Collage

"Glass Marilyn" (1992). Paper collage, with photos, ink, paint and glue (10" x 13").

T-shirt art for Billy's Brats

Front of T-shirt; black ink on pink cotton

Back of T-shirt

Terry Garland at Toad's

Bluesman Terry Garland performing live at Toad's Place on July 2, 2002.

-- Video by F.T. Rea

Fan City Series

Below are the first four images of the Fan City Series of prints. This launches what is a new art venture for me. Click on the images, themselves, to enlarge them.
Fan City Series No. 1 -- "Fan District Cat" -- a 13" x 19" print on archival quailty paper with a matte finish (one of 45 prints).

Fan City Series No. 2 -- "NRBQ at High on the Hog" -- a 13" x 19" print on archival quailty paper with a matte finish (one of 45 prints).

Fan City Series No. 3 -- "Thirty Good Years" -- a 13" x 19" print on archival quailty paper with a matte finish (one of 45 prints).Fan City Series No. 4 -- "Big in the Power Corner" -- a 13" x 19" print on archival quailty paper with a matte finish (one of 45 prints).

Soon there will be other poster designs available; other images are on the drawing board. I can't say how delighted I am with the splendid quality of the state-of-the-art printing process that is being used. It has spawned a whole new wave of creativity. All of the posters in the Fan City Series are going to be the same size. Each run will be limited to 45 prints of the particular image. Each print of the three images above costs $45.00.

To ask questions or to buy one of prints please contact me:

F.T. Rea
ftrea9@yahoo.com
(804) 359-4864
PO Box 14761, Richmond, VA, 23221

Bopcats

The Bopcats (1995) in pen and ink

Inkbites T-shirts

A new venture has been launched. Due to popular demand and the modern miracle of cafepress.com, I am happy to announce that various semi-necessary products -- T-shirts, coffee mugs, postcards, etc. -- imprinted with images created by yours truly are going to be available at F.T. Rea’s Inkbites.

To get the venture underway, the 'toon above, which mocks George Allen's Macaca gaffe, is the first image that you can order from cafepress. As a T-shirt it is available on a variety of models. The whole transaction can be done online -- quick and easy.Here's the art for the first SLANT T-shirt to be available in over 15 years. The oil painting was done in the mid-'90s, it appeared on a SLANT calendar. My goal for that piece was to figure out how to paint eyes that would follow the viewer, no matter where he stood. We've all seen those paintings in galleries/ museums, where the eyes seem to do that. It was an interesting challenge.

Click here to go to F.T. Rea's Inkbites to learn more about that T-shir, or any of the designs below.
The painting was done in 1974 for a poster for a staff art show. The lettering "Biograph" is from a Biograph program, No. 59, in the spring of 1982.

Dr. StrangeRove, or how...

Dr. StrangeRove gasped, "It would not be difficult, Mein Führer! Nuclear reactors could easily provide, heh... I'm sorry, Mr. President."
Apologies to Stanley Kubrick, et al

'toons

In the summer of 1994 a four-way race political race developed in Virginia, as three candidates challenged the incumbent Chuck Robb for his seat in the U.S. Senate. Republican Ollie North was nominated by a convention at the Richmond Coliseum. Former governor Doug Wilder, a Democrat, threw his hat in as an independent. Marshall Coleman, a Republican former attorney general and failed gubernatorial candidate, ran as an independent, too.

Naturally, both Wilder and Coleman were seen as spoilers by many observers. The national press was all over the circus-like story of the four heavyweight candidates. In late August I issued what was then my fourth set of collectable cards -- “Campaign Inkbites: The ‘94 VA Senate Race.”

'Toons

Upon quitting my longtime job as manager of the Biograph Theatre, 23 years ago, my very first sitting at the totally independent cartoonist’s drawing board resulted in a rather dark vision of the West Grace Street neighborhood I knew so well and had just fled. Bad mood? What was up?

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Well, the street itself had recently been switched from one-way traffic to two-way. That was an extremely unusual thing to do -- city planning-wise and a big mistake, in my book, both then and now. Yes, I still think it was a goof and it's fun to have been right. Plus, it seemed to me then that local popular culture, in general, had hitched a ride in the absolute wrong direction, too. Disco, Heavy Metal or Hardcore? That was suddenly the choice, scene-wise.

Ah, times were changing and I had moved on, or so I thought. Perhaps, in truth, I was sitting still while all else moved on.

'toon:

This "zism" (my name for it) was done in 1987 for the first two-color tabloid edition cover of SLANT. I started drawing this image -- the twisty part in the middle -- in the early '80s, as a cartoon attempt to symbolize time passing. I had been looking at a lot of European early-1900s abstract art then, especially that of Russians and Germans. I've used this as SLANT's logo from its 1985 beginning.

political 'toon

This was the cover art for the Summer 2003 issue of SLANT

caricature

This portrait of Chuck Wrenn was done using mixed media for the invitation to his 40th birthday party (1985).

photo: Motordrive Kitty

In the spring of 1985 I visited New York City. While there I bought a 35 mm Nikon, to replace a camera that had been stolen, and something I'd wanted for a long time -- a motordrive. For the first month or so back in Richmond, I took the Nikon with me all the time, aiming my new lens at whatever I came across.

