Sixty-Eight

Keith Richards' hands by Francesco Carrozzini

Happy Birthday to Keith Richards...

As he says at every concert, "It's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere." So play some Rolling Stones today and toast the man who will probably outlive us all.

The myth of Keith

Happy Birthday to Keith Richards...
As he says at every concert, "It's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere." So play some Rolling Stones today and toast the man who will probably outlive us all.

I have been working my way through Keith's autobiography, a hefty volume simply titled Life. As a rabid Stones fan, it is required reading to say the least. And knowing their history backwards and forwards, I wasn't expecting any groundbreaking revelations. But what did surprise me was the compelling conversational tone in which he conjures his memories.

He writes the way he sings or plays a riff. There is an unflinching honesty and directness. He offers up his entire self, down to the bone. The memories, the history, the myths, and in the end you realize something that he himself has never forgotten, that Keith is just being Keith.


Sketchbook Keith
linoprint and  hand-stitching
4.5 x 7"
(Keith always seems to appear in my sketchbooks. )

copyright Kate Castelli 2010 

Iterations

Two more iterations. Sumi ink wash on Khadi paper, 4x6"

I've spent three nights in a row listening to the Rolling Stones and doing chair studies. I loose track of time and the pile grows...

I'm thinking of doing 100.  Just because. 

I'd love to hang them all in a grid in a gallery space. Just rows and rows of chairs. I am intrigued by multiples, variations, and iterations.

copyright Kate Castelli 2010

Playing with time

Happy Birthday to Keith Richards. As he says at every concert, "It's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere."

So play some Rolling Stones today ("You've Got the Silver" from Let it Bleed is my favorite Keith track) and toast the man who will probably outlive us all.

(the quote illustrated above is from the man himself, and found in What Would Keith Richards Do?)

22

Play With Fire (I got burned) (Day 22)
pen and ink
5. x 7"
copyright Kate Castelli 2009

You got the Silver

It's one of those hot days where the whole world seems to slow down. Even the breeze is warm. I spent the afternoon listening to the Rolling Stones (it is Mick Jagger's birthday...) and drinking Orangina on my front steps. A perfectly lazy day in the city.

hand lettered sketchbook page copyright Kate Castelli 2009

The Rolling Stones

Anyone who knows me particularly well knows my love of the Rolling Stones.

I have been listening to them since I was a little kid, but it was only later in my life that I truly began to understand and appreciate what the Stones are really about. They don't apologize for who they are or who they were. They are as much a story as they are history, as much myth as they are men.

I've had the privilege of seeing these living gods of rock and roll in concert. Say what you will about their age or their habits or their history, but the moment they set foot on stage it is alchemy. You can see their souls, They become the myth of themselves, they become the music.

I've been nosebleed and I've been front row. And I can honestly say that every time I've seen them, I become utterly lost in the moment, in the music. It's not just a concert, it is a spectacle and it is beautiful moments. I remember when I saw them in Paris, after a particularly boisterous version of She Was Hot, all the lights dimmed and the big screens went dark, and Mick walked out on the catwalk with a guitar and a single spotlight. He proceeded to play a stripped down version of Waiting on a Friend that nearly brought me to tears.

I'm often asked what my favorite Stones song is. The truth is, I don't have one. I have many. I have some I love for the lyrics, some I love for the moments that they remind me of, some I fell in love with after hearing them live, some I merely loose myself in.

I know it's only rock and roll, but I like it.

But in the spirit of my frequent posting of playlists, I offer you a selection of my favorite songs (and the album you can find them on):

1. You Got the Silver Let it Bleed
2. Sway Sticky Fingers
3. Moonlight Mile Sticky Fingers
4. Slipping Away the Stripped version
5. Play With Fire Out of Our Heads
6. Sympathy for the Devil Beggar's Banquet
7. Rock's Off Exile on Main Street
8. Beast of Burden Some Girls
9. Star Star Goat's Head Soup
10. You Can't Always Get What You Want Let it Bleed
11. Wild Horses Sticky Fingers and for a gut wrenching version, Stripped
12. Dead Flowers Sticky Fingers
13. Can't You Hear Me Knocking Sticky Fingers
14. Waiting on a Friend Tattoo You
15. Ruby Tuesday Between the Buttons
16. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction Out of Our Heads
17. Ventilator Blues Exile on Main Street
18. Monkey Man Let it Bleed
19. Gimme Shelter Let it Bleed
20. Child of the Moon B-Side to Jumpin' Jack Flash

The above photographs were taken at Stade de France in Paris le 16 Juin 2007. Front Row... in Paris. I will remember until the day I die. I am one lucky girl.

It's Only Rock and Roll

I've lived my life in my own way and I'm here because I've taken the trouble to find out who I am. (Keith Richards)

Happy Birthday to Keith Richards. As the man himself says at every concert, "It's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere."

So play some Rolling Stones today ("You've Got the Silver" from Let it Bleed is my favorite Keith track) and toast the man who will probably outlive us all.

I know it's only rock and roll, but I like it.


A Guitar for Every Single Day of the Week (Except Monday)
pen and ink, sketchbook page
approx. 4.25 x 9 "

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

The impossibility of February

Why does February seem impossible? Today feels like a cup of Earl Grey tea gone cold while you were off busy doing other things. I have a Rolling Stones song stuck in my head and I am staring at a photograph my father took of two lambs in a field who are staring back at me. I think I would rather be barefoot in a field right now than feeling blank and barefoot in the studio. Too many things in my brain right now and I keep trying to tell myself to get out of my head and onto paper.

I saw this taped up in a friend's studio: "K.I.S.S = keep it simple stupid." Not very eloquent but quite true.

A soundtrack for the last week in February
1. Powerman (The Kinks)
2. Flying (The Faces)
3. She Smiled Sweetly (Billy Bragg)
4. Further On (Up the Road) Live in Dublin Version (Bruce Springsteen)
5. Whole Wide World (Wreckless Eric)
6. Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)
7. My Interpretation (MIKA)
8. Moonlight Mile (The Rolling Stones)
9. American City Suite (Cashman and West)
10. Military Madness (Graham Nash)
11. Steppin' in a Slide Zone (The Moody Blues)

Happy Birthday Keith!

"I've lived my life in my own way and I'm here because I have taken the trouble to find out who I am." -Keith Richards

The "human riff" is 64 years old today. It ought to be an international holiday. Long live Rock and Roll. And like Keith says at every concert, "It's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere!"

So play some Stones today and toast the man who will probably outlive us all.

(the above photographs were taken June 16th, 2007 at Stade de France, Paris during the Stones' final leg of A Bigger Bang world tour)

Mother's Little Helper

 

"Mother's Little Helper" Series 1963 ballpoint pen, watercolor, gouache on vintage paper 6 x 9.5 "

This is the first in a series entitled "1963". It was inspired by this stack of vintage photographs I found after my grandfather died. They are portraits taken of hotel guests in the early 1960s. They are fascinating to me in their frankness and the anonymity of the subjects. They are so awkward and candid even though they are posed.

This particular piece reminded me of the Rolling Stones' song "Mother's Little Helper" off of the album Flowers released in 1967.

I don't think of my work as collage, but it involves a layering process that is more organic. I push and pull and move elements around. I love to tear, rip, and cut up elements and rework them. Sometimes parts are far better than the whole. I try not to fall in love with anything because then I am reluctant to play with it.