Squishtoid

2011-12-05T10:21:00.000-08:00

The word "economy" refers primarily to the movement of a nation's resources; and secondarily, to an attempt to spend less. This sums up President Obama's "balanced" approach to stimulus and deficit cutting, in that order. Polls show this agenda is favored by a majority of Americans.

The GOP-dominated Congress has a radically different set of priorities, obviously, and we won't go into that now, other than to note that more Americans favor a Communist takeover than favor Congress right now.

'Nuff said.

The underlying issue, when to spur on, and when to rein in, spending is one every household and small business faces daily. For example, it would be counter-productive for me to stop spending on nice new frames for fine art prints, though I'd love to spend on nice new art books. So it's off to the library I go.

Ironically, it's schools and libraries and art museums that are the first to feel the blind GOP hackings, but I promised not to get into that.

So when non-profits come soliciting, it's easy to reflexively squeeze the coppers, but there's solid evidence that that's the worst thing we could do.

Here's a few facts:

* Colorado's creative enterprises employed 122,000 people, according to a 2008 study. Another 64,000 worked in creative occupations in other sectors, for a total of 5 billion in earnings.

* This ranked as the 5th largest cluster of jobs in the Colorado economy, almost at large as IT and Biotech, and larger than Agribusiness.

* Creative occupations were expected to grow by 30-45% in the next 10 years, exceeding the state growth rate of 25%.

While these numbers undoubtedly pre-date the Bush recession, the potential for creative enterprise to help us climb out is clear. So I'm asking you to consider giving to the creative sector on Colorado Gives Day, Dec. 6th.

And here's why: A consortium of Colorado foundations, including the First Bank Incentive Fund, will be increasing each donation. For this penny-pinching artist, that's an offer I can't refuse. Shall we call it "Gold Tuesday"?

And since's it's my blog, I'm going to tell you where the Squish's hard-earned fun tokens are going. The Art Students League of Denver, which employs many creatives itself ( ahem), and which goes a long way toward filling in the gaps left in the state's education budget. I can tell you first hand that many who come to the League on a lark, wind up contributing to the state's creative economy.

I won't quibble with those who contribute to any charity, creative or not. It'll put money in circulation where it's needed most, and take people off the street. That's leadership! Just promise me we won't start acting like... Congress.

2011-11-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

National Novel Writing Month is November, and I signed up to pledge my 50,000 words, like thousands of others. Is that why I haven't been posting here? Well, no. Turns out I'm just as bad at regular fiction writing as I am at regular blogging.

But here, just to get the ball rolling again, is an excerpt from the very rough draft of my "novel", an exclusive peek that is sure to go viral. I'd like my Nobel Prize in chocolate, please...

My Empty

What he actually thought he might see when he got to this point, he has no idea. Right now, what he does see, out through the cracked and fogged windshield, is nothing. An infinity of shifting white nothing. A swirling, thickened, distance-less nothing, a palpable absence of form and light made weirdly tangible in the failing grey afternoon only by the flakes that float, lift and corkscrew into the one operational headlight the old truck has. Out beyond the cracked and rattling side mirror, scrims of white flakes, sometimes parting, but only to reveal more flakes, moving in all directions, tiny inscrutable dramas of gravity and physics being played out, all according to stage directions unreadable to him.

He grips the wheel too tightly, without any sense of purchase or direction on the pavement, only a greasy gliding sensation. The tires aren’t that good, and he tells himself that relaxing his grip on the wheel, breathing deeply and gradually slowing down, will keep the worn rubber and drafty metal on the road. Just go with it, he tells himself. But he cannot shake the claustrophobic sense of dread that has gnawed and chilled him in this heater-less pick-up since Kearney.

It was then, he’d finally known that he was not home anymore. Home was back there, not a memory yet, nothing so real as that; yet omnipresent, though suddenly ephemeral and hazy, though he’d never left it before. He resolved to stop thinking about it.

Past Kearney early this morning, not thinking about home, then past Cheyenne. Its flat metal buildings and jumbled, fenced enclosures of junk cars, farm machinery, dessicated wooden relics of some sunny past, Interstate detritus beneath impossibly tall truck stop neon and dust blown gray asphalt, clustered and defending against... what? Outside the gray concrete ribbon with its halo of fast food trash, rolling sage of an almost blue/green against the dun ochre, cresting and troughing without definition, held, it seemed, only by the occasional blasted barbed wire fence, pinned tenuously, almost randomly to the Earth, though of course it was “earth”, but of a sort that didn’t seem to amount to much. Clouds appeared in the endless sky and suddenly overtook the sun. Cadres of fluffy white chargers stretching limitlessly into the distance, now thickening and turning gray, and soon he knew what it must be like to stare into the teeth of a vast and violent horde, seeing clearly your fate. Welcome to oblivion.

Rock formations now appeared on the ridge, squat and hunched like beaten soldiers, as the gray upon gray clouds, steel colored clouds, torn and ragged in the hoarse wind, rolled into the dun colored canyons and stunted blackened evergreen scrub, shearing off the tops of the mountains and blurring whatever features in the landscape the wind had not scraped away or turned flat and faceless. An unforgiving nothing.

The truck chugs up a long grade. There are a few other cars whirring past, rushing to warm places trying to beat the storm. Lights are sparse and receding as the buildings and cars grow fewer. A fat snowflake, then more. He is in the teeth of something, and doesn’t know where he even is, though of course he is not home.

The vast and meaningless landscape now closes around him, tethered to concrete, navigable reality only by the withered barbed wire fences and split, crone-like posts that recede grayly into the chill void. Another vehicle, lumpish and ghostlike, leaves a double furrow ahead. Its tail lights glow pinkish. Telephone poles slide by at measured intervals, carrying into the lowering darkness messages unheard, the whispered trivia of strangers, uncomfortable silences. As the tailights disapear, he finds the poles to be his only anchor in reality. The truck whines and gnashes through the icy slush, then seems to breathe and to settle in. he takes his foot off the accelerator. They are at the summit.

It is dark now and silent. Agitated luminescent flakes part and veer away into the blackness behind him. He downshifts carefully, feeling a slight swerve as he does, a loosening of discernible intention, a failure of control. Like a hurtling missile, he is without purpose, really. The trajectory has been pre-measured and between theses steep canyon walls, swooping from left to right gingerly in long switchbacks, his path is no longer under his control. He is floating, weightless, part of an object without sentience or compassion, a missile bound to the end of its arc, from whatever weird impetus put him on this road, toward whatever lay at the bottom of this steep descent. His momentum is palpable, thrilling, lethal.

Swirls of dry snow rise from the wheel wells, ghosts of whatever silent trackless gradient existed before he hurtled through.

Then there is a black spot, and another, hissing wetly as his wheels hit. He dares not antagonize the brakes until another, larger one appears and then a stretch of liquid glistening pavement and he slows, and the road clears, the grade softens, and behind a long looping curve and the steep black silouhette of a hill are the occluded lights of a medium sized town, glowing vaguely through the storm, a long way away still, but he’s off the mountain and rescued from his terrible momentum and calmed down enough to reach for a cigarette and he thinks about a beer.

“You won’t like it there.”

The memory of her voice, bodiless, separating itself from the whining tires in the road hiss.

“How do you know?”

“My dad went through there once. There’s nothing there.”

White letters on a green reflective sign. A place name he’d seen in a western movie, then never troubled himself about again. Well it would have to do. It wasn’t where he’d intended to stop, but it would be home for tonight, wherever it was. He slowed and the first billboard appeared, then fences again, rusting agricultural metal in the darkness. An empty parking lot by a shut down road house, and then a giant cowboy, white, yellow and pink neon reflected in mercurial rivulets in the wet asphalt, tipping a blue cowboy hat in the air, then replacing it on his blue-haired head then tipping it again. "Howdy! You’re at the Ranger, where the West begins! Vacancy."

“Howdy,” he mumbled through the cigarette filter, then cranked the wheel into the lot, and coasted up to the bar.

What a Day for a Daydream

2011-06-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Art Students League Summer Art Market is my biggest show by far each year. This year was no different, as a more spacious layout made for a more pleasant experience, and the traditionally perfect weather made a return, after last year's chilling drizzle.

I really enjoy this show on many levels, though its ability to pay bills certainly colors my perspective. But the people, many of whom are now longtime friends, really make for an enjoyable though exhausting weekend. And friends and family seem to have picked up on how exhausting, yet important the show is to me. I get lots of offers to help schlep art and equipment, bring me food, or just to come down and say high during the long days. Thank you to all from the bottom of my heart!

But the show has become a validation, for many of us in the struggling artist brigade, of what we are trying to accomplish. The art has gotten stronger, sales steadier. Even on a most basic level, it's refreshing, while standing 10 hours a day on hot asphalt, to see so many people starting to get it. Buying original art is a very different thing than buying a giclee reproduction, or decorative object.

When you buy art, not only do you put cash into the local creative economy, thus making it stronger, more innovative and more able to contribute to the region's educational and cultural needs, but you make the art itself stronger. Money is time, and more time spent by experienced artists in the studio means you won't have to fly to NYC to see great art; mature, well conceived and refined.

While you are doing that, you can bask in the mountain sun, drink a beer, and talk to those same artists in your flip flops. How they got in your flip flops, you'll never know.

My next street fair show is July 16-17 on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Stop by and say hello.

Voices in the Dark

2011-05-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

So I headed west,

to grow up with the country.

Across those prairies,

with those fields of grain.

And I saw my Devil, and I saw my deep blue sea...

-Gram Parsons

Gray, heavy sky; dark days with steady rain and sodden ground- glorious weather, really. Parts of our state have had no significant precipitation since September.

I had made quite a few monotypes this spring, but then hit a sort of wall. It's normal to take a break, then come back to finish strong for the show season, but also I hadn’t really figured out what the monotypes were about. This isn’t all that unusual. I often work off snippets or glimmers of an idea, hoping that improvisation and gesture, or just day-to-day experience, would provide a full concept.

So I worked on this telephone pole ( above), which is actually outside my back door. I've put it in a number of large monotypes, so it made sense to do a small polymer plate etching. The subject gets admired a lot. People admit somewhat sheepishly, their fascination with the subject, though I can't remember anyone buying one!

What I like about the admittedly somewhat prosaic image is that it's a visible manifestation of absence. It's interesting to me that a conversation between faraway strangers may be passing above me, just out of earshot, so to speak. The rain and clouds add a bit of pathos, I guess. Hence the title, "Signal To Noise". It's a metaphor one of my favorite authors, Thomas Pynchon, explores in his novel "V". You would think that with the technology for transmitting the message improving everyday, we wouldn't miss so many.

A polymer etching involves a thin metal plate coated in a photo-sensitive emulsion. Many people expose them in the sun, and you can also do a monotype right on top of the plate, then etch it, and that's what I've done here. I added Chine Colle' for a bit of color. It's a nice thing for me, since I don't produce the monotypes very quickly. Now I can print 5-10 images, sell them throughout the year, and at a more affordable price. Can you tell show season is coming? As marketing psychology tells us, one must have bins chock full, or sales suffer.

At the same time, constantly making the smaller work can be vaguely frustrating. The smaller, improvised images often make the jump to larger and more refined iterations. I have to "jump off my train of thought" to refill the bins, as those are the popular purchase around here. Sometimes I've felt like I'm constantly starting, and never really finishing, an idea.

The second image, a monotype, is a better example. I love it, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere close to where it could be. Where could it be? As the rain continues to come, and I'm still spending my nights on the couch, I'm starting to look to my current reading for an answer. Where better to look for metaphor and message than to the writings of the American Romantics?

Melville, Whitman and Dickinson, along with the Luminist painters, such as Martin Heade and Fitz Hugh Lane, captured the search for American identity in the pre civil war years of cultural ferment. Cynthia Griffin Wolff in her eponymous biography of Emily Dickinson, has a good sense of those times, and what makes us tick, even now. I recall Dickinson being taught as a reclusive genteel eccentric . But her most famous poem features her narrator in a carriage with death, driving "out past the sunset". Oh-oh. A spiritual journey that ends in darkness, this from the Belle of Puritan Amherst.

Wolff places her in the context of her times, in which authors like Emerson and Thoreau, but also the Hudson River School and later Luminists defined the American spirit. They understood America's westward path is toward the light and away from darkness, yet also into vast space and isolation. The Luminist painters especially, but also Melville and Dickinson, understood the spiritual absence where the conflicted Puritan soul met the isolation of the vast American landscape and its implicit relationship to the American experience.

Conversely, the revival movement of Emily Dickinson's girlhood, which stressed "wrestling" or struggling with faith, just as Jacob wrestled with God, sought to define American experience in the absence of any state endorsed religion, or, I might add, artistic academy system. Jacob "strives" until dawn, forcing God to bless him before He leaves. As Wolff points out, God is not seen in face to face encounter with Man again in the narrative, appearing as a burning bush, blinding light, etc. She notes too that Moby Dick is the mostly absent force of nature whom embittered Ahab, whose name relates to Jacob, struggles against.

Emily Dickinson sought an identity in a society that offered few choices- mother, person of faith- to women. Dickinson rejected the revivalists and rarely left her room, where she met God, the Devil and the details of meaning and poetic space on her own terms. She understood the role of existential absence in American spiritual experience. Her famous dashes are tokens of a self actualized subjective voice, but they are also tangible marks of absence.

Her writing, at turns simple and agreeable, then abruptly dark and isolate, calls to mind one of the beach scenes of John Kensett.

Melville died in obscurity until rescued decades later by academics. Whitman's bold incantatory affirmations of identity were revived by the Beats. Dickinson's dashes were posthumously removed by her first editors. The struggle to come to terms with the anger and idealism at war in the heart of the Puritan soul continues, now more than ever, in this "damp, drizzly November in [the American] soul". Puritan idealism is exemplified in its original assertion that each person may treat with God without the mediation of a higher (state, or Papal) authority. This is the essence of spiritual identity.

But as soon as Cromwell turned westward toward Ireland, the darkness and violence began. King Phillip's War, and Sand Creek eventually, inevitably, followed, each westward step bringing us closer to nature, yet farther from God, and into absence and isolation. Irish, Native Americans, Women, Gays, all "striving" then and now to find identity in the face of the Puritan anger that vitiates our culture. Just as Puritans themselves once did.

It turns out that ruling one's soul, and ruling others' as well, are mutually incompatible things.

A monotype, or any kind of print, seems a good medium with which to interpret a poem. The white space that is, I believe, at the essential heart of any print, mimics the striving for meaning from absence at the heart of Ahab’s struggle, and the dark inky bits mimic the words on the page with which the American Romantics forged a cultural identity.

Graphics and printmaking have been the medium of advertising messages and mass communication before the electrons took over. Prints brought visions of the American west back to immigrants, and helped to fill in the void. They were cheaper and more quickly produced, and thus less beholden to elites. They are part and parcel of the American "message" in the turbulent and earth-shaking 19th century, as were the poets and novelists of the American Romantic era.

A poem or print is certainly more concise than this misty digression. The iconography of print- its dashes and white voids, even its squishes, blobs, smudges and spatters tell a story. As always, one can only hope the message is getting through.

House Keeper

2011-04-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

I hope to write a proper post soon, as it's been a while. I've been pretty busy, ironic since there's actually plenty to talk about. But to keep things fresh, here's a link to what I've been working on in the studio.

I like the house images, but obviously did not want get away from the interiors, either, and the best way I can explain that is, the most wide open spaces are always inside one's head. I'll try to explain more thoroughly soon.

For now, that'll have to do. But at least you know that the Squish is staying out of trouble!

