“OF  GODS AND MEN”
June 2000,  Gallery Gorgon, New Orleans, LA

            For my New Orleans debut, guests from as far away as the West Coast and Europe came to participate in a unique look at masculinity and the idea of gods. Among those guests invited to come “dressed or not” as their favorite god or man, we saw two interpretations of Krishna and a man dressed only in a figleaf (Adam). Conveniently, a woman dressed as Eve also showed up at this gallery with her apple. And just to complete the mythic picture, a patron of mine named Lilith, who had flown in from Toronto especially for this event, gave tarot readings near the window overlooking “Gallery Row” on Magazine Street. (Later in the evening,  she became the subject of several haunting photo portraits by the photographer whose credit appears on the facing image, S. M. Johns.)

            Artists, models, fashionistas, art patrons, street characters, and assorted members of the New Orleans demimonde migrated from the French Quarter, the Garden District, and St. Charles to enhance and contribute to the atmosphere, and the libations flowed freely as the sounds of jazz wafted faint and far away on the deepening night. Just another night on Magazine Street’s “Gallery Row” in the Lower Garden District, declared in 1998 by The Utne Reader  to be “The Number -One Hippest Neighborhood in the Country.”

            The June 30, 2000 issue of the New Orleans Times-Picayune Lagniappe carried a review (“Picturing the Unimagineable”) by art critic Doug MacCash: “Paul B. Rucker is a remarkably skilled young painter. He has great command of the human anatomy, a terrific sense of line, no fear of strong color and a wonderful knack for creating glowing areas of light in his canvases....[displaying classical figurative technique combined with pyrotechnic color.”

            The makeup seen here took over three hours to do,  and utilized a creme base that I refined in the latter stages with a delicate brush, exactly as if my face were a canvas. The arabesquing lines, added to the bindhi,  are in gold acrylic paint and were inspired by the late Vali Myers. A few years later I started to really explore the potential effect of such a style of ornament.