Saturday, October 31, 2009

Terrea Lea II

Just read your post on Terrea Lea you sure did your homework. Nice. Do you remember this piece? I believe I sent it to you before with a question weather or not she could have been the subject. I think it looks very much like the only picture of her that I have seen. Only thing is the signature is spelled Tony Mafia. It's old enough that I thought it could have been done at a time when Tony was still perfecting his pen name. Note the earrings and necklace. What do you think?

I think you are right, Joe. It looks like an early piece, chalk on paper... Thanks for sharing. Tumbleweed

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Terrea Lea

Perhaps more than any other performer, Terrea Lea can take credit for bringing folk music to West Coast audiences. Long before Hootenanny was the order of the day she was singing folk songs and playing the then dozen available folk albums to audiences through her own radio and television shows and, as a guest artist on many top-rated programs.

More dedicated to the advancement of an art form rather than preserving one, Terrea herself is a perfect example of a fad much too exciting to be a passing fancy - of a fad that has become a permanent and glowing fixture on the musical scene. Terrea's music making, her artistry, her exciting personality and warm and contagious singing style have combined to firmly establish her in the hearts of audiences as a major and unique performer.

For over six years she has been providing the best that folk music has to offer at The Garret, in West Hollywood. On stage Opening Night at The Garret, and now more than six years later, combining extraordinary guitar work with her rich, vibrant voice, she is still capturing new listeners and keeping the old ones coming back. Thus having built a tremendous following.

Terrea hails from Liberty Landing, Missouri, the jumping off point near Independence where the wagon trains headed West, and what town name could sound more like the birthplace of one of America's great artists. It's also the place where Jesse and Frank James pulled the first daylight bank robbery, and where later Jesse James escaped from the Clay County Courthouse, in Liberty.

Born June 6th (Gemini), she's an only child, the daughter of a devoted Scotch-Irish, English and (a bit of) American Indian mother, Elizabeth, who encouraged her musical pursuits, and of her father, Everett, an electrical contractor of German descent. She was a Girl Scout and the President of her high school sorority. She won the National Music Contest for "contralto solo" in Liberty High School. And she played the flute and piccolo in the Band.

Music became her main interest when she turned to formal music training at William Jewell College. As a result of music she won a scholarship to Drake University in Iowa. Her mentors tried desperately to steer her on a classical career (obviously without success). She came to Los Angeles and appeared in light operas, films, and did a great deal of studio work, dubbing the singing voices for Larraine Day, Donna Reed, Lois Smith, and Joan Hackett, among others. And she became a fairly successful pop singer.

She was rather unhappy at this kind of work. It gave her too little gratification as a performer and artist. Shortly after reaching a degree of success as a popular singer and actress in Hollywood, her mother gave her a guitar for her birthday and it seemed Terrea's proper niche in show business was found.

It was during this time that Terrea discovered an immense satisfaction in singing folk material and started to build up a repertoire of folk songs both old and new, not as one of the defenders of the musical boredom that for so long had passed for folk music, but as a singer of folk tunes with a new approach, updated for present-day consumption. This she accomplished through tedious long hours of library and other research work. During the period when she developed this store of folk music authenticity there was next to nothing on the subject readily available as there is today. Her work was rewarded with the solid background of American lore and heritage. Today her repertoire includes more than 400 songs from all over the world.

Terrea has not just confined herself to introducing new and lovely songs to her audiences. She has also been responsible for introducing and bringing several exciting and talented performers to the attention of good-music enthusiasts.

Among the many artists she has introduced are the RCA recording stars, The Womenfolk, and The Villagers, Gale Garnett, Les Baxter's Balladeers, and others.

As Bud Dashiell, of Bud and Travis, says, "She is generally looked upon with 'special regard' by people in the field." Perhaps this explains why most of the top folk acts, when in Los Angeles, head for The Garret to catch one of her sets.

Terrea lives in a medium large white Spanish-style house on a quiet side street in Hollywood. The abode has great charm and reflects her many interests. There's a quaint fish pond in the front patio where Shane, a female German shepherd, or Andre, a male chocolate poodle, are apt to be watching the slithering goldfish.

The color scheme of the interior is blue and white with antique gold finishes, everything being set off by the magnificent Marie Antoinette chandelier in the living room. Above the black slate fireplace hangs one of Tony Mafia's lovely oil paintings. Terrea has a collection of clown paintings and her favorite is "Roy" by Vern, which hangs in the entrance to the living room, above a century old pewter coffee service. She likes comfortable furniture along the Danish, Spanish or Italian lines, and some of these pieces accent the various rooms with the air of gracious living. Her king sized bed is covered by a pale gold spread to coordinate with the orchid carpets and antique white shutters.

To relax she plays piano by the hour, reads (often voraciously devouring everything she can find about a specific historical character who's piqued her interest after seeing a particularly exciting film), or listens to semi-popular and semi-classical records, expecially piano concertos and motion picture theme music on her stereophonic tape recorder and record player. She has a large collection of albums that very from blues to opera. She doesn't like entire operas but loves to listen to the portions that please her, particularly the Puccini arias. The rest of the time, "I just sit and watch the fish", (while working diligently on more new folk songs), play chess ("I collect chessmen"), bicycling, and collecting old Greek coins to make into medallions.

