My wife writes about a special project she illustrated and published.
Once Among the Dead is the second book I worked on for my sister, Patricia.. and my strange little drawings have found a comfortable home within its pages. The painting I used for the cover has always been a favorite of mine… and is undeniably fitting for this unique collection of poems and stories. The first time I read it, I was left wandering around stunned for hours. Speaking to my sister afterwards, I described it in a single word: Potent.
ONCE AMONG THE DEAD
It is about time to make death mainstream. Death is seen as mysterious and feared by so many in today’s society. Yet it is a common everyday occurrence.
Once Among the Dead is a collection of meditations on death, dying, grief and loss. The themes range from the clinical, to the philosophical, to the spiritual. Raw, emotional and brutally honest, the poetry and prose are at times difficult to read. Grotesque and beautiful, this strikingly unique book contains elements of horror, hope and salvation.
Patricia Lynn Dompieri is also the author of Lemon Bee and Other Peculiar Tales. Both of her books have been illustrated by Michele Bledsoe.
**************
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Richard Bledsoe “I Believe I’m Sinking Down” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″2023
In September of 2023, I completed the third work in a commissioned series of paintings.
I spent much of 2023 on this major painting, a depiction of the final act of a great American myth.
I’ve loved blues music since I was a teenager in the 1980s; the first purchase I ever made in the genre was a cassette of the Robert Johnson compilation “King of the Delta Blues Singers.” I’d read about the legend of how Johnson went to a crossroad and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for worldly glory. The tale resonated with my interests in both spirituality and weirdness.
Those same fascinations drive my art. In 2021, I finished a major painting on Johnson’s tragedy.
In an earlier post I described how my depiction of “Hellhound On My Trail,” sold to an out of state patron. As this painting represented Johnson haunted by his diabolical deal, this patron requested two more works to show the beginning and ending of Johnson’s downfall. He wanted depictions of both the initial crossroad meeting and the ultimate consequences, when the devil comes to collect.
“I have visions. They come at the most random times. I could be washing the dishes, or driving to work, and suddenly the picture is there. It usually arrives now with a title, dimensions and suggestions for technique.”
I had to find the vision within myself for the paintings before I could commit. I was was blessed that inspiration struck, and I saw how I could tell those other parts of the tale.
The new version of “Crossroad” would be that moment where the man had to make that choice, hesitating right on the threshold of destiny and damnation, all taking place as some eerie moonlit blues.
The new version of “Sinking” shows the man where he thought he wanted to be, experiencing the glamour of being on stage, under the lights, unleashing the talent he sold his soul for. But he has never been more alone, singing to no one, in front a kudzu patch strangling the life out of a dark forest. Only an owl, a harbinger of death, witnesses his performance.
The lights reveal the man’s soul demonically twisted into oozing corruption. The end is near.
It was intense to return to this large work over and over again throughout the year, slowly bringing it into full realization.
Here is the full story in the order of occurrence.
Richard Bledsoe “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″
Richard Bledsoe “Hellhound On My Trail” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″
Richard Bledsoe “I Believe I’m Sinking Down” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″
I will look forward to doing more paintings exploring America’s rich heritage and mysteries.
As I worked on “Sinking,” I took pictures charting its development, some of which I share below.
**************
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
At SEEDs for Autism we understand that art is a powerful form of communication. Art encourages creativity and self-expression. Art stirs the imagination and helps us grow as we engage with other artists, improve our skills and create beautiful pictures to share with the world. THE FELLOWSHIP OF ART features the work of local community artists, SEEDs Instructors and students. Please join us on March 31st and be a part of this exciting one-night-only art show at SEEDs for Autism.
Fellowship can be defined as a friendly association between people with shared interests. Artists of all kinds form a fellowship, one that delights in communicating in the universal language of art. “The Fellowship of Art” is a pop up gallery experience that brings together local artists to show with the talented participants of Seeds for Autism for a special one night event.
