February 2004 Archives

This is another picture (not done) drawn up while i was in Flyod, its supposed tobe a pond in a swamp and there are droplets hitting the water, i like the swerly snake spouts in it,
One thing i saw on my way out there to Virgina was the John Alexander show in Beuamont, last May, I would say his work and Atitude had an effect, I met him along time ago in Houston in the UH warehouse system he gave a slide show and afterward we ran into him and talked, what struck me about Alexander was what a Redneck , ordinarly Houstonian type. I always felt the "art world" wouldn't tolerate these types and it was refreashing to see some one sucessful like him , it made me think,
"well damn if an asshole like this guy can make it then ther might be hope for me" at the time i was a psyche major in rinky dink junior college barely making the grades, but i loved painting, its basicly the only thing i am good at next conversating.
Alexander also has an unbelievable painting in the San Antonio Museuem of Art, its mesmerisingly large and swamply abstract. i like his Abstraction he is kinda like a Texas coastal Jack Lavine in his larger work.
the only thing i find objectionable to Alexander was his leaving Texas for a better more exciting place, humm

I guess in about a year or so these paintings will be complete,
what this is i have no idea, kinda like some creepy jungle blob, ?

this is Crazy Matt, currently living in the building next to me, some twenty feet away, i have known him for years, he is homeless and lives with this two dogs, Little and Girl. he is trying to " get his shit together" and get a job but he has said that since 99, ,he is over here in the "hovel" the place where Jeff Bailey live for a while . its a garage next to mine. well he is here cause he was kicked out of a abandoned apt and needs a place to put his dogs,
Matt is a good man
i would lay down my word on it. its just he is wierd , he is the closeist thing to a real mainiac i have ever seen, everything is great to him and life is an adventure. he is happy but lost as to what he wants to do, there fore, he does nothing, except walk his dogs, and laugh alot
i don't know,
i have tryed to figure him out preach to him etc, but to no avale, who knows
i rember when Jeff lived in the Hovel the first time, its a dark and oily place like an old garage, he cleaned it up and made it liveable , but i think it got to him and he went insain over the place, ,,
matt says its haunted
fucking pussys!!
matts not scared as easily he is tuff, a bit wacky,
now Jeff , he creates a haunted place. ( i will go into that later)
i alwasy take a place like , i have arrived, it is here that i will make my stand or die!

this painting was done in 2001, i consider it one of the best of my abstracts, it sits in the zone of the (WWW) paintings these pictures romantinc in nature, but this one more or less fell off into strict abstaction,
it has bees in it and these"jagged edges of a comb" but what works about it was this over all caotic tone to it.
it just looks done to me, painting it, i just sorta had no plan and ad libbed to it at will a lot of plays between black and yellow,.
Work like Chicken Tunnel and this one , and hell the whole "Chappell Hill " set its work about abstractions and black lines or tones, this painting is in the set,
It was made here in my San Marcos Studio

This was one of the first "chicken paintings" made right after i got out of school, i lived in this old rent house (715rogers) and sorta didn't know what to do with myslef, the house was a mess, and was a know haunted house, so to speek, i rember smoking alot of weed and really freaking myself out, the whole chicken paintings occured to me because i was really trying to make paint dance and have this attentiveness to it, while i was painting, i also flipped out an went into alot of cartoon metaphores afterward,
but the house i was in was alway damp and smelly, i rember one night getting all drunk and nakked and commanding the ghoast out for a fight, it never happen
the night ended some where in the backyard vommiting naked, over it ,
The whole idea of ghoasts and old sheds, i loved it, right after i graduwated its like whats next, where do i go , and i said proudly
"its all there in your hands and imagination", the question is weather its real, like some cthulhu mythos ,

Another place i visted out in the Big Bend area is the small town of Redford, there is a whole story to it,
well i ended up trying to make a hundred chicken paintings, but only got to 65, i liked waking up listening to music and whipping out a painting in a couple of hours making it right there, and being done with it, these are a couple of the examples, and some of the best work made from the set. One of the things i liked about Serg was he worked real fast as if he had a gun to his head
all here all now, all complete, , i am a bit slower and like to refine it and trick it into shape.

I did these paintings after Redford, called SRLS, or Sergio Rodiguez landscapes, Serg is a good art buddie of mine, and i made these, like trajgic chicken paintings sorta in his honnor, it was based of a featherless rooster who is yelling at the flock,in madness. the one below is called "the party is on!" from the Chappell hill set, done in 2001. but both have the same source.

