CThru.com Presents Tony Ward

Charlene Lanza

…..No stranger to the studio, pin-up artist Charlene Lanza and TW met through a mutual friend, fellow painter and guest blogger Mikel Elam back in the nineties while they we’re hanging out regularly in Soho. Recently, the artist and the photographer met again for a portrait sitting and to introduce her latest works to our growing audience. Ms. Lanzel is an American artist, originally from LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Born in 1967, she started to paint with passion at the age of five. Self taught and determined to exhibit her works beyond the confines of a small town, she moved to New York City at the age of 20 and has been enjoying the creative process in the Big Apple ever since.

We are delighted to introduce a sampling of her work to you. To learn more about Charlene’s painting’s, log on to www.charlenelanzel.com…….

Nirvana By Mikel Elam

…..Guest Blogger, Patrick Breslin a professor of Speech Communication at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida; writes a commentary about Mikel Elam’s state of “Nirvana”, the studio’s Painting of the Day…….

Mikel Elam’s painting titled “Nirvana” depicts a male figure seated in meditation. The painting is a partial patchwork: the figure’s head encased in an orange square, the torso in a dark gray one. The background contains light colored disks, gold leaf squares, and dark purple 5-spoked behandled circles reminiscent of Buddhist icons, all ensconced in rectangular shapes. The dominant shade at the bottom of the painting is also purple, suggesting a base or ground, and philosophically linked to the icons; the top is adorned with swaths of blue, suggesting sky.

The meditator in the painting is a multiracial collage. The head appears African; the torso a shade of bronze; the lower abdomen and legs partake of a dark Caucasian complexion; the arms lighter—the left hinting at orange, the right bordering on pink—, and both terminating in an empty space of unpainted hands.

The title of the piece suggests several interpretations. Nirvana by definition refers to the ultimate peaceful state, and the multiracial makeup of the subject of the painting seems to propose that the blending of races, or at least their acceptance of one another, might lead to a peaceful existence. In the context of meditation as understood in popular culture, the lower abdomen whimsically lacks a navel, the historically clichéd object of meditation, causing the viewer to wonder whether the meditator in the painting is a holy incarnation not born of a woman. The viewer observes that the head of the subject does not fully connect to the body; the two are separated by a strip of the orange color from the box that surrounds the head. One could read into this that the nirvanic state of the meditator is all within the mind, disembodied, the concept of which does align with classic Buddhist perspectives.

The goal of meditation is enlightenment, whose common metaphor is light. Meditation is practiced in the mind—in the head—, yet the color scheme of the meditator’s body in the painting casts the darkest shades on the head and the lightest ones on the nonexistent hands, reversing the typical expectation and intimating that perhaps through the hands one expresses one’s degree of spiritual development, as Elam may be attempting to do in this work.

Pat Breslin Vulcan Days

www.MikelElam.com

Guest Blogger Mikel Elam, “I think this self portrait says a lot about me and my work. My paintings have been mostly about signs and symbols. It started early in my life when I began to notice patterns of numbers shadowing my everyday existence.

First I thought it was just chance and then as time passed, I realize there are very few coincidences. In portraiture and figure studies there are a great deal of measurements used to create an accurate representation. As an expressionistic painter, I use my emotions and my imagination to create images which are symbolic to my thoughts. In essence, they become these dreamscapes and very surreal in nature. I am interested in that place which is somewhere between reality and the ethereal.

A Tribute To A Father

….. He was seated in his living room when I visited one day with his son, my confidant and good friend Tony Colagreco. Tony had been asking me for some time to meet his father and to see the drawing’s that he was creating in his living room over the years. As Lou-Pop (as he was affectionately called) got older, he wasn’t as mobile as he used to be, so he often occupied his time by making whimsical drawings of things from his fantasies or from found objects around his home. A variety of subject’s and a substantial body of work evolved from time well spent at his living room chair. Lou-Pop proudly displayed his works on the walls of his home and had a story to tell, for any one that would listen, about each and every drawing he created with the passing of time.

An Art Filled Living Room

The first thing I did when I arrived, was to photograph Tony in the living room where his father found his inspiration. This was the place where his best friend spent many days drawing.

Objects Of Inspiration

There were lot’s of figurines around the home, many of which were representative of the embodiment of women. Lou-Pop loved women, in all age’s, shapes and sizes.

