T-Minus 2 Days

2 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

So holy christ on a stick!
Tomorrow is the big day!

Spent the morning finishing hanging the show. Looks like a million bucks by 1943 standards!
Video bouncing all over video, glass refracting  at curious angles, collage, montage, the different combinations. Dynamite.

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Ocularpation install photo, video on oil painting.
Instanity!

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Also met with some collectors this morning and chit chatted.
They are from the south and quite nice. We spoke of projecting videos on buildings and other such large feats. I am naturally drawn to people who start speaking about giant things. Something in the shear size that turns me on in an instant. The massive scale of projects is something that grabs the attention and commands a large audience. Something so seductive in that… like candy before junkies and children…

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Ocularpation install photo, video on oil painting.

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T-Minus 4 Days

4 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Installation is rolling right along.

Spent the majority of the day finalizing the details the show. All the paintings are hung and the video is mostly fine tuned. I’m loving how it’s all coming together. It’s sincerely like a dream that is materializing before my eyes.
Amazing and misty, the shroud is being pulled back slowly but surely.

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Kissing Youth, Kissing Youth

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Large chunk of the day was spent trying to locate a mylar sheet that is over 64″ wide, so that I could project a video on to it. Did not go well. It appears that larger than 54″ is impossible to find in NYC. And I mean I looked!

From art stores, to gift wrapping wholesalers, to balloon makers, to backdrop designers, to professional photography suppliers, interior designers, everybody and their damn uncle…. Zilch. Looks like the installation isn’t going to be happening the way that I thought. No cave of mirrors.

Oh well, I still like the look of it, sans reflective shit.

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Autumn Moon (detail)

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Wild Eyed Dog at the feet of a Former Dominatrix

T-Minus 5 Days

5 Days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Big day!

Day 1 of the installation.
Got there late, but of course…
Is there any other way?

Showed up with 2 huge rolls of canvas and wood frames and BAM… threw down, right into the fire.
Installers were there in a hurry and wanted to know where everything goes, PRONTO.
Ladders out, pliers and screwguns, ready to rock.
Brookie and I walked around the place, evaluating, placing, scheming, grand-conceptualizing, cramming, jamming, mindmelding, you name it, ’twas done.

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Layout is fairly solid for how things are going to be set up.

4 videos and 6 oil paintings. Perhaps a few photos that I printed out as well. Not sure about how well the couch photos will go with the over all look, but we’ll get to the bottom of that tomorrow morning, bright and early.

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As it all comes together it blows my mind that such an abstract concept talked about for months, ideas, thoughts, conversations, dawdles, and doodles become a concrete environment right before my eyes. Watching the shape emerge from the mist has got to top the list for awesome experiences (well… other than hanging out with my drop dead gorgeous girlfriend…)

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Someone else actually restretched my canvas!
May god give you eternal head in heaven!

T-Minus 6 Days

6 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

So amidst the the shuffle of coast to coast operations, I have slipped behind in the bloggety blog. My dearest apologies reader. I know it takes the piss out of the operation when I’m not consistent, but what to offer you in the way of an explanation other than this photo…

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Yes… yes indeed.

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Other than that, the shipping process from West to East I think went alright. The rolling into the tube was a damn bit scary, but it appears that they made it. I checked it on the plane with me and then waited at my new favorite place in the whole damn world for an hour and a half, JFK airport!

What a true delight that finely oiled machine of precision is to navigate and to relax in!
From friendly and helpful staff, to conveniently located facilities, to clear instructions, to a clean and well light atmosphere…. ahhhhhh…. JFK.

I’d place you even above Heathrow!

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I was supposed to put together the frames and restretch canvas today, but no key was mailed to my lovely girlfriend’s house, so there is no way for me to get into the gallery… so… I’m off to a little Easter festivity instead. Hahahahaha!

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T-Minus 10 Days

10 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

So the fucking day is upon me!

New York City here I fucking come!

Tomorrow afternoon, 12:40pm to be exact, my ass is on a plane and I’m out of California for the rest of March. I am soooooooo fucking excited!
Am I going to stop using exclamation points or what!!

The paintings are all packed up, frames rolled and boxed, underwear, shirts, shoes, presents for the stunningly beautiful Ashley Hanes, technology, cameras, check, check, check. Ret-set-set. All the ducks in a row.

Now I’m nervous as hell…
and trying to go to sleep.
Jesus christ this is  going to be a rough 10 days.

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Bacon style mug shots

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Can’t wait to see this girl!
Seriously, I can not fucking wait to see her.

EEEEKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

Photo by Ashley Hanes

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this is what happens when I don’t get to see that girl of mine enough.

T-Minus 11 Days

11 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Finally stripped the beasts bare….

Oh! Finer days have I seen!!!

So sad to see my old compatriots torn loose from their moorings and laid to the cold ground, like petty trash amongst the hoi polloi. You deserve better dearest paintings, but for now, you’ll sleep in a tight roll, nestled amongst your lower companions of convenience, dear Mr. Bubblewrap and Mrs. Packingtape and their wicked son Lt. Mailingtube.
Beware of the cursed Mailingtube, not to be trusted…

Peekaboo motherfucker

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So perhaps I overreacted yesterday in regards to certain aforementioned earrings. I’m discovering that my mental and emotional health leave much to be desired these days.
When the fuck did I become such a whiny Whinney?

