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Feminine Millennial Identity: Lala and Britney

25 Sep
Painting by Lala Drona depicting a woman's head being shaved.  One half of the face is Lala Drona, the other half is Britney Spears after shaving her head.
Shaved, 2021, Acrylic on Canvas, 50cm x 61cm

Lala Drona taps into the feminine millennial psyche with your newest painting “Shave.”  (displayed above) 

Painting "Encounter" by Lala Drona.  Part of the void series.
“Encounter” void painting by Lala Drona

Following her previous series where she depicted the journey into “the void” she begins to discover the influences that have played a part in the construction of feminine millennial identity.  With its black background, one could presume that we have crossed over, and entered the void referenced in the former series.  From inside the void, the first image that emerges is one of a face split in half:  One side is Lala Drona, sporting her iconic sunglasses, and the other side is that of Britney Spears.  The image of Lala was taken from her short video “Jailbird for muse abuse,” where the artist’s head is shaved before she enters Paris Art Prison after being convicted of Muse Abuse.  Juxtaposed is the infamous image of Britney Spears’s, taken by the paparazzi when she escaped from her Pop princess keepers, and shaved her own head in 2007.

Every Woman Shaved by Lala Drona.  Mirror box installation with Britney Spears and Lala Drona.

In an interview with Jay Lewis in Artleads Magazine, Lala Drona explains that she chose to paint a half-Lala, half-Britney painting in so that the images could be revealed with her “Every Woman” mirror box contraption.  Once the painting is put on the mirror box, you can see each side of the face reflected, which creates the illusion of complete and separate people (complete Britney, complete Lala). “I chose Britney for this piece after considering the references I had of women shaving their head before I had shaved my head for the first time.  I was surprised that although the media presented Britney as hysterical, I remembered this moment as her expressing agency over her own body.  I saw strength in the wild look in her eyes.  I wanted to be beautiful, strong, free, and wild like that too.  Britney inadvertently gave many millennial girls a reference for releasing the wild woman within.”

Lala Drona and Britney Spears shaved head 2007
Reference for painting “Shaved”

Internet forums have been buzzing about a leaked handwritten statement by Lala Drona recounting the inspiration behind the piece.  The text, thought to be a draft of the art statement that accompanies the piece, says that this painting was an introspective look at sensationalized images of women during her formative years:

Handwritten note by Lala Drona: explaination of inspiration behind her painting "Shaved"
girls gone wild

“In the late 90’s and 2000’s, the media presented women as objects to be consumed by the male gaze.  We learned that acting unintelligent was attractive, like Paris Hilton in The Simple Life.  We were bombarded with images from “Girls Gone Wild” and “Mardi Gras,” and it was custom for neighbourhood boys and male classmates to ask us to flash them as if we were the subjects in these programs.  Mtv’s Spring Break, and music videos showed us how we should act if we wanted to be seen and validated by mainstream culture.  The paparazzi preyed on young celebrity girls exiting their cars, in order to snap an upskirt photo and plaster images of their vaginas in gossip magazines.  This is what I saw on a daily basis while waiting in line at the grocery store.  Women were meant to freely offer their body to any man that wanted it, and men were meant to coerce women into giving their bodies by any means… 

Handwritten note by Lala Drona: explaination of inspiration behind her painting "Shaved"

(continued…)Of course, this misogynist media circus was a natural evolution from mainstream media of the late 80’s and early 90’s, but things have become even worse today for young women and girls with social media pressures and mobile photo editing apps.  Women should feel free to express their sexual power, but not feel as if it is the only power they have at their disposal.  Women are made to feel that their work is never enough, that the work does not stand without an attractive and unthreatening face/body to transport it.  Anyone who lives at the mercy of the male gaze is made to feel as if they should hide their image if it is not perfect by societal standards of beauty.  This pressure to either “exploit yourself or hide yourself” traps us within the body, with no chance to transcend it, meaning no chance for growth or evolution.  My intuition tells me that feminine power lies somewhere outside of our bodies, but it is with our bodies that we can connect to it.  It’s like another channel we can all tune in to.  If we are always made to feel that we are nothing more than our bodies, then we will never transcend those bodies and never tap into that feminine power.  We will remain docile, and easily managed.  We must find the way to break away from the body as prison; we must stop defining ourselves by the body. We must view it as a tool/vessel that enables us to connect and ascend to our most powerful selves.”

