Month: May 2011

Lately

Ayin Es2 Comments

What’s been doin’ lately? Things are moving along, but slowly. I’ve been doing a lot of resting, but I’ve been getting some art done slowly here and there too. Not as much as I’d like to, but that’s never the case, so what else is new?

I managed to finally print those etchings last week with Master Printer Poli Marichal. We actually used my old studio in Highland Park, which now belongs to Stephanie Mercado and she has an etching press there. She gave us the key and allowed us to use it. It took us a couple days, but we gotter done and the prints look great.

Before that, one of my best friends, Yolanda Gonzalez and I were hanging out and somehow she managed to talk me into going back to her studio with her after breakfast one morning to mess with ceramics. Now I usually hate ceramics, but she somehow made it so much fun! Maybe when I tried it before I had a shitty instructor. I took a class at the local community college a few years ago when I was living in San Pedro. Actually, I didn’t even take a ceramics class. I took an open-ended, self-instructed arts term and the Chair made me do ceramics. I was totally reluctant about it, but I did what he said because I figured he was the “professional.” I wound up hating every minute of it and the potters’ wheels were designated for the men.

Anyway, Yoli and I wound up having a great time and she helped me to make Fire Dan!

I’ve also been doing this strange thing where I am taking paintings that I have already painted and doing miniature renditions of them. here is the first one of Danarama. the original is 36 x 36 inches, but this one is just 6 x 6 inches. I have a briefcase that fits about 10 small canvases and I am going to make them all mini versions of my bigger paintings so they can travel with me. It’s a silly little promotional idea I had, like old timey salesmen used to have smaller versions of furniture and pianos they would take with them in order to try to sell the real deal when they were out in the field. Crazy, I know. me and my silly ideas.

The rest of time time has actually been eaten up with helping out my best friend Tracey. She is finally moving back to SoCal from Pennsylvania after being out there for nearly nine years now. I found her a house in Joshua Tree that she is about to move into and I have been taking care of the whole organization of the thing. It’s been a little bit of work, but I must say I like doing it and I am so excited about her coming back and being just a couple hours away from me, that I jumped at the chance to do it all. She actually just left on the road today and is making her way west now. I’m going to the new house early next week to spiff it up and let the movers in and get it all ready for her. All I can say is I fucking hope she likes it!

Back from Joshua Tree

Ayin Es1 Comment

I just got back from my little trip to Joshua Tree where I worked on a little project for Art House Co-op called The Fiction Project (the site is being revamped at this very moment, so the info may not be there when you click on the link, as they are also promoting their next sketchbook project…), which I posted a little preview of on my website here.

The book is called Inside/Outside. It’s a 40 page lined sketchbook that is mostly handwritten text with some art in it. I did it all in five days in a beautiful rented vacation house right near the west entrance of Joshua Tree National Park called the Skylark House. This was all made possible from a grant provided by the National Arts and Disability Center, or else I would not had been able to stay in such a great place for that length of time. The book was a documentation of my stay out there, so it wasn’t exactly a work of fiction, but more like creative non-fiction. Well, 99% of it anyway. Dan appears in the story a little bit, but in many ways, he has become real.

I was also looking for a rental for my friend Tracey there because she may be moving there from Pennsylvania. She is moving back to Southern California after being away for nearly nine years now. I have been scoping places out for here in various locations and JT was one of them. I kinda found the perfect place for her there, but I’m not sure if she is taking it. There might be other options, it all depends on where she feels most comfortable since she has been living in quite the rural situation for the past many years.

When I got back I found out that I did not win the People’s Choice Award for the Artist’s Wanted contest. I feel bad making all these people vote for me daily. I thought I was really close to getting it, but I guess I was not close enough. Of the first 100 people who entered I was at least 500 votes beyond any of those artists, but I had no way of knowing how many votes the rest of the artists were racking up – apparently a lot. I wound up with roughly 1200 in the end. Not enough to win. *Sigh* …but I am so very very appreciative for everyone who wanted me to win and tried so hard and voted for me so loyally. I have learned, however, not to enter such contests like this again.

I am constantly applying for things, and that’s fine. I get rejected from most everything I apply for, but this is something that winds up disappointing all the people that were trying to help me too. Plus I had to hound people to vote for me, and that was like panhandling in front of a 7-11 for change or something. I know I was a such a nuisance and I hated it. I’d much rather apply for things the regular way without bringing the whole world into the process.

Now that that’s over, I’m moving onto other things. I got my letterpress pages back for my Houses book today and they look marvelous! I still need to print those plates I made and start the watercolor pages now that I got these letterpress pages back. There’s much to do, plus I have to make a miniature version of Danarama for strategic purposes… Install my dolls and The Deal at 18th Street for the “Los Angeles-Instanbul Connection” show on Tuesday morning and get to work on a painting that’s been in my head for the last month! I will tell you that it involves a stuffed snake! 🙂

Plus, did I mention that I’m going to be in a show called TEL-ART-PHONE, curated by Mat Gleason? Here is the weird painting I made that will make more sense if you see it in the show: