Style Your Sole

This Saturday I'll be at Nordstrom at Northpark from 1-4 doing a Style Your Sole event! I can custom paint your pair of TOMS on the spot! I'll be there with a few other artists working hard to customize your Toms so that they are uniquely yours. What I love most about this event, besides making your feet happy- for every pair of TOMS shoes you buy they donate a brand new pair of shoes to a child in need. ONE FOR ONE is what they call it. I'm really looking forward to participating and helping the cause along. You can find out more about their efforts on their blog and check out their site-they have some super cute shoes! Be sure and come check me out at Nordstrom this Saturday in the BP shoe department!

Commencing Countdown Engines On

Gridwall is here! What is gridwall? Its that cagey looking stuff you see at little craft/art fairs or really anywhere someone is selling stuff. It's used to hang stuff on and soon it's going to be used to hang MY stuff on! It is starting to come together piece by piece, slowly but surely.
This weekend in between working, a friends crawfish boil and Mothers Day I plan to re-do my little working space in my dining room. I share it with my cats and it's in constant upheaval and right now it is just not working. I need the big window to sit by in order to be happy. I need the Spring sunshine coming in but right now that window is blocked with an ugly shelving unit. Time to make my space an inspirational place to work.
Aside from piece-mealing my little soon to be biz together I'm counting down the days until I can leap from the cliff of the workaday world and see if I can sink or swim. It's time to challenge myself and change it up. That and getting ready to release the Shapes album in a few weeks.
I am on day 58 of my countdown.
I have put the prints back in the shop and acquired a new scanner/printer...nothing fancy but should get the job of invoices, basic printing done, etc. Every week from here on out will be chipping away at the mountain little by little. Still scouting out consignment shops and various places to get the records in.

Bands, Band Aids and the Art of Breathing

I'm pretty sure I looked a lot like that for the last couple of months but lookee, it's Santa season and it's time to put on a good face now. I've been in recovery mode and let everything fall softly from my tree like little shaken leaves. Drift, drift till there was nothing on my plate. It was nice, but peace can't last forever and in true form I started getting busy just around the time of the holiday season. A quiet kinda busy though, I'm not sending out the press releases and trumpet calls yet!
I have some new works and one in progress but I'm unhappy with my digital camera (hey Santa, are you reading this?) so I'm not even going to shoot them right now. It's just about time to enlist the help of my photographer friend Sam Bortnick, almost all these new pieces need to be shot for the portfolio. And the portfolio needs to be sent to some galleries, and that is my big plan for 2010.
The Shapes are set to rev up practices this week, which is all my fault for slacking on...but I've been real careful about lifting stuff and possibly sending myself back to the house of pain. Stupid back! I really don't know how Keith Richards does it, say what you will about Keith Richards but the dude is old as dust and can still do stuff I am finding it treacherous to do right now. The album is waiting on artwork (also my fault!) but should be done soon.
The Lolli Dollies are in gear working on new tee shirts and getting ready for an upcoming shoot with photographer David Mausey (who did some wonderful stuff with The Shapes)and also have plans for VIDEO. Will update when it hits youtube.
Lollipop Shoppe will POP back on the scene after the Holiday Hooplah- backs still on the mend and standing around djing for hours is still not in the cards, plus it's REALLY hard not to wiggle when James Brown starts playing. Don't tempt me!
Thanks for reading this boring hoohah, a basic update...I'm still alive (this is a recurring theme of my blog hmmmmmm)and hoping everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!

I SUCK

It's been two years spent in a hot little room with a recording machine, microphones and redoing, redoing, redoing everything we've ever written. A zillion takes later and the cd is getting MASTERED as we speak which left us free to do this thing called PLAYING LIVE SHOWS again. So here we go and I'm totally LAME for not posting this sooner but I think everyone that reads this is in Australia and Timbuktoo anyway so whatever. A little info about the album- it goes to 11. As in it's 11 songs! Pretty much just documented to the best of our ability- all the songs we've written up to this point. We got our friend Mark Ridlen (local badass DJ and musician, read: LITHIUM XMAS, The Klogz, Quad Pi, etc)to help in production and sound layers and we're pleased with the flavor of the album. We've enlisted Reid Robinson (you may know him from the Texotica stuff as well as one of the DJ's for Sonic Assembly Power Hour on KNON)for the fun task of mastering this monster. The album is not out yet but thats not stopping us from our getting our feet wet on the stage again.
Our show is tonight at the Lounge On Elm St. Our first gig in TWO YEARS! And of course we're doing it the night that the DOMA's (big music thing in Dallas)are going on but that's how it rolls. That's how we roll. I'm really curious to see The Flying Eyes who have a bit of a moody Doors-y thing going on....and I'm curious to see who shows up to see us rise from the dead.
Speaking of rising from the dead- HAI! I'm back and I've been busy with art and music, here is the latest piece I've finished

