Art
Ruby Mazur Upcoming NFT Auction to Fight Cancer
Ruby Mazur the artist known for creating one of the most famous logos in the world: the ‘mouth and tongue’ design for the Rolling Stones Tumbling Dice cover.
Unknown to many is only about 3 months ago, Mazur won his battle with brain cancer, but is now battling throat cancer. While he continues to fight for his life, he recently sold his latest NFT with his first in series auction going for a record setting $1.1 million. His next NFT is his artistic rendering of the American folk and rock singer-songwriter Jim Croce, with a portion of proceeds going to cancer charities.
He designed covers for soundtrack albums including Malcolm X, the original 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Love Story, Lenny Bruce, and Elton John’s first American Soundtrack album “Friends” and has designed over 3,000 album covers for BB King, Billy Joel, Dusty Springfield, Elton John, Ray Charles, Steely Dan, Jimmy Buffett, and limitless others.
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“To me, painting is like breathing,” he says. “I’ll lay down and close my eyes, but I’m still painting because I’m thinking about what I want to change on a canvas. My mind just doesn’t shut off like it does for most people.”
Mazur recounts the time he met with Carlos Santana backstage and presented the legendary guitarist with a spectacularly vivid painting he had made of him. The artwork captured Santana in mid-performance glory – eyes clenched dramatically, his face seized in cosmic ecstasy as he coaxes sounds both searing and sensual from the fretboard of his guitar. “Carlos took one look at it and said, ‘I can hear the note I’m playing,'” Mazur says. “What a compliment that was. It was exactly what I tried to accomplish.”
Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Mazur knew he was an artist at the age of five selling a collection of crayon drawings, for $50 each. Mazur progressed to drawing comic strips and eventually took to painting.
Music loomed large for Mazur. He and his brother guided the local band The Hassles through the New York club circuit After the group’s keyboard player overdosed, the brothers held auditions for a replacement. One of the candidates was a Billy Joel. “We didn’t think he would fit in at all,” Mazur remembers, “but he sat down at a Hammond B3 and he was just amazing.
Mazur was itching to get his art career off the ground. He left Philadelphia College and moved back to New York, where a friend tipped him off about a job opening at the newly started Paramount Records. “I met with the president, Bill Gallagher, and he asked for some samples of my work. I said I didn’t have any. Then he asked me what position I was looking for, and I said, ‘I want to be the art director for your album covers. I said, ‘Give me $50,000 a year, a secretary, two assistants, and an expense account, and I’ll give you kick-ass album covers.’ Gallagher said, ‘Come in on Monday at nine. You’ve got the job.'”
His first year on the job he was nominated for a Best Album Cover Grammy for the band Crowfoot. He ultimately decided to leave the label and strike out on his own. Ironically, his last job at Paramount was to create the album cover for Billy Joel’s debut, Cold Spring Harbor.
In the 1970s he opened his own studio in New York City, and with a staff of 10 assistants he turned out an average of 15 album covers a week – to the tune of $5,000 each. “That was amazing money back then,” he says. Noting the explosion of talent emanating from the West Coast, he packed up and headed to Los Angeles, opening an even bigger studio on Sunset Boulevard, which enabled him to double his monthly output.
Elton John, Steely Dan, Dave Mason, Jim Croce, the James Gang, and B.B. King are just some of the artists Mazur designed eye-catching and trendsetting artwork for. There were movie soundtracks – Love Story, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and hundreds more. And, of course, there was the famous request from none other than Mick Jagger. “He wanted me to come up with something for the ‘Tumbling Dice’ record sleeve,” says Mazur. “The idea was that it would look like him, but it wouldn’t really look like him. It was as simple as that. I came up with the mouth and the tongue. It wasn’t too hard for everybody to figure out who it was.”
After a brief stint at ABC-Dunhill Records (he received the Art Directors Award for the Illustration West Competition for his cover design for Curtis Mayfield’s His Early Years with the Impressions), Mazur relocated to the UK and opened a studio, where he continued working on album packages. However, an industry vinyl shortage put a stop to the flow of releases.
His work has been displayed around the world, and these days Mazur features his paintings at the Holle Fine Art Gallery in Hawaii, and on the mainland, he’s represented in Las Vegas at the Wyland Gallery in Planet Hollywood and Signature Gallery in the Venetian.
You can see more of his work here.
Gay Pride, Bryant Park Picnic Performances, Movie Nights, Lincoln Center Summer for the City (Midsummer Night Swing), Juneteenth, New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks, Tribeca Film Festival, Free Outdoor Concerts, Museum Mile Festival, the Puerto Rican Day Parade and that’s just the beginning!
Until September 29 every summer in Times Square, NYC, TSQ LIVE showcases hundreds of artists, performers and cultural producers and this summer 80 free events hosting over a dozen incredible New York-based institutions and collectives, including Pioneer Works, NEW INC, Children’s Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ailey Extension, New York Live Arts, OTA Entertainment, Soul Summit, Rash Bar, and Elsewhere.
6/1: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park New York City Opera: La Bohème
6/2: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Jazzmobile: The Steven Oquendo Latin Jazz Orchestra
6/2: Billy Joel @ MSG
6/3-4: Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit atUniversity Place, starting at East 13th Street and continuing south along the east side of Washington Square Park to West 3rd Street.
6/7 until September: Little Island Tony and Grammy Award winners in The Glade, late night djs, drag bingo, and dance parties in The Play Ground, weekly artmaking activities for all ages and Teen Night every Friday.
6/7 – 18: Tribeca Film Festival will take place movie theatres, rooftops and various venues throughout NYC, such as the new Pier 57, Beacon Theatre, the Angelika. The premiere of Let the Canary Sing with a performance by Cyndi Lauper or The Closing Gala: A Bronx Tale, followed by a conversation with director and star Robert De Niro, producer Jane Rosenthal, and writer and co-star Chazz Palminteri.
6/8 – 8/6: Shakespeare in the Park – Hamlet
6/8: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Contemporary Dance: Robin Dunn, The Lite
6/9: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Contemporary Dance: Dance Heginbotham, Jennifer Muller/The Works
6/9 – 11: @ Citi Field Governors Ball Music Festival – The contemporary music festival for music lovers by music lovers. With 60+ artists of all genres across 4 stages, there is something for everyone, including delicious restaurants, food trucks and menus.
6/9 – 18: River to River Festival The festival takes place in a variety of public venues that canvas all of Downtown New York – from Chambers Street down to the southern tip of Manhattan and across the island from river to river.
6/11: National Puerto Rican Day Parade Fifth Avenue, 44th to 79th Street
6/12: Bryant Park Movie Nights Almost Famous (2000)
6:13: Museum Mile Festival on Fifth Avenue from 84th Street to 109th Street: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Neue Galerie New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; The Jewish Museum; Museum of the City of New York; El Museo del Barrio; and The Africa Center.
6/14 – August: Dancing Under the Stars (formerly Midsummer Night Swing), free outdoor movies, dancing, singing, readings, celebrations, flamingos, disco ball, poetry, Mozart, concerts, crafts, Juneteenth and much more!
6/15: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Contemporary Dance: Terk Lewis + Kayla Farrish
6/16: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Contemporary Dance: Soles of Duende + Josh Johnson
6/17-25: Gay Pride The Rally, The March & Pride Island. The 2023 theme is “Strength in Solidarity” and Christina Aguilera is headlining NYC Pride Island on Sunday, June 25th at Brooklyn Army Terminal. The festivities begin with Family Night and the Rally and culminate with PrideFest & The March. Other events include Pride Island and the annual Dance on the Pier, following the parade wrapping up Pride Week in a grand fireworks display.
6/16 – 18: Juneteenth is a celebration of June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Texas, which declared the ending of slavery in the USA. The three day Juneteenth in NYC festival kicks off Friday with a virtual summit, Friday night is the Celebration of Black Kings, Saturday is Festival Community Day and the festival culminates Sunday with a Parade, Fashion Show, Food trucks Field Day and more. Monday, June 19th, is a national holiday, with government, banks and post offices closed. More Info: Junteenth NY
There are dozens more Juneteenth celebrations throughout all 5 Boroughs, including BBQs, the NYC Parks Department, Seneca Village, Broadway, Lincoln Center, concerts, shows, theater and more.
