'Warlock Spritz Bath' From the exhibition "Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque" -The amethyst geode with the bottle of champagne in it will be getting custom-made brass plumbing and will be a bidet that runs on champagne! Louis XIV would surely have one if he were alive today. ===============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

It is with great pleasure that I feature the work of Conkle and Lucas as my last blog about rock oriented art work, or at least the last blog about rock oriented art work in association with the Eagle Rock Rock and Eagle Shop. Their work employs humor and a well tuned aesthetic to address some serious issues about the environment and our drastic human effect upon it. This image of the champagne bottle in a large geode is on first glance celebratory and jubilant about nature's excessive beauty and ours for it, but also it emits a subtle yet powerful ominousness that seeps in upon looking at Conkle and Lucas' entire body of work. This image deepens into a symbol of our excesses despite nature. Humanity's blinders are on, and our disregard for how our hedonism affects our planet is paramount. I see this thread of celebration throughout their work, a tongue and cheek enjoyment of combining materials from the natural world and the manmade, but to great effect. Instead of hitting the viewer between the eyes with a straight forward message about what we're doing to our planet, they employ a more effective playful storyline of baroque aesthetics to hit home the message memorably.

Eco: Concerned with living things in relation to their environment. Baroque : Extravagantly ornate, florid, and convoluted in character or style.

Eco-Baroque artists Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas. (Photos by Lucas, Alp Horns by Conkle) ======================================================================================== Conkle has been dubbed the preeminent eco-artist dealing with topics such as global warming and a post-apocoliptic future, but not without any hope. His thought is that there exists a rainbow beyond the mushroom cloud, as pictured in a colored pencil drawing by Conkle, called New Beginning. Lucas, more focused on the merger of the self relating to nature- her series called MLSP (Marni Lucas Self Portraiture) is an ongoing evolving series commenting on social roles, the nuances of persona and our fragile existence in nature. Together Conkle and Lucas bring the best of their perspectives merging their tools of trade to form humor-filled but powerfully emitting works.

"Warlord Sun King" chandelier. From the exhibition "Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque" =================================================================================================

Tanning bed, grow lights, cable, crystals, rocks, live plants, moss, coconut, meteorite, recycled containers, motor, mixed media. At the lowest point of the 'chandelier', a single large pendulous crystal turns on a motor.

This piece, Warlord Sun King, refers to a post apocalyptic imagining of Luis XIV's Versailles, but instead of the grandeur of gold and dangling cut crystals, geodes and clumps of moss hang on wires, florid tin foil wall panels back the artist's ornate self portraits, and a tanning bed upturned becomes the chandelier substitute. There is a sadness in this work but it leaks out, seeps through, and reaches through an enjoyable facade.

ditto =====

ditto =====

Everytime I look at the Moon I think of Crop Circles By Bruce Conkle. (photo Marne Lucas) Wood, metal, stone, meteorite, silicone =================================================================================================================================

“Sodom/Gomorrah/Milk/Salt” A short film by Marne Lucas. (photo Bruce Conkle) An hallucinatory slow motion scene of languid and sensual interludes with two separate couples cavorting in a milky white pool, references the biblical story of Lot and his Wife who turns into a pillar of salt upon looking over her shoulder as they leave Sodom and Gomorrah; but also aims to reclaim the Old Testament references of bodily sin or lust, as one of an intimate, healing, and life affirming ritual. Video footage and photos shot specifically for this project at Great Salt Lake, Utah of salt-encrusted beach, rocks and milky saline water will be combined with footage of the couples ritually bathing in the ‘milk pool’. Eerie black & white Oregon desert landscape scenes will be filmed with a heat-sensitive IR (infrared) camera and used in the green-screen backgrounds. ===========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

-BIG NEWS! MONGOLIA 360° The 2nd Land Art Biennial Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas have been invited to participate in the MONGOLIA 360° Land Art Biennial, where they will be building an Eco-Baroque site specific installation August 5-18th in the Gobi Desert and presenting at the Symposium 2012 in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. The team will be metal-leafing rocks using non-toxic materials, felting stones from local wool, and working with ideas about local mythology about the land and the current mining situation in Mongolia.

-Links:

www.eco-baroque.com

www.marnelucas.com

www.bruceconkle.com

*Sometimes you need to misrepresent what your doing to be able to make the art you want to make. *
~Chris James

statement on the wall upon entering Chris' studio:

In the fall of last year the Los Angeles artist Christopher James was videotaping the construction of a sculpture (Cairn, 2011, polyurethane foam) on a rocky stretch of nearby coast. He was videotaping the erection when an accident occurred which led to an unexpected turn of events in which the artist and the sculptural flotsam was swept out to sea. Fortunately the camera was taken along and periodically taped what followed. Although not actually an artwork- this is simply the unedited raw footage removed from the camera afterwards. It has been clearly salt-water affected, but enough information remains as to warrant viewing.

This video/sculptural piece is unsettling, remarkable and haunting. It rose like the swell of the sea and took over the senses - I could almost taste salt. It ushered flashes from my mind's storehouse of of water, sea, ocean, shipwreck, nature gone haywire, man gone haywire because of nature and/or solitude, slices of films about those things and characters that endure nature (and art's) unpredictable forces. It was a ride both mental and visual that I enjoyed having no buoy for. This salt-affected film, or a story of salt-affected film gave me a reference that became dispelled by the slow but sure realization of the dexterity of the technology used to edit the film itself. Seemingly, no salt could do what this film has done, but the poetry of the supposed damaged film clips and effects of that damage were mesmerizing and it doesn't even matter who or what did what to the film - it exists.

I think, and oh I do realize the subjectivity of this, that this work of Chris' is a multi-tiered reflection of this theme, but also about the artist and his practice and its solitude, as well as the chance that one could get lost in it. There's a risk to have the physical structures being made and the intentions for those things collapse together (i.e. house of cards) into a giddy or insane heap. It is, after all, absurd to use your art as a life raft unless you're making your art near the edge of a perilous shoreline... to use floatation devices in your art, not so absurd in cases like these. There is an absurdity that remains though, poetic absurdity, since there aren't many cases like these, to see the artist building his sculptures on a craggy foundation with surging waves converging.

