Since I just paid homage to "The Bathrooms are Coming!", I decided to pay my respects to "The Last Sweet Days of Issac". My brother Jon and I found this delightful album at the Martha's Vineyard dump in 1992. We took it home and decided we should call it's creator, Gretchen Cryer. We figured she still lived in New York and we were right. Within minutes of finding this gem we were on the phone with her the maker of this classic 1970 Broadway creation. Thrilled that I was speaking to THE Gretchen Cryer, I promised her we would put on the play. And guess what, we did!
"The Last Sweet Days of Issac" was last performed by our band , The Diarrhea Roses on Martha's Vineyard in 1992. It was a huge success, but for some reason after months of hard work we only ran the show for 2 nights, go figure!
After an exhausting day yesterday of such disgusting things like giving birth, I'm ready to pamper myself a bit! I am getting a massage in a little while, then Shawnee and I are going out for sushi. I was looking for stock photo of a woman in a bathtub to add here, when I came across this photo of one of my favorite childhood albums. "The Bathrooms are Coming!" was a musical put on by none other than American Standard. Does anyone remember this gem? I wore this record out as a kid. Though I haven't heard it for 35 years I can still sing most of the songs by heart."It's bathroom Revolution!" and "My bathroom" were among my favoite songs. Here's a review I found:
"Crazy record. All songs celebrating the glory of custom bathrooms. Many featuring bizarre sexual subtexts. One of the weirdest product music things I've ever heard. Rare as hell too, I was amazed to find an original copy."
Well, here's my 'Inner Child" portrait of the day. It started to rain so I had to duck in the house.
I have a short accompanying video if I can figure out how to upload it.
My advice for releasing your inner child: Plenty of red wine, Pandora.com for your own personal music experience, Cadmium oil paints, and your front porch!
O.K., since there were no suggestions I went with "release your inner child". It's a messy process and I'm in the middle of it right now. The porch studio is working out great today. It's rather pleasant, but if anyone would like so stop by with a great bottle of red, I'm down with that. I'll post some photos of said painting in progress in just a bit!
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and today I'm going to paint! I haven't painted since before I hit the old Campaign tail, so I'm feeling kind of rusty. I wonder what my subject matter will be. I'm going NOT to paint the only subject I've painted in a year and a half. So sans Hillary, any suggestions?
I've had many a studio in my day. I Started as a kid building secret forts in the woods or in summer people's houses in winter. In art school my friends and I lived illegally in the school's vast Cellarlands. The cellar used to be a bombshelter. If we got hungry enough we would eat the crackers from the tins labeled "1963", the year I was born. The "survival crackers" looked like graham crackers and tasted like cardboard. We once built a giant loaf the size of a VW Bug out of these crackers, but that's another story. Together we lived in this cellar for two years. Amid rats and furnaces and leaky pipes we built thrones and life-size games boards. We encrusted everything from floor to ceiling in glitter, including ourselves. Together, we re-invented life into our own mythology. We made sure to steer clear of creepy place like "Janitorland" and dangerous "Matron Jane Land". After two years of fun and games we got thrown out. Oops. Lucky for me I was well into my fifth year. I could have graduated the year before but was having way too much fun.
From here, I moved into derelict free studios. The remains of an old cranberry mill on Martha's Vineyard was a favorite for quite a few years. Next came the floating studios." Dragonfly's Banquet", my sailing raft home was pretty good when the weather was calm. It was unbearable when it was rough. I'm actually getting seasick just thinking about trying to paint during those stormy times on the ocean! A favorite floating studio was the one we built on top of the Neutrino family's raft. The view of Provincetown was fantastic!
Here is a painting from a studio I had right here in my house. It's about three feet from my bed and the oil paint fumes made it intolerable.
At the more recent "El-Change-O!" studio, scenes like this were a relatively common sight.
Back to the present and this windy studio. I've had better, and I've had worse!
I had a dream last night that two gangs met to fight. They met at midnight on a downtown street. One gang wore fishing net they'd found on the beach with protective football gear. The other wore stripes, plaid skirts, and armor. They fought through the night. The police didn't care. The end.
Fun tip of the day: Have you tried Pandora radio ? It's a free site that allows you to create your own radio station using only the kind of music you like!
"For those who voted for me, and are now considering not voting for Barrack or for voting for John McCain, I strongly urge you to reconsider". She really is a remarkable woman. One more reason to think she is the bomb!
Today was one of those days where I spent most of the day watching horror movies in the dark. It seemed somehow appropriate for a sunny, hot, June day in Arizona. My dear friend Kate called me, she was sailing on the San Francisco Bay. I practically had to put on sunglasses to shield myself from all that sunny fun. Not to mention all those happy 60's San Francisco songs that went buzzing through my brain.
