January 2004 Archives

This is the first painting done for the "Eyes of Texas" show here in San Marc, this fall. I did a simular painting like this about two years ago,

I got all into this title called "Sunday night panitngs", just the idea of sunday painter, streaming with cute whimical looks twisted into some cryptic abstract lead me on to the cute kitch gerna. Over in Brenham, which i consider to be the sweetest of Texas kitch, all the shops and craft stores are decked out in Bluebonnets , cows, country seen, farm animanls ,etc.. as decorations, and art.. but alot of the ways they are painted, simple and plain made me fantisize about some one talking these ideas to expres something that they are not., or useing the look with an hiddon message, mainly abstracted message, like the painting above..
"all the carrots layed out before the open sky like daggers of a smile"

one of the things i liked about these plastic farm animals, was this arangement or pattern of the toys, i started hunting out these things on ebay, mainly small pigs, i sat in amazement of the possiblitys, like making little ant piles of pigs, the best is i didn't have to draw each one of them i could hot glue them down and make a painting of them, or at least a model

I sold one to this critique from Radford VA, he like them alot the plastic animals, what they looked like, and as he talked to me about the work i had to make a desission, be a retard, or be an artist, hummm, i like being a retard, but in this case i wanted to talk to the guy about the whole "politic of the outsiers, bs", he knew alot and was quiet gregarious, entertianing, he said the field is now enidated with superfiicalys, cause rich folks have gotten involed, and created a demand, and title. i suppose my presants there young white, somewhat serious male , also sorta fauwled up the presants of the idea of the outsider fok art, find,. i am just having a good time some where else.

one of the appeals of the whole folk art , as i have stated many times before, was you could be your own parade, and not have to depend on the gallery system or art clicks of the citys for validation, all you had to do is go out and set up some where and hit the general public,. you can be you own wacko.
as long as you love what you do.
cause baby you gotta love this shit to do it,
and loving it is loving what could become, as a picture and idea
the whole world has gots to stop cause ,
you said
"what the fuck is this here'!
"little pigs all lined up in a maze like pattern on a hill with a clear blue background, and the contrast of dirt to there pink bodys, like maggots "

Right now , in my studio i am working on some three sets of works , all conspireed last year or so, one being these self poit of sorts, sorta mellow dramaic love pictures. Plastic animals, and then the show at Eyes of Texas Gallery, here in San Marcos, this fall, 20 paintings total in the show,( i will give a run down on whats being made now , later).
and Some show also with a Proper Gander (a local newspaper Zine review), i got curated into over in Robert Tatums space in San Antonio this Feb. i will pull together a selection of works for that, (which i will post later this month)
so i have to be done with these three major sets of work,
after painting tonight, an all these goat painting, i have realised,
"painting all about jesture as soon as its lost all is gone"
and then i got drunk with my friend curtis we talked about women and such???

The jagged fence line like a cocks comb, its marveliously campy as it is ordinary.

One of the things i like about old cartoons, was the minimal use of color, and detail of its characters.

these drawings were done out in Floyd,VA. prettty much all the work i am into now is spun from my time out there last sumer , boy it was tuff, the bordum was madding, it got to a point were drinking wasn't even fun, i was put in the corner of this old mill/ antique store / folk art gallery. i was the unofficail artist in residents, it really beuatiful in the Blue Ridge. Well with all the time i was out there i drew alot and made alot of vilgiletties out of old farm animals. but mainly i boned up on drawing alot and sorta like made up landscapes expressing something titianic and God like, sharp cutted lines and heavy sqgiglys(sp) ,. what I was trying to conjure up were these one-liners of a landscape, like avalanhe, or snaky swamps, now i am n the proces of doing them about 12 total large and small. but they gotta look good , where i go "DAAMMN!" i am not a loser after all.

they will probaly take about a year and half to complete, i hate painting on wet oil, i like it to be dry, so i rotate the pictures. One thing that occured to me when i was out there, was how split i was as an artist, one being this refinement of paint, what it looks like, and the other prepelled by sillyness extremism , and moron humor which i am into.
it alway seemed humor could work its way out in this whole wide art world. where, serious painting and where it is show seems so stately and sorta too mature, humor seems to be the only real expression, now a days, its risk free.
but like the times jokes do date , and pass
but it does leave a document of sorts?