Blue Fox

2011-04-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Just to wrap up on my previous post on a series of sketches I'd been doing in the print studio. Here is the final version, at least for now, as I'm not sure how or whether to pursue the idea.

I'm already working on a different thread, and you can get a preview of small work-ups for that over on my Facebook page.

It's nice to be busy in the studio in mid April (and I have been), because I find the rush of logistical and publicity details somewhat distracting as May winds down, with the first show approaching in June. That will be the Art Students League Summer Art Market, a fun but exhausting show in south Capitol Hill.

After that comes The Boulder Open Fest in July on the Mall, a gallery show at Zip 37 Gallery in North Denver in early August, and possibly, the Modernism show at the Stock Show Arena near Labor Day.

I guess I should also put in a plug for my 8-week workshop at the ASLD starting in late June. You can search my name for current workshops at any time. A Fall workshop will be announced soon, and you'll notice a one-day Summer Sampler in August if you just can't commit the time for the longer classes. I've grown quite attached to bright sunny mornings in the Art Students League print room, and I've made some great friends there!

Class Act

2011-03-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

Stefan from the Tuesday morning Monotype class has been working with fields of color. This is one of his first abstracts from the workshop, and I like it because it has a very balanced color scheme ( the photo exposure may suggest a brown for the darkest swath; it's actually a rich, wine-y red), simple composition and fresh spontaneous brayer (ink roller) work.

I posted a small portfolio of other works from the class on my Facebook page, and will have more soon. It gives me a chance to catch up with some pictures and videos of my own work that I will post soon. For instance, I have staged photos of the different phases of one of the first large works to come out of all the sketches I've been putting up, also on Facebook ( link at the top). I'll summarize the project in a future blog post, too.

I may be taking on a few too many projects, but I'm feeling a burst of energy with the spring, and at this point, probably too many is better than not enough. The videos are the ones that often get pushed to the side, partially because confidence level is still tentative with the new software. But I think they're eye catchers, especially on Facebook and other social sites, so it makes sense to learn it.

As I mentioned, I've posted a number of videos to the soccer fan page I manage, and also to Zip37's page. So I guess Squishtoid is due for the next world premiere! Will begin work on that this weekend.

What I'm reading: A whole stack of histories of US and Britain, hop-scotching from James I (Simon Schama, History of Britain, Part II) through Andrew Jackson (American Lion, Jon Meacham).

New Work

2011-03-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

I did get some video of Monday's work session at Open Press, as well as Tuesday's demo for Introduction to Monotypes at the Art Students League. I'm getting more familiar with iMovie, as evidenced by this 5 minute monster I did to promote my soccer supporters group friends.

So I should have at least a small video to post fairly soon, at least in time for the Summer Art Market, the League's popular, signature art fair, in June. I may put up some raw footage as soon as I get a chance to sort through it.

But for now, it's Opening Week for Colorado Rapids football, and I'm enjoying all the zany activities surrounding that. Next week, back to the grindstone, but for now, here's another in a series of sketches (above) I've been doing to prepare for larger work.

Art Star

2011-03-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

Took a break from my own projects to go watch a favorite Denver artist do a demo at the Art Students League of Denver. Homare Ikeda has done a lot of monotypes, which is why I often bump into him at Open Press. He's also on the faculty at ASLD. Here he was doing a painting demo, which was well attended and very interesting.

I don't do a lot of painting anymore, and don't usually work in the abstract when I do. I like Homare's loose, open ended forms and his thoughtful, deliberate way of working, though. So chalk it up to networking and professional curiousity when I stopped by. I sent out a few snippets on Twitter, and admired Homare's laid back narrative style. I do a lot of demos myself, and I can always learn.

Homare related that, as a student at Skowhegan, he'd gotten a studio visit from Komar and Melamid, the Russian Pop Artist team. K&M pronounced Homare's work "constipated".

"I figured that was a good thing", Homare related with his shy little laugh. The crowd laughed too. He'd turned the potentially crushing, off hand remark into a small creative victory with his unassuming humor.

Later he tried to explain that being an artist is, to him, nothing special. He's right, and the sometimes idealizing ASLD students need to hear stuff like that. There are geniuses in art, sure. And like many things, art can be done in an inspired way, but before that happens it's mostly just hard work, done with commitment.

He finished up with some sumi-e drawings of traditional subjects; fish, bamboo, birds. It's a fairly unassuming art form, done by a fairly unassuming guy.

Make no mistake, there's more than a little magic in that.

Hey Kids! Comics!

2011-02-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Blustery and frigid winter has made February its home here. We got a mild November and December, January could not make up its mind, but the last 2 weeks have been definitive, lock down winter.

We even have snow, of which the Squish approves. I feel cheated when it's frigid and brown. I love the kind of minimalist landscape and diffuse light that the snow brings, and would probably be distilling the bleached gray blues and fat yellowy whites in ink on paper right now, if I hadn't committed to some part time work to pay some bills.

That will come. Right now I'm bunkered in, fiddling with my rabbit ears to pick up al Jazeera reports on Egypt; peeking in on the yearly cultural car wreck of the Helmet Bowl, the epitome of American Sporting Exceptionalism (one team wearing garish satin capri pants will be declared "World" Champion, but I've usually forgotten which one it is by May).

Mostly I've been reading. I have a small stack of Atlantic Monthly, featuring the usual blend of abstract speculations, mixed with hard nosed, iconoclastic bubble-bursting (After expounding on Tea-Baggers' inherent self absorption, one recent issue advised that coal is the key to our energy future.)

The latest McSweeney's is always a good read, if you can ignore their bizarre, almost perverse, love affair with Roddy Doyle. OK, I actually read the latest thing for once, and it was a sort of a departure, meaning, not quite as "Commitments"-like. You also have to indulge them in a typical, gratuitously silly short story about a Pontiac Sunfire that enrolls in high school. But I like that they're not afraid to try different things.

But this here bloggy-blog is going to be about comics.

There are several graphic novels out in the last few months that are worth a peek. I've been playing catch-up on these, as the outlay has gone up, and all the big names get a release date near Christmas.

For those who don't indulge in this far corner of the literary universe (including those who don't consider it even a part of the literary universe), a bit of recent history: As the alternative comics movement, which traces its lineage back to R. Crumb and Mad magazine, has made a progressively larger impression on the mainstream, with some of the bigger names appearing in the Times and New Yorker etc, the publishing strategy has transitioned from traditional comic book format to a more European "album" format. This means top artists are being seen in nicely bound, even hardback Tintin-style books which appear about once a year. This makes for attractive, more easily accessible complete stories that appeal to the adult they're written for, rather than the booklet form, which adult readers still associate with adolescent entertainment. it also makes for prices in the 15-$25 range, rather than 3-$5, but perhaps I'm getting bitter.

I'll start with a title I've spoken of before, Love and Rockets, which is a continuing story (30 years, now!), but which contains semi-complete episodes within the larger whole. Love and Rockets New Stories #3 is such a jumping on point. There are several stories written by two brothers, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Gilbert's stories tend to be bizarre, cinematic and hyper violent. They have their rabid fans and are interesting to me, but I'll concentrate on my favorite of Los Bros, Jaime. He presents three separate but subtly interconnected tales here, and looks to have returned to his "Locas" ( "Crazy Women") storyline after a diversion into a tangentially connected space fantasy.

Two of the tales take place in modern day suburban L.A. and concern his primary heroine, Maggie Chascarillo, and one takes place in 50's Oxnard, CA, and fills in details about Maggie's youth. They're worth reading for their cleanly written dialogue and simple graphic power. You sense the vast backstory underlying the characters, but the subtly interacting narratives here are perfectly functional as independent tales.

"Wilson" , by "Ghost World" auteur Dan Clowes is a completely self contained book , which actually features a series of blackly humorous one-page gags. There is a complex set of influences in the shifting styles, including "Peanuts" and Mad Magazine, and as we follow the main character, we realize that these gags are interconnected, too, and a satiric narrative on the notion of "family" emerges.

"Wally Gropius", by Tim Hensley, a newcomer, satirizes 60's comics such as Richie Rich and John Stanley teen comics with a visually kinetic and subversive, sometimes even surreal, sight-gag type humor.

Comics superstar Chris Ware has also published a new episode in his ongoing Acme Novelty Library (#20), and though interconnected with other ongoing characters, this story is actually a stand-alone tale of one person's life and struggle to find meaningful connection. Ware can be a real mope, but his quiet depiction of aging, and his hugely influential design sense which has expanded well beyond the borders of comics and into popular culture at large, make him the first name in modern graphic narrative. Though he will probably never equal his breakthrough masterpiece, "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth".

X'ed Out is the latest opus of Raw Magazine veteran Charles Burns. This may be the most intriguing new book on the list. Raw, which kept the flag flying for cutting edge, adult oriented graphics during the 70's and 80's, has given us many breakthrough artists over the years, such as Art Spiegelman (Maus); Gary Panter (Jimbo, Peewee's Playhouse, and countless Zappa LP covers) and David Sandlin (Land of a Thousand Beers).

Burns has been contributing to The Believer magazine, and has now released a hardback album format graphic novel, which is not complete, but this is the first segment, so it's a good time to jump in. Burns traffics in the horror that lurks just behind the mundane, and seems to be on his game here. We enter immediately a dream-like mise en scene which carries over even after the main character has "woken up", as if the whole story was the kind of lucid, cyclic dream in which you believe you've awoken, only to realize you are dreaming still. The art is clean and depthlessly noir. We'll have to see if Burns can keep the narrative moving as briskly as the first segment; his last major work, Black Hole, did seem to bog down a bit.

You can get a nice, inexpensive overview of current efforts by these and other artists by seeking out The Anthology of Graphic Fiction by Ivan Brunetti, which seems to have entered the close out market. Brunetti, with out getting didactic, tries to link all the diverse strands of this movement toward comics' artistic maturity, and even throws in a few of the lesser known classics of the newspaper era.

Ultimately, the recent history of graphic fiction and humor is one of censorship and marginalization. Creative magnificence abounds, as well as truly affecting characterization, but as with 80's and 90's Rock, there's no way to see what you've been denied until you just jump in.

State of the Squish

2011-01-25T13:03:00.000-08:00

Room of Remembrance, Monotype, 15x22"

I'm going to wrap up a few odds and ends as I gear up for Spring. I've spent most of January spamming people. Or hopefully, bac'ning them. Bacn being the kind of spam that you voluntarily sign up for because you have a genuine interest in the subject matter.

As outlined in my last post, I've been trying to upgrade my presence on the web, and also took on social media duties for a couple of groups I'm a member of. I have a ton of workshops and shows coming up this year, and social media can really help one get the word out. Here are a couple of examples:

As you may know, I've joined Zip 37 Gallery in Denver, and will have work hanging there at all times, in their wonderful back room gallery. Each member has a little space for mostly small work, and many people already use it for one-stop art shopping. I'm handling their Twitter account, too, as well as my own.

I'll be starting my next workshop in early March, and it is registering now. It's designed to be a good introduction to Monotypes, but I also have return students who like to continue their explorations, and I try to accommodate both. It is a great way to start off a Tuesday morning; bring your coffee!

I've also posted a few images from 2010 ( including the one above) on my Facebook page as a review of sorts, with my commentary. Check it out, and if you'd like regular updates on shows and workshops, as well as new work, click "Like".

I also need to briefly update the post on the Tea Baggers' ironic ignorance of history in the light of recent events. I don't intend this to be a solely political blog, but the querulous effort to repeal Health Care reform, definitely affects those of us in the creative and small business economy, and so is relevant to what I am trying to do.

The GOP right's insincere promise to abandon their characteristic vitriol after the Tucson shootings went quickly up in smoke as they moved to reward their health industry sponsors with a "repeal" of the Health Care Reform Law.

This legislative charade has no chance of success, but offered a nice opportunity to go back to the name calling ("Obamacare") and outright lies they'd used to scare up the Faux News crowd originally. Even the name of their repeal bill ("Jobs-Killing-Health-Care") is a proven lie.

The numbers cited (650,000) link it to a non-partisan CBO report which actually notes the potentially POSITIVE effect of people leaving their jobs when they are no longer tied to corporate-offered Health Care. For example, to start businesses; or enter the creative economy. To innovate; to follow the American Dream. There is, to be fair, also a slight effect on the McJobs portion of the economy, which look good in Government reports, but do nothing to narrow the quickly widening wealth gap.

Having paraded that dog through the House of Representatives, the right then ponied up for their ultra conservative base by announcing that next on the agenda would be yet another attempt to erode Americans' right to reproductive choice. Not only is this narrow-minded and vindictive, it's plain stupid. At a time when the American public has sent a clear message in recent polls that the bi-partisan progress late in the 111th Congress met their approval, the GOP insists on revisiting past defeats in the Culture Wars. It's as if the Buffalo Bills demanded a replay of all their Superbowls.

This is a party that has completely "lost the plot". As we are reminded on Martin Luther King Day (the conservative's least favorite holiday), you cannot redeem the promise of American freedom without progress, and change. The Tea Baggers actually do have ways they can contribute to progress, such as in deficit reduction, which they have completely ignored when there are no elections in sight. The last President to balance the budget? a Democrat. His successor, the Deciderator, went "nuculer", and set a record for deficits. And their only substantive response to the Tucson tragedy has been shrill screeching about proposed common sense limits on high capacity clips for automatic weaponry.

The State of the Union rebuttals? Just a photo op for every Palin wanna-be that wants to tap into the anger of Tea Bagger booboisie. The deficit will never be eliminated without tax reform that includes increased revenues from the very rich, period. Targeting discretionary spending on already stripped-to-the-bone programs for arts, NPR and education are a straw man for GOP 2012 ambitions, and Obama has beaten them to the punch, anyway, as past grudges are vented in the House.

The right wing GOP/Tea Baggers continue to be the party of fear, demagoguery and narrow self interest. Their biggest lie of all? Calling themselves "patriots". Real patriots would get down to work on real problems, not be staring into space on Faux News, trying to cover talking points for the next election.

2011-01-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

Update:

I love this time of year, as the days brighten a bit. It's also a good time for a fresh start in the studio, and I plan on some sketchbook time with new ideas later. I'll post some of these, as well as work from the end of 2010. But first, I'll wrap up some recent posts.

My "techie week" went pretty well, all things considered. Launched a FB page for the soccer supporters group, and took over the Twitter account for the gallery. I realize this is simple stuff for the generation that doesn't remember lp vinyl, but it's a somewhat slow process for one who remembers watching the Kennedy Inaugural on b&w TV. Social media come with a new learning curve, but I also need to clear the decks for the ancient technology of making monotypes.

New media are important business tools, but spending a lot of time on them to the detriment of studio time is frustrating. However, the only real way to smooth the learning process of marketing in social media that really works is to just jump in and do it. it isn't so surprising that those of a certain age didn't realize that making art was a business when they started. But many of us now realize that making art without a Facebook account these days makes about as much business sense as making pizza without a delivery truck. I secretly suspect some in my age group of pooh-poohing these new media simply because they know the learning curve will be steep. And it is.

Then each new medium seems to open up a whole host of other tech mysteries. One finds many eager to compare notes on the head spinning profusion of new technology. My neighbor is an architecture professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. Because there is online teaching involved, he's had to become familiar with certain Open Source applications and Wiki technology (with the help of University IT, he was thankful to say). My brother also extolls Open Source, which he uses for animation and e-publishing. I've enjoyed several Wiki's related to one of my favorite authors, Pynchon. It's all intriguing stuff. But my initial reaction is much like Popeye's after one of those spinning Bluto roundhouse rights: aigetty, aigetty!

