my hometown

I know I've said it before but, the time spent creating artwork, at least for me, is time spent in a sort of meditation.
(except you don't have to sit stone still).
The mind is free and clear to navigate the universe, (which is really the point) and discover new stuff about it and yourself to help make you a better person.

 "My Home Town", a digital illustration by Art Winstanley
(easily and affordably available if you care for a copy)
© 2012 Arthur A. Winstanley

Trust me when I tell you, while I drew this piece, "My Hometown", (for a T-shirt design - that is actually selling pretty well) it was a weeks long meditation.
My mind had the time-less-ness to explore the universe in places I would never have imagined. . .

I recently read Chris Matthews' latest book, "Jack Kennedy - Elusive Hero". It's a good and a quick read and
I recommend it.
It doesn't paint JFK as a hero (or a villain for that matter) just a frail human, like the rest of us. A charismatic and ruthless politician to be sure but just a man with foibles, a bad back problem and Addison's disease. (he was not a healthy man)
From Matthews' perspective, I liked Jack Kennedy.
(I was only 8 when he was elected and 11 when he was executed - so what the hell did I know then?) But as I thought about it later, I had a sense that he really did have the best in mind for all of us and, if he hadn't been shot, he likely wouldn't have lived out his second term (which he surely would have won).
All the same, I thought  (counting backwards on my fingers)
if JFK were alive today, he'd be 95 years old.

That thought got me on a roll. . .

If they were alive today, Bobby Kennedy (one of the two men who's lives I admire most in this life) would be 87.
Marilyn Monroe would be 86.
Jimmi Hendrix would be 70.
Janis Joplin would be 69.
And Ernest Hemingway (a local favorite - born, I'm pretty sure, in the same year as my own grandfather) would be 113 years old.
(Tempus Fugit, aye?)

As the weeks wore on, drawing an airplane, sailboat, palm trees and a pelican, then getting the damned turtle just right, my head went to more abstract thoughts. (that I won't get into right now)
But, and again I can only speak for myself, that's the beauty of the creative process.

You don't worry about the rent or the Keys Energy bill or the girlfriend you accidentally pissed off over dinner the night before last. Your mind is totally is free!

It's emotionally liberating and comforting, sometimes lucrative and, it's fun.
And that's why I keep doin' it.

janis joplin

I happened to be out and about on foot this weekend and stopped in, God only knows why, at one of those "galleries" that sell poster size photographs of Buffett and Springsteen and the usual pantheon of dead legends; Marilyn, Elvis, Francis Albert and the rest of his Rat Pack, Hendrix, Morrison and Janis Joplin.

It was that photo of Janis that caught me.

By the time the
music I grew up
with became
"classic rock",
I wasn't listening to
it or even thinking about it much anymore.

You know how it is,
(of course you do)
tastes change, new artists emerge and the next thing you know, (unless you listen to US1) you haven't heard "Stairway to Heaven" in 20 years.

In that disconnect, names and faces that you used to know like your own get fuzzy and you can't remember enough of the lyrics to sing along anymore.

Anyway, I'm in the "gallery" and the photograph of Janis grabs me. Right away I'm mentally moved back in time to the flood of stuff I might have known and felt about her.
Big Brother & the Holding Company and "Piece of my Heart", "Cry Baby", "Summertime", my first ex-wife's favorite, "Mercedes Benz" and finally her untimely demise at the hand of heroine.

Back in the day, the general visual impression I had of Janis was that she looked so much older than her 27 years. Of course I was just 18 at that point and didn't know yet about the mileage that drinkin', druggin' and living on the road could put on a musician. (that stuff to was still a year or two in my future) But for all that, standing there in a Duval Street gallery on the second to last day of January, 2010, the visual impression that hit me was, "my God, she was just a kid."

Well, that impression followed me home and since it had been so long since I'd heard her stuff, (remember that 20 year disconnect?) I googled her up and spent the rest of the afternoon really listening.
The general audio impression I got was, "DAMN!"

Summertime, Janis Joplin