Perfect Blend:The CoffeeShop Cartoonist

2011-04-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

LIFE COACHING OFFICE / FINE ART & CARTOONS GALLERY ONLINE

2009-09-12T18:44:00.000-07:00

VISION..! Philip Clarke Brewer Fine Art & Cartoons Gallery opening Online..! Life Coaching and Life Coach Training Online via Skype.com. In-person Marathon-Day Life Coaching for Executives, Professionals. Counselors, Businesspersons, and Film Industry Actors.

2009-07-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Artist / Cartoonist / Writer, Phil Brewer

2009-06-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

WELCOME COFFEESHOP FRIENDS..! (Please Scroll Down For Cartoons)

2009-03-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

Please scrool down for CARTOONS..! Then go to Older Posts for more cartoons--and examples of Fine Art, my Novels-in-progress. Soon I will be publishing three new websites--to present my CARTOONS (coffeeshopcartoonist.com), my ART, WRITING, MUSIC, & SCREENPLAYS (PhilipClarkeBrewer.com), and my zany GREETING CARDS (NobodysPerfeKt.com)...!

My Cartoon Humor Weight Loss Book: Coming Soon..!

2009-01-12T03:26:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a weight loss cartoon book {Laugh It Off © 2009 by P.C. Brewer}. In it I include my bariatrics (weight loss) doctor's advice (below)--upon which I religiously depend--using his ideas also in my weight loss seminars.

Q:
Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life.
Is this true?
A:
Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it.
Don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually.
Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer.
That's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster.
Want to live longer?
Take a nap.
Q:
Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A:
You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat?
Hay and corn.
And what are these? Vegetables.
So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of
delivering vegetables to your system.
Need grain? Eat chicken.
Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable).
And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended
daily allowance of vegetable products.
Q:
Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A:
No, not at all. Wine is made
from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine.
That means they take the water out of
the fruity bit so you get even more
of the goodness that way.
Beer is also made out of grain.
So have a cup now and then!
Q:
How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A:
Well--if you have a body and you have fat--your ratio is one to one.
If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.
Q:
What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A:
Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good..!
Q:
Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A:
YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! .....
Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it.
How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
Q:
Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A:
Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger.
You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.
Q:
Is chocolate bad for me?
A:
Are you crazy..? HEL..LO.... Cocoa beans?
Another vegetable!!! Best feel-good food around!
Q:
Is swimming good for your figure?
A:
If swimming is good for your figure--explain whales to me...
Q:
Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
A:
Hey! 'Round' is a shape..!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets. And remember:
'Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways--Chardonnay in one hand--chocolate in the other--body thoroughly used up--totally worn out and screaming 'WOO-HOO, What a Ride'... AND.....

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies....

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer
fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Cartoons For Grown-Ups

2008-10-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

Cartoons for Grown-Ups

By DAVID KAMP
Published: October 17, 2008
At this point, there’s an entire generation of parents and kids who know Jules Feiffer solely as a children’s book author, the man behind the charming bedtime standbys “Bark, George” and “By the Side of the Road.” It’s been eight years since he stopped doing his weekly syndicated comic strip for grown-ups, which was simply called “Feiffer,” and 37 years since Mike Nichols filmed Feif fer’s screenplay “Carnal Knowledge,” an acutely adult-oriented examination of sexual desire, virginity loss, infidelity, divorce and other subjects that never come up in “Bark, George.” So the new anthology “Explainers,” which gathers all of Feiffer’s Village Voice strips from 1956 to 1966, is a welcome reintroduction — or introduction, for the uninitiated — to a great cartoonist who boldly bent his medium to adult purposes long before it was commonplace to do so. As squat and dense as a loaf of spelt bread, this book reproduces the first decade of “Feiffer” in its entirety, and therefore captures in minute detail the birth and development of a whole new approach to cartooning.

EXPLAINERS
Written and illustrated by Jules Feiffer
546 pp. Fantagraphics Books. $28.99
Multimedia

Certainly the young Garry Trudeau and Berkeley Breathed were paying attention. The strips collected in “Explainers” anticipate “Doonesbury” in their unapologetic text-heaviness and political content, and “Bloom County” in the characters’ frazzled, pixilated facial expressions and the cartoonist’s agitated, slightly forward-pitched lettering. (Lettering is the most underrated of cartoonist’s skills; Feiffer is an ace.) You also detect portents of Art Spiegelman, Mark Alan Stamaty and the entire graphic-novel genre. It’s no exaggeration to say that Feif fer opened up the full range of possibilities of what a comic strip could be.

