August 2004 Archives

That morning waking up in Alpine, real bright and chilly , man it was beuatiful out there, " i think i am going to move farther aways from the coast from here on out". We drove over to this guys house who wanted us "hang out" with him and who knows what , i thought it was a stupid idea but Serg , i guess wanted to be entertianed by it, i didn't feel comfortable about the situwation? the way it all came about, yesterday back at the gallery he asked us what we were doing, "were looking for studio space we are artists"
"oh your artists well if you need a place to stay for a nigh you can hang out with me"
i think the guy was just being polite, he seemed like a bubbly type.
"when do you want ups to show up ,.when. " Serg said.
"ahhh , ah ok how about tomorrow, that would be great we can cook out." he responed
"what time..." so we got a place , its neet to look threw strange lands threw the locals, tourist routines are boring, so i am up to it.
Whwn we arrived over there, about mid noon, we talked and then decied to hike up this incredable hill that was right next to his little cabin, he went to go get grocerys,. after the hike about late afternoon, he was already to have a cook out, and guess what some of his buddies were there, they were all older retired guys, really it was him and this kinda fat bitchly looking fellow, we walked around the house and ate burgers , Tom the guy who invited us was so cought up in the moment, but this other guy was sorta probing us out, he was some big art collector architct, type from houston, we told him about simmon , "ohh her yea in houston we caled her super shit" they alll laughed, the colloctor had this dog with him and he had this captivating way of talking to you as if he has discoverd something beuatifu about the world and wanted to share it with you, like the proud but cute way his dog trots across the field,. it would be such a big deal but, when someone is trying to tell you something of trivi and they talk real slow! and almost like some kinda bit or something, its gets wierd. The collector figured us out real fast , he ate and and in departing said "have fun Tom" sorta rude and was outta here, by this timen tom was hitting the Scotch. and i rember sitting down in his living room with serg and we brought our portfolios, or he did ,
"see here are our slides"
he looked them over and was getting drunk , "humm that real nice, where did you go to school?" he sank back in his chair and in a serious vioce, that what we haven't heard yet.
"so what do you guys want? why are you here"
"you invited us, to look at our art, we are artists ", we said in a paniced way
more me serg was already in his buisnesman stance.

"you arn't gay?"
no, we are artists"
the two of you aren't here on a honey moon"
no we are loojk for studio space
"but you could be gay?"
i was real paniced this guy was figureing out we weren't gay and all, he was drunk. I was getting panicly agreeable.

well i will be over in houston then Brenham this week teeth problems,
be back soon!

Well on we went to Redford.
its a small collection of houses right outside Presidio, , its know for a couple of things "the shooting" "Enriques mother" and the bad rap it has a drug smugglers haven. Its a real primative place very beautiful. when we got there and had lunch with Enrique and Ruby , his wife, and then drove around and looked at spaces or old adobe buildings for rent, we sized it up and told him we are going to do the circle from here to lajits to Marathon to Alpine and then over to Marfa then down south agian, and try to find the perfect spot, Serg wanted it to be the perfect art spot, i liked Redford and i knew this was it from the begining cause we had some on here motivated to set us up,. but we had to shop, and travel.
It been along time since i saw Serg of hung out with him for any long period, we talked about grad school , and the Houston art seen, i didn't go to grad school , but its fun to listen to wild stories of debate and controversys. He was getting jadded by it all, and wanted to find a scarid place or refind his enthusiasm , like when we were young, the realm of possiblitys, what could become. Serg liked me cause ,dispite our differances in character, we agreed on fundimantal princilaps of how art should be made. We were fanatics in a sence the grim heavy handed apocliptic types with sprinkels of Bacon and alot of Ranch hands the hanging slab of beef, i was more on the pop, less serious than he, i didn't take him so seriously, and enjoyed the heroistic seriousness of making something great , even know it doesn't make a differnces,
but i love blind crusades, and what more blinder that an art crusade!
It all harkens back to what Niel Said,
our father of sorts in painting, he was a old type surrealist, in the sence of one being th guild or seer threw one' s own unconscience, Serg was very devout to this, i Was more like well if its magic , lets prove it threw work. is magic real. ?
I remeber the magician as a theame alot in our arguements, he didn't know thats the way i felt about it,( i will go into this later)
well
we drove to Alpine and showed up at the only Gallery there, Kiowa, and talk to the owner, but by quancidence there happen to be another fellow there very interested in what we were doing, a talk skinny guy a teacher, he was very freindly and invited us out to his place in Forth Davis, the next day or so
so we tok his number and looked around a bit
the owner of Kiowa Gallery had us meet some lady in town and we ended up crashing in some old building next to her house, i rember man was it cold out there!

