I celebrate myself

[4]
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet...the effect upon me of my early life...of the ward and city I live in...of the nation,
The latest news...discoveries, inventions, societies...authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks...or of myself...or ill-doing...or loss or lack of money...or depressions or exaltations,
They come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

-Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself

why I love kids

It's a worthy goal to strive for such a positive attitude. Imagine if more people were this stoked about life!

things fall apart

Important thing to think about while writing my "artist statement".
Also--being on time, fulfilling commitments (both aka not being such a flake), and somehow managing to not take it all so personally/seriously.

"my silver catering tray of empanadas! it's right here where i left it!"

courtesy of the Met

I love these pictures because of our contrasting looks--Brigid with her dark hair worn down, striped shirt, necklace, no eyeglasses. Me with my light hair piled on top of my head, solid sweater, no necklace big glasses. It worked very nicely for the photos. We came up with the first face while waiting in line. We didn't know we had to have a second one until we got up there. Again, contrast.
I de-colored my hair a couple of days before Halloween on a whim (Me: Hey Chris, will you bleach my hair? Him: Sure). It started out really terribly yellow, almost the color of a box of Bisquick. Right now the bottom has darkened a bit, and it's almost natural looking. Still kind of off though. It's patchy as hell but I have sort of come to embrace it. It makes me feel and look less serious. Or maybe just look more crazy.

just a little one

gouache on paper

I feel lazy today/yesterday/the last couple of weeks.

all of a sudden, I'm a rhinestone cowboy

This song has been stuck in my head for at least three hours. It just appeared there all of a sudden. I think as a child the message of this tune definitely effected me. Or something.

dessert for tonight

Probably gonna do a whole James Siena post sometime because he gives me a raging art boner.
Also my camera stopped working again.

it could be an illusion, but I might as well try

Dude. Dude! Dude. This is the first picture my laptop's Photobooth has taken in nearly TWO YEARS, when the video feature on it suddenly decided it was sick of my constant mugging and quit working. About 8 months ago, when the screen casing started to detach from the screen itself, I finally took it to the Apple spaceship/store. After asking me repeatedly how it got in this state ("One day it wasn't like this and the next or maybe a few days after it was"), they told me the camera was irreparable and that I would have to purchase a whole new screen if I wanted it to work again. To which I basically said, "Fuck that" and just kept using it in its janky state. There were some attempts at snapping it all back in place but the crack would always yawn back open, re-exposing its wires and guts and whatever else is going on in there. Today, before it was switched on for one of the first times in about two and a half months, I smushed it all back together as best I could, slapped on a few strips of masking tape, and voila! A working video camera. Dudes at the Apple store clearly had no idea what they were doing. I'm skeptical about how long this will work, but at least it didn't cost $1000. And I've already adjusted pretty well to life without the camera.
Still, I'm psyched.
Having a computer in the studio r00lz. Now I can look for images and read articles and listen to chunes.

for a couple of hours, on a beautiful day

"Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love." -Monet

I was trying to figure out why I feel such a strong affinity for this photo. Then I realized I've been painting flowers, and this dude painted a whole lot of them. Every time I've gone to my studio during the last week and a half, I've done a small flower painting. It's an easy way to create a series without having to do much, and it is sort of like a calendar, or a diary, of time spent in my studio. Really need to upgrade my camera situation so I can post some of them.

back in black & white fall 2010

Whoa, back in the blog-O-sphere. Found this in my journal from about this time last year & felt like sharing it with someone. So I'm sharing it with the internet, which is, in effect, sharing it with no one, since I have no way of knowing who is looking at this thing.
Andrea suggested that I write in one of these, or make a website for my work, sort of to give it more importance than I have been lately. And it sounded like a good idea. No images to post right now, because I have no way to convert them into digital images at this particular moment. Quality digital images. I'm not trying to half-ass this shit, although tonight's images are pretty lo-fi. I'm at school and it's 5am. I feel ridiculous. But I really had the urge to do this right now.
I was gonna post tonight's gouache palette but the cell phone picture of it really sucks a lot. I'm going to go back upstairs to my cubicle and lay down my sleeping bag on the floor next to it and among my little paintings and hopefully have some memorable dreams.

Goodnight, internet.