Yet in 1956, Feiffer was a 27-year-old who couldn’t get arrested in the business. This was attributable as much to his own obstinacy as to any prevailing trends. He didn’t have it in him to be a family-friendly gag man like Hank “Dennis the Menace” Ketcham or a concocter of super hero adventures for DC Comics. The New Yorker’s wry panel cartoons were a closer match to Feiffer’s ethos, but still too pat and limiting. Feiffer aspired to nothing less than book-length narratives, satirical and topical, and for this ambition, he was rewarded with a pile of rejection letters.

In his introduction to “Explainers,” Gary Groth, the book’s editor and one of its publishers, elicits a revealing comment from Feiffer about his plight at that time. “It was a Catch-22 situation,” the cartoonist says. “I had no name, so who was going to buy this work that looked like children’s drawings, but was very adult material? Now, if my name were Steig, it would be marketable. If my name were Steinberg, then they could sell it. If my name were Thurber, no problem. So I had to figure out a way of becoming Steig, Steinberg or Thurber in order to get what I wanted into print. I thought of all sorts of things. I could kill somebody, and then get famous that way, and then I could get published. I could commit suicide” — but “suicide was not yet established as a form of self-promotion.”

It’s telling that Feiffer would single out William Steig, Saul Steinberg and James Thurber, then the most idiosyncratic of New Yorker cartoonists — the ones least likely to offer up flip cocktail-party vignettes or tidy, “correct” drawings. Feif fer wanted to be a mold-breaker like those three, but in the idiom of the multi paneled strip. And this strip, were it to exist — well, it wouldn’t be ha-ha funny but mordantly funny, reflecting the humor and outlook of the kind of guy who jokes about committing murder or suicide for pub licity purposes.

Fortuitously, just as Feiffer had run out of publishers to reject him, The Village Voice was founded, in 1955, to capture the new breeze a-blowin’ in beatnik-era Greenwich Village. It was the sympathetic alternative publication that Feiffer had been looking for. He toted his rejected manuscripts to its offices, sat there as its editors avidly pored over his work and left the premises as The Voice’s cartoonist.

His strip, usually six to eight borderless panels, initially appeared under the title “Sick Sick Sick,” with the subtitle “A Guide to Non-Confident Living.” As the Lenny Bruce-ish language suggests, the earliest strips are very much of their time, the postwar Age of Anxiety in the big city; you can practically smell the espresso, the unfiltered ciggies, the lanolin whiff of woolly jumpers. In Feiffer’s sixth-ever strip, an advertising executive is rallying his creative team to make nuclear fallout sexy, proposing “a TV spec called ‘I Fell for Fallout’ ” and “a ‘Mr. and Mrs. Mutation’ contest — designed to change the concept of beauty in the American mind.” The week after that, a macho poet type confides his most shameful secret to his coffeehouse girlfriend: “I’ve never been to Europe.” And the week after that, Feif fer literally puts Oedipus on a psycho analyst’s couch: a hipster in a toga and Ray Charles shades, confessing: “All right. . . . So I marry her. But did I know she was my mother? It’s not like I was sick or something.”

The material may show some age, but from the get-go Feiffer’s visual style was assured and bracingly modern: his figures eloquently but sparely drawn (with a thin wooden dowel dipped in ink, not a pen), and no background illustration, just white space. While the strip continued to plumb topical themes as it progressed — Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr. all make appearances in “Explainers” — Feiffer became a nimbler satirist, hitting upon several recurring setups and characters that would transcend their atomic-age origins.

Chief among these characters were Bernard, the archetypal sweet, considerate young man whom women know they should like but aren’t attracted to, and Huey, the vain, callous lout they can’t resist. Bernard and Huey were prototypes of the Art Garfunkel and Jack Nicholson characters in “Carnal Knowledge,” but their adventures in “Feiffer” remain relevant to urban singles life in a way that the blowsy, date-stamped movie doesn’t. In a representative strip from 1960, a comely date tells Bernard, “Sometimes when I’ve hurt you — you get that lost, little-boy look that makes me want to run over and squeeze you.” Two panels later, she adds, “But that doesn’t mean I want your hands on me.”

