Derrick and I got a pretty nice crowd around us during the live painting for Project Sketchbook. Kevin, the owner of Sneak Peak next door caught it, and was cool on letting us cover his walls. Sneak Peak is at 515 South Main, Memphis TN. If ya get the chance go by. Any and all hip hop apparel you can think to own. He gave us free reign of what figures to throw up, and we felt much obliged to geek out for two days.

Project Sketchbook Success

Live painting - Aug 28 2009

Myself and Derek Dent

Horned in

commercial appeal write up


http://www.gomemphis.com/news/2009/aug/28/25-years-on-horn-island-still-inspires/

Horn Island

Drawings of Don Dumonts Domain

not even vaguely

Thinking like Texans isn't as easy as you might think.
It takes a spry trigger finger and attention to detail.

Where were you when Jacko died?

I was shooting blow darts in chicago.

where ever you were, where you were isn't the issue,
it's how you felt






I felt like a spring hen.

-----------

"It screws on like a top."
"Yes, but assemblage isn't really the concern."
"The bumpers."
"My point exactly. Yest the bumpers. There's a lot more at stake with the bumpers. Less finesse but more mental energy spent on them. They must be nurtured. Like a child, or a good garden. If done properly the entire experience could serve as your ally."

So I am at nomad's land. Or so I could believe, if adequately natured.

cliff diving, cliff diving, cliff diving,

my hand in the heavens and the hand in the earth depend precariously on daily weather expansion to find out whether they reach adequately.

COLLEGE TOWN reminds me that I haven't been thinking of the post-game. I'm convinced I truly wanted the game called off altogether. But I'm back in it.

being in memphis now- It's like watching Amytiville Horror, even though you dislike the anxiety it gives you, and putting it on anyway because you assume you'll just concentrate on the smooth melodies mix cassette you listened to just before.

---------

on another note, but to the same point,

I'm hesitant about using the term spiritual ecstasy because the connotation might not mirror my intent. It also might sum things up perfectly if not read at the immediate western value. My intent is SPIRITUAL ECSTASY.

Well I went on a camping trip, and it ended up lasting three weeks. I want to talk to you about a grand clarity and how I keep arriving at the edges of cognitive limitations and how that when I see the night sky I feel like I'm truly alive, but it comes and it goes. For a moment I am free, and then my glow eventually gets pencil shaving sticking to all of it's sides. The studio has a way of taking the warrior out of me and instead making me a warrior critic. "Do warriors exist? How important has chess become to you? Is this pencil worthy of self worth? "

It's not an obscene thought to wonder why I would or should ever go to the studio again. It's inevitable, just like returning to this ironically coined civilization. Like all of you I imagine, I feel born out of time. How we were so lucky to catch the society of the blind deaf and dumb I'll never know. We were born into the end of days it seems, and I can't stop the opera from playing itself out every night in my own studio. Freedom won't attach itself to anything in this society because our culture is fundamentally out of sync with harmony. This studio will never be about harmony, but rather drowning. Taking on this mass depression as if to bear it with my brethren is as silly as to begin to drown as to relieve the weight on your back as you drown.

We'll need a lot of hands and humming to make this beanstock grow. I'll leave the studio if we all go. 1-2-3 then we all get out of the water, and develop warmth for each other and take the indian paths to the waterfall.

BEASTS BOUNDING THROUGH TIME
by charles bukowski

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward us
impossibly.

BFA Senior Show 09 - Let Us Begin and Carry up This Corpse

In my work I experiment with paint and its application to the surface of the canvas. I’m interested in the difficulty with viewing works that are jarring, aesthetically awkward, or overtly contrived. I use a wide range of imagery and paint handling to keep the work from being too comfortable. I think comfort is something that the viewer should have to fight for. Through medium and imagery my work implicates the history of art, and oscillates between its discursive power and the paintings ultimately opaque content. Within the paintings, an empty and transparent mode of surface values butt against traditional imagery coded by centuries of Western art history. I think of my work as a critically abridged dictionary to this history. The residual definitions often serve to displace or completely nullify one another. This is because while art is widely believed to be a uniquely human form of communication, for The West it is the victim of a deformed, hyper articulate profession. Western art was a grand celebration, but the party has long since passed and the artists are still eating their cake. Art historians, artists, critics, and collectors have ushered art into a gaudy church of false prophets. Instead of answering the questions found in Modernism, the art narrative rejoiced that they might be trick questions, spurring the contemporary zeitgeist for anti-intellectual Logos. So, we artists are the mythic genius. We are the cult of personality, and our brands on these walls contain hilarious inside jokes that you will never get. There is everything to get. My work is that of an alcoholic locked inside his confessional after having determined to drink himself to death. I accept my work with the gluttonous ease of difficulty.