"Ahhh Simoon, "
the couple working for her didn't hold her is high regards, Serg started unloading bricks helping them out, I rember telling Serg
"this better not be some fucking mess we are in, you told her we were comming out here right,! "
, Yea Yea,"
As an hour or so went by waiting, i stared getting nervious,
"if this lady doesn't want us here, we better hit the road or something"
No George she invited me out here its ok! i left a bunch of messages"
"well i have idea how these rich ranchers are like i don't want to make ourselves unwelcome"
At about that time she drove up, it was a big place all desart on this hill , there was no parking space you parked where ever.
We waved , she pulled into her house got out and went in, she saw us of cource, .
"ok george i wil go talk to her i know how to handle this,
while he was walking to her house , she came out and yelled
"you cann't park you truck there! thats not a parking, place !"
Serg went over to talk to her while i sat next to the truck a good ways away, while i moved it to where ever she pointed to , after a while i walked over and said hello, she greeted us and said i only invited Sergio, you friend is imposing and in France thats rude so you must go your not welcome,.
Serg tryed to plea with her we drove something like 600 mile to get here where do we go? it getting dark,"
"i was going to make dinner for you and an friend of mine, but you have ruined everthing, " she said
Just from first impression i couldn't stand this fucking woman, i guess being out in West Texas the strong Texas sun sort kicks up the Cowboy Testirone, and you starts seeing things more clearly, believe me Simon was one tuff bitch.
But to me she just looked like an ol snotty rich lady form Houston,. some art lady mistress to the Minal collection or something.
I guess in her efforts to get rid of us she said "hey go vist Enrique in Redford, he is the town intelectual" in a sarcasitic voice. he will help you all out,.
So thats where we went.
Enrique was unbelievable, An incredable gentalmen who's famliy had lived in the town of Redford for years, he was very excited to have us over and try to get us to set up studio in his town, but it was getting late and the vist was breif so we went back over ot Simon, and see if she could pen us up for the night,.

the Evening was odd, i don't think she was in a good mood, one of her buddies lady friends were over, and she made dinner, already. We sat down at the table , she knew she couldn't get rid of us and just delt with it,, . the next morning she made coffee and toast and said
" there you go , you guys are going right , right bye bye"
I think it put Serg in a quagmire, he expepted us , or at least him to be welcome, and have Simmon Swan this big time art person at least look at his package of pictures, but it never came to pass, as a mater of fact as i figured from last night conversation with her she made a mistake in inviting him out in the first place, she mistaken Serg was a reporter, and she said "if you want to talk to me about African adoble structures you can come out to see me bye!" so Serg misunderstood it as invite. I wonder why would some one like her invited any strange artist out here, to begin with, she had a life in the arts in the high end they just don't do that, to someone of lower socail standings, and especialy ambitous young male artist , why?
so after coffee we were off, see later!
, and on to Redford

See ET build up Sept.2004

"so Lets go!"
An we went out there, i guess in Serg's presants we brought out the worst in each other, meaning trying to out butch each other, very competive like, As artists we weren't, art school groomed sensitive hipsters. Serg grew up in Eagle Pass, a world all to itself, i couldn't imagine Serg as a solf spooken misunderstood poet or artist type back in highschool, he was more of a Mac Daddy, good looking and proper, Art was the furtherst thing from his mind back then (fine art that is) , but he said he like to arrange things in his room alot,. Even back in highschool i was more of a military nerd, i made models and painted toy soldiers before i ever got into painting (which started in 87).
So in one sence we we alike in regards to aggrisiveness and sheer unabashed ego power, and we respected it, cause we have seen the haterd from alot of the art crowd who felt you might like yourself a bit to much, to be around us, (that's not cool)

So around dec 98 we set out for the Big Bend, I really haven't spent alot of time with Serg up till then, cause, we lived in seprate citys, we meet here in SWT SanMarcos , (92), . Our first goal on the trip was to go see this lady Simon Swan who lived righ outside Precidio, it was my first time out there.,
It was along drive and we bullshited alot, about where we were at in our work , one of the mutual agreemants about the art biz is our singlemindedness to keep to the course no matter what, which means avoiding a job, or career, its almost with religious reverance we felt, we were doing something important, kinda like a Dukooning in the desart or Bacon on the border, these were our heros, more Serge than me, but i got into Falkstorm alot, and others, the artist E Spruce.
On the way down there, the decent into the town of Precido , I started asking Serg the nature of how he meet this lady who was motivatd to help set us up., so to speek,, he went about telling how he meet her,.
"wait a minate, you called this person threw a magazine and she said just come on out, what does she expect form us we are stragers, ?!"