One thing i think you have to have and i charish these sentiments, is desperation, to many artists today are way to comfortable with themselfs, cause of some 30 years art therapy crap, artist today seem way to comfortable about what they make, as if the act of the Lord's judgement is irrelavant, since its about personal exploration, judgement is irralavant,
to be desperate, you have to put all your eggs in one basket,
say "here it all is' , either i get good or die, i know its some he-man macho bulshit,
i know but you have to think about what are standards, in art, and what it is you personaliy can concieve as of being perfect,
30 years of art therapy has whiped out standards, " its not weather you win or lose but how you play the game" well i have never meet a relaxed loser but i have met a alot who don't care much any more. and much like the standards they have released, they are ready to die.
to me what are standards , in painting its about manifistaions of an idea/impresssion its very phisical, and has the capiblity of a mistake,
with out it your you are just playing jazz
to refine it is to strive towards a masterpiece,
and realise you could lose
what's a masterpiece today?
a chicken masterpiece?

These were two more paintings i did out in Marathon, i guess alot of the work in that set in retrospect, was like painter's ridgets, meaning i did alot of vibrating these forms in a (action) cartoon sence, sorta banal. One of my influesances is this artist, Victor Gatto there is something about his subject and this dinky way he painted them that i love, i have only seen a couple of his works, but when i saw it , i said wow,

being out there in West Texas, Marathon was tuff, i practically lived on the gallery floor and would work in this old barn next to the gallery, (torn Down now) but it was fun, like i didn't give a fuck what people thought in the personal hygen, dept and i could be all ratty and fat.
Marathon is a small tourist town, i think its quiet nice, sorta up scale. it contrasts with the whole cowboy myth the mystic naturalman of turligua(sp), one thing i thought while i was out there was , that this is the place to be some disgruntal squziod, as an artist,
the sun baked your brain and the cold beer would numb your tummy. who wouldn't pick up a few bad habits. and believe me i did that sumer, nearly drank myself to death one night, i passed out and started throwing up, i rember barly coming to ,and saying" whaooa what the fuck you ain't gonna die like Bonn". There is defantly something about listen to music late at night in some old barn the fucking wind is slamming the building i have techo music blarring away, and i have a six of tall natty lite.
but other than that, Places like this alwasy seemd to wotk for me.

"Pumkin with drumsticks" a tray of BBQ drum sticks

One of the whole adventures in Marathon was this free flight into holiday art, which i discovered on ebay, mainly Halloween paintings. My drawing style which is always sorta like abstracted balls put threw loops and curves, always worked with pumpkin heads, i dropped the halloween art idea from the main set of the paintings, but did these combos of chickens and pumpkins and witchs and inards and graveyeard and haunted houses. This painting i thought was real good, but i rember James didn't care for it.

whats on my easle now, again, a play of plastic green, like Christmas Tree green and orange/red fence, this painting not done either, is part of this set i call (post Floyd romantic figure studies and plays) 20 in total, i want to have the whole set wrapped up before May.

This is the second painting done for the show later this year in San Marc, called "clodd sheep", i really got into the motion of the landscape in the back, is it a good painting?, its done, i cann't do no moe.

This painting below is called "Drinking Games" its reflective of anther painting i did out in Marathon. One of the more dreadful stories about selling work was i sold one painting about drinkng yourself to death as a portrayed by man leaning against a tree and skunk holding him up with a gun, and there is an apple on his head, while the guy is trying to paint pictures.
Well this fellow bought the painting, thought it was a Wiliam Tell metaphore with spins of W. Burroughs. i think he like to party and found a new love in his life and moved out to Marathon to work that fall,
well the guy ended up shooting himself after moving out there. (it was big time news in the town)
So i guess its a vexxed painting, where is it? when i heard he died, and i liked the guy real nice person, i was shocked, i guess he must of had a death wish. i never learned, why?

a reflection of a tragedy and one's vices.
(not complete)

this painting is in the show to, its on shingles, and was made out in Marathon Texas, where i had a studio in 2002, at Evans Gallery, check out their webpage
http://www.jevansgallery.com
i made something like 32 paintings and had a show there, it was good!