Another tributary of this film is that the material itself, the surfboards, shift in purpose throughout the film. At first it is a material for a sculpture, yes, a precarious one, on the water's edge, but a structure nonetheless that has no other purpose but to be such. Then, as it collapses, the sculpture becomes disassociated driftwood, a carcass of the sculpture floating with an ominous shipwreck sadness. Then a part of the wreckage becomes the life-raft upon which the castaway paddles. But, the uncertainty of the mental state of the castaway becomes more palpable as he gathers and re-stacks the shards of the former structure and makes them into a kind of shelter, his shirt now used as a head-wrap, and his purpose unknown. There are many layers to the work, many ways to read it - this is just a sliver of one. I commend Chris for having the wisdom not to shove any kind of summation of meaning on the viewer. The soundtrack too, I haven't even touched on it, but it is paramount to the experience. The mutterings of the castaway, the water noises, and jags and kinks in the film are all integral.

I ended up wanting to quote from book and film etc. that touch on these themes, so I inserted such words throughout the rest of this digital page. I do so playfully, but in a spirit of homage to the complex marvel he's created. I've taken the liberty (with Chris' kind allowance) of inserting these texts underneath some of the photos.

Thus we never see the true State of our Condition, till it is illustrated to us by its Contraries; nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.
~ Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Roberta 'Bertie': Do you like the sea, Fritz? Fritz Robinson: I like things you can depend on. The sea, you can never be sure of it. Roberta 'Bertie': Well, that's the fun of it. Not being sure of things.
~ from Swiss Family Robinson, by Swiss pastor Johann David Wyss

“The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.”
~James Joyce, Ulysses

Chuck Noland: Don't worry Wilson, I'll do all the paddling. You just hang on. ~From the film Cast Away, directed by Robert Zemeckis (wilson is the soccer ball he's painted a face on with his own blood, who becomes his companion and link to sanity)

Allie Fox: If it's on a map, I can't use it...
Allie Fox: Everything we need is right here.
~from Mosquito Coast, the film directed by Peter Weir, based on the novel by Paul Theroux.

I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. ~Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness

PS - personal side note: Watching this film reminded me of being on the sailboat with my Dad in Savannah as we managed to, over many outings, find every sandbar in the sound after gleefully ripping through the waters of the open sea. Many a night did we wait for the Coastguard to come and take us back for shore. We would practice tying knots, re-route our routes, and enact rescue missions overboard with the lifejackets to pass the time. Dad would stay with the boat for the tide to come back in and Bolyn and I were taken back to shore, to mom. A classic captain and his ship sipping luke-warm hot chocolate and looking at maps that would take him no place for that moment, but everywhere in a way. He also lived in a treehouse on a friend's property once, and a boathouse, so a man with/against nature theme has been persistent in his life, and therefore mine.

This photo says it all I think (the cat, the skull, the eagle, his countenance) but to fill in the blanks if you like: Boris is Bulgarian and grew up in the rural eastern Europe, which is where he first developed a feel for different kinds of wood and raw materials to sculpt with from nature. Later, he pursued his commitment to art through study at the University of Architecture and Fine Arts in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1947. He then escaped to Germany in 1948 and endured a harrowing time of his life. In 1949 he defected to Paris and married, then immigrated to the United States where is is currently semi-retired, still painting, remarried and living part-time in Bulgaria. He' s been sculpting and painting now for over 40 years, and many of his images have taken the eagle form. A mighty large wooden bear looms and commands the shelf of a cityscape lookout at his daugther's home in Eagle Rock.

"He's a primitive, yet sensitive, definitely masculine, and strongly opinionated artist who feels even to this day that he should have lived in another era." - from his bio
============================================================================================================================================================================

I heard about him through rave reviews of his sculpture of a grand sculpted wooden eagle which now proudly resides in the Eagle Rock High School (not pictured). He and his daughter came to the opening of the shop on April 1st, curious about its eagle-centric theme. I showed them around and he bought a small wooden eagle ornament; then we set up a time to meet the next week before he returned to Bulgaria. I went to the daughter's home where Boris, now a bit more chiseled and demure a figure, but still as commanding in attitude, painted in the garden; a show of the recent works were hanging on the fence around the yard. I felt lucky to have met such an artist, someone who actually struggled through large obstacles to be an artist, to become one, and to stay one.

a closer look at my favorite of his eagle paintings:

if you'd like to get in touch with Boris: Ralizo@hotmail.com, or SculptBK@sbcglobal.net - appointments to view work could be arranged.

I met Nick through my good friend Chris James, whose work I will feature in a couple of days. I'm going into thrill of exposure overload. a) Nick mentioned that he had made some semblance of a 'rock fountain' in amongst his pile o' art accomplishments. b) I asked if I could see it. c) It is now in the shop. The title: "M0DEL F0R A WINTER PALACE" 2012 pIexi, pump, ceramics, siIver Ieaf, aluminum, Ieaf, Iights

Bellmer and I now get to be near its aura-ific glow and gurgle every day. The light is transformative, and the gush of the spray hitting its lid is a sensation bomb!

click here for his website and discover the depth/breadth/width of his art/writing/publishing. I just devoured his publication called FATLAND printed to accompany his solo show at LAX art last year. Its the kind of read that I feel a dark shade of greedy about, wanting to hoard the words.

in situ

frothy power-lit hum and gurgle ===============================

PS - polar to gurgle and glow, but yet relevant to this theme, and notable, is an image of his piece for the Socrates Sculpture Park

On Earth, 2006 ==============

Randy came in to show his work to me but I was 'out in the field,' as I like to call it, so he left a few of his pieces for me to check out with Mark Verbioff, my venerable shop keeper. Mark had a big mischievous smile on his face when I came in, and he showed me these curious works. At first I thought they were simply coated rocks with twisty wire trees on them, but on closer inspection I saw a little figure that turned out to be a nun perched up in the branches of the tree, and a little penguin down on the ground brandishing a spear threateningly towards the nun. The nun was "treed," a term used in hunting when an animal is trapped in a tree with no place else to go but down, into the hands of its patient predator. The other pieces were a bit different, say two penguins with smaller knives ominously facing the nun or the penguin seeming to guard the nun with his/her back to the nun whilst still holding some kind of weapon.