On vous explique le mouvement #FreeBritney

Some critics are saying the Lala Drona’s piece is a cheap attempt to jump onto the #freebritney trends regarding Britney Spear’s recent conservatorship battle.  Others remain satisfied with the project, and find its feminine millennial identity angle refreshing.  Will Lala Drona continue to explore millennial identity through painting, or will her journey into the void uncover something else?  We’ll keep you updated with Lala Drona’s top stories here on Based on a Fact.

Written by Warren Deniels, Independent Journalist  

Halloween Special: Lala’s Breast Implant Haunted. Needs Removal.

29 Oct
Lala Drona Breast Implant Ghost

Hauntings take place in houses…Sometimes objects can even house dark spirits or entities.  On Friday the 23rd of October, Lala Drona announced that she would be having surgery to remove her left breast implant and undergo a mastectomy.  To the press, Lala Drona released a statement saying:

“It has been 16 years since my operation to correct my left-breast agenesis.  When I was 15 years old, the doctors thought it was best to augment the left breast in order to match the right breast which developed.  I have no regrets.  However, the breast implant is too old, and I am left with a choice:  to undergo the same operation…or to remove the breast implant and reduce the right breast to match it.  I choose the ladder.”

Lala Drona continued on to explain why.  She talked about her research into the health effects of silicone in the body, and the inevitability to be forced to have another surgery in order to replace the implants once again.  She mentioned the maintenance of having to see doctors every year to survey the implants in case of a rupture.

“I don’t want a life framed by my breasts.  I want to be free, and I’m willing to give up the right one if it means I can move on, and live a healthier life.”

unfinshed painting by Lala Drona year 2017

Although the speech was moving, journalists of the L.D. Times decided to dig further.  They found that Lala Drona was using this story to cover up something much more sinister.

Strange and violent events began to take place around Paris.  A woman on a subway train, stopped at station Pont Marie, scratched her face until the bone was exposed.  She kept saying, “I don’t want to be pretty anymore.”  

Then, near the Cite des Arts, where Lala Drona had her last exhibition, a man was found smashing the bottom part of his legs with a large rock of concrete.  His legs were already quite thin, so it didn’t take much to remove all the flesh.  Rumors said that he kept repeating: “I can’t get my calf muscles to grow.”

The final event had taken place in a bus.  A woman broke a window abruptly, and used a glass shard to cut the fat off of her stomach, repeating: “They say, take it off!”  She was wrestled to the ground, and luckily, she survived.

Investigative journalists found that all of these events had one thing in common.  Lala was there.  She had been walking near the Cite des Arts, when the man began smashing his legs with a rock of concrete.  Below Lala walking on the street, the subway train containing the woman who scratched her face to the bone had stopped at station Pont Marie.  The bus with the woman who tried to cut off the fat from her belly had also stopped nearby.  

Lala Drona

When confronted by journalists regarding the bizarre coincidences, she allowed her partner Drone No.1 to come clean for her.  He told the crowd that recently they had found that Lala Drona’s breast implant was haunted, and that although they would not be able to disclose the means in which they would have to neutralize the  threat, they would be taking care of it, and that everything would be handled by November 1st.

The process or procedure the Drones and Lala would take to relieve her body of the haunting… that, we do not know.  However, we do know that her medical operation is not scheduled until February 2021.  This means that the Lala will have to find a way to either live with the dangerous spirits inside the implant, or find a way to calm them.  One way or another, she will have to house them, in her chest, through the winter.

To see more about Lala Drona’s breast experience and art, watch the video below, or check out her website http://www.laladrona.com

Second Painting in Triptych Released

14 Dec
Based on a fact article Painting by Lala Drona Triptych Female Frame: The Stage, 2019, Acrylic on Canvas, 20cm x 20cm

Lala Drona continues her project on “The Female Frame” finishing the second painting in the triptych.

