WW: Musicians {Linky}

We just got back from going to Minnesota, for over a week.

We went tons of places, so I'll try and post a lot to share what we did. Come back.

This post is focussed on musicians.

Bob Dylan grew up in Duluth, Minnesota.

In Minneapolis they have a huge street art painting of Bob Dylan saying, Times really are a changin'. It's a portrait of when he was young, to middle aged, to older. The painting was done by artist Eduardo Kobra.

I wanted to go to Prince's old house, but Paisley Park is over $50 a person to get in. A bigger deal than that is that they won't let you take pictures. I hate that his family isn't getting anything, for these tours. With me having my sons, I didn't think it would work out. We did drive by at the end of our trip. There's no parking, it's on a highway, and there's a sign that says, "No walkers". Boo! I took photos out of my rolled down window, while my husband drove oh so slowly. Not much to see. It's modern white. The inside is where the magically stuff is.

We walked past an area that had all kinds of stars painted on it. All of the stars were silver, except Prince's was gold.

I was standing there listening to Isaak play on a chained up piano. A group of guys walk up and say, "Can you excuse me. I want to photograph that." He pointed to the gold star. I asked, "Have you been to his house?" He said, "You mean Paisley Park? No. BUT I used to work for him." How cool!

Isaak's been teaching himself how to play a piano with his keyboard that lights up. One of his classes in the fall is Piano Lessons. 

I told everyone to stand by a star or two they like. Comment with what star you would pick to stand by.

I chose Indigo Girls and Björk.

Travis likes things heavier than I do. He picked Clutch and NoFX.

Mica's into Nirvana right now. That will change in a month. He loved Queen last year, and now says they are old news to him. Ha!

Isaak doesn't really know musician's names except he's big into Michael Jackson. He likes gold, so he picked Prince.

Here are you choices + what's above that we chose. 

What star would you choose to stand by? It's pretty neat to stand in a spot where so many people played/sang. There were more, but I took what I could.

Have You Ever Had the Hots for a Musician?

One day I was in class. Stevie Nicks came on.

I said to my assistant teacher, "I just love Stevie Nicks. Her voice is so unique. I just just can't help it sometimes though...although her voice is unique she sounds a billy goat, or sheep at the same time."

My assistant said, "Man you've ruined it for me!"

I said, "What?"

He said, "Well all the guys in my generation had the hots for Stevie Nicks!"

I said, "I know, but there is no denying that she has an animal sound to her at the same time a as pretty sound to her."

He shook his head. As if to block out what I was saying.

She'd sing a wonderful cover for Ba Ba Blacksheep.

Then he said, "Haven't you ever had the hots for a musician, or singer?"

I said, "No not really."

He said, "WHAT?"

I said, "Well I thought Roy Orbison, and Neil Young had sexy voices. That is until I saw them. Their looks are not all that. I liked Prince, and Michael Jackson, but didn't have the hots for them. I guess I'm more of a hots for an actor type person."

He said, "Who did you like?" 

I said, "I liked Johnny Depp (even though I heard he smells), Tom Cruise back in the Top Gun days. Now he's a little wacky. Brad Pits always had that never aging baby face. The one I really liked that not very many people have heard of was William McNamara from the movie Stealing Home."

Source

Come clean what musician, or actor have you had the hots for in the past?

Mr. Plagiarizer

I went to pick up the boys at Grandma and Grandpa's house sometime last week.

Isaak was coloring this:

It's cute right? Me and a lot of other people thought so. I said, "Wow Isaak that's a really good drawing. I love it!" He smiled and said, "Thank you!" 

Rubber bands are his thing. He puts them in almost everything he does. He's a collage artists, or a sculptor. Not really an illustrator per say. We'll see. He may loose interest in the arts all together like his big brother Mica did.

I posted his little master piece on Facebook. People thought it was cute.

Then the other day I said, "I really do like that airplane that you created."

He said, "Ya I just colored it, and added the rubber bands. I found the drawing in Grandma and Grandpa's closet."

I guess there's nothing wrong with what he did. It's no different than him coloring an image out of a coloring book. It's just that I should ask him next time, "Isaak did you create all of this?" before I claim it's my son's work.

My guess is, that it's my oldest nephew's drawing, and Isaak's coloring.

Isaak needs to sit in on one of my copyright lectures. HA HA When you think about it most works are from something inspired by, or something changed from something else. Does that even make sense? 

Dale Chihuly hasn't blown his own glass for years, and his work is in tons of art galleries. He's estimated to be worth $10 million dollars. He draws what he wants, or tells glass blowers what he wants, and they create it for him. Then he decides if he wants to put his name on it.

Ironically his eye patch has something to do with a glass accident. He got in a car accident, which took his eye. Source

Andy Warhol didn't like getting messy. He to had others paint, and do screen prints for him often.

In fact he hired someone to pretend to be him and go on talks for him. Source

Visual artists aren't the only ones that steel, or borrow from others.

Weird Al Yankovic has borrows from others all the time. Beat It became Eat It. He's found himself in trouble with the law a few times. He's always been let off.

Source

The beloved Disney most certainly takes what they can get for ideas. You'd think with their movie Beauty and the Beast, and the musical that they came up with, that it was their own idea. No worries, it's an old story, so they had full access to it. Now if you think of Beauty and the Beast you think of the Disney movie, not the classic story tale.

They also have their stuff out for a limited time only, and all the other times keep them in their achieve. Source

The singer, song writer, piano player and creator of the Lilith Fair Sarah McLachlan had to go to court towards the beginning of her career because she copied her stalker's words in a letter he sent her. Many mistook the song Possession as passionate love song. When in fact many of those words came from her stalker. She went to court only to find out her stalker had hung himself.

Once I belonged to her fan club. That was before they used her song in a sad puppy commercial. Source

What is original anymore? It's difficult to define. Especially when you're an art teacher. You want works to be original. It is true that designers are given copy, and photos to use to get the job done. It's also true that big named, fine artists hire someone to do the things that they don't want to do. Then they slap their name on the work, as if they own the whole thing.

If I have problems defining original works. Try explaining that to a 5 year old.

By the way I'm not bashing these artists. Sarah McLachlan was once my favorite singer.