My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #19

 My first solo art show.  Earshot Music store, Winston-Salem, NC, November 4th, 2017.  I spent the summer of 2017 living in a tent in the woods, scraping up a few dollars a day for food, bus fare, and art supplies, and I was drawing every day.  By late September, Jane, the art director for Earshot Music, liked my drawings, and put two up on their side wall, which featured work by a handful of local artists.  She asked if I could get enough work together for a full show. 

I worked every day for about six weeks to put together eight drawings for the show.  Jane called around, and got me an artist profile write-up in the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper/website.  The standout, the drawing I really upped my game on, was the Kurt Cobain/Nirvana drawing above.  When I first stepped back and looked at it, I surprised myself.  Then Phred, owner of Earshot, used it for the online flyer above. 

This drawing sold an hour after it went up on the wall, the night before the show.  And that really started things going.  The buyer, and artist and collector who was part of the 1980's New York City art scene, mingling with people like Basquiat and Keith Haring, was impressed, and talked the whole night of the show about me doing an art book.  He ended up buying 3 or 4 more drawings from me in the months after. 

About 8 people came to the little show.  My best friend Rick, my sister Cheri, and one of her friends, were three of them.  Tiny crowd.  Yet, I was able to use that little gathering, and the art being visible there for a month, as a launch pad to really get started selling my work consistently for low, but decent prices, $120 to $160 a drawing.  The winter was rough, sales were intermittent, and the tent was really cold.  But I trudged through it, and things picked up in the spring, by April, I was drawing nearly all day, every day, and making about $500 to $600 a month from it.  Not a living, but it was a step in the right direction.

 Here's the drawings hung on the back wall.  Far left (to right) is Gene Simmons/Kiss, then Joey Ramone, , Gwen Stefani, Johnny Cash, then below, Kurt Cobain.  The other two were the "Tainted Love/Harley Quinn" drawing, and The Ramones band live.  All were 18" X 24"

 I did this drawing for me.  I loved the song "Tainted Love," and after drawing this, learned from Phred at Earshot that it actually went back to Gloria Jones in the 1960's.  I knew the song from the 1981 Soft Cell, new wave version.  There are also great covers of it by Social Distortion, Imelda May, and, of course, Marilyn Manson.  There's a fan video to the Marilyn Manson version featuring Harley Quinn and the cast of the Suicide Squad movie, which is where I got the idea for this drawing.  

I hung on to this drawing, but had to sell it after getting out of the hospital here in Richmond, last August.  I was still half dead after a allergic reaction to medicine that damn near killed me, and kept me in the hospital for 6 or 7 days.  I needed money for a cheap motel room for one more night to recuperate, and I sold this and a Bob Dylan drawing to The Mix Gallery at a good price.  Jay there didn't know me, wasn't into the music, but recognized good artwork.  So that deal worked out for both of us.  This drawing is hanging, right now,  in The Mix Gallery, in Richmond's Arts District, at 12 West Broad.  I don't work with that gallery on an ongoing basis, they own the drawing now, but I believe it's for sale.  This is my absolute personal favorite of all the

 drawings I've ever done.  I might buy it back at some point, if I get the cash.  Next we have my "Gwen and Now" drawing.  It's 1994 ska Gwen Stefani on the right, and 2017 pop goddess Gwen on the left.  I tried to give this a kind of old school, punk rock flyer feel.  And it didn't really work.  This one never sold, and I wound up giving it to a person who bought some other work off of me as a bonus.

 I was never a huge KISS fan, but in junior high I heard Kiss's Love Gun, Destroyer, and Rock 'n Roll Over albums over and over, ghetto blasted, on the school bus.  But this drawing came out really cool.  It sold shortly after the Earshot show started, I think.

 This is my second Johnny Cash drawing, "The Man in Black."  I tried a different idea, and it was OK.  The entire lyrics to his song, "The Man in Black," are in the background, repeating twice, I believe.  The couple who bought this drawing moved to Kentucky, but were back and forth from NC to KY for months.  They bought several drawing from me, keeping me working all spring.  I never actually met them in person, I'd drop drawings off at Earshot on my schedule, and they'd pick them up on theirs.  They now have a whole entertainment room in their new house filled with my drawings.  I was really thankful for their interest, and for keeping busy for so long.

My ugly mug in front of Earshot.  Huge thanks to Phred and Jane for giving me the opportunity there, and helping me in the months afterwards.