The project “Female Frame” is a response to the question “What would the world look like through female eyes?” She states: “While growing up, a lot of emphasis is placed on how girls look and present themselves to the world. Images of “the trophy wife,” an object used only to increase the status of the man next to her. The “instagram look,” where women are augmenting their bodies, both surgically and digitally, in exchange for audience approval in the form of likes and comments…”

Painting by Lala Drona Triptych Female Frame: The Stage, 2019, Acrylic on Canvas, 20cm x 20cm
Female Frame: The Stage, 2019, Acrylic on Canvas, 20cm x 20cm

“…When it comes to scrutiny, women’s bodies have always been open game. Open game to be commented on by passerbys on the street, to be ridiculed for how they dress or present themselves. This is why the stage is an appropriate setting for the next room represented in this project. Women are born into the role of entertainer to the masses; when they leave the home (private space) and go into public spaces, they are put on stage. And it’s once the entertainer is on stage that the public feels that they are permitted to comment on her, right? Because, after all, they wouldn’t go up there, on stage (into the public world) in front of everyone, if they didn’t want the attention, right?” This piece examines the societal role of “visual entertainment” placed on women when they occupy public spaces.

If you’d like to see more about the project “Female Frame” click here.

L.D. Times Article 2019: Clare Steele and Lala Drona

8 Nov
L.D. Times: Artist to Artist Interview: Clare Steele / Lala Drona, 2019

The L.D. Times releases its yearly article in a new format, this time doubling its artist coverage. Clare Steele (Australia) and Lala Drona (France), talk about their digital friendship, and what it means to be an artist today.

Lala Drona and Clare Steele interview 2019

Lala Drona, painter / videaste, and Clare Steele, conceptual documentary photographer, first met in Seville, Spain in June 2018. They met in an all-female artist residency, and with Ezra Enzo (USA), abstract painter, became a solid international artist trio.

“They really bounce well off of one another,” said other artists-in-residence about the trio. “Since the residency, they’ve been able to keep in contact and support one another from 3 different continents through voice message.”

When approached about the topic, Lala Drona stated, “I’m so happy to have these women in my life. This is an artist friendship that represents our times: Three strong female artists, living in different countries, empowering one another by sharing our experiences through smartphone applications, in long-form voice notes. Sometimes I feel like these voice-notes are our contemporary letter-writing.”

When Clare Steele visited Paris, France in October this year, it was essential that they finally record one of these conversations. Click below to read the full article.

To read all L.D. Times articles, click here.

Art meets Big Data: Lala joins competitors

3 Nov
Big Data meets Art conversion rates creativity Lala Drona Based on a Fact

Ever since Lala Drona’s groundbreaking (albeit controversial) work with Muse inspiration extraction, a wide range of Muse Services have continued to pop up.  Her invention of the industry has birthed innovations in Artist-Muse services and has revolutionised the way we think about inspiration, redefining the roles artists/muses play within the act of creation.  Thanks to these developments, we can find more that 1000 Artist-Muse/Inspiration services spread across Western Europe and the Eastern United States today.

Since the genesis of the industry, Lala Drona has decided to branch out.  Her investment in her European Art tour has left her strapped for cash, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.  Lala Drona’s next art project with Lala Laboratories is bigger than ever.  Sources say that in order to make some extra cash, Lala Drona is taking on a side-hustle, offering her expertise to other muse services. 

Big Data meets Art conversion rates creativity service AMServices Lala Drona Based on a Fact

She has been spotted on 3 different occasions with higher-ups from the company AMServices (Artist-Muse Services), a service which enables artists to test out their Muse’s ideas on mass audiences in an online system.  In this system, artists are able to test their muse’s ideas, tweak them, and test them again.  The system keeps track of every variation of the idea, and lets the artist test all the versions simultaneously in real time.  The artist can compare each version of the idea by diverting audiences to each one, and observing how each performs.  By doing this, the artist can select the highest performing version of the idea and use that one for creation.

AMServices has been criticised by many in the art world, as many find it to be “Big Brotheresque,” some having described the service as “the art world meets Big Data.”  Even Lala herself has accused the service of “taking the soul out of creation by commercialising ideas and adapting them to a mass audience…all in the aim of making more money.” 