I have since asked him to come back and bring more of these pieces for me to feature in the shop and had the great pleasure to meet and chat with him about the his Murder on the Rocks series and to see further manifestations of the theme, which included the nuns and penguins in travel/quests or exchange of suitcase scenarios. There is an obvious dark humor to them, but also a quiet eerie beauty in the stillness of the scenes he sets up, and a 'NO EXIT' type of tension/atmosphere. And I, coming from a flagrantly strange and at times off-kiltered nun-riddled upbringing, have been wooed by these pieces in spades. Here are a couple of images, but better to see them in person and consider owning one for your rock, nun, penguin or other worldly art collection.

Here is what he's written about the origin of these works:

Backstory: It all began in 1999 when “Murder On The Rocks” creator, Randy Thompson began collecting “unique” rocks from beaches along the coast of California and from several mountainous areas in Arizona. In particular, Randy would search for rocks that had a certain look to them; rocks that would appear to have an unusual, mysterious presence. Randy then fashioned scary, dead-looking trees made of wire and affixed them to the rocks, which further gave the pieces a haunting look. But something was missing, something that would give the art piece a story, something dark, but funny. That’s where the nuns and penguins came in. See, Randy had been traumatized at birth by a nun. Randy’s mum would always tell him the story of when he was born at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. His mum gave birth to him in the hallway of the hospital while waiting to go into the delivery room. The first person to walk by was a nun and she screamed bloody murder. Twenty three years later, Randy would marry a Catholic girl (Senator’s daughter) who would run off with a tennis pro within the year. So, down the road, Randy began to work out his issues by adding miniature nuns to the rocks. The miniature penguins came into the picture because they were wearing the same outfit as the nuns and created a “nature vs. religion” feel to the artwork; especially, when the penguin was holding a spear or sword. Sometimes the nuns and penguins are exchanging luggage (fish for bibles, plutonium exchange, who knows?). Sometimes, a penguin has a nun “treed”. Sometimes, it appears as if a penguin is receiving “the word.” Sometimes, they are on an adventure together, fleeing from an unseen menace. I give the eventual owner of the artwork the opportunity to complete the story; “what do you think is going on here”?

~Randy

Bio: Randy Thompson currently works for The Warner Music Group (Rhino Entertainment) in Burbank, California and was previously a professional songwriter/musician for 20 years. His music and band appeared in a Disney movie in 1986. Until recently, his art pieces have only been owned and exhibited in the homes of certain rock stars and music/movie executives.

I was riveted when Dani Tull came into the shop and showed me images on his phone of photographs of his that now grace the show.

These photographs depict woman who embody a stone-aged aura, and who, in these two particular works, have large stones photoshopped where their faces would normally be, but ever so gladly I say, what is normal!? These faces are then framed by the bountiful unkempt hairstyles that were popular in those prehistoric times.

It is a rare treat to be able to witness, in close confines, two contemporaries of mine taking a startlingly similar visual ground that end up communicating such different things. I feel that Dani's images are speaking with a reverence for the past, a connecting back to the power of that simplistic time of basic necessities, relationships to things, and a deep relationship to nature, people and the structure and actions of those relationships. These woman are sure-footed, their tools are strong and their lives are single-minded directed by their environments and their needs.

Melodie Mousset's work, (click here for previous blog for images) whose rock noses and stoned faces were already a part of the exhibition, has taken a similar tact with this body of work, in that the faces of her subjects are covered in real rocks made up of singular rocks with nose shapes sculpted out of the backs of them to make them nose-worthy masks. Melodie's relay more of an eerie humor, a play on the absurd, but also a powerful visual impact of feeling the weight of forms through connecting visually to the real objects on the faces of her models in the posters.

Dani and I had a conversation that is still resonating with me about the intersections of ideas and outcroppings of those ideas that happen amongst artists independent of each other. I thought of the scene in the film Close Encounters when many people unbeknownst to each other began to feel the unstoppable need to form sculptures of a mountain, which ended up being the site of the close encounter - a shared consciousness that desired these images into being.

UNFOLDING THE STONE, Study One + Two, 2011 =================================================================================================
Framed C-prints ===============

16 x 20” and 11 x 14”

And these are images of Dani's tie-dye paintings of cave men. I find the notion that the evolution of man having been sped up significantly by the interactions/ingestion of psychoactive plants to be an exciting avenue for reflection. The images of early man against the backdrop of tie-dye patterns in these paintings project a potent image of the idea that accelerated human thought was most likely due to the mind expanding properties of mother nature's own offerings, these plants that are portals to different ways of seeing within and on a micro and macro level. We have been separated so much from interacting with the earth and its offerings and specifically with such plant ingested experiences has been lost. Is it such a surprise to witness the plethora of closed minds around us? I feel fortunate to have had experiences with psychedelics, and often wish I could dose the planet and see what kind of humanity resulted. I'm not saying that these experiences are the only portal to mind-opening, but it is powerful and much of my own self awareness I attribute to these trips.

Form in Thought, 2008

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Mind, 2007

And, just to show more of Dani's pieces to round out the view, here are two totemic encaustic abstractions - they are completely mesmerizing and seem to be a testament to the patterns in nature and in our deepest mind's eye.

Observation, Penetration, Comprehension, Illumination, 2011 ====================================================================

Creative hostess of the Elohim, 2011 ==============================

================================================

A man after my own heart, click here

click here for the obituary

I am just coming up for air after a whirlwind week of aftermath and afterglow. The opening was a smash! And here is a celebratory video and song from my now twice collaborator, David G.A. Stephenson, a.k.a. SAMO HURT, called "The Legend of the Rock and Eagle Shop." We projected the video on the side of the building the night of the opening to an enthusiastic crowd.

