Steven Chandler Artist & Georgia Red Mud Paintings

My webpage is a bit obscure as am I.
CLICK HERE*Steven Chandler Artist & Georgia Red Mud Paintings website*
Trying to update as much as I can, I've been busy though.There are available paintings on this page from time to time.

Moving On

Some great things have happened this past couple of weeks. A break through in art and life. I have not been on this computer at all until and plan to keep it that way for the most part. Still will be checking emails from time to time.

Everything is very good.

Internet Stalker-Beware All You Artist On Ebay

As many of you all know there has been a person stalking me for 6 years now. This person bought some very small paintings from me in 2006 on Ebay and a year later around the time of my show in Chicago with the American Ruralist Movement, he started selling those small paintings one week at a time next to knock-off paintings of my inspired art, he even called them Red Mud Paintings. He was using my art that he bought to drive people to his horrible cheap knock-offs. It still continues to this day. But what most of you do not know is this person has stalked my daughter. He tried to contact her when she was 12 telling her how horrible her father was. We did notify the police in both states about this person and it is on file. But internet stalking is a new frontier and we are dealing with it. This sick minded person has also posted on message boards saying that I was currently in prison for child molestation among other horrible, criminal things he has said about me. He has created numerous fake Youtube I.D.s with titles like DieRedMud and has sent numerous fake emails to galleries and people I am friends with. The emails are always very abusive towards me. Why is this person doing this? Because I tried to stand up to this person when I caught him stealing my ideas, my inspirations, my work, my art, my identity and again, this is a sick person.

My only mistake was selling to this sick person in 2006. How could I have known? I do not know this person at all. I tried every which way to reason with this person, but you cannot do that with someone who is sick, so I just keep rolling the best I can. I have even tried to make light of it on occasion, but in the end it is not a pleasant feeling picking up a paint brush knowing you are painting for two people. It's like having a parasite in your gut,just sitting there waiting, feeding on everything you feed on.

Do understand though, there are knock-offs of my art out there and occasionally very horrible things said about me here and there.Since getting on the internet with my art in 2005 I have dealt with thousands and thousands of people. This is the only person that has been a problem. If you ever have any questions at all do not hesitate to contact me or the galleries that know me personally and represent my work. I am sure however you will see a vast difference in quality, originality & honesty in my art. There are many artist that have painted with soil including Jimmy Lee Sudduth & Henry Nuebig. Check their art out, looks nothing like mine at all.

This Georgia Red Mud Series has a unique look all it's own. It is real and I am real.

Thanks-Steven Chandler

Long John Stallion Horse-Georgia Red Mud Painting-Steven Chandler Artist

Here is a nice example of one of my own breeds of horse-The Long John. This one is a Stallion too. He can almost guarantee a win in any race because he's more than a nose ahead of the others. These Long Johns are also like a Cadillac because you can ride several people at one time on their back. I have done some paintings with quite a few figures on a long John back, but I thought this one looked just fine standing on his own. My horse paintings have evolved over the years. The old ones looked more like elephants. Now they are a cross between flat primitive folk art and classic equine portraiture.

This one was done on a piece of wood that came from my wife's IKEA bookshelf. It got destroyed in our last horrible move and she was devastated. So I reckon I'm gonna have to get her another one if this painting sells. I have also put one of my homemade primitive frames around this piece. You can reframe this without removing the frame, but it looks good and really is part of the piece. I try and do this with all my wood paintings now.

Blue Coon Hound-Georgia Red Mud painting

Here's a Blue Coon Hound howling at something. My Grandad had hounds out at his farm. They were the best burglar alarm you could have, they also kept varmits out of the garden and the chicken coup. This painting is what I call a Classic Georgia Red Mud Painting. It retains elements of what some of my first ones looked like, but this also is a good representation of the new direction from this series. It certainly has evolved over the years. I do fewer and fewer and in my eyes better and better.

Abstract Nude,Hound Dogs,Cotton,Crows & Violins-Steven Chandler Red Mud Studio #4 Small But Working

I have had this Abstract Voluptuous Nude sitting around my studios since 2009. It actually stems from a nude I did back in 1989 or so. That piece on canvas as been rolled up for years. This image as been bouncing around my head for a while, this style. Soon, I will be exploring all this in a new series, on canvas, in the small air conditioned room off the carport. That room is really the only space I can sling paint and become the gesture. It is a closet, but at least I won't destroy the carpet.

Well I am finally caught up sort of and am getting a few new series going. Along with the new work, there are some recent videos on the StevenChandlerArtist Youtube page. I really just wanted to get back to studio vlogging.

It's time like this that the other Youtube "characters" are left to stew, and for them "stewing" is good.So they aren't going anywhere.But in the meantime-WORK!

Blues For A Drink-Steven Chandler Art-June 2011

Once again, I am updating this blog since going dormant a few months ago. This is the second post since then. I will try to get caught up here through-out the week barring any household disasters, another jury duty or cars crapping out on me.

This man is playing a song for this drunk. He told the Banjo Man that if he played a certain song, he would give him a drink of his Sugar White Lightning. The Banjo Man is worried that the drunk is going to drink it all before he can finish the song, so he's playing as fast as he possibly can. Will he get his drink, or was that song played in vain? This painting gave me a heck of a time, I actually posed in my camera to get these fellows just right. There was a third figure just above the Banjo Man. This figure was smoking his pipe and observing all the action. He looked too much like my portly self, so I replaced him with a old ceiling fan. The ceiling fan has a great importance to me that goes way back four decades ago and my early discoveries of art and one of my favorite artist (JL). This painting also goes back to my first inspiration in art when I toured the Harry S. Truman Library in the 4th grade and saw all the great Benton Murals. A great deal of my foundation in art stems from Social Realism and has very little to do with what most people see as just "Folk Art". Most people think Realism is the type of art that looks like a photograph....it isn't. This was once one of my rare enamel paintings that I painted over, there are small hints of it in the painting along with the formers texture.

stevenchandlerga@yahoo.com

Butcher And The Black Snake-Georgia Red Mud Painting

First of all, I realize I have not kept up with this blog in months-not since our move from the tree house in the woods. After years of moving, it takes a few months to get settled and some things like personal blogs get sunk way down on the priority list. That being said, let me do some catch up here with some recent auctions and videos.....

