Long Time, No Blog

I came out of the fog induced by the chemtrails from Feb. 3, my last post, and decided to do an update on a project I have coming up in May. In January, I posted about a project I am doing with a local celebrity/comedian/artist/wild man named Peter Wahlbeck. I am doing several portraits of him showing his various aspects and beingnesses.

Last night, I dropped off a couple CDs of songs I have helped some friends write at the radio station in town where he has a weekly talk show called Karlavägen, which basically translates to the constellation we know as the Big Dipper. Here he is at the station talking to the women who run the phone lines before his show.

And here he is behind the mike interviewing a person on the show who is a job coach. Each show has a different theme and last night’s show was about people’s first jobs.

Since I was there, he and his producer cooked the idea for me to be on the show and talk about my first job (callers to the show talked about their first jobs), which I did (it was detailing cars at a local dealership in my hometown, Redwood City, CA.)

At any rate, preparations for the exhibition are going pretty well. I have a few paintings left to finish and we should be all set. I am giving the five or so readers of this blog a sneak peek at some of them.

This first is one I did to show Peter the general style I would do these in. This is Peter Wahlbeck the Communicator.

Next, we have Peter Wahlbeck the Artist:

Then, there is Peter Wahlbeck, the Comedian:

Peter Wahlbeck, the Force of Nature:

Peter Wahlbeck, the Vegetarian:

I have some adjustments to these paintings since I took the photos, but this shows the general idea. Peter did a show over Easter and showed some of the other artists who came to see him pictures of these that he has on his cell phone and, unbelievable to me, they want to buy these. I am doing this project to begin exploring an idea I have had about portraiture for a while and this was an opportunity. I don’t expect anything to sell, maybe one, but it will give me some publicity here in Halmstad and maybe result in some commissions for people who want straight, no nonsense portraits, like this one, Peter Wahlbeck, the Profile:

 

In my own defense, I will say that the paintings look better in the flesh than with these cell phone photos. 

The exhibition starts on May 9th, which is a holiday in Sweden, celebrating the day that Christ ascended to Heaven. For a country that never goes to church, they still take every possible religious holiday off. This weekend is a huge weekend for art lovers and, hopefully, art buyers. All the galleries are open and the artists open their studios and it is a huge art weekend at least here around Halmstad.

Stay tuned.