"Arrgh..."

Me Matey Mcmillin...

This little 9x12 goodie is for a friend of mine. It is entitled,"Me Matey Mcmillin." I hope he likes it. I've been back in the studio trying to find easy, fun things to paint. I've got four large paintings I started before Therese became ill and since then, I just haven't had the need or the energy to spend any more time in the studio than I had to. Just don't have the heart for it, right now.

But, in the last week or so, I took some advice, indirectly, from an illustrator turned fine artist, Craig Nelson, who was also an instructor I had at Art Center. It has helped put things in perspective... a bit!

Anyway, I painted a few pieces and tried to not get myself to attached until I accidentally ran into this photo. It looked to be lots of fun and with the exceptions of a few details, it was.

Hey Craig, I had planned to give this to you with many thanks, Monday, but Sunday, photographing it, I noticed two important details to fix. I apologize... I'm a nitpicker!

I wonder if anyone can spot the one important adjustment I made and the other two minor changes from the FB cover art I posted the other day?

For sure, Craig, let's meet today because a little birdie told me that today, Wednesday, February 24th is your birthday! What a coincidence!

Got together over a coffee with birthday boy, Craig Mcmillin, at GiddyUp yesterday to deliver the painting. He was touched, which is pretty cool to me. I apologized for not bringing the coffee mug Craig made for me a month or so ago. It was in the dishwasher. Craig forgave me for the ill timed decision.

We kicked around a bunch of subjects including solutions to my "painters version" of writer's block. Always enjoy our coffee conversations no matter where we are.

Copyright 2021/ Ben Bensen III

"Just A Four Hour Sketch"...

A four hour sketch...

Good "wacko" Wednesday, all bodies.

Finishing my first cup to the mellow sounds of "Mitch Miller Does Joe Walsh" while waiting for the ax to fall in Washington, D.C.

I might need a stiff brandy for a third cup.

Last night, my Vietnam vet artist friend called from the San Francisco area to see how I'm doing with Therese, Covid and government. I told him that he's no more discombobulated than anyone else and I proved it by trying to explain Facebook's photo inset policy... which is counter intuitive. Had about a hour's worth of hilarity.

I think he'll be okay.

My SoCal pal will be calling soon and I hope I don't have to talk him off the precipice... ha!

Yesterday afternoon, with the help of a scotch on the rocks and a whole lotta James Gang played over and over again, I decided to go "Craig Nelson" on myself by trying to paint a picture in sixty or so minutes.

Craig, one of my teachers at Art Center, does a demo in oil every Friday afternoon around 1pm CST. When I remember to check him out I always learn something.

Anyway, I barely got the drawing done in that time, but undaunted, I dove right back into the oils. I actually forgot how intense Cad Red Light is... Whoa!

Well, one hour passed, then another, and then another... Okay, okay, screw Craig 'cuz this is getting to be too much like work.

I found myself cutting lines with a straight edge even though that's not the idea. Once I paint a straight line, everything else will have to tighten up and it will take me four days instead of what was getting close to four hours.

Maybe the subject matter might have been a bit too intense for a quick study that I'll probably never go back into with changes.

Regardless how it looked, four hours was my limit. I walked out, turned out the light, had one more libation to watch Disney's "Cinderella."

Included with the painting is the original sketch I created from the Helen Guillet concert...

And, a photo I took which I used to make some additions.

Time to flip over to the B side of "Mitch Miller Does Joe Walsh"...

... and have another Cup 'O Courage!

Copyright 2021/ Ben Bensen III

"How Dumb Can One Be!"

Good "how dumb can you be" Monday morning, y'all.

Last Wednesday, we attended a short talk about Post Modern furniture that NOMA had acquired. These pieces, as so often happens in art, were created as a reaction or followup to the kind of furniture Henry Miller and Ray and Charles Eames created in the 50's and 60's.

It reminded me of a time when I was Art Center, in my seventh semester, when we were allowed to peruse the employment bulletin board to make a little extra cash. Florence Kercheck, an administrator I seemed to get along with, called me about doing some work with some designers in Venice, CA.

In the late seventies, Venice was a place full of burned out hippies, transients, head shops and bike paths. My only connection with the city was that it was, once, the home of the giant plastic model company, Revell, Inc.

Shows you where I was coming from!

The square looking building on Washington Blvd was the studio of the legendary design team Charles and Ray Eames!

They invited me, 'cuz I needed the money, I guess, to create a storyboard from a scrip that they had written and sketched out for me. I wasn't sure how it was gonna be used. It turns out to be the film short, "The Powers of Ten."