Big Data meets Art conversion rates on ideas and creativity Lala Drona Based on a Fact

Despite all of this, AMServices sticks to their vision of “data as a tool,” denying intentions to commercialise or “main-stream” ideas.  AMServices Founder Anita DeBlanca made a statement in 2017 saying “We provide data services.  What our clients decide to do with that data is their choice.”

The verdict is still out regarding Lala’s updated views on AMServices, and sources have not been able to confirm what Lala Drona’s involvement with the company will be.  Either way, this unexpected move has the art world on the edge of their seats, anticipating future innovations expected to come from this collaboration.

Spotted: Lala in Paris and on Crutches

12 Jul
Lala Drona spotted in Paris on crutches wearing winter 2018 OAMC and Nike Ambush collaboration sneakers

Despite plans to return in August 2019, journalists have recently spotted Lala Drona on the streets of Paris sporting a new look. Ms. Drona has left her hair bleach bottles behind, and has returned to an auburn look this summer.  Accompanying her winter 2018 OAMC vest (menswear), she sported 2019 Nike-Ambush collaboration sneakers, topped off with her iconic round sunglasses by Gentle Monsters.  Previously, Lala Drona had never been caught wearing designer clothes on the streets of Paris…which begs the question: What’s with this new look?

Fashion specialists speculate that Lala’s new style reflects her growing financial success in the art world. Lala Drona can simply afford to wear the pieces that she admires, and therefore does. Another theory has Lala Drona and these brands in cahoots, suspecting a secret endorsement deal. Whatever the case, the accessories which intrigued and concerned journalists most were the crutches which support her. 

Lala Drona spotted in Paris on crutches wearing winter 2018 OAMC and Nike Ambush collaboration sneakers and Gentle Monster sunglasses

Lala Drona refused to comment when approached on the street, but journalists presume her injury was cause for her return.  Our team followed up on the story and traced back Lala Drona’s steps from her European voyage. Having stopped in Copenhagen on her way to Paris, we met up with passenger assistance.  Lala Drona, had checked out a wheelchair, and employee Emil Hansen was selected to help transport her to her terminal and airplane.  “She was friendly, and we made casual conversation.  She told me that she injured her knee painting.”

Lala Drona spotted in Paris on crutches wearing winter 2018 OAMC and Nike Ambush collaboration sneakers and Gentle Monsters sunglasses

Emil Hansen failed to reveal details regarding the story, leaving journalists and fans in the dark regarding her hard core painting methods.  However, one thing is certain. The European Tour has come to an early end.  Lithuania was the last stop on Lala Drona’s year-long tour, and now she is expected to settle in Paris once again.  

Performance at Le Castel to promote NEW Laboratory

5 Jun
Painting by Lala Drona "Speak or Listen" Acrylic on canvas 50cm x 60cm Paris France, 2018 in performance at Le Castel in Paris
Title: Speak or Listen, Acrylic on canvas 50cm x 60cm

Last week, Lala Drona brought down the house with her debut performance in French at Le Castel, a private club  located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. 

Le Castel was founded by the French event coordinator, Jean Castel in 1962.  Many knew Jean Castel as “le roi des nuits parisiennes” (the king of Parisian nights), Private performances, artist-types and parties continue to roll through this institution today.   In the basement of the building, there are sofas and chairs surrounding a stage. On the stage last week, the painting titled “Speak of Listen” by Lala Drona was displayed.  Performance artist Wenjue Zhang, placed black boxes containing peep-holes around the room.  Inside said boxes, lied an image, erotic and explicit…saturated in colour.  Hypnotic music began to play in the background, and Lala Drona stepped onto the stage… (video below).

Lala Drona’s performance titled “Experiment 88: Speak or Listen” recounts an artist’s (Jade Edwards’) experience in Lala Laboratories.  The artist is the subject in an experiment that will result in artistic revelation (article continues below):

Video still from Lala Drona art performance "Experiment 88: Speak or Listen" at Le Castel in Paris.
still from performance at Le Castel

Sources say that this performance serves as an advertisement for the new Lala Laboratory.  Since 2014, Lala has had quite a bit of trouble due to her unconventional inspiration extraction methods from muses.  She has gone to Art Prison, inspired muse protests and strikes, and inadvertently caused changes in muse rights legislature. After the Lala Laboratory explosion in 2016, Lala Drona has simultaneously been looking for a place to put down roots, whilst also dodging investigations into inhumane Lala Laboratory experiments.

