The Crow Bites Everyone Eventually, Or Dawna Summers Eat Your Heart Out

As I investigate the Child Ballads further I've created some designs for T-shirts (and soon to be  printed) posters.  If you are just starting to read my blog posts the past few have been on the subjects of history, Child Ballads, and interactions between cultures and etymology.  Francis J. Child collected and traced the history of 305 Scottish and English ballads in their American variants that were prominent in the late 19th century, many of which can still be heard today through airwaves and just about anywhere you hear music. These ballads infiltrate rock n' roll, soul, spiritual, country. . . well almost anytime a story is told in song. The ballads cover superstitions, love, tragedy, non-tragic love, Robin Hood, Outlaws, Historic, Humorous and Semi-Burlesque themes.   Brought to the forefront of my interest by the influence of friends and the inclusion in Art Exhibitions (including the first New York City show I'll be part of is Feb 10th and 11th - EXCITMENT) I've started to approach things through a print along with the painting side.

One of the latest print designs  I've been working on is for Child Ballad #111, entitled "Crow and Pie." It is one of the older ballads having been traced back to the early 1500's by Mr. Child.  This may be considered a tragic love theme.  I don't think it would be fair to pigeon hole it as such as it becomes complicated in a contemporary interpretation.  The ballad starts out as a "Gentleman" rides through the forest and spots a maiden singing, he approaches her and tries to seduce her by offering his love, and is denied with the phrase, "The crow shall bite you" (updated spellings there).  The crow associated with death and suffering must mean in modern terms, "wander off and die please."  He further offers her a golden ring,  then a velvet purse and each time is refused and she tells him, "The crow shall bite you".  After the third refusal he rapes her.  She asks for marriage  or some sort of personal token (as would prove he was of social standing versus some common person and would provide for the child if there was one) and with each she is met with a refusal and the sexuallized phrase, "For now the pie has pecked you," (again updated spelling).  Pie is an older term for the English magpie, a Corvid cousin to the crow.  Perhaps similar to "la petit morte" for him?  Not quite the death associated with the crow but the pie is still a bringer of sorrow.  The ballad serves as a cautionary tale to 16th century young women, to be wary and avoid rape.  What I like about this ballad is the ending lines, the woman denied reparations for the man's act decides she will go on with her life, that she will not despair but recover.  Some versions include the line "Neither dead no slow. . . " meaning she is alive and still has some wits about her, what a great line.  What a song!  I think this is where the ballads excel.  Many of the ballads are filled with death and tragedy, but to have one that says, "No matter what has happened, I will survive."  I think that this is a message that everyone can related to and should aspire to not give up.  Geez, all this into a T-shirt.  Yep.  The things that go into design and paintings.  So the next time you pick out that shirt to wear, whats on it?

http://www.etsy.com/listing/66353482/child-ballad-111-t-shirt

Rambo: Schemes of the Rich and Mo' Power

What is one of the more interesting "historical" places on paper that can’t really be seen anymore around my neighborhood? Gunner’s Run. It was a creek turned into a canal that was used as an investment scheme and is now paved over. Hey, that does not sound cool. Well, boys and girls, it’s named after Gunner Rambo ca. 1847. I don't think its a stretch to connect it to Sylvester Stallone. . . . We have a Rocky Statue in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, now I suggest, no, demand that a statue of Rambo be place on the paved over-overgrown-Aramingo Canal where it once met the Delaware River. What could be more American than a statue of Rambo planted over a historical Philadelphia money pit? The new Delaware River Green Way welcome entrance could be a bronze statue of a savage man with a bowie knife in his mouth, a bow and arrow (tribute to Native Americans), and a plaque that reads: 1st capital of the United States, 1st continental congress, 1st Blood. If you don't like the bow and arrow Idea go HERE. Wasn't that what Rambo was about, opposing corrupt and bad American ideas? A little further North is The Richmond Power Plant. It is butted up against the Recycling plant and shipping wharves of Port Richmond. If you'd like to hang out by the high tension lines and listen to the hum of transformers for a while or two you may just be lucky enough to see a gleaming silver ACES train pass by taking people to Atlantic City.



You can litteraly feel the power in the air by the Betsy Ross bridge. When the 1876 World's Fair was happening, I imagine, they imagined future architecture to look like power substations. Just imagine thinking about the future at the exposition of A. Graham Bell's telephone, a typewriter, Heinz Ketchup, and another failed american project - Kudzu as an erosion control plant. Kudzu now spreads at a rate of 150,000 acres annually, according to Science Daily. It produces ground level Ozone for the South East enhancing the drawl of all in Y'all. If you are interested in purchasing a painting of an imagining of imaginings visit my Etsy site HERE. Kudzu and Rambo are still not the cosmic connection of generations that I"m leading up to though. 2 more posts and we're there. We're there already but I just have to reveal it slowly. I don't want anybody to be scared of the final surprise sprung. You're not a scaredy-cat are you? Then read on in a few.

Philadelphia Burning

With our recent trip to Japan I began to get used to all of these ancient land marks surrounding us. I began to wonder what we walk by everyday at home, in the U.S., and don’t even know or care is historic. We do live in Philadelphia, some big history for the country there, but what about our neighborhood? What do we have in our ‘hood that is similar in importance to what is in Motoko’s Parents in Japan? Is there anything? I drove around our neighborhood and tried to explore some areas that the local preservation group is trying to have deemed important for Philadelphia’s history. I was a nice day out so I brought along the camera to shot some photos for painting references, and sketched some as well. I started out at planphilly.com and looked through the points of interest, chose our driving path of least resistance, and hopped in the car/truck thing to go and breathe some fresh (questionably) air. It was fresh. The area we live in is up for, a name calling, debate. Things can get heated between city folk about where they are from and what neighborhood is what and authentic real estate agents will get into fisticuffs over it. Being a transplanted southern boy now living in the lowest part of the North’s denial, which it’s the same as the southeastern coast, I had to define again where I live and joined in on the fun. Technically we live in what was historically called Olde Richmond. It is now considered part of Fishtown (sigh of relief). So what is all this coming to? I can proudly stand up and say, “I have had a connection to my current neighborhood all my life!” If you are, not quite a person of a certain age, are a person of a certain age, or progeny of said people you too have this cosmic connection.

I’ll start at the beginning and we'll work our way to the cosmic connection by the end of the week.

My first stop was the music club The Barbary has been around since 1969 and is up for a nomination into the historical preservation society. Their page= www.myspace.com/thenewbarbary

That Music Venue that is so cool it is almost historical, but would never claim outright that it is because that - would be uncool.

According to wiki-travel it is “Hipster Heaven.” I can’t find any information about its importance to music except that it’s been around for a while. Someone let me know about that one please. Its name is interesting in context of the city considering this: the USS Philadelphia was lit aflame by its own people in the first Barbary war.

I will be posting a new Philadelphia 19125 painting every day over the next 5 days. You can purchase them off of my etsy site for $60.00 eachHERE. These paintings are mounted onto 6"x8" frames. Hey, even figure painters need to paint landscapes. After these it is on to the Child Ballad work, http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Child-Ballads-Show/127757983923416?ref=mf .