Portraits of Stu Mead (with Robert Crumb in Marseille) with Pakito Bolino/lederniercri.org

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Portraits of Stu Mead -  Pam woke me up Sunday morning saying there is something you are going to like on Facebook. It was this photo of Robert Crumb (R. Crumb) looking at Men Beg the sex magazine Stu Mead and I do together in which my portrait of Stu glows out, ha so cool, very happy. In Europe I'm Stu's plus one we are forever a doubles act with Man Bag and we both do portraits. Lots of portraits boxes full. Stu asked to use this 2009 portrait again for a id photo on his various projects. It's his facebook id pic. Anyway I have nothing but respect for Mr Crumb a true legend and a great artist. Not to mention other good qualities like a healthy sexual interest persisting into old age. Inspiring the LSD generation to question authority and ask for spare change. Stu was thrilled that Crumb liked his work, it is a match made in heaven those two. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems.  That is the whole thing regards the Freudian Slip - that is to say our mind rushes ahead of our typing speed, it's like I write in black and white but my ideas are in color. Color is to painting what 3-D space is to sculpture. Color is the force in painting the whole picture is held together by color. In the print we used for the Men Beg cover it was manipulated to get the maximum hue intensity in the red and blue on Pakito's silkscreen printer. It's a more intense version of the original portrait. The portrait with the pink border is another earlier portrait of Stu Mead that is in the Collection of the Mpls. Institute of Arts painted in early 2000<?>  Young Stuart Mead in a striped shirt. This was painted when we began the Man Bag magazine together, in the dark days when Franklin Avenue was our connection. I wrote a piece about Stu Mead when I was contributing short reviews to Artpaper. I still think it's a good starting point to understanding Mead. If I wasn't so lazy I'd write some more about his portraits which are very advanced and very color filled. We have managed to keep our friendship alive all these years since Stu has lived in Berlin.Maybe the Man Bag is the glue or the inspiration between us ? It's nice to see what is going on with a project. Thanks Stu and merci Pakito Bolino