I'll continue to tinker with the Facebook page, and you can also find me on Twitter. One of the biggest challenges for me is learning how to keep the posts regular and substantive. But now, the library wants their "Facebook Marketing for Dummies" book back, and it's time to carve out a little time for a technology I'm familiar with, pencil and sketchbook.

Cold 'fusion

2011-01-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

Winter finally did arrive here, 6-7 inches worth, along with the frigid local tradition known as "Stock Show Weather", named after the National Western Stock Show.

I don't mind. We need the moisture; it'd been mostly 50's with sun all through December- and I have a long list of computer projects to catch up on. Checking my pantry- veggie burgers, beans, bacon- Hey! Somebody send beer, quick!

Well, never mind. Weather droid says it'll be back to 50 by the end of the week, anyway. So now's a good time to sit down and focus on some computer projects.

I've become a new member at ZIP37 Gallery, and my contribution there is to take over the Twitter account( stop laughing, please). I've actually been tweeting more on my own account, @hggns, as a result of walking into a soccer party, and one of the young tech-savvy friends there saying: "Boy, you don't tweet much, do you?" Well, no. But I knew I was a logical candidate for running the ZIP account, when one of the other, similarly middle-aged, artists confessed that she hadn't figured out how to make labels on the computer yet.

So I'm trying. Twitter lists me with 35 followers, and 189 tweets. I'm informed that I've been listed in "Good Tweets 2" by a fellow tweeter in the creative economy, and I hope to find what that is (Is there a cash award?) , but I'm honored. And in my own defense, for the first two years of my Twitter account, I didn't actually own a cell phone.

Now I'm trying to get in the habit of tweeting on a regular basis, and taking over the ZIP account fits right in with that. I'll also be posting video of each show to the Zip Facebook page, something I started doing when I took over The Class VI Colorado Rapids Supporters Group page, all of which actually fits in with stuff I want to do on my Joe Higgins Monotypes page. I may be confused and over-extended now, but soon I'll be very tech-savvy, and over-extended. Or maybe I'll just retire to the bar.

Any way, check back here and on my Facebook page ( link at right) soon, as I'm reading up on how to better use them, and there will be interesting changes ongoing. I promise I won't be videotaping the inside of my pocket, as I did the first time I set out to create content for Class VI.

Time for Schoolin'

2010-12-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

The Tea Baggers are abandoning national priorities they are uniquely qualified to contribute to in favor of another battle in their ongoing war on the middle class and the American healthcare system. And why? Because they flunked American History, not to mention Civics.

The holidays, for me, are the time of year for friends and talk, and reading. I like to take a little staycation of the mind and consider the year gone by and the one to come. One can't help but think about life, art and politics, and the connections between.

A couple of things I've recently read come to mind. First up, in the New Yorker, is an account of the rather spotty tale of the first Tea Party, in which merchants like Sam Adams and Hancock were far more interested in inciting mobs to protect their smuggling businesses and prop up their prices than actual patriotism. It's an article of faith with the conservatives that the Boston Tea Party was the epitome of patriotic fervor that united the colonies, but both Washington and Franklin, along with a huge segment of the colonial populace, deplored it and it was really the ham handed reaction by Parliament that brought calls for a Continental Congress, and consequent colonial unity of purpose. Ultimately, it was left to progressive thinkers among the Founding Fathers to focus the mobs on truly unified and progressive patriotism, and thanks to "England's dreaming" good things eventually happened.

Now, after a very productive lame duck session, in which several Republicans bolted the lockstep agenda of "No" their leaders had for political purposes employed, and actually contributed to important legislation, the Tea Baggers/GOP are now insisting on a return to "No".

As in, no immigration reform, no deficit reduction, no tax reform. These are all crucial issues that the GOP is uniquely capable of contributing to, and politically benefitting from, if they work together with mainstream legislators in the Dems and in their own party. And judging by wide ranging approval of the stimulus and other accomplishments of the 111th Congress, it would be in their interest to do so.

The leadership has instead decided that a vindictive war on the American Health System, and tarring and feathering Obama must be top priority in their ongoing crusade to enlarge the wealth and income gap at the expense of the middle class. So let's have a return to gridlock!

The agenda of No is an agenda of merchant profiteering and states rights. Let's see, manipulation of angry boobs by rich merchants to keep prices high, and social progress stalled. Sound familiar?

The only way for this to succeed, to paraphrase, is for true patriots to say nothing. The nation could be spared a lot of grief if the Tea Baggers and states righters would simply look past their anger and self interest to see that they are on the wrong side. Again.

Something even a child could see.

In the Times' Opinionator blog, which is now running an excellent real time review of the Civil War's seminal events in anticipation of the 150th anniverseary of that essential struggle, one of the current posts concerns the cleverness of Major Robert Anderson to outwit the Confederate militias, and withdraw his men to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, where the first shots of the war were fired in the name of states' rights. That left other forts in the harbor undefended, and one was held with only a token force: an officer, an enlisted man and his daughter were left to await occupation by a large Confederate militia. The Sergeant's daughter Katie Skillen, as the American flag was lowered to be replaced with a Confederate banner, burst into tears. The militiamen assured her that she wouldn't be hurt, but that wasn't what she feared. It was the raising of "that dirty thing", the banner of states' rights, that saddened her. As it should any thinking person.

Similarly, the Tea Baggers waving "that dirty thing", are trusting that we don't know our history. States' rights, once used to justify slavery and segregation, is now being trotted out by the corporate interests to derail Healthcare Reform.

But that won't happen. It's going to be a long tough struggle, and free thinking Americans will need a bit of Katie Skillen's wit, pluck and sass. But the militias of greed and self interest will in the end be defeated. Again.

Doesn't Follow

2010-12-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

I have to say, I crack myself up a little when I do this stuff, and am not totally convinced that anyone else really gets the joke. This is a ghost of a fairly experimental picture that I called "Incomplete Still Life", which contained the distressed table and distorted perspective of a floor, or maybe even a DiChirico-like plain. Weird enough.

Then, on a second drop I added a black squall in the upper left, possibly as a result of too much LSD in the younger day. I think it's pretty clear this pic has no real coherence, unless you count the synaptic mysteries of a visual non sequitur. Which I do, so of course this is one of my favorite pieces.

It's pretty rare that one of my favorites actually sells; this one did last year about this time. So I guess someone got the joke. Actually it was a couple that very often get my jokes, they have a large collection of my work.

I have a show scheduled in August, so I'll need to get to work on some larger stuff after the holidays. I'll be looking for something visually arbitrary and disconnected, yet vivid and very present tense. That's the best I can explain a print like this.

Blu Xmas

2010-12-16T11:59:00.000-08:00

Blu Xmas, Acrylic, 12x12"

My friend Dea down at Plastic Chapel on Colfax invited me to enter her Square Footage show. Plastic Chapel mostly sells cutting edge toys and collectibles, such as Smorkin' Labbits, and Neo-Realism in her small gallery. So I decided something fun was in order.

Here's what I came up with, a tribute to all the fun alterna-babes who've kept me company in the Colfax dive bars during holidays when I couldn't get home.

I've always wanted to do more cartoons, but haven't had a lot of time till now. I've been sketching more 'toons, and I'm resolving to finish more of them. I'm also going to dig out my early cartoons done for my high school paper and scan them. All this after I had a reunion with high school buddy Spencer this year, when he mentioned them.

Most of them are pretty weird and twisted, so they'll fit right in to this blog!

Checkin' the List

2010-12-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

Sun breaking through the clouds after a gray morning; shimmering on the lake, shining on dry fallen leaves. I'm on my second pot of coffee, catching up on blog and Facebook posting, and sorting work for a group show at Zip37 gallery.

Last year at this time, I didn't have a lot to do, so I mostly read. It was very relaxing, but I was dead broke, to be honest, which isn't that much fun. I realized that I needed new revenue streams, however small, to tide me through the slow months, when there were no major shows.

So I got to work, dropping off flyers at art supply stores to fill workshops, going on eBay to sell books for extra, well, book money, and doing odd jobs for friends and family. I even got a temporary job, filling in at a college bookstore. Now things are better, but I don't really have a lot of time to read. I decided to fix that, and walked up to the branch library to pick up some books. First one I saw was a Facebook Marketing for Dummies type of thing, and since my marketing has been sort of... dumb, I picked it up. A real busman's holiday, there! Now I've joined a co-op gallery in North Denver where I can have work available all the time, but of course, I need to frame work to fill the wall. And on and on.

But as I learned from the temporary bookstore job, it's a lot more fun to plan your own tasks than have them assigned to you ( though the bookstore is a very pleasant place to work). I'm not really killing myself, but there is usually something on my to-do list. None of which provides a regular paycheck, but all of which seems related to the overall cause. Even the studio time is pretty un-romantic right now. I haven't really created any new images in a month. I've mostly been inking etching plates to complete my many unfinished editions, some of which will become holiday gifts, others which will be offered for sale in the gallery and next summer's shows.

People don't have a lot of understanding of what artists do. Some romanticize it, making reference to some sort of vaguely divine gift while protesting that they can't even "draw a stick figure". I tell them that it's mostly about working at it, putting in time, practicing, but they don't really want to hear that, I guess. Some are a bit patronizing; "you are so lucky to be able to do what you want", and some frankly, are plain clueless- "I want you to paint my child's wall with a unicorn."

If the long litany of little tasks that fill my days sounds like complaining, let me reassure you- I'm having a great time. But the arts are this state's 5th largest employer, and contribute greatly to the slowly improving economy. Let's stop pretending it's magic, or child's play, or some sort of overgrown hobby, though all those are certainly part of it. Mostly it's just hard work.

One more factoid- your holiday dollars, when spent on the arts, tend to return very quickly into your local economy (try me!). Unlike Walmart, the arts work very hard for your money.

2010-12-06T09:58:00.000-08:00

An eventful fall around here, not you all might be expected to know it, from reading the World's Worst Blogger! Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to:

*Two workshops, an eight-week and a one-day, completed this Fall. They were well attended and a lot of fun. The next one begins early in March, and I'll post reminders here and on my Facebook page.

*I have work in several places right now. The highlights would be the Zip37 Backroom Gallery, which will be a permanent spot to find my work, open most Friday evenings and weekend days. Also Open Press Small Print Show, open Fridays and Saturdays through the Holidays.

*My favorite football team, the Colorado Rapids, got on a major roll, and won the MLS Cup. Not that interesting to those of us who are not soccer geeks, but I took the opportunity to brush up on my video and social networking skills, and I'm now planning on posting art shows and possibly workshop videos to the web, not just ecstatic footie fans. It's always fun to learn new software (iMovie), and I think writing and video-making are fun ways to exercise the creative muscles.

*This was also an important season politically, as everyone knows. I've been pretty active in writing and volunteering for issues that I think are important to creative business and other innovators, and although there were setbacks this year, I remain positive that progressive change can still happen. The politics of fear, greed and self interest are rampant right now, but I'm not ready to give up on America as a great nation.

I'll try to keep things a bit simpler around here as I slip back into a regular posting schedule. Next up: some of my favorite work, mine and workshop artists, from the past year.

2010-10-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

The Art Students League is Richardsonian, referring to H.H. Richardson, prominent early 20th Century architect who had a big influence, though most of his actual projects are in the east (the state asylum building near the Albright-Knox in Buffalo, for example).

I'm working at the University of Denver bookstore in their receiving department. It's for all of October; the regular guy is taking family leave for his new child. They let me take Tuesdays off so I can teach the class, and I usually stay after so I can work on my own stuff. It makes for a nice break, and keeps the mental thread going until I can have my weekdays back.

I'm tracking my current thread of work over on my Facebook Artist Page, if you want to see how it's going. I'm hoping to progress to larger and larger works by spring.

Catching Up

2010-10-04T20:52:00.001-07:00

The sun has gotten gold-tinged, the temps have plunged into the 80's. I had a week recently to try and collect my thoughts after a long brutally hot summer, and I'm thinking life is good. Last year at this time, things didn't seem quite so sanguine. I'd had an unprecedented run of shows with no sales at all, in places which made expenses hard to control. I contemplated getting job.

Over a long winter spent reading on the couch and refining my pot bean recipe, I talked my self into believing that the continual scrounging for sales and workshop participants, the legwork put in hunting down small payments and cutting expenses; the hours spent trying to figure out inexplicable Facebook and Blogger apps; were all part of the fun. I did finally find a very flexible temporary job in a college bookstore (which also figures into the recent lack of posts). I've now punched the clock just often enough to remind me that I was right to keep faith. Several shows in a row have paid for themselves, I'm catching up on bills, and despite what the political fear mongers say, things are getting slowly better.

This year the sales are up and the expenses down ( I stayed closer to home). The fall workshop at the Art Student's League is underway, and with seven students feels more relaxed than the preceding two classes, with 8 and 10. Indian summer feels like what summer, and so-called retirement is all about: meeting and enjoying both old and new friends. I put in some time with my favorite comedic intellectuals at Buntport Theatre, caught a couple of Rapids games, and did a late night at a friend's rock and roll gig.

I've gotten quite a bit of printing done as well, both monotypes and etchings. The etchings will probably pop up for whatever holiday show I wind up doing, while the monotypes are pure exploration right now, no real pressure to produce, for the first time in a while. I'll post some pix soon.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

2010-08-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick follow-up on the last post. The Tea-Bagger beat the plagiarist. Apparently Colorado GOP voters are more worried about the U.N. /bicycle conspiracy theory than whether their children receive quality education, or their seniors, health care. But politically, bicycle batallions are the least of their worries. In addition to the third-party Immigration Nazi, who polls show will siphon votes from the paranoid Bicycle Nazi, his own party wants to replace him with a self-funded (read: rich) candidate of their choosing.

In the Senate Primary, appointed incumbent Bennett beat Romanoff to set up the fall contest with another Tea-Bagger, who has money problems too, with Bennett's campaign fund about eight times the size of his own. Neither GOP nominee has ever held office, while the two Dems, both moderate liberals, have accomplished quite a bit in a short time using bi-partisanship and common sense.

So, as Mike Litwin writes in the Post, the Dems, once assumed to be subject to voter backlash, will actually be favored in the top two races heading into the fall campaign. Colorado is too small to be a bellwether state, but if Hickenlooper and Bennett pull this off, the nation will certainly take notice. "Crazy"? Litwin is one of the Post's few token liberal pundits, and I often agree with him, but if paranoid, anti-government libertarian claptrap gets bested in November by experienced, common sense, moderate progressives, will that really be so crazy?

Purple Haze

2010-08-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't commented on politics too much lately, but the GOP Gubernatorial slate aren't really practicing it, anyway. More like slapstick. Yes, I know the conventional wisdom is that the Dems will suffer losses in the mid-term elections because of Tea-Bagger activism, but you couldn't prove it here in Colorado. As those who are paying attention know, Colorado is a former Red State that has been trending Blue. It also, according to CPR, has the largest percentage of Tea-Baggers in any state. I guess that puts us in a Purple Haze, but it sure has been a trip here, and the rest of the country is beginning to stare.

There's all sorts of fun 'n' games going on here, as we're having a primary right now. I could go on forever, but let's peek in on the GOP Gubernatorial Primary.

After it was revealed that the old school, conservative,"jobs" candidate's most recent employment was plagiarizing college profs at 300k a crack, the anti-immigrant guy jumped in with the unsurprising assertion that AZ's new law was forcing illegals not back to Mexico, but onto Colorado's welfare rolls. Presumably, his solution will be to shove them along to Nebraska. Problem solved. Soon they'll be in Canada, where the party out of power ISN'T trying to eliminate their health care system. Thanks, Immigration Nazis!

