Category Archives: Photographs

Photographs, Status Update

Status Update: Birthday 2013

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birthdaybreakfast
Birthday breakfast 2013! Gainvesville, FL.

It happened! I allowed myself to NOT post something new. (And for two days!) My phone wasn’t working properly and it seemed crazy to leave friends (some of whom I haven’t seen in years) just so I could go find a computer to sate my neurotic compulsion to add new content every day.

I had a really good time in Gainesville for The Fest this year. I got to town around 10 on Saturday night. Initially, every thing reminded me of drugs; I kept thinking about the last few times I was there: spent shooting up in vans, bathrooms, and crouching behind dumpsters or in alleys. Which wasn’t necessarily bad (it doesn’t freak me out or make me wanna use) but there are better thoughts that I’d rather occupy my mind.

In some of the quieter moments on Sunday morning, I started stressing out a little bit [basic social anxiety] and considered flipping right back to Jacksonville. I hid for about an hour, journaled a little bit, and then met up with some friends though and – from there –  everything stayed on track right through to the end.

I think that arriving/starting on Saturday night (instead of Thursday, or even Tuesday, as a lot of people did) was a really good idea for me. I don’t need that much Fest time. It’s true that there were a lot of people I would have really loved to see that I didn’t get a chance to meet up with so much as once (and plenty of others I could have used a lot more time with) but – in all – everything played out well.

And I was extremely lucky to have a lot of great people still around this morning for a dual Sam/Alec birthday breakfast. Birthdays aren’t a huge deal to me, but what better way to start one off than a few hours with friends from all over the map (just before they scatter back out across it)?

I’m gonna continue my little celebration by not being a nerd glued to the computer and just wait ’til tomorrow to get back into the regular swing of things. Here are two of the most endearing things I heard over the weekend though.

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“Go pee before you go to bed. Then you won’t piss in your sleep. That’s how it works.”
The way you say that, it sounds like this is a recurring problem…
“About four nights a week.”
No way… Is he really drinking that much, that often so as to be pissing himself on a regular basis?
[sad voice] “Dude, don’t tell Sam that. I don’t want Sam to know that.”

—–

What hoodie is that?
“Um… I’m not sure. Night of the Living Dead, I think.”
[laugh] Oh yeah – you get that at the mall?
“It’s not mine. – Hey, where’d you get this hoodie?”
“Hot Topic.”
[laughs] Serious? I was just kidding around.
“They’ve got cool stuff there.”

—–

Outstanding. Hopefully, these work on some level even without knowing the identities of the speakers. Either way, they both made me smile.

—–

Here’s a cartoon about my buddy, Avi (one of the kids in the photo). [I was gonna link to a bunch of art/posts about kids in the photo, but Heather just got home from work and I haven’t seen her since Saturday morning]. More (legit stuff) tomorrow!

Photographs, Status Update

Dear Jacksonville (flier for my first art show)

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A flier I made to promote my show. 10/29/13.
A flier I made to promote my show. 10/29/13.
Some photographs I took tonight while setting up my art show at Sun Ray Cinema.
Some photographs I took tonight while setting up at Sun-Ray Cinema.

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Last week I got a package from Taylor, which included a book called “Selling What You Make.” It wasn’t really the information in the book as much as its tone… I read about forty pages before I decided that I needed to get up and make something happen. Why wasn’t I trying to get stores to sell my prints or hang my paintings? I went to a few places downtown and a bunch more in Riverside trying to talk somebody into letting me do something. I was feeling pretty okay about the general responses I got early in but – when I decided to take a chance on the movie theater – I was kind of stunned. I only told a few people over the weekend ’cause I had a hard time accepting that it wasn’t going to fall through for some reason; It just seemed too cool to be real. The theater’s owner, Tim, took a look at some prints that I had brought with me and told me that I could come back on Monday to hang up (pretty much) as much of my artwork as I wanted (and after looking at all of them today, whichever pieces I wanted as well). It’s gonna be on display for the next month and I couldn’t be more excited (or grateful – for the opportunity from Tim, as well as the inspiration from Taylor).

Between the photos and the flier, you can gleam a lot of this info but… Sun-Ray Cinema is at Five Points in Riverside (at 1028 Park Street). And not only do they play movies, they’ve got an awesome kitchen and the seats in the theater have tables. It’s a really cool place and it’s been around since the 1920s. And it’s only a mile or so from my house. I guess it’d be cool to have a show at an art gallery, but an independent movie theater gets way more traffic and (probably) gets a crowd that’s a little more likely to “get” what I do. So – yeah – really, really excited. Tomorrow, I’m gonna flier the fuck out of this city and contact all the arts/weekend papers. Tonight, I’m gonna go to bed!

