In early January, I went to a reception/get-to-know-each-other kinda thing for the artists participating in Wunderground’s quarterly “Look! Listen! Buy!” event. At one point, I was telling another artist about my tendency to isolate – staying home and spending all of my time painting and writing. “Do you get social anxiety?” she asked. For whatever reason, I wasn’t totally honest. I told her that I didn’t. Which – OBVIOUSLY – is slightly less than the truth. I think it’s because I didn’t feel anxious in that moment. Either way, before long, I was proving the falsity of my claim. I tried to keep myself moderately engaged in and attentive to the conversations around me but I was primarily focused on scratching out some artwork in the tiny notepad I kept in my backpack. Eventually, I put it away and got involved in the slightly more socially appropriate activity of doing the exact same thing, only with the pretext of “entertaining a child.”
Seven days later, I was at “Look! Listen! Buy!,” sitting at my table, not enjoying myself. The music was too loud to really talk to anyone and – having just faced the consequences of some bad weather and an outdoor set-up – I wasn’t in the best mood. Things didn’t seem to be going especially well and I found myself back at work on the drawing I had started the night of the reception. I didn’t like the band that was playing. I had my headphones in. This was antisocial as fuck and I didn’t care. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” I thought. “All I want is to go back home and eat my leftover pizza. More than anything. SO BADLY.” (Not super-poetic but – when I’m falling apart emotionally – it’s not unusual for me to look to pizza to make everything okay again).
Which isn’t to say that I’m not grateful for the opportunity or that I don’t love the fuck out of Wunderground (because I really fucking do). I’m so happy to be a part of that group (though that doesn’t really have anything to do with Wunderground as much as it does the people behind it). Which kinda goes to show that (1) I don’t know shit about shit, (2) I’m a crybaby, and (3) everything works out exactly as it should / everything’s got a silver lining. I don’t make “friends” outside of punk rock (or treatment) – or so I thought. And I definitely didn’t think I’d make friends in Jacksonville. I’m not sure why that is… I get along with just about everyone I meet. I like just about everyone that I meet. But I just don’t usually feel connected to anyone. I was thinking about it recently though and (especially) last night. I’m kinda, sorta actually a part of a little crew of friends / artists here now. They like me and I like them. They invite me to do stuff with them. That feels nice. It makes me feel good. I’m grateful for it (and for them).
Friday, I sold art at the Civic Media Center in Gainesville. Drove back to Jacksonville last night and sold at the Four Families album release show. AND NOW – after seeing Gord post something about Atlanta – I’ve keenly deduced that not only are Iron Chic playing in Gainesville tonight, but they’re playing with Off With Their Heads and The Slow Death! Couldn’t be more excited. I hit up Johnny to see if I could sell art at the show tonight and – now that I’ve got the go ahead and know that I can make some money to cover gas – am about to hit the road and drive right back to Gainesville.
Things couldn’t be going better lately. That (and the fact that I’ve been off Adderall for MORE THAN A WEEK now) has had an interesting effect on my artistic output. I’m less in my head, less troubled, and painting nonsense like this:
“Yo – I Painted a Fuckin’ Unicorn.” 2/28/14. Acrylic paint. 16×16″.
My favorite element of the painting is the arrow at the bottom center – directing the viewer’s attention to the unicorn. You know – IN CASE ANYONE’S HAVING TROUBLE FINDING IT.
UPDATE! / ADDENDUM!(April 24, 2014)
In April of last year, I was at an art fair kinda thing, where I met an artist named William Somma. He asked me if I’d like to collaborate on a painting. He threw a bunch of colors onto a canvas and then handed it off to me so that I could paint a bunch of my funny faces on top. The result was our painting, “Limp.” When it was done, he asked if I’d like to do another. He threw a bunch of colors on the second canvas but they didn’t dry before the day was done. I took it home with me and didn’t pick it up again for almost a year. That second painting (eventually) became, “Yo – I Painted a Fuckin’ Unicorn.”
Here’s the thing… None of Will’s colors were still on the canvas by the time I was finished with it. His texture was still underneath my paint but I felt guilty about it. I argued with myself over whether I should acknowledge that this was the same canvas (and risk hurting his feelings) or say nothing and – should he ever ask about the canvas – LIE and say that I lost it. In the moment that I decided to share the painting online, I didn’t even think of the whole dilemma.
A couple days ago, Will sent me an email: “Hey, question… I was browsing your paintings and I noticed the unicorn one. Is that the one I gave you at Art Pool underneath? The texture made it turn out pretty neat.”