Of course, representing any Feiffer strip with a quick quotation really doesn’t do it justice. His garrulous, neurotic characters yammer on and on, their logorrhea half the fun (and often taking up more than half the space). A mouse in the clutches of a cat shouts: “Go ahead! Eat me! Play into their hands!” The cat meekly responds, “Can’t we just accept our given roles?” There follows an elaborate back-and-forth about established mores, class systems and man’s paternalism toward animals, which so flummoxes the cat that he loses his appetite and leaves. Whereupon the mouse mutters: “Weakling — wishy-washy. I would have eaten him.” And the kicker: “What can you expect from liberals.”

Feiffer’s basic scheme was to mine the humor of social and political blather — to show, in a funny way, how people talk and talk but never connect. In our current age of blogs, compulsive confessionals and nightly shoutfests on Fox News and MSNBC, it’s no surprise that so many find him prescient.

But paging through “Explainers,” I don’t see cynicism. Given the strips’ vintage, I can’t help thinking of the Simon and Garfunkel song “Sounds of Silence”: “People hearing without listening / People writing songs that voices never share.” As unrelenting a satirist as the young Feiffer was, he had a bit of Paul Simon’s winsome earnestness. His humor was dark but not nihilistic; he held out hope that his characters would straighten themselves out.

Feiffer says as much in the introduction to this book when he explains to Groth why it is he now finds refuge in writing children’s books: “They represent the gentler, sweeter world that, as we grow older, we go about corrupting first chance we get. No, that’s too cynical. Second and third chance we get.”

David Kamp, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, is the author of “The United States of Arugula.”

San Francisco Cartoon Museum..!

2008-09-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

I visited the Cartoon Museum in San Francisco Sunday, September 7, 2008. This museum is a treat for cartoon lovers and presents delightful stimulation to any serious cartoonist. The late great Phil Frank's works and creative heritage are currently being featured at the museum--along with other interesting exhibits.

The Cartoon Art Museum is committed to fostering and promoting a greater appreciation of cartoon art.

Farley's San Francisco Chronicles:
A Salute to Phil Frank

April 6 - September 14, 2008

The Cartoon Art Museum celebrates the life and legacy of one of the San Francisco Bay Area's most beloved cartoonists in a special retrospective, Farley's San Francisco Chronicles: A Salute to Phil Frank. The exhibition includes original art from his nationally syndicated comic strip The Elderberries, panels from Road and Track magazine, his college strip Frankly Speaking, several rarely seen and unpublished works, and his signature comic strip, Farley.

For the most up to date scheduling information, please contact CAM Director of Education Diane Shapiro Sommerfield at education@cartoonart.org or by telephone at (415) CAR-TOON [227-8666], ext. 303.

Blog:
cartoonart.livejournal.com

To register or for more information about workshop, please contact Diane Shapiro Sommerfield at (415) CAR-TOON, ext. 303, or via e-mail at education@cartoonart.org

To receive more information about these meetings and other events for local cartoonists, please e-mail Cartoon Art Museum Gallery Manager Andrew Farago at gallery@cartoonart.org

Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105

MORE CARTOONS: I Know--I'm Having Too Much Fun..!

2008-07-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

Panera Bread Writer: Finishing My Two Novels..!

2008-07-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to be returning to my fiction-writing projects!

I. My first novel is set in (Appalachia circa 1930) and overflows with fetching, forlorn, forsaken, fanatical characters--embroiled in snake-handling, embalmed in moonshine, embarrassed by intemperate sensuality, and emboldened by mania, morbidity, and magical thinking.

The schizotypal, idiosyncratic, odd, and eccentric entertainingly bother the reader with their personality disorders.

As Prohibition roars into America--one of my protagonists uses this poster in his late-20's-early-30's fool-some-of-the-people-all-of-the-time Crusades in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri--as an advertising prop in his traveling-snake-oil-abstinence shows.

If you lived then, attended one of his 'temperance crusades', and came upon this "P-R" poster...I mean--seriously--would you quit drinking? Snakes play a central thematic role--and the book will not be for the tenderhearted, bleeding hearts, or Harlequin lonely hearts. Below: a watercolor I painted on one of my treks to the hero, Hyman P. Fogarty's, mountain stomping grounds in Hell-fer-Sartin, Kentucky.

I would not recommend the 200 Proof moonshine I was offered.

