Allee Willis Blog » Painting

02Jul 2013

When Sid Krofft – let’s stop and take a breath right here – Sid Krofft! of H.R. Pufinstuf and Land of the Lost and wayyyy more fame – when Sid called me two months ago and made me put Sunday, June 30, 2012 in my calendar he told me that it was a nonnegotiable-under-penalty-of-death-do-not-cancel-under-any-circumstance type of event. I trust this man enough to know that that means I should write it in my calendar in cement. Then he told me where we were going: to ZSA ZSA GABOR’S house for her husband, Prince Frederic’s birthday party!! Had I actually been writing in cement there’d be a big fat Allee Willis face print in it right now because THAT’S HOW FAST my head bobbed to my chest in ecstasy and disbelief upon hearing WHERE we were going. Besides that, Sid is one of those people who I clicked with the second we met and we always have the greatest and most comfortable time together.

Sid lives very close to another good friend of mine, Beverly D’Angelo. The plan was we would meet at her house exactly 45 minutes after she arrived home from a Lego extravaganza in Minneapolis. Beverly and I go back to the 1980s together. She’s hysterical, a great friend, great actress, and dresses with flair, a quality I can relate to. She looked especially great on Zsa Zsa D-day, which was amazing as her plane was late and she got this together in 15 minutes:

So me and Beverly in my car…

… follow Sid and Donnie and Teri Moll, who live smack dab in between Sid and Beverly, winding around Mulholland Drive into the immaculate bowels of Bel Air to Zsa Zsa’s house. The first person we met was the Prince himself. You see this guy on the news and they always portray him as a nut but I have to tell you, nut or not, he’s an excellent party host. And trust me, I know a lot about being an excellent party host.

The kind of party host who takes care of every detail:

Price Frederic also hand-carried out out every morsel of food and set the table himself.

It was deli-gone-insane. Every kind of sliced meat on the planet…

… including these impressive linoleum looking slabs:

A big topic of discussion was what the white stuff was in the middle of this pork chop. Was it a Porturkey?

Zsa Zsa and the Prince’s house is THE Hollywood house that anyone who loves Hollywood, old Hollywood, dreams about. Built by Liberace (and where the HBO biopic was shot), Lee sold it to Elvis, who then sold it to Zsa Zsa – three of the most extreme personalities in show business history, all of whom floated their nuttiness around in Liberace’s famous piano-shaped pool!

Everyone at the party, regardless if they had been there 100 times before, was snapping photos so fast it was like their index fingers were on automatic pilot. But it’s SO not my place to plaster Zsa Zsa’s kitsch-on-the-elegant-tip domicile all over the Internet. So I shall have to leave it at this one shot of Beverly waiting for her drink next to the Oscar replica/ gold champagne bar as an example of the supreme 70’sness of this most hollowed mansion.

And though Zsa Zsa was ensconced in her bedroom there was lots of Zsa Zsa around.

Here’s Sid with Zsa Zsa:

This wall was not only gold but whatever the finish is had little chunks of raised goldness in it:

BTW, though the dog resting so comfortably on the pillow wasn’t real, many people pet him.

It took all my strength not to straighten this copper relief of Zsa Zsa:

As I’m posting these photos I realize… How completely crazy am I that I didn’t go to the bathroom there?! OMG, if textured gold walls are in the house what must the bathrooms look like?! How could the undisputed Queen of Kitsch miss an opportunity like that??!! Especially as this is the decoration on the outside of the bathroom door:

I know the obvious question is, “But did you meet Zsa Zsa?”. The answer is no because at 96 she was too frail to attend. But there was a live video feed going into her bedroom so she didn’t miss a thing. The camera followed Prince Frederick everywhere, including when he danced with Madame.

Wayland Flowers may be long gone but Madame is still very much alive!

As is Pee Wee Herman:

All in all, it was a Zsa Zsa Voom Sunday! As we alighted down the red astro-turf carpet to get our cars…

… we all agreed it was one of the best looking Sundays we’d had in years.

Va Va Zsa Zsa Voom!

