New Studio!

I'm very excited to announce that I've just mailed in my deposit for my new studio at Hive Galleries in Oakland! Starting January 1st, I'll be happily painting away in my own personal white box. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to start getting my portfolio in order for grad school applications next fall, and also just really excited to not have to make small gouache drawings at the kitchen table any more. The joy of having a dedicated art-making space... just one more reason to hope the world doesn't end in 2012.

Postcard Show 14

The following images are some of my favorites of the 35 individual gouache and pencil on paper postcards I made for the upcoming show at The Lab. I got lazy and didn't do anything other than crop my scans, but I think in this case that's alright. 

Upcoming Shows

Im Lauf der Zeit (Kings of the Road), 1976

The agony of not being able to find the film you want to watch.

Wim Wenders' 1976 film Im Lauf der Zeit (English title: Kings of the Road) is a film that I haven't seen since I was in high school, when an old VHS copy was lent me by a friend. To be totally honest, I remember it only in flashes. Black and white with long, slow, silent takes. I remember two men on the road. I don't remember anything else definitively enough to write out. What I can say is that this film was my introduction to Wim Wenders, who became a life-long favorite. This film also probably led into my enthusiasm for Jim Jarmusch films. (I remember a similar frustration while waiting for the re-issue of Stranger Than Paradise.) So until I can dig it out from some library, I'll content myself with listening to Roger Miller songs.

Lemons and Rats (dream)

This has really nothing to do with nothing, but last night I dreamed (among other things) of a back-lit fishtank full of water and lemons sunk beneath. The tank contained nine white rats, which I counted in my sleep - a new experience. These rats were eating the zest off the lemons, leaving them shaved and matte white. The light was a beautiful California morning light - glowy and yellow, but still so bright - and as the rats did their work, the light caught in the tank, glowing even more yellow and white from the lemons and white rats. An interesting silhouette of white and yellow on white and yellow, outlined with brighter whites and yellows. I saw all this over a fence, over a dream-distance that blurred things. But it was stays vivid in my memory.

It was really quite beautiful, and in my dream I felt that I should discourage the rats from doing this, as they were in my backyard. But I couldn't do it, and walked away.

An Image from Route 66

Click to see larger.

I really wish I had a better camera. There's something about this image I find so striking.

Libido of Benjamino

From Wikipedia:

Ivan Maximov (Russian: Иван Максимов) is an artist, professional animator and director.

Ivan Maximov was born on 19 November 1958 in Moscow.[1] He studied photography at the Biophysical Institute in Moscow till 1976. From 1976 - 1982 Maximov studied at the Physical-Technical Institute in Moscow. He worked as an illustrator for various magazines and from 1982 to 1986 he was an engineer at the Russian Space Research Institute. Between 1986 and 1989 Maximov took advanced studies in Film Directing and Script writing.

Starting 1995 he worked as "virtual studio IVAN MAXIMOV" where he set up his studio at home to work on film, video and computer animation. He worked as a caricaturist for VREMYA mn and in 2000 and 2001 he worked as a caricaturist for VREMYA NOVOSTEY.

In 2003, Maximov created the computer game Full Pipe[2] at PIPE-STUDIO.

In 2003 Maximov began teaching film directing and script writing at school-studio SHAR and VGIK.

In 2007, Mr. Maximov completed his latest work Rain Down from Above.

$2.75 at the Berkeley Flea Market

This one is deserving of a closer look

One month in.

Moving to Oakland accomplished, a proper studio remains out of reach for financial reasons. Frustrating, especially as it is completely impossible for Eric and I to keep a surface clean enough to work on. So all my supplies are boxes, paintings are bundled in plastic and put under the bed, and only a few sketch pads and pencils remain. Hopefully something will come of that.

For any interested parties, here's what I wrote in a (promptly deleted) diary sort of blog about moving.

Woke up crabby with a hint of bull in a china shop. Promptly stubbed my toe on everything we own, cursed it out, had some tea in a cup that turned out to be dirty, cursed at that too, knocked some more things over, then ran down the street to Peet's in the hopes that coffee will even me out. My cappuccino is 90% foam and I remain irritable.

