Gonna Live My Life

So slide over here and give me a moment.

Peace.

Michael Hutchence 07/09/09

Take My Time

Though similar to the phrase titling my post this morning, this time it is about you. You take my time by buying or commissioning a piece of art from me. Buying an already completed piece, like Vicki did with this Michael Jackson from Etsy, takes from my past. Commissioning a new piece for yourself or as a gift takes from my future. The post this morning was about my present.

And it can be a present to you from me, if you take it.

Peace.

SOLD - Michael Jackson

Taking My Time

People use that phrase to convey a sense that they need to be patient, to slow down, to pay attention to what they're doing, to do it right.

I haven't been.

Over our holiday break we visited my brother-in-law Garrett and his family in Indiana near Indianapolis. They live on old farm land in rural countryside. We fell in love with the area of Shelby County. We're always looking for places to move when we travel, especially when it's closer to family we miss very very much. Garrett had found a property basically "around the corner" that we took a look at while there.


I love when I say in my head, "THAT was unexpected". And THIS was completely unexpected. You know the American dream? The promise of 40 acres and a mule? Well this was 40 acres. 40 acres! And what a house! And we met the neighbor and she has a mule for sale! Holy mackerel. We might buy it if it's meant to be. We'll see.

The thing about this area, this property, this house is that you really get that sense of time slowing down. Well, not slowing down, rather going the right pace. They have all four seasons. The pace of people follows the crop growth more than anything. It's not lazy. It's just taking time.

Over the past half year or so, I've compressed my patience. It's not satisfying. It's stressful. Yes I have my meditative moments while creating, while painting, but we only go 'round once, so why feel pressured to get to the future? I'm going to let it come, let Life flow.

I'm taking my time. For all it's worth. And it's worth a lot. Well, everything, isn't it?

Peace.

I'm Left-Handed

That sounds like a confession. Must be how I'm reading it.

And I'm only mostly left-handed. I play sports right-handed. Do things that require oomph right-handed. But yes, I create left-handed. Well, mostly, again. I do use the computer mouse with my right hand.

I don't, however, cock the paper at that huge angle most lefties do in order to write. This used to tick off all my teachers as I would smear my writing. The long term effect of that response was that my writing shrunk. I would try to write without moving my whole hand, stretching and basically scribbling. Thank goodness for computers! By the time my handwriting turned into scrawled printing in college, I could type up anything that professors needed to be able to read. Oh how I hated in-class essay exams and blue book tests though. We recently got all of my coursework from nursery school through UCLA and it made me cringe to watch the devolution of my writing.

In what I do now, create portraits, the only impact is probably the layout of my table. Paint off to the left, tablelamp on my right. I suppose it subtly influences where I place images in my compositions.

In this case, somewhat planned and somewhat ironically, the line from "Ligeia" which is only slightly obscured by Poe's crazy hair is "huge masses of long and dishevelled hair, it was blacker than the raven". Kinda cool.

Peace.

P.S. I'm goin' on break! Woohoo Summer! Anyway. We're doing some family stuff and I won't be painting or posting until next Wednesday. I'll be around to get emails and read comments, maybe reply, so don't hesitate.

How Do You Book A Photograph?

I mean photograph a book. It's hard to position! The drawing's not totally done. Poe's got a lot of crazy hair. But here's my second go at Liter(art)ure, my favorite author on the page before my favorite story, "The Fall Of The House Of Usher". All of his works are amazing to me. I love dense writing. I love having to reread paragraphs sometimes five times. Especially when the stories told are so captivating both because of their content and their words.

I have a love/hate relationship with words. Always have. I walked before I talked. I like listening more than speaking. I like instrumental music more than lyrics. And yet I know them quite well, and can manipulate them to my liking usually. Thank my parents and my schooling, I suppose. Well no, thank me, because I committed myself to "doing school" and burnt myself out after six years at UCLA in the hardest science major in the College of Letters and Science. I liked reading Schrodinger and Nietzsche for crissakes.

Anyway, outside school I mostly focussed on visual art, whether it be drawing nude models or watching movies like "Kafka" or "Hudson Hawk". So creating these portraits of authors I love over their words must reveal something about me. Don't know what. Don't really care. But I still like the concept after executing (almost) two, so I'm excited. My eyes are blurry, my wrist hurts, but I'm excited.

Peace.

Love Is Not Capital

Larger-than-life performers like Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury often live personal lives with few close "true" friends. They sacrifice their own happiness to give it to those for whom they perform in what Hunter S. Thompson called "The Curse of Fame". Mercury was quoted as saying, "When I'm performing I'm an extrovert, yet inside I'm a completely different man."

The outpouring of love from fans of MJ since his death last week is our way of giving back to his soul, wherever it may be. It's a recognition of how much we take from public figures. Love cannot be paid like money, it cannot be capitalized upon. It is a different form of communication altogether.

