Your Most or Least Favorite Remakes?

Not directly concerning art or old stuff, but in the spirit of the neoclassic, particularly the retro aspect of enjoying something that used to be, does anyone out there have favorite song remakes?

It doesn't really matter about genre, time period or anything, I was just curious what some of the better remakes are in your opinions. Also, what are the worst of the terrible remakes for you?




Song remakes that might be better than original to me:
'Every Little Thing She Does' - Ra (originally Police?)
'Don't Dream it's Over' - Sixpence None the Richer (Crowded House)
'O Sole Mio' - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies (traditional Italian)
'Life is a Highway' - Rascal Flatts (Tom Cochrane?)
'Unchained Melody' - Sanchez (Righteous Bros?)

Can't tell if these are worse song remakes or just regular awful:
'American Pie' - Madonna (Don McLean?)
'I Love Rock and Roll' - Britney Spears (Joan Jett)
'Bringin on the Heartbreak' - Mariah Carey (Def Leppard?)
'Walk the Line' - Travis Tritt (Johnny Cash)
'How You Remind Me' / 'Someday' (Nickelback covered themselves)

Completely unrelated, here is a great J. Davenport tromp l'oeil painting, 'Territorial', for you to consider, and while you do that I'll be going through your stuff*.


















* Jack Handey reference...

Carving like a Slave (Intagliando Come uno Schiavo...)

I've just been carving marble like a slave this weekend. A highly trained slave with some cold Japanese beer, which I'm pretty sure they didn't have back in the olden days. Well, I take that back, because in the first century AD, 30% of the entire population of Rome was made up of slaves, so they probably had beer readily accessible, but I'm not entirely sure if they'd made contact with the Japanese yet.

Did I mention it was hot outside? It was 103F / 39.4C outside and I was feeling it.

Here are some pictures of the progression as of Saturday. I love the way the V-incised letters cast shadows. This kind of result cannot be obtained through sandblasting with a rubber mat (the quick and skill-less alternative). The curves in the letters are particularly fun to carve (as I found out with the 'D', and then the 'C' on Sunday).

Also, I've been booking hotel rooms for the Italy trip. Mom (who I'm taking) is excited, and I can't wait to be back in Venice again.

Clearly visible is my Tom Perkins book, which is the best book on stone lettering I've ever even heard of. His work is amazing and the book is too, and has helped me realize this project.

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Sto intagliando le lettere in un segno di pietra. La birra ha aiutato a me per non essere uno schiavo. Sarò in Italia in ottobre se chiunque ha marmi buona da vendere a me. ;)

Where in the World is The Ancient Travel Writer?

If you are ever chiseling marble, remember to either wear a glove or don't grip the chisel too tightly. It is really hard to type right now because my chisel holding hand is tingling more than it did the time I touched the pretty wires behind the tree at Christmas when I was four.













The paonazzo marble I'm carving has been cutting beautifully under the chisel like snow, really really hard crystaline white snow. But, I'm only done with a small part, so today I'll discuss a possible link between an ancient travel guide book writer and ruins I've seen. This is entirely a wild hypothesis and I've not seen it suggested anywhere.

The picture above is a panoramic picture of present day Delos, Greece. It is an island full of ruins and in many ways was the center of the Western world at one point.

Around 150 AD, a Greek named Pausanias (not to be confused with the famous general of the battle of Plataea in 470 BC), was travelling around the Greek mainland and recording various points of interest, rating restaurants with Michelin Stars and that sort of thing. All in all, he made 10 booklets covering the mainland of Greece. He was like the Rick Steves of ancient Greece.

Missing from this travel writer's ancient version of 'Frommers Guide' were the islands and the Southern Italian peninsula. These might be books that were written but will never be found. It would have been odd for him not to write about the islands since he had traveled at least as far East as Judea and West to Italy.

On the island of Delos, in the House of the Trident, there is a mosaic that matches very closely this old woodcut picture which recreates a different older carving. Notice the Latin and Greek inscription has the name of Pausanias and is related to the travel book writer.
















The mosaic on Delos above through various scientific techniques is dated at the late first century (when the travel writer lived). Most people think the mosaic is a symbol of the Delian League related to the earlier general from the fifth century BC. Haha, some people will believe anything, huh? But, it's also possible that the travel writer Pausanias had lived on Delos for a time and the mosaic historically places him or family there.

What do you think? Do the symbols look similar enough to raise the question? Here is my copy of the Delos mosaic done in marble if you haven't seen it.

Also, has anyone ever been bored enough to flip through television channels and try to make words on the previous channel match up with the new channel in order to make sense? You aren't doing that game now are you? Well, I'll try to make the next post more interesting then...

