Outside(r) Art

Waiting for Andy

I love being surrounded by art. Not Art, upper-case, but art that I find interesting and fun and that makes me happy every time I catch sight of it. This means that I need art outside too … Above, is a seating area between my office and the kitchen side of the house, that features a Keith Haring-esque primitive figure with a sad, realistically-rendered figure inside his belly. I got this paint-on-corrugated-steel interesting piece at the Long Beach Flea Market ages ago and just keep carting along with me from house to house. I don’t know who painted it or why it ended up at the Flea for a measly $50. I’ve flanked it with two officially-licensed Andy Warhol Marilyn salad plates I got at a local estate sale. What does Andy have to do with western style? Hello?! ‘Lonesome Cowboys’, that’s what!

Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

Hanging over my built-in planter filled with river rocks is a huge painting I bought from San Pedro artist, Jim McCarroll. I love the colors and texture in this piece: it’s all very rustic and rough and there is lots of messiness and collage action that lends movement. I think this looks great hanging outside. There was no wall large enough inside the house to hang it on and I would have hated to store it in the garage. This is the most explicitly “western” piece I’ve ever owned and I bought it at least 10 years before the Rancho. A prescient move on my part?

The rodent guardian of the dead

This little junk store find has always intrigued me and I really like having it out. It seems to say something about how giant spirit rodents serve as sentries for the skeletal dead, guarding them from amorphous color forms that possibly symbolize emotional residue. Whatever — I think it looks terrific above my yellow vinyl corner benches outside. Don’t be afraid to make your outside areas as colorful and art-y as what you have going on inside. Who wants to be happy only on the inside?!