new works spring 09

"drowning horse" 4'x4' oil on canvas

"mad dogs/fat cats" 4'x4' oil on canvas

"abridged plea bargain" 4'x4' oil, saran wrap, and packing paper on canvas

The Persons

The Persons
Man James Patterson
Woman Painter
Plumber Cat



Man: Did you call the plumber in?
Woman: Yeah. Suppose I did. Sink’s broken, what did you expect?
Man: Just like to know is all, monies spent and such.
Woman: Not yours.
Man: I know, I know... I wouldn’t mind it being so you know.
Woman: …
Man: Maybe we could go out some time…
Woman: Please, I’m far too full to think about food right now.
Plumber: Sir, do you know much about fly fishing?
Man: What? Well, I guess I don’t. What are-
Plumber: Don’t invite a girl fly fishing is all I’m saying.
Man: and what do you know about success Plumber?
Plumber: Can’t say, suppose it’s an effect more than a goal.
Man: How’s the sink coming, Plumber?
Plumber: Can’t say, too soon to tell.
Man: And what’s your goal, Plumber?
Woman: Would you not distract the work? Besides, we have a lot of work to do ourselves.
Man: Like?
Woman: Nevermind.
Cat: The St Jude’s marathon is today.
Man: Who taught the cat how to talk?
Woman: I thought it’d be cuter if he could talk.
Man: But we were taking it to the vet to have ‘em neutered Thursday.
Woman: So?
Man: Well we can’t now can we?
Woman: Why not?
Man: Well it’s just not the same.
Woman: You’re crazy!
Cat: What’s all this?
Plumber: Seems to be a CD stuck in here.
Man: Oh that may be that Colin Feral movie
Woman: I remember that. Cassandra’s Dream or something wasn’t it?
Man: Horrible movie.
Woman: Horrible movie.
Painter: I rather enjoyed the wooden guns bit.
Woman: Who are you?
Plumber: How did you get it so far down the drain?
Painter: I’m a painter.
Man: A stick.
Cat: When is Thursday?
Plumber: A stick?
Man: I was drunk.
Woman: Did you hire a painter?
Man: No one hires painters. They just come.
Woman: Since when?
Man: The 40’s.
Plumber: Well that’s what has broken your sink.
Man: The painter?
Cat: Figures.
Plumber: No! Cassandra’s Dream.
Painter: How romantic.
Woman: Would you leave?
Painter: The world is too heavy out there I’m afraid.
Plumber: Get a trade. The world is only as heavy as your wallet is not.
Painter: I’ve got a trade. I’m a Painter.
Plumber: Right. And what do you paint?
Painter: Simulacrum presenting sardonic juxtapositions of sensorial experiences.
Plumber: Keeping a diary is no trade I’ve ever heard of. Sounds more like a hobby.
Cat: When is Thursday?
Woman: Where are you going?
Man: Kitchens getting too stuffy for me, thinking I’d go for a walk.
Woman: and just leave me here with these strangers?
Man: Have the hired one fight the unemployed one then.
Painter: I’m not unemployed!
Woman: No. You wait for these people to leave here and I’ll come with you.
Man: Like a date?
Woman: No.
Plumber: Fly Fisher.
Painter: I should paint you two. The struggle.
Cat: The humanity.
Woman: How do you get rid of a painter?
Man: You have to starve them off I’m afraid.
Woman: At least its Winter.
Plumber: I think I’ve gotten most of the DVD out.
Man: Well where is it?
Plumber: The DVD?
Man: Yes. It was a rental.
Plumber: I don’t think they’ll want it now.
Man: You tradesmen are all alike.
Plumber: What’s that?
Painter: It’s not true! I am nothing like this Plumber.
Woman: I’m getting the broom.
Plumber: Thank you ma’am.
Painter: I’m just saying I sympathize with this man’s bitterness towards a soured art form.
Man: Art form? I just mean to return the movie properly and on time. It fell in the sink was all.
Plumber: -With a stick.
Man: What?
Plumber: You said you used a stick to get it down there.
Man: I was drunk. It’s an accident.
Woman: You don’t drink.
Man: Doesn’t mean I wasn’t drunk. And besides, it was a horrible movie
Woman: Horrible movie
Cat: Horrible movie
James Patterson: Horrible movie
Woman: Leave.
Painter: Did anyone see the new Art Forum?
Everyone: no.
Painter: Well, recently, a young Vietnamese artist shat a perfect circle.
Man: Incredible.
Woman: Please.
Plumber: How big was it?
Cat: Excuse me?
Painter: 6ft diameter.
Man: Well that’s quite impressive for a little Asian bottom.
Woman: Please.
Painter: No! It was a line drawing.
Plumber: So you mean to say he shat drew a perfect circle.
Painter: I suppose. What difference does that make?
Plumber: Well, to excrete a perfect circle six feet in diameter would be more impressive than Immaculate Conception I think. It’d been the golden egg... much less impressive.
Man: Much less impressive.
Cat: Much less impressive.
Plumber: Well I’m almost done here.
Woman: Oh good. How much will it be costing me?
Plumber: Didn’t take long. Just the service fee: sixty dollars.
Woman: Very well.
Painter: Me too.
Woman: Say again?
Man: Oh what a mess you have made!
Woman: Stop shitting!
Plumber: Have you lost your mind Painter?
Woman: Stop him! Stop shitting Painter!
Man: It’s so loose…
Plumber: He’s going to burst a blood vessel.
Cat: Looks more like Hawaii.
Painter: So…impotent.
Woman: Get out.

