Potrzebie
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Last exit to Fiorillaville
Steve Fiorilla had a phantasmagoric imagination. His body was not as powerful as his imagination, and at age 48, he died last Wednesday in a Buffalo hospital. Steve's artwork ranged from pen-and-ink drawings to sculpture, but he had no interest in email or computers or creating digital art. Even so, he had a blog. This came about because his friend and sometimes collaborator, Jim McDermott, would upload Steve's drawings to the blog, and then I would write copy to fit, giving the art a narrative framework. Here's a link to Steve's blog, Fee Fie Foe... Fiorilla, featuring images he did over the years, plus a recent work, the Marginals.
The cityscape above these two paragraphs was the only piece he did directly for Fee Fie Foe... Fiorilla. As I began to write about the mythical Fiorillaville, I asked him to supply his vision of it. For a full list of Steve's many credits, see his Wikipedia page. To read his reviews, go to Flickhead, where he wrote under the pseudonym Jacques Corédor. (Get it?) Also on Flickhead, you can read Ray Young's memories of Steve. The Buffalo News ran this obituary.
Mask Maker is a five-minute video by Jon Gawne showing Steve creating a latex mask. (Takes a minute to load.)
In the architectonically askew drawing below, titled "Warphouses," let your eyes do the walking, and you'll soon find yourself lost in the Fiorillaville fog, surrounded by Steve's remarkable, oneiric visions.
Steve Fiorilla had a phantasmagoric imagination. His body was not as powerful as his imagination, and at age 48, he died last Wednesday in a Buffalo hospital. Steve's artwork ranged from pen-and-ink drawings to sculpture, but he had no interest in email or computers or creating digital art. Even so, he had a blog. This came about because his friend and sometimes collaborator, Jim McDermott, would upload Steve's drawings to the blog, and then I would write copy to fit, giving the art a narrative framework. Here's a link to Steve's blog, Fee Fie Foe... Fiorilla, featuring images he did over the years, plus a recent work, the Marginals.
The cityscape above these two paragraphs was the only piece he did directly for Fee Fie Foe... Fiorilla. As I began to write about the mythical Fiorillaville, I asked him to supply his vision of it. For a full list of Steve's many credits, see his Wikipedia page. To read his reviews, go to Flickhead, where he wrote under the pseudonym Jacques Corédor. (Get it?) Also on Flickhead, you can read Ray Young's memories of Steve. The Buffalo News ran this obituary.
Mask Maker is a five-minute video by Jon Gawne showing Steve creating a latex mask. (Takes a minute to load.)
In the architectonically askew drawing below, titled "Warphouses," let your eyes do the walking, and you'll soon find yourself lost in the Fiorillaville fog, surrounded by Steve's remarkable, oneiric visions.
Art copyright ©2009 by the Estate of Steve Fiorilla.
Labels: buffalo, fiorilla, fiorillaville, flickhead, masks, mcdermott, wikipedia
¶ 3:32 PM 1 comments
Saturday, February 14, 2009
A Valentine for Gypsy Lou
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Click for huge enlargement of orange/yellow-clad Gypsy Lou Webb in the French Quarter during the early 1960s with her artwork on wall at St. Peter and Royal Street. She was not identified in this c. 1960-61 postcard published by New Orleans' Post Card Specialties. Instead, the caption reads: "Street scene typical in the Vieux Carre, French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The iron lace balconies of the buildings on left are famous for their intricate design, in an area where wrought and cast iron work is the commonplace."
Behind one of the balconies, at 618 Rue Ursulines, was Loujon Press where Gypsy Lou and Jon Webb published such writers as Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and Colin Wilson. Go to Edwin Hunter's Chicken Fat to see a photo of Gypsy Lou that Hunter took in January 1965. As he explains, she also sold Harvey Kurtzman's Trump alongside the poetry publications.
Review of the Jeff Weddle book and the Wayne Ewing documentary by Flickhead. University of Alabama lecture on literary magazines by Jeff Weddle (December 4, 2007). Also listen to Weddle reading his own poetry.
Click for huge enlargement of orange/yellow-clad Gypsy Lou Webb in the French Quarter during the early 1960s with her artwork on wall at St. Peter and Royal Street. She was not identified in this c. 1960-61 postcard published by New Orleans' Post Card Specialties. Instead, the caption reads: "Street scene typical in the Vieux Carre, French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The iron lace balconies of the buildings on left are famous for their intricate design, in an area where wrought and cast iron work is the commonplace."
Behind one of the balconies, at 618 Rue Ursulines, was Loujon Press where Gypsy Lou and Jon Webb published such writers as Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and Colin Wilson. Go to Edwin Hunter's Chicken Fat to see a photo of Gypsy Lou that Hunter took in January 1965. As he explains, she also sold Harvey Kurtzman's Trump alongside the poetry publications.
Review of the Jeff Weddle book and the Wayne Ewing documentary by Flickhead. University of Alabama lecture on literary magazines by Jeff Weddle (December 4, 2007). Also listen to Weddle reading his own poetry.
Labels: ewing, flickhead, french quarter, gypsy lou, kerouac, kurtzman, loujon, muffuletta, new orleans, the outsider, trump, university of mississippi press, weddle
¶ 2:46 PM 2 comments