Now the Tea-Bagger candidate has jumped in with the opinion that Hickenlooper, the current Denver mayor, and presumptive Dem candidate, is by installing bike-share stations and encouraging greener transportation alternatives, hastening a "U.N. takeover". He went on to explain that the plot is "well disguised".

True dat, true dat. As are Curly, Larry and Moe's Statehouse credentials. In politics these days, though, paranoia is the new black. So no one can really guarantee that images of bicycle-mounted U.N. shock troops, or 30 foot walls from Pueblo to Four Corners (neatly slicing off - ouch! pun intended- Trinidad, sex-change capital of the nation) WON'T resonate with voters.

Nor are the Democrats averse to the hijinks. Hickenlooper, who has been perking along just fine, rightly reminding voters that he had created more jobs and balanced more budgets than all the GOP candidates combined, couldn't resist announcing to a large crowd that included several car dealers that he wanted to "wean Americans from the automobile". Innocent enough for us two-wheeling fifth-column types, but in the Rocky Mountain West, where visiting your neighbors often requires a 3-hour drive... well, like the gun fetish thing, Dems usually just don't go there.

Over in the Senate Primary, Andrew Romanoff, who led the charge when the state legislature went Democratic in '06, has been trying to paint his incumbent opponent, Michael Bennett, who was appointed when Ken Salazar joined the Obama administration, and who has done pretty well with his brief time inside the Beltway, as a big-money Washington insider. I'm expecting an ad about Bennett's Swift-Boat adventures on the Arkansas River any day now. There is a Republican Senate Primary, and it does feature another of those zany Tea-Baggers, so stay tuned, as hilarity will undoubtedly ensue.

Actually, speaking of the Arkansas, a new Jean-Claude and Christo project to cover it in the trademark orange fabric is advancing nicely. I don't doubt the Tea Baggers will have something to say about THAT before this whole thing is over, too. There's nothing to stop the U.N. Navy from sending kayaks, too.

Fascination Street

2010-07-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

Boulder is, famously, a weird place, and not just because of its rep as the liberal wack capital of the world. Pound for pound, there are more "Free Tibet" t-shirts and dreadlocks on the mall than anywhere else ( Disclaimer: I have nothing against weirdness and dreads, think they're attractive enough, and I totally embrace the unlikely eventuality that Tibet will be free soon)

Despite the T-shirts that read "Keep Boulder Weird", there's actually a University at least half full of football-watching Republicans to balance things out (and they're lobbying to be allowed to carry guns on campus, talk about weird). I'm not qualified to judge Boulder's deeper zeitgeist; my booth at last weekend's Art Fair was the longest amount of time I've spent there. But how is the People's Republic of Boulder as an art town? About the same as any other mid-sized city, I think.

It certainly has its share of dedicated, Saturday morning art shoppers. But as the temps soared to 102, and the art crowd thinned, I was left with time to observe the rest. I have spent a lot of time at street fair art shows, and have identified a number of types who habituate in any city. It's risky to draw conclusions, I suppose, especially when part of one's income depends upon them, but here they are: ranked from most likely to buy, on down.

Single Women: Whether wearing rings or not, women who shop alone are the drivers of American cultural life. Confident, decisive, businesslike, they embrace their traditional role of home decorator in concert with their more recent economic independence. Whether Grad-school aged, 30-Something, or middle aged they are a force to be reckoned with, and they know it. Despite this, they love hearing what you have to say about particular pieces. If you have them in your booth, your show prospects just got better.

Couples: Whether gay, lesbian or hetero, they collect and buy together. Decision-making is naturally more complex, so you often get multiple visits and comparison shopping. I'm not a salesman and tend to let the work speak for itself, so this suits me fine. Unlike single women, they require little work, since it's the couple that does all the selling, to each other. I get a very romantic feeling watching them decide. If they strart pointing to one of your larger works and discussing which wall it might look best on, you are about to make your booth fee. An important exception is the couple that is there as part of some quality time /sportsbar time trade off. The man usually stands impatiently outside the tent while the woman looks at art. I don't know what this portends for their relationship, but no matter how enthusiastic she may be, you will not sell so much as a postage stamp to her until she dumps him.

Friends: To paraphrase Freewheelin' Franklin- times of friends, and no sales, will get you through better than times of sales, and no friends. Friends fill the boring parts of a show, and make your booth seem more popular than it is. They help you break down and set up, which is hot grungy work. Besides, friends buy an amazing amount of art, even though they often know they can trade for it, or just wait till I give it to them.

Students, hipsters: A relatively small, but very gratifying portion of my typical sales. Fun and enthusiastic, they are often artists themselves. Let us now praise those forward thinkers who spend more on tattoos, piercings and weird art than they do on their cars.

Single Men: They seem fewer, and less conversational, than the women. But they do buy art.

Overthinkers, Stalkers: For whatever reason, and it may be very legitimate, they have a hard time committing or permitting themselves to buy. They return often, or cruise by, are sometimes forthright about their circumstances, and sometimes hover just around the corner, peering at the object of their desire. Sometimes you can get them off the fence by offering a deal, usually not. I suppose that some, burned by the memory of the piece that got away, graduate to more stable finances or decisive frames of mind, and become buyers, but a few return years on end, inquiring about the same piece.

Praisers, Activists: They tend to genuinely like the work. They solicit for art donations for charity ( I donate regularly, if the charity is competent and respectful), for other shows that need more artists, or sometimes they thank you for coming to their small-to-midsized town so that they will be exposed to more and better art. All very nice, and I know there are artists being paid by some public or private funding for this purpose, arts education. But once I've sweated the framing and the set-up, and it may be cynical, then the only meaningful praise is the kind accompanied by a checkbook being opened.

Giclee buyers: They've made the important leap from throwing up the first Bronco poster that comes their way, to seeing walls as an important place for personal expression. But you could make a case that hanging street corner band flyers, or old movie posters, or magazine or comic book covers would be a more authentic (and cheaper) form of expression.

Strollers, Looky-loos They wear a lot of Nike, or Bronco apparel, and saunter by with their ice-creams without purpose, or even focusing their eyes. They sometimes will actually enter the tent, but only to cut through to the ice cream stand. They only stop to park their massive strollers or large, panting dogs (poor doggies!) in front of your hottest-selling bin while they chat about ice cream on their cell phones.

The purpose of a street fair, is of course to attract a large, diverse crowd. And people change, moving up into higher levels of cultural sophistication, or simply giving up and heading to somewhere they are more comfortable, such as the Bronco game, or an ice cream parlor. But let's not kid ourselves about who the artist wants to see walk into his booth, shall we? If we could sum up in one word: a conversationalista (yes, I made that up). I love a talker, and people who are engaged by their surroundings are often themselves very engaging.

These blase, ice-cream slurping Americans have become an archetype around the world as a symbol of Americans' lack of cultural engagement, but it might be an unfair stereotype. Especially in Boulder, Albuquerque, Casper, to name a few small- to mid-sized cities I've been to. More of these cities are seeing street fairs, an outgrowth of ancient old world marketplaces, as a good way to lend vibrancy to a downtown, enliven a city's cultural scene, and help the local economy. I think more people are becoming intrigued by this sort of social exchange.

I've always said the culture wars will be won in the streets, not in the media, and here's one place where the good guys are winning. Who knows when today's ice cream eater may become tomorrow's art collector? As for artists, these shows can be a great way to widen your base, as the gallery scene can certainly be a bit clubby. It's hard work doing these shows, and dispiriting when you watch gawkers parade by for hours on end. I hope to stop doing them at some point, but they have a lot to offer. For one thing, the people-watching is the tops.

In Which I Offer An Explanation of Sorts, Though I May Have Lied About The "Pina Colada Song"

2010-07-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

Where did June/July go to? I meant to post, I really did. It would have been a good time to post the anxiously awaited Squishtoid Manifesto, but my infinitely staffed simian writing pool with their infinitely equipped Remington Selectrics dropped the ball, it must be said. Instead of witty, trenchant, action-inspiring words for artists, we got Shakespeare. Dissappointing to say the least! Especially as the monks' effort, entitled "Titus Andronicus (The Musical)" has already been written.

Okay, that's actually a cumbersome plug for my favorite theatre group here in Denver, Buntport Theatre. Their version of Shakespeare's bloodiest play featured 10-foot, Monty Python-esque spurts of stage blood; a chalkboard to tot up the body count, and a stage design centered mostly around a 1963 Ford Econoline van, which they rolled into position for various scenes while delivering wacky little expository asides. And song, lots of song. That was a fondly remembered weekend for me, not least becase it is the only one in memory in which I saw not one, but two musical entertainments featuring people being baked into pies and eaten (Sweeney Todd opened that week, how could one PLAN that)! Whether all of this makes it into the Squishtoid Manifesto, as metaphor or otherwise, is up to the monkeys. But it begs the question: do we really need this blog revived?

But I digress- of course we need a Squishtoid blog! And where have I been? Well, I did breakdown and take on a temporary day job in a college bookstore to help pay down my credit cards. Other than that, it has been a productive spring /summer, with one very successful show, and two reasonably successful. So I've got a pretty good excuse for not updating, even if the monkeys don't. Other than the statistically long odds of them actually randomly generating anything as hilarious as Titus Andronicus (The Musical) of course. You'd think the Manifesto would be much easier, but my patience is wearing thin.

As for the shows, some seemed surprised when sales at the Summer Art Market were unaffected by the relentless rain and chilly temps, but not this little wet duck. After all, if the reaction to a funnel-cloud sighting in '09 was to brandish credit cards and go on a buying spree, then a little English football type weather in honor of USA v England was unlikely to slow them down.

A couple of buyers took the opportunity to also hop over to Open Press for the final week of my gallery show there, and that led to a small flurry of sales there, too. Then, last weekend saw my first visit to Boulder for their Art Fair on the Pearl Street mall, and sales there were solid, if not as spectacular as ASL, which turned out to be my best show ever. This year is certainly off to an encouraging start. And I've been making lots of friends, though I'm cheating and doing it the old fashioned way, and not on Facebook.

The most interesting thing to happen in Boulder (well besides the unicyclist in head-to-toe pink spandex; the 9 foot tall hottie on stilts; and the world's worst bag-piper in full tartan regalia setting up shop 5 feet from my booth to practice his medley of "God Bless America", "The Marine Hymn", and "The Pina Colada Song") was the Festival Director walking up to me in 100 degree heat with an old school, county fair-type fluffy blue ribbon and announcing that I'd been named "Best in your category". I wasn't foolish enough to ask what my category was, or how many people were in it. The prize came with a small honorarium which I invested in a fortified grain beverage that has become an integral part of my health regimen.

So I apologize for not posting sooner, in case anyone may have pictured me holed up in a dive bar, cursing the day I ever left the grocery biz. No, far from it! I spent most of June holed up in a dive bar, cursing the ref! Actually a bit of an exaggeration- I spent most of the World Cup on my couch, listening to the excellent Pablo Ramirez, and puzzling out his calls with my creaky high school Spanish, in order to spend more time shrink wrapping and framing. I did manage to hit the British Bulldog for a few games, including the dramatic USA v. Algeria, from which my ears are still ringing.

Next up, a return to the studio for some editions and larger works, and then the Denver modernism show in August. Hopefully, a more regular blogging schedule, too. I raised enough cash for an upgrade to the old iMac and a new iPhone, so I'm thinking that updates will be easier to do, like say, from the British Bulldog.

Rain, Rain, Raiiin; I Don't Mind

2010-06-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a while, mostly due to preparations for the Art Students League Summer Art Market in Central Denver. As you can see, weather was less than art show-like. We had a total of 20 minutes of sun all weekend, with serial downpours, and temps so low you could see your breath. I'm still drying out, and warming up.

Somehow, and this is pending a few sales that have yet to finalize, I had my best show ever. At times, I was so swamped, I was pretty sure I was losing sales, and I've gotten two e-mail inquiries since the show ended.

I wasn't the only artist telling this tale, and that's one reason the event is viewed as a can't-miss by many. I actually skipped the biggest football game in 60 years ( USA v. England) to do this show.

It's surprising that so many shows don't try to emulate the Summer Art Market, with its intimacy, walk-ability and simple, honest entry rules: if it is taught at the school, you can show it. No crafts, no jewelry, no giclees. I have nothing against crafts, jewelry and reproductions (giclees), but they're all available at the mall. If you're going to have an art show, focus on art. The people of Central Denver, and judging by the addresses on the checks, many other towns in Colorado, apparently agree.

And, I've said it before, when you support the arts ( Colorado's 5th largest employer), you are helping the economy.

2010-06-02T16:57:00.000-07:00

Millions of Monkeys are banging away in the back room on surplus Remington Selectrics, hard at work on the long-awaited Squishtoid Manifesto...well, wait.

It appears they're actually working on the long promised World Cup brackets, actually.

Anyway, it appears the monkeys and I have gotten a bit behind. I've been getting ready for the Art Students League Summer Art Market, the best little street fair in the Rocky Mountains. Making art, then framing and shrink wrapping it, all while preparing to teach a workshop, and doing a small gallery show at Open Press. Though now the Spring workshop has finished, freeing up a little time.

Teaching a workshop has been good. Good for paying bills, good for focusing my thoughts on what I try to do with monotypes, good for making new friends. I’m very happy when I walk into school Tuesday mornings. Do something you love, and never work a day in your life, as the saying goes. I thanked the artists by bringing them donuts. Show people you like them by feeding them gluten, corn syrup and fat, I say!

The social qualities of art don’t get talked about. Art is supposed to be good for you, and those who go see it or collect it are generally seen as sophisticated. But the people you meet when you go to art shows, and art fairs and the conversations you have are just more satisfying. Much daily conversation in America seems to center around sports. I have plenty of sporting friends so I am one who joins in.

Though sports has a metaphoric value, let’s remember that art IS metaphor. Sports is like weather- it makes for good small talk, but deeper conversations are relatively rare. Art takes friendship into the realm of the spiritual without getting into the tricky, and sometimes contentious area of religious spirituality.

I’m including music and theatre in the general term art, but no place is more informal and cheaper to meet people than an art show, especially an opening or fair. And art is Colorado’s 5th largest employer! ( I’m sure other states can boast of similarly surprising numbers). By going to an art show, or taking a class, you not only enrich your own life, you help the economy.

One more point. With the extremists mobilizing often from right-wing mega-churches, and using these cultural centers to organize and exchange best practices, the Centrists and Liberals have no equivalent meeting ground ( unless you count PTA's and Universities, themselves often under attack from extremists and tea-bagger types.) Urban neighborhood bar culture and Union Halls used to perform this function, but have been nearly legislated out of existence due to concerns about drunk driving and the prevailing anti-worker sentiment in government. So cultural institutions, from big civic mega-museums to art galleries, music clubs or street fairs will do just fine for starting a conversation. And change begins with EXchange! Sometimes, we have to talk 'n' walk, before we walk the talk.

This Just In...

2010-05-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

The US Men's National Team training camp in Princeton has not provided a lot of news. This is frustrating to fans combing the internets for indications of Coach Bob Bradley's intentions to fill the many question marks in his line up, and Soccer in the US could probably benefit from a small window of media attention that it gets around the World Cup every four years. But it's probably a good thing for the team who are burdened with a double set of expectations.

The expectations for the US team tend to be framed in the context of a mainstream media that goes into full butt-covering mode after years of explaining away editorial prejudice by calling soccer “boring”, “unathletic” or even, in the famous words of one gridiron shill, “a commie, pansy sport.”

