moving on

Art is a progressive preservation of culture, through craft. Art is action, an exchange. American art is a reaction to capitalism. Commerce is a network where trade is skill exchanged for craft, or company, or companionship. Collaboration is a journey that ends in wandering, and I couldn’t mean anything without empathy. If reflection is our movement, then this recession has gone too far. We are incestuous with our past, and we’re dying out like the Tudors, or the Romanovs. We’re gone. How am I supposed to know where we are? I’m just telling stories like mirrors, to see myself in them. Reflection is our movement. Look at the wordless stories I tell. Fiction is not honest. The ambiguity of the relics I create end with a willful suspension of disbelief in people. Trends move quickly, and my process is a furious catfish…someone placed glass underneath it, and it doesn’t know why but it can’t get to the bottom (of anything). Materials are easy to come by, because being resourceful has become about making connections. I use stitches, and hand shakes. I’m lucky that everything’s related. The places at which we draw personal lines are tangential to the circles in which we walk. We walk in circles. We talk the same way we walk. And I would like to make a point, the only one: Appropriation is a faculty of sustainability.

"The mind is an open cavity in which the entire village dwells, and the jungle grows"

(from Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe) (A piece from an old laundry bag as the spine; an old book, coptic bound, again)
to: kimo based on the music stand of Evelyn Foust

"Each person is a transitory composite of materials borrowed from the environment." I hope that he will look at this book, and not be disappointed that I cut up some important relics, to create a new one.

We Are Not Leaving This Land and We Will Begin to Become Native to it When We Recognize This Fact

I wish for community through craft.


To you, I want to be what I create. Identity is so much more identifiable when there's a product to exhibit. My and your sole consistent characteristics could be what we do, and people would sleep easier knowing this about us. All the comfort in social situations comes from familiarity.

My onl y real plan for making that happen involves a vague concept for personal momentum.

Chase Several Hares and You Won't Catch One

Darren Ohl is moving to Eugene, Oregon. I am going to miss him. I hope he keeps being really funny, and a little bit twisted, and somewhat sentimental in a really even, and natural way. I hope he documents some of it in the book I made for him. To Eugene:

This is an old book I found in a vintage store in Orlando called DejaVu.It's a coptic bound book, bound inside out from the cover. The spine is cut as a buttonhole stitch, acting as a window, to a very limited amount of the book's secrets.
There's a ribbon to seal it closed, hopefully just masculine enough. The top of the saddle has leather above it, hopefully just western enough. I hope the composition is balanced. I hope the concept doesn't get stuck in the execution. I hope the execution doesn't end everything in a bloody mess, with too many onlookers. It wouldn't make sense. Not in this day and age.

A Drawing A Day

I hoped to create a good habit, starting
with this book. It's made from an old
book, and uses the buttonhole stitch,
linen thread, and recycled papers, left
over from past books, projects, mail, etc.

1404 Clay St.

I didn't blog much in the month of April. I was moving. I've also been interviewing for anything I can. I hate the service industry, and people on their cell phones. The local library has a bulletin about being cell-mannered. Then, two of it's employees come in and order while on the phone. It's a frustrating process: to be accomodating (in general), but it's nice to come home to this place.

DIY: Delegate it Yourself

Whether you know how to do something, or just know someone who knows how, the most important thing to remember is to never stop creating. I am afraid of losing momentum; I am afraid that if I'm not in motion, then nothing is happening. Something isn't happening.

Here is the most recent project I worked on. I screen-printed 30 shirts for Surfin Serf's 2006 kia spectra tour http://www.myspace.com/surfinserf. I hope to do more of this kind of thing. I hope other people are doing more of this kind of thing. Commerce of skill. A changing of hands so local that it's a handshake. Kindly leave your talent where others can see it, and at least perspective will come to light, and at most something huge will eventually happen.

Surin Serf is a band local to Orlando. They're touring a bit, and doing a couple shows in Florida and Maryland. I know they want to play more, so if you'd like to have them, invite them. They will come.


Supplies:
A bath tub/shower/water screen
screen filler
drawing fluid
pigment
extender
a steady hand
a kitchen table
cardboard
30 shirts
Cost: approximately $170