She says she has no real favorites in songs and refuses to pick any favorite among the folk field. (Although she admits Harry Belafonte, who started in the folk field at the same time, is one of her favorite performers along with Bud and Travis.

Terrea drives a black Le Mans convertible with black leather upholstery and black tires because she thinks whitewalls are not conservative enough.

Terrea has a very keen sense of usually dry humor. Off stage she is warm, conservative, interested in everyone and everything. Her moments of outgoing humor are nominally part of her professional personality. She is actually shy and modest. She doesn't like being "on" and she hates to be called "Miss Lea".

She likes to cook, especially barbecued foods. And her favorite food is a New York steak. She likes casual clothes, Abano perfume, long stemmed red roses, golf, poker, Nichols and May, the funnies, Peanuts, ("and the Akron ads"). Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", Marcia Davenport's "Of Lena Geyer", and Lloyd Douglas' "The Robe", The Carmel-Monterey area, and the colour, Blue. If she ever decided to retire from music and folk-singing she thinks she would like to do so by opening a guest ranch in northern California, and "raise poodles".

Terrea also likes paintings and drawings of sad, tramp clowns, the Dodgers, refinishing furniture, puppies, Cezanne, champagne, fine woods, mugs, almond Hersheys, and the movies.

She's a real movie fan and sees most any type of film. She's not quite sold on foreign films, preferring American productions. ("Anything starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Peter O'Toole or Audrey Hepburn.")

Alcohol doesn't interest her and she smokes very little. When she wants to be sociable she lights up an Alpine. Terrea enjoys watching television but has little time for it as she works six nights a week performing for her great following at The Garret. "That leaves time for the News and 'Leave It to Beaver', I guess."

She's interested in foreign languages only because she'd like to travel but does not care to study one just to be studying. "But before I see Europe I want to see all of the United States," she says.

The famous people she's most admired are Jeanne d'Arc, Kirsten Flagstad, Chopin, Franz Liszt, Rubinstein, and Eileen Farrell.

She's never had and operation or been seriously ill or hospitalized. But she's sung frequently in Veterans' hospitals both in wards and in the theatres.

Her thinking in regards to money is that it's a wonderful necessity but "you must rule it instead of letting it rule you." If she ever got a windfall she'd "probably put it in the bank, and maybe go out and buy a new poodle."

Terrea has a twelve string guitar and two classical Rodriguez instruments. They are her most prized possessions and the last one was specially dedicated to her by Rodriguez. Her favorite guitarist is Larindo Almeda. She has been collaborating on writing songs. For many years people have asked why she hasn't written songs. Recently it came about on its own volition and she's now including some of them in her performances.

She hasn't many dislikes but what she doesn't like, she strongly doesn't like: real spicy foods, the color puce, anyone tapping on her seat in a theatre, noisy gum chewers, licorice, escargots, hats, broaches, entire operas, "Miss Lea", Communism, and Americans who are pro-communistic.

Her favorite dates are of the Grant-O'Toole type. He must be a good conversationalist, and "since I don't care for hiking in the hills", must prefer the indoors to outdoors activity. For her pleasure she likes dates that include good dining, the theatre, concerts, movies or dancing.

Terrea is a student of Unity and attends Dr. Wilson's Christ Church Unity. She often sings at the church, and to her religion is a personal, quiet matter.

About modern youth she holds a very good impression. "They're underestimated. Much corruption of youth can be contributed to lack of proper example from adults. At The Garret they are usually a better audience to perform for, as opposed to some adults. They show respect. By adults showing a positive attitude towards youth, giving them responsibility, they would undoubtedly meet it. I'm not the least bit worried about the future when the United States is put into the hands of our youth of today."

Terrea Lea's list of professional credits is extensive. In the area of television she played a year on Station KCOP with a weekly fifteen minute Terrea Lea Show, and 36 weeks on the same station with a fifteen minute daily program. For thirteen weeks she did a weekly half hour Terrea Lea Show on Station KABC, and for 26 did a five minute daily Terrea Lea Show on KNBC.

Besides her own shows she appeared as a regular on the Bill Stulla Show, and the Red Rowe Show. For a year she appeared twice weekly on the Betty White Show, and for two and a half years was a regular on each program on the Tex Williams Show.

She has appeared as a guest on "This Is Your Life", "Ding Dong School", "The Bill Bailey Show", Premiere '60, Alcoa Theatre - "Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks", Twilight Zone - "Jess Belle", The Richard Boone Show - "All the Comforts of Home", Channing - "A Rich and Famous Folksinger Like Me", The All Night Show with Joe and Betty Karbo, Lloyd Thaxton Show, Al Jarvis Show, Panorama Pacific and Educational programs on Folk Music for the Board of Education.

Most recently she has made multiple appearances on both the Saturday night Jack Barry Show, and on The Folk World of Jimmy Rogers program, singing such favorites of her audiences as "It Was a Very Good Year", "Golden Apples of the Sun", and "Julie Ann".

