Steve Justice Studio

Art - Design

Jack Maybe (#5): el sombrero es verde

           

24×24

Oil on wood

2021

I am just a patsy!    –Lee Harvey Oswald

Some of you may think I have an obsession with Patsy’s assassin, Jack Ruby, since I have featured him in 5 paintings as of this writing.  I don’t think 5000 paintings would help me sort out that Cold War shit-show.  Nor do I want to say I, as an artist, wish to bear witness to the event, because all the witnesses in the JFK murder disappeared or were found dead.

The subject’s name was not actually Jack Maybe, it was Jack Ruby.  And his name wasn’t Jack Ruby either – it was Jacob Leon Rubenstein, from Chicago.  He worked in Army counter-intelligence in WWII and got hooked on that type of work.  He owned nightclubs, it was well known, but he also rooted out communists, before he became one himself.  Then he turned snitch and rooted out more communists, eventually being excused as a HUAC witness by Richard Nixon himself.  After that, Ruby worked with CIA operatives, running guns, ammo and counterfeit currency to Fidel Castro, then he flipped again when Castro came out as a communist in 1959.  Through all this he became acquainted with boy scouts such as Al Capone, Jimmy Hoffa, Santo Trafficante, Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana and Sam’s lapdog’s lapdog’s lapdog, Lee Harvey Oswald, the 24-year-old shooter of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

For reasons we may never know, Ruby considered that Oswald must be rewarded with a bullet in the belly.*  Some say it was premeditated, and even politically motivated.  Maybe yes, Maybe no.  I say it was spontaneous, because Ruby’s dog was found waiting for him in his car, and what assassin would take his dog to work with him ?

* The gun was a .38 Colt Cobra, for which Ruby paid $62.50.  It was resold in 1991 for $220,000 .

Don

               

                                                                                                                           Don                                                                                                                

Steven W. Justice

46×70,  Oil on wood           2021

Hot cheese will kill you, man.     – Don Wozniak

“Don” is a portrait of a dear, recently departed family friend, painted at the request of his wife, also a very dear friend.  Don generously provided the boat whenever we went on one of our many Appalachian (and once Canadian) adventures, which this painting documents, complete with mountain waters filled with mysteries and dangers.  The client (his wife) asked me about the experience of doing this painting, since she could intuit that I was indeed in a heightened state of mind through its gestation and completion.  This I told her:

This painting was very fulfilling, partly because it was trippier and so unlike any other painting I’ve done, plus it was of someone near-and-dear and for people who are near-and-dear.  I worked as though Don was watching, not that I’m superstitious or believe in such science, but that was my approach, at all times, and I wanted to do him honor and make it positive, without my usual multiple messages and occasional snark.

I have lately been allowing my backgrounds to keep up with, and sometimes even upstage, my subjects.  A striking background was vital here because there was a big story to tell, and because the subject is vertical but the wall space is horizontal.  So, to support that composition, I made the format elliptical, and I made everything all sloshy, as if it were cropped from an actual scene and driven here by Don himself.  A horizontal, rectangular format would have looked like a bad crop job with a lot of unnecessary background space.  So, the background is quite detailed but is abstracted enough that it does not compete with the subject.  The water is green like Kinzua, Cheat, Norris or any other Appalachian lake.  The sky is from a photo of Lake Huron I took when we visited Honey Harbor, but it’s turned upside-down and recolored.  (* Don’t ask me why.  Maybe because Canada seemed like another country to us.)

I had been doing so much painting and so little drawing up until recently, that I found myself caught flat-footed at the start of this project.  I had seriously been wondering if I’d lost my drawing mojo, due to age, meds or what-have-you, but it all came back and I haven’t stopped since.  This was critical, because I’m a cartoonist and draw flattish, and Don cannot be drawn well flattish.  He’s too dynamic and 3-dimensional.

Being committed to an oval format necessitated a stable, rigid panel, so I used  ¾” birch plywood.  Birch ply costs no more than a stretched canvas, so I welcomed the exercise.

                       

 

Tara

                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Tara

48×36

Oil on canvas

2020

I’ll always have Tara.     –Scarlett O’Hara

It’s true confession time, and true confessions are always better than fake confessions — those occur during plea deals on courthouse steps.  But the true truth is, the model for this painting was Guanyin, the bodhissattva of compassion, and not Tara, also the bodhisattva of compassion, as well as the mother of liberation, the savior of the suffering, and the sovereign potentate of action – which begins to sound like a ring announcer’s superlatives before a no-holds-barred ring match, which may be necessary for us to stage in order to determine which of the two is the real bodhisattva of compassion.  My money’s on Guanyin.  So, Tara, here, is actually Guanyin in green-face.  Mother, forgive me.

The Chinese statue that informed this painting has been a part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, New York* since 1920.  It is thousand years old and is carved from paulownia wood.  Paulownia is the second lightest wood besides balsa, clocking in at 1/3 the weight of oak and 1/2 the weight of pine.  It is quite heat-resistant, with a flash point of 788 degrees (f), as compared to 572 for pine.  Paulownia wood also resists termites, insults and salt water, and will grow as tall as your daddy by its first birthday.

