In the image of Kate Moss’ classic Supreme photo shot by McLellan, Alice was the first ever original design I did, which sounds contradictory, and it kinda is, but it kinda isn’t. Both of these muses were already in existent, one being a real person and one being a fictional character, but it was fun to make them into one. I love Kate Moss, who doesn’t. And I love Alice, who doesn’t. She is one of my favorite characters ever written. So it is theorized that maybe Lewis Carroll was kind of a weirdo and Alice was fashioned for some weirdo reasons, but wow , could he write. The way he was able to catch in writing the curiosity, playfulness, and the true innocence of a child is a wonder. Alice is just so fun.
“It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.’”
With that being said, it is rather a dark read when you read into it, and it’s not very hard to read into it. When she is lost down in Wonderland, it is one giant trip. She happens to stumble upon a smoking caterpillar who gets her to take mushrooms. Well he doesn’t say it like that, but that’s how it went down. And the most evil thing about it is that he doesn’t even explain what the aftermath is going to be. He just tells her that one side of the mushroom will make her smaller and one will make her bigger. That’s some wild shit that she just does it, but that’s why you got to love her. Also, on a darker note, she was immortalized in Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.” If the book isn’t trippy enough for you, the song will get the job done. “Poor Alice when she was just small. Go ask her what the Dormouse said: Feed your head. Feed your head.”
I would imagine that if we got to see Alice grow up, she would’ve been a good time. I imagine her growing into herself in the late 60s, early 70s, probably in San Francisco around Haight-Ashbury, getting into some crazy shit. That’s why she was my favorite crossover character to do. Sure, I’ve done Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle, and all the like, but it’s hard to believe one of them actually smoking a cigarette. They’re too wholesome for that. But Alice, I’ll totally buy that. I wouldn’t doubt that it was laced with something either.
So to be completely honest, I prefer, aesthetically, Disney’s take on Alice to the original illustrator John Tenniel. I’ll give it to him. His was definitely more trippy. There’s no doubt about that. I also once had the pleasure of seeing Dali’s take on the series in an exhibition in Berlin, and that was as crazy as you would imagine. All in all though, I think the gang of animating directors at Disney killed it. The color scheme is just perfect. There’s something about the way that blue, yellow and white go together. I’ve always been one for colors and I love that pallet.
When I first had the idea of doing a Kate Moss crossover, Alice was the obvious first choice for me. At the time, the idea was all still so new to me that it took forever to get her drawn. I must’ve sketched and re-sketched her 20 times. That was the fun part, though. Along with the love for color I love the original process of figuring a painting out. It took me some time, but in the end I think I got pretty close. From there, after I got it all worked out, I went down my own little rabbit hole with that design, and I’ve found myself coming back to it over and over.
This last series is a little different. Primarily I work with acrylic and canvas. Recently I’ver been screwing around on procreate too, but I would rather do something with actual materials and not a fake pencil and a screen and a setting that perfects my lines for me. This time I tried out a new medium. I can’t say I found it. Rather, someone introduced it to me.
I have this friend Jay Ray. He’s one of the kindest, funniest, most kind-hearted people I have ever met, and I’m glad to call him my best friend. One day not too long ago, Jay Ray got really into building things. You should see his garden. That place is a wonderland in its self, and pretty much everything was hand made. It was a skill that I never knew he had. I don’t even know if he knew he had it. He has, though. He has.
So one day he calls me and he’s like, “Yo! I’ve got this dope idea. I was at Lowes the other day and I was looking at these tiles and I thought about you. Well, actually, I thought about your Alice and I was thinking we could do something together.” What a great attribute of art- the process of collaboration. He came over with these tiles and shared his vision. And then I took my own vision and we went back and forth until our double vision became one and we got it all planned out. Per usual we mucked it up a couple times. And then we got it right.
I talk crap on technology, but I’ll tell you what, it can and does make the life of an artist easier. I had Alice drawn up on my Ipad, so we sized it and then went to Kinko’s to get it printed on card stock so I could make a stencil out of it. That was the only way I was going to get it on there. It was white porcelain- the grid trick doesn’t work there. So I laid the stencil down and then Jay Ray took the tiles and said that he had a plan. He kept sending me pictures of his plan and it just kept getting better and better. In the end he took the tiles, baked them, glazed them, glued them (I’m sure there’s a better word for that, but I don’t know it) to a planter he built by hand, and grouted the whole thing. Then to top it off, he built a planter for it and even fashioned it with a bed of flowers.
So to come full circle, the dudes at MAS hooked me up with a spot at their Small Business Saturday, and I wanted to do an Alice painting for my display. An Alice painting, as in one. And I knew what I wanted to do it on, so I went to Lowes and found the tile section that Jay Ray had taken me to a few months back. I came for one tile, but then I was like, screw it lets do some mushrooms, so I bought a bunch of coaster sized tiles. And then I was about to leave and I saw one size bigger, so I took a bunch of those too. And then I saw these big tiles and I was like I’ve got an idea for those, too. So I got three. And then I was walking down the aisle on the way to the checkout line when I saw another set of tiles that I liked so I got a few more.
The next thing I know I’m sitting in front of way too much material, grinning like the Chesire Cat. I had so many ideas. I spent four days from sun up to sun down working on this project. I didn’t want to do the same thing on every one so I mixed it up. I played with a bunch of psychedelic colors on the mushrooms. I was doing this other psychedelic painting at the time for a friend of an octopus that looked like a mushroom in bright colors, so, I while I was waiting for that to dry, I used the same colors on this series. Once everything was finished (today) I did as Jay Ray taught me and I baked them, glazed them in the garage (which I shouldn’t have done in a confined space. That spray was potent and I’m pretty sure it got me pretty high. I’m staying with my mom while I’m in Fresno and she was rightfully disgruntled because that smell had more than just crept into the house. It was like a fog, and I’m pretty sure she and my dog, and the cats were high as Alice too.)
And right now they’re still marinating in the garage. I’m not sure but I think in the morning they’ll be ready to go. I’ll go ask Alice. I think she’ll know.
“When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s off with her head
Remember what the Dormouse said
Feed your head, feed your head”