Signs and Lost Marbles (Segno di Marmo, Pazzo)

This weekend between trips to the 24 Hr Fitness pool and such, I got out the 'tools of the marble carving trade' and sawed and sanded the awesome piece of marble that has been sitting in the workshop begging for attention. I tend to forget how heavy marble is until I have to hand-guide it across my diamond saw holding it steady to make precision cuts. This particular piece is a 1 x 0.4 meters and slab thickness.

If you try all this at home, be sure to get a round hammer, because when lettering with the flat chisels, every strike is always flush when you don't have to worry about the striking head turning at an angle. My two chisels are 6mm and 10mm, easily resharpened with abrasives such as sand paper, diamond pads, or toothpaste. They do not have names yet, mostly because that would just be weird and partly because only rock stars who play guitar can get away with that.

The marble specimen itself is Afyon Purple Paonazzo, which in ancient times would have been highly prized during Hadrian's reign because he apparently liked the stone. It has been quarried in Turkey (Phrygia) for thousands of years. I decided to use the non polished side of the slab for the carving because it will make the result look more genuine.

To get the layout right, I tried running it through the printer, but it didn't work very well and it kept saying 'PC Load Letter' whatever that means.













Then, the paper printout of the best version of Trajan font came out like the ambulance sign on the award winning Open Letters Blog, but that was ok, because it helped me with my layout of the text in the next step.

I ended up drawing the line spacing and text with a soft lead mechanical pencil, which worked very well.














Doesn't my paonazzo piece look similar to many of the ancient building floors in Rome? Here is the floor of the Pantheon.



















Next, I'll start the v-incised letter carving itself, but the prep work had to be done. Still haven't decided whether to fill in the notched carving with bronze or some other gilded metal. If the notches of the letters are cut deep enough it should be visible from pretty far away, after all Rome had a few years to get the whole public signage thing right.

I'll be passing through Carrara Italy this fall, I wonder how much marble I can carry back?

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Ho iniziato un segno in marmo per una piscina. Si spera, sembra molto vecchio. Può essere difficile per la progettazione lettere vecchio.

Aunt Irene's Sugar Jar (Vaso Zucchero di Irine)

Ohhhh... Vel Hellloooo der...

Below is a small realism work that caught my eye at the Ft. Worth Art Fair last year, 'Aunt Irene's Sugar Jar' by Brad Watson, so I bought it unframed. The frame I put on it is a standard barrister type with copper gilding done by yours truly with a bit of burnt umber over it to get rid of that annoying 'new penny' look and mix better with the colors presented in the painting.

A comment a few days ago from yet another funny Brit, The Jules, reminded me of gilding and some of the work I have done in that craft. Let's face it, most people can't afford to manufacture things out of solid gold, and even if they could, for things like crown molding, picture frames, or largish SUVs like Hummers, it would really be too heavy. So the idea is to cover the object with a thin layer of gold so you have the illusion of being gaudier than Donald Trump in a full length fur coat on jewelry bling day.

In ancient times they used some methods of gilding that, well, let's just say they were not particularly environmentally friendly. One such method was called fire gilding. It involved mixing gold with mercury.
Now not many people know that gold dissolves into mercury, which can be used to greatly amuse people you meet at cocktail parties. 'Who wants to see a magic trick? May I borrow your Rolex for a moment, Miss?'

Anyway, the gold-mercury mixture was brushed onto the object that needed to look like gold and then was exposed to a hot fire which vaporized the mercury, leaving the gold behind in a perfect shell. The color of this perfect shell was a little dull, so they apparently used agates to rub it down to get it back to a more brilliant yellow color.

Back then as today, inhaling mercury vapors is NOT a good thing. Some historians say that 60 workmen were killed by fumes from the fire gilding of the dome of St. Isaac's Cathederal in St. Petersburg, Russia. So whenever I burn mercury in alchemy experiments, I use a diving snorkel with fins and stand way back (kidding, DON'T do this).

Here is a mercury fountain in Spain that would probably help out with all of this.

The method I used for the picture frame border was glue gilding in which adhesive is brushed on, then gold leaf follows (or in the frame example above, copper leaf). In my experience, a fan brush worked best with this technique. Then you let it dry, and don't be afraid to put on multiple layers to make it really thick.

Maybe a really good trick to thwart burglars would be to gild all of your gold bullion bars with Velveeta, unless they were hungry for some queso and corn chips because that must be lots of work moving all those heavy expensive items out of houses. In any case, I suppose it would take them a while to scrape all the gilding off the media room moldings.

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Per favore, non utilizzano mercurio per doratura!!!

