By John A. Barry And Bill Carmel
E-mail John A. Barry And Bill Carmel
About this blog: John Barry is the creator of trAction Painting, a process/performance genre in which he applies paint to large surfaces with bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled conveyances. With Bill Carmel and other associates, he has bro...
(More)About this blog: John Barry is the creator of trAction Painting, a process/performance genre in which he applies paint to large surfaces with bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled conveyances. With Bill Carmel and other associates, he has brought trAction Painting events to local schools and summer camps. He also creates visual puns. His works are included in several private collections. John has authored/coauthored a dozen books, including Technobabble and Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems. John can be contacted at
[email protected] or 925-918-7882.
Bill Carmel has 35 years' experience as a professional artist. His fine art paintings, sculptures, and designs are included in private, corporate, and public art collections in the United States, Europe, and Australia. After teaching at Humboldt State University and Southern Illinois University, he returned to the Bay Area, where he remains active in the arts by serving as a co-curator for the Lamorinda Arts Council's Orinda Gallery and by exhibiting throughout the Bay Area. Bill reviews exhibits at SFMOMA, the De Young and Palace of Fine Arts museums, and other Bay Area exhibition venues. Bill can be contacted at
[email protected]
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Berlin wrote “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in 1927. The song first appeared in the 1930 film
Puttin’ on the Ritz (1930). This version features poor but fashionably attired blacks parading on Lenox Ave. in Harlem. Berlin rewrote the lyrics for
Blue Skies (1946) to feature affluent whites promenading on Park Ave.
I’ve written four take-offs on the latter version under the title “Putin’ on a Blitz,” respectively about the murderous dictator’s rape of Georgia and Ukraine and about his support for war criminal Bashar al-Assad.
Recently I ran across an old pull-down map of Europe a friend gave me years ago. I had always planned to do something with it but didn’t know what. Then it struck me: a visual representation of Putin’s aim to reconstitute the old Union. With white, blue, and red, the hues of the Russian tricolor, I modified the map by using trAction Painting techniques and brushes. I painted the lines radiating from Moscow with inline skates. With brushes, I inserted the tricolor question marks in Western European countries.