Richard Bledsoe of Remodern America, one of the organizers of the show, said, “Artists show us who they are with their creations. By hosting this art show, Seeds for Autism is providing opportunity for a diverse group of creatives to come together and share with the community. It truly is a fellowship of art, where everyone makes their own unique contribution.”
SEEDs for Autism is a unique vocational training program in Phoenix, AZ dedicated to providing adults across the spectrum with hands-on experience as they learn a variety of life skills, social skills and job skills in a real-life work environment. Through the production and sale of their hand-crafted home and garden items, adults on the autism spectrum build self-confidence as they step outside of their comfort zone and GROW.
50% of all Art Sales will be donated to support the life-changing program at SEEDs for Autism.
Richard Bledsoe “The Pop Star” acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″
**************
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
“Ah ha ha. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
So said John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, as he squatted on the edge of the stage at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom. It was the end of the band’s 1978 tour of America, and the end of the Sex Pistols too. Despite cashing in with member berry reunions in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Sex Pistols were spent as a creative force.
Lydon’s meaning was ambiguous and therefore multifaceted, open to interpretation. Was Johnny mocking the audience for enduring a lackluster performance from the group? Was he talking about himself, and how he had been manipulated by his scheming manager? Or was he still proclaiming the punk wake up call that the powerful are abusing the people?
All three possibilities can be true. In that moment the Pistols were still the unwitting oracles of art, acting as puny transmitters of cultural forces which rocked the world.
Johnny Rotten was a symbol not a just a man. This dead end Irish kid briefly manifested therapist Carl Jung’s comments on the role of the artist:
“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is ‘man’ in a higher sense— he is ‘collective man’— one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of mankind.”
Those who’d claim the Sex Pistols and punk in general were never a creative force to begin with just needs to look around at the world today. The music still gets played, the stories are retold. It is part of who we are now as “collective man.” It has endured the test of time, the most telling measure of art’s effectiveness.
Vast numbers of people display the tribal garb of artificially colored hair, torn clothes, tattoos and weird piercings that once signaled a determined, tiny subculture of would-be rebels.
The look is a cliché now, pure mainstream. A chuck of the populace is walking around wearing the skinsuits of a few outsiders who got aggressive and defiant about being cast as losers by the status quo, and decided make a visible and noisy issue out of it.
You might not like punk, but it prevailed. We as a people were transformed because it is art that shows us how to be. “Empire follows art, and not vice versa” was the assertion of an earlier rebellious English artist, William Blake. Empire in this quote can be read not as a specific political entity, but as the unifying ideas which direct a civilization. Hegemony is the word academics use for it.
Another Jung quote about art’s power is “All art intuitively apprehends coming changes in the collective unconsciousness.” Unfortunately, for over 100 years, the elites have been showing us through the art they promote their collective unconscious consists of an authoritarian insistence to worship power, enforced by fraud and force.
Galleries and museums are now chock full of off-putting and incomprehensible junk with insane valuations. The only reason it can be recognized as supposed art is because it is in a gallery or museum, placed there by the consensus of corrupted cultural institutions. Some examples of typical Postmodern masterpieces:
We are being told to accept the lie that absurd trash is art because those in charge tell us it is. If we can’t see the validity, that is our problem for not being sophisticated enough to enjoy the emperor’s new clothes.
The establishment ordering us to accept fraud as art can be extrapolated into ordering us to accept the fraud in our elections. Once we capitulated to the first big lie, the rest come easier.
The arrogant ruling class is possessed by Postmodernism. They’re all in on the idea that tearing down the traditions and standards of Western civilization will cement their grasp on unaccountable power.
Once you understand that, the promotion of Postmodern art as the pinnacle of artistic achievement becomes understandable. It explains the Orwellian efforts behind the elevation of mindless attention-seeking as an attempted substitute for values, achievements and principles. Hyping soulless, unskilled art has a toxic, weakening effect on society as a whole.
