When staying in the tiny cliff trapped town of Tris Ekklises there were three women that intrigued me so very much. i’ve begun picturing them into illustrative paintings - here is the beginning draws over three grounds on 300# paper. Only a mere. 

Three stars flared + died in daylight

my shaded prying eyes so very curious

as they wiled at tris ekklises

floating on the water 

like three amused buoys

with hats + not much else

they whispered greek + cackled

sisters that met daily 

those infamous triplets

landladies of the beach that knew them so very well

shaking w/ laughter dabbling in the Aegean

with the might of a million years 

repository of the human knack

the surf revealed them as human

wading up onto the detritus shore

+ each pulled damp fabric cocoons 

over a worn satiable body

sentient breathing animations

but who am i to say

perhaps a disguise fooled by some

to me still

they were three graces

just hanging out

Odd, i’m thinking i never feel totally completely awake in the winter.

6pm winter is not 6pm summer. Summer at 6pm i'm thinking ah - 4 more hours of daylight.

i can feel winters work coming to an end. 

The internal begins to move outwards, more + more.

Doing good work, on a plateau. But working towards an ascension piece. It’s fairly obvious. A push through piece. + then another plateau. i can always point to those works in retrospect. The art has a deep resonance. They wipe me out … but i always seem to be chasing that high - ever since i first felt it. It’s times like these that i rely on imagination, more than intelligence. 

My greatest relationships have been with artists. Working collaborations. Ensemble work. That has always been my true quite profound excitement.

i do love the idea that artwork comes from a deeper place than personality. If there’s a line up of people + a line up of art - who could match them?

 

i have figured a few things out. Thanks for all the clues.

Random thoughts: 

The skin of the place that separates is very thin. 

New / Like-New; In the theater world when a contemporary garment is built the best compliment you can receive is that it looks store-bought-new. A warm hat + watchcoat may be seen for 15 seconds in the dark. As the tenor dashes onto the stage + into the aria throwing off the winter garments - the stage lights glow on + the prize for 30 hours of studio work is seen in a pile on the couch.

Still: i am humbled + amazed at the energy that flows through + what is created by hand.

Tip your hat w/ a knowing of an outcome already done — if you're asking, this implies it does not exist. 

In standing still one can be in fashion every 12 years - or so, without ever having to change.

When anger leaves what has been fueling you — that is when honest reckoning begins.

Honest Reckoning - unlike absolute change - is not always dynamic immediate and unchangeable. 

I couldn't believe it to be. i like that immensely.

i was just wondering if - when a rabbit gets out of its coop she’s thinking she’s leaving the free world + getting into a cage. 

And remembering when i was a kid, i thought small talk meant you use short words.

One more. Just when i thought i was down —  the soundtrack at the A&P spills out Jackson Browne. 

Still thinking … but that's the wonder of the thinking.

-images and details from the shard corpus.

 

Revisiting - friends come + go, move away, you exit from theirs. Some you barely know - but cant forget - just walking into a room. Some remain your entire life. i know that times change, people change, relationships evolve + come back around in ways that we never expect, in ways we have no way of imagining.

Welcome the human condition traveling w/out a map or controls - the rest is deva vu + cryptomnesia. It’s all we can do.

Watch those wicked desk vu days - mentors are not always obvious.

What i learned today:

• Hand signals are not universal. 

• Balancing the act is something we come back to again + again.

• Words have changed meaning.

• You don't know whose life you are saving w/ your work, + you may never know.

Meraki Issue #8 is out + about.

 To my patrons who make the Meraki Issues project happen.

Thank you for your supporting the art work at hand + my work in particular.

                        

 

Reconciling paintings. 

W/ irreconcilable thoughts. 

It doesn’t matter what color i put on the brush it seems to come off as putty, french blue or grayed violet. Those are the colors i work w/ the most at this moment. There must be something missing in my palette as i can mix anything + these three appear. i know color, + it’s not suppose to be this easy. Or so tragic.

If something is so very obvious perhaps it is a truism. But, are all truisms obvious?

What i learned today:

• Wing themes cycle.

• Fabric forgives.

• i only make mistakes when i know what i want.

• There is a potential for options at the quantum field of energy + so responding to energy is bridging the quantum reality as a new normal.

Above: An unfinished reworking of Icarus Descending.

i’m okay w/ people not knowing my side of the story. i don’t feel the need to prove anything. But all things being equal … 

i just had what i believe to be an identity crisis. Of the worst irrational sorts.

That my entire life had been in-waiting as an imposter. i’m the understudy + the lead has never broken a leg. 

Nothing stuck. i can blame it on moving around often, i could blame it on not focusing on one thing + get brilliant w/ it, i can blame it on always looking for the next thing, the next bright shinny thing. Choices have been a big deal in my life. More directly, having many options at any given time has always been important.

Everything comes back to me. i made those decisions, every decision. i’m not the forever kind.

So in this morning mopping up after an identity crisis — sadly, all i could think of was to work harder.

i close my eyes + remember i'm inside the human condition.

It does become so much easier to run when we believe something is chasing us. But is that more important than waiting for the present to catch up? i’d rather hide behind my work than talk about myself.

Foot the bill + then pay for life as a side project. 

That side project will be a change of mind on the morrow.