Holy shit, that kid’s got a good eye! That was a year ago!!
I told Will all about my guilt and shame and he was totally cool about it. The whole thing was a giant relief.
AND CHECK IT OUT: Now my Unicorn painting has a way better story! Being mentally ill sure keeps things interesting!
I used to care about stuff. These days, whenever I hear someone railing on about how this or that is bullshit or a scam or [whatever], I just kinda roll my eyes. “Get some real problems,” I’ll think. “Isn’t there anything going on in yourown life worth being concerned about?” I’ve only got so much emotional capital and I’m definitely not investing it in some shit that has zero bearing on my day-to-day. And (of course) I’ve got my own principles, but I’m not about to start preaching to other people about what they ought to support, not support, believe, or not believe. Again – I GOT ENOUGH GOING ON RIGHT HERE. I don’t have the time or energy to waste on trying to change or influence somebody else. Besides, I’m pretty sure that the most positive effect I’ve ever had on the world has been through my art and my writing, which I do for my own benefit but which seems to positively impact other people as an added bonus.
On another note: I’VE BEEN FUCKING A LOT LATELY. I’m getting a lot of attention from girls. It’s probably going to my head a little bit. There are still plenty of times when I’ll catch a glimpse of my reflection and get pretty bummed out about the way that I look but for the most part I’m pretty pleased with myself these days.
I painted this while I was selling prints at the opening of a new art space in St. Augustine. It’s been a really long time since I spent less than ten hours on a painting, but I’m pretty sure I wrapped this one up within an hour or so. If I’m being honest, it was half expressive art and half “hey, girls! look at me! come talk to me!” Even still, I’m pretty happy with it.
I chose to use only the second half of my caption as the title because (by itself) it’s sexually suggestive but silly. That line underneath the body was originally meant just to distinguish one leg from the other but I left it as is ‘cause it kinda looks like it’s meant to be a dick. That works too.
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This painting is already up as part up my exhibit at Burrito Gallery in Jacksonville, FL. By tomorrow afternoon, it’ll also be available as a 12×16″ print.
Speaking of prints, I set up at Rain Dogs to sell last night (thanks to my buddy, Mike, who does art under the banner of Hood Rat Shit). I just found out that Chris Wollard and Jon Snodgrass are playing there tonight, so I might try to go back and do the same. Here are some photos from last night though.
“Art by Sammy thrashLife. Buy something or don’t. I live in a minivan – NOTHING MATTERS.”Gauging by the Facebook/Instagram reaction, it seems that I find this sign to be FAR MORE HILARIOUS than most people do.
Snarkiness, pride, self-deprecation, vanity, whatever… all that shit aside – I really do have fun. And I really am grateful. I couldn’t ask for anything more than what I’ve got. And when I think about all the people that have been so supportive of me recently – personally or in just buying my work – it really is humbling. I feel like I’m in a pretty good state of being, even if it is a delicate balancing act sometimes.
“Modern Art is Stupid; Everything Is.” 1/12/14. Acrylic, spray, and watercolor paints, ink, oil pastels, food coloring, and charcoal. 60×40″.
Artist’s statement (revised 4/2/14):
This piece was started in the last week of December and finished in mid-January, during the final days of my relationship with Heather. There’s a lot of emotional back-and-forth in it. On New Year’s Eve, I wrote:
If you’ve never walked the train tracks alone on New Year’s Eve, singing along (badly) to a song only you can hear and maybe – just once, in the course of that walk – thrown a fist in the air… Well – I don’t envy you.
I DON’T EVEN LOOK OVER MY SHOULDER ANYMORE.
Hit the pavement, light another cigarette. Life is beautiful.
I just jumped in the air and laughed. I’ve never even heard this song before.
The joy I felt in that moment soon gave way to dejection. I was walking to meet Heather to go out for the night. Our outing only lasted fifteen minutes or so, before she got mad at me, and I walked home alone in a very different state of mind. Hembrough called me around 2 AM. He was walking home along the tracks back in Sarasota. I laughed. “What am I doing?” he asked me, “Why is this happening? Because punk rock told me so, I guess.”
The next morning, I was feeling drained of any and all spirit. I wrote out two lists:
THINGS THAT MADE ME CRY TODAY:
(1) A Facebook post about the rain
(2) A pop punk song about resilience
THINGS THAT MADE YOU CRY TODAY:
(1) Me
A few days later, I added more text: “It gets better, it gets worse, it gets better, it gets worse. As soon as it’s good enough, it isn’t. Why am I so sad?”