The video down below explains things best. I don't know if the Butcher would have got ten feet from this thing, but this snake was surely doomed one way or another being out in a public place like a grocery store parking lot. This Butcher is trying to hack away at this big ol' snake and all the snake wants to do is get the hell out of Dodge. The real snake is safely here at Hotel Red Mud with a belly full of feeder mice.

The Help Red Mud Off The Couch Folk Art Georgia Red Mud Painter Ebay Auction

Thanks to the purchase of this painting from one of my wonderful Canadian Collectors I am now safely off the couch and not so depressed. For old time sake however I am posting the original listing and video here below. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

This painting is titled Men Throwing Daggers At Crows

ARTIST COMMENTS

You can see in the video that I am depressed. I have no studio anymore and even if I did, it would be a waste of time to do my art in there to sale because I can't paint cute little Corgi Dogs. People just don't want to buy thought provoking art, they just want to watch it. So I'm depressed about that and might be quitting selling my art on Ebay again. I'm hoping if this painting sales I might get happy. It is a very good one and priced at what most mid level artist would sale a limited print for. I think Thomas Kinkade sales his throw away prints for more than this painting. Not only that no cool band from Seattle has ever written a song about a Thomas Kinkade or a cute Corgi Dog painting. A cool Seattle band has written a song about my Throwing Daggers at Crows painting-see video below. I just can't get off the couch, buy my painting and help me get off the couch, see, If my painting sales, I'll have to get off the couch to ship it. I could get someone to pack it and ship it for me, but I have no friends and my wife is mad at me because I won't get off the couch.....I'm so depressed.

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

I am now using a new digital camera that I just got. I still have not figured out how to use it yet, but I'm getting there.I DONT KNOW THE SIZE OF THIS PAINTING,SEE VIDEO,THE MEASUING TAPE IS OUT OF MY REACH AND I CANNOT GET OFF THE COUCH, BUT IT IS AROUND 14 inches squares. It is painted with homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on masonite board. This painting is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.

Ripped Up Paintings-Ebay Art Auctions,Watchers & cute little Corgi Dogs

This painting is titled My Last Weeks Art Autions Dug From The Trash (Worthless)

ARTIST COMMENTS

No I do not have a "Buy Now" for this. These were on Ebay last week with some interesting descriptions, I think more went into the commentary of the paintings than the actual paintings, but I thought the paintings were good too and I am my own best critic.All of the auctions had their typical watchers and sympathy bids on the reserve auctions only. They probably would not have sold because they either are not any good or they were priced too high at 40 bucks. So here they are as a lot, fished from the trash. Sorry my wife threw coffee grounds on top of them not knowing they were there. Although I have had a great deal of success and noteriety as an artist, hell I even sent another painting to some folks that buy my art and they are with a major fine art museum in San Francisco, but I'm just not as good as say Ebays Corgi Dog Lady ( I won't mention her name). Rest assured she puts one of her cute little 4 inch by 4 inch corgi dogs in dresses paintings or corgis riding little bicycles or corgis by the christmas tree or corgis knitting sweaters on Ebay and people bid like mad banshees. I mean they go crazy. None of this "let me just watch this thing and see how I feel in a week" none of this, "will you take $30 for it?" None of this "will you have a Buy Now for this" even though I have listed the painting at $40 without a Buy Now.

Anywho, I do not think I will be posting anymore art at $40 dollars.Artist usually don't even sell prints for that. I would like to sell my original work for an amount that I can at least buy a weeks worth of groceries on and not have to go on Food Stamps. I lost track after 100 job applications and not one interview, but if I could get a job shoveling dung or selling shoes I would quit trying to sell my art all together. Not quit making it, I love to make it, but selling it sucks!

But to you, the Ebay Art Buyer, this could be a grand opportunity for you, a wise investment. See at just 1 measly dollar, if I get hit by a truck or shot in an alley on one of my drunken toots, you can tape these 4 paintings together and sell them separate and make a cool 4 dollars, that's a three dollar return on your one dollar investment. You probably even have some tape sitting in your junk drawer. It's a win win situation.

And so my 5 year love hate relationship with selling my original art on Ebay continues for the moment.......buy some scotch tape or elmers glue, have fun piecing these back together-you can be the artist now!

Merry Christmas

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

Ripped up paintings done on cereal boxes with added coffee ground aroma

Liberation Of Mammy & Raw Vision Magazine Visits My House & Wasted Visions

Ted Dedgener from Raw Vision Magazine came to my house in rural Georgia. Based in England, Raw Vision is one of my favorite art magazines, an expensive magazine, comes out twice a year. I told Ted I didn't think I was right for the magazine. I am not an Outsider artist, nor have I ever called myself one. Visually, my work is rough at times, raw, crude, primitive, iconic. I do have a natural heavy hand when it comes to the art making process, I feed from myself. I'm extremely critical of what I do to the point of destroying work I probably shouldn't have and wishing I could find much of my older art out there, so I can buy it back and paint over the old image. ( I have done this already-liberating too). So with that in mind maybe Raw Vision can fit me and the art on a page or two. We just won't mention my Bachelors Degree in Art. This piece of paper has opened so many doors for me including being on Welfare Food Stamps off and on for the last fifteen years and never being able to fully explain to galleries why my work is too educated to be Folk and too Folk to be educated. Regardless, it is nice to be noticed.


By the way, if you call yourself an Outsider Artist, you're not a fucking Outsider Artist!



