Public amuser stuff…

Yesterday I was a portraitist-caricaturiste (how do you say this in English, Kev? anibody?) at a Familifête (another hard one… help me MIKI!) in the Mont-Bellevue district, where I live, in Sherbrooke, Québec…

I show you some portraits I made (you can see more at http://ivdanu.wordpress.com/)

I show you also the model, so you don’t think I was mean…I’m not mean!

Finally, that’s me, looking severe – but you really have to be like that if you want the little criters off your back!

My Friend The Little Man

"Samson", by Miki - Pastel & Pencil, 65 x 50 cm, 2009

Just finished this portrait of one of my favourites actors, Michael J. Anderson, whom I discovered for the first time in the series “Carnivale”. I was seduced at once and always thought when I saw him:

“I wished I had such a little man as a friend…:

I chose to draw him with a coffee cup in the hand, in honour of my favourite place in WordPress:

Café Crem!

by Miki

I am not an intellectual, me…

A scene from our trip to Masko, today, after another driving range session…

After Cafe Crem’s recent scaling of esoteric heights, I thought I would bring things back down to earth a little…

The Hermit of Babel

I thought I would show you some of the visitors in my new gallery, in the flower corner…

Strange, isn’t it, in 95% of the photos, it is Kevin who is on them smiling, and not me, as if HE were the artist! And in fact it is him, also, who tells the people about me and my art.

And honestly: I am glad he does, as I am not at all a person who enjoys speaking about herself. Yesterday evening, I was asked by this English lady if I also speak Spanish. I had no time to answer, Kevin was already saying:

Oh yes, fluently… she speaks everything, French, German, Spanish, English, Russian…”

I didn’t add anything but I was thinking:

“Yes, I speak every language, but I don’t say one word!”

By Miki

Phil in My Blanks

Today I want to tell you a story. Some months ago I stumbled on the net upon a cute, tiny little man, responding to the gigantic name of  “Harold Lawrence Windcrampe”. I spontaneously felt a big emotion for Harold, and believe me, if I could, I would have grasped hold of him and put him into my pocket. But well, the net is great, but still a dream world somehow, you can’t grasp what you see.

Anyway…

I entered the World of his Secret Thoughts (mainly “Sigh”…)  and found out who his father was. A certain Phil from Syracuse, N.Y., U.S.A. An artist. And what a one! What a talent, what a technique and what a humour!

And, perhaps even more important for me, WHAT A HEART!

I found out that Phil sold some of his self-made comics, and badges. I ordered some, paid with Paypal, but I made a mistake in the name and he did not get my money. An embarrassing situation for him, I guess, and I felt very sorry. I sent the money a second time, and he replied to me, saying that he felt so bad for me that he would add some more stuff in the package.

Some time later, a gigantic envelope arrived, filled with much more things than I had ordered. Of course the post costs had been much higher than planned, but Phil didn’t care. I must say that I have seldom experienced such generosity from a stranger, and I was deeply touched in my heart.

Have a look at his site, and you will see what I mean. Everything Phil draws is full of humour and kindness!

Today, weeks later, thinking of him again, I  had an idea. In my new gallery there is a room where, as soon as the gallery is finished, I will spend my days making art there. Originally I wanted to cover the walls with my paintings too, as part of the gallery. But today I decided that I will cover the walls with art from my friends all around the world. And of course I will start with Phil. So I put some of his art together in a frame, Kevin wrote his website on the frame, and this frame will hang there tomorrow.

And now to my further idea. Last week I got some art work too from my dearest friend Susan Cornelis, and I will make the same as I did with Phil’s work.

So, now, if YOU who are visiting my blog, are an artist and want to be featured in my new gallery in Spain, with your website, your blog, or whatever on the net, then ask me my address and  just send me a little something nice, which I can frame in the form you can see on the photo above. It can be one or more prints, postcards of your art, etc.   it must just look nice! And I promise, for each of you who will be featured in my gallery, I will make a post here, showing what you sent to me. And, of course, show your art to my real world gallery visitors.

I am very excited about this idea. I hope you will be too!

So please, following Phil’s example

PHIL IN MY BLANKS!

by Miki

24

In keeping with our new theme of writing about our lives, etc; I thought todays post should talk a little bit about my hectic, albeit compact schedule for the upcoming weekend. But first a little bit about what I do.

I’ve been a professional musician pretty much all of my adult life, and an amateur one since the age of 8. I often find peoples perceptions of what I do way off the mark. Many times, over the years, I’ve had people come up and say “Hey, you’re great! You could be professional!” I calmly explain that I am, in fact, professional. “No”, they persist, “I mean, like on the TV”.  I further counsel them that I have in fact appeared on TV many times, alongside stars from the 60’s, 70’s, and beyond, and that many of my former heroes are now in fact my friends.  They dig in. “No, I mean Top of the Pops.” So there we have it. The criteria for fame, achievement and professionalism is appearance on a show where you mime.