A man came out of the woods, held a rusty squirrel rifle on me, handed me a jug of what I found tasted like embalming fluid and commanded me to take a big drink. Dizzied, delirious, and dumbfounded by the quaff, nevertheless, I was surprised by his handing me the rifle, taking the jug back, and demanding that I hold the gun on him while he took a deep drink. I still have bouts of heartburn.

I am returning to my own 'roots' (SE Kentucky to SW North Carolina region) to finish this work--interviewing dozens of elderly folk in the region about their experiences. Basically everything in this fictional manuscript will have occurred somewhere, at some time in Appalachian history--but with names changed and identities protected.

II. My second novel (Chinatown/San Francisco circa 1984) features a Ming Vase McGuffin sought after by the Chinese Mafia. The innocent hero, Vietnam Vet Blind Hawk--a descendant of Pilgrim-helping Squanto, who lives in a warehouse fixing up found-junk to sell in flea markets, finds himself caught between the Tong, British Museum detectives, and the FBI.

The story tries to push and pull the reader from conundrum to conflict to redemptive crisis: pure entertainment that won't let you go until the story ends too soon. (There may be a sequel.)

(unpublished works-in-progress): Copyright 2008 by Philip C. Brewer All Rights Reserved

Check Out Writers' FM Radio..!

2007-10-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.WritersFM.com/

Coffeeshop Friends & Just Plain Friends..!

2007-07-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

What refreshing times gathering around 'watering holes' of any kind can be..!

The coffeeshop arena has afforded me the opportunity (not only to draw cartoons and do Watercolor sketches, but) to meet so many nice people--i.e.: 'nourishing personalities'.

I think of so many--including Jeanette, Lavon, Kim, Pam, Jennifer, Gail, Royce, George, Matt, Oren, Kirk, Phyllis, Michael, Susan, Roken, David, Joe and Marcia, Don and Mary, Emmanual, Jason--and so many of the nice baristas and counter-servers at Uncle Harry's, Starbucks--and especially at Panera Bread..!

My great friend, Earl Templeman (18-wheel-trucker-Nazarene-minister--who is an outstanding biblical dramatist--trained by Charlton Heston's personal drama coach, Ralph Rogers) and I have enjoyed many inspiring times in coffeeshops.

Craig Easter, master artist-potter, another great and dear friend, coach, and encourager, and I have occupied many a restaurant or coffeeshop booth talking about the philosophy of art and doing social commentary.

Pastor Tom Sims, creative Virginian, is a master storyteller, writer, king of bloggers ("Dream Factory"), and a fantastically interesting coffeeshop conversationalist.

Michael Siler, Niels Werner and other dear coffeehouse pals, with whom I have emptied many a cup of fine Arabica gourmet brew, while discussing Christian Theology, principles of leadership, creative writing, Music, Psychology, and humorous social commentary, have been real encouragers to me in so many ways.

Dear friends like Don and Mary Leming--who've emigrated with me to Panera Bread--my new writers colony--always spice up my Psalm 23 retreat.

Fellow coffeeshoppers have inspired me to market my cartoons, music, art, and to finish my novels and screenplays--(versus just dreaming about doing it!).

Many great things and fine friendships have emerged from the 'perfect blend' of coffeeshop conversation.

George Fragos is a brilliant font of cyber-knowledge, personable, and a consumate coffeeshop aficionado--without whom Uncle Harry's would seem vacuous and incomplete.

The coffeeshop atmosphere can be a non-alcoholic "Cheers milieu" ("...where everybody knows your name") where authentic rapport can be established (unlike a barn-full-of-strangers mega church--Ha..!).

The coffeeshop can offer a setting where one can find nourishing folks (I believe there are only two kinds of people in the world: 'nourishing'--nice folks--and 'toxic'...I tell employers, "Hire 'nice'...because you can't 'teach nice'...you can't 'train nice' into folks).

Of course (study the history of human civilization) the proverbial barbarians are (always) at the gates. At (fortunately few) coffeeshops, the 'rough crowd' might show up after 7pm. Or there might be an occasional philistine behind the counter or wearing a manager badge and Aztec affect and murdering the Lord's English in the process.

But, of course, one mustn't fret over the Culture War in Society. Perhaps, in some aspects, there has already been a Coup--no longer a War--because the inmates can, at times, seem to be running the asylum. But the kingdom of God is always winning--and the Midianites will always eventually turn on each other..(the Gideon Principle i call it)..!