SAMO HURT song 'Legend of the Rock and Eagle Shop' specially written and recorded for the opening, on Sunday 1st April 2012, of Bettina Hubby's Rock and Eagle Shop, Eagle Rock, California, USA (from an idea by Mason Williams). Music & production/mixing by Clive Smart; Lyrics, Vocals & Blues Harmonica by David G.A. Stephenson. Song copyright Clive Smart/DGA Stephenson 2012. Song will be available to buy as a CD single from the Rock and Eagle Shop.

I was energized, to put it mildly, to be turned on to Melodie's work. Even the first page of her website (click here) immediately reveals her unique view on the world - how sculptural her drawings are even when depicting seemingly simple source material. Her humor is super fine as well! Some of her titles, like her last show, "HELLO? I FORGOT MY MANTRA, at Clifton Benevento, or STUCKED PAINTINGS IN MY HAIR, and UP MY CULT! Genius, odd, delightful.

And these pieces reflect the kind of work she's showing at our shop:

Trouble Rainbow

Removing Boulders =================

Melodie's pieces in the show are on the right in this picture, both the posters and the actual rock noses below (also in this image, from left: Valentin Toledo: NARBEAGLE ON THE DIANA ROCK, 2012; Olivia Primé': Epic Performance and the Simulation Pack, 2011; Melinda Rayman: Sore like a rock (necklaces), 2012; Josh Callaghan: Stone Tool, Tape measure, pliers, pencil, concrete, Courtesy of Steve Turner Contemporary, 2009 (photo by Joshua White)

(rock noses) balancing authority and power in fast changing societal and natural dynamic, stoned faces), 2011

(posters): balancing authority and power in fast changing societal and natural dynamic, stoned faces, Clay, Jake, Kristin, Stina, Scott, Danielle, Katelyn, Rebecca, Sofia, Zack), 2011

edition of 15

Tiny load: Inspired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Rock, Colin Brown places a rock on a Matchbox model of a Lamborghini Miura in Griffith Park on March 10.

These few days have been a mash-up of loads. Catalog deadline and super stressful situations caused by my no-knowhow of graphic design programs and that ole mercury in retrograde thing that has been sticking its nasty protuberant head into all my business. I just seem able to turn my t-shirt around to go to bed and wake with eye drops, tea and an open computer. I've never worked harder on anything in my life. That's saying something I guess. The catalog is in the fine hands of Donahue printing now, so a huge heavy rock load has been transposed off my shoulders, and the space is almost painted completely. Bright green is our facade now! Now for dealing with the ugh of fluorescent and shelving, and then the magic inventory can come in and fill the space with eagleness and rockness and art of thus. Rocky road ice cream is good as I recall...

click here to see!

here are some generally and specifically wondrous rocks/boulders to contemplate as far as how they reached where they are and how incongruous that sometimes is.

this is my new screensaver:

I got to drive to coolest van around yesterday - the kind that makes every bump on the street a groovy rolick. Joe, incredible artist and furniture artisan, offered to lend The Rock and Eagle a desk and credenza and a few shelf brackets. Click here for his Blake Avenue website to peruse his sturdy elegant offerings. The quality of the wood just screams out: "I am the nicest wood you could ever want - I'm perfectly rugged looking, and will last longer than you ever will!"

Now the place has some class alongside its new coat of paint. His new paintings are incredible too! Look out for his next show at The Company Gallery in Chinatown.

Paul's condensed bio: After a promising start, the last twenty years have been spent travelling, growing vegetables, playing with Lego and existing in the artistic limbo which is teaching. Emanating from the cultural cradle of civilization (Coventry), a strong sense of history is often evident. Inspired by the unusual, serendipitous and dysfunctional the work attempts to be playful, decorative and therapeutic in equal measure.

Paul is another art colleague from way back when; we were at South Glamorgan Institute of Art in Wales (UK) during my last year at college. I was on an exchange program from The College of Charleston and got wooed to Wales by my professor who insisted it would be a challenge to move me forward with my art's trajectory. Well, a challenge it was, but I'm not sure if it was a forward move, though certainly character and backbone building - at one point I was squatting (Squatting: the practice of living in abandoned or unoccupied spaces that a squatter does not legally own, is a great way to avoid paying rent, if you’re willing to take the risk) in a freezing cold tiny room with 4 others, no electricity, and a bathtub/sink that was the kitchen table by day. Paul, donning a startling mullet at the time, and sometimes a kilt, teased me incessantly cushioned with a cheeky delivery. I could tell he was fond and even a bit protective of me amidst his verbal political and anti-American tirades. His affectionate and humorous jabs became the most comforting thing about that period of time, at least the parts I could remember. Besides being a very intimidating clan of angry artists, they drank a whole lot more than they ate, with their dole money, and didn't think it a successful evening unless one's head hit the table at the end of a night.

Paul and I kept in touch, and have built up a proper friendship via letter writing over time. I was always enamored by his ceramics. They have a wild mystical attitude to match his own, with fiery colors, and emit an other worldliness that is a feast of fun. An eagle image born from his brain will need a shelf all to itself.

When I first heard of the song via Julia at the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, I thought it was about Eagle Rock, our Eagle Rock, but its not. So here's the scoop, and the content is rich. So, now its all about practicing the dance!

"Eagle Rock" is a classic Australian song, released by Daddy Cool in May 1971 on the Sparmac Record Label. It went on to become the best selling Australian single of the year, achieving gold status in eleven weeks, and remaining at #1 on the national charts for a (then) record ten weeks.

Guitarist, vocalist and the song's writer Ross Wilson was living and performing in London when he wrote the song. He explained his inspiration for the song:

"It came from a Sunday Times liftout magazine A-Z on music. In the before blues section there was an evocative photo of rural black Americans dancing in a dirt poor juke joint. "Eagle Rock" was a popular 1920s black dance performed with the arms outstretched and the body rocking from side to side, 'Doing the eagle rock' is also a metaphor for sexual intercourse. ===========================================================================================================================================================================================

In May 2001, Australasian Performing Rights Association celebrated its 75th anniversary by naming the Best Australian Songs of all time, as decided by a 100 strong industry panel. In 2010 'Eagle Rock' was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia Registry.