I started the day off "studio hunting". The space I looked at, a cavernous building with no electricity that was rented by the square foot, looked like something out of a B horror flick. The realtor said they didn't have electricity so that meth dealers wouldn't move in and set up shop. Hmmm.... I just wasn't feeling it. She then showed me the "Blair witch office project"... dark, creepy office rooms that had never seen the light. This set the mood. I love going Gothic once in a while. You'll note I didn't use a single exclamation mark in this blog. Want to type exclamations... must stop now... or I'll
Oh stu-stu-studio, where are you? Somewhere in the Hillary Clinton may-lay I lost you!
I used to have the greatest studio in the world, called "El-Change-O!" Although it was ridiculously expensive, and loaded with landlord drama, Shawnee and I poured all our energy into it for two years. We put on tons of amazing music shows with top-name bands here. Along came a bad mold problem in the building, and away El-Change-O! went! I would have been more down-heartened, but at this point I was all Hillary all of the time. I moved my H.C.A. base of operations out to my little shack in the desert, where the rent is free. No phone, no light, no motor car, this truly is a primitive shack. Great in the Arizona winter, but impossible in the summer. I haven't been out there since April, when the Hillcar odyssey began. It's incredibly hot out there, and I paint with oils. I'm afraid it must look like a Salvador Dali painting gone wrong!
So Here I sit, wondering... oh stu-stu-studio, where are you?
I guess I better quit procrastinating and start looking for you!
Many thanks to Britt and Trish for buying some of my paintings! Thanks to you both my debt is dwindling quickly!
Britt bought the Michelle Obama doll some months ago in support of taking the Hillcar to Pennsylvania!
Trish, always up for some fun, was one of the models in the H.C.A. pantsuit fashion show!
Thank you both so much, and thanks to everyone for your support! I'm so lucky to have such wonderful friends as you all!
Here's the paintings Britt bought.
I always forget to photograph my work, so I'll have to visit Trish and photograph the painting she bought!
I guess it's time I think about painting something besides Hillary again. I've painted her for a year and a half solid. Now I guess I will consider some other subject matter ( boo!). What, huh, is there another subject ?
A friend of mine once told me I brought "Generation X" to Hillary's campaign. Generation X, known for it's distrust with government, rampant political apathy, sarcasm, and angst. O. K., I'll go with that. I too spent the better part of the 80's as a disenfranchised art punk. Somehow I survived. Don't I at least get an "I survived the 80's" T-shirt? All the female heros I've ever had were self-destructive heroin-addicted chicks with attitude. Is it spelled Heroin or heroine? I'm confused. Same difference! Siouxsie Sioux, Marianne Faithful, Exene Cervenka, Nina Hagen, Patty Smith, Edie Sedgwick, Nico. They all possessed tragically glamourous, rough and tumble lives in which "Warhol" is a verb. So what made this Generation Xer toss a life-time of political apathy to the wind and go gung-ho for Hillary? Is it her tremendous determination to make this world a better place? Is it her genuine sense of caring about what happens to all of us idiots sharing this planet? Or is it because she strikes a childhood chord of appeal in her "Partridge Family," "Brady Bunch", "Wonder woman" style that's drilled into my Gen Xer's subconscious? I think it's all of the above. To me she represents what women are really capable of. She seriously kicks the ass of any man in the room and does so with style and grace. Hillary Clinton is a power-house who's capability, determination, passion, and wisdom knows no bounds. She's Superwoman in a pantsuit. She's "Mom for President"! I still love my heroin-addicted heroines, but Hillary Clinton has blown them all to oblivion! I'm pretty sure she has secret Super-hero super-powers that she hasn't even revealed yet! I for one am intrigued! Get me some popcorn, I can't wait for "Hillary Clinton, The Movie!" to come out! If I brought a touch of Generation X sensibilities to the campaign in my Warhol-influenced way, Hillary seemed to appreciate and genuinely "get" it. This makes her even cooler in my book!
If you had trouble sleeping last night wondering about that gift MARK STITCHES said he had for me, then we are on the same boat! Well, wonder no more, here it is!
Mark made me a Hillary doll for the up-coming Unity tour!
Yes, it's Barrack and Hillary in Bisbee stitches doll form! They are getting ready to get out there and bring unity to the Democratic party!
They were last seen outdoors enjoying this beautiful Bisbee day!