Egad… I hope these most recent outbursts of wanton tantrum are not what is to be expected as I get old old older?

Say it ain’t so!

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Shearing of the carcass

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The emasculated piece

T-Minus 12 Days

12 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

3 days until I fly out to New York. My shit is totally unraveling. A million emails to send people. Still have to unstretch the damn canvases which I was supposed to do today, but it’s just not looking like it’s going to happen tonight.
Perhaps I’ll do one. Just one. Get the fucking ball rolling.

It’s just such a defeating process.
You spend so damn long building the stretcher, stretching the canvas, making sure it’s tight, gessoing it, gessoing it again, and again, then you go about painting the damn thing and then you’ve got to take it all apart again. Such a step backward from a seemingly finished process. Makes me want to pile them in the middle of the street and set them on fire instead of fucking with them anymore.

Maybe then I could video it and put that in the show instead.
Hmmmmmm….. thinking about it….. hmmmm…..

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Nocturnal Gas Station Lazarus

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Got a text message from my girlfriend today that totally bummed the shit out of me.
I sent her a package with all kinds of the presents for her (as well as some flyers that she requested, so that she could “whore me out” as she put it). Then today, just as I am buying her a fucking Kara Walker book because she likes Kara Walker and I’m all excited to give it to her, I get a text from her saying,

“just opened the ugliest earrings ever, thank you baby”

How fucking ungrateful is that!?
She later apologized and said that she thought the earrings were trashy joke earrings!
Total bullshit. Now I know they weren’t the nicest earrings in the world, but they certainly weren’t the most hideous thing on the street either. Makes me want to go give the Walker book to some bum on 6th and Market, they’d be more appreciative than her.
Kind of took the wind out of my sails for coming to stay with her.

In addition, I’m getting a fucking cold sore.

What the fuck god!?

What if the cold sore looked like this?

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That way motherfucker.

T-Minus 13 Days

13 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

With the clock ticking down, I am beginning to go into a weird lackadaisical overdrive. A chicken missing it’s feet and flopping about on it’s side, spurting blood here and there, will, I suppose, get something done, whether it’s considered productive or not, is another matter entirely. Not to say that I’m missing my feet, but I am most certainly a chicken.

I had a dream last night that my girlfriend and I were running Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. We were doing horribly. Fucking up left and right, we had a team of scraggly college volunteers planning everything and I spent most of the dream thinking,
“Fuck! This isn’t going to work! We’re going to lose”

My girlfriend thinks that I’m having anxiety about the show, worrying that no one will show up, that it will be a flop, etc.

My guess is that she, as usual, is right.
Dead right.
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New idea for video series:
Convulsions, seizures, fits

Here are some preliminary sketches.

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T-Minus 14 Days

14 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Brookie and I talked about having stills available for the show.
Tough to decide which ones to print.
We chose to not print up photo stills from the videos, but rather to choose a theme from past photos that I’ve taken.

What, you may ask dear reader, was the theme?

Excellent question.
‘Twas the couch.

Yes, the mighty sofa it self.

Look below and taste the comfort.

Hamburg riots protesting G8 summit

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Serena Pacagnella at the Venice Biennale

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Some dipshit flying
Photo by Ashley Hanes

T-minus 15 Days

15 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Passing out more flyers today. Love people’s reaction when I hand it to them.
It’s typically split in to two categories:

1)
Oh My God Zefrey!!! That’s fucking hilarious! Jesus christ, where in the fuck did you do that?!

(and then ensues a conversation about the corner of Market St.& Montgomery St. at 7:45am in San Francisco, with the weather being 42 degrees and then little glances towards my genitalia and smirking…)

2)
They take it, look at me, shake their head, fold it, and put it in their back pocket and ask me how I’m doing.

(and then ensues a conversation about how I’m doing really great, thanks for asking, no, really things are going super, I’m in love, yes, art is going well, moving to New York, and you?, oh really, that’s great, wonderful, I really like that taqueria too, I can’t believe she’s pregnant, ad nauseum)

Ocularpation (still life with creamer)

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Speaking on the phone for 5 hours with the most beautiful woman in the world. My ear gets sore, but I never run out of things to tell her, never tire of listening to her voice. It’s amazing, it truly is. I never knew that I could care this much about what someone else said or did. Telling stories for hours, discussing things from angles that I never dreamed were possible. Truly communicating with someone. Fucking blows my mind. Tons of fear and weirdness getting exposed to the light of scrutiny and vanishing like mice when you flip the lights in the kitchen on.

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Chinese Old Year

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Indeed…

T-Minus 16 Days

16 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Spent a good part of the day revamping the video portion of my website. (My roommate Gary is a goddamn saint. There will be a special little seat for him in heaven and perhaps Jesus will even give him a pony ride on his knee.) It’s not quite finished, but it’s going to be pretty damn slick when it is. Loading up all the videos as we speak. Outside sources have recommended that I do a bit of editing and get rid of some of the chaff to spare the kernels. I think that I’ll listen to them on this one.

