLIN and KRISTINE, May 2011

JILL AND BRIAN, wedding gift, May 2011

HAPPY 50th DENNIS, February 2010, 3' x 4'

FINE FRIENDS, February 2011, 2' x 3'

CODY WITH HORN, 2' x 3', March 2011

JUST MARRIED, May 2010, 3' x 4'

BROTHERS, November 2010, 3' x 4'

ANOTHER TOAST, February 2011, Pencil, 2' x 3'

hankbonesman@embarqmail.com

willstom01@gmail.com

OUR BEST FRIENDS

MARK'S CATS, 2011

GIRLS WITH SAM, March 2012

MARENGO, September 2011

"He drew a photo of my beloved Afghan Hound when she slipped away from us too soon. He picked up a photo of my beloved Italian ancestral village, and drew that ... he brought me a sketch of my German shepherd just days after I had to say goodbye to her. Why wouldn't I ask Tom Wills to make a drawing from my favorite photo, aside on my first, and still my most beloved, Arabian?"