Kristin Currier

It’s been a while since I’ve done any painting. Seems I’m always at a computer these days.

I was recently contacted from some old friends of mine in the Boston area who’ve recently purchased a home in Bokeelia, FL. They have an open floor plan and tons of empty wall space, I believe 12′ ceilings. The walls are screaming for art! So my friend Donna invited Matt and I over to hang out a bit and take a look at the place. We took a ride in John’s little boat on a choppy Tampa Bay, proceeded to get drenched, and had a great lunch at Woody’s. Then I took some photos of the walls and made some notes on our return back to the house.

On the way home Saturday night, the ideas started flooding in. I’ve got 9-10 paintings to think about, and formed solid plans for about 5-8 of them. Sunday afternoon, I was able to come up with some very rough sketches of the ideas. I’ll keep working on the rest this week. If they dig them, I’ll go on to do full mock-ups that I’ll use for the final paintings. Since this is a Florida house, the themes will be tropical. I’ve been dying to do some tropical art for some time now. The colors are calling me!

The images here show 3 paintings for the main wall and foyer for the den showing lush foliage scenery and parrots for the big painting, and a carry-over of the same theme onto the two smaller square paintings high up on the two identical walls in the short foyer. Those two paintings show the tops of the ‘jungle’ with parrots flying about. Since John and Donna are Jimmy Buffet fans, I think the parrots are appropriate. The walls in this room are a pretty, light spring green. The main sitting area and kitchen are in direct view of these walls, so it would be nice to be able to enjoy dinner and entertaining with a nice island tropics view.

Mock-ups for main foyer, tropical theme

The next image is the Master Bedroom. The walls are a medium gold and there is sage and a brick red in the furnishings, as well as reddish-brown stained tropical style furniture. I thought a relaxing “get-away” type of painting would be good here, so the idea is a hammock between two trees in a shady spot on a white sand beach, with turquoise waters and a sailboat. Since John owns a sailboat, I might ask him for a photo of it so I can use that. The hammock looks a little funky, but remember, this is a rough draft here and we might go with something else entirely different in the end. There is a bit of gold and red in the painting to coordinate with the room.

Hammock and sailboat for Master Bed

If Donna and John like them, I’ll go on some field trips to take photos of Miami places like Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens, Jungle Island and a few other lush locales around my home to take some photographs of foliage, and find me some parrots. I might even buy a hammock to place on a beach around here and use that as a reference as well. After I get my references, I’ll spend a weekend over in the Bokeelia house to do the final mock-ups on site to get my colors and dimensions just right.

Other ideas for the other areas in question: Above the kitchen cabinets, 4 square paintings of animals eating things. Monkey with a mango, turtle with grass, pelican with fish, alligator thinking of eating an ibis. These paintings would be lighter and a bit humorous.

Another bedroom could possibly get an underwater scene, which would mean I would have to get a small waterproof camera and go snorkeling, but I think I could handle that! John’s a diver, so perhaps he’d like that.

I’m thinking of using 2″ cradled Ampersand Claybord for the paintings. This is essentially masonite covered with a fine layer of white clay, and then cradled on 2″ boards that give the art a dimensional effect. I might also try their Aquabord with watercolor. The cradle boards can be stained or painted. The main painting would actually be made up of 3 30″ x 30″ boards bolted together, so they can be taken apart and travel easier. All the Claybords will be painted with either watercolor, inks or acrylics with a thinning medium, and varnished with a UV protectant AquaThane from Faux Effects. So, these paintings will be bright, strong, transportable and durable. I’ll buy some small Claybords and Aquabords to experiment. What I want is translucent, vibrant, loose colors, and I think this material is the best for that.

There are a ton of other empty walls, but these are the biggies, and would take care of the emptiness very quickly. Then, we could work on smaller pieces, or they could start collecting from other artists in the Bokeelia and Matlacha area, since there are tons of them.

Anyway, that’s it for now. As I move along with this project I’ll keep posting progress reports and pictures. John and Donna will be invited to stay tuned to this blog category so they can watch the progress from back home in Boston and offer comments as well.

It’s been a abysmal weekend. Matt and I had to put down our critically ill kitty, Clive. He had something within him that just would not quit, a horrid gnawing illness we could not detect nor cure in time. He was just barely over a year old. And the sweetest thing imaginable. And he’s gone, just like that. Got sick Thursday night, and was in kitty heaven Friday afternoon. My darlin’ little Alarm Kitty -named for his habit of waking me up at 4 a.m. for his early morning love session, before I got up at 5 to work out. We buried him in our jungle backyard next to Howie and Captain Morgan, my loving Halloween black kitty of 14 years, and the loving dog companion of our home’s previous owner. Our yard is a pet cemetery, and believe me, there is no better place to be.

After laying him to rest Friday, and with a depressing Saturday moping about, we decided we had to get the hell out of the house. So we decided on a little rockabilly honky-tonk right next to the Gold Coast Derby Girl roller rink, where we could catch some hillbilly punk rock. I love all kinds of music. I was reared on punk and new wave, and recently have been loving old time jazz, blues and country, so this was a real treat.

So I put on my Frye’s and thrift store cowboy top, and Matt one of his many Hawaiian shirts, and we tried to put our best social face on. We caught dinner at Shenanigans West (Nice to see ya again, Matt the bartender, don’t worry, the jock-tard extolling the virtues of roofies only embarrassed himself, not you, sweetie), watched LeBron sink more impossible 3-pointers, and off to the hot rods, hot babes and hot cycles of The Monterey Club.

A little snapshot: A tattoo shop right next door called Kreepy Tiki with a straightedge gal with Marilyn hair listening to The Smiths. Johnny Cash and Tiger Army on the house stereo near the bar. Combat boots and blond dreadlocks smiling and sipping beers, chatting with robust Louise Brooks red-head girl with daisies in her hair. Illustrated boys playing pool -badly- and asking us if we wanted some new ink at the shop next door. We do, but we see Pooch and Scott up north. Maybe later?

The Monterey Club is like your cousin Ronnie’s basement. Cousin Ronnie works on old cars and motorcycles, has sideburns, tattoos, a pool table, comfy couches, a wide screen TV, listens to lots of Motorhead and Social D, and drinks plenty of Pabst Blue Ribbon. At the Monterey, you’ll see hot rods and walkin’, talkin’ pin-up girls. You’ll see girls in cowboy hats and mini skirts playing washboards with spoons. A crazy hippie on an old guitar playing gonzo punked-up blues from hell. Engines roaring outside from souped-up choppers. Big manly men with tattooed knuckles and big, black boots. The glittery SoFlo metro-sexual douches with faux-hawks, manicures and tight glittery shirts heading for the party at Las Olas would get pretty damned nervous in here.

Playing this night was Smokestack and the Foothill Fury, that dirty hippie stoner bastard (who kicks so much ass), and Boise Bob and his Backyard Band. Hillbilly punks from hell, all of them.

Visiting The Monterey is like inhabiting a Cramps song for a honey-slicked moment of time. And it was just where we needed to be. And bloody hell, it’s literally just a couple of miles down the street. A little slice of heaven in Fort Lauderdale. A comfier, cozier version of Miami’s church of the Churchill’s Pub. A place where R. Crumb could pick and choose his buxom models to ink into eternity. Which is what I pretty much did. Finally, some new art to put up on this blog ‘o’ mine. I hope you enjoy.