Well i am in a group show over in SanAntonio,"Gander Gang" the name of the show, had a good turn out last night, in PW16 showing space, a new space. they had four bands play and i would say a good display of art, i put up seven pieces, five plastic animals and thes two larger paintings. this one called "Ha Ha you fell" i really like this painting. done fall 2002 one of the things i got into was these fake brick designs tower things, made actual peices out of them and paintings too,

This is a painting in progress , based on some sketchs i did out in Floyd, i have about twelve large paintings in the set. Alot of the times out there i would sit down and work these drawing from my imaginations , kinda like squwigglys scrathcs and alot off darkness to them, , swamps & trees. The painting here is like a couple of ones i did way back in 95-96 these tall stacks -- alstracted power forts--, the large white ring on it, is some way to some how inclose the structure, what it means???? its more visual at time in the painting, i build up the idea of the pic, but its gesture or over all look gets skewed sometimes,,so i have to bring it back to basic, , base on whats there already seen, this is where the painting really takes off and get more curious, or faulters and destroys

another theame i always seemed to be attracted to is the headless chicken, i used to read alot of books on mind body seperation(disasosation), the chicken head flying free from the body seemed empowering in a wierd psychological kinda way, like the mind has over came the body, i made alot of paintings like this where the rooster is intensly staring at something , regal and powerful , the head off is sorta like he has gotten so mad his head poped off, and is laying there on the ground in a frozen moment of egotistic glory. where the mind is all powerful. This painting was done i think in 98 part of the chicken God complex pic, (good wood).

another big thing i am into is wood, i used to collect old wood from barns trash etc, there is so much old wood that would be great for framing, thats just chunked away, i once had this dream where i was at this ware house and some guy had this surplus of burned wood from this building and was going to destroy it, i come to find out, that it was mt Calm, from Waco, this wood would have high spirtual meaning being its orgin, and i begged the guy not to get rid of it, he was some government contractor, . i guess i think the feds just don't care about cultural artifacts and would soon just be rid of it he seemed baturded at my presistance and felt i was some psycho, he didn't care about this stuff, and felt it was morbidly discusding, i was amazed i had to convine the guy that this would be a crime to destroy this wood, (when i knew i could use it) whats the use to him,. but he had the power and since he knew i wanted it was enough to say no, cause thats what beuracrats do. I rember the dream very distictly, this big old pile of burned lumber some twenty feet in length and about ten feet high, every peice of this lumber could be framed to retell the Waco stand off, which i one day want to paint. but thats just a dream,
but the actual wood is out there somewhere, but knowing the wrath of the gov its destroyed. I know there is a painting in this somewhere?..

around the end of 97 i wanted to get back into painting and make at least one good picture, so with the back drop of all the comedy of the chickens i set to work. made about twenty of these refined works, one note is the cedar frames, this old wood i found off a barn, real nice 1x3 boards ,weathered, so i framed them up in this style. i was real proud of this set, like the chicken masterpieces

a smaller painting done around that era

In 96-97 i started making hundreds of these types of paintings, sorta like "the farside of the barn yard" i employed alot of humor with them and thus came the whole chicken george title, i like the title an revere its singularness of it,
" if all esle fails in my life i can always go back to painting chickens", and i did, it was a form of practic with paint, sold them at craft fairs etc, i think every contempry artist should set up there work at a craft fair a realise how little the public gives a fuck what they are rambling about , it quiet humbleing and abusive.

I love the craft fairs cause it was a good moment to sell to regular folks cute little bloody chicken paintings, i had this whole schtick with it, kinda like a like i was employed by this company as a professional chicken painter(my slingblade chicken routine). its real fun watch folks react to ya, as a pathic psycho or they got the humor of it. the one above was done by P Warmus, we had a computition to paint chickens i even trained him how to paint , we set up at Wimberly Market Days, he beet me, something like 11 dallars, afterward we talked about the day, and went out to the bar and ate. it was one time where art made sence.

This chicken painting was done by J Bailey he live at our house from time to time, One of the things about chickens was i would preach the chickens to all my art buddies, something around the lines that if you didn't know what you were gonna do in life , about art etc, well you just thought yourself too big , , when you paint chickens its all clear they want you to paint them, cause you suck, and this is the only honest expression out there, its real. and some grandma will buy your work and hang it in her kitch. where is all this "modernist" painting gonna lead you any way!
something around those lines, of course Bailey endured my monaloges and i was able to squeeze at least one chicken out of him.