18-Linda04
©1992 Craig Ashby
Collage
3.75″ x 3.75″

Finally we end this series with Linda Evangelista. The alpha and omega of the Supermodels series. As above, so below. And all that.

It’s a lovely image. The colors rich. The destruction like rain. And what would you wear as an angel in the rain? Why a latex turtleneck, of course.

The halo interacts with the cruciform background nicely. Red points of light and a perfume bottle cut to look like a gemstone. All familiar ideas by now.

Once again a black and white image is superimposed over a color background. It’s a nice trick even here in its nth repetition.

I don’t know if I would necessarily do this in new pieces. Maybe switch the idea to the opposite. But my mindset right now is about too much pattern to process. It should be African in its pattern on pattern. But who knows if it might reappear.

As I mentioned before, there are a series of paintings of these collages. Except for this one. I wanted to do a larger painting but never got to it. I will now tell you the reason.

While ending this series, I had made friends with an artist back home in North Carolina. No names. That would be good press to bad people. A rule I try not to break but do all too frequently. I will refrain here.

He had come to my house repeatedly. Seeing both the collages and paintings I was working on. He claimed he would help me get representation. The lure was set.

Later in the fall he invited me and my then boyfriend to a showing of his work at a large museum in Virginia. We took a rented bus to the event. Dressed insanely (I had shaved my eyebrows for the event) and ready to party we boarded the bus and watched Car Wash on the way.

After a long drive, we arrived and entered to a packed house. It took me only moments to notice that many of the paintings featured supermodels with halos. I have experienced shock like that only a few times in my life.

Lee (the boyfriend of the time) and Leslie (still friends) consoled me in the bathroom as I sobbed. At least I have connections to two people who saw the reality of what had happened. Other “friends” there pretended that nothing was amiss. Even though they too had seen my work.

Artistically it took a long time to recover from that event. Several years before I even dared to show anyone the work I had created.

It’s one of the reasons I consider posting anything anywhere a great feat. Even greater that I am not afraid to have my own website and write almost daily.