Our holiday card for 2025

 

To my dear Gigi go all the laurels! Or maybe all the holly? The talented human I get to spend my life with conjured this year's odd little confection. I love it!

Is it warm in here, or is it just me...?

Our goofy holiday card, 2024 edition

 

I had design responsibilities this year. And, after our recent election, I expect the meaning behind the ominous reference to 2025 will be fairly obvious.

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And the original image; Krampuses - "Krampi"? - can always be counted on for a good time!

(Okay, the correct plural seems to be Krampusse.)

On HER birthday

 

Today, the 14th of June, is my most excellent wife's birthday. 

An incredible person, my respect for her is only surpassed by my love.

And it would be impossible to overstate how much better she's made my life.

Odd, then, that in almost twenty years together, I've only included her in four paintings.

Les Deux - acrylic on panel - 24x18 - 2009.

À la nuit tombante - acrylic on panel - 24x36 - 2011.

G en travesti in men's clothing, me in a gown. Our relative heights were mucked about with here; in reality, I'm almost a foot taller than G.

Les Amis, les amants - acrylic on panel - 36 x 24 - 2014.

With our little dog, Nicholas.

There really is a "G" tattooed on my wrist; perhaps you'll get the reference...?

After 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' by Manet - acrylic on panel - 30x40 - 2021.

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Only four paintings? That's rather terrible; Nicholas has made it into SIX! Something really must be done about this situation....

Fruity - our annual holiday card, 2023 edition

 

Just a simple "reveal" of the seasonal-holiday-of-your-choice card that we've sent out this year. We alternate the design duties, and this year the job fell to G. Her most excellent and perverse brain conjured this fruitcake extravaganza, a group portrait of the artist Jan Brueghel the Elder and his family by Rubens serving as the base for the transformation. As she is currently crazy busy with a huge, teetering stack of freelance design jobs, in addition to her full-time day-job, I offered to do a little fine tuning of the image before handing it back for her to deliver the final polish. 

I must say I fared better in the "face/off". She took a rather flattering picture of me and pretty much just dropped it onto the original image; only Bruegel's ears are still showing. The image G used of herself was decidedly not so flattering. And it was not helped by her having to change the lighting to better fit the lighting in the painting underneath, and having the side of madame Bruegel's grayish cheek showing through. When I first saw the Photoshopped image, I commented on how ungenerous she'd been to herself. And I also asked if her rather grumpy expression was intentional. You know, for humor's sake. I mean, she has a gigantic fruitcake around her neck. I think a certain degree of grumpiness would not be an entirely unreasonable reaction if one found oneself so encumbered. But she only said, "That's just the way I look." Gentle readers, I am here to tell you that that is quite false! I see the very dear woman every day, and I can testify that she's actually a most attractive human who smiles frequently and generally possesses a very pleasant demeaner. Very.

Other than being gifted with a pair of inexplicable hands, I think Nicholas came off pretty well.

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Portrait of Jan Brueghel the Elder and his family, by Peter Paul Rubens, circa 1613-15.

TWENTY YEARS

 

Photograph by our dear friend Domi Shoemaker, 2014.

The very first emails we sent to each other, exactly twenty years ago. And how we continue the conversation today.

DECEMBER 12, 2003

Gigi: Hi--I'm a member of the Rufus Wainwright message board. In which I go by circusgirl. Anyway, I was in Portland recently on a visit and made it a point to stop by the Froelick to see your exhibit. Wow. I just wanted to say you're quite a talent, in both aesthetic and content. I really enjoyed seeing your pieces in person. They're so lush. When I peeked at the Big Venus on the website I thought it was done in oils. I think my favorite pieces are the Castor and Pollux and the Toilette of Medusa (hope I'm not mis-stating the titles). The Medusa I love for so many reasons. It's so beautiful, but the idea behind it, the significance, just goes in so many layers. If I'm not being unclear. I love the paradoxes--the mythos/mythos, man/woman, good/evil, ugliness/beauty. Very cool. Castor and Pollux I thought was just so pretty and poignant. But I liked them all. Forgive me for sounding silly, but I just left impressed enough to feel the need to call upon you and gush a little.
Hope you get your wish.
GiGi

Stephen: Thanks so much for your e-mail. I love hearing what people have to say about my work. I do my little paintings, all alone at home, and then - bang - they're out there for everyone to see and interpret for themselves. They're so specific to me and my life/experience, but it gives me such pleasure to have people find other storys [sp] there.