English performer, Elton John toured Australia during 1972 and was so inspired by Daddy Cool's hit single "Eagle Rock" that, with Bernie Taupin, he wrote "Crocodile Rock". The cover of John's 1973 album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player, which featured "Crocodile Rock", has a photo of lyricist Taupin wearing a "Daddy Who?" promotional badge.

In 1998 Australia Post issued a special edition set of twelve stamps celebrating the early years of Australian Rock ‘n’ Roll, featuring Australian hit songs of the late 50s, the 60s and the early 70s. One of the songs featured in the collection was 'Eagle Rock'.

The song was covered by the Australian children's group The Wiggles on their 2003 tour, with Captain Feathersword singing lead. It appears on the DVD "Live Hot Potatoes."

In 2005, it appeared as backing music on commercials for "Victoria - The Place to Be". It was also used in the opening scenes of the 2006 horror movie Wolf Creek, in the 2011 Australian film Red Dog and in the television series Dossa and Joe.

Since the early 1990s "Eagle Rock" has been played at home games for the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles rugby league team and is unofficially the club's theme song. It is also played at West Coast Eagles games at Subiaco Oval in the Australian Football League and the Eagles' Rick The Rock Eagle mascot character is also named after the song.

The Tradition "Eagle Rock" is also notorious in Australia. Since the mid-1980s, when the song is played in a public bar, it is common for Australian students (largely male) to unstrap their belts and hobble around with their pants around their ankles. Members of Daddy Cool have admitted to being perplexed over the origin of this practice.

The Clubs and Societies manual for the University of Queensland, has "Founders of the Eagle Rock Tradition" noted with the information for the UQ Mining and Metallurgy Association. Whilst it is a somewhat controversial claim, it is a reasonable suggestion with a number of St Johns residents specialising in the Mining field during the 1970s. The policy of the University of Queensland's Student Union states no individual can be removed from the University pub, the Red Room, for dropping their pants whilst Eagle Rock is being played.

Daddy Cool members Wayne Duncan — bass guitar, backing vocals Ross Hannaford — lead guitar, backing vocals Ross Wilson — lead vocals, guitar, harmonica Gary Young — drums, backing vocals

and here they are in 2007, rockin' the Eagle Rock again

My favorite reaction to the announcement thus far!

After a lot of imploring, favor-calling and outreach to relative strangers, palm-sweaty nights thinking of having to resort to a lean-to in an empty lot, we have our shop!

The address, the delightful key-in-hand address, is: 4765 Eagle Rock Blvd. LA CA 90041

Ta-dahhh!

Now its all about brooms, bleach and elbow grease, scraping, painting and obfuscating. TLC is achingly needed, but I'm wearing my jeans, and its in my genes.

And so, as a tribute to my own inner delight, and as a result of a sick cute animal video vortex I fell into on YouTube after finding the startled eagle, here are some other animals, reacting to the news

the dramatic Chipmunk

the dramatic Alpaca

the dramatic Sloth

the dramatic Lemur

And, ya gotta have a cat: the OMG cat

My friend and fellow Eagle Rock, Rock and Eagle Shop associate, Joe Williams, who is helping me by designing the merchandising for the shop, posted this ad today on Craigslist after we spoke about how great it would be to have a live eagle at the event. An eagle who would be treated well, and who would enjoy the company of humans at the opening reception on the 1st of April. This may not come to pass, but the act of advertising for one is in itself a unique and fulfilling experience.

wanted: eagle trainer/eagle owner for unique community opportunity (eagle rock )

Date: 2012-02-29, 12:45PM PST Reply to: wddff-2877628047@sale.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

looking for a person who owns an eagle or takes care of an eagle to participate in a non profit community arts event in march/april in the eagle rock neighborhood of los angeles. any kind of eagle will do!

Location: eagle rock it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests PostingID: 2877628047

click here for images of the eagles in their travels and in situ.

Photograph of a Penn Station Eagle at the Cooper Union by Triborough on flickr

From 1910 until 1963, when New York actually had a Pennsylvania Station, 22 stone eagles (by artist Adolph A. Weinman) stood guard. Today 14 of them are known to still exist, and only three still in the city. Their new roosts are as follows:

Two of the city eagles are easy to spot. You can find them perched in front of the Penn Plaza complex. The third of the city eagles is a bit harder to find, sitting in a courtyard of a Cooper Union building at 3rd Avenue and St. Marks Place. You can see it through the fence on the 3rd Avenue side.

Three eagles have taken flight to Long Island where you can find two at the United States Merchant Marine Academy and one at the Hicksville Long Island Rail Road station. The greatest concentration of eagles winds up being in a rather ironic place, in the city where the plans for the destruction of their original perch were approved – Philadelphia. There, four eagles stand perched on the corners of the Market Street bridge.

The other survivors are further dispersed with lone eagles roosting at Valley Forge Military Academy in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, Vinalhaven, Maine, and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

Part of me says it doesn't really read as much of a figure, but I really wanna see what they say it is, so I suspend my disbelief. Click here for the article about the 10-12,000 yr old well-endowed fellow.

This made me happier than a four year old on Christmas morning. Emily from Side Street projects found out about this Broodthaers piece from an art historian friend of hers. Good mojo from 1968, which also happens to be the year I was born.