Yours truly blowin up in Brooklyn.
Photo by Ashley Hanes

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One of the largest changes for me as I get older, is the decision to listen to other people. I’m 32 years old and I didn’t give a fuck what anyone said for roughly 29 of those years. Oh sure, I’d listen and nod my head and agree in a earnest yet vacant way and then turn my back on you and do whatever the fuck I wanted to do. Very polite mind you, but not swayed by the bullshit issuing forth from your lovely mouth, not one bit.

What to say?
Things changed.
I now find myself actually listening when people speak and then (god forbid) actually asking other people what they think! And fiction of all strange fictions, following that advice!!!!!
Modern miracle, I know.
Yet…. oddly enough…. I think that I’m happier now.

And what better proof is there than the pudding?
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T-minus 17 Days

17 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Finally heard back from the gallery today. Many questions on my mind. Wrestling with the final details before I come out. Going through convulsions with all the shit stirring around in the mix.

My original hope had been to project the movies onto the canvases that I will be bringing, hence having the still image caught for one perfect second in the oil paint medium. For just a hair of a moment, oil paint will merge with digital and they will unite in a zenith of crisp vision between the two medium. A unique flash of mind melding with the infinite… or some such.

But all that being said, I don’t know how well it will work out.
I have a feeling that the two images won’t line up well enough to work properly.
I don’t want it to look shoddy, I rather hang the paintings separately than have them look half-assed.
Nothing is worse than that look of almost there, great idea, but… nope… missed it by a mile.

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The gates of the Hermitage in St.Petersburg.
Never seen a soul so damn lonely.

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Ahhhhh… Joan…..

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That’s what the west coast thinks of east coast bullshit land barons.

T-minus 18 Days

18 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Totally fell off the deep end today.
Was supposed to get a million things done. Was supposed to unstretch the canvases so that I can roll them for shipping, supposed to make some more dvds, supposed to email people, supposed to supposed to supposed to….

None of that shit happened. Hit the dark wall and sank to my knees in the face of the undertow.
Like the life going out of the party, like all the fun being blown out the window by a fierce breeze, nothing did the trick today. Not even the girl. Nothing.
I am officially fucked for time.

Did manage to pick up some shipping tubes and bubble wrap. Big day.

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Did manage to get some quality cutting done.
Thought I’d put that away for awhile, but guess not.
Considering I don’t drink or do drugs anymore, all I’ve got to fucking let the pressure off is sex, candy, and cutting.
My girlfriend lives thousands of miles away and I ate the living hell out of some candy…
so…

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Helsinki solstice festival

T-minus 19 Days

19 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Today was the issue of the layout. Round and round in my mind, presenting different angles, different substances, vellum, no vellum, refractions, mirrors, ceiling, floor, false walls, every option goes through my mind. Infinite possibilities and really… in at the heart of it all… I just miss my girlfriend.
I tell you, it’s hard to concentrate on art when the love of your life is an entire country away. I don’t even understand how people did it even 15 years ago. No email, no cellphones, no texting, you were left with letter writing and setting up phone dates.

Now I love letter writing, but the time factor between responses is something that kills me.
Have I gone soft!?
Is this what the soft, non-tough Zefrey looks and whines like?

SHIT!

When I take my spot on the pity pot, I like to remember that most people don’t ever get to experience true love, even if they have to live on 5000 miles from it, so best to shut up and enjoy what I have before god decides to take it all away.
Then, and only then, I don’t feel so bad any more. Then I feel kind of lucky.

Still… I am fucking tired of masturbating.

Perhaps she had her shot at love and lost it,
perhaps she never got her shot.

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Like a 70’s detective film where he takes the bait…

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Let the bells ring!

T-minus 20 Days

 20 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Today was a mixed bag, like cashews mixed in with little balls of feces. Dicey at best.

I’ve been applying for MFA programs in NY. Columbia and Hunter. Got the first letter back today. ‘Twas a no-no from Hunter. Wanted to torch that school to the fucking ground when I read it.
Man name Tom Weaver sent me a letter saying, sorry buddy.

If you’d like to get a hold of Tom and call bullshit on that
here’s his info:

Email: tom.weaver@hunter.cuny.edu
Phone: 212-650-3724

Put the kibosh on any art making today.
Hard not to be bitter.
Makes me think that Columbia is a negatory as well.
We shall see… might have to buy two cans of gasoline.

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Let the punks at him! Look out Tom!

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On the upswing for today,  I got to see my old friend Doniece and her 1 and a half year old child. That child is a diamond bullet straight from god. Doniece lives with her husband in Juneau, Alaska and they are down in San Francisco for some “Apple Training” or some such.

Sometimes seeing an old friend can touch you in a way a new friend never can. They give you perspective on your entire life. I’ve known Doniece since I was 12 years old. She’s seen me through a lot of shit, phases and phases and phases. Long hair, shaved tight, dyed blue, black, blond, now gray, fauxhawk, conservative, you name it.

In a single phrase she can reference my entire history and it all comes back like a brick through my  windshield. Today it was nothing short of totally fucking charming. Strolling the city, 70 degrees, sunny, everything seemed as if it was carved out of ice cream and waiting for me to spoon it up. Made me happy to be alive. Screw grad school, screw Tom, screw art, screw frigid ass NY, I’m talking about right here, right now, watching an amazing child take in their first experience of what a city is, that’s the stuff.

That’s the magic.
That’s the moment
and everything else falls away like cheap chatter in the face of honesty.
That kind of focus on the immediate is invaluable.
I wouldn’t trade that moment for a million Hunters and Columbias.