Maybe there is a magazine out there for educated artist that have had nothing but shit bad luck, crappy jobs, can't stand society and are poor as hell yet keep making their art. No, that magazine, if it is out there, didn't come to the house I was renting or the single bedroom garage apartment I'm living in now. They are welcome though,anytime.

We had a good time. I showed him work that hasn't been seen since I got my first computer and got on the net in 2005. I showed him art going back twenty plus years. He viewed very personal work laid out on my lawn that I didn't want to show. I just felt he needed my history I guess. It was old art that I have dragged around. My art history. It was not the work that got me somewhat known now. It was important work however, sentimental images done when we were really, really poor-digging in the dumpsters for bread poor. I never stopped making art. I don't know if it meant anything to Ted or the magazine, I don't really care, it's nice to be noticed though.



The Liberation of Mammy has been in our life forever and goes way back with feelings of dealing with my racist ancestors and the South in general, after I came to live here from California long years ago. When the painting exhibited at U.G.A it opened the same night a Spike Lee Peabody Award winning actor was speaking right next door. My comment book was an interesting read. The comments about Mammy really made me wonder if I should have had an artist statement solely about that painting, rather than the more generalized statement required to get the $400 payoff. It was a show offered by the University to local artist to help broaden the cultural sensibilities of the student. It was a paid show and I won a monthly slot by jury. I never do these juried things, but this was not a group show and 400 bucks is 400 bucks. It was enough loot to pay some bills and record some of my grungy folk songs at a real studio for an hour.

Besides, why do I need to explain the painting-Fuck Them!

One day, I'll show the painting again, somewhere. In the end though, this video says a lot to me about my whole life as an artist. Someone finally starts to listen and the fucking traffic drowns it all out and it wasn't even something I wanted to talk about in the first place. All my best work that has gotten me recognition is someplace else, sold for chump change to pay my power bill or buy groceries. All my best work is the work I'm doing right now.

Afterwards we went out for beer and pizza.

Michael Vick With Angel Wings-Another Georgia Red Mud ESPN Rage Painting

This painting is titled Michael Vick With Angel Wings

(THIS PAINTING WAS RIPPED UP ON NOVEMBER 28 2010)

ARTIST COMMENTS

I created the painting Michael Vick Rides Barbaro in 2007. I was pissed at ESPN jabbering about dog fighting, never ever mentioning other sports involving gambling & cruelty like horse racing, dog sledding and dog racing. Seems like, if I remember right, watching Stuart Scott or one of them, smoothly segwaying from Vick and the Pitbulls right on into the Queen's attire at the the Kentucky Derby. You can Google Michael Vick Rides Barbaro and maybe find the Deadspin (TMZ Style?) Sport News site that covered my painting or the crazy Barbaro horse lady attacks from The Alex Brown Horse Racing Forum. A video about that painting is still in the works. Last week when Vick was running and throwing all over the Redskins with his new team the Eagles, I was watching and rooting for him. I love redemption, salvation, triumph, glory in sports, it's so...Gloryific!

Now before you Angel Lovers go and get your pants in a bunch and start attacking me on some Angel Lovin' Forum, Vick paid his dept to society, both human and canine should be satisfied now.Sure Vick will keep paying for the rest of his life, but if God can forgive him so can't we all? And don't forget God spelled backwards is Dog....

Think about it like Trent Dilfer and Mark Schlereth has. They're not just professional football score predictors, they're former players,I think.

Can't we all just get along?

Lets all hold hands now and watch sports history in the making-The feel good story of the year too!

At the time of the game, between Built Ford Tough, 24 Hour Erectile Dysfunction miracle pills, bitchy Miller Beer Bartender Chicks and Domino's ( garlic salt will save the company) commercials, I was also surfing Youtube and at the very same time found the video below. This lady, Teri Franks, the CEO of Fine Art Registry was one of the people who stood by my side in cyberspace when I was being attacked by thousands of narrow-minded horse people back in '07. I'm sure there is some open-minded horse people, you all please don't be offended. Teri just won a big lawsuit with one of the largest galleries in the world selling fake Salvador Dali's on cruise ship auctions. She don't mess around. It was cool to see her here with the original Vick Rides Barbaro.

So here is Michael Vick With Angel Wings. It's funny hearing the showers of praise and glory, the almighty worship and anointment from the same sportscaster jabberheads that were crucifying Vick not long ago.My question is, when is the Nike Shoe with little Vick Angels Wings coming? I am planning a very large version of this painting, if I can get a studio to work in. At the moment, my only place to make art is at this desk in front of , you guessed it-ESPN.

If this Folk Art Painting does not meet its reserve of $125, I will relist it at a new Contemporary Art price of $1500. Why? Because I'm giving up Folk Art and will be practicing as a full time Contemporary Artist from here on out. Of course you all know the difference between the two.

Oh what the hell, here's some links, well the Deadspin one at least, save you the trip over to the Google. Enjoy the comment, some of them were quite funny, and true.

http://deadspin.com/297170/just-two-hours-left-to-buy-great-art


And it seems the Alex Brown Forum is hiding, no worries I'll post all the comments here when I fire up the old desk top tomorrow-got all the comments & I.D.'s saved and they are one helluva read.

(THIS PAINTING WAS RIPPED UP ON NOVEMBER 28 2010)

Ebay Black Folk Art Style Section,Stupid Hippy Folk Fair Art & Another Hewell Bowl With Apples-Fine Art I tell ya!