Love is unlimited in space and time, unlimited in amount, and unlimited in power and action. I just don't get why our society is so caught up in accounting, in keeping track of who owes us what. It sucks souls. It alienates individuals. It polarizes groups. It squashes passion.

I just wish there was a way for humanity to focus more on giving love than taking capital from those who choose to share their creativity and passion with the world.

Peace.

SOLD - Freddie Mercury 06/29/09

Sometimes You Just Know

Last year, I got one real entry for my contest. And it was a real good one. This is a post of my thoughts about it with a shot of the winner's Jerry hanging in his home and link to his entry. This year, I've gotten great entries so far, with 5 days to go. I'm humbled by the submissions and honored that you've taken the time and attention to share your stories.

When I saw the photo of Jerry I drew inspiration from for the piece above, I just knew it would make a great piece of Vinyl Art...

... I'm sorry, what?

I. What? A shudder, you know, the bad tingly feeling going down your spine out to your fingers, just hit me. I just saw the news. I'm typing slowly, forced to by the tears welling up.

The 50 year old child is gone.

I had a weird sickening feeling earlier today as I waited for my wife to have lunch with me. Wasn't sure why.

Now I know.

Rest In Peace, Michael.
Jerry Garcia 06/25/09

Didn't Your Mother Teach You Not To Draw In Books?

I did it. I actually did it. I drew in a book. I think it might be the first time I've ever marked in a book, that I can remember. I even dog-eared textbooks in college with hesitation.

See, my mom has volunteered for the local Pacific Palisades library for about as long as I could read, helping run the used book sales since I was probably in middle school. I joined in as the muscle, moving boxes until college. I've always loved books. My parents saw to that, reading me Goodnight Moon from the getgo. I did the Summer reading programs and competed with my best friend to read the most. Besides records, books took up the most boxes when I moved to Arizona.

Books, both the content and the physical things, might mean more to me than records. Words were so important to me growing up as an intellectual overachiever. I kept the vocabulary pages from Reader's Digest. My mom and I would listen to vocabulary tapes in the car all the time. I love Poe the most, if that means anything.

So I had the idea to pay tribute to authors the way I pay tribute to musicians. But it meant defacing books! Well, I finally got up the gumption to try it. Of course it had to be Hunter, my wife's and Jason's favorite author. I knew it was time when we watched the Gonzo documentary and in it I saw the photograph I drew inspiration from for this piece.

I call it Liter(art)ure. Well, my wife did. I like the name. So I'm using it. I drew this portrait in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" on the page with the famous passage about the wave. It's still readable, along with the rest of the book. I did the drawing using the technique I'd learned way back in high school, with the same pen in fact. My old rapidograph still worked, amazingly.


So amazingly, I might do more.

Peace.

Another Man's Treasure

He signed it! As my contest draws to a close at the end of the month, at the beginning of which I first showed you this piece, I received my painting back from Mr. Lynch, signed and ready to be framed and sent to his foundation.

Hopefully this will become someone's treasured possession, acquired at auction for a good cause. Right now this is my biggest hope, that I can bring in funds for various charities with my art. Those who get my newsletter know of one coming up in the Fall. (If you want my newsletter, just shoot me an email.)

From the very beginning, when I started thinking big with promoting my Vinyl Art, I of course had my Oprah fantasy. Mine was to somehow give a painting of Bono, tinted red, to Oprah, have Bono autograph the record on the show, and then auction it off for (red). It hasn't happened yet, but I still have the painting.

This unexpected connection with David Lynch has got me goofy. He is seriously one of my favorite auteur directors ever, and to get to help him out is amazing. We'll see what can come of it!

Peace.

One Man's Trash

I'm so excited I got to do this!

These records were beat, man. A couple had been shoved into the sleeves along with other Beatles records. This is why I love being able to do what I do. A friend had saved the other couple from the leftovers of a neighbor's garage sale, destined for the landfill. Beatles records. Nobody who didn't want to piss off their dads by playing crappy records on his fancy hi-fi would've played these, but they're Beatles records!

This is what I've been waiting to be able to do with my unframed pieces since I started clear-coating them. After painting and clear-coating these 4, I glued them together with Super Glue. I'm hoping I get to do other groups like Led Zeppelin this way, but I don't run across records without sleeves very often. The albums I get with sleeves, I'll normally do framed and won't throw the sleeves away just because. So I need your help. I need commissions of these.

Now, last week I said that the price for unframed single ones will go up to $150 at the end of the month, when my contest is over (which, by the way, only has 24 entries thus far). At that point I will begin offering pieces like this one of the Beatles for 10% less per portrait, plus shipping. So this one would be $540 instead of $600 individually. (I've got to find out what shipping will be, but it won't be too bad.)

I want to do them that much. I'm basically paying you to let me do a whole group and arrange the portraits myself. Plus, you'd only need 2 nails to hold up all 4 records :)!

Peace.