too emotional and then there is the holidays...

god damn it.
started reading this self-help book with an aim to soften some of the edges in my family relationships and jesus, unsurprisingly the pot is being stirred up inside...
so what does that mean?
i think we can all be looking forward to some more f-ed up paintings about the inner workings of my family dysfunction this holiday season...and you thought...and maybe i hoped it was all out and i couldn't paint another.
otherwise i am busy working on part-time job and halloween stuff...maybe next week my dance card will be a little lighter and i can start putting images and words to the tightness lingering in my chest.

last night i dreamt i was lead astray and couldn't find a vegetarian sandwich anywhere

currently listening to a mix that i made my friend to commemorate his surgery in which he donated a kidney to a coworker.
how does one make a mix like that? what sort of tone? well it turned out to be a separation mix, a break up mix between him and the kidney...with a little bit of realization, reflection, then mourning and then a recuperation (moving on) period.
back to me...i am listening to it myself now almost a year later and it is hitting my mood very well.
go figure.
one can only muse at the complexity of the human spirit when coupled with the intersection and passing of events and time.
few sips of beer and some bites of orzo later, and i am not gonna lie or avoid the issue any longer, i am gonna speak directly.
i haven't written in this, i have not openly discussed my artistic experience since june. i know it. i have been busy and down, not deep down...cause deep down would have lead me here on the way to deep down. (fyi blogging is a few steps up from deep down for me, for those of you who like plain english).
but down enough and sort of veering sideways. art was happening, processing was happening but mostly it was teaching, paying the bills, putting in the time...giving the youth of today access to me and my wealth of physical cynicism.
for a month of it i was on crutches...down...literally, laid up... drinking beer, taking painkillers, getting stoned and watching a shitload of southpark.
not complaining about those days...except i am mostly a person who can't sit still wasting time for very long...hence taking up the wonderful suggestion of a friend to get fucked up to pass the time. southpark was a wonderful topper.
ok...boring.
so i have been getting very much into collage and as such my collages have become more elaborate and perhaps refined...more like my paintings and less like my furniture. i am very happy with this turn of events.

here is an example of one of them that i finished this one about a month ago...
it's call "not all men like the taste of blood"
it is about alot of things. none of which i will write about.

here is an one example of where i have been lately in the form of a recent greeting card i made
that's right i am in love bitches!!!

and last here is one of my more recent paintings, completed in the past month. it is a self-portrait...oh wait did i not mention above that i got snake extensions...

it's called "better put on your safety goggles"

alas: so i participated in fall open studios last weekend. that was a marker for sure, something i have been reaching for to heave myself forward.
it is a relief that it is over. it went well...i was less invested than last year but still a decent amount cause god damn it i am me. it calmed me down and
mostly made me realize how i need to think of myself and this career long term.
especially since i have opted to support myself with a non-art job...which was chosen i) to maximize my usefulness in the world ii) utilize my preexisting skills and iii)to preserve the integrity and pure intentions of my art and myself in that realm...
cause that is the most important thing in my world; the creative individual within me.
so this weekend i am going to big sur with the man i love....perfect for my creative soul.

last night's dream

walking away from an ultimate tournament in a dark-just up from the beach-environment.
as i walk on the hard dirt i note to myself that i am leaving no footprints, after i note that i begin to leave prints and they get deeper and deep the farther out i go. then i am called back to the group, i can't remember why or by who, anyway i turn back but i don't make it back to the original site cause i end up stopping off in a little side room where i begin to cut up images on paper, images of body parts, then an entire skeleton, which when i finish cutting it out begins to curl and blow in a small breeze - fuck, i realize i have killed her...she is a older friend of the family, i try to resuscitate the pieces of paper, pushing my fingers down repetitively on the paper ribs, but no sign of a pulse or breathing, i can feel her fading away, i run out in to the hall screaming "Help, Help, someone is dying".
an unfamiliar man comes in the room with me, he picks up the paper cut-out skeleton in his hand and says, "i am sorry there is nothing i can do, she has died, she's in the room right now waiting and you know what you have to do" at that point i am overwhelmed with an enormous nauseating energy, it enters my body, he screams "open your eyes, see what she is trying to show you, she wants you to know what really happened between her and your mother"...i am whirling and nauseated and scared, i won't open my eyes, i leap across the table into the man's lap and curl up i hear myself yelling among all the energy "if you hold me i will open my eyes, i will let her show me" but on some level i think i am lying and apparently i am cause as everything is whirling and buzzing around me he grabs me by my face forcing me to open my eyes and he looks into them and says "don't lie, i know you are lying...if you continue to lie you know what i will have to do to you" and then i woke up to myself whimpering in fear

june and the subsequent gloom

some people say "i love you"
other people profess love.
when self-instigated i take the road of profession.
when it is a call and response situation i just say it so as not to be awkward.
i believe the road less traveled is profession.