The difference between a buddha and a bodhisattva is a buddha has attained enlightenment, whereas a bodhisattva foregoes her/his quest for the same until the rest of us achieve ours.  How’s that for selflessness?  So, the bodhisattva’s m.o. is to help us to shed our layers of attachments, ignorance, and anger, to ultimately become awakened.   The challenge then is to stay awakened, and all the coffee in Sumatra could never come close to being as effective at that as a Chinese boddhissattva.  Sumatra’s only 2% Buddhist anyhow.

*Take that, Sox Fans!

 

Colla Sinistra

 

                                            Title:  Colla Sinistra:  portrait of Clara Schumann

Size: 60×44

Material: Oil on canvas

Date: 2016

Art is a fine gift!  What, indeed, is finer than to clothe one’s feelings in music, what a comfort in time of trouble, what a pleasure, what an exquisite feeling to give happy hours to so many people!     

— Clara Schumann

Robert Schumann is such a minor character in this double portrait that he’s not even present, leaving us with no choice but to consider this painting’s supporting subject, Bob’s wife Clara, who covered for his physical and psychological absences by reaching continental celebrity status through non-stop gigging, teaching piano, and composing and publishing music.  The Schumann’s had 8 children to raise and put through boarding school, and Clara enabled this too.  “She could bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan…”, to quote a line from no song of hers.

In this composition I allow the oval, 19th– century studio photo matt to sag into an egg-shape, a symbol of fertility.  One of the roses (pressed within the frame?) is missing.  Like Robert.

The title “Colla Sinistra” is a musical term that refers to piano music composed for the left hand, and notated as “Cs”, which also happens to be Clara’s initials.  See how that works?

American Got Sick

     

                                                                                      Title: American Got Sick                                                                                              

Size: 66×46

Material: Oil on canvas

Year: 1994, 2021

 

All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.

— Grant Wood

I once showed up for the reception for my solo show at a trendy restaurant/ wine bar/ gallery, and found the place packed with people, bristling with cameras and awash with light.  I was quite flattered that I should be the center of such attention until I learned that the hubbub was not for me, and that it was no longer my solo show.  The restaurant/ wine bar/ gallery owner had hung, in a prominent spot on a wall, a crude (but nicely framed) crayon drawing her very young daughter had done, and it was her show now.  The media attention was all for her.

This painting, which was part of that show, is intended to condemn, rather than condone or make light of domestic violence, or abuse in any form, a point I had to make that evening when I was cornered and grilled by a couple Guerilla Girls, who are a feminist group of artists and activists from New York City, who happened to be in town.  I was ultimately cleared of all charges, but I made a note of the fact that I won’t always be available to defend or explain my work, and I need to anticipate potential misunderstandings from the start.  A mis-take is still a take.

Though it’s been lampooned over the years beyond all recognition (LOYBAR?), I, in this painting, update Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”, a classic painting that symbolizes stability in the Heartland, to instead portray a less romantic and more modern condition of trouble, imbalance and intolerance in the same Heartland.   Should we teach tolerance?  Surely, but tolerance isn’t enough.  We must also teach love, and the best way to teach love is to practice love, and practice makes perfect.

The red hat is from International Harvester, or it could be a St. Louis Cardinals hat.  We don’t know.  You see red hats all over the Midwest.

 

 

Where Have You Gone, Pascual Perez?

                                              Where Have You Gone, Pascual Perez?                                                 

48×72

Oil on Canvas

1991

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.     – Christopher Columbus

Pascual Perez pitched for the Pirates, Braves, Expos, and the Yankees.  He was nicknamed “I-285” because he got lost on Atlanta’s Perimeter beltway one day when he was supposed to pitch, and he missed the kick-off.  He circled the city numerous times before getting pulled over by a cop and escorted to Cracker Stadium.  He was a product of the Dominican Republic’s baseball talent machine, where the ultimatum is to ‘throw baseballs or chop cane’, which is no small incentive.  A productive sugar cane harvester makes $1.50 per ton, times 2 tons per day, = $3.00 per day.  Pascual decided he’d rather throw baseballs and make $5,000 per day.  Not a bad choice.

This painting looks at our minorities and how they have always been expected to create a public front readable as an existing stereotype or be shunned for being rebellious.  You can be Yogi Berra or you can be Joe DiMaggio, though there’s always the Hank Greenberg route.  They survived being a minority each in his own way.

The title “Where Have You Gone, Pascual Perez?” riffs on the line, “Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?” from the Simon and Garfunkel song, “Mrs. Robinson”.  Paul Simon wanted to use Mickey Mantle’s name in the song rather than Joe DiMaggio’s, but the syllables wouldn’t fit.  True story.  He could have considered the Cincinnati Reds’ hot-tempered, hard-drinking pitcher, Van Lingo Mungo, but then everyone would be as confused as you are now.  Paul Simon wasn’t from Cincinnati, anyhow.  Paul and his brother, Art Garfunkel, grew up in the burrow of Queens, not far from Forest Hills, though the only use Paul had for a tennis racquet was using one to play air guitar.  That always drew a laugh.  But Paul was a very good baseball player and a very good one.  He batted lead-off and even stole home once.  Art was born with no athletic talent other than shelving books.