These two almost identical prints of a sleepy cat sunning itself in a storefront window on Main Street -- taken a fraction of a second apart -- probably made better use of the rapid fire capability of the motordrive than most of what I shot then.

political 'toon

This one was done as part of a series for Oh! Magazine (1991). At the time the first war in Iraq for the USA was about to begin. The magazine rejected it because management worried about it offending black readers. The publisher was a know-it-all young white guy, who did not recognize the art style or the content as playing off an Uncle Remus story; he had not heard of Brer Rabbit. So the point of the 'toon went right past him.

Ironically, Oh! had no black readers and few readers of any hue. So I ran it in SLANT, the little magazine I then published twice-a-month, a couple of weeks later. It was originally a black and white piece. I colorized it a couple of years ago.

Detached

"Detached" is the title under which I've written a series of short stories. The art to the right is color copy of a piece I did in 1995, developing an idea for cover art for the collection, which I thought was being finished up then at nine stories.

At this point, a decade later, four stories are completed and, alas, there are another dozen or so in vaious stages of completion. Of them I'm guessing now, perhaps three, five at the most, will actually be finished, one day. Approaching the end of 2005, one day still seems off in the distance to the author.

So, for the time being here are links to the four that I've sworn never to rewrite, again -- all featuring Roscoe Swift as the protagonist, set between 1966 and 1985 -- which are now available online for your reading pleasure. They are:

Central Time
Cross-eyed Mona
Fancy Melons
Maybe Rosebud

political 'toon

Oil War

(1991) pen and ink

handbill

pencil and ink

A Pirate Looks at 58
(1992)

painting

Documenting the Death of Rebus, No. 1
(1983)

handbill

pencil sketch

Katey at the Window (1996)

political 'toons

This was the last frame of a five-and-a-half page cartoon feature for STYLE Weekly in October of 1994. It was on the lively Ollie North/Chuck Robb/Marshall Coleman/Doug Wilder race for the US Senate. At the time that race set a new standard for combined spending on a Senate campaign.

pencil and water color on paper

This piece, a portrait of Zeke, was done for my 1996 calendar.

'toons

By keeping ordinary things like handbills, cohabitation, gambling, and other "victimless" crimes illegal, it means just about anybody can be harassed by the long arm of the law. But it's the ones with the unfashionable attitudes that feel the boot first.

This pen and ink cartoon above was created in 1983 and first published as a handbill. It ran in SLANT in 1986. It was part of a five-year propaganda campaign to fight off the city's anti-handbill laws. SLANT's first cause was to frame that same battle in a freedom-of-speech context, while claiming the pop scene depended on such flyers being posted on utility poles to exist. In 1987 the local statutes were changed. Essentially, we won.

oil study

Derriere No. 7
(2005)

handbill

This 1973 handbill promoted the art house feature film by director Alexandro Jodorowsky, "El Topo."

caricature

Doug Wilder savors his 2004 mayoral victory.

political 'toons

This little piece, in ink and pencil on paper, was done for a local publisher who, upon seeing it, turned it down. After five years this is its first public airing.

sketch: "Rebus and Zeke"

In this 1997 water color, ink and pencil piece (11" by 14") Rebus (standing) and Zeke are out on the Frisbee-Golf course.

political 'toons: faces

Virginia's two major party candidates running for governor this year are Democrat Tim Kaine (depicted above) and Republican Jerry Kilgore. Kilgore served in Gov. George Allen's administration and as the Old Dominion's Attorney General until he resigned earlier this year to work full-time on the race. Kaine, once mayor of Richmond, is The Commonwealth's sitting Lt. Governor.

Although both men's features and personalities seem to me to rather lend themselves to caricature, this time I took it easy on them. Both 'toons were done in pen and ink.

sketch: "Derriere No. 1"

This piece, done (in 1992) with water color, spray paint and pastels on paper, was the first of what proved to be a series of studies and paintings of shapely female derrieres. I've sold several prints of this one. Obviously, it's a subject worthy of an artist's study and revisiting.

sketch: "Still Got Soul"

This pencil and ink sketch of author
Charles Bukowski
was done for my 2005 calendar. (The original has been sold.).
It ran with a caption under it, taken from one of his short stories:

"If you don't have much soul left and you know it,
you still got soul."

oil study: "Escape"

This is one of several sketches made of this set of steps. It was done on paper (10 inches by 13 inches) using oil sticks this summer.

collage: "The Biograph"

This piece was assembled in 1985. I used several boxes of movie memorabilia and such to make this collage called "The Biograph." The 16 mm reel turns on a little electric motor behind the plywood on which the pictures and paint were placed and covered with Roplex. It is five feet by four feet.