Limey (Stucco Calce)

In sketching and laying out subjects to paint last night, I imagined a new painting project I have in mind would look best in fresco. And you can't have fresco, or a cuba libre for that matter, without lime. But the lime I'm talking about isn't this of course.








It's this, the same stuff I use as a temporary base for laying out the more complicated marble mosaics, lime plaster putty to be specific. It's different than the stuff that goes on the walls in more modern US construction (gypsum sheetrock).














Two years ago, I made several five gallon buckets of this by burning hydrated lime that you can buy in the local hardware store in large stainless pots (which made some of it revert to CaO which is necessary to get the putty just right). Then I mixed the super dried powder with distilled water and saw more bubbles than a Michael Jackson birthday party.

Be very cautious though if making lime at home. I wore some goggles because when you first pour the water into the lime to make putty, it is reactive in a way that would make a mad chemist's heart warm. And, the resulting splash of lime in the eye would definitely ruin your entire day (and maybe eyesight).

In ancient times, they had very large holes dug in the ground (pits, I think they call them), in which they would toss crushed limestone and burn it with large peat fires. Then they poured water into the pit to hydrate or 'slake' the lime to make it ready to use on walls, pinatas, or a weird army of decorative lawn jockeys.














Two thousand year old frescos still intact and with vivid color locked in is testament to how durable lime is after it dries completely. It basically loses moisture and reverts back to limestone. So after drying, it's now limestone shaped how you want it and with the images you have painted. I imagine if you put your mind to it and with enough effort, you could even make limestone rocks.

If you have the lime and want to do a fresco of your own, you need inert ingredients like marble dust, sand, or perfect diamonds to keep the lime from cracking as it dries and to add strength. Lay down a base coat 10mm thick on a frame (or on a prepared wall) at about 2:1 sand to lime.
After the base coat dries, wet it down and put an 'intonaco' skim coat on that 3mm thick with a 1:1 sand to lime ratio. When mixing the sand and lime, resist the temptation to add more lime even though it looks very sandy and doesn't mix well at first, eventually it will become plastic-ish and spreadable.

Here is one I did earlier this year, the next one will be a bit more involved.


On a completely unrelated matter, does anyone see a typo in the latin below that I want to carve into some marble? I'm not sure if liquid paper or backspace will work to correct any errors in the stone, so I want to be pretty sure it is right.



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P.S. - a super prize for anyone that can interpret all parts of the inscription above.

Danke, Dante (Grazie, Dante)

Dante Alighieri in the twelfth century was pretty much the original neoclassical guy. He was a big fan of the writer Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) who lived 70 - 19BC. One example of homage to the classical writer was his treatment of the mythical three headed dog called Cerberus who guarded the underworld. Virgil in the Aeneid had the dog(s) distracted by honey cakes while Aeneas and Sibyl passed. Dante's version in the Divine Comedy portrayed Cerberus with a much less refined palate, because thrown mud did the trick. I think I'm going to find those PETA people again...


Here is a wonderful image of Cerberus as a pup. I cannot recommend highly enough GHenry's blog because of the rich frothy blend of humor, knowledge and insight.

Anyway, Dante was one of the first young whippersnappers of the known Western world to publish writings in something other than Latin. It was an archaic mix of Latin and dialects from Tuscany that he called 'Italian'. It's strange that his language choices were binding Italy together way before the 1870 unification.

The 'Divine Comedy' is of course Dante's 'Godfather II', that is to say, much better than some of the other earlier dreck and 'La Vita Nuova' where he was all writing poetry to Beatrice Portinari. I mean sure, she was hot and all, but do we really have to read all of that? Maybe it would be better if it was a film with interpretive dance, juggling, or 1970's orange Dodge Chargers with rebel flags painted on them jumping creeks as the poetry was read.

Here is the poet Dante's grave, in Ravenna, where my mosaic class will be later this year by the way (haha, no, not in the actual tomb, you weirdos). Dante is so highly revered in Italian culture that during WWII, they moved his grave to a protected mound for worry of bombing destruction.

I absolutely love and adore Ravenna, Venice and pretty much everything in between. Ravenna was the Capitol city of Rome towards the end of the empire, and there are several artifacts from the earliest Christian churches here.

Here are some random photos I took of mosaics in Ravenna. The class I'm taking will be with the workshop of Luciana Notturni, one of the best in the world to learn technique from. Not to say the stuff I do now is bad, but I'd like to learn some of the byzantine techniques and use some glass in portraits. Check out the gold / crystal glass used as tessarae in the ones below. I have some of that in case anyone needs a proper 'Pimp Cup', haha.

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Sono felice di tornare in Italia questo autunno per la scuola di mosaico. Inoltre, avrò visitare Venezia e Como. Forse dico salve a Dante... Ciaooo!!!