Untitled Improvisation #13

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #13," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #12

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #12," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #11

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #11," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #10

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #10," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5"

Improvisation for R.A. Lafferty

T. Renner, "Improvisation for R.A. Lafferty," 2014, acrylic on canvas, 11" x 14".

November 7 marks the centenary of science fiction author R.A. Lafferty.

Untitled Improvisation #9

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #9," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Happy Halloween!

T. Renner, "For Halloween," 2014, acrylic on corrugated cardboard, 10" x 24".

Untitled Improvisation #8

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #8," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #7

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #7," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #6

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #6," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5"

Untitled Improvisation #5

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #5," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5"

Untitled Improvisation #4

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #4," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 4.25".

Untitled Improvisation #3

" 

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #3," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #2

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #2," 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Untitled Improvisation #1

T. Renner, "Untitled Improvisation #1, 2014, acrylic on paper, 3" x 5".

Charlie Haden, R.I.P.

T. Renner, "Assemblage for Charlie Haden," 2008, acrylic, tape on paper, 11" x 11".

DownBeat Magazine reports that "Charlie Haden, the legendary bassist and composer, died on July 11 at 10:11 a.m. in Los Angeles after a prolonged illness. His death was announced by ECM Records."

Happy Birthday, Miles Davis

T. Renner, "Portrait of Miles Davis, circa 1975," 2008, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7". Sold!

Miles Davis was born on May 26, 1926.

Resonance Records says, "American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader & composer, Miles Davis, would’ve turned 88 today. Considered one of the most influential musicians of last century, his music was at the forefront of evolving developments of jazz from bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz to jazz fusion."

Untitled Drawing #10

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #10," 2014, crayon, ink on paper, 6" x 4"

Untitled Drawing #9

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #9," 2014, crayon and ink on paper, 4" x 6".

Untitled Drawing #8

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #8," 2014, crayon on paper, 6" x 4".

Untitled Drawing #7

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #7," 2014, ink on paper, 6" x 4".

Untitled Drawing #6

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #6," 2014, ink on paper, 6" x 4".

Untitled Drawing #5

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #5," 2014, ink on paper, 6" x 4".

Untitled Drawing #4

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #4," 2014, ink on paper, 4" x 6".

Untitled Drawing #3

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #3," 2014, ink on paper, 4" x 6".

Untitled Drawing #2

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #2," 2014, ink on paper, 4" x 6".

Untitled Drawing #1

T. Renner, "Untitled Drawing #1," 2014, ink on paper, 4" x 6".

Happy Birthday to David Bowie

Happy Birthday to David Bowie who turns 66 today!


T. Renner, "Weeping Wall," 2010, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".


T. Renner, "Warszawa," 2010, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".


T. Renner, "Art Decade," 2010, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".


T. Renner, "Subterraneans, 2010, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

These four paintings were made in response to the four lyric-less pieces on David Bowie's album Low. In 2010, I had been reading Hugo Wilcken's 33 1/3 book on the making of Low and set out to try to capture some of the feeling of the songs.

Untitled

T. Renner, "Untitled," 2010, unknown on paper, 8" x 10".

Untitled (for Don Van Vliet) #2

T. Renner, "Untitled (for Don Van Vliet) #2," 2008, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 16".

Untitled (for Don Van Vliet)

T. Renner, "Untitled (for Don Van Vliet)," 2008, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 16".

Halloween

T. Renner, "Halloween," 2013, acrylic on paper, 2" x 2".

"Site 3," a short film

Site 3 from Tony Renner on Vimeo.

T. Renner, "Site," 2013, digital photograph.

Dizzy Gillespie, Sharpie Sketch

T. Renner, "Dizzy Gillespie, Sharpie Sketch," 2008, marker on paper, 8" x 10".

Steve Futterman of Life writes:

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, who would have celebrated his 96th birthday on October 21, was the very model of the modern American musical genius: a brilliant instrumentalist and stylistic innovator, he was also an extroverted performer with a wicked sense of humor.

One of the primary creators of bebop in the mid-1940s and an unparalleled trumpeter, Dizzy was a populist who wanted his music to be understood, appreciated and enjoyed. Audiences may have associated him with signature visual clues – the beret and goatee he sported in the 1940s, and the trumpet with the upturned bell he began playing in the 1950s – and adored his onstage clowning and dancing, but anyone with ears could tell how seriously he always took the music. An international star until his death on January 6, 1993 (the same day as Rudolph Nureyev), Gillespie was as fervently respected by fellow musicians, as he was beloved by generations of listeners.