The Terrea Lea Show on radio played for three years on NBC for fifteen minutes twice weekly, and for a nightly half hour for a year and a half on KABC radio. It was also carried by the Armed Forces Radio network and through the years many of the servicemen who'd heard her songs while serving in far corners of the world have stopped at The Garret to her her sing to them in person. The Terrea Lea Show played for a half hour nightly for 26 weeks in the San Francisco area over Station KYA, and for 26 weeks, she did a fifteen minute program three times weekly over Station KXLA.

Also on radio, she was a regular for three years on the Tex Williams Show, and a regular on the American Barn Dance program and the Harry Babbitt Show. Guest appearances included Nightbeat, the Steve Allen Show, Suspense Theatre, NBC Theatre, the Joe Dolen Show and the CBS Lucky Strike Show.

On record she has done a series of transcriptions for Capitol Records, two sides for Coral and six sides for Intro Records. Her albums include "Terrea Lea and Her Singing Guitar" on HiFi, "Terrea Lea Folk Songs and Ballads" on ABC Paramount label, "Terrea Lea At The Garret" on Valon and "Les Baxter's Balladeers" on the Reprise label.

Terrea starred in nightclub appearances at The Hootenanny Club (with Bud and Travis), The Chi Chi in San Diego, and at Johnny Walsh's Deauville Club on the Sunset Strip, besides over six years at The Garret in West Hollywood.

She was featured in "Bewitched," starring Phyllis Thaxter and Edmund Gwynn, and a number of other motion pictures.

Her concert appearances include the Greek Theatre, the Hollywood Bowl, UCLA, Pasadena City College, about a dozen high schools in the Los Angeles area and with Jimmy Rodgers at the Imperial Valley California State Fair.

Terrea Lea's warm and contagious personality, her gracious handling of audiences, and her offering of the finest folk music available have gained her the respect and admiration of the young, the new adult, and all members of the family. She is a credit to Show Business, a consummate

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

My sister

I have been away for some time. But anyways I am back and posting.

This painting here was painted in celebration of my sisters birth. It hung above her bed for many years and she cherishes it very much. Tony had given my sister and I a painting when we were born. My father had asked Tony to paint something with a young girl in mind, this piece was the result. I feel it is a very unique piece. Tony had painted a strange whimiscal world. That seems to stem from the day dreams that he might of had at the time of my sister. We see the unicorns flying about, with the detailed unicorn seeming to be protecting the rest ( or as I think my sister ). I adore this piece and it truly shows the connection of Tony and my Father being best friends. Enjoy.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Guitar

Tony loved his guitars. All of them. He used to say that there is but one song for a specific guitar sometimes. He played also the banjo and the harmonica. This is an easy drawing, pen & ink, probably late sixties, early seventies. Hear his song...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Angels

Once in a while we all needs angels. When Tony did, he just drew them or took his guitar and sang to them. This is one of the easels in the corner house in Hoboken. He had three there, all rather big. He often worked at two pieces at the same time , usually in very different styles, but with the same basic palet.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

No salesperson

This is little Indian panting done in Chloride for a good friend of Tony living there. The family takes good care of the work and takes pride in the work. Regularly, I am asked whether I can help with selling a painting or whether I know the venues. I am good at many things but I am definitly not a salesperson. I do not know the market situation in the US and in Europe I learned that a person will fall in love with a piece and will have to have it at any price. Those are extremely rare and far between. The others who 'like', 'adore', even 'admire' Tony's work want you to give it away for free. I spend money on keeping the collection in good shape and for moving paintings for occasional shows. I want the work to be seen and hence the blog. I am no help at selling Tony's work. I wish all of you good luck and let me know the result of your efforts. Tony was a contrarian, so he skillfully maneuvered himself out of the mainstream until he became a a cult figure for a select band of followers. He is among the great painters of last century but never was part of the established art scene.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Chloride (for Bret)

Chloride would drive Tony into a frenzy. This painting is proof of that. On a dark stormy night, rain gushing down, he got 'restless', 'crazy', 'anxious'. What the feeling was that would grab hold of him at those times. He tore out a piece of boarded fence and painted these Indians, which he gave away the same night to Ken F. Some people he took to immediately, like to you Bret. Talking and listening, joking on the back porch were good and cherished moments. I too learned from you, your voice and turning on the preacher as a demonstration... I hope you are well. If you post a comment with your e-mail, I'll reply to you and then erase the comment to keep your mail private. I hope that works for you.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

AUGUST 4, 1931 and now

At an artist evening at our old place in Hoboken probably in 1998 this picture was taken. Today would is a good day to celebrate his life since it is his birthday... Remember him!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

The horsewhisperer


Tony often wrote stories and illustrated them. He was a painter first and foremost. These illustrations are done with airbrush. You have to love the horses! Tony knew horses, he rode, as a 14 year old he worked in a very famous stable. Didn't really like him since one of the horses was really ornery. I think it is an early seventies piece when many of his best stories originated.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Gentleness

This gentle 1993 pen and ink drawing washed with water is done in Chloride. Tony must have been in a melancholic mood. He often was. He craved recognition as a great artist - which he is in my mind - yet never got the breakthrough other, sometimes less interesting, artists made. Doug Lyon would come and visit us in Chloride every time we were there and he would bring Jeffrey. It were good and happy times. Doug would also slip Tony some money when it was obvious we were 'impecunious and without funds'. Thanks again.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Lovers in landscape