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Maisy Grace Messing and yours truly. Now that’s love.

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Serbian Chill Time (SCT), ain’t goin nowhere bitch.

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Does she look like she’s enjoying that man flesh?
Terror!

T-minus 21 Days

21 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Started thinking about shipping today. Not pretty to ship this many paintings to the east coast. Why does it have to be so damn far away? I think that I’m going to take them off the stretchers and roll the canvas and take it on the plane with me. Then I can just buy new wood when I’m there and build new stretchers for them. Seems like a total pain in the ass, but cheaper than trying to mail them already stretched. Really wish that there was a shipping budget. Suppose that’s how it goes with a smaller gallery.
I always used to think making the art was the hard part, but it’s not. Making it is the easy part, dealing with it afterwards, that’s the hard part.

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“Still Born, Still Warm”
(part of a collaboration with the amazing group LoVid)

CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO 

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Tonight was day light savings time and I find myself awake at almost 4am. There was a time when 4 in the morning didn’t mean shit to me. I stayed up until 10 or 11am almost everyday.
Not good days those ones. Now 4am feels like a fucking challenge. I suppose this is one of those rare moments where I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, with the toothbrush scissoring in and out of my gaping maw and think…
“Why yes, I do believe that I am gaining weight…”

Age, my old friend, I thought I ducked out on you…
but you caught up with my ass.
Drat.

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Oh! The humanity!

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Oh! The Vomitorium!

T-minus 22 Days

22 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Talking to my friend tonight about the nature of New York City.
He asked me if I was scared. I said, “What?”

Then it struck me.

Yes, yes I guess I am.

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I’ve wrestled with some sticky fucking beasts in the past.
Drug addiction, dad dead, grandma dead, divorce,  dead dog, losing a house, having no home, loneliness like the black hole at the bottom of the universe, fucked over by good friends, fucked over by acquaintances, fucking over good friends, fucking over strangers, pregnancy scares, fear of heights, fear of losing my mind, psychosis, delirium tremens, withdrawals, toxicity,  family members lying to me, insects crawling all over my body, crying for days on end, sobbing for the heartbreak of it all, liebeskummer,  ragnarok, the sky is falling, the whole bit, but this is a particular and special new fear that I haven’t ever experienced before,
the fear of showing in New York City.

A new born child, this is the first time,

What if it sucks?

Saw this piece in a church in Kassel, killed everything else at Documenta
and wasn’t even part of the show proper.
Isn’t that always how it goes?

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Young lovers in St. Petersburg.

T-minus 23 Days

23 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

The postcards finally came in the mail!
Holy Crap they look good!
Whole stack of them. Thick and glossy and ready to tell the whole damn world!
I love the postcard.

Handing them to people, getting them, picking them up off a crammed coffee table, snagging them out of discarded magazines, waving them away as you get off the subway, kicking them with my feet on windy days, pinning them to the wall when they’re good, crumpling them when they’re not, filing them away with things “I’ve really got to do next week”, or perhaps filing them in the “I promised him I’d be there” category, mailing them to mom, wedging them under a table so it doesn’t tilt, folding in half and stuffing in the back pocket, unfolding at night and thinking “Where in the fuck did this come from?” as a I scribble a number on it and then promptly throw away the important number at the end of the day, admiring them for the shear antiquity of ink on paper…. it hasn’t changed a damn bit and I love them.

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Dementia Trance In the Mild Corridor Of Surgical Know-How

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With so little time until the show opens, I am finally coming to realize that I won’t be able to get all the shit done that I’d hoped to get done. Surprise surprise! Yet again, over-extended myself in relation to eyes vs. plate. I think this is something that I’ll just have to wrestle with permanently, no getting around this until I’m in a wheel chair and being force fed puree wieners and tang everyday.
Oh I long for the day!

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One of the paintings isn’t going to happen. It is one based off of this movie called “I’m Still In A Foreign Land” (a quote by my friend Levi).
Piss! Rats! Balls! Nuts!
That’s the score.

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Hamburg domestic squabble gone terribly awry.

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Coozie On, Coozie Wrong.

T-minus 24 Days

24 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Almost done with the last painting for the show. Just have to go in with some more color and then the beauty will finally be the beast. I’ve included a preliminary jpg for your enticement. The color came out all bleached when I shot it, so you’ll have to envision vibrant, over the top pinks clashing with orangey nasty skin tones with drippy glop seeping out of it, or some such nonsense. Perhaps it’s bad form to show paintings before they are done, but fuck it! This is the new world, this is the blogosphere, this is the heartland of half-done, and in progress, nearly there, two more strokes, in process, hey nahnah…

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Thinking of death.
Thinking of what John Cage said,
“The first question I ask myself when something
doesn’t seem to be beautiful is
why do I think it’s not beautiful.
And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.“

It is at times like this, when Cage’s words ring true and clear in my head, that things like a chainsawed thumb laying in a kitchen towel in your lap as you drive yourself to the hospital or ketchup wrappers next to spent condoms on the main drag, look like the the single most charming scenes on this fine green globe.
Thanks John.

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The last picture of my grandmother, Ethell Ashley before she died.