12May 2013

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Happy Mother’s Day!!

12May 2013

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Happy Mother’s Day!!

Mother’s Day has always provided supreme opportunities for kitsch. Be it flower arrangements, stuffed animal displays in front of gas stations for last minute pick-ups, or greeting cards – store bought and handmade equally qualifying – Mother’s Day is a kitsch karousel that never ceases to go round.

Almost everything I owned growing up in Detroit was thrown out when my mom passed away suddenly when I was 16 and my father remarried. Aside from a rubber doll I got for my first birthday whose head was tied on with a string and a Ben Casey bobble head with a hole in his heart, the result of me shoving a pencil through it after an unrequited love incident at 12, I had almost nothing to remind me of the sweeter life that preceded all of this. (Which is why it meant so much to me to get back into the house I grew up in a few weeks ago.)

About 20 years ago, after years of thinking these two medically deficient dolls were the only artifacts of Little Allee that remained, my brother shipped me my old steamer trunk that had been hogging a corner of his garage since I graduated college. I had always assumed it was empty but inside was a small cigar box that contained letters, post cards, hamburger recipes, and this Mother’s Day card I had made for my mom when I was God knows how old. I hope it wasn’t too old as my interpretation of the world was slightly naive.

I have no idea what country Mekoila is right above the S. Pole and I’m happy to see that I thought California was important enough to hog the entire West side of the United States. I have no idea if I actually thought that Michigan, where I drew my happy little self in, was really the east-most state or if I forgot to leave room for it when I drew this map that looks more like a cross-section of a cow with different meat cuts in it. I hope you can see the little thumb I gave Michigan for accuracy right above my left hand. And I’m happy that I took the time to draw myself in my favorite type of pleated dress in grades 2-6:

I’m the tall one in that photo with my two cousins, Sue and Marjorie Singer. And if memory serves, that’s actually a giant Mother’s Day rose tucked into my belt that I made out of a toilet paper roll and tissue paper to give to my mom a couple of years after I made this card. My mother’s name was Rose so that flower had a lot of significance in our family.

I definitely misspelled ‘You’re’ but I’m happy to see that I gave the rose much petal definition and that the leaves look like jubilant uplifted arms as it was a very happy rose and a very happy Rose that celebrated Mother’s Day that year. I did, however, completely cheese out on the poetry I included inside. I have no idea where I copied this from but I’m happy to see that I knew enough as a budding designer to carry over the rose logo.

Thankfully in my later years I progressed to the point where I didn’t need someone else’s words to express how I was feeling.

Never one to leave space empty for long, I ended the card with a picture of a present. Of course, my mom’s only present from me that year was this card but as a first grade teacher she always appreciated the effort I put into art.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. And Happy Mother’s Day, Rose, wherever you may be now.

31Aug 2012

Have you ever seen a sandwich that could do the Boogaloo??

31Aug 2012

Have you ever seen a sandwich that could do the Boogaloo??

See a sandwich dance and sing and more at my LIVE SHOW in LA on THE 21st night of SEPTEMBER (and 22!) http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/258274 NOW!

21May 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ the Day – A zillion trillion PHOTOS from my sold out Super Ball Bounce Back Review concerts!!

21May 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ the Day – A zillion trillion PHOTOS from my sold out Super Ball Bounce Back Review concerts!!

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On May 8 and 9, 2012 I had one of the greatest experiences of my career performing my Super Ball Bounce Back Review at King King in Hollywood. It not only was only the second and third performances I’d done since jumping off the stage in the middle of my own show in 1974, but was an attempted – and I’m happy to say TOTALLY TRIUMPHANT – comeback after one of the worst experiences of my career seven months before when 90% of the technology my first attempted comeback show was dependent on failed. But I knew that I had to get back up and practice what I preach: From some of the worst situations come the greatest miracles and I had proven to myself time and time again that, if nothing else, I was someone who had the courage to make lemonade out of big, fat lemons.

