006: Alcatraz

Found images, cropped to square format.

Tijuana Minimalist

I love Tijuana.  I was ambivalent the first time I visited, but last night was excellent.  $30 gets you a night of fun, and all the drinking you can ask for.  Had street tacos, went to four bars, a craft brewery, and had awesome American-style hamburgers, and then hit a mustache-themed nightclub, where Macaulay Caulkin apparently hangs out.

Anyways, while going to the bathroom in the burger joint, I saw this circuit breaker box in the place where the mirror should be.  What an amazing level of trust they must have in their customers.  For a second I was tempted to mess with the switches, but instead, being the sentimental art-fag I am, I thought to myself: "what a nice composition."

Should've framed it better, but when you're buzzed, you're buzzed; in that sense, the crookedness of the shot is fitting.  Tijuana minimalist.

Jeff Ramirez: Ultimate Hotdog

Jeff Ramirez is an excellent photorealistic painter who studied painting at UCSC and currently lives and works in LA.  We're friends on facebook, and he's a cool dude.  He gave me advice when I was still freaking out about living as an artist.  This was back when I still thought I wanted to do art full time.  He doesn't even do art full time.  I think he splits his time between art and tech.

Anyway, his art has many motifs, but i've never seen any quite like his most recent painting.   It surfaced in my newsfeed this morning.  What is it?  It's a dystopian 90's nightmare--some kind of bowling alley rape fantasy straight out of Middle America.

"Celebration"
2014
16" x 20"

I still feel violated by it.   It's a kind of violence.  Elegant, but totally repulsive, and stuffed with allegory.  Allegory and hotdogs.

It might be a commentary on the sexual mores of White America.

It's genius.  I should buy it.   Maybe I'll tell him to make prints.

005: Oil

Volatile blood of modern civilization.
Everywhere, all the time, it burns.

French Snake Moan

Photo: Emmanuel Le Guellec

Original story here

Completed in 2012, Serpent d’océan is a giant aluminum sea serpent skeleton by artist Huang Yong Ping(previously) situated off the shore of the Loire River where it empties into the Bay of Biscay just outside of Nantes, France. Measuring nearly 425 feet (130 meters) in length the curving skeleton mirrors the curves of the nearby Saint-Nazaire bridge and was created as a permanent work for the final Estuaire contemporary art exhibition in 2012. Via Nantes Tourisme:  

This is sculpture.  Grand.  Mysterious.  Dark.  Minimal.  It achieves the things I seek in my own work.  

I installed a similar sculpture in 2010 above the Cliffs that abut the canyon running down to Black's beach from La Jolla Farms Road.  It's an invisible sculpture, which is why few know about it.  Described by some as a ghost of the sea, it appears to be the skeletal remains of a blue whale, suspended 200 feet in the air above the edge of the cliffs.  At night the rib cage glows, and in the cold salty fog of the Pacific, it drifts peacefully over the hilltop mansions.   

It is more mysterious and beautiful than anything you or I have ever seen.  Even if you don't see it at first, it's there.  Trust me ; )

Jungle Gothic; SketchUp Pro 8

SketchUp is like Microsoft paint--but in three dimensions.  It's an intuitive 3D drawing program, that's easy to use, and easy to learn.  I downloaded it the other day, hoping to learn sharpen my skills thinking in three dimensions.  This was the product of my second drawing in SketchUp.  It's some kind of citadel or cathedral.  I call it jungle gothic, but that's probably totally inaccurate terminology.  it's a mix of things.   It's probably about 12 hours of work--but much of that time was spent getting better at the program.  

What's nice about SketchUp is that even with only a little experience, I felt like I understood the program enough to get it to do what I want.  Compare this with Adobe Illustrator--I program I've used at least a dozen times--and still don't understand.

So pirate yourself a copy of SketchUp Pro, and learn the program.  If you can model your ideas in 3D, you are ahead of the game.  It's fun.  It's easy.  

 

Beginning of the Ring

Music: Rondenion



Images: Tomoo Gokita

shadows of a breakup