Drawsomethingawful's Blog

Often when a celebrity or person unexpectedly passes before their time, we are loaded with speculation about what ‘could have been’. In the case of Marilyn Monroe, there are already lists upon lists of never realized Monroe vehicles. Amist the future projects conjecture, perhaps the cinematic quality of her everyday life becomes overlooked.

I came across this candid photos of Monroe and was forced to do a doubletake. It seemed as though Monroe walked right out of a Hitchcock film….except…in real life.

courtesy of everlastingstar.net

She may not be a Grace Kelly, or a ‘Grace Kelly was busy/Eve Saint-Marie, despite not wanting to join the masses, it’s hard not to wonder “What If…”

my fabulous new home.

The Distillery

These candles make me smile, as well as wish I had disposable income.

ArtsyChica on etsy.com

Check it out:
Celebrity Prayer Candles on Etsy

For ages I’ve been swayed to check out the writings of Truman Capote, but for ages I have been preoccupied to do so. Tonight I finally sat down with Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote and am already won over.

I particularly liked this passage from “New York 1946″

Lunch today with M. Whatever is one to do about her? She says the money is gone finally, and unless she goes home, her family refuses absolutely to help . Cruel, I suppose, but I told her I did not see the alternative. On one level, to be sure, I do not think going home is possible for her. She belongs to the sect most swiftly, irrevocably trapped by New York, the talented untalented; too acute to accept a more provincial climate, yet not quite acute enough to breathe more freely in the one so desired, they go along neurotically feeding upon the fringes of the New York scene.

Only success, and that at a perilous peak, can give relief, but for artists without art, it is always tension without release, irritation with no resulting pearl.  Possibly there would be if the pressure to succeed were not so tremendous.  They feel compelled to prove something, because middle-class America, from which they mostly spring, has withering words for its men of feeling, for its young of experimental intelligence, who do not show immediately that these endeavors pay off on a cash basis.  But if a civilization falls, is it cash they find among the ruins? Or is it a statue, a poem, a play?

Which is not to say the world owes M., or anyone, a living; alas, the way things are with her, she most likely could not make a poem, a good one that is; still she is important, her values are balanced by more than the usual measure of truth, she deserves a finer destiny than to pass from belated adolescence to premature middle age, with no intervening period, and nothing to show.

-Truman Capote.

He sure knows how to tell it.

Interesting article that I discovered via Immortal Marilyn

Perfume’s heaven scent: New ‘Antiquity’ fragrances based on DNA of dead celebs

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/11/17/2009-11-17_perfumes_heaven_scent_new_fragrances_based_on_dna_of_dead_celebrities.html#ixzz0Zb9pg0HL

So as I am sure I’ve probably stated before, Marilyn Monroe is such a ridiculously hard image to work with.  You get that with any cultural icon, because icon alone is such a loaded word.  The entire subject its filled with layers and layers of meaning, opinions, facts, fiction, and associations.  I can’t figure out if its more loaded dealing with her inside the art world or inside the hollywood/biographical world, but then I remember the lack of seperation.

I’ve realized I primarily need to just organize and work with the oodles if information I have.  She is so overworked, discussed, and represented that it’s hard to actually separate from it all and deal with her image in a meaningful artist manner.  At times it seems impossible.  Organization, working, drawing, writing.  I need to keep at it.

I also need to not just isolate myself to the subject matter either.  It leads to my brain getting stuck.

So on the topic of unstucking brain/and organizing Marilyn images, I’m doing some quick photoshop studies, and will probably be posting them here.   As far as actual physical drawing, I am still working with doing studies of her  to get her image down straight and properly.  Then I will have the freedom to use her as please artistically.   These photoshop studies are simple ways to to play/organize with images of her and help articulate some thoughts.

Again, attempting to organize my brain and my at, and this blog helps.

"Is this thing on?"

In progress, still working at the MM studies.  However, I am finding I need to switch it up from just working on Marilyn. It gets constricting and I get stuck.  The biggest problem is dealing with my work space.  It’s tight and not conducive to art making.  So mostly I am restricted to studies to try to keep my skills in check.  Also, in order to really do what I want with Marilyn, I need to be able to draw her in my sleep.  She is one of the hardest people to draw.  You generalize too much and it becomes instant characture or cliche.  Her face is so familiar that one instantly recognizes any features that are off.  So like I said, I have to be able to draw/paint/sculpt/perform her image in my sleep.

The good news is, I am moving to an amazing amazing live/work space in January.  It’s basically my dream space.  It’s a gorgeous gigantic loft in South Boston.  I am living with my artistic brain twin, and the entire building is artists.  It’s basically the opposite of my current situation.

