Billy Cone: The Exchange

Billy Cone: The Exchange: America and France have a love hate Relationship. We love them, they hate us.  Not!!!  But what is true is that the French love us and most ...

The Exchange

America and France have a love hate

Relationship. We love them, they hate us. 

Not!!!  But what is true is that the French love us and most of what we do and invent. We, love them and everything French. We love their parfums, their

Facial serums, their cheeses, their foie gras, their body lotions, their B&B's in the most unexpected places and the list goes on and on. Oh, and did I say Champagne, liqueurs, digestives,

And the A380 Airbus?  And croissants?

Well they get something in return--McDonald's, rushing about or chasing their tails, tennis shoes, golf, Coke,

Pasteurization, hormones for food, and preservatives, not to mention the chain restaurant. 

So what is the exchange?  Our cultures and coming together. We are learning to cook with savory flavors. They are cooking faster to please all the tourists from around the world that flock to France for "the food."  We, on the other hand are eating mushy croissants. We still don't have brioche but macaroons

Are the cat's meow in big cities. 

So what? Well they give us the best of what they have created over the past

1000 years while we are giving them

Inspirations in how to manipulate food to the point of unhealthiness. Now is this a fair exchange?

Please respond. I'd love to elaborate. 

Billy Cone

Billy Cone: Late Bloomer--Art in the Blood

Billy Cone: Late Bloomer: Dear Claribel Shumway Cone, You are my California cousin artiste friend and confident, and I want to thank you for something you did for m...

Late Bloomer

Dear Claribel Shumway Cone,

You are my California cousin artiste friend and confident, and I want to thank you for something you did for me a long time ago.

I was 26 years old, working for Jeffery Cohen at Sutton Place Gourmet in Washington, DC, and you were coming to town for a visit.  You called me and suggested that I join you and your close friend for a visit to the Baltimore Museum of Art.  Apparently some of my relatives had donated art to the museum in 1948.

Boy, was I in for an eye opener!  It turned out that my great aunts Etta and Claribel Cone had bequeathed over 3000 pieces of art, jewelry and fabrics to the BMA.  They used to take steamers across the Atlantic to Paris to hang out with Matisse and Picasso, gallery owners, Gertrude and Leo Stein among others.  They dropped the bomb on Modern Art in America.  I was so impressed, because in my 26 years I never knew about this family history.  Apparently I was too into sports and girls and such to pay attention to the arts.  But this day Claribel took me to Baltimore changed everything, everything I wasn't even aware of at the time.  At the moment I was in a hustle bustle job selling gourmet foods in a fast pace city.  Later I would be in a small southern town taking pictures and trying to sell them.  I was not yet free to just do my art.  Who ever is?  Picasso maybe...

Little did I know, I was to later become a collector of art and an artist as well.  A few years prior to this awakening I learned how to develop images in the darkroom at UNC-Chapel Hill.  I loved taking pictures and still do.  Little by little I allowed myself to be freer with my arts.  Because of my encounter with Jean Cocteau, via a gallery devoted to his works on the rue de Seine, I let myself begin learning to draw in my way.  I figured he drew as he saw things, not as they were.  Why couldn't I do that?  I started trying by drawing Buddha's due to the simple lines of the faces.

My friends asked me when I would start painting these faces.  I said "never.  No way!  I don't paint."
But after a Christmas in Greensboro and a void in Wilmington I had to do something, something to fill in the emptiness of time and boredom.  It wasn't Paris!  Paris is a place where you can be doing nothing and feel productive.

Well, I took brushes and pigments to canvases and voila!  "Hey, I am an artist."

Selling is another story.  I love stories.

Billy Cone: A Letter to the Collectors

Billy Cone: A Letter to the Collectors: Dear Aunt Etta and Aunt Claribel, I am writing you from Earth.  You know that though, cause you are in Heaven. Well, I have some question...

A Letter to the Collectors

Dear Aunt Etta and Aunt Claribel,

I am writing you from Earth.  You know that though, cause you are in Heaven.
Well, I have some questions for you about your famous art collection.  First of all,
did you know that you were collecting and introducing Modern Art to America?

And how did you feel when the Chicago Museum told you that you were collecting
trash--Picasso, Matisse, Degas, Cezanne and so forth?  What was Picasso like?
Did he really give you some drawings off his floor at Bateau Lavoir in exchange for the
Funnies from the New York Times?  What about Matisse?  Etta, did he really stay with
you in Baltimore, Maryland late in his life?  Was he a colorful man?

There are so many questions to ask.  What was the most enjoyable thing about
traveling to Europe on steamers?  You must have met many interesting and famous
people.  Was Gertrude really a bitch?  And not such a great writer!  But you liked
Leo a lot.  Didn't he help you choose quite a few pieces of art?  I know he sold you
art from his Paris apartment when he needed the cash.  Speaking of which, is it
true Etta that when you offered the 3000 piece collection to the Baltimore Museum
of Art they said that they could not take it due to lack of space?  And did you offer
to build them a new wing?  That is amazing.  Glad you had the
money and the vision.  Did you know what vision you had?  I've read that you
and Claribel had the art for decoration and enjoyment purposes.  How cool!

And your brothers in North Carolina were making denim and flannel which was
quite profitable.  Levi was a big customer among so many others.  So Moses and
Ceasar would send you stipends of profits?  Were you ever worried that money would
stop?

Who was your favorite artist?

Love,

Billy

Billy Cone: TGI MARCH MADNESS

Billy Cone: TGI MARCH MADNESS: This is a very special time of year for basketball fans.  But what I have noticed is that non-basketball fans get into March Madness.  It&#...