All that, and I just saw RW last night, in concert for the first time - and met him after. He was so amazing; I can't get over it. And I'll be seeing him in Seattle on Sunday...!

Thanks again for your thoughtful words.

SteveO

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DECEMBER 12, 2023

Stephen: If your Aunt Kathy hadn't given you that Rufus Wainwright CD, and if I hadn't stayed up late and accidently seen Rufus performing on David Letterman, and if we hadn't both become fangirls at pretty much exactly the same time and hung out on his message board with all the other fangirls, and if I hadn't said something on there about my upcoming art show, and if you hadn't come to Portland to visit that same Aunt Kathy, and if you hadn't found a way to see my show, and if you'd never had the idea, the compulsion, to send me that "fan letter", that first email, WE WOULDN'T BE HERE TWENTY YEARS LATER. I'll never get over the - impossibility - of us ever finding each other. And the bridge, the final link that made all those ridiculous coincidences add up to anything at all, was your bravery in sending that email.

Gigi: I remember at the wedding you said, "No Kathy, no party." It occurs to me, too, speaking of the ridiculous coincidenceness of it all, that the whole stack of serendipity would have fallen apart had I had the chance to see Strangers on a Train. My trip, with Mom, to see Kathy was pretty much us hanging out at the house, eating, and going over to visit with Heather and family. I loved all of those things but wanted to have just one other experience to take away from the trip. One thing to get out and do. I told Mom and Kathy I'd read about the art show and maybe we could go see it, but they were more interested in staying in. I saw that Strangers on a Train was playing just down the street at Cinema 21, and I thought, great! That can be my thing. I can walk down and see it by myself. I think that had I gotten to see the movie, it would have satisfied my little goal, and I never would have gotten to the gallery, but when I walked down to the theater, it was closed. And then, really, the other bit of serendipity was that I got car sick. We decided to take a drive and get some lunch, and that would have been it, but I in the back seat (and with Kathy driving in her bat-out-of-hell way) was queasy by the time we stopped to eat. Oh! And then we couldn't find parking, I think. Kathy wanted to stop at some place that was like a food court but in a storefront downtown, and she couldn't find a place to park. And I looked, and there was the gallery. I said, how about you drop me here and I have a look at the art show, you find parking, and by the time you come, I should be feeling better. And that's what happened.

Stephen: So, we need to watch Strangers on a Train tonight, don’t we?!

It’s hard to remember how we were, who were at that moment, that instant you hit send to that first email, the instant I began to read that first email. We’ve both told, at various times, the story of how you were stuck in a marriage to someone you didn’t love, that seeing an art show – something different, anything different – was a thing you could take for yourself, just you, something to help you endure the sadness and boredom of a situation you felt there was no way out of.

But who was I when I read that first email? Where was I? I guess, as far as love, the idea of a romantic relationship, I was nowhere. Floating. Comfortably hopeless. Comfortably alone. The way I’d been since about the age of twenty-two, when my only other relationship had ended – a very toxic relationship – and there’d been nothing in between. It’s a long time between twenty-two and forty-five. I didn’t have a chance to learn how to be the half of a couple, to learn how a relationship works; I’m so grateful you’ve always been so patient with me. But I think I was ready, actually. Maybe a year, two years before that email, I’d been in love for the first time in more than twenty years. Untold, unrequited. And when he moved away, I was heartbroken. Such a ridiculous and overused word, but that’s what I felt. But if I hadn’t been broken in that way, I don’t know if I could have been ready to love you, to be loved. Because that love I had felt, that breaking, opened something in me that had been closed for so long. So that’s what I mean when I say I think I was ready.

Gigi: It's interesting that you say that that unrequited crush (does it belittle it to call it a crush?) is what made you ready. Because it was you telling me about that, and letting me read the unsent letter you wrote to him, that I think turned our penpal thing into something crushy for me. The way you wrote about what you felt about him, the lovely words and the ache in it, the story of it. Up until that, I think for me our back and forth was about the excitement of getting to talk about interesting things with an interesting person, the fun of learning about someone (learning about someone like that, penpalling like that, is addicting and one topic leads to another, leads to another, and I so needed that conversation at that time), but the intimacy of your letter to him sparked something for me. Well, your paintings sparked something too, that very first time I saw them, but I wasn't paying attention to that as we chatted...

