The Troubadour

Tony Mafia used to MC the Hootenannies at Doug Weston's The Troubadour in L.A. Music has aways been important in his life, sometimes sustaining him when his painting wouldn't do that. He started The Innertubes who later became The Men and still later became The Association.
When in Antwerp he introduced the hootenannies every Tuesdaynight in the legendary Muziekdoos run by Frank. The drawing My loves and an Irish song refers to this. Note the plural loves. He enjoyed the Irish bards and became good friends with many of them: Pat and Una, Robbie...

Pencilpusher

This whimsical mixed media from 1982 is called 'De naaktflitser', alias the exhibitionist. Someone else probably wrote the title in English. It is funny and innocent the way he treated this subject. Tony was rather prudish in real life, but on canvas and in drawings he could be free, sensuous and gentle.

Tango

Green eyes and a Tango: a bunch of Tony's friends were into tango and Tony without having had any lessons was the hight of elegance when he would do a few steps. He saw what they did and improved upon it. I think the green eyes refer to jalousie in this case since one girl wouldn't let her partner dance with any other... That is the stuff of life and paintings.

Two

A typical double face, male and female is shown here once again as one. Maybe Tony Mafia expressed a romantic idea of love in Two or the recognition that we have all both male and female traits in us. This free and easy piece of 1985 is part of the dentist's collection.

Two fotographs

The titles suggest that both drawings go together: The bottom one is called 'What I am' and the top one 'Where I am". Note the pigeons, this suggests to me it is a European drawing, note the horses and Indians, well just his soul speaking. Who knows anything about these mixed media drawings?

Not to look

This is a picture I found in Tony's rickety trailer. I have seen him paint other parrots once in while. He loved birds. At a certain point we had 27 bird cages in a small apartment. Waking up to all that song was fun. If anybody knows anything about this painting, please share with the world, when, where, whom and so on.

At work

In the first photograph you can see the beginning of the painting that you see in a further stage in the second picture. Note the painting in the background: it is a ghost dance with a lot of Indian symbols and also note that the hand is fuzzy, it moves to fast wheras the rest is sharp: I am the fastest brush in the West he used to say. The pictures were taken by DG on June 28 in 1998, probably with just a few hours difference. The oil painting became a nice trapeze artist in a circus tent.

Soft stands alone

This picture is not the best, because of the reflection on the glass. Yet, since the last one was about masked figures, I thought to add this one. It is a double piece from 1985. The red stockings turn up in several drawings and paintings. You didn't doubt it stands for lust and sensuality and sex, did you?

Dance of masks

Dance of masks is the title of this double mixed medium. It stems from 1988. The hazards of photography made a reflection just come out of one of the masked eyes. Tony would have liked that. The dentist is the proud owner of this one with its straighter, more stylized approach.

Forty fifty and two

So sick at 40 that he writes on the drawing that he feared he would not make it to fifty, longing for a you, lonely and in despair. That was Tony too. The lesson from this drawing is to make beauty out of your misery. The text says: three times so soft I walk me at forty so sick I fifty now this moon and two long for a you. Painted in Antwerp, 1983. He made till 67.

May 9

Nine years. Most of us think with affection of you. Some have made their peace with you. Some still struggle with what it was that your life meant to them. Most still admire your work. For this picture you posed in Thessaloníki in Greece in a ruin on top of a hill. You liked the sternness in it. This is Tony Mafia as the master... Sleep softly.

The fence

I spent some time reviewing the Mafia site again, and the breadth of his work delights me. It made me nostalgic for the collection of his work I had at one time, all early things from the 60's, of course. But with the up and down (financially) life I chose to lead, there were times I had no place to keep them. But in those times, when I was low (or out) of money, I never sold one of his works that belonged to me. It just didn't seem right. But I did make sure they had good homes. Those that I 'lent' to people, while my circumstances changed, I never got back, because it was so obvious that the 'borrowers' had fallen in love with them. There are Mafia works hanging in some very high places in Beverly Hills, Palm Springs, etc. that were originally, and technically still are, mine. But I have no regrets, I thoroughly enjoyed them, had them for a time, and would have no place to keep them now, again. And I'm sure they are appreciated where they reside.

Thanks D.R. for your thoughts.

Colors

Dancing in the Colors is the name of this mixed media drawing from 1998. It looks busy and overwhelming in this picture but it is just what it says peoples dancing among the colors: big Indians and small folks in a suggested landscape of a river and mountains. Think of the Colorado river with cottonwood trees along its banks and happiness, and coolness on a hot summers day...

Indian blues

Also from the dentist's collection stems this drawing which Tony called Hopi. It is fairly abstract yet the faces are clear, so maybe stylized is a better description. Part watercolor, see how the blues and blacks meet, as in most souls. That is the job of a Hopi clown. Painted in Strasbourg in 1991.

Word and image

Often Tony combined writing with painting. In this abstract from 1996 the drawing has his writing and mine. That were our best times when we created beauty together. He also loved to do these collorful abstractions. From he dentists collection.