Way Outsider Art

20th & P. St.

Ok, so the newest installment is all about binary systems. Up, down, black, white, good, bad, all those topics that the human race is pre-occupied with. The intent was to shorten the disproportionate length of the wall by dividing the space in half. Automatic symmetry. I knew I wanted to paint a photo I took of my friend Dirt in the center because I've always wanted to. Every since the shutter remembered. So BAM! There's Dirt. Since Dirt was holding a dead dragon fly that we just killed the idea of flight is available. With that comes air, motion, up. Dirt, the centerpiece. Dirt the centerpiece. Dirt is always the centerpiece. The human and the material. So within the photo is a shadow, down, attachment, death. SymmetryrtemmyS. Up, air, sky, powerlines. Sorry, very didactic.
THe process of making the images is my new favorite. It involves flattening the image into abstract forms that when placed in the right places produces the illusion of form. Making 2-d and 3-d simultaneously. Within the abstractions I introduce smaller flattened imagery that makes up new forms as well as the larger image. So for this mural I created all the intricacies with the image of a boy running. He is running all within the piece and from what, one doesn't know. Until one discovers in the center a bear, since on the first night of creating this piece I got jumped by some guys (or urban bears). My personal shutter remembered and I wanted to include that into the narrative. The colors...not my first pick, but pretty good for a shoestring budget. I know I'm not the worlds greatest or even averagest mural painter but when I find out that most murals fetch 20,000 dollars and I did this one for 9 dollars I begin to wonder about that grey area.

20th and P Update

Fists to temples

Here is a midway through shot somewhere around 8 hours into it. I keep forgetting my ladder so I have to stack three 5-gallon drums up on that slippery moss in order to hit the top. That's nothing though. Last night I got jumped here by 9 dudes. I would say it was my second fight ever, but it was hardly a fight because somebody punched my in the back of the head as I was in mid sentence with one of the guys in the group. Then it was just a round of fists and hands in pockets. They made off with my cellphone so if I'm not returning your call you know why. GO AMERICA!

Life in the air and death in the dirt

New target in midtown Sacramento. Honing in and ready to detonate sometime this week.
Imagery from a fatality at 75+ while travelling with Dirt from Reno to S.F.

Getting off topic, the remaining photos are from Fiddletown. A quiet town in the Shenandoah hills. I'm working with an Anthropologist to combine stylizations from graffiti and carvings from the Asmat tribe of New Guinea. Starting in Febuary. Should be very interesting to say the least.

Future Projects

You've seen them all around town. Those forgotten places where nothing happens. Broken glass, tumbleweeds, some shoes over a powerline. The lepers of geography. I've played around in one of those places for some years now. The first time was about 7 years ago with David Elliot when we painted a mix of Tao Te Ching aphorisms and bizarre imagery. Now, the same place is that much more forgotten and all I can imagine is filling it in with people and ideas. I ran into Greg Geness on his return from Europe and he too found the space. Ofcourse the first thing he imagined was ramps and such, I don't blame him, the place is perfect with all the concrete, but moreso he saw the potential in this place. I think you would too. You should go down there and begin the plans. Because next summer it's on. The (con)Temporary Gallery needs to expand and I see this has a perfect branch. Go daydream there, beneath hwy 395 behind Barnes and Noble on Virginia St.