Marcel Broodthaers (1924 -1976) Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles Broodthaers created this fictitious museum in Brussels in 1968, through which he organized exhibitions, publications, and films. He was one of the first artists to question the role of the institution, display, and text in an art object’s reception. He also produced an unlimited edition of gold ingots stamped with the museum’s emblem, an eagle, a symbol associated with power and victory.
“With the help of a fiction like my museum it is possible to grasp reality as well as that which reality it conceals.”
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and another manifestation of this quote:
“Fiction enables us to grasp reality and at the same time that which is veiled by reality”
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the text from the actual museum guide: The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles was created in 1968 by Marcel Broodthaers. It was opened as a semi-fictional institution, with Broodthaers taking the role of ‘museum director’ just months after he participated alongside fellow artists and students in the occupation of the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. A wave of demonstrations and occupations were happening across Europe and the World in 1968 due to the increase in social awareness of the population and the dissatisfaction towards the institutions and governmental policies that allowed events such as war, racial discrimination and the onslaught of global capitalism to happen.
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The occupation of the museum symbolized a re-claiming of institutional space. Broodthaers had deliberately taken up the role of ‘artist’ four years earlier (he had previously been working as a poet and writer), and through the ‘museological’ format he found a way to both critique the institution and form a space to experiment with his own artistic ideas. The Museum was initially opened in Broodthaers’ house and studio, and had no permanent location. The image of an eagle acted as the emblem of the Museum and its Department of Eagles. There were 11 subsequent sections that included prints, signage, photography, drawings and many artifacts which were shown in various exhibitions and locations.

click here for more

click here for the NY Times article

A hive of bus' and trailers, Side Street Projects (click here) exists within and beyond them. Their introductory quote on their website kinda says it best:

We teach artists how to roll up their sleeves and do things themselves with educational programs that encourage self-reliance and creative problem solving in a contemporary art context.

A great feature about them on KPCC:

Side Street Projects from KPCC on Vimeo.

Side Street hosts artist projects on site, they have a myriad of art classes for kids as a part of The Woodworking Bus & Trailer program, and a particularly artist-valuable podcast series called What Do Curators Want and an artist lecture series, called Shop Talk. They also have equipment to rent for artists on site for extremely reduced rates. I came in last year to scan some of my collages on their large scanner. A blessed resource it was, and a pleasant way to spend time, since everyone who has anything to do with the place seems to have to be interesting, humorous and easy to be around.

I also got a kick out of their description of where they're located:

Side Street Projects is temporarily located in a vacant lot in-between Church’s Fried Chicken & an abandoned victorian house that is slated for development. Our lot is 25,000 sq ft and has some wonderful features including a foundation of an old barbershop.

Emily, the Director, has given me the proverbial thumbs up for The Rock and Eagle Shop, and has committed to helping in one, some or many ways. She already has. My failing pen was scratching away as her suggestions re: funding and storefronts and alternative spaces flowed out of her. I have a lot to do now in following up on all that she advised, but feel better about everything due to our sit-down.

There may even be a bus in our future. That is something that could be explored, not without its own set of complexities, but a whole new set of charms as well.

As most of us in the LA art arena are aware, there is a very very very big rock set to travel to LACMA this year, and then to be levitated: "Levitated Mass," has garnered loads of attention for its load-ness and the mass of red tape that has blocked its passage. Its going to happen though I have a feeling. Michael Goven of LACMA has to get it here now, after spending so much money thus far to do so.

click here for the most recent news - it really is on the way! click here from the LA Times about the coming of the rock

Here's what it says on the LACMA website: Levitated Mass, coming Soon

Levitated Mass by artist Michael Heizer is composed of a 456-foot-long slot carved into the earth, over which is placed a 340-ton monolithic granite boulder. As with other works by the artist, such as Double Negative (1969), the monumental negative form is key to the experience of the artwork. Heizer conceived of the artwork in 1968, but discovered an appropriate boulder, which is one component of the greater artwork, only decades later, in Riverside, California. At 340 tons, the boulder is one of the largest monoliths moved since ancient times. Taken whole, Levitated Mass speaks to the expanse of art history, from ancient traditions of creating artworks from monolithic stone, to modern forms of abstract geometries and cutting-edge feats of engineering.

Image: Michael Heizer, preliminary sketch for Levitated Mass, 2011, courtesy of the artist © Michael Heizer

click here for the website about Heizer's past works. He's no stranger to rocks

Some nice book ends! Enviable:

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and ya gotta love these knee pads on this guy:

click here for an artist who sculpts ambitiously sized bronze animals, primarily the Eagle

He has been sculpting the bald eagle since 1971 and is considered the foremost sculptor of this magnificent creature. His artistic and accurate renditions of the bald eagle are widely recognized as those best capturing the beauty and freedom of our nation's proud symbol. Throughout the year, Bald Eagles dive in the lake after fish and perch in the trees near his studio. Studying eagles in the wild, Curtis observes their courtship rituals, nesting habits, and drawing their catches from the waters of the lakes and rivers. His commanding portrayals of the powerful and symbolic eagle remain unequaled.

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I want this Eaglebearwolf!

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and this I can't live without:

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click here for an artist in Idaho, who used a metal cutting machine to construct this giant 17 foot eagle:

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Wouldn't it be nice to accompany your morning toast with these eagle egg cups:

February 15th

click here for the story

and here, my newest acquisition for the shop, a pair of (I will assume) loving eagles on a perch:

February 14th

Petroglyph of the Chandra orbiting observatory, Montana

Kevin and I went to the School of Visual Arts together in NY many moons ago. Its a thrill, and apropo to say the least, to have him agree to be a part of The Rock and Eagle Shop. Kevin has been (hard) working on a project of great patience and originality, traveling for over a year across the country carving images of technological advances and local imagery into massive rocks - taking symbols of mankind's progress and lifstyle and using man's oldest and most archival method of communication to communicate it. He's also liberated himself from a bogged down life in New York by getting commissions from people he meets during his travels, making custom petrogylphs for them that resonate their own lives/identity in large rock faces on their properties. To say his artwork is the kind that will keep on giving is an understatement.

An impression from petroglyph in Kenmare, ND

Peruse his website, click here, and support his endeavors. The impressions he makes from the carvings themselves are for sale and would be a meaningful record of this worthy project.

click here for a great article about his work.

If only I could afford to have him ship a 2 ton petroglyphed boulder to Eagle Rock for the shop, but we'll work something out.

Pickup petroglyph in the Sumatra Hills, Montana

February 12th

Mason Williams and I spoke the other day and he ran to get an article from the NY Times to read it to me over the phone. It was about outsider art called, "Creating Artworks without a Net," by Karen Rosenberg from the Jan. 28th Arts section reviewing the Outsider Art Fair that opened recently. A few choice sentences from the article:

Let's all agree that "outsider artist" is a term of convenience, encompassing the self-taught, the visionary, the geographically isolated, the mentally ill or developmentally disabled, and (in one memorable episode) Homor Simpson.