(You had to know I'd be all for watching Strangers on a Train, of course.)

Stephen: Of course!

And, yeah, it was definitely more than that with him, so maybe crush isn’t the right word.

And maybe neither is your “crushy”? Haha! But, really, I think the openness we were willing to share with each other so quickly – it was some sort of instinct, I think – was what gently walked us toward something beyond being just penpals. And made our eventual twinned admissions of what we certainly did call a “crush” later, at that midpoint in the emails, inevitable. Even though our present life circumstances were so different, we arrived at our inexplicable friendship wearing – just like they say – our hearts on our sleeves. It’s like the machinery of the thing was already set before the first email. But, really, it was all so random. And I know that neither of us had any conscious thought that we were heading toward a romantic relationship, that that was anything either of us even wanted, that things would quickly lead to that. But the crazy miracle of it was that we fit together so well, our peculiarities responding so precisely to the other’s peculiarities. So once we found ourselves in that completely unexpected place, it just had to be what it became. We just had to be what we became.

Gigi: That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? What we became. When you suggested we mark this occasion by sharing the old emails, I cringed because… there’s a way I don’t like who I was back then, so dorky and self-conscious and trying so hard to seem smart and sophisticated. Honestly, my first reaction to your idea was shame because I didn’t want to feel who I was back then. But this exercise isn’t about who we were but who we became—because of each other—and that’s better.

We became better. More tolerant, more willing to compromise, more open. I’ve become more confident because of you, a better person, I’d like to think, because of being with you.

And what have we done in these twenty years since my first dorky, self-conscious, trying-to-seem-smart-and-sophisticated email? Produced two books together, attended art openings and readings, supported each other’s creative careers, performed as a mother-daughter singing duo (as married couples often do), bought a house, beautifully decorated that house (well, mostly you did that), cared for two dogs and one cat, made and shared many friends, laughed, fought, grew, frolicked naked on Bayocean Spit, necked on stage at the Portland Opera, stood together through some very hard times, paid the bills, did our jobs, stuffed our faces and watched movies, wrote emails and more emails.

And here in this, another email, that I’m sending to you before we get together to stuff our faces and watch a movie, I want to say, here’s to the next twenty years of learning and becoming, of emails and regular life.

 

What day is it? Oh, yes....

 

Blog post Sunday falls on that holiday this year, so what more logical time to share our (Christmas) holiday card for this year? We always strive to be cheeky with the card we send out, but this effort might seem especially directed toward those - and there are many - who rather, for whatever reason, clearly loathe the particular holiday and all it brings in its tarted-up wake. (I so get it! Having worked in retail for many years, it's sometimes an effort to feel the "magic of the season", and Christmas music still makes me want to hurl.) 

But for all you others... Merry Christmas, happy all-the-holidays, and a most brilliant new year! 

Happy Christmas - and any and all of the year-end holidays!

 

It was supposed to be my turn to manufacture our Holiday/Christmas/New Year's card this time. But I just went from finishing my big October/November show at Froelick Gallery here in Portland to diving into the creation of a whole new body of work for a show at TEW Galleries in Atlanta, opening right after the first of the year. So I begged Gigi to take up the mantle of nutty-holiday-card maker for the second year in a row, and this is the delightful nonsense she came up with. Great job, G; I love it!

The original card. 

(The artwork featured on most of these vintage cards is so awkward and inept; I guess the old card companies just didn't want to pay for a better class of artists.)

On Valentine's Day... this is what we do...!

 

Three times a year G and I concoct very silly Photoshopped cards to give to each other: Valentine's Day, our birthdays, and our wedding anniversary. And then we trade off, alternating year to year as to which of us creates our holiday card. It's fun... though, honestly, being two "creative types", we can get just a bit competitive. And oh, the pressure to be clever and artistic as each holiday approaches! That's maybe why every once in a while one of us taps out, calls for a moratorium, and then we might skip a V-Day or our anniversary. But we're on it this year. And since the lovey-dovey-ist holiday falls on a blog posting day for me, it seemed reasonable that I share my contribution. Here's this year's recipe:

My first grade school picture.

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Gigi at a similar age. (The black and white image makes things just a bit more complicated for me.)

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Nicholas in a not very flattering - but eminently useful - pose. (He looks so skinny, here, but he's not.)