Postmodern art is a tool of oppression.
Postmodern power relies on the people’s acceptance to dwell in an artificial construct shaped by the preferences of the powerful. This fake world just swallowed up yet another election here in the United States, and we are expected to go along with it.
The country is a mess, everything is going wrong, and in defiance of all historical trends, red tsunami pre-polling, and common sense, we are expected to believe we all voted for more of the same. To add insult to injury, the fake president told us they were doing it again.
I still can’t shake this bizarre feeling about Biden’s closing pitch ahead of the midterms. He said there’s going to be election deniers and that you must accept the results. Why would a President say this about a midterm that by all accounts he’s about to get crushed in? Weird.
Unfortunately, as far as punk versus the corrupt status quo went back in the day, real reform is much harder to transmit than making a fashion choice. But art is once again showing a rising transformation which will rock the world.
In 2000, two English artists, Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, described a principled practical alternative to Postmodernism when they described an artistic philosophy they called Remodernism. Remodernism is a reboot of the culture which will wipe out the virus of Postmodernism. It was the harbinger change is coming to the collective unconscious.
Even those mainstreamers who’ve adopted the punk costume may intuitively know it means defiance. They are just unclear who it is they need to defy.
Our empire will follow art away from lies and back to authenticity.
Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts.
**************
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
ART IS FOR EVERYONE: A POP UP GALLERY EXPERIENCE AT SEEDS FOR AUTISM
Seeds For Autism Hosts Group Art Exhibit
PHOENIX, AZ – Local artists present a pop up gallery experience at Seeds for Autism. Community artists and the talented participants at Seeds for Autism present a special one night show on Friday, May 27, 2022, 6pm to 8pm.
A pop up gallery is a temporary art show held in a non-tradtional location. Local artist Richard Bledsoe described how Seeds for Autism is an ideal venue for an art exhibit. “I’ve seen lives transformed by the programs at Seeds for Autism. One of the biggest factors I see in this progress is the hands-on work Seeds emphasizes. As a painter, I understand the personal growth which happens when you engage with the material world. The making and viewing of art inspires kinship for all participants. We are grateful to Seeds for providing this opportunity to bring the community together.”
SEEDs for Autism is a unique vocational training program in Phoenix, AZ dedicated to providing adults across the spectrum with hands-on experience as they learn a variety of life skills, social skills and job skills in a real-life work environment. Through the production and sale of their hand-crafted home and garden items, adults on the autism spectrum build self-confidence as they step outside of their comfort zone and GROW.
This event was created to raise awareness and support for the life-changing program at SEEDs for Autism. Participating artists will be donating 50% of all sales to SEEDs.
ADMISSION IS FREE!
SEEDs for Autism 3420 S. 7th St. Phoenix, AZ 85040
Richard Bledsoe “That’s A Moray” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 20″
**************
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Symbolism at the BBC: Eric Gill’s Sculpture Defaced
Symbolism will be their downfall.
I do not support the erasure of the past or the removing of monuments. However, I see there is something significant that this one was chosen at this time. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has long covered up for well connected pedophiles, like their own Jimmy Savile. And then they go and decorate their building with a naked boy fondled by the adult man looming over him. It’s a work by sculptor Eric Gill, who was posthumously exposed as a child molester. It’s like they are flaunting it.
Someone played art critic with a hammer over it.
A man scaled BBC‘s Broadcasting House in central London and used a hammer to attack and deface a statue created by sculptor Eric Gill.
Though a prominent British artist, Gill’s name has become surrounded in controversy after diaries that were published decades after his 1940 death revealed that he had sexually abused his daughters and the family dog.
Photos of the area during the man’s attack showed chunks of stone missing from the statue, shards and debris littering the ground surrounding the artwork and several message inscriptions. One read “Time to go was 1989,” while another said, “Noose All Peados.”
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
It’s a little hard when you are adults, with no kids around, to find the proper level of Christmas decorating for the home.