Informed readers will notice quite a bit of fantastical evaluations of the team from writers who are accustomed to American sports leagues, where a common occurence is a fairly lightly-regarded team getting on a five game hot streak and going to the Super Bowl. This is the same fantasy world where a team from the East can beat a team from the Midwest, and be declared “World Champion”, though neither of them has actually played the world.

This World Cup is a true world championship, with 200 plus teams starting out, and the last 32 contesting the Cup. Surprises do happen (especially in Mundiales where the host is not particularly strong), but only seven coutries have ever actually won. The wheels of change in International Football turn slowly.

For the players, the pressure to prove soccer is a sport worthy of this sudden media attention is conflated with the pressure to beat teams with far better development systems and experienced players. Those who follow the team know that the reality is that the team is young, and speedy (far from “unathletic”), but still lacks the vision and subtlety of touch required to consistently win at top levels. It will be a step up for them to just play consistent football versus heavyweights or even other pretenders from Europe and Africa, whom they've always struggled against. This year, they are placed in a group composed of just such teams, England, Slovenia and Algeria.

The first indication of how they'll do comes Tuesday and Saturday, as they take on Czech Republic and Turkey, respectively. These are strong European squads which significantly, got beaten out of WC spots by other, stronger teams, such as England and Slovenia. The Tuesday game will precede the final roster cut-down, the Turkey game is the first tune up with the final squad.

The games don't count in the standings but are significant for young athletes who must react to the pressure to win a roster spot, and the US team overall will no longer be able to avoid the spotlight.

Folk and Jazz

2010-05-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Can't believe how quickly the Monotype Workshop I'm teaching at the Art Students League of Denver is winding down! I also can't believe the diversity of prints we continue to see there. Tuesday I did a quick demo on Chine Colle, a sort of collage technique where colored paper is glued onto the main ( usually white) paper during printing.

Two different approaches are seen here. Barbara (top) laid down a criss-cross pattern featuring the colors of the Italian flag ( turns out she's from my hometown of Buffalo, NY) under a lively, folk art style rendering of a tree. The Chine Colle element adds emotional depth to an already strong graphic.

Beth ( below), has favored experimental modernism since the class began, as in her studio work. Mondrian would have disapproved of her jazzy diagonals and intersections, but our class meets only 3 blocks from Broadway Ave, so he would easily see the "Boogie Woogie" element here. Well balanced color, with blue and black triangles providing a steady beat for the orange, red and acid green.

I'm preparing a proposal for another, very similar workshop in the fall. I think we had a pretty good time, and I know of one participant, at least, who learned a lot ( the instructor). I'm also teaching a one-day workshop at the League Saturday, Aug. 7. You can register for either right here.

Want a free sample? Got that, too. Tomorrow at my show at Open Press ( 40 W. Bayaud), I'm doing a demo and gallery talk that's open to the public, with drinks served. That's 2 PM.

Was going to debut the long-awaited Squishtoid Manifesto there, but the monkeys working at my bank of used Remington Selectrics got a little grumbly when I brought that idea up. Then again, they've been working hard, and so have I. I might have to give us all the entire World Cup off.

It Begins

2010-05-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Today, the most significant story in sports will come out of Princeton, NJ, though the sports talk wing of right-wing talk radio will work hard to ignore it. The United States Men's National Team will gather for the first day of practice in advance of the World Cup. The Mundial is by far the world's greatest and most popular sports event, despite one "lite" beer commercial repeatedly assuring its empty-calorie-swilling fans that gridiron throwball is "the world's most popular sport". Simply repeating it during the numerous stops in action of an NFL punt-a-thon doesn't make it so, and the World Cup would dwarf a month of Super Bowls.

The young, speedy American team probably lacks the experience and subtlety needed to go far in the Cup, but the event is significant to Americans in more ways than that. It's being held in South Africa this year, and many would like to see Barack Obama pay a visit (though not the hard pressed South African police).

The symbolic value of this would be hard to miss- except on sports yell radio. The first black President of the U.S. visiting the one country whose record on race is as dark, yet as potentially redemptive, as ours. Throw in the Obama administration's work to repair the damage done to the USA's image by the single-mindedly unilateral Bushies, and the fact that Africa is a continent that could really use a bit of good news, and you can see that football isn't popular just because it's exciting to watch. It really does have the power to bring diverse peoples together, and to inspire hope and change.

But of course, that's another story you won't find on American sports pages. They get right on those soccer riots, though.

2010-05-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

May already! This is a very busy time of year for me even without a day job, have no idea how I managed it with one. This post will be a hodge podge just to let you know I'm still breathing- I'll shoot for a longer post later this week.

First, thank you to Conor O'Donnell ( and all of the artists in the workshop) for letting me post these prints. Check out my Facebook page for more. It's really been fun to see the wide variety of approaches, they look great on the pages, and the images provide me with talking points while I'm so busy. There have been some nice comments on the work, which I pass along to the artists. The class itself has been real fun. If you feel like leaving a comment, feel free. Though we've moved into color, Conor is still liking the rich black and grays on white, with the nice, sharp graphic look coming as a result of stencil.

The Open Press show is up and running, and there have been some sales (to some of my previous collectors, hooray). There are two events associated with that still to come, a demo and gallery talk May 22, and The June First Friday. Come down for a drink if you are in town!

Of course, those who know me well know that all of this frantic activity is in aid of only one thing: sitting on me bum all June, watching football! As you can see, I did start a series of posts on the various groups a while back, then got swamped. I still hope to post more on the World Cup, if only to get myself psyched up for the world's greatest sporting event.

And naturally, I still have cultural opinions. Expect some sort culture wars-type of screed sometime soon. Nothing gets me and the typewriter monkees in the back room fired up quicker than soccer-related xenophobia.

The Cruelest Month?

2010-04-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

I remember being bored at times back in January/February, when it too cold to go out, and I would prowl through the shelves looking for something new to read, or re-read. Now, in wet, gray April/May, with the workshop, and the show at Open Press (opening tonight!), boredom is not a problem. It's been a bit frantic. Tonight, starting at 6 pm, it starts getting fun again. Crocus-pocus !

People who find yakking about art entertaining should try yakking about their own art. People are not afraid to be blunt, as in: "What were you thinking?" In many cases, I WASN'T THINKING AT ALL, which to me, is part of the point of art. In this picture, "Interior with Absence", above, with its minimal structure and distressed imagery, I intended to evoke the fleeting feel of time past. Once highly anticipated events that are now dim in the memory. Do those people with the funny haircuts and our social security numbers even exist? And what of those who are gone? What creates their strange hold on the emotions?

Which brings us back to boredom, itself a form of absence-in-waiting. With two upcoming First Fridays and a Saturday demo, as well as the workshop and ASLD Summer Art Market, boredom isn't likely to have much of a hold on me.

Pot-Boiler

2010-04-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Not sure how I ever found time for all this stuff with a day job! April is always a little frantic compared to the winter months, though.

My monotype workshop at the Art Students League has definitely taken up some hours in prep time, for sure. The artists themselves are very fun to work with; a very lively group that doesn't mind having new stuff thrown at them, and responds with a spirit of adventure.

I've been doing some odd jobs to earn extra cash, and taking care of HOA business, too.

Lastly, I'm still making new work, in advance of a small show at Open Press' front gallery. This opens up April 30, and I'll post an event info page on my Facebook Page soon. If you would like to receive these sorts of announcements as a reminder on your computer, just click the link, then click "like".

Lastly, a preview. Above, "Entropic Still Life", 1/1, 30x42".

Under the Big Sky

2010-04-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

Above, a nice landscape by Ron Zito, from my monotype workshop Tuesdays at the Art Students League. Ron hasn't done a whole lot of monotypes, but is an accomplished painter, and he understood immediately that gesture and atmospherics will get you a lot more when working with ink on paper, than detail. I wish I could show you the subtle texture he got in the sky better than this snapshot, I think it makes the print. We had some other nice landscapes, and I'll post again soon, but several artists chose to work in abstract, and I've got a small portfolio of those here.

First Day of School

2010-04-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Grant Street School ( above, now the Art Students League) is a Richardsonian Romanesque building not far from the Mayan Theatre. It may have been designed by Edbrooke, I will have to check on that. When I arrived in Denver in the 80's, it had already been decommissioned by DPS and was being rented out as Artists' studios. I remember visiting many of my friends there- Mark Friday, Jill Hadley Hooper, Phil Bender, Meg Ingraham. I remember sitting in Jill's studio, drinking beer and blasting the Pixies and Wolfgang Press.

The Art Students League had started in the same Victorian commercial building downtown where Open Press first began (and I began making monotypes). Then they bought the school.

The first day of the workshop was very fun, and it went fast. It's not easy to anticipate all the little issues, and I didn't. Next time I'll be better prepared, and the demo won't take so much time, and there will be more time for basics like paper-tearing, plates and of course, hands-on printing.

Everyone seems very nice, and most seem to be at least somewhat familiar with printmaking basics. There are eight peeps, which is more than I can remember ever teaching. Most are my age (-ish). I anticipate a lively eight weeks. We did get some prints done, but I got talking (go figure), and forgot to take pictures. Next week. I'll post the demos too, and I bet there are some interesting progressions there, since already I can feel a renewed curiosity about things I used to do, and moved away from.

Boy, I sure was beat after that, so I hung out on the couch and watched some bike racing, then I took a nap. It felt great to have the first one under my belt, after so many months of waiting.

Preview

2010-04-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

The first class will feature an introduction to my thinking and philosophy about the obscure medium of monotype, as summed up by the workshop's title: Spontaneous Graphic Textures. That is, many seem to approach monotype as a painting or watercolor, but the process seems capable of so much more.

I'll do a demo that emphasizes the amount of different textures that can be gotten in the simplest image, using the simplest tools.

We'll start making prints right away, thanks to the utter simplicity of monotype as compared to the technical processes of etching and lithography. You can put ink on a plexiglas plate (above) and run it through the press right away. The key is how much ink you apply, so that simpler ways of applying it seem appropriate the first day. For example, rollers ( brayer) apply ink in a controlled, even manner. Yet the many ways you can apply, then distress or texture the ink on the smooth plate allows for a lot of unique imagery. Sometimes, what you take out of a monotype is as important as what you put in.

Wish me luck, and I will try to get some student work to post at some point, if they are willing.

I Like Having You Guys Stop By

2010-03-31T21:25:00.000-07:00

My new browser actually allows me to comment in the comments section. My class at the Art Students League has met the minimum enrollment for it to be scheduled. Life is good, people!

To celebrate, it's Easter Egg time. The next 10 people who click "follow" are in a drawing for a print (those who have already clicked "follow" simply leave a comment before I get to 14 followers). No time limit, it's just when there are 10 new followers. I've been too busy to pick out a print, but I will post an image soon.

Millions of Monkeys...

2010-03-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

...are, as we speak, whompin' away randomly at millions of surplus, "Front Page"-era Remington typewriters (two or three per simian, typewriters are cheap! free, even) in a warehouse not far from the dark, 70's chintz of Herb's Hideout on Larimer, where Jack Kerouac once roamed looking for meaning in Denver's tenderloin, poetry to match the mountains. They are hard at work on the long-promised Squishtoid Manifesto. I may as well let the monkeys do it, since I have no clue. Like a lot of people, I’ve been busy trying to survive.

It has been nearly a year since I stumbled out of the machine-like florescent hum of my day job, into the harsh light of possibility. A vague plan for creative entrepreneurship was tapping away in my head. Art and self- realization awaited. But the manifesto (and the business plan) didn't... manifest. There was quite a bit of day-to-day grind to leaving the day-to-day grind behind. And naturally, finding and affording health care is a big worry. Nowadays, many find their work choices defined not by their vision for their careers, but by the need for health care.

It's not really my intention to inject huge amounts of political opinion into this blog, but the framing narrative here is the struggle to have an independent creative/working life, and there can be no doubt that the ongoing culture wars, as well as the health care reform controversy that stems from them, affect that directly, so it's kind of hard to avoid. And America, in putting off resolution of this issue for 60 years, has made it harder to solve it.

Nixon proposed a health care plan very similar to the one we've just passed, and Betty Ford advocated choice and the era. But that was the old GOP. The right wing, as they gutted the old GOP, also ratcheted the scope of American democracy further and further right. As resources dwindled, priorities changed. We have to make good choices. But the right wing shouters and haters have consistently downsized the definition not just of the American dream, but of American. And how did Wal Mart become the model for what employment should offer us? There is something appalling about allowing corporations (not to mention rich politicians) to decide who does, and who does not, receive health care in a free society.

The old saw that Europeans work to live, while Americans live to work has never been more apropos. America, as a country, has never figured out why we work, and it has turned the notion of time well spent into a zero-sum game. We measure ourselves in material wealth rather than health and happiness, so we shouldn't be surprised when the system demands that we devote our ever shrinking free time to securing the basics that much of the rest of the world has long ago figured out how to make, well, basic. Dreams get postponed. education suffers, kids suffer, retirement suffers. The middle class is a vanishing oasis, the electronics store our stress relief, with VISA the ticket to entry. It's not a healthy way to live, physically or as a culture, and bingo! here come the number crunchers to tell us why we as a nation, can't have health care. Though ironically, as a society, we devote tremendous resources to convincing ourselves why something can't be done. We need a few dreamers.

I figured I fit the bill. My timing wasn’t great, in the middle of a recession, but it was an old story- the corporation was eying the pension to maintain profits, in the current political climate, it was sort of use it or lose it. In taking the plunge I stepped into the middle of a debate that was no less about dreams than it was about reality.

The far right doesn’t seem to believe in the American dream. The existing system, in which workers receive health care only at the sufferance of their employer or corporate health insurance concerns, presents workers with little flexibility in terms of striking out on their own, long a wellspring of entrepreneurial creativity that has fueled the American economy. The American dream has always encompassed everything from real estate licenses to hot dog carts, but now is expected to show a profit. If your dream- or your health- doesn’t conform to the business plan, you must not be an American. Is it work for its own sake that forms the dream, or independence? The desire to see the society and its dreams move forward is obviously great as evidenced in the current political mantra “Yes, we can”.

Isn’t independence why people leave their jobs; why they work for peanuts in the first place? Do people work at Walmart because they are just opposed to decent wages and health care? Society benefits when people apply their talents to produce. It is not properly society’s aim to put everyone to work in a dead end job. Yet when the fundamental question of providing the basics of a productive work force- education and health care- arise, we get the the party of “No we can't”. When government lacks imagination, and representatives go to Washington simply to be reelected, the American dream withers.

Health care reform is a simple commonsense idea that strictly by the numbers will more efficiently channel resources while simultaneously ensuring freedom to venture out into our dreams. It nearly got talked to death. Because there are always reasons to be found not to do something. I know. I could have stayed in the safety of corporate retail hoping the Corporation felt like funding health care. But like a lot of people in middle age these days, I was far too young to be coasting into old age, and what could it possibly profit a society to keep me or anyone in such a state of inertia? According to filmy sentimentalism of the brokerage house commercials, our generation is redefining retirement, yet the mechanisms of our own society haven't kept pace. It is a contradiction of the American Dream- in order to guarantee ourselves quality health care, we have to do the thing that the capitalist heroes like Steve Forbes have always advised us not to do: postpone, downsize, sublimate our dreams. How unhealthy! As we shrank the American dream, we made it more likely that we, as a culture, will do nothing special. And by the law of diminishing returns, we risked decline.

The health care crisis, as most have realized by now wasn't about efficiency, but about the Reaganite desire to shrink government arbitrarily. Like those monkeys, the right banged purposelessly away at one key “tax, tax, tax”, hoping no one would notice that there was no vision, and no faith in America. But our government is, by definition, a vision, and tax just a tool. In trying to shrink government, they sought to shrink the definition of "American”. Health care reform, far from the radical takeover the extremists have cast it as, is simply a return to the freedom to shape our own dreams. Far from a government takeover, it is a populist takeover. In an America that is still struggling to move forward from the wars, recession and huge deficits of the Bush years, can we really afford to spend far too much money on a system that limits our ability to have independent innovation?