A LIFE spread captured Gillespie in 1948, during bebop’s glory days. Conspicuous in his absence is Charlie Parker, the avatar of bebop, and the man whom Dizzy called “the other side of my heartbeat,” but Gillespie’s vivacious personality was far more palatable to the mainstream. To see this magnificent musician in his youth, ready to convince the world that the music he and his not-yet-understood peers were making was the sound of the future, is still a glorious thing to behold.

Small X #4

T. Renner, "Small X #4," 2013, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Small X #3

T. Renner, "Small X #3," 2013, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Small X #2

T. Renner, Small X #2, 2013, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Small X #1

T. Renner, "Small X #1," 2013, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".

Untitled

 

T. Renner, "Untitled," acrylic on photograph, 2008, 5" x 7".

9-11-11, Art Hill, St. Louis, Missouri #2

T. Renner, "9-11-11, Art Hill, St. Louis, Missouri #2," 2011, digital photograph.

Man on the Moon

T. Renner, "Man on the Moon," 2012, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".

From the New York Times, August 25, 2012:

Neil Armstrong, a quiet self-described nerdy engineer who became a global hero when he made “one giant leap for mankind” with a small step on to the moon, died Saturday at age 82.

Mr. Armstrong died after complications from cardiovascular procedures, according to a statement from his family. The statement did not say where he died. He lived in Cincinnati.

Mr. Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, capping the most daring of the 20th century’s scientific expeditions. His first words after setting foot on the surface are etched in history books and the memories of those who heard them in a live broadcast.

“That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind,” Mr. Armstrong said.

In those first moments on the moon, during the climax of heated space race with the then-Soviet Union, Mr. Armstrong stopped in what he called “a tender moment” and left a patch commemorate NASA astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who had died in action.

“It was special and memorable but it was only instantaneous because there was work to do,” he told an Australian television interviewer in 2012.

Gatsby Series

T. Renner, "Gatsby #1 (East Egg)," 2007, acrylic on canvas panel, 8" x 10".


T. Renner, "Gatsby #1," 2003, collage on paper, 4" x 6".


T. Renner, "Gatsby #2 (West Egg)," 2007, acrylic on canvas panel, 8" x 10".


T. Renner, "Gatsby #2," 2003, collage on paper, 4" x 6".

Another Green World

T. Renner, "Another Green World," 2010, acrylic on wood panel, 10.5" x 10.5".

Happy Birthday, Flannery O'Connor

T. Renner, "Flannery O'Connor," 2009, linoleum cut on paper, detail.

From the Flannery O’Connor–Andalusia Foundation, Inc. web site:

Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of Edward F. and Regina Cline O’Connor. The O’Connors lived at 207 East Charlton St. across LaFayette Square from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist where the family attended Mass. In the spring of 1938, the family moved to Atlanta where Edward O’Connor was employed as a Federal Housing Authority real estate appraiser. In 1940, the O’Connors moved to Milledgeville to live in the Cline family home on Greene Street. Mr. O’Connor died of lupus early in 1941, and Mrs. O’Connor and Flannery continued to live in the Milledgeville family home along with Flannery’s aunts. It is here that Flannery would continue to live, with a bedroom on the second floor, while she attended Peabody High School and Georgia State College for Women (now Georgia College & State University).

When Flannery O’Connor left Milledgeville in 1945 to attend the State University of Iowa, she enrolled in the Writers Workshop conducted by Paul Engle. Her thesis there comprised a collection of short stories entitled The Geranium, which would contain the seed of her first novel. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree after two years but remained in Iowa for another year before going to the Yaddo Foundation's artist colony near Saratoga Springs, New York. Afterwards she lived in New York City where she was introduced to Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, with whom she lived for over a year in Ridgefield, Connecticut. During this time she was writing her first novel Wise Blood.

In late 1950 Flannery O’Connor began to exhibit symptoms of the disease that had killed her father. Her condition forced Flannery to return to Milledgeville in 1951, but she continued working on revised drafts of the novel even while she was in the hospital. But instead of returning to the family home in town, Flannery and her mother moved to the family farm, Andalusia, where Flannery lived for thirteen years, until her death in 1964.