Lover in a landscape with a view on the horizon. there in the distance there seem rest and peace and the mystery on not knowing what is. Note the whimsical loose tree and the barely suggested figures. this etching is probably from the early seventies, done on the press Doug Lyons and some other friends bought for Tony. I know of three presses having been bought for Tony. The two other ones were bought in Belgium.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Place de L'Ancienne Synagogue



Staying in a hotel at the Place de l'Ancienne Synagogue, I thought of some of Tony's quick scetches of people he saw in the streets. These are feltpen drawings with sure lines, probably stemming from the late sixties or very early seventies. Amsterdam or Antwerp may have inspired him to to these. He lived in Antwerp in the 'Lange Herentalse Straat', right in the Jewish orthodox quarter. He was intrigued by the hair and beard, the dress, the people...

Monday, July 6, 2009

Balle de Paris


Cheeta Jones wrote: My mom picked this painting up from a garage sale many years ago for two dollars. The garage sale was actually in Canada in southern Ontario. Yes , I have like the painting for a long time. I only began ton research Tony's work recently and seeing his other work has made me appreciate this painting even more. I like what you have done to create a collection of his paintings and stories...
Tumbleweed: This painting has the words Balle de Paris, probably he meant Belle de Paris seen the pretty ladies ready for a bal. It stems or refers to his Paris period in the sixties when he lived ina "chambre de bonne" after staying in Hôtel Belgique for a while. He roamed the streets, sold his work in the 'grand cafe's', knew the ladies from 'Les Halles' and the galleries in Rue St André des Arts:

All is changed
nothing stays the same
but the street
on which the changing
walk
until words
of past
hurt
for lack of a tomorrow

The fading star
of laughter lost
hears but the
murmur of memory
on rue St André des Arts
meeting Madame
Françoise Besnard

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Birds

These birds, at first glance they seem to be pigeons; they are a lithograph. When in Paris Tony did several lithographs. Once again: no date or signature on the photograph but seen it is in the series of work from the early seventies in Los Angeles. I know Robert K. owns some of those. Do you see the lady with the red hat?

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Nude oil

This is a sweet pastel nude. Once again the picture isn't perfect: no signature, no date, but nice pinks around the nipples. I think it is part of a larger painting done early seventies. A lovely lady...

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Love

This hippie couple probably dates from the late sixties/early seventies and was more than probably painted in Los Angeles. The blond lady must have been Ann, his then wife. Flower power rules in this painting. Good message.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Fuq hate

'Fuq Hate' and 'Love' in the background, I guess this qualifies as a political painting. It must still have been in the Vietnam war years. Note also the typical fish on the head. Tony used to put them in many paintings. I am not sure whether there was a Christian connotation or not. Enjoy the gentle colors and the sure lines.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Boards

Sometimes Tony would paint on boards when he wouldn't have any canvas or good paper. This oil painting could well be a portrait. I don't have a date yet I am pretty sure it stems from the seventies and also that is was painted in Los Angeles

Friday, May 29, 2009

Erotica

Well here is Pan and a nymph in action. As far as I can tell it is an oil from the sixties. Figurative but with hidden figures and areas of abstractions. Enjoy.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Painters at play

If you look well at this painting you'll see an assortment of painters in the guise of harlequins and magi. They hold the pallet, and have each a brush tipped with a different color. They paint the spring with gentle color. I think often Tony would have liked to repaint a better, prettier world than the one he saw. Although on other days he was in the best of all possibles worlds. That is dichotomy in a fertile mind.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Music and drawings



Chuck Johnson said:
After fifty years, I decided to look for Tony Mafia, and it appears as if he is deceased.
I used to talk to Tony from time to time in a coffee shop in New York. The two of us, along with a small group of other enthusiasts, used to rendezvous there to listen to Augustin de Mello, a self taught Flamenco guitarist. Augustin made an LP recording not long after that time, and I have an autographed copy of the recording. Augustin never gained much fame as a guitarist, but he did gain some notoriety as the father of the supposed genius, Adragon De Mello, who was attending college at age ten. As I recall, Morley Safer interviewed Adragon for a segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes back in the late 1980’s.
One of the members of our group was the starving Cuban artist, Arnaldo Ravelo Avellaneda who was a friend and lover of another Cuban artist, Angel Acosta Leon, who was still in Cuba at that time, before Castro’s revolution, while Batista was still President of Cuba.
In the fall of 1959, in Cafe Roue in New York City's Greenwich Village, I had a conversation with Tony about art. I was carrying a 9” x 12” pad of drawing paper, some chalks, and a marker pen and trying to sketch a girl who sat a few tables away from us. My efforts were clumsy and juvenile, and Tony said that I was trying to be too precise. He asked to borrow the pad and chalks and, in a matter of minutes, proceeded to draw the girl in a Picassoesque style that amazed me.
He then tossed off another drawing. This one was of a nude standing with an observer looking away from her, and quickly thereafter sketched a seated nude. After that, since we were listening to Spanish Flamenco music, he sketched a toreador standing in the traditional killing pose, with his sword drawn. A few minutes later, in the most detailed of his drawings that night, he sketched what appears to be a Spanish “Don.”
I don’t remember what Tony’s employment was at the time, but it was not as an artist.
He drew these five sketches in less than thirty minutes, and he made them so quickly and professionally that I asked him to sign them. I also suggested that he should become a professional artist.
Tony pooh-poohed the idea, and said that he wasn’t interested.
I had been in New York only to take courses at The New School, and when the semester was finished I left New York and returned to George Washington University.
I lost track of Tony after that, but I kept his drawings with me through many moves and corporate transfers, Puerto Rico, back to Washington, then Dallas, Chicago, and Kansas City.
I re-discovered the drawings while going through memorabilia after my wife died.
I don’t have photographs of these drawings, but, if anyone is interested in seeing them, I will arrange to have photos taken.
May 15, 2009 4:27 AM