There are still tough choices to be made. In this case the right choice was made. I’m feeling better about my personal choices too, now the economy is showing signs of recovery, though I may still need to get a job to make them work. Our health care system is somewhat more rational and user friendly, though premiums will undoubtedly be a stretch, and fixes will be needed. But it’s far more adaptable to changing needs. The road to creative entrepreneurship will always be tough, but at least the road is a bit clearer of obstacles. I have a clearer vision of what is possible.

Is it possible to get those monkeys going on that manifesto? I might have to give it time. But anything’s possible- after 60 years, we got Washington to believe in the American Dream.

Lines of Departure

2010-03-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

I may have posted this one before; it's actually from late 2009. But this is a professionally done shot, so I think it will look much better. There were two layers, or "drops". One for the yellow and blue/gray of the sky, the second for the black in the foreground.

We'll look at what can be done with simple color schemes and multi-drop prints in my workshop, which you can still register for using the link to the left. Classes start first week of April on Tuesday afternoons, and we'll have fun with the Spring skies.

Rebel Without a Caucus?

2010-03-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

It remains far easier to obstruct commonsense reform on Capitol Hill, than to bring it to an actual vote. Though I'm hopeful that the Health Care Bill will pass, I'll admit that it'll be a relief just to see some resolution. A yes vote, for most Americans, means moving on to the process of evaluating what works, and what doesn't work in the current package; and then moving on to financial reform.

For the right wing, that means moving on from legislative obstruction to judicial obstruction on health care, and in Congress, from health care obstruction to yes, obstruction of financial reform. I think we can see the pattern here. The "Party of No" has "no" plans to do anything until they see if voters will blame Democrats for the stasis in November.

Michael Bennett also sees the pattern clearly enough, and this is part of the reason I'll be supporting him at the precinct caucus tonight. Bennett, who has most definitely NOT adopted the Blue Dog "duck and cover" strategy, has been active in trying to revive the public option, but has also been outspoken about the cynical filibustering in Washington. Now he's proposed a very interesting plan for reform of the Senate. Naturally, there's a likelihood that the GOP will see this issue too, as an occasion for obstructionism.

Nor is there any guarantee that Bennet, who was appointed to his seat after Ken Salazar joined the Obama Administration, will even be around to pursue reform. Andrew Romanoff, who has an impressive resume of his own after the Democrats took over the State House in 2006, has gotten a huge jump in organizing, and appears to be leading in polls.

Bennett, who's impressed party big wigs, and drew an Obama appearance at the Fillmore on Colfax for a fundraising event last month, appears to have benefitted from the Obama organization's expertise in caucuses. Media coverage and Facebook buzz appear to be high, and I don't doubt the caucus attendance will be unusually high (The Squish regularly attends Presidential-year cacuses, but this is the first time I can recall getting motivated for an off year caucus).

The caucus straw poll is non binding, and even if he loses, Bennett can still beat Romanoff in the primary. But the Faux News pundits will be sniffing for blood in the results, and will almost certainly play a Bennett loss as a repudiation of health care, and filibuster reform. What it will be really, is a chance to put Republican Gayle Norton up against a non-incumbent Romanoff, and of course, another victory for obstructionism.

Strange Daisies, Indeed

2010-03-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

"Strange Garden", 1/1, 30x42"

Laura from the Art Students League very nicely e-mailed last week that she would like to use an older image of mine that she spied on the Open Press web site for a post card she was putting together. I definitely said yes, the more you get your stuff out there... The post card is to promote classes at the league, and I have one that is registering now for April and May, so that will help.

It's often an eye-opener when someone discovers a picture you've sort of moved on from. Coming up with ideas I want to try is rarely a problem for me, but moving frenetically on to the next, before I've really delved into the first, can be. So Strange Garden (above), the piece Laura noticed, made me wonder if I need to revisit the idea. For one thing, with my focus on negative space this year, it's interesting that she would call attention to a picture with so much of it. Also the print was done on a lithography press, as opposed to an etching press. An etching press rolls on the plate, a litho press scrapes across it, providing a different sort of action on the ink. Here at Squishtoid, where we are very technical minded, we refer to this as Squishmojonic force. Or something like that.

In this case it really worked to my advantage, and you can see the thicker blobs of ink were fortuitously extruded in a very organic, iris-like way that as far as I'm concerned, really makes the image. Anyway, it makes me wonder if I should use a litho press sometimes. I'd been doing some very gothic flower prints for a while that I loved, then bango! couldn't get 'em the way I liked them all of a sudden. I like flowers for their abstract colors and elements. It would be nice to celebrate spring with some new flower prints.

As for the workshop, it runs for 6 weeks and you can get more info here. The League has a revamped web site with online registration, and it's very easy to use. I think we'll have a lot of fun, and we'll cover technical as well as aesthetic issues, so no experience necessary. This one will run 6 weeks, but there are one-day workshops planned for Summer. When it's done, you'll be able to dazzle attractive persons with your knowledge of Squishmojonic forces. Or something like that.

Questions? Leave a comment, or e-mail me.

"A" is for: Are You Ready For Some Football?

2010-03-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

Poor Mexico. So far from God, and so close to the United States. -Porfirio Diaz, Mexican Dictator.

I predicted as I took my place at the bar, that the USA would fall to the Dutch by either 2-0, or 2-1. The first would be the expected result, given the last game in Amsterdam and their history in Europe, the second more hopeful, reflecting their improvement against traditional powers as in the '09 Confederations Cup victory v. Spain.

They lost 2-1. They looked much better than their last visit, when they were never really in the game, especially in midfield. This time the midfield was effective for long stretches, and the team was able to close the gap in the late going on a nice goal, and even threaten to tie. So there is hope.
It'll be a while before we see any more warm-ups though, so it's all guess work from here. But the lead-up to the World Cup has begun, and it's time to start doing what the Cup is great for- learning about other cultures (though soccer-haters and other xenophobes would not agree).

There is plenty of team-by-team analysis around, but I'm taking my cue from a very fun book from the 2006 Cup, "The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup" (edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. I searched for this year's equivalent, but alas). It's a very readable book that gathers natives and fans of each team to write something on that nation. Since there are 18 return teams this year, it's still relevant.

Group "A" is a very interesting one with South Africa, the host; France, recent World Champs and hosts; and Uruguay, shockingly (for some) 2 time winners in 1930 and '50. But for purposes of this brief peek, the headliner is arch-rival Mexico.

If Mexico is, as former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda says in his somewhat mournful piece on the homeland of "Los Tricolores", the richest of the poor nations, at least in futbol, they've always been the poorest of the rich nations. They've hosted twice, and made memorable runs, not least at the 2006 Cup, where they were game before losing on a brilliant Argentina goal.

Now the northern giant threatens hegemony in this vital area, too. Worse, they do it in almost off-hand fashion, with the US' string of victories in crucial matches, such as the 2002 quarterfinals, arousing no passion in the football-hating press and NFL-obsessed public. It seems unfair. Here is ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons' impression of a USA v. Mexico match in infamous Azteca Stadium.

Football, in fact, is often not fair, though Mexico can still have the last laugh this year. Though the first game (the opener!) v. the hosts will be tough in terms of the crowd, South Africa really hasn't been playing that well. Uruguay will be game, but their days of regular participation are long gone (their cups came during an economic and soccer heyday as host of a truncated field in the first event, and via an upset of Brazil before that nation's era of domination began). France is also underachieving, notably needing a Thierry Henry handball v. minnows Ireland to even qualify.

Mexico is back in good form, so passion and pride may very well carry them farther than the young US team. Some would like nothing better than to see Los Tri fail, but once the US is out, I always root for them. It only seems fair.

Save the Orphans

2010-02-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

Some "orphans" sit in my drawer at the studio because I don't have time to figure out what to do with them. So I made time for a few on Monday. On the right is the first layer, from last fall some time. Then I did a second drop Monday. Now it's finished, one small task I can cross off the list.

"Disassembled Sonata" 1/1, 21x15"

More From Monday

2010-02-19T15:35:00.000-08:00

Interior, 1/1, 15x21"

This is also from last Monday. Kind of a test run. It has pencil lines, because I love drawing and have wanted to include it in monotypes for a while. The different colored torn papery-looking elements are chine colle, loosely translated, that means "different colored torn papery process". They are wheat-pasted on to the print by the pressure of the press (5,000 psi, as advertised in our mast head).
It's not a particularly exciting image, but it certainly has me thinking about possibilities for other images.

One Last Gray Day

2010-02-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

I 've done a larger, vertical version of the Ridgetop theme. While the photo isn't that good, I'm going to move on to some other ideas, so I decided to wrap up the gray-on-gray/negative space thread for now. The best of these can be found here, in a portfolio with commentary. Be sure to click " Become a Fan", too. I'll post newer work soon.

BTW, in case you out-of-towners are wondering, yes, it HAS been an unusually gray winter here.

Obstructed View

2010-02-11T16:09:00.000-08:00

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers. -Thomas Pynchon

From the ridge top east of Colorado Springs, CO you get a view overlooking the little upscale city and the Front Range behind it, including Colorado's most iconic "Fourteener", Pike's Peak. It's so close you can seemingly touch it, and the scene rivals any I've seen in the west. But I rarely go there. It is a city that has made itself into a compound for the right wing/anti government /tea bagger movement, a breeding lab for anti-gay hate legislation, anti-tax libertarian fantasies, and religious intolerance. It's a holy center for the Party of No.

On that same ridge top sits Focus on the Family. Their Tebow Superbowl ad caused a controversy which highlights the extent to which the right wing has seized control of the ongoing debates surrounding the culture wars.

Every element in the ad story exemplifies the right's cynical approach to political discourse that dates back to Willie Horton and before, and continues through Swift Boat ads and Health Care lies. Everything about the ad was brilliantly staged. Not just the ad itself, which featured popular jock Tim Tebow, college qb who goes into battle with bible verses painted on his face, in a feel-good tribute to his mom's decision to have him, instead of a medically sound abortion ( I didn't see the ad, but have heard it was fairly bland). Delivered during the climactic game/spectacle of the league that has become the entertainment arm of right wing big media, the ad reinforced gridiron culture's fantasy of fighting American heroes to the millions of Bud Light- and Doritos- buzzed couch muffins who have always lapped it up.

The run-up attracted protests from NOW, allowing right wingers to portray them as censors (CBS, has in fact, refused left wing organizations such as Move-On.org space during the Superbowl, but now says the policy has changed). One rebuttal by a right wing sock puppet even used the words "fair and balanced", thus slipping in a plug for his favored sock puppet advocacy network. The Sports page "journalists", ever hungry for "relevance" to alleviate the grinding boredom of covering American Football, went along for the ride, chastising the perpetually un-savvy NOW, before heading back to their free, NFL-sponsored buffets. Excuse the mixing of sports metaphors, but in every possible way with this ad, Focus hit a home run. Smoke and mirrors for 2.7 mil- cheap!

Meanwhile, what's going on in Focus on the Family's sprawling little upscale home town? Funny you should ask. The supposedly left-dominated media has not noticed, but apparently there's trouble in the compound, and angst in those McMansions.

I'll let this Salon.com post, by writer David Sirota tell the tale. If you've ever wondered what happened to Reagan's "shining city on a hill", Sirota says, "the view isn't pretty".

Yes, the right of reproductive choice is very important to most Americans. But are we being distracted from the basic issue of whether the right wing Libertarian fantasy of no tax/no government/no public safety net even works? The politics of greed have made a crumbling joke of one of Tea Bagger-ism's epicenters. Time to put down the Doritos and start asking each other what we can do to save the nation from the same fate.

Gray Days

2010-02-04T12:47:00.000-08:00

"Ridgetops", Monotype, 15x21"

I'll do a larger version Monday. I'll lighten the far ridge, and adjust the scale and distance. I promised myself some more interiors, so I think that'll be next. Nor have I done a "fun" Weekend-type post lately, so I'll work up something of that nature.

More Winter

2010-01-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

"Winter" 30x22" Monotype

This is a larger version, from Monday, and it actually came out better than this rather amateurish snapshot might indicate. I wanted to post it simply to complete the progression I've been yammering on about. I'm getting it photographed for possible publication, and when I have that, I'll post a complete portfolio on my Facebook Fan Page.
Next week I'll move on to a different concept in this same, minimalist vein.

More Ghost Tales

2010-01-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

I got very busy with a summer workshop proposal and a residency application, and almost forgot I promised to post a ghost of the last monotype. Here it is. I think you can see that the dark gray retains its graphic power more than the light gray.

I still have options, though. I can print another layer ( something in the foreground?), or I can hand tint the little ponds/ puddles to bring them out. Or I can just leave it alone. What do you think? I'll probably work on it Monday.

Sketchy Business

2010-01-19T15:43:00.000-08:00

The year seems to be getting off to a good start. I wanted to do more sketching as a way of adding focus and unity of purpose, and I wanted to keep the images minimal and make greater use of negative space. Those things seem to be happening here, in the print I did Monday. It's not in its final state; I'll need to touch up a couple of areas.

It's two drops, gray and dark gray, and it was trickier than it looks; I took my time. I had gotten a late start because we went over to help lift a press into a car bound for its new home up in the mountains. It's a Squishtoid occupational hazard- every time someone buys a press, we wind up doing the grunt work. It's not something my back especially looks forward to after 25 years of lifting 50 pound bales of potatoes, but it's nice to see a printmaker living the dream, and she did buy us breakfast and bake us cookies!

I have a ghost of this which I'll post tomorrow. For now, I'll post the sketch to prove I'm not just talking the talk.

Ghost Tales

2010-01-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

That Tuesday posting ( below ) was actually the ghost of this print ( above ). If there is enough ink left on the plate after the first run through, you can put a fresh sheet of paper down, and run it again, and that is called a ghost. These are just quick snapshots, so the color is off in the ghost- it came out much bluer where the gray should be- but you can see that there was plenty of black ink left for a second impression. Sometimes, as the hard edges become softer, the ghost is actually the superior print. If you have a preference, then post a comment!
There are more photos here. I'll be back next week with another batch of images. If you want to keep track of new prints and upcoming shows, then click "fan" on the Facebook page.

A Good Start

2010-01-12T17:24:00.000-08:00

If there is such a thing as omens, then Monday's printing would be a good one. I went slow and examined each part of the routine for changes I might like to make ( for example, I made a slight adjustment in paper size during tearing, because it might make the smaller pictures more compatible with ready-made frames now available).

When I finally started composing, I kept it simple and tried to be conscious of negative space. When you are working with a limited color palette ( in this case black, and mid-value gray), It implies that white ( the paper) will be one of your colors, so use of negative space in the printmaking is essential.

Good Times

2010-01-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

Hanging the salon-style wall at the Open Press Small Print Show in December. They always look great, especially after you straighten all the frames.

New Start

2010-01-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

"SOL INVICTUS", 15x11"

I mentioned that I often take a break this time of year. Toward the end of these holiday breaks, I often start getting a bit antsy to work on something new, which is proof enough that a break is a good thing, for me at least.

Last night before sleep I was running through some images and concepts in my mind, enough to keep me awake for a bit. This is sometimes, though not always, an indication of what might happen on return to the studio.

Here's a peek at the last stuff I did, for a demo during the Small Print Show, which has also been on my mind, so another possible direction. The colors are a bit wack, and the composition cramped, but that's not unusual, since they're pretty small.

