hiphop

Coal Trane: Gotta Git it in Your Soul

It is my fourth morning in the Midwest. A wet snow has started to cover the ground. Word from home is that there is a larger snowy blanket awaiting my arrival. But yesterday was a cold rainy day, which found me in Feed Cultural Center’s window, sporting headphones and finally installing Coal Trane: Gotta Git it in Your Soul.

I had measured out the work but hadn’t accounted for how significantly the balance of the work would be thrown off by the colored block transitions. After I had pieced together the top row and Coltrane had gotten into full swing with one of his more elaborate solos in A Love Supreme, I realized that I was going to have to modify my plans. Fortunately Feed has chop and scrap wood out back and I was able to make a dozen more sets of French cleats, saving my installation. The walls in Feed were not catered to taking nails or screws so that was a bit frustrating. Additionally, the extra cleats required more drywall screws than I had packed, but once again Feed had a few extras kicking around. These drywall screws were far more difficult to work with, however. One set wouldn’t work at all due to the stud behind the work. I eventually caved and used two pin nails to hold the last cleat in place and save the wall another hole. There is talk of improving the walls for hanging at the center and I think that that might be wise, but the folks that work there and the mission of the space are absolutely amazing. It’s lovely to see such a center I a small Midwestern city.

Overall, I am pleased with the way the installation worked out. Tonight I am doing a small totem workshop and there is an opening for Transmissions a show which includes six people who went to grad school with in Maine.

It’s a food start to 2015.

Peace

-Mike

The Trane Keeps Rolling

I have two projects weighing on me as I come into this holiday week. I’ve scheduled an illustration to be finished before Christmas and I have an installation to finish by the first.

I am putting together all of the artwork for the new Seasonal Disorders 7 inch EP that is coming out next year. I’ve designed the front and back cover, the a and b side artwork, and possibly artwork for their t-shirt. I’m excited about the project and the drawings are coming along pretty well, but I’ve had the installation leaning on me heavy for the past coue of weeks. I feel like I can never get enough done for that. I would rather be assembling that the lady couple days than still painting and drawing.

The installation is called Soul Trane. It is an assemblage of stereos, cassettes and trains. I’ve tried to listen to nothing but blues, hip hop an jazz while making the piece as an effort to channel some of the energy that I have garnered in my work from primarily black performers. I’ve been reading “Clawing at the Limits of Cool,” which tells the story of John Coltrane and miles Davis. There is a lot of blues to reading the histories of famous black men, a certain reckoning and an overwhelming guilt. I’m a contributor to White Mans Burden ethos simply by not offering any alternatives, by not protesting, by not being politically active. I am not this outgoing extrovert, however. I am a painter, an introvert. My best friends are questlov, q-tip, Trane, Elmore James, lightnin’ Hopkins and James brown. They give me a groove and a freedom to create. I am on the soul Trane and I will not get off, but I will not protest for anything. I will, however, hold the cause deep down in my heart and do my best to take that cause and push it along, push it along, push it along…..

Peace

-Mike