But, so far, that is the Exception not the rule. The coffeeshop remains a most satisfactory gathering spot for the civil, sane, and sensible (who're not recovering from ten years of Meth, ballistic-decibal headbanging, or a life of crime riding with the Hell's Angels).

ARE THERE STAGES TO BUILDING SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL RAPPORT..?

To yours truly, the Social Steps seem to be:

(1) pleasant non-verbals: Friendly smiles, good eye-contact, greetings, introductions, handshakes:

(2) Discerning trustworthiness, light self-disclosures, attempts at rapport-building, mutual inquiries regarding the other(s);

(3) More self-disclosures, more rapport-building, attempts at humor; (4) Feeling more secure regarding openness, vulnerability, self-disclosure, and 'show-n-tell';

(5) Testing for the other's ability to think abstractly, to grasp more subtle or profound humor, attempting to discern the other's World View, thinking, and Belief System;

(6) Established trust, choice whether to 'bond' in friendship, to offer more in-depth 'show-n-tell', to have more flexibility in interaction, to enjoy optimal freedom with humor and joking--generally anxiety-free interaction and trust.

(Some ideas excerpted from: "St.Arbucks: Perfect Blend For Latte Villagers" Copyright 2007 by Philip C. Brewer--unpublished manuscript)

The Splice of Life

2007-02-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

This is the fantastic flood wall facing the Ohio River in Paducah, Kentucky. Beautiful murals adorn this wall in Lowertown, the part of Paducah nearest the river, where some 60 artists have established a model for inner city restoration anywhere. Old houses and buildings have been (hosted by the city fathers) renovated into art studios, living spaces, and gallerys open to the public. The Paducah Arts Program is gaining national attention. I spent a week there in 2006 and met many fine artists who graciously welcomed me (and invited me to their wine and cheese tastings).

My dear friend, Earl Templeman and I are enjoying a steak dinner in the highest town in America, Leadville, Colorado--over 10,000 feet elevation (I could feel my arteries hardening). Earl is a gifted biblical dramatist--tutored by Charlton Heston's personal trainer, Ralph Rogers. Earl's powerful presentations include The Apostle Paul, John the Revelator, the Psalmist David, and the Prophet Isaiah.

Years ago, I scribbled this 'mirror poem' on a coffeeshop serviette:

The Splice of Life

Apartness
Is a lonesome state,
So, gregarious creatures
Congregate
To avoid the void of it.

Though togetherness
May accentuate
Nefarious features
Of associates
No joy's devoid of it.

--P.C. Brewer

Friday Night Clog Dancin' at the Old Country Store in Floyd, Virginia..!

2007-02-21T22:44:00.000-08:00

You're Sipping on Holy Grounds...

2007-02-20T00:09:00.000-08:00

All the great awakenings took place outside the walls of the local church, and outside the walls of papal institutions, liturgical traditions, denominations, and organized religion. The New Testamant was written in Koine Greek--the street language of the common guy--like the typical latte villager we see these days in coffeeshops--in the marketplace. The public marketplace, the agora, is really where things happen socially and conversationally. Years ago I began enjoying conversational prayer with people I had established rapport with in coffeeshops--especially in the Fig Garden Village area of Fresno, California.

Occasionally, it has been my privilege to be given permission to pray with and pray for folks. Some have had emotional struggles, or relational issues, or financial or employment problems, or physical maladies. Some were aware of profound ultimate concerns, ontological issues, or wanted to discuss spirituality.

I've always received as much as I've tried to offer to others. Sometimes it takes several conversations to build enough of a relational and friendship bridge so that we can feel comfortable to segue into personal issues.

Many people have touched my life and enriched me educationally, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually--far more than I have them.

I always consider it a great honor to be invited into someone's life on a deeper and more personal level. Of course, I don't try to be the answer man. (I wonder if finding the right question to ask may be more important than having all the answers..?)

So many fun experiences occur in the agora that I can't imagine fearfulness and phobias associated with it--yet there are folks who appear to suffer from fear of crowds--or are carrying around in their purse or wallet the diagnosis of Agoraphobia, an anxiety or panic disorder.

I find the many 'phobias' listed in psychiatric tomes interesting.

In fact, a few persons even struggle with Phobophobia, the fear of fear.

(I wonder if anyone wrestles with Phobophobophobia, the fear of the fear of fear?)

My motto is: "A fiend in need is caffeined indeed!" (I'm debating whether to stencil it on a t-shirt--with a coffee cup picture?)

