Category: Uncategorized

If I can just get organized….Applying to grad school is all of the same preparation as applying to galleries. If a school would accept me, wouldn’t a gallery. I’m stuck in the middle again.

Fly fishing this summer has definitely led me to work on some fish pieces. I’m thinking an entire maze of mines that fish outfitted like world war two vets have created, while fishermen outside of the water look completely clueless…..Let me know what you think.

Very soon I will be back in New Hampshire, and when that happens the full winter walking series will be coming out. I think it will be really cool. The figures are pretty much going to lose some of their shape, because of the huddle effect. It’s almost like walking in the winter in New England is like running into the Blob face to face over and over again……

Long live snow suits.

So I spent the night working on an artist’s statement that should have technically been done approximately a year and a half ago, but this is generally the speed that I end up working. In other news camping proved fruitless this weekend, and I didn’t get to go fishing either, but I did a couple cool sketches down…..

I’ve already started a painting of this one. It’s going pretty well, though I don’t think I am going to include the text in the painting.

This second one is actually two separate journal entries. They are both supposed to be visual poems in their own right, though I am more pleased with the completion of the first. It’s simple like a haiku. (and that was a joke!)

and one more picture today……

This is beth looking good on the Astoria trip last weekend. That bluff was super cool too. Beth is standing about four hundred feet above a little cave that went into the rock ledge that was filled with water. You know that’s going to be incorporated into a piece later.

Last night I watched Finding Neverland. I found it especially interesting for JM Barrie’s wife to be reading his journal. It made me think a little bit about how detached you can so easily become from the people around you, and how little they really know about what you are thinking by what you write in your journal. Most of what I write are notes or random poetry, or things to jog my memory, or perhaps a specific thought for a specific time……

I thought I’d show a couple excerpts though.

I’ve been reading a lot of Kerouac again lately. He always makes me draw people hitch-hiking or camping or on a mountain.

And here is an example of how I end up compartmentalizing my thoughts. I like to think of it as the comic of mike. Anyway, maybe I will put more of my journal entries up in the future. Hopefully you like seeing these.

So this weekend Beth and I went camping at Ft Stevens in Oregon, then drove down the coast and took lots of cool pictures of the ocean, saw a tv show being filmed, and a bunch of starfish. We also dropped several bird paintings at Lunar Boy Gallery. I dropped off a disk with digital images as well, so you should be able to see all of the paintings up on the website soon too.

This one is called “Good Day Mr. Bird”, and yes it has been up on the blog before, but I revised the bird. Now it actually looks like a red winged black bird which makes me very happy. Next we have “Just Push Play”, a not so good example of what Aerosmith can do and a pretty good example of what I can do.

Last but not least. Bird on a wire is going to be a series all its own. I think more birds on more spread out wires though. I’m also kind of picturing the wires making up a patchwork like that in a mondrian. More from the end of his career though. The whole idea comes from this rad photo that I got from my buddy Billy in Portland, ME. So if you like it send props to Billy.

Here is a sketch of one possible way to take My friend Steve’s poem “Mockingbird”. I’m still working on this one though, so it may get a little more crazy, and for that matter even if I keep the same idea, I might try to work some newspaper heading fonts into the piece, and I think it should look cut and pasted. But it’s just a quick sketch right?

Bachelor still. But a productive bachelor at least. Rocking out to some Aphex Twin remix of tetris. Heck yeah. who isn’t fired up about that? Anyway. there are some cool things coming up.

First off, I am going to be working with my buddy Camwyn on some poetry art response. His poetry totally kicks tookus, so you should check it out. (here)

Second off, a trip that was just going to clear some inventory and get some paintings out of my way is getting me totally psyched. I am loving the bird motif. I’ve gotten two new bird books in the past couple months and I am slowly trying to replicate more and more actual bird breeds as opposed to making generic cartoon bird. Scary huh.

So here’s a golden eagle.

Let me know what you think.

I have a couple more pieces that should be done by weeks’ end so I’ll keep y’all updated.

hasta manana

Extremely productive aaaand I watched baseball with my roommate. More importantly though I finally finished my wedding present for Joe Palmer and Maria Costanzo; two totally rocking individuals who I believe are in Chicago as we speak.

Here is their present. God I hope they like it.

The computer wasn’t really stoked on the colors, so they might be a little bit off this time. I also finished up this little bluebird piece for Lunar Boy, which I didn’t end up going to this weekend. Beth wants to go to, so I will be going next weekend when she is back.

Tomorrow, I think I will be able to get up the bird on the wire piece from yesterday. It is actually coming really fast, which makes me totally happy.

Until then…..rock on.

Lots of art to come, I would assume. Either that or I sit around and watch baseball with my roommate for three days straight. Both are likely. Oh that the mets don’t experience a june-like month again.

Any way you probably don’t care about my baseball preferences so here are a couple new bird pieces. Well one is a complete piece and the other is a drawing for a piece I intend to flesh out tonight. I’ll keep you updated.

later

Nothing like a robot on a wire to get me going. This drawing reminded me of so many lame paperback science fiction books from the sixties and seventies that my dad used to read, and at the same time underground comics. I very much want to do more with these. Let me know what you think of them, and also let me know what your favorite science fiction book covers are. Mine is the old school cover to “I,Robot”.
Here are a couple of the birds that I am thinking of using in the helmet and head phone series. I saw a lady downtown who was doing these huge oils on canvas that basically looked like these vignettes on a massive canvans. The branches took up the whole surface, but the birds were tiny, and low and behold placed in the golden mean………Hmm. I bet that woman went to art school.

This weekend I am driving down to Astoria to trade out some of the images that are hanging there with some of the newer bird paintings. Trading out the paintings will be cool. I think the bird paintings are the creme of my work so far, and hopefully others will agree, but the best thing about going to Astoria is that I get to go on a sweet drive through the country and I will not be in city limits for two whole days. Now that is a beautiful thing.

I’m going to take down a disk with jpgs of everything I am taking too, so I will let you all know when Lunar Boy’s website is updated and you can buy some new paintings.

Until then Rock out with your Asimov Out.
Be well.

First off, I am planning on a new series of birds in seemingly regular situations with helmets on. Hopefully I can put together an entire show worth of them. It will be the “Terrified of Flight” show and I would of course have to play all 764 Hero during the opening. I think it is a cool message though…..thoughts?

Second, here are the plans for the first piece that I want to construct in a box. Joseph Cornell style. I might start subbing birds for the robot though. I don’t know. I may try to get Camwyn to help me with it, when I move back east…..I’ll buy the Guinness?

And here is a painting that I am sending to my parents tomorrow. It won’t stick to the fridge or anything, but I was thinking about it and absolutely missing the days of drawing weird stuff and seeing it up on the fridge. In fact when I go home now there are still drawings my brother and I did on the fridge. So cheers mom and dad!