Another day or two passed and Rational Anthem sent me the demos of their new eight-song EP that they were gearing up to record. One song in particular fucking wrecked me. The chorus begins: “I can’t convince myself that I’m happy.“
Fuck. They nailed it.
The last lyric in the song repeats through the end. “Does it matter anyway?” I heard it differently though: “It doesn’t matter anyway.” If I had heard that song on New Year’s Day, I wouldn’t have just been crying, I’d probably have been bawling.
The song had a goofy working-title. ”No,” I told Chris. “There’s nothing fucking silly about this song. It needs a real, honest title.” I told him to call it, “I Wish I Could Be Happy.” He, Noelle, and Pete took me up on it so that’ll be the title when the record comes out. Since then, it’s also been decided that my watercolor painting/cartoon, “Autobiography,” will be used as the front cover for the record (recaptioned with the album’s title, “Emotionally Unavailable”). (Before I move past punk rock, I wanna note that the album I was listening to as I walked on NYE was “The Constant One” by Iron Chic, and the song referenced in my list is “The Shades of Grey” by The Murderburgers.
The text about it getting better and getting worse was originally the largest caption on the canvas, but I decided to relegate it to semi-obscurity by rewriting it in pen in the shadows. I blocked out that original caption with a series of primary-colored rectangles. I liked them but they reminded me of what I guess I’d call the proverbial “modern art.” I don’t like to be so negative or critical as to suggest that any art is stupid (after all, I have no idea what goes into it or why the artist is making it) but – if I’m being honest – when I look at most artwork, I have the same response that I think most people have to art:“Um… okay.” Basically, I don’t get it. I’m not sure why I should care. I mean, if the artist is getting something out of it, then I think that’s spectacular (genuinely!) but I don’t think that that necessarily makes it worth my time or attention. “Modern Art is Stupid; Everything Is” is reflective of that attitude as well as the bad / hurt feelings swirling around my relationship and my general state of being as I painted this. It’s also part self-deprecation. After all (IN CASE YOU CAN’T TELL), this piece is itself a work of modern art. (And – depending on who you ask – thoroughly stupid!)
All of this sort of adds up to one big jumbled mess of emotion and incident. That’s what happens when my work on some piece spans two or even three weeks. Struggling with whether or not I should break up with my girlfriend, trying to figure out if I’m happy, walking along train tracks, pop punk, modern art, being an artist. I don’t know what’s what. I summed it up with one last caption along the bottom of the canvas: “This is one of them MAGIC EYE paintings. Look close, at just the right angle, and you can see… how full of shit I am.”
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Status update (2/22/14): Here are two photos of the painting, hanging in Ettra (the gallery in which it was sold).
I also got set up at Burrito Gallery in Jacksonville this week. I have twenty-one pieces on their wall right now, though I may add more. The exhibit will run through the first week of April.
I’m posting this from Chamblin’s Uptown. A few of my pieces are still up on the walls here, though I’ll be rearranging and adding more later in the week.
And I still have plenty of new pieces that I’ve yet to share online. I’ve been incredibly busy though so I’m going to hold off until I have time to write up proper statements to accompany them.
Anyway, things are going really well so far as all my art nonsense is concerned. Breaking my lease and moving into a van might not have seemed like the most sound game plan, but I couldn’t be happier with how things have been developing. Life’s been going a mile a minute and I’m just doing my best to keep up. I’ll be in Jacksonville until the show at Burrito Gallery ends and then I’ll head north to try and line up a show in a new city. The uncertainty and instability of my life can get scary at times but it’s also really exciting and – more than anything – I feel grateful. And I feel free. I don’t have to convince myself that I’m happy today; I just am.
My first beard got long enough that I was starting to feel like the grimy “homeless” kid that I sort of am. Here I am after trimming it last night, working on some graphic stuff at the laundromat.
Thursday: I packed up the rest of my stuff and left Bradenton. My first stop was Umatilla, to visit an ex-girlfriend in rehab. I had dropped her off there myself after visiting friends in Boca Raton and discovering that she wasn’t quite as clean and stable as she had been telling me. After that, I went to Gainesville to teach Valerie how to format, package, and sell prints of her artwork. I had met Valerie while filming my scenes in her brother’s movie (“No Real Than You Are”) over the summer. The previous Saturday, I had gone to the cast/crew screening of the film, where I’d seen her parents for the first time since July. The next morning, they took me out to brunch and – after seeing my prints – told her what I was up to and she reached out to me for a tutorial. Friday, I woke up in Gainesville and spent the day meeting with galleries. Valerie’s mom, Nancy, called and said there was a big arts festival that weekend in Sarasota so I stayed the night and we rode down the next day.