California has been good to me so far, even through this morning's grumpiness. I continue to apply for jobs that are more in line with what I came here for (art, grad school, fame, fortune and fig trees) but am piecing together working as transcriptionist for art museums and jack-of-all-trades for a succulent nursery in Berkeley. This isn't a job I would feel comfortable committing to long-term, but I do enjoy the novelty of working in the California sunshine while picking dead leaves off of cacti with tweezers. It feels...California. I still don't quite know what that means. I think in my mind SF was LA but with hemp instead of botox, but it's really probably more like Seattle. Which I've never been to.

I'm enthralled by the hills on my side of the Bay. I can't believe how long I lived in the flat grayness of Chicago, how long I allowed myself to live without beauty like this. I truly love Chicago. I love it's square blocks and easy bike-rides, the bacchanalia of summer before the draconian winters. I suspect that I will tire of fig and olive trees, of organic food and awareness-of-all-causes. But that certainly hasn't happened this month.

Our studio apartment (especially in it's half-moved-into state) is crowded, but I do love it. When I wake in the morning, I see the whole world shrouded in fog. Two hours later the temperature has risen 30 degrees and as the sun clears the clouds I can see tiny ships in the Berkeley marina and the hills of Marin county. When the leaves die on the oak tree on the sidewalk, I'll be able to see all the buildings of San Francisco, which we only see now as twinkles between leaves at night. As the sun goes down, everything burns orange, and I watch the Ethiopian and Korean restaurants filter the street crowd. The library across the street has an open and closed sign so big I can read it from my kitchen table, and I go there to type and check e-mails. The lights are never on until nightfall, and all the windows are open. Sometimes there are bees resting on the covers of the Alice Waters book I want and I have to wait for them to get bored and fly away before I can learn about vinaigrette.

From the nursery I have been given many baby plants, most still attached to a fallen leaf of their mother plant. They line the windows and get so cold at night that I wonder they don't die. I've lost my cigarettes, but at night with the windows open the smoke blows back in, mingling with the smell of the daal Eric is preparing.

I get crabby. I can be mean. I yell at objects, even though it's me who put them in my way. But I'm happy.

I've successfully gotten my kicks.

Much to write about, much of it too much in the personal diary vein to be appropriate here, I think. I've recently completed my move to Oakland, California. Although perhaps that "completed" is a bit premature. The studio apartment we're currently renting month-to-month in the Laurel district has a bit of a flea problem, so we won't be staying long. For now everything is in storage except two suitcases, two plates, two cups, and a pot and a wok, plus an air bed and two sleeping bags. We have no internet so I'm posting this from the local Whole Foods, but we spend our days reading newspapers, playing cards, looking for work and exploring. Yesterday I spent the day at Baker Beach in San Francisco watching dolphins, starfish and a lone seal cavort in waves that humans aren't allowed to swim in for fear of drowning.

It's a cliche, but people are different here. I saw a nude man on the beach with a red parrot on his arm and a dog smaller than the parrot at his feet. A circle of women took turns disrobing and bowing face-down into the waves while the rest of the circle chanted, clapped and shook maracas. There is a man in my apartment building who looks like Samuel Beckett and talks like a toothless prophet, only about things like parking and bicycle tires. Our next-door neighbors have 6 marijuana pots in their backyard, partially shaded by an American flag. Plants are different as well; succulents are no longer for pots, but take the place of grass on the small urban lawns. Palm trees abound, as does every variety of eucalyptus known to man. Adjusting is fun and feels a bit like vacation. This will probably be the case until my cash runs out.

Our road to California was more or less the all-American Route 66 path, with some detours. Several minor disasters along the way (camping during a monsoon in New Mexico, a gallon of paint losing its top and turning the back of our truck my favorite gray, the loss of my iphone and nearly running out of gas in the Mojave) kept the vibe a little less than jovial, but it's funny how time changes things. Even the day after a let-down, I would find myself looking at videos from the day with a sort of nostalgia. Scratching my myriad bugbites with almost wistfully. To be sure, a great many good experiences took place, including a rare glimpe of the Milky Way from atop an Arizona peak.