Busty Figurine

He also surrounded himself with classical reproduction’s of women as subject’s in paintings and then surrounded those framed works with his own art. The room was transformed in to a multi-dimensional art installation, serving as an altar for the remaining desires of his life.

Woman Painting

Betty Boop was one of Lou-Pop’s favorite subjects…….

Lou-Pops Version Of Betty Boop

R.I.P. Lou-Pop

Guest Blogger Mikel Elam On Miles

….Mikel Elam spent several years globetrotting with the legend, Miles Davis, as his personal assistant. Very few people have had the opportunity to spend time with the jazz master both in and out of the spot light. In his own word’s Mikel blogs about his personal relationship with Miles, and yes the paintings they worked on together……

Mikel Elam Painted With Miles

…..”I met Miles in October of 1987. I was moving from one freelance job to another disenchanted with my adult life as an artist. A friend of mine who knew Miles introduced me to him and we clicked immediately. Miles asked if I would travel with him as his on the road assistant. Our day to day activities included traveling the world to perform shows, attend press conferences, photo shoots for magazines and advertising campaigns for various companies. During the initial days of working for him, Miles was finishing his soon to be released memoirs and then a little later his first starring role in a film entitled, “Dingo”.

A lesser known activity for Miles was creating paintings and drawings wherever we traveled and whenever there was a free moment he explored this passion with great enthusiasm. One of my special asset’s was a good knowledge of artist materials as I have a BFA degree in painting.

I often observed Miles while he was drawing and painting and as time passed, he began to ask me to contribute some of my ideas to his canvases. For about one year I said no, out of pure fear. I had placed my own artistic career in a bubble thinking one day I would burst that bubble and work on my painting’s again. I had lost my drive mostly because the day-to-day survival of working for Miles had become a grueling process. Working for him and being on the road constantly was both exciting and all consuming.

Miles told me at his Malibu home one day, “Mikel you have to learn to do many thing’s at one time.” He had a big canvas laid out on a large worktable. He stated in a very serious way, “Put some paint on this canvas”. I decided to try and paint again, as it was late at night and I did not have him around to look over my shoulder. The next morning he got up before me and when I went downstairs he looked at the canvas and said, “Mikel it’s a motherfucker”. That was his way of expressing that he enjoyed what I had done.” Several more collaborations with Miles were soon to follow.”……

Art By Mikel And Miles

…to learn more about Mikel Elams Artwork, log on to http://www.mikelelam.com

Jamie Wyeth On Fake Horse

….Earlier this year on January 16th, 2009 Jamie Wyeth lost his dad Andrew, the legendary patriarch of the Wyeth family of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. I first learned about this famous family of artist’s from my dad, Milton Ward an artist in his own right, who studied American Art History with a passion. As a young boy, I recall dad purchased a framed copy of Andrew Wyeth’s, “Christina’s World”, which dad and many art critics considered, a masterwork of American 20th century painting. It hung in our living room for years as one of dad’s example’s of Wyeth’s best work.
Decades later while on assignment for Philadelphia magazine I was asked to cover a reception for Andrew Wyeth at the Brandywine River Museum, a depository of some of the best examples of Wyeth’s work. It was quite an experience meeting a man that as a young boy I heard so much about. I became friends with some of the Wyeth’s inner circle and was asked again to return to “Wyeth Country” as it’s known with affection to photograph son Jamie. I arrived at Jamie’s property which was not that far from his father’s on a beautiful summer Chadd’s Ford day, the type of day that often exuded the quality of light that the Wyeth’s liked to paint. The landscape in that area of Pennsylvania is breathtaking and the Wyeth’s owned a lot of it.
When I first arrived at the sprawling farm I was greeted by Jamie’s wife Phylis, a Dupont heir who kept her home immaculate and just about everywhere you looked Norman Rockwell could have created a number of vignette’s. After Phylis and I got to know each other a little, Jamie walked in to their large living room to meet me. A handsome man, rugged, sturdy and a willing smile. We proceeded to walk around his home as he showed me some of his own paintings. An accomplished painter in his own right, I was familiar with several of the paintings he pointed out to me. We proceeded to walk outside the farm house, to look for an outdoor setting to create his portrait. I learned from my editor at Philadelphia magazine, that Jamie was some what of a ladies man and I was briefed on some other aspects of his personality which resulted in this picture. My best to the Wyeth family in this year of loss…..