T-minus 25 Days

25 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Talked to Brookie today about what is proper etiquette for sending out sample cds. I guess that putting my personal contact information on the cd is a taboo. Unbeknownst to me, I have committed a faux pas. Not the first time, believe you me. Also I have learned that perhaps my editorial skills are less than satisfactory when it comes to selecting which pieces to include. Even though I’ve been showing for years, I feel like a kid. NY is different than showing anywhere else in the world. This is the big time, the real stuff. Learning to trust a gallerist is not an easy thing. I have had gallerists be less than forthright with me in the past and considering it is a capital based endeavor, I suppose that is understandable, but making the choice to trust what they say is still a big leap for me. I’ve got a good feeling about this one though.

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Gentle insertion for a thorough cleansing.

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1 minute and 14 seconds of my new favorite song by
Gedning Kebyar Kosalya Arini

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS

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My friend, who is an artist living in NY (she shall remain nameless), called me last night with a funny request. She wanted to know what the fuck was up with Neighborhood Public Radio. I said I didn’t know because I hadn’t spoken to those boys in forever. It appears they pulled some shady shit while subletting her apartment and looks like she had to give them the boot. It was odd, because only months ago I would have stridently defended their character, but last night it took all the self-control I had not to talk shit about them. It is so amazing how quickly the human mind can flip-flop and change directions. Never ceases to amazes me the ins and outs and side alleys of the human condition. Some people you think you’ll be friends with the rest of your life, but really, who’s to say?

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But enough of that bad blood.
Here’s something gorgeous to raise your spirits dear reader!

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Ashley Hanes, the most beautiful woman in the world.

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It’s all about her cigarette.

T-minus 26 Days

26 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Woke up, late of course, threw on my clothes and booked out the door to fedex the package of sample videos to Brookie. Lovely day, 65 degrees and sunny and I can’t help but feel lazy when it’s like this in March. Sitting in front of the painting that I’m supposed to have finished, staring at it like it’s going to start on fire or something. MOVE DAMN IT! But nothing. I think this one is at a plateau. Not a good sign. I am definitely supposed to be done with this by now. Done and drying. But that simply isn’t the reality. Deep breaths… as my girlfriend would say, deep breaths Zefrey.

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My friend Tali recommended that I just buy two projectors so that I have them when I want to do street style installations. Well… that was more of me extrapolating from her suggestion really… still it seems like a good idea. The only problem is of course the universal problem. No money.
Sing me the saddest song on the world’s tiniest viola. Itty bitty fingers playing the softest melody ever…
At least I’m looking better than this guy

Street wizard cuddles for no one.

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Dolores style, tango in the Mission

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Crawling for crack down 8th st.

T-minus 27 Days

27 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Painting painting painting. If I could write down half the ideas I have, I’d be writing for the rest of my entire life. Focus is the primary problem of course. Which ones to weed out and which to water?  Spoke to my friend Susumu tonight who lives in Brooklyn. He wants me to come out to New York and move in with him. He makes a convincing argument. The city of New York is damn appealing. Her gutter charms, her swooping neckline, her enticing bespectacled collectors, her inbred museums, her never ending hustle, and of course my lovely girlfriend, the most beautiful woman in the world.
Hard to resist.
The west coast has his ways though… we shall see how the dice roll.

Ain’t it the fuckin truth. If I could only learn this lesson and keep it learned!
WHY AM I CURSED TO ALWAYS FORGET THIS SIMPLE TRUTH!?

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Rumor on the street is that a Paris gallery was looking at a video that they might be interested in. I hate to get my damn hopes up these days, only to have them dashed upon the bitter rocks of the hangman again and again. I remember there was a week that I was going to be in the Whitney Biennial this last fall. I was jumping out of my skin! Called and told my mom and everything. Then a week later, NPR and I had a fight and the next day I was telling my mom to disregard all that shit from last week. Bummer times. It taught me a fairly important lesson though.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

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3 of my father’s 5 exwives at his funeral.

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Liz and Susannah

T-minus 28 Days

28 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Today was the video sample day from hell. Making up a private preview movie so that people can get a little taste for the goods. Like the pusher on the corner giving out the dime bag for free. Ohhh… the blessed dime bag…
Where have you gone dime bag days?!

Deciding what to put on the sample cd is torture. So many choices and only so much disc space. Do we go with the old standbys? Nudity, violence, cutting, death, etc…? Or do we venture into the newer turf of the odd and socially retarded? Paranoia vs. prolonged cancer studies in uncomfortability? Perhaps a smattering of each.

Speaking of uncomfortable here’s a picture from a bit ago.

My father 2 hours before he died.

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My girlfriend is having a foul day as she puts it. She occasionally is sucked down by the undertow from the weight of every little thing in the world and she has to stay in bed all day. Communication is brought to a complete halt and even a text message becomes too great a task. I feel so fucking bad for her. I’ve wrestled with a similar demon, although not as cunning and strong as hers, and I know that there isn’t a damn thing to be done when it hits, just have to sit it out. Still it makes me feel fucking useless not to be able to comfort her. The only thing to be done is stay away and wait for her to pull out of it.
Bummer times my friend.

Total burn, man.