"The Powers of Ten" illustrates the universe as an arena of both continuity and change, of everyday picnics and cosmic mystery. It begins with a close-up shot of a man sleeping near the lakeside in Chicago, viewed from one meter away. The landscape steadily moves out until it reveals the edge of the known universe. Then, at a rate of 10-to-the-tenth meters per second, the film takes us towards Earth again, continuing back to the sleeping man’s hand and eventually down to the level of a carbon atom. You can look it up at: http://www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/powers-of-ten/ since it is now, so well known.

Thing is, I had absolutely no idea who the two designers were until a friend, who was more into architectural and environmental design, Michael Sell, flipped out when I told him who I was working for.

"What?" he said incredulously. "Haven't you ever heard or seen an Eames chair?"

"Uh... no!"

Hearing the lecturer speak about the "new modern" as to the "old modern" just made a bit sad. The Eames's were a delight to work for and throughout the project I learned, in the very short time I was there, how to marvel at the simple things the world has already designed for us.

Sadly, one year later, Charles Eames died. Ten years to the date, Ray passed away, but for me, one lesson always remains. And that is to protect the child in you and the ability to wonder and marvel at this thing called life.

Most times, I forget that!

Third cup!

Copyright Ben Bensen III/ 2018

"An Unbelievable Father's Day Story"...

My good friend is gone...

I don't know where to, or how to, start, except to say we will soon lose a dear friend ***and fellow ACCD alumni. Marty Rosenthal is in a hospice with family at his side, and I am told his time is near...

No, I really don't know where to start. I first met Martin in a Jack Leynnwood class at Art Center College of Design in SoCal. He loved drawing cars and took every chance he had to get Jack to fix his illustrations. To be honest, I really didn't think Martin was Art Center material. I wasn't the only artist to feel that way and felt the school was lowering its standards to except someone like Marty.

Kinda snotty, I know, and not really like me.

But, on a personal level, one just couldn't help but love Marty. He was curious about everything unlike many of us, who were on a one track road to illustrative "hell"! Martin D. Rosenthal just had an infectious way about himself that you just couldn't deny. I guess finding cancer in your body at an early age will do that to a person. Living and loving each damn day on this wonderful earth like it was your last. 

I try my best to remember that, though I usually fail, miserably!

Because of the recurring cancerous situation, he didn't complete his degree the time frame I did, and I lost track of his life and career until he, one day, drove by my house in South Pasadena, in his cherry black Camaro, I believe, just beaming from ear to ear. He was also smiling because he was gonna get married and that he got hired at an aerospace company in Long Beach and was quite happy striving to be the artist he felt he could be. We met a year or so later at the Salt Shaker, with his new wife and two twin baby girls.

Smiles all around and no cancer in sight!

But, living life in the "long run" ain't always so stable, or pretty. A few years later, he, and others from the art group, were let go at the aerospace plant, and his wife left him and the twins. If he told me about how it all came crashing down, I listened with one ear. All I know is Marty parented those two girls all through their childhood and they grew up to be something any father would be proud of. He took odd jobs where ever he could, went to night school, and finally settled on a substitute teacher job, so he could be with his girls and take care of them.

Both of the twins excelled in school and got scholarships to attend college. 

I lost touch with him through most of the late nineties and all through our move back to the bayou. But, I did visit his apartment when the twins were still living with him to let him know that our family was leaving for Louisiana. He told me he was thinking about moving to Phoenix, where his brother lived. The apartment was small, I believe, and, at that time, the bunk bed was in the living room, but everyone seemed healthy and happy and enthusiastic about the future.

We went to a local restaurant to catch up with each other's lives and then he showed my some of his nudes from a life drawing class that he had been taking, over the years, at Long Beach State, I think. I found them to be really well done. I told him that I was proud of his passion to be an artist against all the roadblocks, good and bad, that life put before him.

Seems at least once a year, since Therese, Brian and I moved to the bayou state, he'd call to check in on us. Some time in that decade, he told me the cancer had returned but that it was not going to be a problem. His girls were now on their own and he was moving to Arizona. Finding out that the illness had returned and that, to my knowledge, he was pretty much alone, fighting that battle, my wife and I would call in to check his progress. 

He seemed to have licked it again.

When Facebook came along sometime in 2009, Marty was one of my first friends. It was great to be able to keep in touch with all my SoCal friends and especially, Martin. It seemed like he had a good four or five years before the cancer was back, though, at first, Martin didn't think it was serious enough to mention in our posts.

Apparently, it was.

After a year long battle in and out of hospitals, clinics, and home, my friend is, we all are afraid, is giving up the struggle. God, I feel so bad for him. When I hear people say that things happen for a reason, the insane "linebacker" in me comes out. All that Buddha, karma, goes around, comes around simplicity, really fries my ass.There's no sense or justice here. 

And, to even suggest such a thing is the ultimate insult to a guy like Marty.

I really love you man, and I will always revere you as a great person and a great friend... Damn!

*** Marty passed away with family members at 3 am Father's Day morning!

Copyright 2015/ Ben Bensen III