Video still from Lala Drona art performance "Experiment 88: Speak or Listen" at Le Castel in Paris.
still from performance at Le Castel

Since 2017, Lala Drona has been traveling the world in the form of an exhibition tour.  She stated last week, “I’ve been traveling in order to look for a new place for Lala Laboratories. And finally, I’ve found it.”  Lala Laboratories, formerly “The Lala Laboratory” had to change its name due to copyright issues, but according to Lala, that wasn’t the only change that took place. “Lala Laboratories no longer includes muses in their research and experiments.  After the protests, the project got a bad rap.  It was almost impossible to get anything done due to new bureaucracy and protections.  Now, thanks to the former muse experiments, we’ve collected all the data that we need, and it’s time to open our experiments to their proper demographic.  Now, Lala Laboratories serves to enhance artist inspiration and methods, through experiences catered to each individual artist.  The performance at Le Castel was a simulation of that…sort of an advertisement for the new laboratory, if you will.”

When questioned about the location of Lala Laboratories, Lala explained: “It took going all over the world, and encountering every problem imaginable to get to the solution.  Lala Laboratories has installed itself in the intangible: in the virtual spaces online, in every conversation, and in every collaboration and project connecting to us.  If you have interacted with myself, my Drones, muses, and my community in any way, you ARE part of Lala Laboratories.”

Drone Kesabe breaks routine with “Creatures of Habit”

17 May

Lala Drona was expected to perform at Paris Lit Up’s magazine release party last week. Instead, Drone Kesabe, an assistant to Lala Drona, was sent to stand in for Lala in her absence.

Once called to the stage, Drone Kesabe explained to the audience that Lala Drona had been held up during her art research. She stated that Lala Drona had been conducting art experiments to find the perfect colour, a color too strong for the human eye, a deadly color: “…Essentially a colour that kills” she said. Lala Drona and her team had some sort of breakthrough, and so she was unable to come to the event.

Drone Kesabe then began to read Lala’s poem to the audience in a low and airy voice:

(Creature of Habit)

These creatures look for the familiar in the unfamiliar. Tell me, why do you put on shoes?  Only to walk with blind feet.  You process a new place based on past processes.  The past with its conquering mentality—in your mind—time cannibalizes itself, past taking present.  Is there a reason you can only see back in time, but not forward?  Creatures of habit, only see what they know, and this is how I come to you “th-th-th-th-th-th.”

Repetition, monotony, boredom, commitment, dedication, loyalty, rigor: you play me over and over, conjuring my face in every note of that song—the song that was playing when the Thing happened.

 I’ll stay with you and tell you what to do, so the Thing doesn’t happen again, you think—

–And I let you know that your instincts are shit, listen to me, I was there, and I’ll keep you safe. 

Creatures of habit, based on a fact, based on a television, based on a story…this only serves to take me with you—in your mind—. 

Perched on your back making nests of knots in your shoulders, making my way to your belly—Let me stay here a bit while you recognize the pattern of that familiar ceiling in the walls of this unfamiliar venue.  The same pattern of where the Thing happened, when you had no control, I came, that’s where we met the first time.

Watch the new patterns, registered by old ones, process, tilt you head back further, further, thaaat’s it. “th-th-th-th-th” stop breathing now because the past doesn’t breathe, and we never left that moment—in your mind—I’m here with you, when no one else will be.  And I’ll never leave you, not if you keep looking…looking for our familiar in the unfamiliar.  Creature of habit. 

Poem “Creatures of Habit” by Lala Drona © 2019

The launch party went off without a hitch while artists, poets and creative-types mixed and popped off celebratory champagne. As for the work Lala Drona is developing behind the scenes, our investigative journalists haven’t seemed to be able to get beyond Drone Kesabe’s statement at the PLU launch party.