profession is a larger statement. the person who professes puts it out there.
because (while i have a fair amount of gall) i am lacking balls, my most recent profession of love was conquered through the mild lubrication of gin, beer and rum and the heavy inflation of pot.
a special package of unique beauty and enthusiasm that i dropped into my sleeping lover's ear at 3 in the morning.
it was weakly acknowledged that night and utterly ignored the following day.
thus i became guilty and felt stupid...why i can't be normal like all you other people out there is one of the great mysteries of life. come on, you say, send him the message in a card (i tried that it involved my decapitated eyeball and tequila and i am not sure he or i fully understood it) or tell him in the morning over a cup of tea in a cuddly little robe and slippers while rubbing your fingers through his hair and he holds your hand. or why not keep it inside of yourself, if you can't deliver it in a well balanced swallowable (wd?) manner.
too easy. much too easy for him and further from what is inside of me.
so there it happened and now, as david says, it is forever in between us.

the way i am coping is making an appropriate mix to develop some clarity on the issue, for all parties involved, regardless of their level of participation.
enough on the state of my romance....what is this blog about anyway and why haven't i been writing in it?

too busy trying to develop to a sustainable level a mode of income...been preoccupied with setting up camp, pitching the tent and starting the fire to make the food.
and thus not as much time to frolic down by the lakeside.
though some paintings have come, one i finished this past week entitled
"a progression involving me"
and a couple other i am currently working on, the one on the left is entitled "just because you have 3 wishes doesn't mean that you will use them all"

did some collages in april for the spring open studios, which i am pscyhed on, they sort of combine elements from my paintings, greeting cards and collaged furniture...

the 6 of swords and justice

i have done a few tarot readings this past week and i have come up both times, for my personal reading, as the 6 swords and in a joint reading as Justice.
then the usuals, the hanged man, the hermit etc...makes sense to me i guess.
crossing that foggy lake or river from the clash of the titans...drop some old roman coin into the skeletons hand and hope for the best i guess.

a little bit of push, pull and sideways motion of late but still on course. transition to working part time has taking some of the focus away from my art career...not from the painting though. that is still happening and creation...mildly marginalized but not compromised.
a few fridays ago i finished this painting "dreams revisited" addresses the point i am at in my life
then i did this quick little pig for my niece for her bday, she likes pigs.


then this last one is in process, started the collage a few weeks ago and have been slowly developing it...i am sure it is not far from being done.

hmmmmmmmm, so a week ago was dark and i didn't sleep well for several nightmare, toss and turn nights...frustration with the past, anxiety for the future, worrying about the present and the state i was in...it wore me down. i think i recovered over the weekend, i did some collage on a couple vinyl chairs for my bedroom which cheered me up, started to pull me out.
i have shifted my focus from paint to greeting cards the past couple days in my studio...doing some baby themed greeting cards.
this morning i treated myself to a nice salvadorian breakfast with a couple cups of coffee and a pen and paper to make two lists; 1) the groceries i am buying on friday at the new asian supermarket on mission and 18th and 2)my plan of attack in art.
so now it is just me in my studio for the day with a bunch of old paper, clippings, glue, tape and scissors... ahhhhhh, so nice.

tequilla and painting has it ever failed us before?

i would say...nope.
hmmmmmm. so haven't been as entirely fully focused on art and painting lately.
but today. that is what i ended up doing.
henry inspired/instigated it. he brought a painting he is working on to my studio and we painted in tandem...old school style circa late summer 2k6.
sipping tequilla falling in and out of conversation and our paintings.
finished a canvas that i have been struggling with for almost a year.
called "dinner"now he is gone, i am listening to music and about to normalize a collage i have been working on the past 2 weeks...the leftover big piece of wood from a while back.
feels good to be out of the world for a bit today...i needed it...that is what you call a break. i needed a nice little break.
ah, so back to painting. this weekend i will not have time for it.

on the eve of mlk day

well it is sunday night and i painted the night away in my studio.
dinner?
who needs it when you have pita chips and a strong desire to not go back to your apartment. not the healthiest behavior but you have to know when you have bigger fish to fry and then...well loosen the reigns. minimal intake, medium outtake.
alone time was what i needed with my art.
the past week has been focused otherwise...across the bay, on practical matters...transportation, living situation, expressing myself to people in a traditional and boring manner. i only say boring cause i am crap at finding meaning and grounding in all of it and i am bored with kidding myself and trying to acclimate.
i go in and out of faking it.
best times this week were those spent alone mostly.
so onward and upward, the paintings; well i finished the big one...
title "finally! a painting big enough to fit all my family's bullshit"
no surprise what that one is about...repeating the same old tactics leads to tradition and meaningless bullshit. nothing i want to participate in anymore.
and that is just it. last weekend when i did the bulk of it, i cried a bunch while working on it, painful tight chest...today nothing of the sort...left that behind.

then did this one which was a repaint on one i had been working on since up at fox hollow. the images etc came out pretty easily and quickly tonight, it is a response to a new relationship i am starting
...title "before the big bang"

guess i am starting to get sleepy. tomorrow physics and me.