So I’m happy to report that I have risen from the ashes and had two of the greatest nights of my life bouncing back as a performer in a major way. I can’t thank everyone who came enough. And I can’t thank everyone who worked with me on the show enough.

So I leave you with a whole lotta photos from both nights, videos to come and a big, loud Badeya-say-do-you-remember there never has to be a cloudy day as long as you have sunshine inside. ENOY THE SHOW!!

26May 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m in the New York Times today!

26May 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – I’m in the New York Times today!

Nice, big, fat story in the Times on me today + 12 photos. Thank you, Bob Morris, for seeking me out (no press agent involved here!) and writing such a heartfelt, spirited, and happily long piece. My house thanks you too (at least the part of it that made the photo)!

23Mar 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Pretty Girl Gravel Art

23Mar 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Pretty Girl Gravel Art

Nothing makes a face look more beautiful than when it’s portrayed in gravel. Gravel art, or more professionally known as Crushed Marble Mosaic art, was massive in the 1950’s and 60’s. A cousin of the most popular DIY artform, paint-by-number paintings, hand-glued crushed marble mosaic art covered post Atomic Age walls as thick as shag carpeting smothered the floors. The most ubiquitous gravel paintings were made by the big dog of DIY kits, Craftmaster.

I have Jamaica Girl, 995-4-L, whose face looks suspiciously identical to Jamaica Boy, 995-4-L.

I don’t know who made my pretty girls but each of them stand 13″ x 7″ tall. The girls are much more colorful than the earth-toned Jamaica Girl.

Flowers were very popular to incorporate into gravel art as many they allowed for an unexpected splash of color:

Attempting to create shadows was also very popular in gravel hair sculpting:

It seems to me that gravel on one’s face is the perfect solution to perfect skin as blemishes are hardly noticeable amidst such a bumpy texture.

But as much as I love gravel art, when it comes to actual human faces they look much better on top of the gravel than under it.

05Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Party Bling and The Party I Forgot To Wear It To

05Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Party Bling and The Party I Forgot To Wear It To

party-pendant_2552

I bought this Party Pendant at a thrift shop recently, brought it home, shined it up and glued little rhinestones on it. I’ve only worn it out a couple of times but people have ooh’d and ahh’d as if I’d gotten it at Tiffany’s. So I decided to make it a habit and wear it when I knew I’d be attending a hot party. I did, in fact, know that Nancye Ferguson’s birthday party Sunday night would be hot as all of her parties are at her amazing Atomic house that gives you one of those aerial postcard views over the entire city of LA. But when I got home and dumped my photos I realized that not only had I forgotten to take a photo with Nancye, the Party Pendant along with every other piece of jewelry I meant to wear had been forgotten in a drawer at home, replaced with my Color Purple backstage pass that I still had on from earlier in the day when I went to see the fabulous new cast of my musical at the Performing Arts Center in Thousand Oaks. As proud as I am to have that pass swinging from my neck, I do wish that my ratty ass cheap Party Pendant were also present as it would have been so appropriate hanging in the following photos.

Here I am party pendantless with Michael Patrick King and Prudence Fenton.

Michael may have written and directed the Sex and the City movies and much of the TV series but this guy wrote The Graduate and created and wrote TV series like Get Smart.

Not that I wasn’t excited to see Buck Henry but I almost needed to be hospitalized when I stumbled onto Dr. Kildare in the kitchen.

I’ve long been a collector of Richard Chamberlain/ Dr. Kildare memorabilia.

Speaking of doctors on television, here I am with Ian Buchanan, Dr. Greg Madden on All My Children, and Diva Zappa.

Diva’s father was Frank. Here’s a portrait of Frank carved a few years ago by Diva’s brother, Dweezil.

Dweezil was missing in action Sunday night but here I am with his mom, Gail Zappa.

And here I am with Pamela Des Barres. Among other things, Pamela used to babysit for the Zappa kids and was in the all girl band Frank put together in the 60’s called The GTOs.

It’s ancient history but Lisa Loeb used to go out with Dweezil.