This painting is titled Hewell Bowl With Apples

(THIS PAINTING WAS RIPPED UP ON NOVEMBER 28 2010)

ARTIST COMMENTS

Here's a fine art painting with mud paint in the manner of Cezanne listed in the Black Folk Art Style section of Ebay and there ain't a dang thing you can do about it. Or does Black Folk Art have to do with my skin color? If that's the case, then where is the White Folk Art Section? The Asian Folk Art section? The Jewish Folk Art Section? The Middle Eastern Folk Art Section? The Gay Folk Art Section? The Straight Folk Art Section? And so on and so forth. Or is it because I paint Black People? Well if you all really want to know, black ain't a color. It's a shade of light and my Black People and my White People are the same color. Also I don't sell my art at Flea Markets or Swap Meets or Folky Art Fair Festivals because I'm above that, I don't sell there because it's a stupid place to sale art. Some might argue that so is Ebay. Well, I have never seen an artist at an art fair in his underwear sucking down Main Moon Chinese while watching the game on Fox.That's Sunday Ebay Art Listing Day in my house and beats any loud hippy clown art fair or brick and mortar gallery on Earth. Stay tuned a few more original works (that most artist won't even sell prints for this price this size) will be posted this week, then I'm listing some paintings that will surely be the death of me and my art career. Or a new life far removed from this.

Yeah this is and will be was, another Ebay listing or should I say the real weekly blog. I want to try and be more of a blogger here like George's ChickenDeadChicken. I know people might find this site here randomly, by accident.I don't plug this shit like one of those commercial festival fair "Go Getter" artist do. You know the ones, always plugging a show, always trying to look busy, important, in demand, yet you never see them selling much or for much. You never see there work move in a low to mid level auction house.But they know how to link and network and be visible. A couple artist I know of are like this, but I won't mention they're names, they seem like nice people and probably not sleazy enough to be white and list in the Black Folk Art Section on Ebay. But you got to do what you got to do. I eat Chinese Food, yell at sportscenter and think more and more about giving up artist and becoming a critic.Do I really need Grad School for that? The thought of having to agree with some lifer college professor just to move through the course makes me want to shave my head and chant. A good critic though is like a good tube amp tech.Guitarist must have them-MUST! They babble and make you feel like Helen Keller, but they make you better if you listen to them-really listen to them. I don't really see this site as anything other than a place to archive my Ebay listings, but that might change. Man cannot live on Ebay alone....

Miss Hog Jaw-Steven Chandler-Georgia Red Mud Painting

This painting is titled Miss Hog Jaw

ARTIST COMMENTS

(THIS PAINTING WAS RIPPED UP ON NOVEMBER 28 2010)

Miss Hog Jaw's real name was Miss Hershaw. She was a substitute teacher back in high school out in California where I spent a good deal of my life. When she subbed a class, the whole school knew about it by second period. "Miss Hog Jaw" as the kids called her was nearly 7 feet tall. She had big feet and my buddy Pee Wee called them the Roach Stompers.She always wore big collared blouse's and bell bottom pantsuits with high heeled shoes that could crush a babies skull. The kids drove Miss Hog Jaw crazy, but she was tough. See she was an African American woman that also served in the military-she was a female Army Paratrooper and Drill Sargent we were told. She would dish it right back at you and would stare you down. I remember one day some stoner kid asked Miss Hog Jaw if she smoked and she responded " on a cold day". The stoner kid didn't get it. Years later I ran into Miss Hershaw at the drug store. I told her that I remembered her from school. She looked at me and said she didn't remember me and stated, "you must have been a good one". Stay tuned a few more original works (that most artist won't even sell prints for this price this size) will be posted this week, then I'm listing some paintings that will surely be the death me and my art career. Or a new life far removed from this.Originally posted as most everything else here, on Ebay.

Georgia Red Mud Painting New Auction Record

This painting is titled Cottonmouth Colie & The Rattlesnake Joes

ARTIST COMMENTS

This one holds the new record at $2100 and has a new home in the Philadelphia area!

Back a few weeks ago I listed a small painting similar to this that is now at it's new home up in the Great White North. In that painting our middle figure was a religious man hoping his two men of accompaniment would be converted from the lowly ways and the music they played and become saved (see my blog for the full description of that painting). The two banjo players had other intentions of the saintly singer following them down the old dirt road to the dark side of life. Well here we have it. The conversion has happened, Cottonmouth Colie is born. He's singing and blowing his harp and looking towards the heavens and the two men are playing away hoping he will stay.

This painting was a tough one, just no other way to put it. I can't get into details, but lets just say my hands are not moving very well at the moment. There is allot of texture and wood grain in the blacks-an effect I was striving for. I just can't capture it fully in these photos and might add some more later. I need a new digital camera. I have been using the same one since 2004. It is also the same camera I shoot my videos with.

Watkinsville Georgia Cost Too Much-Georgia Red Mud Painter Is Moving

This painting is titled Man Riding A Pig

ARTIST COMMENTS

Well folks this is it for a while. We are moving. It is all the sudden and unexpected, but knew it would happen at some point. I have been tearing down my studio and found this painting sandwiched in some foam core. I did it in 2006 when I first moved into this old house. It was like a sign. I was not planning on listing anything, but this painting sort of represents what I feel like right now-A man trying to get somewhere on an old stubborn pig that does not want to move. The man coaxes the pig with corn, but he ain't moving till his picture is done being painted.

I have worked very hard on my art & videos over the years and my wife has worked hard as well at her job. All her money goes to rent, lining the pockets of a realty company and all mine goes to lining the over inflated salaries of local public works commissioners and grocery chains.We live month to month literally. The cost of living here is high, but we struggle to keep our daughter in a good school district where she will have a chance in life. Most of the districts in this state are horrible.

But we found a nice hole in the woods,very small, and will be moving there this month to hopefully save money so we can eat and live half way normal. It is at the point here where we are looking at homelessness in a month or so. The hole will be small, one bedroom, but lots of critters to paint. I don't know when I will be able to do auction style listings of my small works. I have moved all my life being an Air Force kid. Also, since 1994 we have moved 15 times from South Carolina to California to Georgia. I know most of these times it throws my art making off and at one point I didn't lift a brush for three years. I am positive that won't happen this time, but I might be layed up after this move. My daughter starts school this week, my wife starts back to her teaching this week and so the move is all on Red Mud's already ailing back. If I do survive, I will need a while to lick my wounds, but I will most likely leave my Buy Now's up if I can.

