#uncoffeed...

A dire realization kept pulsing up from the deepest recesses of my mind, id and superego conspiring against me. I wanted more, and I couldn’t tell myself more what because the math was bad. Traveling artist, traveling musician, multiple levels of baggage and an old-school Encyclopaedia Britannica-sized stack of things unknown. Jeffrey on paper looks good, but what’s under his bed?  Something primal had taken over. The daydream couldn’t be supported and yet I was unable to let go of it.  I couldn’t do this anymore. I had to break up with someone I literally wasn’t seeing.  I had to break up with this house. This is, in a way, one of the messiest breakups I’ve ever had because my mess isn’t real. It’s allegorical paint splashed over a bloody crime scene, such vivid and leaky whorls as will not leave their tinct. Maybe I’ve done what I do and pushed too far again, impulsive; maybe this was always the end. But I’m not comfortable here anymore. I’ve made it weir...

The next time I was in LA, I deviated from the usual thrift stores to one next to a pet shop, and then I went into the pet shop. I’d never consider bringing an animal back to Ian’s place but I thought it would be fun to look, like a wee urban zoo. And it was fun, quaint even, until I found the Blue Damn Oranda. In a different life, I tried to breed guppies for color. My mom was tolerant when I explained we needed two tanks to separate the males and females, but refused to let me have a third “hospital tank” for the babies to mature, uneaten, until they could be sexed. She bought bigger fish that ate guppies.  In a different different life, I was given a 55-gallon hexagonal fish tank which housed only a clown loach and a plecostomus. I bought colorful cichlids, and quickly learned that the Africans and South Americans cannot live together peacefully. So I bought another large tank, and then - yes - a hospital tank, which became home to seven Oranda goldfish, five blue a...

Back out East again, I was still looking for new venues to show my art. Funny how Cali is the land of Disney, but over here everyone’s into sweetness and light. Bad Warhol impressions. And flowers. Every time I leave a gallery with another business card in my case, I mentally map out some sort of bloom with some sort of tentacles hidden within it. Maybe I could paint pastoral landscapes with decomposing animal carcasses strategically placed so almost nobody notices.   I got a text from Ian, who should have been in Canada: “Hey, I cut myself on this thing in the kitchen with all the blades. Jack wants to know if you have a lawyer?” Shit. I’d forgotten to get rid of the mandoline. The guy makes money on operational digits. You don’t leave sharp objects lying around musicians. Shit. I didn’t have a lawyer. Ian’s phone went to voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message. He called back at 5 AM my time. “Hey, sorry, I guess that was a crappy joke. You okay?” It...

buy Deconstructed Corvid 1 - Fibonacci Putting together an art show seems very much like putting together a music album.  Some of you-all may  not remember albums. They told stories and wore cool jackets, sometimes smoked. Dark and enigmatic, glistening in the dim light of somebody's basement while the needle danced over the grooves. God, I miss analog.  An exhibit needs to tell a story. Our brains seek patterns but like surprises. We want the A-HA! Like the words I write, my paintings blurt images in quirky detail, narrative a little jumbled like that last dream before you wake up.  As I compile my varied works to hang on the walls of Beanetics Coffee Roasters , I may find a piece doesn't fit, quite, between its compatriots. I can bend the narrative by reordering the pieces so one nuance leads gently to the next. This project wants editing like any other. A good whisky and a good perfume are the same way. The first impression may be bold; you're not sure...

There's some incredibly vocal bird - maybe a warbler or canary - nesting in the azalea outside my window.  He's going to help me succeed in my plan to wake up near sunrise every day. The Order of Emergent Magick recommends practicing intent:  choose one thing you don't currently do, and perform that action every day for 30 days.  It can be something as simple as changing the place where you put your shoes every night. You can choose something you feel is more impactive, like meditating for 20 minutes.  Be very specific about the repetition.  And then after 30 days, intentionally don't do the thing for 30 days. Learning how intent feels will lap over into other things  you do every day.  This morning I've sent a proposal for an editing gig, filled in some more squares on my project spreadsheet, and cleaned cobwebs.  You can buy cleaning equipment - a telescoping duster, for example - employ them and they actually work.  I am the master ...

I've come to a crossroads in my creative spurt -  there's a skunk to be drawn on scratchboard.  I have a colored pencil project to finish first, and the ink on canvas will have to wait.  Scratchboard requires me to turn my head completely around. Here's the stuff .  A fine coat of clay is applied to thin cardboard, and then India ink is layered on top of that. The artist uses a stylus  to scrape away the ink and reveal the clay underneath, which is usually white.  I had a tiny artistic tantrum after I accidentally bought a sheaf of rainbow-coloured scratchboard, but I own my mistake.  I did it to myself by not reading carefully. I can use the rainbow to practice without wasting the good black and white board; it's been a while since I worked in this medium. When I took photographs at  The Academy of Advanced Imagery  I focused on light and shadows, the interplay between them.  I'm very figure/ground oriented - I see bot...

Due to...logistics? Technique? My innate laziness?...there does not exist an original of this drawing.  To have it on my wall I had to order it from myself via Zazzle . So this is the first and therefore most valuable copy of Fibonacci Raven. I will try to explain. I started this project on blue grid-lined paper (you know, the one that doesn't really render the lines invisible like they said it would.) In a fit of inspired doodling, I started inking the original sketch.  And then I kept going .  Before I knew it, I had an almost fully-inked drawing on the wrong paper. I decided to try scanning it anyway.  To be honest, I like the gridlines.  They feel architectural, or something. Also, I'm messy.  There was a blob of purple paint on the page, as well as several wrinkles.  And I'm lazy and didn't want to re-ink what already looked pretty damned good.  I did some judicious scissoring; it took a few scans and cuts to excise the blue lines ...

You remember my bestie, Abbey the Cockatiel. We're even better friends now - she  flies across the room, smacks into the blinds and falls to the leather ottoman, and then yells at me to help her down because she claims she can't get to the floor from eight inches up. "Go for it, Abbey," I tell her. "Just jump. Or fall. You'll be alright." It can't hurt worse than smacking into the blinds. But she holds on with her beak and inches her feet down until she's no longer comfortable with the grip. Then she creeps back up to safety and yells at me some more. Wait...is that my book? :) I let her get on my arm and she crabwalks up to my shoulder. If I look at her, she hisses, but if I chatter my teeth in response to her doing same with her beak, she inches over and kisses me.  And if I seem to be turning my head she bites me. This is love. Yesterday I went into the neighborhood without her; Abby took a nap.  I chatted with some artists wh...