With thanks to Chuck, Arlette's picture of Tony and 'reflexivity.com'

Friday, May 15, 2009

The pond


THE POND


Morning in Hoboken. Light meets me again, the light
of long languid days at the pond near Lawrence Hall.
Oh, eight again in the orphanage of Chicago!
(My Cherokee daddy took a deadly drink of acid,
run-down by the taunting sneers about his lineage.)

All the time of the world. I and the boys never plan,
it all happens to us of itself, like one day
just being dropped here of itself. It is a tacit covenant:
misery we drown together in this secret pond
in the middle of the woods. All our senses sharp.

All gradations of green circle the glade where clouds
touch water, pink veils brought in by the wind.
I hear yesteryear’s sounds: the song of redwing and hummingbird
blending with our high voices of boys and the diving,
the breaking and splashing of water. We looking for water turtles.

Briefly eight again in the orphanage, but the screeching
of the seagulls brings me back. Winter in Hoboken.
Fog collars me now. Singularly touches me,
mutes colors and sounds. People hurry by, numbed and lost
deep in themselves. It is the restraint that strikes me here:

of the light hardly showing color, of the pigeon on the branch in the mist,
of nothing still stirring, of sound we gave a name but continues
to stutter strangely in the ears and, if at last the sun breaks through,
the shifting of shadow and light. It is my heart that is touched here.
Years and years beyond words.

Rose Vandewalle wrote this poem for the Demer Publication 'Black Sun' which you can order at Lulu. It is close to Tony's sentiments mixed with her own sensitivity. She knew Tony, owns work by him, has known the painting in my living room for a long time.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Double portrait ten years laters


TOOLS OF SOLACE


Pen pallet pencil
with tools life is lived
and then the red
touched with the smallest
brush
minutes till sudden death

for the colors
gray for the polder sky
for doves up high titanium white
viridian green for trees and woods
alizarin, crimson, rose madder
for lust, blush, desire, burning fire
Naples’ yellow
for a sweater painted twice
and blue
for the hue of soul
Sienna, umber, burned earth
for desert and for sand

and for
the smell of paint &
turpentine
I was ablaze

so it is that
with scorched hand
I write -

My poem from ' Black Sun': Gedichten voor Tony Mafia / Poems for Tony Mafia (boek): 10 poets whom I thank!

Here you can read and order:

The painting obviously is a double portrait, painted not too long before May 10, 1999. It speaks of the importance of art and caring. Tony you are remembered and missed. Lets celebrate life!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Horse dance



THE GENESIS OF CREATION
(The tearful eye of God)


It is always the power of the beast excelling human beings
and present in images we see with closed eyes
(sometimes blind to history). In a different place.
In the Camargue (wild horses). In dreams saved in scraps
in the head, the mind, where all eventually disappears.
But this horse that has broken free of the herd
I saw again in a man, a long time ago. He stood with his feather
headdress on a stage in Battery Park swaying his arms
screaming at 200,000 people - in the background
above him the Twin Towers emerging
as temporary gods - the eye of an invisible hurricane:
First they took our buffaloes
then our land
and what’s still left for us in territory
they build nuclear power plants!
The red stallion is the painter’s brush:
he who creates knows that this arises from what is destroyed,
he who writes knows that words have to perish
if they are to have new life.
They are like the flowers on giant cactuses, briefly blooming only.
I see a part of a painting and I see a part of what
is expressed: all Guernicas and Chattanoogas never passed.

Poem by Hannie Rouweler publisher of Black Sun. It wasn't about these horses she wrote the poem but this painting in oil hasn't been posted yet. It has been shown in Hoboken in the townhal..

Monday, May 4, 2009

Tony Dean Mafia / Black Sun




TONY DEAN MAFIA
after a picture, for Annmarie Sauer

Subdued, as only death can make you,
still and in thought
so I see Tony sitting
in the sands of a white and far off past,
I who have not known him but
- ten years after his breath -
hear him talk, play music,
see him paint with colors of earth and blood
and a brush in which his heart still beats.

Tony, marked by the exhaust fumes of Chicago
and chained to the shots ringing in his name,
a James Dean with Cherokee in his veins:
the cowboy boots reminding me of
those of J.J. Jones, the Navajo who
in Monument Valley among timeless cathedrals
of red rock and whiffs of Marlboro smoke
forever passed on to me the sadness of his eyes.
Look: the galloping mummy of John Wayne !

