The Lure of the Striped Pig

I started teaching my night classes at MECA this week. Monday night I teach Mixed Media Self Portraiture, and I took my students down to the library and told them to follow their noses and pull something from the shelves that was compelling. They made photocopies of these found images, and brought them back upstairs to the classroom to incorporate into their self-portraits. They had their easels set up in front of the huge dark windows of the 4th floor painting studio and drew their reflected selves using charcoal. The found imagery made its way into the pieces in a variety of ingenious and inventive ways. It's a great group of artists and they are making knockout work already!

I also followed my nose while in the library and succumbed to The Lure of the Striped Pig; the Illustration of Popular Music in America, 1820- 1870, a book of 19th century music sheet illustrations, mostly lithographs, by some unknown and some very well known artists of the time (The Ratcatcher's Daughter is an early Winslow Homer!). I plan to do the assigned exercises from my class during the week as part of my own studio practice.

I particularly love the "brilliant" rebus in the top pic posted here (click to enlarge...)