6/17: The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is the nation’s largest art parade where 3,000+ participants dress in hand-made costumes.
6/ 19: Bryant Park Movie Nights Amistad (1997)
6/23: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Emerging Music Festival: Psymon Spine, THUS LOVE, Katy Kirby
6/24: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Emerging Music Festival: Ky Vöss, Seramic, Miss Grit, Dead Tooth
6/26: Bryant Park Movie Nights Mean Girls (2004)
6/30: Picnic Performances @ Bryant Park Jalopy Theatre: Michael Daves Quartet ft. Tony Trishka, Yacouba Sissoko, Terrell King
6/30: Intrepid Museum Summer Movie Series: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Taylor Swift’s career-spanning costume exhibition just opened at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). On May 18, MAD Director Tim Rodgersand Board Chair Michele Cohen (with husband Marty) welcomed members and patrons for a preview of the exhibition before it opened to the public on the 20th. Guests included Susan and Larry Ach, Loreen Arbus, Christiana Baroni, Marian Burke, Patti and Michael Dweck, Alexander Hankin, Marsy Mittlemann, Netta Rosin, as well as MAD curators Elissa Auther, Barbara Paris Gifford, and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy. Television cameras whirled in a music filled electric gallery.
(BFA Madison McGaw)
Taylor Swift: Storyteller is a career-spanning look at the artistic reinventions of the 12-time GRAMMY Award–winning artist who is one of the most prolific songwriters in history. The exhibition includes stage costumes from all her eras; the cheerleader and ballerina ensembles from the award-winning music video for “Shake It Off” (2014) to the sparkling ensemble from “Bejeweled” (2022). Concert attire by couture fashion houses including Cavalli, Gucci, Louboutin, Versace, YSL and more, are featured along with props, jewelry, ephemera, and projections of music videos. The exhibition runs through September 4, 2023. Timed tickets for the exhibition are available for $25 and include access to all Museum exhibitions. For more information, visit https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/taylor-swift-storyteller.
Alexander Hankin
Alexander Hankin, Barbara Tober
Amanda Ibrahim, Zachary Miller
Angelic Vizcarrondo-Laboy, Willow Holdorf
Barbara Paris Gifford, Angelic Vizcarrondo-Laboy, Willow Holdorf
Barbara Paris Gifford, Elissa Auther
Barbara Tober, Marian Burke
Ben Strauss, Marian Burke
Bruce White, Christina Clare Ewald
Isabel Lo, Lina Hares
Jeffrey Brosa, Andy Seid, Wendy Leiser
Jeffrey Quaritius
Joey Spieczny, Alexander Hankin, Zachary Miller, Justin Grabell
Larry Ach, Susan Ach
Tim Rodgers
Sasha Nixon, Robert Lugo
Patti Dweck, Michael Dweck
Michele Cohen, Marsy Mittlemann
Marsy Mittlemann, Netta Rosin
Lucig Kebranian
Last Thursday multidisciplinary, shamanic artist ETTE exposed the name of her predator and took back her life. The show was powerful, prolific and empowering. “Whistle Blower” was co-produced by Derek Warburton.
Now you can go inside the performance that exposed who raped ETTE and the action she took to take her life back.
Sexual Violence Affects Millions of Americans
Younger People Are at the Highest Risk of Sexual Violence
- Ages 12-34 are the highest risk years for rape and sexual assault.3
- Those age 65 and older are 92% less likely than 12-24 year olds to be a victim of rape or sexual assault, and 83% less likely than 25-49 year olds.4
On Thursday multidisciplinary, shamanic artist ETTE exposed the name of her predator and took back her life. The show was powerful, prolific and empowering. My guest Elisabeta, writer ElizaBeth Taylor and I, all felt privileged to be apart of an act so brave and true. Abuse victims should NEVER feel the way they are made to feel.
Before the main event we talked with ETTE about her abuse and how prevalent abuse is in our society.
Her co-host Derek Warburton also shared his story and why he co-produced this amazing night.
Did you know?
Before that happened T2C had a chance to see her art show entitled “Whistle Blower”.
ETTE’s art
Tomorrow the performance.
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