To not decorate at all would be bleak. It would be an unhappy break from a lifetime cycle of excitement and fun around the holidays, as well as missing out on commemorating one of the definitive miraculous events in human history.
But to go for an 8 foot live tree with all the trimmings and a giant outdoor display seems excessive. There are other complications as well. Our cats were too intrigued by even the small artificial tree we used for a few years, leading to some unfortunate episodes. And we don’t even have an outlet on the outside of our house to plug lights into.
In 2012 my wife Michele Bledsoe came up with a great solution. We were both painters-why not make a painting of a Christmas tree that we could bring out for the holiday?
Inspired, we made a quick trip to the art supply store and got to work.
2012: I began with the star and some vague spots of color as a base coat for ornaments
Michele’s sister Sherry was living with us at the time, and joined in creating the tree and decorations. The idea was just to roughly block in the shapes at first. Then, every year at Christmas time when we bring out the painting, we would continue to work on it.
Sherry and Michele, adding details
Michele took on the role of clean up and enhancement. Since her paintings are so precise and intricate, she excels at getting images resolved.
2021 marks our ninth season of painting on the tree. There’s still room to add new ornaments, and plenty of opportunities to refine the elements we’ve already depicted. I imagine we will be working on this the rest of our lives.
When the tree is not on one of our easels, we put it on our family room floor, surrounded by presents. It’s been a wonderful tradition. And the cats don’t try to climb it.
Merry Christmas!
“Christmas Tree” acrylic on canvas 36″ x 24″ 2012-2021
Michele Bledsoe, Richard Bledsoe, Sherry
**************
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Richard Bledsoe “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″
.
I’ve written before about how vital music is in our studio, as the soundtrack of our art. Recently my wife Michele Bledsoe and I took our musical influences to an even greater intensity. One afternoon while we were painting, we identified songs that we felt epitomized the way that each other approached creating our art.
You see Michele and I have very different methods to the way we paint; we are diametrically positioned, which is why being a married artist couple works so well for us. Opposites attract. We both act as conduits in our artistic expression, but it’s very different forces that we channel.
Michele has spent years watching me paint in a kind of frenzied trance, taken outside of my normal senses in service of the art. While I paint I tend to pace, curse, pray, rant. It’s an ecstatic process for me; not just in the sense of happiness, even though it fills me with joy. It’s so intense I’m not paying attention to the way I’m behaving. An unknowing witness would not understand all my frantic swearing is actually a sign of overwhelming engagement, as I push further.
Michele’s song for me is “Crossroads” by Tom Waits, a collaboration with writer William Burroughs. The story it tells shows the sense of abandonment to the demands of creation, no matter the personal cost. There is nothing diabolical about what I’m going for, but the reckless commitment is there. I always say painting is my healthiest addiction.
Click the image to see the video “Crossroads” here:
The lyrics:
Now, George was a good straight boy to begin with, but there was bad blood In him someway
and he got into the magic bullets that lead straight to Devil’s work, just like marijuana leads to heroin;
you think you can take them bullets or leave ’em, do you? Just save a few for your bad days
Well, well we all have those bad days when we can’t hit for shit.
And the more of them magics you use, the more bad days you have without them So it comes down to finally all your days being bad without the bullets It’s magics or nothing Time to stop chippying around and kidding yourself. Kid, you’re hooked, heavy as lead
And that’s where old George found himself Out there at the crossroads Molding the Devil’s bullets Now a man figures it’s his bullets, so it will take what he wants But it don’t always work out that way
You see, some bullets is special for a single target A certain stag, or a certain person And no matter where you aim, that’s where the bullet will end up And in the moment of aiming, the gun turns into a dowser’s wand And points where the bullet wants to go
George Schmidt was moving in a series of convulsive spasms, like someone With an epileptic fit, with his face contorted and his eyes wild like a Lassoed horse bracing his legs. But something kept pulling him on. Now He’s picking up the skulls and making the circle.