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Depot Battles: Winner Saves All

T-minus 29 Days

29 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Good news on all fronts today. The last painting is coming along smashingly. Strong strokes.
I love it when painting is like working construction. The paint brush becomes a hammer and each dab of paint is a nail and it goes… BAM BAM BAM, and you knock that motherfucker out without a second thought, it all just flows directly out of you. Those are the moments I live for.

Like this:

Ocularpation, in progress, almost done…

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Brookie emailed today to tell me that it looks like a Paris gallery is interested in showing one of my videos! Hip hip fuckin Hooray! I love that goddamn town. I’ve been there twice and that grand dirty river catches my heart each time. I used to think Paris was a crock of shit, that was of course before I went there. Upon setting foot in that winding and cobbled town, all that attitude drops away and you are in candyland for art history. No other city has that feeling for me. London, Berlin, St.Petersburg, Venice, L.A., Barcelona, New York, nothing has that feeling, that raw and tangible feeling of romance spitted on the bitter stake of heartbreak and history. Love it.

Of course that means diddly squat right now. I’ve got to get my painting done and finish up the details before this mother opens in the grand beast of them all, New York, in less than a slim month. Time to go to work.

These people yelled at me when I took their picture. Chances are they weren’t supposed to be lugging this precious cargo on the subway. I should hope they would pop for a cab if it was me getting the transplant. Probably not though…

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Maniac Kyle Ranson stalking the streets
Move over Cape Fear.

T-minus 30 Days

30 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Postcards are on their way to San Francisco. I’m so excited! I’ve had postcards in the past for shows, but never for a show that I was particularly thrilled about giving away. This is the first time that I’ll be able to give them to someone and say, “Here, this is for a fucking amazing show I am in. Come to it!” And they’ll say, “Oh, shit! I’m busy that night, sorry.” or “I live in San Francisco, why are you giving me this flyer dumbass?” To which I’ll respond, “Hahahahahaha!”

A collective I used to be a part of is in the Whitney Biennial this year. Neighborhood Public Radio. We had a disagreement and parted ways. Now they’re getting big. Funny to watch them get big and a little snotty. No response to emails or calls. Guess that’s how it goes. Good luck boys.

Here’s a video of three demonstrations:

En Masse

(CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO)

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2nd luckiest man in the world

T-minus 31 Days

31 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Fuck! It’s officially one month! Fuck!
Brookie emailed me the contract today.  I looked it over and in addition to not knowing what half of it meant (not a good sign), I had some questions. Tricky legal language is just the kind of thing I got into art for. I had the realization about 3 years ago and it was like the light on the mountain top style of revelation. Zeus, thunderbolts, the whole bit. It came to me….
The majority of galleries and people involved in this mystical art world are in it for  the clams.

I remember that it was a liberating moment as well as a poisonous one. Defeat mixed with an understanding of rock bottom reality. Contracts are definitely part of this realm, but somehow I had hoped when I was younger, that they didn’t reach their tentacles into the world of making beautiful things. Wrong, wrong, wrong boyo. Not to say that all Brookie cares about it money, but rather to say that this is a very real portion of our relationship. Coming up the years.

My dear friends Pale Hoarse 

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Contracts and paper work!

T-minus 32 Days

32 days until my solo show at Gallery 138.

Emailed a woman named Christa today who might be able to put me in contact with a lawyer for a large scale project that I’m going to try and pull off.  20 Ocularpations on Wall Street. 20 revealed office scenarios. My blood boils and my dick gets hard just thinking about that large of an operation! Synchronized madness!

In other news I am starting to get nervous that all my paintings won’t be done by the time the show opens. Got to paint faster, but can’t seem to finish two of them. This weekend is the make or break for one particular painting. If it doesn’t go well then I’m going to slash the fucker in half and leave it in the alley to rot with bum piss all over it.  Speaking of the alley…

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This is how I feel when I contemplate New York City and what it will do to me if I don’t have all my ducks in a row. Got to have a plan in that fucking city or the undertow of rent, commuting, fluorescents, and bitters will drag you down.
Gray zombies on the train attest to that fact.
God help me!

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This is my new favorite photo.
It can either be the cover of a wood worker’s romance novel or the latest John Grisham slasher/thriller. You be the judge!

T-minus 33 Days

33 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Today was one of the least productive days of my entire life. I can feel the pressure creeping up on me and it makes me want to cut the living shit out of my arm. I was supposed to paint tonight but nothing doing, just couldn’t do it. Brookie says that I shouldn’t be shy with what I write. That I should let it all hang out. Smash the little bits up with the big. Glass and ground fireworks in the fillings of the the patients. Want to match all the colors of a hot dog with fleshburn tones.

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I just love the way it beads up on the top of the skin. Lovely little pools, connected with thin red lines, blotting together at the gravity points.

Haven’t received the postcards yet. Waiting for them to arrive, so I can spread that disease every which way. Love the way her skin looks like it melted off her face. Like someone pitched battery acid all over the place. Her former ghostself reflected in the cloud of dried liquid next to her. So beautiful.

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T-minus 34 Days

34 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

More painting preparation today. Finally feel that things are coming together. Here’s the still that the 2nd oil painting for Ocularpation will be based off of.