Saturday, we arrived too late to really do the art fair but we went to her parents’ house in Osprey for dinner. They wanted to screen the film for some friends so – as the SUPER IMPORTANT ACTOR that I am – I stuck around for that. Afterward, we got to talking, they asked to see my art, and I wound up selling a bunch of prints.
Sunday, I did the art fair in Sarasota with Morgan and sold another
good handful of prints.
On Monday, Valerie and I hit the print shop to re-up on my supply. We drove back to Gainesville, I showed her the final stages of the packaging process, and then carried on to Jacksonville.
Tuesday, I went to Chamblin’s where I have a bunch of originals hanging, as well as some prints for sale. Collected a few bucks for prints sold while I’ve been away and then spent the afternoon writing up statements for some older pieces that I’ve been neglecting. Saw Heather for the first time in a while and then got a call from Erin Murphy, who informed me that her band, Teach Me Equals, were playing Jacksonville that very night and would I like to come out and set up to try and sell some art? Went over the Burro Bar around ten, watched them play, and sold way more stuff than I should have considering the Tuesday night attendance. Also got to meet Greg, the other half of the band and a really nice guy. Teach Me Equals definitely aren’t in line with my regular listening habits but I was really pleasantly surprised by their set. Loud, discordant, and fucked up but melodic, energetic, and dynamic in the way that kind of shit’s
supposed to be. Afterward, they invited me to come set up again at
their show in St Augustine.
Today, I woke up and went to see my Jacksonville counselor before setting up on the sidewalk in Five Points to finish packaging / assembling all the new prints I’d either just gotten or just printed statements for. Sold a couple and then went into Sun Ray to see Tim and collect the stuff is left behind before I left Jacksonville in January. Went by Burrito Gallery on the off chance I could catch the owner, did, and he informed me that they’d been saving a wall for me. This is the place I’ve wanted to show for a while so I was pretty excited. I got about 90% set up (with close to twenty pieces on the wall) and then hit the road for St Augustine. I’m about to go set up inside to sell
prints.
Tomorrow, I’ll check out and try to meet with galleries here in St Augustine and (depending on how it goes) get back to Jacksonville tomorrow night or the next day and finish setting up at Burrito Gallery. That’s gonna run through ’til sometime in April (I forget) and then I’m gonna leave Jacksonville behind and head north to the next city on my list. Had the Burrito Gallery thing not panned out, it’d have been New Orleans but since it’ll already be April, I think I’ll head somewhere a little cooler. I don’t mind sleeping in a minivan, but I’d rather not bake in a minivan.
Part of it might be that there’s enough content on here that I don’t feel quite as strong a need to ensure that I’m putting up something new every single day; part of it might be that there’s been nothing this last week that I’ve been dying to share; but the unusually low level of activity on the site this last week definitely doesn’t have anything to do with a creative rut, a lack of output or anything like that.
Here’s what I’ve been up to:
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I got my hands on a canvas that’s more than twice the size of any other I’ve ever gotten to work with. So far I’ve put 22 hours into it and I’m really happy with how it’s coming along. I’d like to say that it’s mostly done but I still have so much little detail left that [you never know] things could take a dramatically different sort of direction and it might not end up anything like the painting that it is at this moment. And actually – I take back what I said – I’m DEFINITELY dying to share this painting (just not until it’s ready!)
I’ve also been spending a fair amount of time trying to get my artwork into some new galleries, businesses, and other spaces. It’s gone well so far and I’m hoping to pick up even more new locations soon. I’ll share more specific details about that stuff later in the week.
On a different sort of note, I took the first part of my motorcycle training course today and will finish tomorrow. As soon as I can get down to Sarasota (this or next weekend probably) I’ll swap out my little 50cc thrashBike for a 150cc. Which might not seem like anything that has tremendous artistic implications but is really exciting because it’s going to enable me to travel outside of Jacksonville (on my own) and get shows set up in other cities.
On top of all that, there are a couple other developments I’m really excited about but can’t quite talk about yet. Long story short though, things are going really well and only seem to be getting better. I’m thinking I’ll make time to resume with regular art/blog updates tomorrow. In the meantime…
I wouldn’t have even noticed the sky the other night (had Heather not commented on it). Within one second of looking up though, I was reaching in my pocket for my phone. I’m (obviously) not a photographer and I don’t usually take pictures of anything like this but it was just too perfect. Not because it’s beautiful (though it is) but because it reminded me of something else that’s beautiful.