" Ahh don't worry about it ,, it will al be fine you worry to much,."
As we got closer to this lady's house i started feeling like doesn't she even know we are comming at any time. There was nobody there except this couple working on her yard moving adobe bricks from a truck , so we started asking questions about who she is and why we are here,.
Serg spoke spanish, and the older gentalman, went on ,
"ahha sSiimoomn Ahh chi ga , penda hole "

i guess it befitting to start this story , more or less a collection of tales strung together, the kinda stuff we used to talk about, less orcastrated as a novel or something.
first off the Redford story took place in The border town of Redford Texas, with a buddie of mine Sergio Rodriguiz , its befitting to start now cause he is moving back over to Houston from here, San Marcos from where he has been since 2000.
where did it all start hummm.....
well, it all started in an aprtment complex in Houston in 98, Serg read in this magazine , i think Archtectual Digest of this lady named Simone Swan who had this Adobe mansion out around Presidio, one note in the article was she was givving studio space or land to artist, and she worked in Adobe construction. So he gave her a call and she invited him out for a vist. it was dec 98, Serg was trying to get out of houston, and already went on a trip down to Mexico, sold all his stuff, no car, just a backpack, but went he was down there, he didn't enjoy it and came back and arived at his old girlfriends house couch surfing, so he was looking for a way out of Houston again,. At about that time i was ready for an first adventure. I lived here in this house for two years and it was time to move on!, and as the sumer came on, where would i go? i really at that time never went anywhere, other than my college stay here in San Marc, but i was anxious to prove myself as a man , so i rented my shed out to a friend of mine Jeff B, and as the sumer drew to a close , i started making more trips out to Brenham for the first time. Then all of a sudden in August i got two shows one in this college and the other in The Duaghtry in Austin,. And then something major happen, I met a woman called Wendy,.
prior to that, i really haven't dated much most of the babes were bar trash rejects and the crowd around the house seemed to take there sex life like how worse can it get, playing with who ever walked across our doorsteps and alot of the women were out of control, so i sorta cooled off in 97, and realised i was getting older and it just seemed sad. but when wendy stepped in she was way differnt, an east coast francofite vixion unbelieveable good looking but sweet and reserve. She had this level of class (posh) most people here in Texas just don't know about, so you start feeling all cultured and like yea i am serious artist, (i have this modle like girlfriend you woud see in Vogue or something) it always bepuzzeld me why she like me ?.., i figured i was part of her zoo of wacky charters she dated, she like artists. One of the things i figured out in Flyod was there are a schlue of people intrigued by the south, they see it as this primative backward culture, and in some ways they like to romance it as a trill. With me and Wendy the situwation was impossible and i couldn't afford her, but it didn't stop her from liking me and I reciveing a mjor obsseion over it!, (sorta like my first love). with that in mind, the fall proceded forward,
and Serg called me up and said "hey do you want to go out to the BigBend and find studio space , i have a lead"
yea thats athe way to have and adventure, lets go to the desart!
sure lets go, i'll drive!

(check out Serg's web page under his name is a link good stuff)

Plastic farm animal paintings sept03- till now still working on them
there is going to be something like 20 plus in the show,

here is a basic run down on the sets comming up , due to be over , and done with by feb 2005

life just driving by

Well i am back in San Marc, i had a root on my teeth, went threw a minor anxiety attack , its funny anxiety, i sat there in the dental office wondering , yea, one day i am going to die, and its all gonna start in some office like this,. one thing i like about West Texas, was it seemed at least to me anxiety free, something about the old wild west movies where men roamed like dogs and died like dogs, something romantic like that, nothing like haveing a bunch of nurses and mothers looming over you wondering whats wrong. I always felt , what a humilating way to die in a hosbitle, being card for while you slowly died.
These two paintgs are a triptic about a volcano, (still working on them)
man i have alot of work to do i figured i will be on the road and on to my next adventure in Feb 2005, it took ma all year to complete fv set, and i figured loosly i have three more sets a ahead, all landscapes, then,.,
in 2005 i think i am going to make copys of old masterpaintings something differnt, differant color schemmes.,.,.,

well i am now getting restless to go somewhere, i think i would like to goto a wierd dead tourst town and work in a retial shop, and make stuff, somewhere quiet, all i need is a table and my hot glue gun , coffee maker and media, it won't be in a while,