But while scribbling out my cartoons on any legal writing surface on hand I often experience a reverence for God and a deepening respect and empathy with my fellow brew-tasters.

These are folks practicing the art of conversation, some authentically commnicating, some perhaps enjoying the beginnings of koinonia and even communion--the rarest form of interpersonal communication--man to man and man with God.

Of course, there are always the studying ones, the readers. And the sketchers like me--but we're still here, as whole persons, individuated, but nevertheless part of the group, of this slice of life.

The latte village, I think, could be the perfect place for the troubled person struggling with the fusion-vs.-individuation polarity--the fear of engulfment on the one hand in tension with the fear of abandonment on the other.

You can sit there, drawing, or reading a good novel--alone--but not quite--around other people--connected in a sense to other living, breathing, humans. Maybe a smile, a greeting, or friendly nod is all the rapport-building you need for the time being.

But if the coffeeshop you land in is blessed with friendly management, sociable counter people, and at least a few substantive (non-shallow) personalities who possess a bit of empathy (and who're not rapport-impaired forrest gumps or meth-head bikers with deer-caught-in-the-headlights stares--ha!) you'll find the ambience a conducive arena for a Bible study or perhaps some officing.

Coffeeshops are ubiquitous nowadays--and one may become your favorite island of sanity. From the daily grind--to holy grounds...
__________________________________
Copyright 2008 by Philip C. Brewer All Rights Reserved

Sometimes Latte Village 'Fine Art' Also Erupts..!

2007-02-19T12:22:00.000-08:00

A fellow counselor and sweet friend, Laura, and I used to sit at Lovers Point in Pacific Grove, California, across from the Tinnery Restaurant and paint Plein Air while chatting with tourist onlookers. It truly was Lovers Point because there were so many smiling, affectionate-looking folks strolling around--not only basking in the Sun's rays and inhaling the delicious ocean breeze--but viscerally enjoying each other's presence. I so thoroughly relished this long day with my friend Laura that I almost over-worked this painting--using transparent watercolors at first and then finishing with opaque gouache.

Many years ago i went to Colombia, South America and while there purchased a collection of real butterflies mounted and pressed under a glass display mold. I used some of these as models for this fantasy watercolor piece on full sheet cold press Arches watercolor paper. (I have a secret technique to achieve this effect with transparent watercolor.)

I lived in England six months and sketched many beautiful places. This is Bath, England. Scaffolding and renovation apparati covered the entire facade and I sketched imaginatively how it was going to look when completed.

In the garden behind the house in England where I stayed once there was a little garden house with this wonderful many-times-painted window. I sketched it several times while I was there, but the sketches were later water-damaged.. Years later, at Fig Garden Village in Fresno, California, I re-painted the little window from memory while several good friends watched.

I took trains just about everywhere I went in England, Scotland, and Wales. This is Lavenham--I took a train from London, found a little bed 'n breakfast, and, after some 'bangers 'n bloaters' the next morning, I sketched for a day. I enjoy the juxtaposition of strcutrues from varying 'eras' and architectural periods--which you can so often see in the United Kingdom.

I visited The French Quarter in New Orleans (years before Hurricane Katrina!) and sketched many local musicians--including the famous Preservation Hall Jaaz Musicians. Back in my studio in California I turned my rough sketches into (usually transparent watercolor on 300 lb cold pressed paper) paintings.

I liked sketching the fig trees in Fig Garden Village (a favorite hangout) in Fresno, California. I've met so many wonderful people there. Was Fig Garden Village my parish..? So many dear friends..!

It was my privilege, in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 2006 to enjoy a delightful visit with Eldon and Georgie Easter. Sitting at Georgie's dining room table, one afternoon while talking with Eldon's son and my good friend, Craig, I looked over his head and painted this quick study of Georgie's buffet. (I intended to give her the painting before I left--perhaps I can give it to her in person when I move East!)

"St.Arbucks"

2007-02-09T00:40:00.000-08:00

Often while enjoying the atmosphere of a nice coffeeshop I am tugged from the vulgar up to the beautiful, from the trivial to the profound, and away from that which is profane up to that which is sacred.

The coffeeshop atmosphere often feels like a sanctuary to me in which there is a real sense of koinonia (fellowship and friendship). Matthew, a twenty-four year-old Starbucks barrista, asked me, "Are you the priest for our Starbucks here..?" I replied, "Yes, this is my parish and my ministry is called, "St.Arbucks."

'St.Arbucks'(TM) became, that day in 2001, the name of what I do in coffeeshops--which is mainly drink coffee, draw cartoons, research the Net, and do TeleCoaching with my life coaching clients online--but also people-watch and meet interesting folks...!

Some of the friends I've made are from places like Armenia, Lebanon, Iran , and India.

Three are from India--two men and a woman--one of the men and the woman, converts from Hinduism to Christianity. The beautiful woman, whom I met in Burgess Hill, Sussex, England, was a Brahman and told me she had been disowned by her family when she became a Christian.

The other gentleman is a Muslim from near Kashmir, loves my art, and after I gave him a signed print of my Preservation Hall Jazz painting, brought me a box of fine cigars!

After enjoying fellowship with the two who were former Hindus, I was inspired (hearing the tribulations and trials of those caught up in the traditions of Eastern Mysticism) to write this comical piece of verse on a coffeeshop serviette.

THAT--WHY KRISHNA CRACK UP

Can't hear sound of one hand clapping,

Then reincarnation ruin my napping:

Can't see return like fly for slapping:

That--why Krishna crack up!

Can't find contentment with Om-Om-Om,

Then get upstage by Man from Rome;

Can't get answer when I call home:

That--why Krishna crack up!

Can't figure out chant for Nirvana;

Then guru poach my marijuana;

Can't forget girl name Donna:

That--why Krishna crack up!

Can't guess spelling of transcendental,

Then déjà vu make me tempermental;

Can't find market for cosmic rental:

That--why Krishna crack up!

Can't heal wart from Ganges dipping,

Then my cobra start to nipping;

Can't keep bed of nails from ripping:

That--why Krishna crack up!

Can't stand bull dung in my hair,

Then pagan gods laughing at my prayer;

Can't get good karma anywhere:

That--why Krishna crack up!

Can't pry window to Eternal Now,

Then someone barbecue sacred cow;

Can't find Why of life-or How:

That--why Krishna crack up...
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Copyright © 2003-2008 by Philip C. Brewer

CARTOONS: Have Coffee and Serviette: Will Doodle..!

2007-02-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

COFFEESHOP CARTOONING: RAPPORT-BUILDING. The quickly-but-skillfully-executed cartoon or caricature functions well as a conversation-starter in the 'agora' (marketplace) and especially in the contemporary 'latte village'. I've built many a (even though at first fragile and tentative) 'relational bridge' via someone's interest in one of my cartoons.

EDITORIAL FUN. A caricature of a US president, the state's governor, the mayor of the city, or an international figure never fails to get a rise out of someone around me. During election time or even (cautious) satire concerning The War on Terror, I find heightened interest, response, and reaction.

FROM BUSKERS TO SIDEWALK TROMPE L'OEIL. The public loves to observe an artist-at-work--especially if you're close enough to the queue to be noticed. And an accomplished cartoonist can harnass the attention of a caffeine aficionado. While s/he is standing in line for a No Foam Soy Americano, I catch many a glance. Once you sense you're being watched, a nod and warm smile will often provide a modicum of rapport which may lead to a 'How's it going?" or a comment about the art.

COFFEESHOP CARTOONING: PEOPLE-STUDY. I also enjoy (non-rhetorical) cocooning in a corner seat--withdrawing a little into my cartoon world. While relaxing with a breakfast cup of French Roast, the chatter at the next table, the posturing, the gestures, facial expressions, culture and world-view of my neigbors evoke and inspire cartoon ideas.

ART REFLECTS (OR SATIRIZES) LIFE. Swift, confident strokes with a felt tip sketch pen on a handy serviette or a sketch pad then illustrate the urban myth, folk logic, or cliche I've just overheard. Recently, for example, an absolutely stunning twenty-something brunette, sitting two tables down, caught my attention when she raised her voice and said to her tablemate, "If you see anything else you want--just ask for it..!" A cartoon quickly flowed from my pen!

SIDE BENEFITS (NO PUN INTENDED!). Mealtime sketching in restaurants and coffeeshops also helps me eat less and more sensibly. I pause a lot between bites and sips and feel more full and satisfied sooner.

CHEAP THRILLS. Yeah--just sit me down in a pleasant coffeeshop, hand me a Vente-With-an-Extra-Shot and a couple of napkins--and hang on while I'm seized with creative inspiration..!

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