Dear PAPER, I recently returned from a 3 month stint on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton. I drove "The Hillcar", a painted, decorated art car I made that celebrates "All things Hillary!" This week I finally returned home and caught up on my favorite magazine, which is of-course, Paper! I sincerely love your magazine. I especially love Dennis Dermody's movie reviews, David Hershkovits's "Eye Spy", and who couldn't love Fashion Schmashion! I was not amused by Moby's article "The end of the Clintonian era", however. I accepted the fact that you didn't think Hillary's pantsuits were hip enough for Fashion Schmashion, and Barrack's fashions were cool enough for the cover. I personally find Hillary's fashions, (similar in style to Shirley Partridge minus the ruffles,) to pretty much ROCK! So I filed this one under "different strokes". But when Moby made the claim that Hillary is "power-hungry and entitled and would do anything to win", I feel I must speak up. Hillary is a class act. She a sincere person who fights for what she believes in, and is not deserving of this article. She gave it everything she had, she didn't win and she took it gracefully. Now she's out there actively supporting Obama, and has asked her supporters to do the same thing. Moby, what more could you possibly ask from the lady?
Gretchen Baer Hillary Clinton Army Bisbee, Arizona
I found a beautiful, antique beaded necklace on my doorstep today. It turned out it came from Mark Stitches, my awesome neighbor! I took his photo. Luckily, I had may camera on hand!
Many thanks to Lynn and Kees for all their hard work! They drove it down from Tucson this morning ( hot! no AC!) after housing it since it was dropped off in Tucson by the auto shippers. Lynn and Kees have been such a great help to the H.C.A. and the Hillcar. They threw the fund-raising party that started the Hillcar on it's great adventure! Thanks you guys!
I dreamt last night that Hillary and Obama ran a cafe together. It was a place to feed all their supporters. Clintonites and Obamaians had to politely eat side by side if they wanted to eat. At first everyone was trying to figure out which is the Obama food and which is the Clinton food. But Hillary and Obama had worked hard to merge their tastes together. I was hesitant at first, but I decided to go in and eat. I had a delicious salad with blue cheese crumbles and mashed potatoes piled on top. Yum! Perhaps I've made a personal break-though! This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius! Wait a minute? Was that in the last century or this one? Who cares! Let's get groovy!
There was no shortage of laughter on Brewery Gulch last night. Stand-up comedienne Doug Stanhope had us all in stitches. I laughed until my face literally hurt!
Doug brought New York comedienne Rick Shapiro along for an added treat!
Everybody loved the show, including Doug and his wife Bingo!
After the show, we all commenced to partying!
Doug and Bingo then invited everyone back to their house. Lucky Kate got to be our designated driver!
You gotta check out Kate's Hillary Clinton steering wheel!
Doug and Bingo's house is really cool. I love their cereal collection!
Even the future Mayor of Bisbee, Betty Lindstom, was there!
At this point I apparently forgot to take more pictures, but we had fun until the wee hours sitting outside under a full moon! I hope you enjoyed this virtual party adventure. The great part is you don't have to suffer the hang-over like I do!
We of the Hillary Clinton Army stay true to our slogan of "Putting the party back into Democratic party!" Today I can't think of a thing to say about Hillary Clinton or the Democratic party, so let's just party! I thought I'd treat you all to a Wednesday night out in Bisbee. So dress up some crazy outfit and get ready to PAARRTTY!
We will be starting the night off by tottling down the street in our platform shoes to "St. Elmo's Bar". This fine establishment is about 2 blocks away on the road I live on, aptly named "Brewery Gulch". Bisbee used to be a thriving copper-mining town, full of everything you think of when you think "Wild West." Brewery Gulch's claim to fame is that it used to house over 100 brothels! My house was one of them. But that was then, this is now. Today Bisbee is an artist's haven. It's full of painters, writers, musicians, dreamers, drunks, and even comedians!
Tonight we are in for a treat! Our evening of entertainment begins with a live ( and free, so put away those wallets!) show by Comedy Central's own Doug Stanhope!
Disclaimer: viewer discretion may be advised, the following video contains strong language!
Doug and his wife Bingo have been great supporters ion the H.C.A. , even though they supported Ron Paul.
Well, enough of my babble. It's time to get dressed!
What to wear, chinchilla, feathers, stuffed animals?
Na, too hot! I ended up choosing silk and leather, with diamond accents!
The Hillary Clinton Army has been disbanded until further notice. If and when our services are needed again... we will fire this blog back up, put on our Polyester Pantsuits, and kick some ass!
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Gretchen Baer
Journey to Hillaryland
Oil on canvas/4' by 6'/ 700.00 plus shippng
Baby Hillary
30" by 40" oil on canvas. 300.00 plus shipping.
Blue Hillary
30" by 40" oil on canvas. 300.00 plus shipping.
Buy some Pantsuit Art!
All paintings below are 50.00 each, plus shipping.
Contact gretchen@gretchenbaer.com and once confirmed, this button links to Paypal...
Envoy with raspberry pie
Envoys on moat
Gretchen talks with Envoys
Pantsuit Art
All paintings below are for sale for 50.00 each, plus shipping.
They are all 6" by 6", painted in oil on a 100 year old tin ceiling tile.
All proceeds help the Art Envoys bring more art and color to the world.