Based on a Fact caught up with art trend expert Valerie Cogie who weighed in on the situation. “If we take a look at Lala Drona’s paintings, it’s quite obvious that she’s chosen to express through the grayscale. As stated in previous interviews, this was due to her reaction to traveling the world. She stopped seeing the world in binary oppositions: black/white, right/wrong… and started paying more attention to the in-betweens…the grays. Perhaps, she has reached a point where she wants to start incorporating colour into her painting universe. I’d rather not speculate further on the psychological implications of this.”

Lala Drona Retrospective at MOMA?

25 Mar
Lala Drona imagining her work in the MOMA museum of modern art.  Female painter at Museum or Modern art.  Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art New York.  This painting titled "Together, we conquer the world."

Lala Drona’s European art tour has gone intercontinental.  Following her art residency in Gothenburg, Sweden, the artist was spotted in New York visiting galleries and museums, along with rubbing elbows with members of the art world in cafés and bars.  From the Guggenheim to the Whitney, and finally the MOMA, Lala Drona was spotted taking notes and photos of the spaces, supposedly planning her future retrospective exhibition in these institutions.

Lala Drona retrospective at the MOMA museum of modern art new york.  Imagining how her work will look in the MOMA.  This painting titled "The First Follower."  Contemporary female painter.

            One of our reporters caught up with the artist at the MOMA:

J: Why have you chosen to research the MOMA as a possible host for your future retrospective?

L.D.:  Before arriving to NYC, my heart was set on the MOMA.  However, I admire the risks that the Guggenheim takes, and would love for the retrospective to be shown there first.  After this, it will travel around the world. The first stop will be in France, at Palais de Tokyo.  Since my work includes photo collage, video and paintings, I think the spaces that Palais de Tokyo provides would be an ideal fit.  However, eventually one day, I would like my retrospective to make its way back to NYC and appear in the MOMA.

J: Have you seen any pieces in the MOMA which have impacted you during this visit?

Lala Drona painter sees Gerhard Richter Baader-Meinhof art that changed my life
from series “Baader–Meinhof” by Gerhard Richter

L.D. I’ve finally seen Gerhard Richter’s paintings in real life.  His series  “Baader–Meinhof” has reinforced my faith in painting on canvas as a visual medium.  His innovative techniques are proof that there is still so much to explore and discover in the genre of painting.  When you stand in front of the paintings in real life, they move, they breathe.  It’s breathtaking.

J: What will you do with the rest of your time in NYC?

L.D.: I’ve got a full schedule.  I’m meeting with other artists and plotting for big things in the near future.

Lala Drona in film The Special People movie by Erica Schreiner art film
from film “The Special People” by Erica Schreiner

From emerging to established artists, Lala Drona trekked the city perpetually accompanied.  She was spotted visiting Chelsea galleries with Ezra Enzo, an abstract painter, soon to be fresh-out-of-art-school.  Around Brooklyn, she was reported to be deep in conversation with prominent video artist Erica Schreiner, and according to our sources, Lala Drona is scheduled to appear in Schreiner’s next feature length art film “The Special People.”  In addition to this, she will appear as one of the featured artists in an interview in Marietta Magazine, a Brooklyn based magazine which includes interviews with artists and performers from NYC to Paris.

Lala Drona interview in Marietta Magazine. Erica Schreiner Marietta Magazine with Lala Drona painter performance artist.
Lala Drona to be interviewed in Marietta Magazine’s next issue.

Since leaving New York, Lala Drona has travelled to an undisclosed location for rest and relaxation.  However, if history informs us of anything, it’s that this artist is not one to rest.  We speculate that she is in hiding so that she can plot her next voyage and project. We wait impatiently to find out in which new corner of the world Lala Drona will decide to plant her art-seed.

The Colonel and the Muse

9 Nov

muse leira and lala

Lala Drona (right), and Muse Leira (left)

What Lala Drona wrote had the tendency to come true.  Fortunately (and unfortunately)  for her, all the desires and dreams that she had written had already come true, and she was now living them.  Lala lied alone in her bed and thought about how creation comes from a lack, and how a satiated writer isn’t much of a writer at all.  Lala thought about what she wanted.  What did she desire?  Perhaps it was world domination, perhaps it was to get the art laboratory  back in business.  Whatever it was, it was in that moment that Lala realized she wanted nothing more than to be lying next to someone else.