~ The thread linking the fair's 36 booths is a personal compulsion to make art, without a rulebook, and with whatever materials happen to be at hand. =================================================================================================================================================== ~

At the Museum of Everything, and at the fair as a whole, enthusiasm for unorthodox creative expression meets disdain for the old-fashioned term that commonly describes it. As the Museum's website proclaims, "Death to outsider art! Long live the outsiders!"

Tin-foil animals by Dean Millien at the LAND Gallery's booth. (You know which animal I wish he'd make for me!)

I haven't ever thought of myself as an outsider artist, but the more I think about it, the more SOME of the above fits with the spirit of the projects I undertake. Most, but not all of what I do, fits outside of the gallery walls and have a structure that is not recognizable or definable, which I am fond of, obviously. And this project certainly has a bit of an obsessive compulsive atmospheric quality that many of the outsider artists possess. Henry Darger, Adolf Wölfli, Martín Ramírez, Bill Traylor, Joseph Yoakum, all have been a huge inspiration to me. I used to visit Howard Finster when he was still alive at his architectural and landscaped feat of god-animated imagination: his garden, house and and church in Georgia. He would preach to my boyfriend and I while moving great big piles of dirt, filling one hole and then digging another, that was only when he wasn't making mosaics, paintings, bottle effigies or tin structures, all magically erected without a rulebook to say the least.

It is also quite encouraging, and though I am not a confusion seeker, I still like the message of her focus, to read about Eugenia Joo's intent for the 2nd part of The New Museum's Triennial, called, The Ungovernables.

The show, The Ungovernables, stolidly denies any ability to define a generation’s artistic output. Curated by the museum’s own Eungie Joo, “The Ungovernables” embraces the shifting political currents that are the only stable hallmarks of our contemporary moment, showing work by artists and collectives who leave ideology behind and seek out confusion and hybridity.

~ArtInfo.com by Kyle Chayka, Tom Chen

February 10th

I've oft times asked too much of my friends with my all-encompassing projects, so this time I've purposely been working primarily on my own, but there's a time for asking here and there, and when it comes to editing, Kate Mayfield is a dream. She's helped with the press release, with ideas about how to get the website for free, and now she's even come up with a solidly clever plan for something to sell in the shop - so Rock n' Eagle Monday craft nights commence this week.

Kate surrounded by rocks and eagles and the glow of a needy press release =========================================================================

and my poor neglected dog, who has been surrounded by eagles and rocks all of a sudden. Must be confusing, but geez - he has it pretty good.

I would like to help her in return in whatever small ways I can, so, thought to give a shout out to her and her cohort, Gordon Bowen - they gave started their own business, which I'd like to rave about. Its called Metalcast Kits, a full casting studio and source for artist's projects, as well as for their already cast objects for sale, such as the kits for casting your own belt buckle, and new items in the works. My entire family has been ravenous for the buckles - such a great gift Click here for their website

February 6th

I was behind this truck yesterday. Its quite amusing to have this focus on two subjects for a span of time only to have those two things appear all of a sudden everywhere I look. It makes the whole project seem fated and more like a lifestyle than just a project.

February 5th

Here's my first posting with the website. Ajay, the editor, has been giving me advice as to how to get the word out.
Get Ready Eagle Rock, here comes the Rock and Eagle Shop! Posted on February 3, 2012 at 1:57 pm

Me at the Eagle Rock Farmer's market getting visual with the locals

And me with Sir Michael, one of the premier hubs of the Eagle Rock community. He's been gracious enough to help me brainstorm the location for the project.

The concept was born from a conversation between Mason Williams and Ed Ruscha in 1964. These lifelong friends who have the same appreciation for, and wit with and around words, amused themselves with this idea of having a shop in Eagle Rock that just sold Eagles and Rocks. I have, with their permission and enthusiasm, taken on the task of fully realizing this idea.

The variety of the interpretation of these two symbols will be extensive. On one side of the space will be the eagle ranging from The Eagles band records, eagle puzzles, photographs and story books on Eagle Chiefs, Eagle Snow globes, a carved eagle sling shot, etc. etc. On the other side of the shop will be rocks such as: pop rocks, hide-a-key rocks, pet rocks, macramed rocks, stars painted on rocks (rock stars), rock collections, and on and on. On the back wall, will be Eagles and rocks together, like an eagle sitting on rock, or an eagle painted on a rock, rock music about Eagles, etc.

Mixed within the presentations of these objects I've amassed via online and thrift store shopping, will be over 20 contemporary artists works relating to these two subjects: rocks and/or eagles. All works will be for sale, like a group show contained within a thrift store. I am looking for a storefront for 2 months so that this can come to life. I am calling out to the Eagle Rock community to sponsor this show/idea/project by loaning a storefront. I hope there's someone out there with an empty space that would be willing to let me and my team transform the space temporarily into this wonderland of eagles and rocks. I would make sure to leave the space in even better shape than I find it. I've been looking around the central part of the city and see so many spaces that would be perfect, that are boarded up, and ripe for this kind of thing to take place. Please get in touch with any and all ideas for free, or if free isn't possible, reduced rent, for a storefront available for mid-march for installation, to open on April 1 for a 2 month run: bettina@hubbyco.com.

February 4th

I wanted to announce that Melinda, who is an artist, poet, comedian and culturally tapped-in entrepreneur has agreed, to my great satisfaction, to be the shop's caretaker during the two month run. While I'll be on site quite a bit, there will be times I'll be out in the field taking care of other aspects of the project, so Melinda will be my collaborator in customer relations, rock and eagle research, sales and guest services. ;)

photo by mutual esteemed friend, George Porcari ========================================

February 3rd

Serendipity is too weak a word. I was awestruck, as if some kind of magic had happened. A sign that this is a good trajectory perhaps. Whatever it was, it was the opposite of bad.