well i am goin to be heading out for a couple of days over to houston again, to have my teeth fix,
I am pulling togther the set for Eyes of Tex show it comming up around the corner, i have five more paintings i want to bust out before it hits, i know which one i want to put on the card, "Great Indian BBQ's" i have it hangin in my studio waiting to be done? It was also one of the paintings Dick Wray said it was done and he liked it, one comment he maid was if you stopped there is a reason for stopping, and excelent point,
I think in paintng you build them up before you can actually see them, or identify what it actually is, alot of time the unfocused building which is starting point, can over ride the actualised picture, so if you stopped,
as Wray pointed out, and Niel would say the same, its the believe you inheritly don't have the spirt tomove on and everthing else is an "improvement" aka over working.
but like any thing one makes, its sorta inheritly the forces to make up this item , ploted againt the forces "completions and idea actualisations" which i have read is impossible to satifie. Wray and N,Wilson generation, being the Abstract Expressionist cannon have an unconsciece reaction to ideal-centric produced paintings, they favor more or less "free assosiations" pro bono all the time , more like spirt walking, which is good in its rise but sometimes blind in its fall,
I think you have to devolope, what it is you do in anything and know when your making bad painting, or activitys that don't nessarly led itself to the exactness of what you might have ment in the begining of the picture, (off task) . Every painting i made that i have felt was rolling good start good and finnish good, have always been the best, for , me
where and how did i go off task?

this painting done here is called "Songs for Ben" based on that movie about a kid who plays with rats, there is a song called "song for Ben" sung by Micheal Jackson, the movie Ben. This painting took along time to complete, like a year or something, after looking at it, i could see a whole set of rat paintings like rats jumping from a sinking ship or a mob of rats crossing ditch, there is something abstract about it., and this painting is big to, the only other painting that big in the set was "Medusa" and it took a long time to complete too, i think from here out i am going to go medeum size, i can whip the paint around alot easyer, i think as a painter, i would bet that your real capiblitys lye somewhere in the distants in which you see the fucking thing, you can only be so big and only so small, its where you place yourself in the actual pictures completion, that you say now its done,

this gig is called "drunken crazed liberal womyn" it too is going off to some ones yard somewhere. last night i sat around trying to kick start myself in to completing the last of the Eyes of Tex show, which is going down late Sept,
if you want a postcard of the show, email me your address.
I am also pulling together another collection which wil be profiled in 12-North. the gallery is helping me put together a cataloge (fv-2003) the work seen below, so another card will be out on that mid Sept.,

i also have posted a bunch of stuff on ebay, why ebay?
early this year i threw out alot of older work, mainly small drawing wierd stuff i made , One thing i like about ebay is posting its fun, to say to myself, at around 8pm in the evening , "By the time when it hits midnight i will have x amout of things done no matter what," it sorta speeds things up a bit, just what ever comes to mind and bamb! its done,. and then i get to make a drunken ebay lot post, its fun to watch them roll threw the week.
but man, ebay is cheep!, i sold a small watercoler of a chicken 3x3 for 4$, and i think the highest fetched was 28!, man!,
all the work are like spares, from main sets , i have tons of them laying around, Some of the work i will just sit down and make, or add to, i like the idea that its gone out of here, on to somewhere else.
Of course some of my art buddies have had some snarlesd of discused over it, Freddie was one , he is an artist who lives right down the street, he sell his work for a reasonalbe price but isn't a rapid producer, we get into this argument over value and what is something worth, i am like fuck it! "i have a box of drawings here, who wants one, the cost 40$,"
the flip side is , "lets break one out at a time, cost 200$., "
i get enjoyment from making a small set of work like three studies of that butcher guy thing and posting them , and they might sell for 18$ , the whole ebay art culture is interesting to to browse over, mainly halloween art, i don't know why, its just whatever i happen to find is funny,.

this is a whirly gig i made , the second gig in the chickenhead butcher idea, i like this one, i am mounting it this sunday in some ones yard, actually the coe owner of Cactus Bra showingspace got it, i am going to pitch a project to them called " a might wind" its like a massive multi whirly gig with like as many fans and moving parts crammed into the space, i have to make a mockette of it and submit it, what else
and! i traded gig with Houston artist Dick Wray, wow! i got a painting, it was a real thrill to meet this artist.

Damn its hot out there i tryed to get some work done but had to take it easy, just painting mostly, gonna post a bunch of stuff this week before i have to leave to go back to houston to take care of my teeth!

Chappell Hill paintings (Brenham studio) 200-2002

View image(hog blinds)
View image (for rent)
View image (goats on roof)
View image(ghoast at door)

View image(fall of Rome)
View image(fence)
View image(man with hose)

View image(chicken's flight over the city)
View image(bcb)
View image(tarscape)
View image(donkey kong)

FV fall 2003

View image (LS-1-12)
View image (LS-2-12)
View image(black ditch 3-12)
View image(4-12)

View image(green hill 5-12)
View image(medusa 6-12)
View image(LS 7-12)
View image(song for Ben 8-12)

View image(LS-s 9-12)
View image (Ls-s 10-12)
View image(LS-s11-12)