People also find it hard to understand that you can play to 10,000 one day, and perhaps 50, in a pub, the next. But that is the nature of the job, and I’ve done just that many times.  It’s not just the general public that get this wrong. People in the business do too. The Ents manager on a cruise ship where I was performing my solo show in the Caribbean a few years ago was moaning about The Supremes. For the uniniated, The Supremes are the single most successful all-girl group of all time. I was support for them on their New Years Eve show as we meandered between the islands. They had asked for some sandwiches in their cabin.  Phil the ents guy, was moaning about it. I stopped him. “They’re the Supremes, Phil!! You have an onboard florist, you should have had flowers in their cabin, and a tray of sandwiches when they boarded. It costs you nothing, and you will get it back ten-fold in goodwill!” He didnt seem to understand. Then I told him of how WE were looked after on our International tours with the bands I play with. Complimentary trips to whisky distilleries, Private viewings of Lenin’s tomb, Specific days off for sightseeing in New York. He seemed stunned. I understood why. Being humble and easygoing breeds contempt.  You need to tell everybody you’re important, and they believe you.  I knew a guitarist who was working in a band supporting an old star of the 50’s , Dorothy Squiers (she used to be married to Roger Moore) at a large Northern variety venue. Her career had seen better days, and the guitarist had been asked to take a crate of champagne backstage to the Grande Dame’s dressing room. He knocked and nervously entered. “Where would you like these, Mrs. Squires?” he asked. “It’s not Mrs, its Miss, and put the f**kers in the corner!” came the thorny reply.

It’s a funny old world….

Anyway, lets look at my trip as an episode of the TV series “24”. The clock starts at 18:30 hours, when I pull into the car park at Alicante aiport. I have just 10 minutes to get to check in before it closes, and my flight leaves at 19:20.  I land in Manchester at 21:10, and with only hand luggage, I will make a swift exit and run through arrivals to board the airport train to Manchester Piccadilly.  I will be met by Mark, the guitarist, and we will drive the 5 minutes to the exclusive club gig in the City Centre, where we will take the stage at 23:00 for half an hour of the Sweet’s greatest hits. Following the show, I retire to my reserved suite in the hotel above the venue. After chatting with the guys, drying off and changing, I’m hoping to get my head down by 1 A.M.

I’ll rise for an early breakfast, aiming to be out of the hotel for 0900, in an attempt to do a little morning shopping. This is  quite simply, the most important part of the trip. I am on a mission to find some Pink Silk pyjamas for Miki; something we’ve so far failed to do in France and Spain. And all this before catching the airport train from Piccadilly back out to the Airport in time to check in at around 13:00. My flight leaves Manchester at 14:30, landing around 18:10,  and once again, with only hand luggage, I’m out of arrivals and back at my car at 18:30.

This is fairly typical of my trips, though it is by no means my shortest. I will be in the UK for 17 hours and 20 minutes. I did a show in the West Country last year, where I got it down to just 14 hours. It depends how the flights fall. I will of course, dedicate the additional 3 hours 20 minutes to pyjama hunting.

Of course, some of my trips are excrutiatingly complex, such as one in Germany last year that entailed no less than 17 train connections over 2 days, and usually for a show that lasts no longer than 60 minutes.  It is a life like this that prompted my friend and fellow musician Saxon’s Graham Oliver to declare: “Let’s get this minor inconvenience out of the way”  before going on stage on one of the tours we did together. Sometimes, amidst the confusion, chaos, potential lost luggage,unprepared hotel rooms and missed connections, there lurks the reason for it all. Blink, and you’ll miss it. But for those precious few magical minutes under the lights, with a sea of expectant faces, and the guitar coming to life in your hands, it’s all worthwhile.

Kev Moore

Portrait of Kev by Miki

Enfin: Happy Birthday Michael!

by Miki

As Kevin said, we were abroad as your birthday arrived and we had no chance to join the internet, but be sure that we spent in thoughts this very special day with you. We were just so sad that we could not let you know. But I hope you spent a wonderful day with all the persons you love.

And speaking of persons you love: I know you a little bit now, Michael, and one thing I understood is that your father played a very important part in your life, still does somehow, and that you miss him. For your birthday I dedicate to you this drawing of mine because I think it symbolizes for me the wonderful circle of life, kind of

” a father is a father is a father”

I hope you like it.

Papa Napoleon

by Miki

I have hesitated a lot to put an entry about my “Papa”, how we call our Dads in France. As you have surely noticed already, I have no problems to shout out my positive feelings to the world. But when it comes to negative emotions, I am much more reserved. I guess it is a question of bashfulness, guilt, kindness, or even weakness, but of respect too towards the concerned persons… Anyway, my youth with my Dad is a series of emotionally bad experiences, I would even say catastrophic. But I took the decision not to write about it, I feel I have not the right to tell that story in public, or perhaps I am simply too weak. But if you would love to know, you might take the essence of it in the title I gave to this entry…

So today I will just show you a portrait I made of him some years ago, it was a birthday present for my mother. Let me tell you that he EXACTLY looks like that. As my mother saw the portrait, she said:

“When we are dead, you will cry when you will see that portrait, he looks so alive!”

I didn´t wait for their death to start crying…