Thank You Everyone! Your sweet comments to my last photo/post meant a lot to me!

:-) Grove/AlbGlinka

The Grand Unveiling!

I'm throwing caution to the wind here... this photo was taken (by moi!) of my new beau John and myself at the de Young Museum yesterday inside the observation tower, which has beautiful views of Golden Gate Park and the city. We look couple-y, don't we???!

We were there to see an exhibit called "Warhol Live" which explored Andy Warhol's influences on music, dance and celebrity/pop culture. One room attempted to recreate a Happening, with a disco ball, projections, throw pillows and a Pier One mattress on the floor: nice try. Another room tried to recreate the ambience of The Factory which was also somewhat lame, but they did show some fascinating film footage of Edie Sedgwick wandering around a fancy dining room, presumably Andy's, smoking a ciggie and barely staying upright. A lost soul with excellent mascara skills.

Fun exhibit, fun day.

Everyone play nice, I'm normally not this personal on here!

AlbGlinka Interview, Part 1:

Questions posed by Sydney of “A New Yorker In Houston” fame...

The lovely Sydney sent me a bunch of interview questions several months ago, which I then deleted accidently. :-0! She was then gracious enough to try and remember them all again and give me a second shot at answering them. I'm gonna do one question per post and hopefully get to them all. No holds barred! Here goes!

1. I got to know you first through the giant set of glitter lips. What has happened to the famous and fabulous ALBGLINKA lips, and what is the story behind them?

The AlbGlinka lips are currently in a dormant phase, resting peacefully in a large vial of pink glitter that is sitting on my drafting table. Some of the Glitterlip glitter was appropriated for my recently completed “Homophobia” Issues Painting (see previous post). Madame Glinka, of course, signed off on this!

I'm not sure when Madame Glinka will make her next appearance, but it might be at this coming June's Gay Pride Parade. The E-Entertainment story behind the lips: It all started with an insane pink wig that I found in a costume shop one Halloween many years ago.

I already owned this half-mask that I found hanging on a tree at *an undisclosed location*. I also had this big latex nose that I'd gotten from doing a bit of Supernumerary (Mime) work with San Francisco Ballet for their "Nutcracker" that year, and I was inspired to glue the nose to the mask. Then, to do my lips up, I used Maybeline pink lipstick and this pink craft glitter I had. I wanted that fuller Angelina Jolie/ Lisa Rinna (Right, Syd?!?)/ Octo-Mom/ Killer Klowns From Outer Space look, so I did what all collagen-deprived gals do when the budget is stretched thin, and went outside my natural lip-line with thick black (mascara) lip-liner.

Madame Glinka was born!!!!!

Completed "Issues" Painting
(woohoo, I got it done!)

Worked really hard to get all the glitter glued onto all the letters yesterday and today... It was quite laborious. The critique was this afternoon and for once it was an unqualified success. Fellow classmates GOT the message of hypocrisy and homophobia, and the instructor really thought it was a good painting, that it worked on several levels.

Click on the image for the best view.

W.I.P.
(Work In Progress)
:-)

I have made peace with my new painting instructor! I had a good talk with him and got some information on his critiquing goals, the varying skill levels of other students in the class and other stuff. It felt great to talk to him directly rather than harbor a resentment that would eventually end with me ditching the class.

So here's a very preliminary look at my latest masterpiece. This painting had to be about a social/political issue, and it had to incorporate text or borrowed image in some way. My completed painting, if I ever accomplish it, is going to have all this text in pink glitter running across the canvas, with some scrawled homophobic slurs cutting into the text. The idea being: the hypocrisy of closeted gay Fundamentalist religious leaders contributes to hatred of the GLBT community. Hopefully that's what will come across, although I guess it's open to other interpretations as well...

I have only a few words done in the glitter right now, the rest are just traced out and the critique is Thursday! Oy Oy Oy!!!