I won't try to verbalize what exactly I think the new work will look like, but here are some "keywords": line drawing, muted color, figure and landscape.

All in Color for a Crime

2010-01-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

My last post was a sort of improvisation on the subject of comics and the culture wars. Since I'm on the subject, here's a tip for some very interesting reading: a good book has hit what I like to think of as the book lover's sweet spot- available in remainder as a HC, but newly released as a PB. The Ten-Cent Plague, by David Hajdu, outlines one of the earliest battles in the culture wars: the comic book censorship hysteria of the 50's.

Subtitled "The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America", The book gives a pretty good outline of what not to do when under attack by the moralizers. Like the movies, comics- thanks to turn-of-the-century artists like Herriman, McCay and others who popularized newspaper comics by showing the heights the medium was capable of, were a very robust pop culture medium in the 30's and 40's. Like movies, they responded to pressure to tone down their sensationalism by forming a self-censorship program. Unlike the movies, the comics, usually published by exploitive money men with little regard for the medium's artistic potential, panicked and gave in to excessively restrictive controls on content. Thus not only killing the sales, but ripping the creative heart out of the medium and turning into the infantile hack work most of us remember from childhood. They would not fully recover their appeal to committed creators until the 80's, as noted in my L&R post. But by then, the medium was almost totally marginalized.

The book reads like a breeze, offers colorful portraits of the characters on both sides of the battle, and carries a lot of relevance for those who've noticed that the pop culture media (movies, music, comics) have never matured here as they did in Europe. Hajdu has written books about NYC folk musicians, and Billy Strayhorn, and doesn't talk down to comics, as many in the mainstream do.

The World's a Mess; It's in My Kiss

2009-12-30T19:02:00.000-08:00

The world's a mess; it's in my kiss...

-X

If I don't see you again
For a long, long while
I'll try to find you
Left of the dial

-Replacements

I recently renewed acquaintance with two old friends. Their names are Maggie and Hopey, and like a lot of us, they've been through a lot, though they don't actually exist.

I took some down time during the holidays to re-read my complete run of Jaime Hernandez' Locas stories in Love and Rockets, the comic that changed the rules for comics and helps sum up, for me at least, the strange and wondrous decade of the 80's. Escapist fantasy? Yes, there's that. Nostalgia? It's hard to deny, with their near-perfect blend of 60's comic fantasy, and 80's punk culture, but nostalgia for what?

Like many pop culture milestones, it is difficult to separate Locas from one's experience of it. For me that means going back to my arrival in '85, in Denver's Capitol Hill. It was then a teeming gay/counter-cultural ghetto in the middle of the red state that brought us Amendment 2, the country's first anti-gay hate legislation. I'd moved down after picking up a BFA and exhausting my options in Laramie, Wyoming's tiny art/theater/punk rock scene. I'd taken a huge pay cut to transfer down, so cheap entertainment was a must, and fortunately, central Denver, with its thriving alternative art/punk scene provided plenty of that. No one was interested in Downtown after dark but us.

One of my first stops after arriving was the comic shop. I'd always been interested in the medium and had been introduced already to the NYC comics avant garde. But what I found was something that like a lot of things in Denver, looked more to LA than NYC. It also, in retrospect, was one of the more relevant fictional histories of Reagan's ramping up of the culture wars.

The first issues of Love and Rockets were an attempt to reconcile the existential excess of underground pioneers R. Crumb, Gary Panter and Justin Green with the nostalgia of superhero sci-fi fantasy. It was produced by Jaime and his brother Beto, whose own segments concerned a mythical Mexican town called Palomar and are more expressionistic and violent, as if Garcia-Lorca had been directed by Tarantino. They're brilliant in their own right, but it was Jaime who captured the unique and perversely ecstatic siege mentality of punk America. Love and Rockets was magazine-sized, in gorgeously rendered black and white with an attitude toward comics- and life- reflected in its lead characters.

Maggie and Hopey have silly fun, repair rockets, join punk bands, fall in love with the beautiful and the doomed, get drunk and occasionally have great sex. (both Jaime and Gilberto have a fascination with lesbian culture, another of their cutting edge pop culture sensitivities) It's just your typical story of two cute urban LA Hispanic bi/lesbian punkerettes trying to find tolerable jobs and sneak into 21-and-over shows against a back drop of rockets, dinosaurs and punk music in Reagan's America.

Gradually, the rockets faded into the background (as did rock and roll radio and funding for the arts and countless other American fantasies). Love, no less afflicted by failure to launch than the rockets, took over the story line. As the narrative moves along one feels time passing with its tangents, lost souls and lost weekends, and Maggie and Hopey, estranged from each other and from joy, begin to epitomize something darker and far more intangible about the 80's: the sense of a loss of possibility that is the essence of conservative America then and now. Instead of Morning in America, we got the giant sucking sound of the culture wars ramping up. Into the pages come gang wars, homelessness, workplace alienation and drugs. In urban America, Rock and Roll disappeared from deregulated, corporatized radio; songs unfinished, loves unloved.

Locas is the ongoing tale of two working class barrio women who refuse to be pushed around in life, but who nevertheless find themselves in a neighborhood (and country) they didn't ever expect to see, and don't recognize. There is no bus home and the rockets have stopped running.

For me, struggling to reconcile creative freedom with a crushing corporate culture at my day job, it was a picture of Main Street. A country unwilling to invest in its downtowns, music and art was a country going nowhere. As X paints it in their punk/impressionist travelogue: "Windshield wipers, Buffalo NY/don't forget the Motor City/This is 'sposed to be the New World".

All periods of repression generate great art, and L&R is as true a document of the punk years as Alex Cox' Repo Man or Penelope Spheeris' Suburbia. Jaime and Beto stand with Haring, X, The Replacements and untold others in the 80's who made the music and art that right wing corporate America didn't want you to know about, and shoved to the left of the dial. The stories unfold organically without a hint of political correctness and formulaic sit com moralization, plotted off-handedly, much like life itself. In the comic's stark graphics and jump-cut pacing a lost decade's nagging questions are posed without the easy answers of mainstream entertainment or the unrelenting dogma of the ascendant right; the rockets remain in the distant memory of characters, like the dreams of childhood, but the disillusionment is real. There are no heroes, super- or other wise, just survivors, and the dialogue, caught in snatches in bars and bus stations, places you in the middle of a group of friends and catches you up on backstory with well placed tidbits. It is as taut and poetically concise as the best power pop anthems of the times, such as "Left of the Dial" and The Pretenders' "Chain Gang". As with those songs, the words contain within a sense of their speaker's -and the era's- lack of a real future.

None the less, joy exists, its white hot glare balanced in the concise graphics with the menacing black of America in the post-industrial shadows, with its disdain for the urban counter culture. The sense of place, in b&w snapshots of Oxnard-like "Huerta" will be both familiar and exhilarating to anyone who has lived in any well integrated, decent sized city and experienced the youthful impulse to fill every empty warehouse with art- or rock shows.

As one critic in Salon noted, L&R is best enjoyed while re-read. It was hard to track Locas' many characters and shifting time frames on a once every two month reading. Its amazing depth and complexity make the characters seem all the more real, and the strip's interior timing is remarkably consistent as has been documented, here. One moves through a sense of youthful fantasy and adventure to the disillusionment and uncertainty of middle age in pen strokes that capture the child like romp of "Archie", the taut drama of "Steve Canyon" and finally, the dessicated cultural numbness and dogged resolve of Crumb. All without forsaking that sense of possibility that was taken from us with the rockets, and 'Just Say No'.

There are now collections and graphic novelizations available even in mainstream chains such as Borders and Amazon, as well as the publisher, Fantagraphics.com. The saga is ongoing, though Los Bros have finally left the true comic-book format behind to join the cartoonists they once inspired in soft- and hardcover European-style albums. The first two of these, which is only tangentially linked to the Locas storyline, is a bit of a departure, narratively. It seems generically bizarre and unconnected to anything real or meaningful, like a... comic book. Still, Jaime has often digressed into flights of fancy before (pro wrestling!), only to land firmly back on Main St, Oxnard, CA.

At their best, Jaime's stories celebrate one thing the bleak cultural negation of Reaganite culture wars could not kill- a sense that our differences make us stronger.
For those who benefited (or felt they did) from his agenda there was comfort in his ability to slow the accelerating pace of change. Locas characters have learned, sometimes the hard way, that you can't hide from change.

How did we get here? A simple enough question, with no easy answers. In an unwell society, memory takes on the hallucinatory quality of fever dreams. We lived through Rock and Roll's best decade, yet never heard it on the radio. We moved away from the cities, but the poor and sick didn't disappear. We bought flat screens; no one is foolish enough to believe the answers can be found in gridiron football and cop shows. It's a very real question at this stage of my life, having had an eventful year in which I beat a hasty retreat from blandly right wing corporate America, and entered what the C-of-C types like to delicately refer to as the "Creative Economy", meaning that part of the economy that provides the substance that mall culture does not; yet attracts very little investment of capital.

My own journey has brought me across mountain and high plain, industrial back alley and downtown skyscraper canyon. It seems surprising that in a few punk rock songs and a lowly comic book, I would find one of the few places that these questions get asked. All the more reason to stop ghettoizing the counter culture.

In fictional Varrio Hoppers, Jaime Hernandez lines out the ups and downs of just how we got here, and in the sparse yet rich ideographic truth of ink on newsprint, a fleeting ecstasy of angry guitars and young girls' kisses, how we might rocket back out.

One of his (super!) heroes is, after all, named "Hope".

Sol Invictus

2009-12-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

December, and I'm (mostly) taking a hiatus from the studio. It's a good time to charge the creative batteries and let the mind drift. So most of these posts have been about things I'm reading and thinking about. Which lately, has often been the culture wars. I have another one, on Love and Rockets comics and where they fit into the culture wars, almost ready to go in a day or two, but it's been a while since I posted, so I'm cleaning up some loose ends first.

I will be at Open Press, 40 W. Bayaud Sunday, Dec 20. As I offered to sit the gallery for the Small Print Show, I thought I may as well work, and since I'm working anyway, I'm making it into a demo. C'mon down and see how monotypes get made. I'll be working continuously from 12-5, traffic in the gallery permitting. I'll try to post pics sometime after Xmas.

I'm sending out holiday prints soon. I procrastinated until today, so for many, they won't arrive before SquishMas, but probably shortly after. Thank you for commenting and taking an interest in this blog!

Sometime in the post holiday quiet, I hope to sit down and figure out once and for all why the 'comment' function on Blogspot doesn't allow me to reply to your comments. Or maybe just see if Wordpress will work better? Anyway, thanks for your comments.

Coming in January, I'll track another print in photos; talk about stuff I'd like to discuss in the Spring class at the Art Students League; and start nailing down a show schedule for 2010. If you have thoughts on what could make for an interesting post, don't be shy leave 'em below. Oh- and I may even start on the long-delayed Squishtoid Manifesto! Certainly all this stuff on the culture wars will tie into it. But I don't want to forget the oldest rule in the manifesto biz- "Leave 'em laughin' !"

I'm sure the next week or two will be pretty busy for everyone. C'mon back when you get a minute, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Squishtoid!

The Blue and the Gray; the Red and the Yellow

2009-12-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

The light is pale and bluish gray, a pallid gray. The air is frigid, there's no reason to go out even to see the holiday lights downtown, unless there's good company waiting.

It is perfect for reading, and reading is perfect for Squishtoid. Reading's cheap and there's plenty of time, the light is actually good for reading. I was foresighted enough to see this day coming, so while it was still warm, I went out to the garage and dug out some books I've been meaning to finish. Richard Powers; John Barth; a Lennon bio; Neil Stephenson, Baroque Trilogy; nothing too heavy, heh,heh. I've got food, down cover and radiators, so time is on my side, if the temp isn't. The cat is pretty happy with this state of affairs, too, though I worry she may be caught in a book-alanche.

I'm reading- officially- The Return of Depression Economics, by Paul Krugman. I say 'officially' because it was lent to me as a result of a turkey-day bitch session about the general mess the right wing has gotten this country into, so I'm sort of honor-bound to read it and spread the word. It gives a very clear and concise explanation of the crash, despite being written by a Nobel Laureate from Princeton, and I can already recommend it.

But naturally, the tea-baggers and other haters aren't much interested in facts, especially the kind a Nobel winner from Princeton might present. So until the social dynamic in this country changes to favor the lower and middle class as much as it does the upper and upper middle classes , knowing how economics works is unlikely to make the economy more user-friendly. In the gray tundra of the Great Bush Recession, facts about how we got into this mess offer light but no real warmth. Hurry, Spring!

So in a quest for more cheery reading, I've found another book, Barcelona, by Robert Hughes.
This is more like it, sun-splashed, sea food-devouring Barcelona with the exotic design and architecture. A place to escape to.

I first got interested in Barcelona the way everyone does- through its football club. (it actually has two, but even the Mets get more love than Espanyol). Barca, whose starting 11 could pass at a masquerade for the #1 ranked Spanish National team with whom it shares its red-and-yellow strip, has been dismantling opponents with fascinating and surgical precision.

The way Barca beat Manchester United, a legitimate contender for the English treble- titles in the league, Football Association, and against Barcelona in the Champions League -was typical. Quick 10-yard passes strung between perfectly positioned midfielders, a mesmerizingly efficient game of keep away, until suddenly someone is free right in front of the open goal. Barca's goals are rarely spectacular except as part of the amazing build up that leads to them. Perfect proof of the simple fact that football is only boring to people- Americans- who are too easily bored.

And Barcelona, the city, seems to follow the same pattern. Hughes intends to make a case for Barcelona's more spectacular sights being the product of a fairly workman-like approach to art, life and politics. It's the first time I've read a full dose of Hughes, and though he has moments of snide crankiness about, for example, Post-Modernism ( in regard to Barcelona?), he also has a gift for conducting a reader through the labyrinth of Catalan art and politics, and how they intertwine. It's absorbing reading on a frigid winter's night. I wish I was there right now, eating sea food.

Only the Strong Survive

2009-12-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

Cute, huh? Yes, isn't it pretty to think so? The reality of the situation is different, far different. The reality is, if I were to approach to warm my cold, numb blogging fingers on that toasty warm sheepskin or that nice radiate-y radiator, I'd be placing myself in grave danger. Let alone that fuzzy wuzzy fur, which, like Maxwell's Demon, is designed by nature to absorb every heat molecule in the apartment, while excluding all the cold particles; and is jealously guarded by a creature that lives in, and can see in, the blackest void.

And, I found out (belatedly) that it's against the animal cruelty laws to turn off the heat. Dang that fascist/socialist Democrat(ic)(sic) Party nanny state!

So, it's off into the frigid gray December I go, to help hang the Open Press Small Print Show.

Won't you come down Friday, 6-9 PM, or any of the 3 following Saturday or Sundays 12-5 PM, to have a beer and give a Squishtoid a hug?

I Come Not to Praise Faceplant, But to Bury It.

2009-11-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

A while ago, here, I posted some thoughts about Facebook. I'd noticed that people who haven't bothered to join seem to dismiss it out of hand as superficial, as if most day to day interaction in any medium isn't superficial. I generally praised Faceplant while acknowledging its triviality and weirdness. Now let's look at another side of its weirdness.

I have a number of friends, in both the real world- and FB-sense who, for whatever reason, don't really post much. I get little messages from Facebook alerting me that so-and-so is not with the program. Sometimes there are weirdly quantified and vaguely ominous statistical judgments: "Jane Doe is only 35% active". The implication is that they need to be dragged back into the party I guess, that they are not pulling their weight with the Balloon-Boy jokes or status-postings about breakfast fare.