Less nudity on this one. Keep it PG-13 for the kids out there. Although that’s totally bullshit, because when I was 13 I had my hands on some of the nastiest porn available to the human race. I was hungry for it. I remember finding an abandoned shack deep back in the woods by a friend of my mother’s that I used to babysit for, and this little waterlogged hideaway was a porn palace of sorts. Broken windows and weather damaged in the Alaskan countryside, all the pulpy volumes were thick and swollen with moisture, looking more like misshaped phone books rather than slick thin and glossies. The warped and bleeding faces and vaginas staring out at me, enticing the way that disease or electrocution or screaming into the pillow are. I can’t count the number of times I visited it. ‘Twas my secret hideout. I wonder what shape it is in now? Soggy and sinking into the moss and devil’s club, burying the volumes that showed me what “it” looked like, for the first time. Invaluable knowledge. Thanks little old Alaskan porn shanty.

Brookie’s fabulous boot.

T-minus 35 Days

35 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Making sketches for the layout of gallery. Thinking about how to project things in non-standard ways. Everyone has video directly on the walls. Don’t want that. Want something new, something different. I have a lot of glass to work with and the temptation to use vellum is strong. Multiple images captured and refracted, possibly with mirrors, so that the initial signal is dispersed and untrackable. Fun house maze. Got to see what Brookie thinks of that. Non-linear is the key. I went to Peres Projects in L.A. Chinatown a few months ago and saw that Dash Snow had chipped out a hole in the cement floor and was beaming video up from the basement onto the ceiling of the second floor. ‘Twas a horrible video, but presentationwise, fantastic. Something like that. Wonder if I could get the neighbor to project video across the street and into the space, so that it is diffused and awash with light? Hmmmmm….

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I’m Still In A Foreign Land, still

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I’m Still In A Foreign Land, still

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Photo by Ashley Hanes

T-minus 36 Days

36 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Brookie emailed me the contact information for getting a hold of a lawyer for the arts. I’m thinking of extending my Ocularpation piece on a larger scale in New York and she said that I’ll definitely need some council if I’m going to go through with it. On one hand, my heart says, “Fuck that!” guerrilla action is the only way to do it, by bowing to the system of law makers and law enforcers one is missing the entire point of the piece which is to  recontextualize the office environment, the public law structure. But on the other, doing time for something that could be avoided, isn’t the most appealing option either. Public indecency, enemy combatant, expensive filming licences blah blah blah… when did New York get so uptight? Wait, don’t answer that. Nevermind.

Working on a piece called Autumn Moon. It’s a video with two oil paintings in accompaniment. The opening scene of the young girl staring at bright baubles kills me.

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Autumn Moon still

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Autumn Moon still

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T-minus 37 Days

37 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Flurries of questions all around as the details begin to fall into place. Still the nagging problem of lacking 2 projectors. I emailed my friend Tali who is part of an amazing group called Lo Vid (www.lovid.org) in the hopes that she might have some hot leads. Also started the last painting that will go in the show. It is another still from the Ocularpation video (which is the one where I strip and work in the “office” in downtown SF). This painting should be better than the other one I did (which is below). Nothing against the other one, but this one is going to have twice as much energy. Ripping off the damn stretcher, coming out and off the canvas. Like John Singer Sargent with his nuts in a postmodern vice grip! Goddamn!

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Ocularpation
oil/canvas, 59″x59″

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Talking to my mother this evening. My great aunt is dying. She had a massive heart attack and at 92 years old, let’s not fool anyone here, she’s not coming back this time. Although just watch me be wrong, ‘twouldn’t be the first time. We always called her”the bulldog”. She’s about 4′10″ and thickset with an iron face, short cropped silver hair, German stock to the core, and tenacious as all hell. Something I love about her rough shod ways. The real American dream lives in her eyes. She was the oldest of 7 kids and grew up with an honest to god dirt floor in poor-as-shit Illinois during the 20 and 30’s. Total bootstrap story, pulled herself up and now people say she’s rich, but she lives like she’s still in the middle of the depression, shopping at goodwill, taking mints and ketchups from restaurants, the whole bit. I love her for that.

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T-minus 38 Days

38 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Video projectors might prove more of a problem than I had thought. Brookie emailed me and it’s not so much that the projector is all that expensive, but rather that the bulb is thousands of dollars if it needs to be replaced. Bummer, big time, bummer. I’ll ask around to see if someone will let me borrow one, but my feeling isn’t good on it. Why in the hell are they so expensive?! There must be some cheaper solution to this problem. Craigslist… are you out there good buddy?

In other news, I left NY this morning and am back in San Francisco. Nothing like coming home to a dark warehouse to set the mood for depression. At least I cleaned before I left, the worst is coming home to a dirty desk.

Started some preliminary editing on the “Fainting” video that Ashley and I shot last night. It left her with a raging headache after 4 faints and she was nauseous for the rest of the evening and even the next morning. There’s a reason we stop doing this when we are 12. My greatest fear is that I’ve some how permanently damaged her fucking brilliant mind. I would have to go and cut my arm off or jab my eye out if I did that, just to keep things even steven.

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The Faint, mid-collapse

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Yours truly proving he’s a dumbass (photo by Ashley Hanes)

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Look into this man’s eyes! He had a sticker on his bicycle in Columbus, Ohio that said,
“I’m Having Too Much Fun”

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T-minus 39 Days

39 days until my solo show opens at Gallery 138.