 

The story of Muse Leira

In 18th century Portugal, in the small town of Messejana, Colonel Morgado died and left his estate to his four servants.  His loyal and dedicated Muse, grew depressed from the lack of creative collaboration with the Colonel.  Over the years that followed, the battle strategy notebooks and plans they created together disappeared,  buried in dust.  Muse Leira refused to occupy any other room after the Colonel’s death and condemned herself to those four walls for eternity.

1d97249ba2ebdef78247378a53c1889f

Messejana, Portugal

It wasn’t until recently, three centuries later, that Leira had the opportunity to dust off her inspiration projectors and collaborate with artists visiting the Colonel’s room.

 

The last servant left alive in the house decided to move into the house next door and rent out the Morgado home.  A young couple moved into the house with their baby, but made a point to stay out of the Colonel’s room at night, as recommended by the previous owner.  Muse Leira haunted the room at all hours, but her image only appeared at night, when she had the power to touch the tenants of the room.

The couple converted the house into an art residency, inviting international artists from

Screenshot 2018-11-09 at 18.51.43

Colonel Morgado’s room

around the world to visit and work on their projects.

 

Winnie was the first to stay in the Colonel’s room.  She was an ink-landscape painter from China.   The lights constantly switched on and off and the bulbs burned out.  Winnie saw Muse Leira for the first time on the night of the new moon.  She could not sleep and when she opened her eyes and rolled over, a head covered in a white cloth bag stared straight back at her.  Needless to say, Winnie left the residency early.
Madeleine was the next to stay in the Colonel’s room.  She was an abstract expressionist painter from France.  She began work right away on the first day and filled the room with canvas and color.  When she woke up the first morning, she saw that all of her t-shirts and pants had been thrown on the floor.  But no matter, she submitted to the strong inspiration that boiled from within and jumped out of bed to continue painting. 70_year_old_art_supplies_by_kymmacaleb-d492xvm.jpg

Night fell and while working at her desk, Madeleine tipped over a bottle of varnish.  She desperately looked for a cloth to absorb the liquid and took one that was handed to her.  She dabbed the painting with no result, and looked down at the cloth to find it was one of her t-shirts from the floor.  She looked to her side to see who handed it to her, and Muse Leira stood there, wearing all of Madeleine’s clothes and giggling.  After a bit of an awkward meeting, Madeleine and Leira became good friends and collaborated easily for the remainder of her stay in the Colonel’s room.

After Madeleine left, the room grew cold again, the air stagnant without the flow of creative energy.  A week went by and artist Lala Drona, an American painter living in Paris,Screenshot 2018-11-09 at 18.51.05 moved into the Colonel’s room.  On the first day, Lala rearranged the room to take advantage of the light coming in from the windows.  Lala’s painting materials still hadn’t arrived and she felt herself growing weak from the lack of creation.  She woke up in the middle of the night sick with a cold.  The roosters crowed and the dogs barked outside, rattling the bed she slept in.  Lala found the strength to approach the tissue box in front of the mirror on the other side of the room.  She grabbed a tissue and while blowing her nose, she looked into the mirror to find the head covered in a cloth bag standing behind her.  Lala would have screamed if she hadn’t lost her voice.

Muse Leira ran across the wall and knocked a trapped door open before hiding in the corner.  Realizing Leira was a muse, and having had extensive experience with muses, Lala tried to calm her while tiptoeing towards the trapped door.  Inside, Lala found old paintings on paper—portraits of the Colonel and his servants.  Further inside, she found charcoal.IMG_3345

Lala started coughing and Muse Leira led her back to bed.  Muse Leira brought over a board with paper and the charcoal and sat next to Lala.  She set up the drawing board and Lala began sketching out ideas for paintings.  She thought about what she wanted.  She thought about the relationships she had had with the Drones (assistants in her former art laboratory), other artists and muses.  Muse Leira reminded her that it is those relationships which make Lala human.

 


Over the next few days, Leira nursed Lala back to health.  Leira inspired Lala, and Lala grew stronger with every collaboration.  Lala’s painting supplies finally arrived, and thanks to Muse Leira, she is now off to a strong beginning.

Based on a fact.

Kendal Dreges, Minisota Artlife Press

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