driftwood wave

Some folks have been asking for more photos and back story behind the driftwood wave I built for five months in 2006.

In the same way I use repeated brush strokes in my paintings as a way to re-present representation, I used driftwood as the empty signifier.  That is to say that something so culturally loaded as a piece of driftwood is able to lose some or all of it's cultural significance with a change in context.  The driftwood sort of becomes brush strokes in a giant three-dimensional painting that is about other people's paintings. 

It's also really pretty and used to smell nice.

I started by building twenty modular forms or tables. 

I then bolted them all together and started building a wire-frame for the basic structure.

After the wire-frame was complete, I cut all the pieces back apart and moved the entire assembly to it's exhibition space. Where I bolted it back together. Again.

After I had it all reassembled I began skinning the surface.  This was probably the hardest part of the whole project.  I spent a LOT of time bent over picking up driftwood and fastening each piece with bailing wire.  There was a good photo of me working on it taken by Ari Marcopoulos but I've gone and lost it...

...anyway, my hands and back were beat to shit and I was also living off of energy drinks and In-n-out, and sleeping in my studio at school - I wouldn't take it back for anything.

all done!

photo courtesy of K. Acconci :)

and then I moved the whole thing once more to it's current (and final) home in Palos Verdes, but I don't have any photos of that for you...

three more little paintings of paintings of water.

here's a few I forgot to put up from mid December.

All: 'Untitled ', house paint, spray paint, acrylic, ink, enamel on panel.
and they're all small in size (roughly 4" X 13" or so).

I'll likely be doing many of these smaller works (or portions of them) as larger paintings in the near future.  I'll also be using many of these for another super top secret project that someone else has been patiently waiting on...





enjoy.

more tiny paintings - and, a very short story.

ALL THREE:

untitled

house paint, spray paint, acrylic, enamel, ink on wood.

 

I've been kinda busy with other shit recently, so I haven't been making work.  I HAVE found some time for these sweet little guys.  They're all around 4" X 13" 

I had originally planned on using these as studies for larger works (and for use in print media) but they're so much fun to make I can't stop.  I started several more than what's pictured and until I can actually carry large works around the studio again, these are what I ignore my family over...

and now, a very short story:

When I was around six years old, our family was on one of MANY road trips (seems like we were always in the back of some car) and I, being six (or near there) of course had to pee.

My dad pulls the car over and I find a nice bush to piss on... upon my return to the car, one of the parental units asked if "everything came out OK" - we're also a family of bad jokes - to which I replied "high and far."  As in my little urine stream had traveled high, and far on it's way to that bush.

The whole family got a great laugh out of it, I've spent YEARS hearing "high and far" at any and every opportunity.  We're a strange bunch, but I wouldn't trade it.

until next time - 

HIGH AND FAR!

too much blue...

there is a series of long-standing debates between one CRB and myself...  One of which holds relevance to this particular blog:

For years now, every art object I make that gets seen by CRB is immediately placed into the "too much blue" category.  even if there's no blue in aforementioned objects.  I decided to finish one of my new small-scale paintings as a birthday gift... I made sure to put a lot of blue in it; it goes well with pickles and conveyor belts.


Why yes, that IS a nickle from Canadia.

detail.

good start for a future painting, no?

Aprés moi, les déluge

Some images from the catalog for my recent show in March.



invite

le deluge #4  2010.  I made four of these "Coriolis" paintings based on a late friend's work.  Sold all but this one.  These really don't photograph too well - even in good lighting with an excellent photographer!  In any case, they are popular works and should hold their aesthetic beauty for quite some time I think.

le deluge #1  2010.  Although it didn't make the cover of my catalog, this is a close second (I actually like it best of the four some days).

space chicken  2004. Another trip to vanityland in this self portrait!  The blue and yellow thing is a chicken copied from a 1978 craft project.  I made a "space chicken" on an "unbreakable" plate; the brown part is his ladder, and the colored floating spheres are eggs.  I can still remember being frustrated about my mother making one of the eggs on that plate better than mine...  That plate was indeed broken years later (around 2000) and I still keep the pieces.

untitled  2010.  To me, this was my FAVORITE work in the show.  I also made a gold one that I have not yet photographed.  They both have a temporary home at my local d!sp3nsary.  Really, they're a big hit with all the patients.

el corazon  2008.  I have this hanging in my living room.  There's a great story behind this one, but you'll have to take my word for it 'cause I ain't tellin'

some new stuff in progress!

 Here are a few of the smaller pieces I've been working on.  Again, you'll just have to get over camera phone pix.  These are all works in progress, but they're still coming from the same general point of departure in terms of content.  These are also all on wooden panel, so they'll have a nice smooth surface that will let a lot of small detail shine through.

Despite my current physical limitations keeping me from working larger scale, I'm really having fun with these.

I've also been doing some of these in oil paint and stand oil.  They're likely to be a long time in the making however from the stand oil.  If I can get a good one this way, I'll be stoked.

cheers!

three here in a group, top one belongs to my three year old... she has a great time painting with her daddy.

C/U.

this one is going to come out really good.

detail of the ink work surrounding the elipse.

signs of some nice line work to come as she gets older...

tools.

more tools

I'm kind of messy, no?

 

action painter.

even more stuff!

 Found this photo of the video installation that went with the five summer stories paintings.  It's a short montage of "important" surf films/movies from the 1960s to the 2000s.  Included in no order are: Five Summer Stories, The Endless Summer, Summer Super Series, The Seedling, & some O'neill video with Rat Boy.  Basically all of the films used have the same basic scene types over five decades.  The surfing may have changed but the films really haven't...

Installation shot of self portrait with Joe Strummer & Juice Newton  2004/5.  I still have this piece and it's always a fun one for me to look at.  I used a lot of different techniques here, so it's a good one to spend time with, plus there's Juice and Joe.

untitled  1993.  Oil and acrylic on canvas.  Not a great painting, but I still have it.  It was my first commissioned painting but the client wasn't into it...  I'm certain I got all butt-hurt over it but I can't throw it out.  I came up with this brilliant idea in the bathtub from what I can recall.

 

 

lost and found series 2006 and ongoing...  I painted the sleeping Mexican and the sun rays.  Pretty sure this belonged to Michael Brunswick before I pulled it out of a dumpster at Otis in 2005.  I've since passed it on to Gilda and she sent it to another artist.  I really like this one too.

swan princess 2005. Painted for a friend, it was a nice painting until their house burnt to the ground.

and a nice detail... I LOVE the setting sun in the skull's eye.

 

Probably why I often get called an asshole.  I made this "official license" for one AB.  AB thinks that he paints like Pablo Picasso and that he only needed art school for "a piece of paper."   I disagree so I had Picasso himself sign this license for him.  School is WAAAAAY too expensive, but it was a valuable experience for me in terms of what I make.  He didn't take his paper and leave like I had hoped.