In 1999, Lisa commissioned my alter ego, Bubbles the artist, who I used to manage, to do a portrait of Dweezil and all the things he loved for his birthday. Lisa is standing outside the window playing golf, Dweezil’s favorite sport.

I wish I could say that we played golf or did anything other than taking long rides on Sunday and eating in dives and somehow tie it into the rest of the narrative, but here I am with Charles Phoenix and Jack Nesbit.

Ultimately, I can only tie that photo in by saying that Charles and Jack brought the balloons we’re standing in front of for Nancye’s birthday, the one person I somehow forgot to take a photo with. Here’s one of us for reference, taken at Diva Zappa’s birthday party last year, tying things up nicely.

I love going to parties when they’re good parties. I have good friends who throw good parties. Now I also have good bling for good parties which I’ll hopefully remember to wear the next time I go to one.

03Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Owl String Painting

03Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Owl String Painting

owl-string-painting_2064

In the 1960’s and 70’s when string paintings were at the peak of their popularity more string owls lived on wallpapered and wood paneled walls inside houses than real ones lived outside. I never took the craft up. The strings in the crowded areas reminded me of tiny spider legs. The nails were tiny and unless you hit them dead on the black velvet would twist around the shaft and pucker everywhere. Then the string, or in this case yarn, had to be pulled completely taunt or you’d have a sagging bird. All those crisscrossing strings gave me Vertigo, especially when it got to places like around the eyes where there were so many of them it was like a spider convention at The Sheraton. This was way too precise of a task for a free-form, spontaneous artist such as myself. I felt the same way about Spirographs.

As ubiquitous as they were there were way too many little spider leg lines for me and you had to adhere too strictly to the rules.

Whether fashioned out of string, metal or ceramic the owl is one of the most iconic birds in art. Although I collect string owl paintings I prefer my owls in more solid form. I have owl cups, …

… an owl radio,…

… an outdoor metal owl…

… and a zillion other forms of owls. I even have more owl string art.

I think my black velvet owl string painting is one of the best looking around, bare bones and to the point.

The disadvantage of owning a string art owl is that keeping him clean is nasty business. Black velvet is hard enough to keep clean without 12,000 little worms stretched across it. The next time you see string art at someone’s house take a good look. The little nails are like barbecue pits around which families of dust balls gather. So, no barbecues at my place, no owls on the wall, just a nice string painting, wrapped back in plastic, going back to nest in a rack in my garage until the next time I need a good look at the First National Bird Of Kitsch.

13Sep 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Me

13Sep 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Me

I had always thought that the day before the Grand opening of the virtual Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch I would have one of the most spectacular pieces of kKitsch in my collection to feature on Kitsch O’ The Day. But I’m going completely insane on massive overload trying to get the online interface/mini social network at awmok.com scotch-taped together enough to open tomorrow – sometime between noon and 5 PM West Coast time – not to mention building physical displays, handmaking souvenirs and getting auction items ready for the first of two grand opening parties tomorrow night at Ghettogloss on Melrose.

I have no hands left, my brain has been reduced to the size of a pea and the thought of photographing one more piece of my Kitsch and writing a description is enough to throw me into a deep coma after mounting an exhibition of every object featured in Kitsch O’ The Day since I began the blog in early March, building customized bubble display cases for everything, tweaking the descriptions, filling four foot wide bowls almost big enough to take baths in with junk food, and doing the 175 other things on my list for what I’m sure will be another 20 hour day of tweaks. So no Beatles sneakers, bedazzled Snuggies or motorized go-go boots that move on their own to “These Boots Were Made For Walking” today and, instead, an amazing 4′ x 4′ three-dimensional-made-from-all-my-junk “Allee Is Kitsch” portrait of me done by my very talented friend, Jason Mecier. The portrait is featured at the opening parties along with the other 150 aforementioned Kitschifyingly spectacular objects.

If you haven’t seen the trailer yet or don’t know much about The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch please proceed to awmok.com. Otherwise, see ya tomorrow!