I kneel for you Tony, and ask
- if only for a second -
to look into my eyes,
the gaze away from the white sand.
And to talk about Indians
and their trail of tears.

This poem by Willie Verhegghe is in fact made to the photograph of Tony you see when opening the blog.I added another picture, looking at the artisan guitar builder at Montellano, near Seville in Spain, who made 'The Crying Madonna' and the classical dark wooded guitar. He still looks away, but here he looks at something he enjoys. The poem is from the 'Black Sun', a publication, which you can order at Lulu.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I have seen you



I have felt you in the dawn
of tomorrow
schreef hij
en alleen
de tijd
zal weten
van ’t voorbijgaan
aan en van elkaar

Tijdelijkheid vastgelegd
voor de tijd begon
scheuren toe
gespeld
bij het vertragen
van het tijdsgewricht
toen wij bleven staan

ik noemde je zon
en ik was de maan
nu
zoek ik mijn eigen licht

In the early eighties Tony gave me this painting for ten years worth of birthdays. As you can tell by the Mohawks, the stained and torn clothed and the security pins it was in the punk period. Anything visually stimulating would end up on a painting. I wrote for 'Stroom' for 'Het laatste gedicht' this poem to go with it. Thanks again Tony.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Rain/Reign



It is a dark, rainy day in spring. In this flat country there are many rainy days. It changes the colors. Everything drips,all is watery. But even then there the bright red outline who reigns over the painting. There are the the far desert vistas and at least three gentle landscapes. This non linear but layered painting jumps between the different realities, different emotions. The thick cutout lines every time again isolate a separate reality, the other meaning, the other 'signifié'. The reading of Tony Mafia's painting remains open to the reader. he was a forceful man, but not an authoritarian painter. The painting was shown in Leohards Gallery

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Giving the blue apple


Driving trough the North of France and seeing the yellow golden fields of flowering colza (rapeseed) reminded me of a 1995 larger (200 cm by 151 cm) oil Tony painted in Hoboken after one of many trips to Strasbourg probably late April, early May. The yellow sky was how he rendered these fields reaching to the horizon. The tree on the left with the blue apples is the tree of art and the person to the right is a forefather. The female figure already has a yellow apple while Tony wanted to give her a blue one. The painting is a double portrait in happy, whole times. It is currently displayed in a small show organized by 'De Blauwe Regen' in Antwerp.

Monday, April 20, 2009

God feeding the dancer



God feeding the dancer is an installation or as Tony called it an 'environmental'. The red circle in the painting is continued in a red carpet completing the circle on the floor. To the right on the carpet was a nice round fishbowl with two goldfish swimming. To the left on the floor was small a wooden board with a text :dancing a wild wind of chaos. The painting 3 meter high, two meter wide was painted in 1992 and stood in our bedroom. It is one of the paintings Tony used to play his guitar to.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Bullfight


In 1969 he did this charcoal drawing. He painted there for the gallery of Françoise Besnard. That was a few years after Tony Mafia had spend several months in Casares in Andalusia. His stay there has deeply influenced his later work. We revisited Casares in the late nineties and the town was eerie to say the least. Here the human protagonists of a bullfight is shown.

Friday, April 17, 2009

The need




The need to draw, to paint would suddenly grip Tony. Pen and ink, felt pens, pencil anything would do. I think it was because when the hand is drawing, it is the hand thinking and not the head. The need to draw brought relief from his inner turmoil.The top drawing was probably done '66/'67 in Amsterdam.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Peace




On this Easter day, may there be a resurrection of peace. Tony did this small Chinese ink wash and drawing in the sixties... His message still holds.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

The sater

Tony's nephew Joe:
The painting was done in North Las Vegas 1986. I bought it from Ed Morgan (my step dad) a few years ago. He had it in a trailer that was not very tall so the top was rolled, folded over and forced to fit. That put a crease across the top and caused some damage but mostly it is in good shape.
I think it's the devil stealing a woman from that poor guy who looks like he has been hypnotized. If all's fair in love and war then I think this is a painting about Love. Sorry I'm not much of a critic when it comes to art and my thoughts. I will say this is one of those paintings that the more I looked at it the more I liked it.
Note to Joe: it is Greek mythology; Pan with the flute and a very light haired Sater to boot. It must be an idealized self-portrait of Tony... I love the wide open space of the landscape. I think it was shown in the La Brea Gallery in Las Vegas.

Friday, April 3, 2009

The Art Critic

Tony Mafia didn’t like to talk about his work in a theoretical way. He also was not good at it. He disliked art critics and even more art journalists. In interviews almost all journalists preferred to talk about the man rather than about his work. They liked his work all right but were intrigued by the persona. Yet Tony often said not to put a too fine point on it: ”My work is better than I am. I just the asshole you know.” So it was through at lack of savvy, or a predilection of the person he spoke too that the narrative of Tony’s life was typified and framed as the life of the restless artist, from rags to riches and back again in no time, honest is his drive and work. Tony didn’t speak the language of critical discourse and didn’t have the words to explain why he did what he did. When, however, friends or strangers came to the house or gas station he would give a guided tour by all the work, showing the different elements, the composition, which always came from his hand and heart. He would point out colors and combinations of colors and how they work. Tony had a sense of the greatness of his work but felt he didn’t fit in the tradition of contemporary art although he considered himself part of that evolution. He was a cult painter for a small group of followers who collected and loved his work. Some viewers are troubled because they cannot discern the meaning nor the why of a painting, at least not rationally. With the heart, with feeling they would learn how to look at his work over time. With some this leads to frustration, with others to lifelong love.