 

Triple Play: portrait of Yogi Berra

 Triple Play: Portrait of Yogi Berra
Material: Oil on canvas
Size: 58×46
Year: 2017

Ninety percent of the game is half mental.     – Yogi Berra

I do not presume to mock Yogi Berra (or anyone or anything else) in this painting.  That’s not my Berra to cross.

Lorenzo Pietro “Yogi” Berra was a Midwestern (St. Louis) second-generation Italian (Milanese) who was worshipped in New York City and quoted everywhere else.  In his teens, he reached a fork in the road:  Does he stay in town and kiss the King of Beer’s can for the next 45 years, or does he break from convention and go to New York City to play baseball?  He took the fork* and went on to help the Yankees win 10 of his 21 World Series appearances, plus he won 3 league MVPs in 5 years, something you’ve never done.

I show Yogi squatting in Jellystone Park for the third leg of the Triple Clown, with style and color reminiscent of classical Indian art and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.  Wearing his “tools of ignorance” (his words, not mine) he models the saffron and yellow colors of a monk from the Himalayas, and as for the rest of his ensemble, there is no color more neutral than the Yankee road uniform.  Yogi is balanced by the chakras down the center of the painting, with his reverse image in pale line dancing in the flip-flop mirror space behind him.  Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of great compassion, is also depicted in a four-armed aspect.  Think about that.  Take all the time you need.

*No discussion of Yogi Berra is complete without mentioning his “Yogi-isms”, or his witty quotations.  I’ve already mentioned two of them.  They are often submitted as evidence of his ignorance, but I believe the contrary, that they are signs of his genius.  They will far outlive his legendary talents on the baseball diamond.  “Take the fork” is the line that follows “When you come to the fork in the road …”.  In his own defense, he once stated, “I really didn’t say everything I said.”

 

The Body Electric: portrait of Walt Whitman


Title: The Body Electric: portrait of Walt Whitman
Material: Oil on canvas
Size: 36×36
Year: 2019  SOLD

There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.     — Walt Whitman

It was the poet Walt Whitman who invented free verse, radical socialist that he was.  Before that, verse was very expensive, costing at least $12 a barrel.  He was born in Huntington on Long Island, a town named after England’s Huntington, where Oliver Cromwell was born.  In high school, I once ran the 400 (and lost) to a kid named Oliver Cromwell, who was named after Oliver Cromwell.  Walt Whitman was named after an oversized bridge in Philadelphia.   We’ve come full circle now, so let’s progress.

Wally was a Civil War nurse, he was gay, and some people rhapsodically call him our first bohemian.  He wrote “Leaves of Grass”, which informed this fiery, psychedelicized portrait of the bardo bard, but any connection between psychedelics and grass in this painting is purely coincidental, so don’t go blabbling about that non-connection, okay?  Uncharacteristically, I used no black paint in the manufacture of this painting, which I found serves to turn up the heat a little.

A final word of warning:  If you ever open a box of Whitman’s Candy, do not eat the Savoy Truffle.  As George Harrison pointed out in the song of that name, you’ll have to have them all (your teeth) pulled out after the Savoy Truffle.  But the Coconut Fudge really blows down those blues.

 

Thay: portrait of Thich Nhat Hanh

                                                                                      Thay:  portrait of Thich Nhat Hanh                                                                             

Steven W. Justice

42×31,  Oil on wood                 2020

Everything we do is an act of poetry or a painting if we do it with mindfulness.  Growing lettuce is poetry.  Walking to the supermarket can be a painting. –Thich Nhat Hanh (from Peace is Every Step)

I met the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh once when he gave a talk centered around his book “Peace is Every Step”, one of over 100 that he has published.  I was living in Hong Kong at the time, and it was a most memorable evening.  Some may think preaching to Asians would be a slam dunk for an Asian monk, but keep in mind that HK is only 38% Buddhist.  The remainder is 38% Christian (mostly Baptist), and among the remaining 22% are Muslims, Jews, and others.  I found Thay’s (Thay means Teacher) command of English was limited, and this forced him to speak slowly and write simply rather than remain silent or hire a translator, as other teachers do.  This is not a disadvantage for a teacher of zen Buddhism — he came across as kindly as Fred Rogers, and as wisely as our greatest teachers.

When I shook his slight, buddha-like hand, I saw kindness in his eyes, but also a toughness that belied his delicate grasp.  A Vietnamese Buddhist monk does not get himself nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (by MLK, 1967) for protesting a dirty Asian war without courting hardship.

I was also struck by the happiness shared by everyone in his brown-robed entourage from his Plum Village center in France, who sang for us.  They were otherwise quieter than King Solomon’s mimes, but they were all very obviously delighted to be there.  Or anywhere, I’m sure.

In this painting, I communicate this love for their teacher by portraying Thay as wearing a knitted scarf and cap that were actually gifted to him to keep him warm and comfortable.   His wreath is formed, fittingly, by plum boughs.  Peace.