I guess old George didn’t rightly know what he was getting himself into The fit was on him and it carried him right to the crossroads
.
Michele’s mode of painting could not be more different.
Michele Bledsoe “The Great Fear of Falling” acrylic on canvas 14″ x 11″
.
I have spent years watching Michele work tranquilly at her easel. She sits down and the art just begins to flow out of her, methodically, with great order. Layer upon the layer the intensity builds without interruption until she has crafted a mysterious and moving environment. She calmly renders complex compositions with profound depths and eruptions of otherworldly expressiveness.
What musician other than Ludwig Van Beethoven could reflect such a method?
My song for Michele is Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 in A major, Op. 92, the second movement, Allegretto. It starts so quietly, but goes through cycles of growth until it is truly cosmic in scale. Such precision and feeling. That is how Michele makes her art.
There aren’t any lyrics, but there’s no need for those when the music speaks so eloquently on its own.
Click on the image to see the video for the 7th Symphony, “Allegretto” here:
What would be the theme song of your artistic method?
“The Remodernist’s job is to bring God back into art but not as God was before. Remodernism is not a religion, but we uphold that it is essential to regain enthusiasm (from the Greek, en theos to be possessed by God).”
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
In the 1990s, after I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, I stayed on in Richmond, Virginia. One of the city’s claims to fame at the time was Gwar-a metal band that mixed muppets, gore, and slapstick into a fake-blood soaked spectacle. I remember one show of theirs I attended where they must have put too much color into the various fluids they sprayed into the audience; even the hairs on my arm were dyed pink for days afterwards.
Gwar in Action
There came a point where Gwar was banned from performing in costume in their own hometown, due to the over-the-top grossness and silly obscenity of it all. They used to do local shows as Rawg, where they would perform the music without the theatrics.
At the time I was the chairman of the exhibition committee of Artspace, an artist-run cooperative gallery. I had a great idea: if Gwar can’t use their props and costumes in Richmond, what not put on an art show with them? I imagined national press attention, MTV coverage, and a spirited debate about free expression.
The Gwar guys didn’t act like rock stars. They were always just hanging around the local scene like anyone else. I was able to get an introduction pretty quickly. One afternoon I met up with singer Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie for a tour of Slave Pit Incorporated, the facility where they manufactured their elaborate outfits and gear. There were rubber body parts everywhere; I remember there was a big latex O J Simpson, who was very topical at the time. Brockie was gracious and supportive of the idea of an art show. It all would have made for a great exhibit.
Long story short, Artspace decided they couldn’t get insurance for an event like this. I think many of the gallery members were too intimated by the crassness as well. The idea was dropped, and Gwar continued to grow their international cult following.
Here is a relic of those times: a little rubber souvenir I found one day on the cobblestones of a Richmond alleyway:
Dave Brockie sadly passed away in 2014. However, the band continues to this day, as recently covered in Atlas Obscura:
Slave Pit Incorporated in 2017
This is the studio that creates custom costumes, sets, and stage props for two-time Grammy-nominated thrash metal band GWAR. The group’s costume- and FX-fueled live comedy-horror operas won international attention in the early 1990s and continue to disgust and delight audiences today. Concertgoers can expect things like huge, grotesque monsters raging amid fiery explosions, as band members dressed like satanic space-ogres shred on guitars with headstocks that spew fake blood.
The artists working here are responsible for bringing the show to life. They’re considered band members and work on everything from storylining albums and scripting stage productions to filming music videos and writing branded graphic novels. And sometimes they play monsters onstage. The team consists of two full-time artistic directors and a few dozen contract contributors. Most attended art school at nearby Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Rep. Ken Buck presses Attorney General Merrick Garland on the value of Hunter Biden’s art, highlighting that one piece has sold for more than the average house in America. Buck then called for an investigation into the president’s son.
I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
THE REMODERN REVIEW 