So with that being said, here's your chance not only to get my last auction in a while, but also an early painting. I doubt I'll ever have another from 2006 available here. My how my look has evolved compared to this and my latest Buy Nows....a bit "folkier" than what I am doing now, but that's OK with me. It is also a rare one because it's on canvasboard and I don't paint on that anymore.

I will also try and make a final video here in my Red Mud Room and post it on one of my Youtube pages and maybe here at the bottom if this auction is still up. BYE EVERYBODY!

Obama Fireman-Georgia Red Mud Painting-Primitive Contemporary Folk Art

This painting is titled Obama Fireman

ARTIST COMMENTS

I approached this painting with just an image in my head of a fireman puffing away, no particular person in mind. The making of art is sometimes blind, an adventure into the unknown and the reason used to start out is not always the reason that ends the piece.You discover it along the way or realize it at the end why you did this thing you did and you sit and wonder. If you know this as an artist, then you will never stop making it whether you are trying to sell it or not. It's the big secret and the big curse, like they say going to war, once you go in you can never get out again fully. I look now at who I painted and have drawn my own conclusions. I would elaborate, but like the time I painted Micheal Vick Riding Barbaro, my explanation would most likely get misunderstood anyway and I would hate to have 5000 Liberals or 5000 Conservative after me as did the Crazy Horse Ladies. So if you made it this far into the "Artist Statement", why do you think Obama is here-a Fireman, in a Georgia Red Mud Vortex? Or is it a curtain call? Or is he watching something burn to the ground, hopeless? Or is there fires being put out? Maybe it is something else? Surely it is. Your explanation is the only important one anyway. Not mine.

On another note, my brain is a bit fried trying to research a rare blues photograph I have found and reading allot and not painting. I realized after communicating with a few well known " blues scholars" that my approach to everything I do is primitive even in communicating in text. Maybe too personable, too out going I am when approaching people about an interest, maybe too eager to explain way too much. I should just be like everyone else and be guarded. I think everyone is like me and ready and willing to open up, but I forget most of the world consist of pack dogs and people in little groups and shifty-eyes that only care about one thing....and it makes me hate everybody. Anyway, here I go again....

Preacher & The Bluesmen-Georgia Red Mud Painting

This painting is titled Preacher & The Bluesmen

ARTIST COMMENTS

This is a street preacher. He wanted to get down to the railroad tracks that run through the middle of town and holler a sermon to the cars passing by. He saw two Bluesmen playing on the street and he thought these two would sound good playing hymns while he preached. Plus, in the back of the preachers mind he thought he might could just save these two souls from the evil blues and gain two gospel musicians at the same time.

As I looked at this painting and finished it, I noticed something going on. Preachers aint supposed to smoke, but he has one dangling from his lip as he pounds out the Word. Now who do you suppose is winning in this battle of the souls? Those Bluesmen might just have a singer soon enough.

I am currently working on a very large similar painting to this that is actually the follow up to the Banjo Rattlesnake Joe's that is in the photo down below. However, this painting is a little different in terms of the storyline, an off-shoot so to speak.

Dave The Slave,Bill Traylor,Thomas Chandler Jug-Georgia Red Mud Painting

This painting is titled Dave Slave, Traylor, Chandler Jar

ARTIST COMMENTS

*I'M NOT DOING THESE ANYMORE,THE 5 OR SO THAT ARE OUT THERE IS IT!

I have done some paintings like this before and they are based in part on southern pottery from the Edgefield District of South Carolina. My family is from right there where all this was made back in the early 1800’s. I still have cousins living right there at Phoenix/Greenwood and the Kerksey Crossroads and there are spots where old shards of pottery still lay on the ground long before the Civil War. In fact Thomas Chandler, one of the founders of this pottery, may be my Great uncle times 4. Thomas Chandler pottery sometimes has figures on them. To me most of the well-known mid twentieth century outsider artist Bill Traylor‘s art looks similar to Thomas Chandler pottery. I‘m not sure if Chandler did these paintings or were they done by slaves or maybe he trained them. But Thomas Chandler died in 1850? A few years before Traylor was even born. So when people say to me “Your work sort of reminds me of Bill Traylor” I just say, “ Oh Bill Traylor, he was ripping off my Great, Great, Great ,Great Uncle.” So there! And then they look at me as if I had kitty cats growing on my shoulders.

All art scholarly jabbing aside black figures on jugs have their origins going back to England I’m sure and to Egyptian art and beyond. Chandler also trained Dave The Slave. As for me, if you don’t know, I have many influences-Black Folk Art, American Social Realism, Egyptian, Prehistoric even Pop Art. The first art we are all exposed to as kids is what? Those little black silhouettes of your profile you take home to mommie, that was probably done by some artist who has no idea they are plagiarizing Thomas Chandler-HAHA.

I exhibit my Georgia Red Mud Paintings and drawings with a pottery dealer at Atlanta’s Slotin Folk Fest every summer. I can honestly say I am one of the few artist out there that can say I have exhibited with Dave The Slave. I like that more than anything. Dave was a fascinating man. A slave who wrote poems on his pots, when slaves were not allowed to read and write. The first rebellious American artist in my book-Dave The Slave.

Since the pottery people found me I have learned a good bit about this area of art and collecting and learned about my family as well. This particular painting is of a jar, that I will say was used to store apricots in so they could make apricot brandy and be just like the fine gentleman that is strolling along on the front. I am currently working on three commissions for the primitive stoneware dealer that exhibits at Slotin Folk Fest. He will have his pottery there and my paintings as well this August. He is the only pottery dealer there with the old stuff. Let me know if you are going and I will tell you his name.

As the picture shows below, this work looks good with any pottery collection. My old jugs date from the mid to late 1800's I'm told.