One of the aspects I appreciate in TM’s work are the manifold openings into the layers of possible meanings. That way each person discovers a different painting. Yet one element almost always returns: Tony will give the viewers an opening, an escape route out of the painting, a place to rest, a silence in which to gather oneself. He is not an authoritarian painter imposing only one possible view of his work. Tony did not really plan out a painting by doing sketches or such. With one color of oil he might start out to map a canvas, yet nothing said he would follow the road on which he started out. When a piece of work became too decorative he did something to make it harder for himself and tried to do a really good painting. He was driven. Many of his old friends have testified to the fact that he needed to paint, that when he had no paper or canvas he would paint on anything: an old fence pulled out of the ground in the rain, tarps, doors, the wooden lid of a flour bin from a burned out Jewish bakery … Whatever he could lay his brush on and paint out the darkness of his soul on.

Being an outsider with tons of charisma he didn’t know how to play the field, nor how to get into the big museums. That brought sadness because Tony craved immortality for his work. He was a very visual man, but we should also remember him as a musician playing folk rock, blues, flamenco, blue grass on guitars, banjos and harmonicas. Everything he did had a rough edge, sometimes a feel of something unfinished, sometimes of a chaos that he tried to make sense of. I have work the size of a stamp and huge canvasses. He himself considered the way he dealt with composition and color as being abstract although in most of his work you will find human beings. Of most of his later work I know the history and so the canvasses become the theater on which he played out his life, sometimes our life, sometimes touching on the sacred or the secret of life and death.

Often, I would hear Tony play the guitar to his paintings. To him his best work was alive, said more than what he consciously had put in them. With Tony Mafia painting was knowledge of technique, experience and heart, a life hard lived that is condensed in his fast and intuitive brush strokes. Yes you will recognize Tony by his brush strokes.

The painting was in three shows.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

The actor

This 1995 oil is very dear to me. You might not know that Tony had been an actor. In his new York period he had followed classes in Method Acting with Lee Strasberg and knew quite a lot of people from the Hollywood scene, some of them loving his work. One story is worth repeating. He was in Blood Wedding of Federico Garcia Lorca. He was one of the wood choppers and the understudy for the male lead. He only once had to perorm that role and when I asked 'How did you do,' His repley was: 'I sucked!' The oth wood chopper always tried to overplay him and thus mostly their scene wasn't too good till the day that at his first replique Tony kicked the other guy hard in the scins and got him really mad. So they really looked at each other, feeling flew over the stage and they had a major applause for their performance. After that night, they always played well without any kicking...

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Harlequin Painter

In a gentler mood in 1999 Tony painted this harlequin painter. He saw the task of the arts as being the fools or more like the jesters at a royal court: showing and saying what one sees. Here a trapeze artist and Tony himself slightly touch the painter in a protective gesture of reassurance & support. When people called him a genius he thought that to be unfair. They load the responsibility they don't want on his shoulders to fit the image of the starving artist in a cold attic, not understood by the world. He felt that people unloaded the burden of being something great from their shoulders onto his. Note also the landscape and its far horizon and enjoy!
ps: I've tossed the yellow sweater ;-)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Nude

This is a monoprint, Tony would put oil paint on glass and make one print. He liked to use the haphazard effects of chance. He cherish the problems this created to do something worthwhile with it. This lady and lecherous faun stems from 1975.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Cocktail Party

it is an early spring day, a perfect day for a garden party like this one. The party is a bit crowded to my taste but I think Tony enjoyed painting it. I like the blue of the sky and the white clouds and the forever symbolic Martini glass. A fun moment in Hoboken in 1999. It is hanging in the small show at the East Castle in Antwerp.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Hospital 2



HOSPITALS

for Tony Mafia

Where lines approach each other only to diverge once more, something like
sorrow arises. The background is blue. Can stay that way. From stripes
green lines and from lines threads. The blood beats in the heart, it
beats in the women that survive and that retain the grave and the
memory. The woman watches from behind a serum stand. Visitors
coming. You are ferried along corridors, you descend through
lift shafts. Down to the final room, the heart chamber. The heart is now
opened and closed once more. Closed once more. Men bend forwards,
bend over the body and the bed. There are loud whisperings to which
no one is listening. Then they return, really and truly, from the distance,
the eyes of the one who is killed, just before he falls. You don’t forget them.
You wanted a hewn gravestone and that you got, written on
with the red of blood. The stone comes from the ravine. You’re aware of that.
A woman gives an anxious sidelong look in your direction. Distance comes close.
Your brush was fanciful, like your wildest dance. Now you dance away from her.
Stay here, I say, I say, since you already left so many years ago.
Translation:
John Irons