For the last week or so i go out to my folks place , outside Brenham Texas, its an 80 arc spread, sorta an old farm property, they don't use it much so, i like to go out there and paint larger project out in this metal building out there.
this is where i store work.

this devil Santa i traded with and artist named Danny "Bucketman" he was real interesting, looked and acted like Cris Kraftoison(sp) an ol hippy type mainly redneck , he melted plastic down and made these hidious sculptures or charactures, i sat dumpfounded as to what the fuck this guy does, but i love it! you had the feeling like , "man this shit is for real". i got to speek to him a couple of times, and i like his work, The Santa piece, kinda goes in with theame of the sumer. 2003

This painting done out in Floyd Va, , its part of the brick set of pictures, about drinking and what not, like 99 bottles of beer on the wall,
but i what i feel that most , direct acts of drinking, are an attempt to start over,
go back in youth and have this enthusiasm to say "fuck it.. lets party!".
it may be the only sincer feeling that one has in life.
i know this from experiance about what conjures up when coasting on the sugar high , this feeling like , "we gotts to get back to basic, man, we need to start over and get shit straight"

these are two paintings i am working on , probaly done in about a year, the ideas were concieved last year in Flyod, the top one is called "jaws of the possum" and the one on the bottem is these two skunks spraying this haunted thing in the corner with mice comming out of it. It was taken from a dream i had where i was holding on to some rafter ,holding myself up while these skunks were trying to spray me, but they missed , it was like pull ups and the skunks were re-shoting but hicking they'er ass higher knowing they missed, the spray looked like free'on , i rember that.

"I had to Dress up as a wolf to get to the sheep , but some one dressed the sheep up as I"

This painting done in 1998 in my San marcos studio, sorta another Texas chain idea, its these stupid ass Gein play along ideas that come to mind, hal'lu'si'nations in a barn yard with goats and dogs jumping all over the plays sorta like too meny shrums and cheep beer at stake, crawing in the dirt and doing a Vulcan mind melds with a sheep.

"Peaceable Kingdom"2003
When i was out in Flyod Va, i started to do alot of these types of things, ,it was like starring at toys, a hand full of farm animals, and comming up with an tinntoreto style biblical painting with them but i would settle form a small mockette of it, the possiblitys were unlimited!

"Dog figt at the race track"2003
twigs, peeples, plastic animals, and cardboard

this is a copy of this school project that i saw in a libery in Presidio Tx, the project was call ,"my home", and these kids made these models of there homes well this one kid made this one , i think he was 8 or 9 and it was a shoe box with a door cut in the front, on a piece of plywood and sand around it. and it had the word "bar" over the door. i about fell over laughing, what kinda life does this kid have?

this painting, done in 1998, i guess along the same lines with texas chain, a jesture of a heavy set guy trying to hit these little dummies with a hammer,

this painting/model was the begining of these "plastic farm toys assembleages" it was fun making them, i bought alot off plastic farm animals of ebay and started to arranging them into and idea of a painting, i guess the combination of certian animals with a drawing would surfices as a painting, the lay out that is,
a model for a painting,
except this is ruff draft,. This one here is was part of these rolly hills with some twisty wacky seen at the bottem, something clean and glossy about it toy like,
"a ghoast spits out a snake , comming out a barrel, that wrapps itsself around a goat, while falling over a fence and a chicken is plucking at its nose,,, hummm,,,"

this painting was done last year or so, still in this maze of an intestanal system, with things rolling down apone it, i think i am gonna make some pictures with tunnals and snakes shoting from the holes, when i was out in Flyod VA, i basiclly made a alot of work from boxes taken from a dallarstore dumpster, it was real fun cutting them all down and laying out projects by the dozen, alot of the work like this, i think was more about building up these layers of "cartoon paint" sorta like blocky and heavy with some idea of motion. this peice was made on cardbaord doen in crafters paint and polyed down.