HOLY SHIT I'M GRADUATING SOON.

Seven Self Portraits

Damien Hirst has a fetish.

I'm going to be a graduate soon. All of you should come with me,

we can rent movies.

and drink soda
and love children
and buy Skittles
and love each other
and we'll never forget the holidays

so let's get real cozy
and get real fresh
with your real niece
for the sun will never set
on our Empire

-0-0-0-

I was going through a couple of portfolios in my room today. I found these again, and I think I might do some more in this line of thought. Thought I'd post them to keep it in mind.

The big piece for the antique store show.

9ft X 4ft
This was in collaboration with shea colburn (you can find his website on the list to the right)

Billy the Kid

You’re with big dogs now. You wasn’t asked to saddle up. Billy’s spittoon filled. He whistled.
They saddled you. I’m sure you knew it was coming. Much like when you knew it was no longer ok to kiss your father.
We have no names. And if we forget I’ll hold our jowls back and
We’ll stare at our teeth.
\
You remember Johnny right?
Johnny could depict a beaker shoved inside my arm,
He could depict it with my social and pen numbers.

This delicate rationale is an unconscious monetary. As irrational as it seems I know,
I believe the queen is deceiving us my love.
We are inhibited by that sleep which prevents us from hearing the trolls of culture

If an Icon speaks less magic beans are needed.

There are no dangers in shallow waters
you must trust me on this, my love
the night is dark and you dearly I deal must trust on to me dearly,

The oceans were considered too limited in number (7) and too treacherous in what lies at a certain chance (13) beneath the waters, so the workers and shakers sifted the oceans across a great plane. There are no dangers in shallow waters, and now a nearly endless Petri dish was on display under an overarching sky that made all of this seem so very clear. The sky showed us this was a much better solution. -The irony of Epidermis the ever curious. The patchwork angel harked into me and mouthed that the skies rationality is a insecure mind’s rationality.

You mustn’t fear the Leviathan if you wish to drink deeply.

I fear nothing

Except AIDS
Satan Brain disease
Teeth loss

I guess that’s about it.