Last month, Rumspringer made a video for their song, “Love Poem to Irrigation.” It’s off their sophomore full-length, Stay Afloat, which came out last year on LP through Dirt Cult Records. (It’s also available on CD or as a digital download).
Though it wasn’t the first record I had lined up for Traffic Street, Rumspringer’s debut EP was the first release in my catalog to see the light of day. It makes me really happy that they’re not only still playing but that they continue to get better.
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This photo was taken from right outside my house so those shoes on the power line are (of course) my own. Well – not originally. Back when I still lived at Tranquil Shores, I got ’em from a friend after my own Frankenshoes finally gave out
My last valiant effort to repair my own shoes.The crappy painting I did on the shoes I got from Troy which (for the last six months or so) have lived up on the power lines.
“Blueprint For a Successful Evening.” 6/17/13 and 5/12/14. Acrylic paint, spray paint, and ink. 24×18″.
I’m always busy. I always have “really important” stuff that I “have” to do. When I was living in DC, it was Traffic Street Records year-round and law school around final exam time. Back then (before heroin became the main problem), I feel like the biggest point of tension in my relationship was my emotional unavailability. Every night, Taylor would ask me to come to bed, I’d tell her I was almost done, and then six hours would pass before I actually made it to the bedroom. So every night she went to sleep alone, woke up while I was still asleep, and then came home from work to find me busy packing up records or laying out a record insert or [whatever]. Eventually, I started doing whatever Traffic Street stuff that I could at school instead of the apartment, so that she’d already be asleep when I got home and I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not coming to bed and not paying attention to her.
Heather and I moved to Jacksonville this June. She didn’t have a job lined up before we got here so, for the first two weeks, we were both home all the time. Since I’m always busy, I’m never bored and I’m always content in that regard. But Heather has been working [forever] and likes having a job to go to every day. Consequently, she was bored out of her mind. And – maybe because of my own insecurities and my experiences with Taylor – I felt guilty anytime I was working instead of paying attention to her. It was stressing me out. And the fact that she was visibly bored and unhappy made even harder. Especially when I tried to talk to her about it and she just tuned out. Eventually, I decided that there was nothing I could do and just went about doing my own thing. But when it got to the point where we were barely talking at all, it was too much.
I’m feeling disconnected. I’m trying to push through it, assume the best, not stress out. If someone’s not talking to me, it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with me. They could just not feel like talking. Or it could have everything to do with me. But if every attempt at conversation – every question asked – is met with a one-word response, what am I supposed to do? [Moving to a new city together] is supposed to be exciting. And it is for me. But I feel like only for me. And that tempers the excitement a bit. I opened up, put everything out there. Explained with sincerity how I’m feeling. And I got nothing back. Literally, no response.
[ -written June 17th]
I was at a loss. Now I couldn’t work. I sat alone in the living room dumbfounded. And scatterbrained; I had my probation deadline hanging over my head and hadn’t finished my community service hours yet. That was also weighing on me and fucking me up. Especially since I was getting my hours from home; that meant that I could have been doing it in that moment, but wasn’t. Instead, I decided that I needed to paint. It had been too long.
There’s a small block of text in the center of the canvas:
My first impulse is to lie in bed, face down, and cry forever. My second is to beat off. I need to write and paint. I spill my guts and… I’m struggling. Sharing life isn’t easy. I might not be built for it. It’s tough to know what’s right for me. I like being me but it isn’t easy. I guess nothing is. That doesn’t feel true.
The next day – as has so often been the case this summer – I did a total one-eighty. Within twenty-four hours of painting “Blueprint,” I was working on a drawing that says: “I couldn’t be happier” – something I genuinely felt.
REVISION (5/31/14):
Nearly a year had passed since I painted this piece and it remained unsold. That’s mostly due to the fact that I hadn’t been displaying it because I didn’t really like it anymore. I don’t usually go back and work on old pieces because I tend to think of them as “artifacts” from another time in my career. But if I was keeping it locked up in a trunk, in a garage somewhere, it wasn’t really doing much good as an artifact or anything else for that matter. Better to go back, work on it some more – until it was something that I could be proud of and sell with confidence. It took another ten hours or so and I finished it on May 12, 2014. Sixteen days later, it was sold. Here’s what it used to look like…
“Blueprint For a Successful Evening,” as it was upon its initial completion on 6/17/13..
![Cotton Candy Skies [photo]](https://i0.wp.com/sammythrashlife.com/wp-content/uploads/cotton-candy-skies.jpg)