But the most striking thing - and I this really struck me as we were eating a terrible lunch in a 1950s themed diner - is how the whole Route 66 experience had been gobbled up by THE ROUTE 66 EXPERIENCE. The best parts of our journey were the little discoveries made by mistake, not the cheesy "Indian Gift Shop" stops or diners that routinely served food that barely passed for such and called it "The Big Bopper Special". Scrambled billboards and rusted out Buicks dot the landscape as much as cattle, and there's truly a feeling of not visiting the past, but visiting something that has passed. I'm not sure if I'm able to communicate this properly yet. As soon as I have the capability, I'll upload some photos that will hopefully express it better than I can.

Works in progress have not progressed. Shamed.

In three weeks I set off on a week-long road trip that ends with me living in California. I'll know in a few days where, but Oakland is most likely the case. I have had no time for work, as I've been working like crazy at the day job. Finally slowing down, but what use is oil paint when it has to be dry so soon? In the meantime, I'm storing up ideas. I've been toying with the idea of some three-dimensional pieces in porcelain, but I have no access to such a studio, at least for now.

I still, as always, feel that a major flaw in the way I live my life is that different interests and aspects of my personality are categorized and separated from each other. I need to work on developing a greater integration between what I think about and what I do, as well as what I do during my on and off the clock times. I haven't figured out how to do that yet. But I think this move will be an opportunity for a great reorganization and refocusing on what I actually care about.

I wonder what that will turn out to be.

Works in Progress

2010 Chicago Art Open

I'll be participating in the 2010 Chicago Art Open at River East Art Center.



This painting will be on display. If you happen to be in the River East area, check out this juried group show of up and coming Chicago artists.

New Camera.

Today at a thrift store I purchased one of these:


A disc film camera from the 1980's. I'd love to start using it; if anyone has any idea where to buy film, please let me know. They discontinued it in 1998 apparently, although it's still possible to get it developed. I'm ever-so-curious about the quality of the prints.

Unearthed

With awareness of the fact that I don't produce enough drawings to sustain my painting practice and the goal of regaining a skill that I have somewhat lost, I have started going back to unfinished painting ideas to make them into drawings instead. One image I found while looking through old photographs of my past studios is this one, based on a drawing of the United States I made from memory in 2005. Unfortunately, I cannot play this game with myself any more because I've compared the maps I make to the 'real' maps of the US too many times. The images I remember are no longer tied to my knowledge of the US but to my knowledge of US maps, so the goal of an honest representation of what I think the United States 'is' is unattainable. But here's what I thought once upon a time:



This painting was from a time when I was (even more than I am now) lost in the wilderness of painting technique. I'll be using this image to make a drawing from in the future, but for now it's just good to look at.

Updated Artists Statement

I'm applying for the 2010 Chicago Art Open, and had to update my artists statement. Thought I'd post it in here, so you can get an idea of what I'm thinking lately.

I intend for my work to be an entry point to a discussion of the failures of visual communication and an exploration of the shortcomings of the visual storage and transmission of data. I seek inspiration from etymology, diagrams, museum displays, the written word and other arenas where the visual is the chosen mode of communication. My work seeks to highlight the parallax between the attempted/intended meaning of the pure visual object and its new—and perhaps more real—meaning, once filtered through the stored knowledge of the viewer. I attempt to find the objective ‘truth’ of the transmission in the space between.

Visual artifacts—I believe—are often more isolated from their meaning by the passing of time and the adaptation of surrounding symbols than words are, due perhaps to the frequency to which we use (and adapt) our verbal symbols as compared to our visual. I believe it is imperative for the artist, as one who has chosen the visual to communicate ideas, to acknowledge this gap, and I have chosen to work with it and highlight it in my own work.

I'm also taking some more photos of newer work; I've come up with a way to light them so they don't look totally amateur, just a little.