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And, finally, a sweet little valentine "from yesteryear."

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Gender reversal and an extra dose of cheekiness to cap things off is pretty typical for both of us. Oh, and Nicholas is rarely left out, even if he has to be wedged in!

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 While I'm at it... here're some more of my Valentine's nonsense:

2018. Apparently the Krampus - or two - held out all the way into February.

2009.

2014.

2013. Combining the Farnese Hercules and "I Love Lucy"... as one does....

The back of the card. (I've always thought I looked eerily like Mandy Patinkin in "Sunday in the Park with George" here.)

2012.

2015.

2011. I used the same first grade school picture for this one, too.

2017.

The back of the card, with Nicholas trapped in the body of a monkey...!

2019.

Winking at the holiday - thirteen years of Christmas/New Year's cards

 

2020. Our current New Year's card... saying goodbye a year we would all like to forget.

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2019.

"Christmas-ed up" adaptation of the French-language poster for the 1946 film "The Killers."

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2018.

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2017. Obviously adapted from the famous "Arnolfini Portrait" by Jan van Eyck.

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2016. This was the year that G's incredibly successful anthology "City of Weird" came out. Entirely her project, she edited the book, did the cover and all the art...

 ... and our card that year shows she still had plenty of "weird" to spare.

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2015. Or 2016, as the case may have been; we missed the Christmas deadline and saluted the new year instead.

G looks absolutely terrifying. I look all too natural, like that could be my actual hair-do.

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2014.

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2013. Almost certainly my favorite. (I'm guessing no one will really find that at all surprising...?)

I took copies - the originals were destroyed in the burning of the Tuileries; but then I'm sure you knew that! - of the two separate state portraits by Winterhalter...

... of Napoléon III and the Empress Eugénie and made one big one. Added a few faces and a dog and that did the trick.

G always does well with a moustache.

Honestly, this is rather how I imagine myself...!

Though more gussied up in the final image, I think Nicholas looked nicer in just this simple diamond and pearl collier.

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2012.

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2011.

Freaky....

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There was no card in 2010. Neither of us can remember why....

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2009. Kind of cheating; we just cannibalized my painting "Les Deux."

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2008. Another of my favorites. I so loved the Deco background G concocted, that I hated we had to cover up so much of it.

An alternate (unfinished) version. For the figures, I took two color images of us in character as Madeleine and Penny Prévert, changed them to black and white,
and then re-colored them. Then I stuck the heads on bodies that were - both - adapted from mid-Thirties publicity pictures of Miss Joan Crawford. As one does.

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2007.

This was our first Christmas/Holiday card. This was the year we were "supers" together for the first time with Portland Opera. G had been a priestess in a beautiful production of "Norma" at the beginning of the year, but this was my first go 'round. Our "Carmen" had been transplanted to Cuba, circa the 1940s. I was a soldier in three of the four acts, but G had three costume changes: a cigar factory worker in the first, a fruit seller in the last and, in the second act, she was done up as a... "brothel employee", shall we say? I was in that same scene, so I mentioned to the stage director that we were actually married so, if he wanted, we could act a bit more frisky than the other supers who were not so intimately - and legally - acquainted. We were decidedly frisky and the whole production was really fun. At some point, all the supers took pictures in character, upstairs in the dressing rooms of the theater. Those were the images I used a few months later; my Photoshop skills were pretty feeble at the time, but I took us out of the theater and put us into images from the real Havana.

The doorway to the gritty streets of Havana in these two pictures was in reality just another solid concrete block wall.

My dear, sweet wife was quite convincingly blonde and slutty in the second act, but her big moment actually came in the previous one. Carmen's knife attack on her co-worker, Manuelita - a character who doesn't usually even make it onto the stage - is what gets her arrested in the first place, the arrest is what hooks her up with Don José and starts the whole mess rolling. This production decided to show Carmen's handiwork, and G - an X carved into her cheek - was her far from docile victim. She roared on, kicking and snarling, and got to have a downstage center fistfight with the star of the show before - literally - being dragged from the stage; as they say, you go, girl! Her most excellent outraged and bloodied face was just so cool that we had to include this picture on the back of the card - hey, Merry Christmas!

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Edit: It's a Christmas miracle! G just found our card from 2010; we didn't skip a year after all. She created it in a Word file and it somehow got lost. Glad to have it back in the line up!

2010!