A Quiet Community

-o-o-

An Epilogue to Pronouns

it was the rat
it was the roach, the sky lift that went back
it was my mom's mood, it was her broach
the locket that splintered and fell from her neck
it was my dogma and the girl's tragedy, rising like mulch
like slaughtered cows kept in my basement it was
real her touch. Her touch was just the predicament
Not the encore it was the aside to my side she was
this pragmatic gel on my dogma. She was
real her touch was this mulch was so much and
this sight was sewn such the thoughts sewn just just-
then came the evaporation
raisins came with delegation.
The vines find delight in a caravan going west.
It's these midtown lights that depress and compress.
A purple field that sleeps with my pores.
The bed was dry by the midday sun,
It had to have been the sparrow
the dark crest swim meet
The exploration of my quads
the cheerleader and the bleacher seat
It was David Banner at my high-school
That miserable tool box/ the more
miserable dogs that laid in wait for
the sun to kill them/ the dismal fog
the unending mash reruns
The history classes taught by coaches
It was a childhood under Faulkner
A family under american dreams
a future that refused to be escorted
or aired out, but rather branded and
remanded like artificial sweetener
in a land of cotton spoon fed on opiates
like the lacy under worn delicates.
The everlasting taste of silica
It was the wolf.

-0-0-

So Shea can draw some beautiful roses.
And running from the cops will always make you think about how beautiful the night sky looks.


In relation to this photo I'm posting up; I'm planning to do a painting of Batman holding the fallen Boy Wonder a la pieta. I = Batman of course.

HFJH Smells of Coffee

Exotic esoteric vermin
The humbled trench town German
A fashionable petticoat for winter
In the Olympics I'm the sinner
She smells of sweat and sweat thinner
She is the winner
The soldier
The unrelenting boulder
Functioned to dehydrate and smolder
Burning like an argyle Hitler
Life reanimate Richter
My eyes don't seem to fit her
She won't need my ride this morning
The butcher begins his sobbing
The eternal gift giver
The curmudgeon
A bludgeoned mob mourning
A wot iron liver
Groceries smell of cabbage
Home has been the colder
February has an eternal squish
A black cop baggage.

Nude on a Donkey

Collaboration

Collabs with Billy Welch, Shea Colburn, and William Bevan.


So art should be for the community. Art should be a catalyst for social change. Art is in a sense a communist entity because it is for everyone and should be for everyone equally. If art is for the people, we can use a metaphor. Art is a puzzle and each individual can be equated to one of those pieces. The better an artist understands humanity, the better the art that comes from the artist. Collaborations present you immediately with multiple puzzle pieces.

10 Reasons to Overthink Artmaking.

Series

(hello)

(geographic introduction)

Ed lover dance
quiver river dance
gus's world famous fried chicken
the man looked autistic but
who was going to mention it
I laughed raped smiled
a situation I was in
body wash won't get me out
on this day
gold flakes and barbecued ribs
dads pass the balls and moms the bibs
it left and went and came and sent
the message of life with cajun spade with
when I was 12 I thought god was dead
and nietzche was david
when I was 16 I knew no slingshot
I didn't paint until the following year
uncle must be going insane right now
mustards muskagee
fellows follow me
down this lane laned by
sugar cane blowing on
sugar cane blowing on
and the river is missed
cajun sung zenith
but the stale air is too much for my tendens
I can't play table hockey in that town anymore
Now spring spry my sky rocket
spring light my life pocket
Remind me
course me
I heard that conversations don't get better with age
well then,
shoot me

(primitive aside)

And so there she was
in the lowered red throne, plump, ripe, and drunk
body bulging in the correct contour to have me wanting
and wandering and losing eye contact
so I showed her books and exchanged queer looks
but I could never set the bomb off
I begged her curves to curve cut my quirks and curves
but talk came easier than I would.
quilts quotes Kentucky
quilts quotes the trees also,
but quilts have always bereathed the trees clever
and touch what's not thrown; never. But to the East
to the East lies red Robin's eggs, and without them
I fear what few dogs may fetch; a youth repressed, my tendens
unmet.

(recollection)

I was given a book by one when I was young.
He said it wasn't like the bible.
He even said it was a coloring book.
I never got why the Jesus had his arms straight up instead of left and right.

(self pitying reprise)

She said sex with me
was strange because I looked too similar
to the man that molested her.
She said this just recently;
a time after the sex
but shortly after the anti-depressives,
and instantly every implication, flirtation,
sin, and I, sinful futility.


(mindless chatter between me)

I wish I still smoked cigarettes
My life doesn't seem as dramatic
that is to say, the drama doesn't seem as
Romantic. Where are the spotlights and smokey rooms?
Where is the stool and where are breaks to think about Frankie?