and before that it was this monster

There is word that I'm going to be showing some work at the Capitol One building in Frisco later this month-I'll keep everyone in the loop when I get details. (Really! I will this time!) and aside from all that hooplah just working my 9-5, trying to write some new Shapes songs, dancing with the Lolli Dollies girls and trying not to melt. Hey-it's been like 105 too many times this month. This is Texas summer allright...rather be in Australia! Thanks for reading, I will try to be an active blogger again. Happy Summer to you all!

Snapshot: Dylan Hollingsworth

Some things are easy to write about and some things aren't....such as beautiful photographs that already speak so many words that your own language fails you. I first encountered local photographer Dylan Hollingsworth at one of my own parties. He was shooting all the guests and at the time I had no idea what the pictures were going to look like but the cat had style and a certain way about him. I think it was the way he flamenco danced while shooting, leaping up and clicking his heels and darting around while the subjects eyes lit up with glee. That is when I knew I had better see how his photos came out. I was amazed at the angles, the colors, the imagination and most of all the very personal way his photos spoke to me. Like I said, some things just can't be given justice through the art of words. Some things just must be taken in with the eyes and the viewers own thoughts. And so I leave you with some select photos I love, so super real as to be unreal and so full of life you're bound to be sucked into this wonderful artists vivid world....


a portrait of the artist Dylan Hollingsworth






for more captivating photos please visit Dylan Hollingsworth's website

Art is Happening: Kettle Art

Kettle Art is on the ball! Heres the info on their next exhibition:

On Saturday, January 24, 2009 Kettle Art proudly presents 'Empire of Belief' a one person show by Judith Lea Perkins. Judith was one of the original founders of Kettle Art way back in the Fall of 2005 and has consistently participated with the gallery since. She traveled to NYC with us in June of 2007, shown with us in Miami in December of 2007, and was one of three featured artists in the March 2007, Skulls Babes and Spakley Guns, along with Marie Sena and Cathey Miller.

Judith's works are all hand carved blocks that result in one of a kind print ensemble pieces. No two are anything like the other and all are nothing short of incredible. This show runs through Saturday, February 14.
for more info visit: Kettle Art on myspace

Quite Simply. I Love It.

Another reason to love etsy.com I just discovered this fantastic artist named Matte Stephens and this piece in particular is just standout! Maurice Sendak fan perhaps? All his stuff is pretty awesome, saving pennies, saving pennies! To view his shop click here.

Krabappel 2- Swedish Style

Krabappel 2 is one of those rare myspace friends I've never met but feel a kinship to. Uber talented. Gorgeous redhead. Full of passion and a love for music and art....oh yeah and she likes "snus" (swedish word for chewing tobacco!) If I ever visit Sweden I'd like to meet my friend Krabappel 2 and see her lovely works in person.
I really liked this series she posted, reminds me of glaciers and Richard Diebenkorn. The muted colors and spacial breaks are really up my alley.

Studio Day

Today is clean the studio day. It's become a jumbled mess of paints and boxes of supplies and who knows what. Since I work in cramped quarters, sharing my studio with two computers and a whole lot of laundry, I have been sitting monk style on the floor working on my painting. Needless to say after about 45 minutes my back is aching, I need a break and some stretches and it's just not conducive to being productive. Time to change the method!
The painting is coming along well, I have got a lot of work done on it this weekend. I have also created a lot of work with each new thing I add to it. Taking small snapshots of it as it progresses has been fun, I like looking at the little details. It gives me ideas for new compositions.
It's just after 6am and I wonder why in the hell I'm up so early?