Photographs, Status Update

thrashBike

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“Regular” update coming in a minute, but since I’ve been working on the scooter all day…

scooterprogress00

 

After cleaning/sanding everything…

  • I took the teal floorboard off and spray painted it black, then did a really light coat of red on top of it.
  • I used red spray paint on the headlight casing, then scratched it to shit with sandpaper, then did a light coat of black a little bit more red. I did pretty much the same with the front wheel cover.
  • I did two coats of neon yellow on the front steering column plate before adding a little neon green. Next, I’ll do some outlines in black (faces and other nonsense).
  • I hand-painted the rear turn signals with neon green. They look kinda shitty but not in the way that I want (like the other pieces). I might be able to fix it with a couple more coats, but I think the paint might just not be right for it so I might do something else.
  • I still need to figure something out with the seat. Grey and teal isn’t doing it for me.
  • I did a little bit of custom nonsense to the instrument panel but since I didn’t take the little inner plate all the way out, it was kind of tough and I didn’t wanna risk fucking it up. I opted to go really basic and just black out most of what was there. I left the two circles on the speedometer so I’m not totally in the dark (they mark 20 and 30 mph).
  • I sandpapered the fuck out of the metal rack in the back. It was thoroughly coated in rust but it’s lookin’ pretty good now.
  • I still need to clean up the wheels and the exhaust. I’m also gonna paint the casing on the taillight. Probably the front turn signals too (I like the way they look from the front, but not from the back).
  • There’s a 50% chance I put the front turn signals on the wrong sides (but the battery’s dead so I’d have to take it outside to kickstart it if I want to find out). I hope not!
  • The panels from my old scooter fit on this one (as you can see) but don’t totally line up properly. Besides, I don’t think they look that great on it. I think I might paint the white/teal ones that came with this scooter and use those instead.
  • Still debating on whether I wanna cover the whole thing with wacky bullshit or just limit that to the side panels and the yellow/green one in front.
  • You see that jug of tea on the table in the background? It’s actually filled with ten month old gasoline!

The house has been a mess since I got back to town. Now that this thing’s at least reassembled, I’m starting to clean up a little bit.  It’s a big relief and I’ll feel even better once I’m done. I feel uneasy when things are out of place. Like Heather’s gonna stop loving me.

Cool!

Photographs, Status Update

thrashBike 2.0 [in progress]

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My scooter was stolen a couple weeks back. As my sole means of transportation, it was pretty upsetting.

Luckily, I have some phenomenal people in my life who are way too good to me and now I’m hard at work tuning-up, cleaning, and painting another one. It’s spent the last nine months sitting in a garage and it looks like I’m gonna need to buy a new battery, but I was able to get it running today (without stalling out at all) so I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a slightly different model than my old one but still a 1986 Honda Spree, which means I can continue to take pride in my scooter being older than I am and what (little) I learned about my last one still applies.

I was in the process of fixing the last one when it was stolen, so the side panels were off at the time. So long as I still got ’em, I figure I’ll put them on this bike and smile about it.

20131015-230916.jpg
This is the right side panel. I painted it back when I still lived at Tranquil Shores.

The left side panel was already featured in an entry (on the day that I re-painted it with different colors), but what the hell…

scooter
Here’s the left panel (on my first scooter, before it was stolen).

 

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Here’s the new bike, sitting in my kitchen, directly behind my chair as I type this.

I’m not sure exactly how I’m gonna paint all the other (white and teal) parts, but I’m having fun with it already. It feels good to take care of something. To pick it apart and really clean it up. It’s nice.

So nice that I’m okay with this being my only post today. (!)

Commissioned, Photographs, Status Update, Thread

Original/custom cartoon T-shirts

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Greetings From Delray Beach shirt #1

Are you guys sick of this image yet? I sold my first custom cartoon shirt (which I made last night). I redrew “Greetings From Delray Beach” onto a pink t-shirt using (black, brown, yellow, red, green, and blue) fabric markers. It took me about three hours.

I'm a Fine Art Enthusiast, You Guys shirt #1

I posted a little thumbnail of this shirt at some point a week or so back (at the bottom of an unrelated post) but this was the first shirt that I made (sometime last month for a friend’s birthday). It’s a modified version of my “I’m a Fucking Artist, Guys” cartoon.

If you’d like either of these shirts (or one featuring any of my other artwork) they can be purchased through my webstore.