This is my San Marcos studio, i have been working in it for the last eight years. Alot of work has came from this place, its small, but well lite. I like tight little places somewhere where the AC/DC is deaftly loud, gloryiouly private, and drunkenly psychotic. Thats my idea enviorment.

I am not much of an carpenter, as my friends have pointed out to me, they said i was making a new old house with fuck ups and all. When i first got into this place in 1996 it was like and anvil was off my back, a place where i can work forever if need be,
if i wanted to just hang out all day and stare at the dirt, well i could do that,
the rent is cheep like 100$ and i just wheel and deal around town to get by, its very easy here in San Marcos to live, too easy.....(slacker syndrom) So thats why i like to go on "tours" for a while,

1996 was the climax of the "party phaze" so to speek we had alot of guys liviing at the house, musians, mainly. and i had a live-in girlfriend(who was some homeless college kid who left SWT)
i would sweep the sawdust off my bed off at night, wack down a 12 pack of Shiner Bock with her and get fucked till i passed out, every night! it was Great! like some kinda mad bull in a pen, very primative. but she ended up leaving after three months or so. (i accidently left the gate unlocked and she made a run for it), oh' de amor'e of 96,

This painting, "Santa Enjoys Christmas dinner" inpired by the table seen in Texas chain, where grandpaw trys to hit the woman over the head with a hammer, whats funny about it was his befumbleing around about it and his "family" bemusement over him attepting to do it, i guess it must be a great horror genra to have the wickedly grand dinner where the villian and his captive hosts all eat together. Its predictably the climax of the villian psychosis as portraited as a dinner. The parade a cluinary horrors at the table with some toasty monaloge of" why this all happen?"

Texas chain was a good movie i would recomend this other movie called "Last night at the Alamo" scripted by the same author, its an outstanding good movie, Very Texas. I wonder wher in Round Rock thay shot Texas Chain and that road and house, any one know. i always wanted to make some paintings of that house and its surrounding area. i know Leatherface (the actor) lives in Austin some where?

The other painting, is (in progress), based sorta on the Santa idea, , A santa leaning back in his chair, pulling his beard back while looking at a plate with these reflected eyes,.,.
very romantic

I think there was some memory, of those old Monty Python cartoons, there was this one where this head or ball would tumble down this maze of a pit, i always liked maze paintings cause it does hold you attention like a map., not that there was much of a maze in this painting, its one of the "Halloween pics" but, i have imagines tons of these variations based on this v-cong tunnel maze bits with ghoasts and rats climming threw it,. like the movie Ani'aville horrorIII, where that deamon was under the house in this pit and it all spooked the house to death, , ,

this along with a Santa set , i made a Santa "Texas Chainsaw Mas'i'car" paintings set, this one called "hey your not gonna believe what i gots in this bag", i like the idea of putting a know horror movie set in a typical holiday genra, There is really something special about the positions of figures in a movie, and when it is made into a painting, ,, i rember some of my more fasinating points in my artist life watching a movie and thinking , "whoa hey, this looks familar, there it was the photo i copyed into a painting" , it had an almost surreal effect. but i lost the feeling when i started copying porno shot, some where in 89-91, that was the end of that,...

this was the first piece done in the "sticks and stones" material again, a piece done in Floyd VA. I got crazy with hot glue and started making these like landscapes made from twigs and surface gravel, the "haunted landscape" well that comes from this whole new genra i discovered on Ebay, Halloween paintings!, WOW, people buy paintings for Halloween, as some decoration, sorta falls into the folk/crafters market but there are alot of really bad haloween art out there, I love holiday art it seems so banal and tempting to to try infuses a message of some sorts, i got all spun and twisted over making holiday art an put personal maessages into it, thinking the obvisious decrotiveness of it would hide me from being exposed with some privete meaning, I reallly like this piece alot i like the sticks milky quality about it, layed out in this like river flows motions, i had this other piece that went with it called "scary secrets" the name given to me by this little girl who i asked what should i call it. but fuck , man! this whole look could go somewhere, if i pushed it. who knows