I've been a bad, bad blogger!

Super-bad blogger!

Things sped up really quickly and are winding down to a coast through the holidays. Auto-pilot Christmas, here I come!

I do want to take a moment for memory of my Ceramics professor from Saint Francis, Karen McCardle, who died in a car accident with her husband on Friday evening. She was a wonderful and thoughtful woman who taught me a lot of what I know about ceramics today. I would not be the artist I am with out her guidance, support, and letting me go when I wanted to run wild.

More Cinema Center ads

hahaha! ad for firefly

american ecstasy.

A Sunday creation.
After Bernini's "Ecstasy of Saint Theresa."

more musical miscellany

mumbles and shouts

Again, I haven't blogged in a while. This time I don't have the excuse of not having internet at home because that problem has been fixed. It's facebook. I can't quit it.

Above are the starts of some linoleum blocks that need carved so I can go-a-printing. Can anyone tell what's wrong in the photo above?

A couple funny little monsters. Hooray!

love.

amused and annoyed

My family has joined facebook and are watching my every move. While this is mildly entertaining, I get the feeling that my more 'vulgar' natures are not appreciated. So. With that I must live out my wildest fantasies here on the blog. And with that being said, here is a bit of Tuesday night creation. Now for the oils to dry so I can finish it!

insatiable

I moved into my own place and no longer have internet at home, so I haven't been a-blogging as much recently. But. Here are a few new things I have been working on. I've got my nose over a variety of different glues presently. Still working on the watercolors a bit, a bit of the birds, my sticks and stones entry is driving me fucking crazy, and I just started doing some block printing. And the goats.

I have this horrible insatiable desire to create. Sounds great-but it's horribly depressing-can't seem to strike a balance. I'm so overwhelmed by this feeling that I can't seem to focus mentally or on the process. I remember having this feeling in the past-however-I didn't have the responsibilities I have today. Again-learning to strike a balance somehow. (Before I lose it)

designed by eric stine

Passive Aggressive Bastards

Just kidding, but yeah, I seem to have an over abundance of passive aggressive bastards around me right now. Bleh.
Been super busy with art and life stuff. Here is a crappy photo of two more self portraits that I really hate and a sneak peak at my Sticks and Stones piece. xoxo

crop rotation

Dan came over yesterday and as we were chatting about the love and woes of art he offered up the idea that I needed to switch it up a bit. Agreed. I've been going at these little watercolors so hard I'm a little burnt out. Dave Mustard came home for a few days and while we were chatting he said he could always tell when I made something because it was so "Devil may care." Ha! So, here it is. A bit of crop rotation inspired by my friends.

My friends have been soooo awesome lately. I'm so lucky. I got a "You Are Free" tattoo last week on my inner arm (not shown in painting) that makes me feel a bit like the stars are lining up. This is another transitional piece. All pieces are transitions, really, as we are in a perpetual state of transition, however, some more so than others. I never could have painted myself in this manner previously and it feels GREAT to have the freedom to do so.

Finding myself again....

August 1-Tim Baron & Jacob Sauer

you are free

loving the struggle...

"A curator would then not be a person who chooses artists but an accomplice of artists, a catalyst and a loudspeaker for artists' voices." -Massimiliano Gioni, The Wrong Gallery

I've been thinking about the struggle of the artist-to survive, to create, to conceptualize, to express and to have those expressions realized and internalized by others, fighting the mainstream, the t.v., the humanly irresponsible. When I speak with other artists many conversations are glazed with what I call 'the struggle' and what artists who read this will relate to instantly. The struggle is a frustration, swimming against the current, fighting the color that matches the couch.
In my experiences, the struggle is what makes us. I love the struggle, it's the best part, be it internal or external. If we artists had everything we wanted, we would find something else to struggle against, fighting what we thought we wanted. If there was no friction we wouldn't be able to feel a damned thing and where is the climax with no leading up? It's the moment of leading up just directly before we think the big it is going to happen that's the best part anyhow.

heavy boots

Here are a few new journals fresh out of the brush.











A year ago I started a project with the idea of birds. It's become a frustration. The concepts are great, however, I'm having a terrible time visualizing and creating images from that concept. Below is one of the little birds created. The idea is that the bird embodies the characteristics of flight and song, characteristics I exemplify. Also the bird is a messenger, literally and abstractly, from person to person or as a representation of the spirit. Again, the inability to visualize is driving me crazy. I sat down today and tried to work some birds into the watercolors, but unsuccessfully. The birds are cute, but I can't seem to take it much further.

more of the same...

carrots and paintings

carrots :)

It's been so dang hot outside, and inside if you're unlucky.

Ezra & a self portrait

some words from miro

"When I see the sun or the crescent of the moon in the immense sky, I'm absolutely overwhelmed...
I get my ideas from the simplest things. I prefer a plate out of which a peasant is eating his soup to the ridiculously ornate plates wealthy people use... For me, an object is something alive. A cigarette, a matchbox have a life that is much more intense than that of certain humans. When I see a tree, I receive a shock...
When I'm not satisfied with a picture I feel a physical uneasiness as if I were sick, as if my heart were not beating correctly, as if I couldn't breathe, as if I were suffocating...
I work like a gardener...
...in becoming truly a man one becomes capable of communicating with all men...
But in order to truly become a man, one must get rid of one's false self...In other words, it is necessary to return to anonymity...
...a deeply individual gesture is anonymous. And by anonymous, it makes it possible to attain the universal. I am convinced that the more individual something is, the more it becomes universal.
...to seek out the noise hidden in silence, the movement in immobility, the infinite in the finite, forms in emptiness and myself in anonymity."

highlights from the monster show.

"Gerasene Demoniacs" by Tim Baron

"New Shoes" by Conlen Patrek

"Cyclops" by Paul Demaree

"Ghost Mugger" by Daniel Dienelt

"When, if god" by me

"City Pie" by Bob Rebrovich

a couple poems and saturday night fever

I understand English.

This poem is written in English.

I have no idea what this poem is saying.

--Billy Collins

-----------------------

"Introduction to Poetry"

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

--Billy Collins

------------------------

While loving St. Vincent de Paul...

Some quick finds.

I like to imagine the ladies who work the register at Saint Vincent de Paul thinking me crazy. I've gone there three times in the past couple weeks and bought large amounts of frames. The ones no one else has any use for are the best. Today, 25 frames, one coffee mug, and a creamer pitcher for $8. Almost as nice as the creative execution, narrowly escaping ecstasy.

Sneak peak: Dreamer and Poet

The back of a frame.

more madness!

Left to right: Two of a kind a little different, Do you understand me now?, Where it is is three, I am beauty but beauty is bigger than me, Symbiotic relationship, Somebody always has it better (or worse) II, Feeling crowded, Love your words.


Ah-ha!