Salt Shaker, Scrimshanker Waker

Hey I'm back. Life gets in the way of computers. Sun gets in the way. Bike rides get in the way. Fun gets in the way. Love gets in the way. But it's okay, computers don't have feelings* (*yet).  I'm working on a comic. It's about a girl in a boat who cuts her hand off to use as bait for a whale that will swallow her up. This mural concept came from my comic concept. Hopefully I will complete this one. In the mean time...

Here is a mural I (kind of) finished recently at the Black Lodge. The ideas are actually more fun than the end product, so I want to get them out before my artistic attention deficit gets the best of me.  Joseph Campbell started it... 

"The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died... This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation." - Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Being the narcissists that we all are, we cannot help but to see ourselves as the hero. The role embodies a perfect combination of agency and fate. I love the idea of a HERO scrimshanker.  Scrimshanker. Scrimshanker. The word is British slang for a military shirker, or for person who retreats from duty, a slacker.  The original meaning came from the scrimshaw makers, sailors in the 1800s who would carve beautiful and intricate designs in whale teeth, bones, and in ivory during the long hours of their long voyages. 

Am I a hero scrimshanker? Do I make pointless pretty things while waiting to do important things?  Do I avoid greater responsibility?  I love the notion of a hero slacker being violently in swallowed by a psychic calling toward something greater, and of reaching toward it even in the midst of deep confusion. I want to propagate this consciousness in my own life... metaphoric self-annihilation. 

And that does it for another self-depricating, poetic appreciation of the wandering post-adolescent and hedonistic pursuits of our generation, or at least of me.  I will find more. 

Original Sketch

photos are sucky 'cause they're from my phone

and they are sideways because i am inept

Eclipsed

7" x 5" Acrylic on Canvas

Daddy Treetops.

I'm So Sketchy.

This is what happens when you commute to the Eastside everyday.

Manipulate Words!

Sorry, parents.

Manipulate your face!

Manipulate Astronomy!

Manipulate Sadness

self-portrait.

Magical Thinking, Continued.

There is a prevalent notion in a certain collective and uniformed mind that painting is the greatest form of "real art," and as much as I know this is a crock, it made me say, "Hey, I can f***ing paint!" Just because I was too poor in college to afford the stuff doesn't mean I am stuck with india ink and glue sticks for the rest of my life, as much as I do love them. So, about two months ago, I started painting with acrylics. Holy crap, it's like drawing but times 28,093 million.  So I start thinking weird things like, "Man, I hope my hands don't fall off because I really like this a lot."  Just in case they do, I'm cramming as much painting into my life as I can. If I need to I can paint with the brush between my teeth. Some people really do do that.

Ever since seeing the movie Hugo (probably the best and most purposeful use of 3D yet), watching George Melies movies, The Prestige (David Bowie as Nicola Tesla!), and looking at magic books and turn of the century magic posters... I'm turning these magicians into my own personal charms for creativity, little portraits of my muses, if you will...  Yet another turn on the art is magic is mind is life notion.

These paintings are teeny 5x7s with images drawn/manipulated from old black and white photos. Enjoy!

Magical Thinking.

 I have a lot to show and tell. Been putting off updating for the sake of creating... and learning the hard way that that doesn't work, because project after project keep piling up! I will lay them all out soon soon, in the mean time here is my Valentine to you. I hope this creates enough intrigue for you to follow what will be coming up... more collage, bus doodles, and more paintings. :)

Frame it Up

In an interview I saw with Dick Dale yesterday at the Experience Music Project, he said that the idea for Pulp Fiction began with Tarantino's obsession with his song Miserlou. Brilliant freakin song, and supposedly the narrative was constructed around it. But that's strange, right? The idea of this reverse creativity, of starting with the soundtrack, struck a note in me. 

Since I got a job at a frame shop, and helping artists and layfolk with framing designs, my creative process has recently been taking a similar backwards approach. There were three beautiful long red frames that I wanted, I wanted so bad! I pictured them in my mind's eye, and in one go, I came up with these three collages. Afterwards, I brought the frames home and I think they work beautifully. 

 In process...

 In frames...

 

A couple of other pieces I stuck in frames.

In my roller coaster world of artistic learning, this is just another lesson: framing is as important as anything else in the creative process. So is photography, which as you can tell, I suck at, but that's a lesson for another day.