Libba With A Prewar Martin-Georgia Red Mud Painting

This painting is titled Libba with a Prewar Martin

ARTIST COMMENTS

I have been giving a good bit of thought to a particular lady lately and I think she came out in this painting. I can't figure out if she was happy or sad, mad or oblivious to everything around her. In this painting I had the first idea of a stage, but now I'm not sure. Maybe she's in a doorway? Is she getting ready to go in or come out? Perhaps she's standing guard and only the right kind of person can come in. I know this is one of my best paintings, not just in the Georgia Red Mud Series, but in anything I've done since making art knee high to a duck.

If this was in a city gallery it would be valued much higher and since a larger work of mine at this quality went recently at $2000, this piece is valued very relevant to that. By the way I used my old Martin 00-18 as a model for this painting. It aint no Prewar Martin though, I wish!

Man On A Cat Hous-Georgia Red Mud Painting

This painting is titled Man On A Cat House

ARTIST COMMENTS

Below here is what I typically put on my Ebay listings. Before Blogger. Ebay was my only blog...

Many many times as my Granddad was “carrying me” out to the family South Carolina Farm to do work, he would point at someplace and tell me a little story about it. Every now and then he would point at someplace and say that was a Cat House years ago. What was a Cat House you ask? Well the red light on the porch of this painting should tell you that. No, it didn’t have cats in it. It had ladies and for the right price they would show you a good time. This fellow is up on the roof up to no good and raising Cain.

I remember back in the mid 1980’s me and my buddy went downhill skateboarding one night in the small coastal town of Lompoc California where I spent a good deal of my life. Think of any town in a John Steinbeck Novel and this is the place, still pretty much is to this day.

Well. that night we ended up at The Dickerson Apartments, not too far from the bowling alley in the film The Big Lebowski. A party was there but we had never been to the place-a plain jane four story yellow cinderblock building. I remember some rather large older lady chasing me down the halls, saying. “Come to Mama, you little cutie pie,” while some other ladies were rolling around half naked down the halls on our skateboards. We were just dumb teenagers and thought this was just some great crazy party building. It wasn’t till a few days later, we found out what that place really was-A CAT HOUSE!.
The big gal never caught me though, thank goodness.

If this was in a city gallery it would be priced much higher than this opening bid, but the thought of going in a gallery and trying to explain myself and my work and that I‘ve been doing pretty damn well without that gallery gracing my presence, makes me just want to jump off a cliff. I‘d rather go shopping for socks at Wal-Mart in the middle of July on a Sunday in the South.

I went to Atlanta recently to some posh galleries and the small work there by people I had never heard of before was in the thousands and it all looked like the same old boring splatters of paint that have been around since the late 1940’s when artist were trying to out Picasso each other. Either that or it was just some other Contemporary-Trying-To-Be-Over-Your-Head forgetful image. If you have been in one of these galleries, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I would like to be repped by the right gallery so I could have more time with the making and not the selling, but I don’t approach galleries, they have to come to me.

Since a larger work of mine went recently at $2000, I have a tendency to cringe when I put up a piece, even small, at an opening bid of 50 bucks. If you think that sounds pompous. I have met many a artist who don‘t sell their work, complain about it, but think they are too good for Ebay. When I say I do quite well on Ebay, they roll their eyes and look at me like I‘m a ditch digger. I have art all over the world now, they don’t. Thanks Ebay!

So with that in mind, if this doesn‘t get a bid I have the option to raise the opening bid if I start thinking about all this too much during the week. If you think selling your own art online is easy, it aint. If you get an emotion by looking at a work of art, think of the emotion the artist gets feeling like he‘s fishing in a little pond with his best bait not knowing if the pond even has any fish in it….So that being said, keep an eye out for RANDOM NO BID INFLATION!

Nashville Flood Georgia Red Mud Horse Painting & A French Trotter

There are two interesting videos I made below about one of my old Red Mud Horse Paintings that was about destroyed in the Nashville Floods. Watch them, they are interesting. While restoring that painting I really saw how my work has changed over the years, this Georgia Red Mud Series has evolved just as I knew it would. So in light of this I decided to produce a couple new Horses. This is a proud French Trotter, a special breed and the first one I have done. I do have a Horse Georgia Red Mud Painting in Normandy France. It was given to a French WW2 historian while my wife stayed there last summer researching where her Granddad was killed in WW2. The historian had his farm horse Favari stolen by the NAZIS. He tells about it in a book he wrote, so anyway, I made him a Georgia Red Mud Painting of his stolen horse.

Man In A Snake Pit-Georgia Red Mud Painter-Steven Chandler

This painting is titled Man In A Snake Pit

ARTIST COMMENTS

This man is in a snake pit. He does not look like he's having the time of his life. I took this painting down along with several other drawings that I had on Ebay. It all gets in quite a few watch lists and most of the time sells, but after a bad late night outing, seeing all this personal work up for people to pick and choose over and decide if they like or not, well, that thought just pissed me off and I took them all down.
Selling your own art,personal art, is hard. It's just hard sometimes not to mention the complete waste of a day or so it took to photograph the work, get it ready on the computer, image host sites and get it all listed. That alone takes a ton of time...yeah, just thinking about it is getting me worked-up again. Better just end this blog post now before my hands catch on fire.

I think the name of the game is, if you are at all interested in anything you see me list or put on my website, then bid or get it. All of this, as I have mentioned before, is just an extension of my living room art studio and nothing is safe until ownership changes.

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

The painting is unframed.It measures 11 x 14 inches. It is painted with homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on archival quality matboard. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat

Murder Of Crows In A Dead Magnolia-Georgia Red Mud Painting-Steven Chandler

This painting is titled Murder Of Crows In A Dead Magnolia

ARTIST COMMENTS

An older larger version of this painting with blue crows just sold at the latest Slotin Masterpiece Auction in Atlanta. You can see photos of the catalog below. I had done this small version on wood a few weeks before finding out that the larger version was in the auction. I was going to list this piece sooner, but I didn't want to compete with my own work-That just aint' right! So here is this smaller one. I think this is the smallest one on wood I have done. This is also the subject of my largest Georgia Red Mud Painting- four feet by four feet. The first one sold to a man that drove all the way down from Nashville to get it. I did two that size and recently broke the other largest version into three pieces. I have done probably around six of these paintings and they tell the story of my house at times. I have a large magnolia tree in my yard and sometimes all the peace and quiet is broken by a large murder of crows that settles in the big tree. Their noise sounds like World War Three is coming. Then , just like that, they are gone and there is peace and quiet again.



PAINTING DESCRIPTION

The painting is framed in a homemade frame, but can be placed in another frame if needed without removing the existing frame. This painting measures 12 x 13 inches. It is painted with homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on 3/4 inch thick wood. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.

Drunk Preachers On A Blue Law Horse-Georgia Red Mud Painting

This painting is titled Drunk Preachers On A Blue Law Horse

ARTIST COMMENTS

These preachers are up to no good.They got drunk and realized they were late for church.So they are trying to get there, but the horse don't drink and drive. We still have Blue Laws down here, meaning you can't buy alcohol on Sundays. It sure would help the economy if they could sell it everyday. This is a classic Georgia Red Mud Painting.

This one sold to Michigan



PAINTING DESCRIPTION

This painting measures 24 x 24 inches. It is painted with homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on 3/4 inch thick wood. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.

Art Plagiarism And Down Right Stealing-Artist Beware

It's one thing to be inspired by or influenced by another artist. But the above images did not spew from inspiration. These low down dirt bags saw a little success from an artist and dollar signs lit up in their eyes. The first image shows the original on the left and on the right the near exact stencil found while shooting a video at a Northeast Georgia Folk Art Gallery. When I first drove up to the gallery, who had recently purchased some of my best work, I noticed quite a few works by the artist known as Cornbread. When I saw a different name on these paintings I was floored. At one point I went to the bathroom that was full of folk art and very commercial folk art hand bags by this so-called artist. The handbags mirrored all the art he was gleaning from. That is where I discovered the goat. The goat that mentioned in my videos regarding this subject and very much the goat that was purchased by Graves Country Gallery a few years ago from myself.
As for the exact footage of the bathroom video, I have not posted it yet. I was making a video for this gallery to help give them some more exposure. This discovery of the plagiarized goat was by the same person who was also discovered calling himself the 5Th member of The American Ruralist Movement. This is the same person who is also a founding member of a popular Folk Festival Group.
The other photo below, borrowed from another blog, shows another person who has been doing this to me and some other artist for a few years now.Befor that he was selling toy trains and teddy bears on Ebay. More about that can be read about on the post below this one and you can email me if you want more exhausting information on this subject. Really no need to spend much time on these losers, but I thought I would mention them here so other artist can be aware of what goes on when you start posting your ideas on the net. This guy below even had work, gleaned from me on a site that makes pillow case stenciles! Sick!

Letter to the Slotin Folk Fest Chicory Blog-Steven Chandler-Georgia Red Mud Painter

Photo of Steven Chandler with Airplane Sculpture, Vandenberg Air Force Base California-1974


Hey Chicory,

Be careful showing your work on the net! (ebay, blogs, you tube, whatever)
I had some small paintings bought from me in 2006 on Ebay where I sometimes auction small work. A year later following a show in Chicago I had with 4 other artist, that got a tiny bit of notoriety, the guy that bought the small paintings, saw this notoriety and posted my very small baseball card sized work on Ebay, one at a time, along with his very bad Knock-Offs. He was using my Red Mud name and the look of my art, even tried to style his Ebay listings after mine. He turned into a out-right stalker who has even tried to contact my 12 year old daughter to say horrible things about her Dad. You can email the CEO of Fine Arts Registry and a few other people/galleries who have been following this to learn more about it, just let me know.

Also, at the same time the American Ruralist Movement Show was happening in Chicago (a group of 4 artist including myself) another person who has since plagiarized my work and other artist as well (see my Youtube videos about that), well, he decided that he was just going to start calling himself the 5th member of the group and this guy is a founding member of a fairly large Folk Art Festival Group. He proudly stated him being in The American Ruralist Movement on his personal webpage and then tried to deny he was responsible for it.

The American Ruralist name was created in my living room with Artist Dolan Geiman and it consisted of Harry Underwood and George Zupp as well. We just wanted to have a like-minded show and didn’t fit into some of the larger clicky “commercial-art minded” groups that you see around at these festivals. We had a show in downtown Chicago at the Chicago City Arts Gallery, we just wanted to have a dang show….
Chicory, just beware of sleezeballs. They troll around the net gleaning real artist ideas, and if they see you paying a power bill with your good fortune, they will pounce. I even saw one or two at Folkfest who wouldn’t give me air in a jug 5 years ago.

You met me at Folk Fest. I could have talked about art all night long, my history , art history. I have made art ever since I can walk and have only had 5 years now to show it on the net when I got my first computer in ‘05. But I have photos of me going back to the 1970’s when I was a kid, deaf as a bat, and building large airplane sculptures in my backyard. I have always been an artist even before I could read and write-poor-destitute and just getting by. Very good things have happened to me and my art since getting on the net. I have art all over the world now, with some museum people, great art collectors, galleries, even had Raw Vision Magazine come to the house. But I know a thing or two to watch out for.

Anyone can email me and I will tell you like it is. By the way, there is a gadget you can put on your blog to see the I.P's of anyone that goes on it, Chicory, let me know if you want it. The above negative comment regarding me has the tell-tale signs of someone I am unfortunately very familiar with
Thanks again for the great article.

Steven Chandler,
The Georgia Red Mud Painter


In Response to this comment on the Chicory Blog:

Anonymous said...
Ken Showed on his web sigh the goat he used for his painting and that it was not Chandlers goat. Chandler has accused severial artist of copying his art which is BS. He is insecure as he has copied others ideas for years. Throw back to the primitive artist?
Please. He is a schooled artist that couldn`t make it in te real art world

5/17/2010 1:04 PM

OH REALLY? As I remember he had a lame photo of a goat taken from Google images that looked nothing like what he did. I think the photo below shows where this asshole really got his goat.



http://chickory.blogspot.com/2009/08/folk-fest-2009.html

My Opponent Sarah Palin-Georgia Red Mud Painting-Steven Chandler

This painting is titled My Opponent-Sarah Palin

ARTIST COMMENTS

This lady is in the news so much and I don't really understand why. So I painted her with a red mud beehive hairdo. She always uses the phrase " My Opponent". Does she fight with everyone? So I wrote that at the top of the painting. She's not just my opponent, she's everyone's opponent. She's the People's Opponent. She is Pop Culture, but is Pop Culture ever really important...it will come, just wait, a few years from now, the only time you will see Sarah Palin is on some show like VH1 Remember Those Crazy 2000's.....Remember Ross Perot?

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

The painting is unframed.It measures 6 x 21 inches. It is painted with homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on archival quality matboard. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.

Georgia Red Mud Painter Returns To Youtube!

After much debate, fits and tantrums, it has been decided that Red Mud and all his video antics will return to his old stomping grounds of Youtube. Keep an eye out for some of the classic Folk Art Duel Videos and new ones to come.

Catfish Tires-Georgia Red Mud Painting-Steven Chandler

This painting is titled Catfish Tires

ARTIST COMMENTS

This is a long painting on thick wood. Back years ago when I would help my Granddad on his South Carolina farm, we would hang old tires off the lake to catch catfish. The catfish would swim in these special holes we would cut in the tires.There they would spawn and we would use those baby catfish to stock the farm ponds. We also had freezers full of catfish for fry's and stews. There was nothing better than my Granddads catfish stew. well, he made pretty darn good country ham and sausage as well. This is a Classic Georgia Red Mud Painting. I have done a few Catfish Tires paintings over the years, this is the largest.


PAINTING DESCRIPTION

This painting measures 11 1/4 x 47 1/2 inches. It is painted with Georgia Red Mud Paint TM, artist paint and other media on a piece of wood board. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.

Can Man-Steven Chandler Artist-Georgia Red Mud Painter

This painting is titled Can Man

ARTIST COMMENTS

This is a painting of one of the Can Men who would always show up at my house after a big party.I never had to worry about all the cans in my yard after one of my happenings, because by daylight, the cans would be picked clean. This is a rare offering of a work on canvas. I usually don't paint on canvas.


PAINTING DESCRIPTION

This painting measures 16 x 20 inches. It is painted with artist paint and other media on a piece of stretched canvas. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat. Stevenchandlerga@yahoo.com

Blue Horse-Steven Chandler Artist-Georgia Red Mud Painter

This painting is titled Blue Horse

ARTIST COMMENTS

Here is a Blue Horse, sneaking around at night trying to find a garden to nibble in.

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

This painting measures 24 x 24 inches. It is painted with homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on 3/4 inch thick wood. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.stevenchandlerga@yahoo.com

Golden Palomino-Steven Chandler Artist-Georgia Red Mud Painter

This painting is titled Golden Palomino

ARTIST COMMENTS

One of the best horses I've done and it's all Red Mud.

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

The painting is unframed. This painting measures 24 x 24.It is painted with Georgia Red Mud Paint TM, artist paint and other media on wood board with a hanger attached. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat. stevenchandlerga@yahoo.com

Snake Jug Dilemma 2-Steven Chandler Artist-Georgia Red Mud Painter

This painting is titled Snake Jug Dilemma 2

ARTIST COMMENTS

A while back I sold Snake Jug Dilemma (you can see it in the collector photo collage on the main page of my webpage).That painting sort of started this new series that I have wanted to do more on. I also wanted to continue the dilemma, where the man has a choice-fight the snake but lose the jug of prized hooch or drink the hooch and die a happy man. From the look of this painting things are lighting-up. I also built one of my homemade frames around it and it is ready to hang. This is a new direction in my work, or an off-shoot. The genuine red mud paint that I make is in the snake, a part of the piece but not it's main focus.


PAINTING DESCRIPTION

The painting is framed. This painting measures 24 x 24 inches. It is painted with Georgia Red Mud Paint TM, artist paint and other media on a piece of 1/2 inch wood. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.

Old School Nurse-Steven Chandler Artist-Georgia Red Mud Painter

This painting is titled Old School Nurse

ARTIST COMMENTS

I did an Old School Nurse for a daughter of a friend who was in nursing school.That small painting started a series that is still going.This is one of the larger versions I have done.She looks very Romanesque to me.

PAINTING DESCRIPTION

This painting measures 24 x 24 inches. It is painted with Homemade Georgia Red Mud Paint, Artist Paint and other media on 3/4 inch thick wood. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat. stevenchandlerga@yahoo.com

Downer Cow-Steven Chandler Artist-Georgia Red Mud Painter

This painting is titled Downer Cow

ARTIST COMMENTS

This large painting on wood was once a Georgia Red Mud Painting that I painted over.Some of the Red Mud Paint is showing through in spots, so I call these Dead Red Mud Paintings. This painting is raw, primitive and has a great deal of texture. This is a Downer Cow. Downer animals are livestock that are unable to walk usually because they are sick. They are not supposed to slaughter these animals for food, but I heard some of these cows got into public school lunches because the USDA was not doing their job. If it is true, then that is truly shameful.


PAINTING DESCRIPTION

This painting measures 24 x 48 inches. It is painted with Georgia Red Mud Paint TM, artist paint and other media on a piece of wood board. It is signed and dated on the front and is signed titled and dated on the back. All of Steven's work when needed is sealed with several layers of high quality clearcoat.stevenchandlerga@yahoo.com