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-09-10-kitsch-museum_N.htm

http://www.examiner.com/x-8310-Trendy-Living-Examiner~y2009m9d7-Allee-Willis-Museum-of-Kitsch-opening

http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2009/9/14/allee-willis-museum-of-kitsch

http://eccentricroadside.blogspot.com/2009/09/whole-kitsch-and-caboodle-allee-willis.html

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/bitch-popaganda-superwomen-or-lack-thereof-edition

I had always thought that the day before the Grand opening of the virtual Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch I would have one of the most spectacular pieces of Kitsch in my collection to feature on Kitsch O’ The Day. But I’m going completely insane on massive overload trying to get the online interface/mini social network at awmok.com scotch-taped together enough to open tomorrow – sometime between noon and 5 PM West Coast time – not to mention building physical displays, handmaking souvenirs and getting auction items ready for the first of two grand opening parties tomorrow night at Ghettogloss on Melrose.

I have no hands left, my brain has been reduced to the size of a pea and the thought of photographing one more piece of my Kitsch and writing a description is enough to throw me into a deep coma after mounting an exhibition of every object featured in Kitsch O’ The Day since I began the blog in early March, building customized bubble display cases for everything, tweaking the descriptions, filling four foot wide bowls almost big enough to take baths in with junk food, and doing the 175 other things on my list for what I’m sure will be another 20 hour day of tweaks. So no Beatles sneakers, bedazzled Snuggies or motorized go-go boots that move on their own to “These Boots Were Made For Walking” today and, instead, an amazing 4′ x 4′ three-dimensional-made-from-all-my-junk “Allee Is Kitsch” portrait of me done by my very talented friend, Jason Mecier. The portrait is featured at the opening parties along with the other 150 aforementioned Kitschifyingly spectacular objects.

If you haven’t seen the trailer yet or don’t know much about The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch please proceed to awmok.com. Otherwise, see ya there tomorrow!

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-09-10-kitsch-museum_N.htm

http://www.examiner.com/x-8310-Trendy-Living-Examiner~y2009m9d7-Allee-Willis-Museum-of-Kitsch-opening

http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2009/9/14/allee-willis-museum-of-kitsch

http://eccentricroadside.blogspot.com/2009/09/whole-kitsch-and-caboodle-allee-willis.html

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/bitch-popaganda-superwomen-or-lack-thereof-edition

24Aug 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Spirograph Set

24Aug 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Spirograph Set

Spirograph-box

This is the real deal, vintage 1967 original Spirograph by Kenner No. 401. Although the resulting art was too precise and anal looking for me – zillions of geometric combinations looking like they’re made from little spiders’ legs – I recognize the Spirograph as an icon in Pop Culture. Just like those string art paintings of owls, ships and such that I passionately collect but never felt drawn to create.

Made by locking gears and rotating plastic wheels inside other plastic wheels and tracing with a pen as they move, the rules of this are too rigid for me. Hell, I can’t even paint inside the lines so something demanding precision and this much repetition definitely falls outside my scope. I was always the free form type. But I love that Spirographs make non-artists feel like artists, proud enough to hang their creations on their walls and refrigerators. I’ve always looked at art – any form of it – as something social and a crash course in self expression. So if a series of little curves, technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids, turn most people on who am I to argue?

1960’s Spirograph commercial:

1970’s Spiromania commercial:

This is the real deal, vintage 1967 original Spirograph by Kenner No. 401. Although the resulting art was too precise and anal looking for me – zillions of geometric combinations looking like they’re made from little spiders’ legs – I recognize the Spirograph as an icon in Pop Culture. Just like those string art paintings – owls, ships and such – that I passionately collect but never felt drawn to create.

Created by locking gears and rotating plastic wheels inside other plastic wheels and tracing with a pen as they move, the rules of this are too rigid for me. Hell, I can’t even paint within the lines so something demanding precision and this much repetition definitely falls outside my scope. I was always the free form. But I love that Spirographs make non-artists feel like artists, proud enough to hang their creations on their walls and refrigerators. I’ve always looked at art – any form of it – as something social and a crash course in self expression. So if a series of little curves, technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids, turn most people on who am I to argue?