Visited Brookie at the gallery today. Details galore to be hammered out. Projectors, postcards, contracts, contacts, funding, installers, AAAAAHHHGHGHGHAA. We need to come up with 2 more projectors before the show opens. How powerful they are “lumens” in each? Questions questions. The postcards look great. We decided best to go for the family friendly “dark bar” version, keep it clean for the kids and the perverts will be drawn in by the art of suggestion. You be the judge.

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Leaving NY for San Francisco tomorrow morning. Returning home. Depressing. Don’t want to go back to the city by the bay. I remember a time when I loved the hell out of that city. It felt like home, but today it feels like a beautiful but outdated gem, something pretty that I once took a fancy too, like a bmx bicycle or a comic book. I miss my girlfriend already. Long distance relationships are horrendous. I remember swearing that I just couldn’t do it, it would be too painful. But that was before I started dating Ashley. At a certain point, when you meet someone, it doesn’t matter where they live, you’ll do whatever it is that you have to do to be with them. It becomes absolutely necessary. That is what it is like for me now. Full on. No plan b. Essential. Core. Love.

T-minus 40 Days

40 days until my solo show opening at Gallery 138.

Still in Brooklyn visiting my gorgeous girlfriend. We are going to make a video tonight of an idea that we came up with on one of our marathon phone conversations from coast to coast (seeing as I live in San Francisco). Going to try and make ourselves faint and record the dreams we have while we die the little death.

My grandmother died for a few minutes 10 years ago (although she died-died a few months ago).
A few years later, I asked her what dying was like. She said that it was filled with light and green grass and that all her friends were there. She said she wanted to stay, but she couldn’t because it wasn’t her time and her friends told her she had to leave (some friends!). She was depressed to return to the living world. I don’t think she ever got over that and for the most part spent the next 10 years after her car accident in bed waiting to die.

Ethell Ashley, 1 month before death

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Love of my life, Ashley Hanes, this afternoon

New painting called:
“Crushing Youth, Crushing Youth”

T-minus 41 Days

41 days until my solo show opening at Gallery 138.

Been listening to Songs: Ohia, feeling it quite appropriate as to having just left Columbus for Brooklyn. What a lovely town. I have been completely against it my entire life, Ohio that is. The idea of the mid-west was one that confounded me at best and at worst brought out the full force venom. Especially after the last presidential election, I found myself feeling nothing but malice towards a state that essentially screwed over the rest of the country. But I was totally wrong (certainly becoming used to that feeling). Columbus is an amazing town. Reminds me of a David Lynch movie in motion. I wonder if he spent anytime there? I am in a show called “Exact Imagination” with Red76 at the Canzani Center Gallery on the campus of the Columbus College of Art and Design. Amazing show. Sam Gould is a damn genius.

The show at Gallery 138 has been on my mind constantly. Videos with oil paintings based on stills. How to display the videos? Brookie talks about vellum on glass and it seems like a good idea, but how to get hang the paintings to go with them? Shit! So much to work out.

Sometimes I feel like this poor sucker, blood pooling out of my brain and fading fast…

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T-minus 42 Days

42 days until my solo show opening at Gallery 138.

Who is to say what the ideal form of leisure is?
I grew up as a skateboarder in Juneau, Alaska. It was shitty weather almost the entire year round. I don’t mean just bad weather like they have in NY, but horrendous weather. Rain up into the triple didgets, slush when it wasn’t raining, moss and mold on a rampage. No place for a kid to shred. Parking garages were a paradise and the occasional sunny day on the wharf (where my best friend lost his front teeth in a bike wreck when he misjudged the wood slates and stuck his 10-speed tire into the thin gap whilst hauling ass), but that was about it.

I always hated roller bladers. Seeing this man in Central Park over the summer cemented it for me.

Joan Baez in Central Park= Warp Factor 10

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T-minus 43 Days

43 days until my solo show opening at Gallery 138.

Still in Brooklyn and finding focusing about as ludicrous a proposition as I’ve ever heard. How is one to focus when the love of their life lies by their side? Is there any other focus than love? Dementia perhaps…

This is a reworking of an image from Helsinki that I love. Drunken Fins encircling this tower of flame and chanting until the wee hours of what should be darkness, but isn’t.

The sound of a 20 ft. high Helsinki bonfire on the longest day of the year as drunk Fins dance around it.

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Count Down- T-minus 44 Days

44 days until my solo show opening at Gallery 138.

I’m in Brooklyn right now visiting my girlfriend. Valentines Day and I am in love. The multitude of brilliant and shattering things that go through your mind when you are in love. My friend Brookie described it as a temporary psychosis. I think she may be on to something.

This is the first blog entry. I have a solo show coming up at Gallery 138. I have a feeling that I’m supposed to have my shit together by now, but as per usual, things seem to be all over the damn place. Countless ends that need to be tied up and emails stacked up like countless reams of paper to be answered. I can’t imagine how the world worked before email, but it must have been less stressful than this. Anything is better than being constantly reachable, no?

I tried to have one of the internet phones for about a week and I just couldn’t hack it. I was running into things on the street, not looking where I was going, dogshit, telephone poles, screaming children, and of course the omnipresent automobile. Madness! I can barely manage with the damn telephone.

This is a little sketch for a piece on crack induced paranoia, enjoy:

CLICK TO PLAY MOVIE