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Status update: I’m leaving town tonight to go to a wedding with Heather. A wedding at which I not only have to wear a shirt but a shirt with long sleeves and a collar. I thought I was going to have to buy one but I found this one that I had forgotten that I owned. I think the last time I wore it was eight years ago. I feel ridiculous.

wedding clothes

 

It’s gonna be a really weird weekend but I’m going to do my best to post new stuff on the website each day that’s a little more legitimate / interesting than today’s post. Bear with me! ; )

Artist Statements, Intentional, Photographs, Post-Treatment, Thread

Gift Horse

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Today is Heather’s birthday. I considered painting her something but… “Oh. A painting. How novel.” (She’d never be that mean, but that’d certainly be a reasonable reaction)!

Sometime last week she asked me if I was going to get her a pony. So I decided to use this as an opportunity to force myself to break out of my comfort zone and make something that I wouldn’t otherwise.

"Gift Horse." 9/1/13. Fabric, thread, pillow stuffing. 13x21" (height and length).
“Gift Horse.” 9/1/13. Fabric, thread, pillow stuffing. 13×21″ (height and length).

I’m really happy that I followed through with this and I think she likes it, but – somewhere around the seven hour mark – I started to wonder if this was really just a sweet gesture or maybe an indication of serious emotional problems. Seven hours is a long time to spend on a birthday gift. And fourteen or fifteen hours is an even longer time. Or am I wrong? Is that a (relatively) normal undertaking?

And now it occurs to me that I’m suddenly concerned with what’s “normal.” And I’m worrying about whether or not I have serious emotional problems…

Which makes me smile. Of course I have serious emotional problems! And – as for normal – well…

Thursday was Angie’s birthday so – yesterday – we did a dual birthday trip to Alligator Farm in St. Augustine. (Check me out: goin’ out to do normal things like a normal person). There’s hope for me yet. Concerns resolved!

 

Artist Statements, Current Journal, Expressive, Inpatient, Photographs, Punk rock

Valuable Feedback

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It’s Tuesday – my one day of routine. I got home from my session and my meeting and found a package waiting for me.

Rumspringer's "Staying Afloat" LP and split 7-inch with Sister Kisser. Low Culture's "Screens" cassette.
Rumspringer’s “Staying Afloat” LP and split 7-inch with Sister Kisser. Low Culture’s “Screens” cassette.

I’m pretty sure that the colored vinyl has been sold out for a good while now, which would mean that Chris (of Dirt Cult Records) sent me one of the copies he had set aside – unprompted… because he’s a sweet, wonderful human being and probably figured that it’d make me smile.

Also, I know this is silly but (even though I’m sure it has nothing to do with me) it makes me happy that Rumspringer still use my handwriting on their records, inserts, and other stuff.

Low Culture is the new(ish) band from Chris and Joe of Shang-a-Lang. “Screens” is their debut full-length (CD/LP on Dirtnap; cassette on Dead Broke) and it was produced by Mark Ryan of The Marked Men, which is a really excellent pairing for them.

Here’s a stream of the Sister Kisser / Rumspringer split as well.

And here’s the only other piece to slip through the cracks early on (like “Dear Diary.”) It’s the fourth painting in “The Weak End” series and the text says, “WHAT YOU DO IS.”

“Valuable Feedback.” 2/16/13. Acrylics, resin sand, and fabric dye on cardboard. 16½x18”.
“Valuable Feedback.” 2/16/13. Acrylics, resin sand, and fabric dye on cardboard. 16½x18”.

When I threw this online before, I just noted the title and the text in relation to lyrics from “48 Doublestack” by Rivethead (We’ve rejected what you’ve got to show for the trade-off: a life spent just waiting for orders and taking the shit from the parents, the bullies, and bosses. The fault’s no one’s but your own ’cause you couldn’t stand up and say no). Which makes me feel a little… um… redundant, in light of “Stand Up and Say No,” “Mowgli,” “Whatevermind,” and (probably) a few others that escape me at the moment.

Anyway, this was an expressive process. I played with colors and shapes, then looked to them to lead me forward. I saw this slug-type character, reclined, which brought to mind someone who (so far as I could tell) did little but recline. And criticize. And had been offering a lot of advice lately. Which has always struck me as funny: the way that thoroughly unhappy people tend to give advice.

I won’t say whom I had in mind when I made this. Only because I think the negativity that’d come with the disclosure outweighs the value of the honesty and release that I’d get from it. And I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. This is, after all, a mean painting. And I was feeling mean when I made it. Because my feelings were hurt.

That’s the way it goes. Someone’s hurt. They respond with anger, to hurt the other person. Who then responds in the exact same way. It’s a sad, ridiculous cycle.

I can honestly say that I could make the disclosure (without ill will) at this point, but I can’t control whether this person would recognize that. And I’d rather not fan a flame / keep the cycle going.

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“The Weak End” series includes: