Lately I’ve been so obsessed with ‘me’ that I felt the need to see my image in celebrities… okay, really, I’m so sick to death of this bloody rain, and working on an episode that just wouldn’t END, that I find myself drawn to spending time on dumb things like this. I’ll admit that it’s pretty fun, if not way off. I did some of friends too, but I figure they may not want me posting drunken shots of times that they may have forgotten. I’ll save THAT for later…

Strangely enough I decided to paint an image of this sign for the upcoming “Ladies Only” show only to find out that this old hotel is going to be torn down this month. It’s weird how these things come about.

I wanted to paint something a little different than ‘pin-up’ art (not that there’s anything wrong with it), because I’ve always found it a little odd that many artists’ concentrate on cheesecake when it comes to female oriented events. If it were a gentleman’s show, wouldn’t you get basically the same images? Granted, you can never get enough of beautiful female imagery, I suppose. I do have the ghost of a woman from the 40’s in there – does that count?

Regardless, for me what came to mind for “Ladies Only” was a sign I remembered seeing as a little girl in New West. I asked my dad what “Ladies & Escorts Entrance” meant, and he told me that during war-time it was considered unbecoming for a woman to enter a beer parlour unescorted. I felt that this really captured my idea of the theme – a separate door and everything! Of course, my dad told me the censored version of what this sign really meant. I can’t believe I’ve only found out the truth now after painting it!

So all these years later I decided to call up The Windsor Hotel to see if they still had the sign and if it worked so that I could get a picture. Sure enough, after talking with a fellow that thought I was a bit nuts, I found out it was still there AND it worked! – *note* – the “Gentlemen’s Entrance” sign didn’t work but it still hung over another door (there’s got to be a joke in there somewhere).

I have to admit that I’ve always remembered the hotel as looking like a pretty rough joint. Being grown up though I figured it may not seem as bad as it once appeared, but yeah, it still had the same vibe. I’m still sort of sad to hear that they are tearing it down in March though. At the very least I would have hoped they would have fixed it up, hell, all of Columbia needs fixing up anyway. I just hate the idea of removing an old Victorian building.

“Ladies & Escorts”

8.25 x 12″

Egg Tempera on Hardboard