Recently an old friend forward this: That's me, below, during art school days. Tied to a NYC bank pillar. Early pirate phase, though i did not know it because the mass pirate phase had not caught up + named it yet. 

This seems appropriate to add just before hitting send + publishing.

 Meraki - A word describing doing something w/ soul, creativity, or love — when you put something of yourself into what you're doing, whatever it may be.

That whatever-it-may-be comes in infinite packages, everyone has one. Mine is building Meraki Issues. Each quarterly perzine is a deep blend on an overall theme. It’s also a challenging project that keeps me honest + on the rails.

From my seat, making mistakes, collecting images, drafting prose + confessions have always been an important part of what encompasses my studio work. This is the nitty gritty process stuff that may never see the light of day, never hit the gallery, or even become full blown finished. Some ideas are really never meant to leave the studio, or even the kitchen table, don’t you agree? But i believe all the bits deserve a way out. The zine form accommodates.

i stop myself when noticing i’m beginning to fit into a preconceived template. i do think it is important to have a somewhat clear, yet fluid, vision as to what you want from life at different chapters, because life seems ultimately short + one can waste a whole bunch of time rattling around  rather quickly — i'm talking decades. i try to be content wherever i find myself in the process.

I was laying in bed one night and I thought, 'I'll just quit. To hell with it.' And another little voice inside me

said 'Don't quit. Save that tiny little ember of spark. And never give them that spark because as long as

you have that spark, you can start the greatest fire again.’   -Charles Bukowski 

 You live your life as if it’s real ... The evidence accumulates that you’re not running the show. You still have to make choices as if you were running the show, but you make your choices with the intuitive understanding that it’s unfolding as it must ... And if you can relax in that ... if you can even touch it, or if it asserts itself from time to time, then the invincible defeat is transcended.   -Leonard Cohen

 

A moment of no-truth. 

Overhearing someone heavily editing a photo on a device;

Can you imagine? In the ‘70s -  when you just had to take a good shot?

… + in a fabric store hearing someone talking excitedly about a building project. It’s nice to hear someone genuinely thrilled to be sewing.

Life travels along side us + is usually pushing or pulling. The least we can do is stride along - isn't that enough?

i sent a text message that did not get my drift + bounced back spelling options over again + again. i think this is a common plight of folks that can’t get anywhere near the spelling of a word they want to use. i do not like the solution — to only use words you can spell, even though it abbreviates your vocabulary. 

exploring exploiting exploding

Splintered dream of a library art session. i get there + kb has already started his genius piece from a broken broom + folded trash he found in the street on his way to class. There is an old friend in class from Germany. i admire the arch that they had just recently reworked. But, is nothing good enough as it is? 

Lucid dreaming of appreciating something simply as is. 

Thinking of not rethinking schemes to redesign bitterness. 

Does all this make sense if read slowly?

Below: Grounds waiting to become grown up paintings.

i remember where; i was living in Maine, involved w/ building a co-housing artist community. + so, i must remember when. The late ‘80s. i was going through an expressionistic phase + scribbling auras around sentiant beings in drawings. Cartoonish, to be sure. But the work was dead serious. i remembered these - but only found bad detail images of the works on paper. After Koudelka’s captivating photography. It is interesting to figure what was going on when past moments were recorded in your life — as  art is a recording of it.

i heard today via internet that Danny Kaye is only remembered by his aging audience - something profoundly sad about that, if it is true.

IDEA: Of literary devices never used.
IDEA: Nightmare projects listing themselves.
IDEA: Non-sequitur - write a story of a man flip booking through an encyclopedia or switching the tv from channel to channel.  
IDEA: A trilogy that goes together kicking + screaming.

Write about it again … you’re not done with it. 

Someone in the next room trying to get all the attention. 
My attention. 
Did you hear?
It all seems miles away.  

Way random unfinished thoughts + an unanswered questions.

No whistling backstage / the ghost lamp is burning - but i cannot see it because the sun is shining too very much.  

It’s hard to act calm when these may be the end days.

We need more of the simple people in the world. They are the saints. We need saints. Holiness does not mean good - it simply means whole. It encompasses the criminal aspect as well as compassion.

His dive into the river was never edited into the final film. It was left on the cutting room floor + lingered in the memory of the extras not mentioned in the credits.

i’m not very grounded - never been accused of it. Though, i do eat potatoes to try.

More of the above.

Where some saw a lion, Heracles saw a coat.

Lack luster contributions have no impact on the whole, nor do they work to diminish it. So, + perhaps, a moot point is made either way. True?

Having an understanding + understanding are twain fucktangent different things.

When did the postman person stop wearing a uniform?

i need to go to bed before i gain a second wind of energy.

 Settled in - but not settling. 

Winter work is thinning + fading w/ the longer days — coming out in spring gets harder + harder each year … until one day it will be unthinkable. i just won’t come back. 

Time goes + wishing i had more physical manifestations of how the hours were spent.

Going back though a bunch of Old Work that i'm not happy w/. But, i am not going to rework any of it.

Hell, i can do New Work + not be happy w/ it.

What i learned today:

War cannot be comprehended because it doesn’t make sense.

In any case, you wanted to see a middle + an end?

There is none. Only this.

An example of heavy-handed lightheartedness.