ZIEKENHUIZEN

voor Tony Mafia

Waar lijnen bij elkaar komen en weer uit elkaar lopen, ontstaat iets
als zorg. De achtergrond is blauw. Dat mag zo blijven. Uit strepen
groeien lijnen en uit lijnen draden. Het bloed klopt in het hart, het
klopt in de vrouwen die overleven en die het graf en de herinnering
bewaren. De vrouw kijkt van achter een serumstaander toe. Er komt
bezoek. Je wordt door gangen gereden, je gaat door liftkokers naar
beneden. Naar de laatste kamer, de hartkamer. Het hart wordt nu
geopend en weer gedicht. Weer gedicht. Mannen buigen naar voren,
ze buigen over het lichaam en het bed. Er wordt hoog gefluisterd,
er wordt niet geluisterd. Dan komen ze, echt, vanuit de verte terug,
de ogen van wie wordt gedood, net vóór hij valt. Je vergeet ze niet.
Een gehouwen grafsteen wou je en die kreeg je toch, beschreven
met het rood van bloed. De steen komt uit het ravijn. Dat weet je
goed. Een vrouw lonkt angstig in je richting. Verte komt dichtbij.
Je borstel was grillig, als je wildste dans. Nu dans je weg van haar.
Blijf hier, zeg ik, zeg ik, nu je al sinds zo veel jaren bent weggegaan.

Joris Iven

You can order 'Black Sun' at http://www.lulu.com/content/5638999

Monday, March 2, 2009

Ascension

This painting has already been posted. I have a good reason though to show it again. Albert Hagenaars was inspired by this painting writing his poem for Black Sun, a tribute to Tony Mafia. Then click' het laatste nieuws ( blog)' and go to 'A tribute to Indian-American artist Tony Mafia'. This will link to Albert's poem in Dutch and English. The poem beautifully captures the multitude of facets which inspired Tony for this painting and the made the feelings and experiences his own so that they are ours when we read it.

By and by the other poems of this beautiful volume will be posted and of course you can order the book at www.lulu.com

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Roadies

It is hard to blog when I am on the road. Courtesy of Joe you see Tony here walking away in a small town in Germany. Tony spoke a smattering of German, enough to get by. During his Air Force days he was stationed near Munich. He got to restore murals in chapels and churches and learned the needed techniques. He kept a love for things German, also Sauerkraut and Bratwurst...

Sunday, February 15, 2009

red times of some

This photograph catches the essentials of this painting: the embrace and just a few words: red times of some and possessions... There is a large oil where the male figure is similar, so I would place this drawing in Veyle, Denmark late sixties, seventy... It was all love and peace in those years, no possessions... Life must have been good, yet hard.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Abstract faces

The name of this painting, painted in Hoboken in 1999, should have been 'Abstract faces and dancing nudes'... It an oil with parts where the paint is almost sculpted on. Other parts of the canvas can be seen through the light wash. Explore the secrets hidden in the colors. Find the forms and tell the tales that come to you.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The artist

In this picture taken in Montellano, Spain, Tony is looking at a master guitar builder making his guitar. Tony loved all the arts and was good in several of them. In May this year 10 years will have passed since his demise. A Dutch poet Hannie Rouweler took the initiative to compose a Tribute to Tony. She asked five Dutch and five Flemish poets to write a poem inspired by Tony's work, or as the case may be by Tony himself. On the link you can click and then you'll see the front and back cover and you can read a series of comments on the different poems written for this publication. Also you can order the book or download it through that website. Obviously it is a bilingual publication with a beautiful lay out and great and thoughtful poetry. I thank Hannie for the initiative, John Irons for the help with the English translations and all the poets for their honest and thoughtful, beautiful poems.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Green Indians

Green Indians in the woods and water are obviously an imagined landscape, a dreamscape. Tony's brother told me that Tony identified with the West. As kids they would regularly see westerns. Also one set of grandparents was full blooded Indian. As a grown up he reflected about his identity and claimed his Indian heritage more and more. It was a recurrent theme in his life and work.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Toreador

See the sword in the background? This is a continuation of the bullfight theme. I spoke to a friend of Tony Mafia who has actually seen the bullring he painted in Tijuana. It was indeed done probably late fifties and splendid and special. It was still in good shape in 81. So is doubly sad I never got to see it. There were also facades of houses in Tijuana Tony put murals on: two stories high in magnificent colors. Here it is pen and ink and probably a sixties drawing...

Monday, February 9, 2009

Bullfights

This bullfight scene in an arena reminded me of something Tony told me. I am not sure when but the story goes that he painted the whole bullring of Tijuana. In Tony's rendering it seemed to be in the fifties maybe later. He had several colors of oils on his pallet, a few buckets of paint which he threw on the stuccoed wall of the bullring. The Major got angry till the moment Tony with his brushes pulled out the figures and brought the painting to live. The Major is quoted as shouting: 'Viva el maestro pintor!' I have never seen it, since when I was in Tijuana a long time ago the bullring was closed. It is probably lost by now.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The cormorant

On an old found canvas, Tony painted this happy bird with a large nest egg. It was 1992. It was the silent bird we had, next to the many canaries. See the dancing, the spheres of the sky, the sand and dry grass. See the free brush strokes and know that Tony's freedom sometimes was hard won, a freedom as reckless as the joy of life of this bird.