I attended The Birmingham Museum of Art’s opening night for “Who Shot Rock & Roll.”

Shot as in "took a photo of" not "annihilated." This exhibit is a series of photographs taken by various photographers of celebrity musicians .

Before the exhibit there was a lecture by the author of the book of the same name. Slides (also known as Power Point) were displayed as she narrated with bits of trivia regarding the photos. Sorry to say, I don’t remember her name. The bits of trivia were interesting because there’s no way you’d know the background stories from looking at the photos.

For instance, Aretha Franklin had a side tooth missing. This particular photographer wanted a true image and nothing altered. Aretha told him not to worry about it and continued to chew gum as the photographer and his assistants readied the shoot. Once they were ready, Aretha smiled a big smile with no gaps because she had placed the wad of gum where the missing tooth would have been.

Opening night for this exhibit had wall to wall people. I attended with two other companions. People were literally bumping into each other. So many people I was unable to take pictures of the band, and décor. The band played tunes from various eras of rock and roll. There was a buffet with a variety of everyday foods and there were drinks, wine, beer, soft drinks. I didn’t view the exhibit nor did I partake of food and drink. I was a terrible hostess. I’d invited JF but chose to leave early. The crowd was too overwhelming for me. My niece and JF stayed and when I later talked to them, they said they had a great time.

I have my own vinyl collection. I have them in alphabetical order.

When cassette tapes were the preferred form of music, I could make a tape from the albums so that I could listen in the car. From a previous post you know I no longer have a tape player in my car.

Sadly, it seems the cassette tape has gone the way of the eight track tape and the reel to reel tape which I thought was so cool in the original Shaft movie staring Richard Roundtree. Isaac Hayes wrote the score for the movie. I have that album also. :)

AND yes, I do have a turntable.














Here's just one sample from my vinyl collection.

Wave you hand in the air as you sing, "purple rain, puuurple raaain, purple rain, puuurple raaaain..."

I might have bought this album during the 1980's when I was in the Columbia Record Club which no longer exists. The way it worked was they'd tease you by telling you they'd send you 10 albums and you only had to pay for one. The catch is that if you accept this offer you were obligated to buy a certain number of additional albums within a particular time frame. If you didn't buy more albums your account was turned over to a collection agency and a blemish placed on your credit record.

Just look at all you get for the low, low price of $6.99. There's the jacket, the sleeve and then the album.

Often the lyrics to the songs were on the back of the jacket or inside on the sleeve.

But WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

You get this fine poster considered a work of art by any "80's Prince fan.(cheesy grin)
Answer this question: When was the last time you got a poster inside the jewel case of a CD?

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! I didn't think so.

***Word***

I have declared a blogging blitz on myself.

I’m not diligent with my blog posts. There are blogs I’ve enjoyed visiting that aren’t updated on a regular basis. After a while I usually stop visiting because there hasn’t been a new post in a month or more.

Then, there are those out there in blogland who are faithful with their posts. Everyday there is something new. It’s as if they’ve taken an oath.

So for the next seven days, I will have a new post each of those days. It begins TODAY 6-30-2011 and will end 7-6-2011.

SHARK BAIT!

I'd posted some time ago about ICON shoes . They're unique in that works of art are printed on leather shoes. They come in mules, boots, ballerina flats, oxfords, loafers.

They even have purses. You can check out their website here. Upon investigating these shoes, I found out they were waaaay out of my budget.
So, I decided to make a fake pair. To the left you see an old pair of navy blue, leather loafers that I have had for some time. These are the ones I plan to convert into Fake ICONS.


These are authentic, used ICON shoes. They were on sale on E-Bay. I don't buy used shoes because they have already been molded by the previous owner.

After viewing various creative shoes on Flickr I decided to do mine a little differently. I chose SCUBA divers and sharks.

On one shoe would be SCUBA divers photographing undersea life.

On the other shoe would be sharks poised to attack the clueless divers.

Since my printer doesn't work, I took my thumb drive with the pictures to Staples. I had the clerk print two laser copies. I wanted two just in case I messed up.

Lucky for me I had Staples Reward points that I used toward the copies and ended up paying only 22 cents. Even without the reward points it wouldn't have been expensive.

The Team
Painter's tape, scissors, acrylic paints, permanent markers, brushes, decoupage glue, old newspapers, water (to rinse brushes), newspaper, laser printed pictures.

1. I started out by taping off the areas of the shoe I didn't want painted.

2. Next, I painted the vamp of the shoe with the blue acrylic paint. This was to simulate water in an ocean.
3. After the blue paint had dried, I placed random lightly colored black paint to give it texture. Then, I dry brushed green paint haphazardly to imitate seaweed. I used a red permanent marker to draw the coral and orange and white paint for the tips of the coral.

4. I cut out the figures from my laser print along with some of the background and began gluing in place using decoupage glue.
I used over six coats of decoupage allowing each to dry between coats. These are the shoes after drying and removing the tape.

5. Here are the finished shoes after being polished to as high a shine as I could get. Click on the picture to enlarge.

I was pleased with the way they turned out. I call it; SHARK BAIT

That's It ***