And so was seeing the Women's Surrealism show at LACMA. Lots of rocks in that show. Here's a bad Iphone pic of a good painting here for instance by Kay Sage, called "Blue Wind":

February 1st

Now that I'm using my Rock and Eagle filter in looking at the world and to find those things in the world, I have stumbled upon the realization that people make money off of selling things of no value whatsoever, even things that have pieces missing or are broken. Now, for the Rock and Eagle Shop, some of these things are useful and desirable to me, more for poetic and or comedic value than nostalgia - certainly not for filling a niche on my nic-nac shelf, but the mind reels that scores of people across our land are packing these bits and bobs up in boxes and sending them to each other for cash. Makes me think I may be in the wrong business. Here's an article telling you how to get in on it. As I mentioned before though, most of my findings are heartfelt and come from sincere sources of creativity.

January 30th

On the crux of the weekend it was getting stuff done day.

I had lunch with Brooke Hodge, who heads the Publications Department at the Hammer Museum. She was a guest of the Get Hubbied wedding and an esteemed writer about that project for the New York Times T Magazine blog under her column called "Seeing Things" (click here for that article). I wanted to see what her thoughts were about this venture - I knew she'd be a great idea machine. Suffice it to say, I took a lot of notes and will follow her sage advice to the letter. She also turned me onto a great website called Dave's Down to Earth Rock Shop, click here for that world of fun.

Then I went to the Eagle Rock Farmer's market and met with this guy AJay who runs a website, Patch Eagle Rock, for local news, events and announcements. I thought it would be useful to meet him and just ask how to get the word out, and he ended up liking the project so much, he's going to write a story about it on the site to help me promote, as well as to find a space.

January 27th

I was introduced to Mason's humor by Ed Ruscha and have since become a fan (amongst throngs of fans) of all his creative endeavors. Click here for his website and peruse to your heart's content. There is a wealth of material and accomplishment, and it is indeed a pleasure to be in conversation with him regarding eagles, rocks and beyond. Alongside all the musical feats, poetic triumphs and and comic scores, the art piece he did photographically replicating a full-sized Greyhound bus has given me a special shiver or two:
click here and scroll down.

Yesterday I sent him some pictures of eggs with eagles painted on them, since he wondered if an 'Eggle' already existed. I even bought a rock with an egg painted upon it, so all in my current world is in a word associative fervor.

Today I got a poetic and eye-opening article in the mail from him about the real story behind Plymouth Rock, called The Pilgrims And the Rock, by Francis Russell (who has such a enviable vocabulary) - click here to read it. It's myth making at its finest. My favorite most seemingly obvious misconception of the whole event is that the Pilgrim's vessel (and they weren't calling themselves that - at the time they were the self-named 'Saints') would have seen a huge looming boat-threatening rock as they approached land from sea, and said, "Hey everybody, there's a huge rock, let's land on that!" No, that's not what happened. They landed ashore away from any rocks. This from the article: "That granite egg laid by the glacier was the most conspicuous object on the flat, curved shoreline, a seamark for any helmsman...it is hard to imagine the helmsman on that bleak, brawing December day taking the rist of battering his craft against it when the wide sheltering inlet of a brook lay only a hundred yards or so beyond."

The rock that was named the Plymouth Rock was actually bestowed its symbolism to commemorate the landing of our ancestors much much later in 1774, not 1620. Russell ends the article it by saying,
"I feel a homely affection for that familiar, battered granite lump..."

On a tangent, but still related to this collab., a few days back in my first parcel from Mason, I got his album called, MUSIC, with the cover art by Ruscha, that includes upon it a rather infectious song about an eagle named J. Edgar Swoop; Swoop makes such a dandy-like mess of being an eagle, or an embarrassment as a national symbol since he dressed sloppily and had no fervor towards flying or swooping, and he gets replaced as our patriotic bird by none other than a poodle. Mason is going to rerecord the song and made a CD for me to sell in the shop. I would include the lyrics here, but its just too good to hear rather that to read, so I'll wait till I get the recording. I sent him a bunch of Rock and Eagle Shop swag, and a fire hydrant t-shirt and poster. Ying and Yang, ya know.

January 26th

I'm having more fun than should be allowed. It may be a no no to admit, but this new art project, from an older idea via Mason Williams and Ed Ruscha, has me in consistent grins and stitches, which by some medical claims will make me live longer, though I don't think I need to worry about that as my grandmother is turning 105 this year. The statement on the Eagle Rock, Rock and Eagle Shop section of this website describes the whole business quite sufficiently, but I will digress, and this is where I'll do that.

Eagle Rock, The Rock and Eagle Shop is by no means a joke, but it is funny, and I hope will infect others as it has me. Beyond wanting to connect and please the community of Eagle Rock, I have been blessed through this self imposed mission, to have the time to take a close look at the online community of sellers, crafters and doers out there making stuff, and putting it up for sale. I feel a people-lovin feeling as I learn how many of them in the US (and beyond) are doing creative things, let alone that they are eagle and/or rock related things. There are so many people working from home, advertising, sometimes quite poetically, sometimes insanely, the wares they have to offer. Now I know why there are so many people in line at the post office. They are mailing trinkets and do-dads, buckles, beads, used clothing, puzzles and parts of toys, tools, eagle figurines and paintings on rocks to strangers everywhere. Now some of them are selling crap, but even that is charming (to me), because other people are buying it; Mason gave me the perfect word to describe them for the press release: entremanureal.

I still have to wrap up the wedding project's catalog, and am working on a book of collages which will be published by Iceplant press this year. And, there's the catalog for this new adventure, which I am bent over nightly, refining and aligning. So, the haus of Hubby is again in full steam ahead motion. There's the sound of a rock fountain bubbling in the background as I type. The wall behind me is radically hung with my current muses - all shapes and sizes and expressions of rocks and eagles. All I need to do now is find a space to house this venture. I am meeting with Ajay of the Patch Eagle Rock organization on Friday, which may prove useful in this endeavor - or at least to help get the word out to the community.

January 25th