No more working in a corner for me!  Expect a massive increase of workflow upon moving.

I’ve developed a fascination with candid photos of Marilyn Monroe. Despite the vast media saturation of her image, it’s very much of her created image rather than the person.  (*although I do not intend to propose that the two are entirely separate.)  Despite being one of the biggest icons of this past century, it’s the proportion of her candid images to her created images is incredibly small.  It’s interesting seeing (or attempting to see) just how controlled her image was, especially with our current age of easily accessible privacy eliminating tools (ie cameraphones, blackberries, you tube, twitter..the freaking internet…..).  Yet Marilyn, one of the most photographed woman of the 20th century retained so much control….and still does.   She controlled how she talked, walked, and even the movement of her facial muscles.  When working with photographers, she would demand approval of every photo.  Scratch out photos of herself on the contact sheets and permanently damage them.  Her ‘candid’ responses were premeditated witicisms.  She could not deal with the public on a whim,  she famously required hours upon hours of preparation.

We in a way can relate to her image projection with how we represent ourselves digitally.  With facebook twitter, youtube, etc….we can control what images, sound bites, videos, and words of ours are projected out into the world.  It’s easy for personal use, but ridiculous for celebrity because after all …we have the same tools.

There are so many reasons I find candid photos of Marilyn so striking and powerful.  What I currently find the most interesting is the very degrees in candor in candid-like photos of Marilyn. Often the photos of Marilyn …not being ‘Marilyn Monroe’ (i.e. headscarf,sunglasses MM) are taken by someone familiar, like teenage follower and friend James Haspiel.  In order to find that Marilyn, you had to work at it and get to know her.  There’s other photos where she’s aware she’s got a bit of the public’s eye, but is choosing not to acknowledge it because she can’t handle it at the moment (i.e. leaving Payne Whitney) , Other photos she is ‘being Marilyn Monroe’ and we can see some of her guard let down.  There’s also those few few photos…where Marilyn is in fact….oblivious…….which for one of the biggest image control freaks of the 2oth century..evocative of privacy/celebrity/public relationships to come later in the century.   It’s easy to try to dismiss the Marilyn Monroe hype…especially because there is so much hype.  There are many reasons she’s an icon, and still is endlessly talked, written about, and her image slapped on just about anything.  The bottom line is, this woman who’s been dead nearly 50 years just keeps staying culturally relevant.

unaware but dressed to the nines.

Posing but private.

photo by James Haspiel

We are the voyeur.

I am still figuring my current body of work concerning MM, and this site is a great way to help verbalize and explore it. I thought I’d post my artist’s statement that served as the catalyst for my now intense Marilyn interest.

“Growing up, I used celebrity as an escape from dealing with the loss and mourning of recently passed-on family members. Not only did television, film, and celebrity culture serve as an escape at the time, but also loosely guided me through this turbulent period of my life. In a sense, celebrity served as ‘distanced parents’ to me, ones that I didn’t have to fear of losing. They were fabulously preserved in papers, magazines, and shiny moving images on screens. As actual people, these celebrities were no more real or fake than the people in my life that have passed on.

As years passed, I went back to immersing myself in celebrity culture, but in an investigative and nostalgic sense. The early stars of the silver screen in particular brought me a sense of comfort and identification. These stars also are physically deceased, yet there are thousands of images and sound bites of theirs preserved.

One of the particular icons I investigated was that of Marilyn Monroe, a figure that has become so engrained in pop culture that the actual person has become lost amongst the great public. Before Pop Art was launched, Marilyn was a contemporary sex and movie icon. During Pop Art, Marilyn’s role as an icon shifted into that of commodity and art, and into the painting world. After Pop Art, while some artists occasionally still continue to tackle her as subject matter here and there, for the most part photography and commodity is what remains. If you can name it, most likely Marilyn’s image and or name has been branded onto it.

Other celebrities’ images I dealt with were that of Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Cary Grant, each one dealt with aging publicly in a different manner. Judy Garland died at a low point from a drug overdose, looking worn and haggard. Joan Crawford left the public eye at the start of her decline to try to preserve some of her image, as well as dignity. Cary Grant did neither, he just left us with his image of the ideal male, and vacated from that image from the side door

All of these people are indeed just people, but people that have left a dent on pop culture well after their deaths. They are all still look, thought, and talked about today, yet the gap between their lives, and our post-mortem perception of them is left unacknowledged. With my thesis work, through a series of drawings, paintings, and research I sought to expand upon the question of this gap, and fill in some of that missing dialogue.”

More to come..but trying to partially use this blog to help out with some cohesion.