Pluggies!

Posted on March 13, 2008 by Varg

Sorry for the slow posting lately, I’m busy as a bee.

Mad plugs to go around…

– Saturday night my lovely fiancee Romy Kaye will be performing at Carrollton Station with Caleb Guillotte and Craig Caliva. Show starts at 9:30 p.m.

– Also Saturday ya boy Varg will be around the Avenue Pub area on St. Charles displaying some New Orleans folk art made from salvaged wood. There will also be an art auctionn that day to help pay the legal fees of ReX…

Donated Artwork for NoLA Rising Auction :: Michalopoulos Print- ReX (Michael Dingler)- Steve 504Whatstyle – Defend New Orleans Poster- Lance Vargas – Joy Gauss – STARHEAD – ChadMo – Ellipses – Emily Macafor – JAUG – Mojo – unknownparts – Lisa from J’anita’s – Sarah Rosedahl – DREW – Laura Skelton – JAMES DINGLER – BonuS SaveS – Miss Manou – Kid A – & Other Donations that are on their Way and will be posted once they are received…

Who: ReX and his Army that rule the night
When: Noon until that night. Auction portion of the day will end around seven or eight, but you can bid all day
What: An Art Auction and an Art Show
Where: The Avenue Pub, 1732 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans (corner of Polymnia)
Why: Why the hell not?

– And if anyone is in the French Quarter and is looking for any Vintage clothes or kitschy gifts, my friend Pat just reopened her shop the Ragin Daisy at 901 Chartres St. across from Harry’s Bar. She’s been shut since the storm but she’s back and rarin’ to go. Help a girl out and buy something up in there.

– Also Romy will be recording some music with Craig Cortello of the Metairie Cortellos that will be released soon. You can check some of the stuff they have recorded together here.

– If anyone around town meets a new girl named Alyson from California. That’s my old neighbor from San Diego. She rules!

Bye now.

1 thought on “Pluggies!”

bizmusician says:

March 14, 2008 at 10:32 am

Thanks for the plug, Varg. The music is really starting to come together after last night’s studio session. As always, Ms. Romy sounded fab-a-lous!

Craig Cortello (of the Metairie Cortellos).

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.