I don't want to make too many assumptions about their lives, whether tech-averse, or introverse. So, I snooped. I got a prompt from FB about one friend I'd re-connected with in the past couple of years, and went to her "wall", where some of her activity is visible. She posts every few weeks, mostly concerning family, social and charitable events in her area. The most recent wall item was from her daughter, thanking her for help on her college application. Another bizarrely quantified 'status bar" thingie on the left informs us that her "progress" is 80% (?!). She seems pretty "active" to me, and I assume she can decide on her own "progress". What should I do- get on there and chide her for not playing enough Mafia Wars?

Yes, I made a case that FB can be a valuable tool for a very fulfilling kind of connection-making. But coming from a family full of certified luddites and techno-recluses ( I'm the only one even on FB), I have a bit of sympathy for those whose lives do not revolve around the key board. A lot of this sort of thing comes from the enclosed world of office culture- how many of us have been encouraged to feel shame by otherwise sensible friends for not checking our e-mail twice a day? And isn't it a bit ironic that some pasty-white cube-rat in Silicon Valley is sitting in judgment of our "activity" level?

Leave the techno-recluses alone! They'll join the Facebook "revolution" when they're good and ready.

Probably to bombard us with invitations to play "Mafia Wars".

Standard Disclaimer: Squishtoid is not now, nor has he ever been, interested in playing "Mafia Wars", so don't send any more invitations, or he will "hide" you, and "poke" you to death.

Easter Eggs in November?!?

2009-11-24T14:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, indeed there is one hidden in a recent post, and 2 peeps have found it. Will you be the next?

Other doings: For those of you in Denver, I'll be participating in the Open Press Small Print Show 2009 on First Friday, so c'mon down to 40 W. Bayaud (garden level) and say hello. Here is the Event Page Post on Facebook.

Discussions are beginning with several other Denver printmakers about a portfolio project for spring. I'll keep you posted here. We'll have 4-5 artists contributing prints, and will be aiming for a very reasonable price on what will be sort of and instant art collection.

I'll be sending out more info about 2010 shows after the holidays. The Spring Monotype class will be registering soon, too. You can e-mail me if you like e-mail newsletters, or keep checking back here. Don't forget the Fan Page ( link above).

Westering, 42x30", 2009

2009-11-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

I put the last layer, which was the 7th, 0n a couple of weeks ago. I like it, but wonder if I could do future ones in less layers with better planning. This post will get you caught up with the earlier stages; here is the last post. Did I go to far? Not far enough? You be the judge.

I did have fun posting the stages, and people seemed to like it (many responded, in various media), so I'll do it again after the holidays. There's another big one, an interior this time, I've been working on.

For now, it's time to wrap things up on a very interesting year. I usually like to take the holidays off, then come back fresh in January. There are always loose ends, of course, such as the holiday print (l. Red Sonata, 7x9", 2009), and a small art show at Open Press that I'll announce on my FB Fan Page soon.

I hope everyone has a very nice Thanksgiving, and the first five peeps to leave a comment, or hit the 'follow' button, get a Holiday print. You can email me your street address. My crack mailroom team will get it out to you, and many years, the Holiday print has been known to arrive by Valentine's Day.

Did anyone get the number of that year?!?

2009-11-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

I've been slowly (yeah, okay, glacially) posting albums of artwork from various years on my Facebook Fan Page . Hopefully they will provide a bit of a retrospective overview, especially for newer friends. For me they generally bring back vivid memories of what I was doing, and what I was trying to accomplish in the studio.

Strangely, that didn't happen for 2002. Then I remembered: Oh yeah. That year. Does anyone else have that experience of sort of being in a daze after 9/11?

Anyway, the pix, along with my current interpretations are there, along with albums for several other years, too.

I came not to bury FX, but to praise him...

2009-11-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

You don't meet many people in this life who can a) quote the Buddha, and b) land a jet fighter on a pitching, rolling aircraft carrier deck. So Tuesday, I put on my suit and tie and drove down to Ft Logan to observe Veteran's Day early, in the best way I know how- by celebrating a life.

Francis Xavier Rozinski was not perfect (just ask his family!), but he was a hungry mind; generous of spirit and not afraid to get the most out of life. The Marines are not perfect, either (though in the Halls of Montezuma, they simply did what their country asked them to do. As for the Shores of Tripoli, there may not be a more important moment, post-1789, pre-July 3, 1863, in assuring this nation would be around today). But when the Marines and FX got together, amazing things happened. Frank got to fly, over Korea, and many other places, besides. Later, he joined the Caterpillar Club (had to eject, and "hit the silk").

He had a large family, retired, and flew private clients, including the bands Yes and Chicago, around the US. His and Leona's house was filled to bursting with friends, good Polish food, attractive daughters and their boyfriends (this is where I come in), and the expectation that every one of them would become their best, and strive to be happy.

In the same spirit, he wandered the art colonies of the Southwest, then retired to Colorado Springs, one suspects, to tell the more dunder-headed members of the military just what he thought of them. He read and talked about things; then joined a club so he could read and talk some more.

Why is it that no matter how hard one tries, one can never find words adequate to a life before it is done? Perhaps no one understands this gulf between words and actions better than the military. Before the USMC honor guard on that beautiful Tuesday morning had even finished unfolding the flag over his bier, most of the women were sobbing. I was dabbing my eyes when the first volley of a 21-gun salute went off behind us, making everyone jump, and the geese on the lake howl in cacophonous protest, as if nothing living could imagine Frank ever dying.

I don't know where Frank is now, but he lives on in a wonderful family. He always wanted to fly, and at this moment, I'm positive he's doing just that. And, if I were religious I would say, "Get ready, angels!"

I come not to bury Facebook, but to praise it.

2009-11-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

People who aren't participating in Facebook often put it down as trivial or superficial, a safely ignored passing fad.

They're mostly right, but they're missing the point.

The other day, a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I went to a gathering at a local restaurant. Its purpose was to rally in support of a fellow artist who was about to begin chemo treatments for prostate cancer. John's prognosis is actually good, and while chemo will undoubtedly be hard on him, the mood of the gathering was rather celebratory. As was intended by its organizer, Renna, a Denver writer into collective action and shamanism. She wanted to have a gathering of the tribe that for once, wasn't a memorial (we've lost several well-loved Denver artists lately). That there was a need for that was quickly apparent. I wasn't the only one who had to apologize for not remembering the name of someone I hadn't seen in years.

One subject that kept popping up- Facebook. Not surprising, really. The gathering had largely been organized through Facebook. It could all been accomplished by e-mail, flyers or phone tree, but it wasn't. I'm sure there was some of all of those, but they couldn't have created the sort of family reunion type atmosphere we instantly got. Emails are too business like, flyers too time consuming, phones too invasive for such a far flung group. Letters? forget it. Facebook was just right for turning a semi-private event into public knowledge. It's viral, so word got passed along from friend list to friend list. It's somewhat passive and undemanding, so one could simply rsvp regrets, or ignore it altogether. It didn't make too much, nor too little, of John's challenge. And it allowed Renna and his other friends to set the tone.

Even the folks who I do remember, I haven't seen in the flesh much. A grinding day job, playing catch-up with a family or creative life, an unanticipated, but very powerful need to go to bed at 10:30- as the years go by, these things mitigate against the kind of daily contact needed to nurture the best friendships. But inexorably, Facebook had brought us back together around health care diatribes; photo sharing and You Tube video links, and now it had gotten us out of our offices and studios to compare bifocal prescriptions and gray hair, and give John a pat on the back or a hug. And, it provides enough superficial info about people you once saw on a daily or weekly basis, to allow one to dispense with the awkward small talk and get to the big talk right away. How did your last show go? How does that feel now the kids are off to school? Are you still a Downtowner? For a bunch of 40-50 somethings, just staying connected is half the battle. It is precisely because Facebook IS trivial and superficial that it is not a fad.

Facebook's show announcements, polls and coffee-cup haikus allow you to pop in on lives long drifted from you, and even the assorted silliness provides companionable banter in a world where all too often, the only kind you hear is from the get-a-life crowd in the Broncos jerseys. And this is not to mention the more transcendent moments such as last Sunday, or the Mexican food I shared in downtown Albuquerque with my high school friend George, whom I hadn't seen in over 30 years.

The terminology is stilted ("friending" ? "status" ?), and its mostly mundane content a gold mine awaiting exploitation by The Onion, but its power to create (or revive) affinities among the strivers, dreamers and street-level pundits buried in the detritus of the info age is unmatched. In the numbing triviality of the workaday world, it is almost indispensable to those who haven't given up on the fine art and pure spontaneous joy of bending -or lending, an ear.

Now the song is nearly over. We may never find out what it means.

2009-10-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Two friends in the group I was in, pre-show, at the Irish Rover on Broadway remarked separately that having seen the Pogues, it would be possible to "retire" from live shows. With streams of whiskey already flowing (o'Squish wound up driving, so didn't participate) and the band's catalog blasting non-stop on the juke box, one guy showed us his sleeve-length Shane MacGowan tattoo. Reports from other cities indicated the boys were in form, and Shane mostly upright. Excitement was high, and we piled into a cab to find out, I guess, whether Rock and Roll can ever die.

Well, not if Rachel Nagy has anything to say about it. "Enjoy the FUCK out the Pogues, she yelled as the Detroit Cobras left the stage after a strong set under the difficult circumstance of a full house awaiting breathlessly its first brush with Poguetry.

The lights went down, and out came the musicians, some now bald, many re-habbed, a cancer survivor. And shuffling behind them, the shambolic bard, shapeless, toothless in a handmade sweater. The general tone of commentary on Shane's later career, with his sweet rasping whiskey voice now reduced by 5 million cigarettes to mainly rasp, has been: He could've been someone. Well, so could anyone! And "Streams of Whiskey", "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" and "Broad Majestic Shannon", the traditional show-starting triad, proved that there is nothing wrong with the Pogues that 2,000 stomping, jumping fist-pumping 18-54 year-olds can't cure.

I had predicted here that tears would flow as "Thousands" was played, but it took less time than that. As the band launched into the blistering main body of "Young Ned of the Hill", a hail of those glow stick thingies, beer cups and the glittering, trailing plumes of the blessed beverage they had held filled the air, and there were tears on my cheeks. At that moment I was as happy as I've been in years, and I'll remember it all my life.

I can't recall a single disappointment with the show as it stood. Oh sure, 'Fairytale of New York", their iconic, junkie Xmas song was left out, not for lack of snow (the Pogues very resourcefully bring their own), But for a Kirsty MacColl or Emma Finer to sing it. The band was out of its mind, James Fearnley still jumping and diving, accordion in hand. Shane was in strong voice and chatty. Shane's Ray-Bans came off briefly during "Old Main Drag" where the singer complains that they "messed up my good looks"- priceless!

I got to sing along to "Dirty Old Town" and "Thousands Are Sailing", and did in fact "raise a glass to JFK", and 8 musicians besides. I was unprepared for the barely contained chaos that was "Fiesta", in which one of humankind's nobler inventions, the beer tray, gave its life on Spider Stacy's head. I tried to get a picture of that, but by that time, the place where I was, the first riser above the mosh pit, had turned into a second mosh pit itself. Don't mourn the beer tray. Reflect instead, on what could possibly get gray-hairs with high blood pressure and people who weren't even born yet when the song was first played bouncing sweatily, beerily, shoulder to shoulder. Can we apply that to health care reform?

I can now slide contentedly into middle age, though if the lads want to come back next year, I can easily put on my Docs and step back out. I never saw The Clash or the Ramones, and it's too late now ( Joe Strummer joined the Pogues after strung-out Shane was finally kicked out, and "Straight to Hell" plays before every show). But Rock and Roll has never been about what you didn't do, but what you did. Whiskey, heroin, peace and love, any which way the wind may be blowing. Mosh on, 18 year olds, you'll be glad you did.

Progress on the Beast

2009-10-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

A lot of the simple graphic intensity does get lost as you add more layers, but there's a richness to the color. I'll probably do one more run-through, for straight black, which can sometimes add a lot of punch. Still no title, so I'm running out of time on that basic requirement. Obviously, there is both isolation and hope in the image.

I have another large print I'll start on next week. It's an interior, a bit more semi-abstract. I'll post a progress report on that next. I don't anticipate as many layers for the next one, as I'm not sure all the fine tuning really added much to this one. Interesting to find out, though!

Here are some links to previous incarnations of this print.

Neon Manifesto.

2009-10-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of posting year-by-year summaries of my artwork to my Facebook Fan Page. The latest deals with my colored pencil/oil pastel neon cityscape phase of the 80's. I had just moved to Denver. Tomorrow I will post the latest progressions in the still-untitled large monotype I've been tracking here.

Have a look!

"Getaway", Color Pencil, 1985 >

Don't Drop the Ball

2009-10-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

I previously posted a couple of photos showing progress on a large print. Printmakers like to call multiple runs through the press "drops". Here is an entry on the first drop (or stage). And here is one of the second. Shown above is the 5th state, where it sits now. Below, there is some intermediate info.

I was in the studio Monday, but after staying up till midnight for a baseball game I was moving kind of slow, and forgot my camera. Fortunately, my friend Steve had his iPhone, so I'm posting some photos of drops 3, 4 and 5. Here's 3:
Here's the plate just before printing it.
As I've mentioned, it's rare for me to do even a third layer on a picture so large, and this is the first time I've ever done five. This is partially the logistics of the beast, with many more chances to screw up the registration, etc. But it also has to do with losing graphic simplicity. For instance, though I like the cool grey and warm yellow/browns for adding visual balance to the sky, and a kind of surging richness to the land, I probably was a teeny bit heavy handed, always a problem for me. What do you think?

Spending this kind of time on a print allows for a more complex texture, but overworking it is always a possibility. A final drop is on the schedule next week where I'll try to add blues and blacks back in, add a couple of minor compositional elements and bring it all into focus. Or turn it into an unholy mess. Stay tuned.

2009-10-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

If I should fall from grace with God, Where no Squishtoid can relieve me, If I'm buried 'neath the sod, But the angels won't receive me, Let me go boys let me go boys Let me go down in the mud where the rivers all run dry -The Pogues

The Pogues were a definite part of the soundscape in downtown Denver mid 80's, though the only ones who ever went there then were bohemians, punks and artists. I was more obsessed by the Replacements, Social Distortion and Husker Du, but pre-corporate KTCL played them enough to get me interested, and when a girlfriend gave me "If I Should Fall From Grace With God", I was pretty much hooked. She was thinking, Irish guy- Irish punk music, but of course as we've come to know, The Pogues did much more than single-handedly save Irish music from itself with their almost irresistable blend of Celtic rthyms and punk energy. They probably rival all but the Beatles, Ramones and Sex Pistols in the "number of bands started by-" category, and in fact, are one of a very few bands ( the Beatles and Ramones again come to mind) that can claim to have started an entire genre. And they also invented their own musical instrument- the beer tray (see Fig 1).

Whatever you may think of the Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, and the Real MacKenzies, it's certainly true that none of them or their 5,000 Celtic Punk brethren would exist with out the Pogues. It's also true that few have penned the type of song, such as If I Should Fall from Grace with God, or Sally Maclennane, or Broad Majestic Shannon that captures the fun and transgressive spirit of punk, while also being easy to mistake for traditional Irish music. I'm fairly certain no one has written a Christmas standard that features a drunk gambler and his junkie wife. It's probably true that the entire crowd doesn't sing along with Flogging Molly songs, though I don't know; I haven't been to one.

I haven't been to a Pogues concert, either, though not from lack of trying. I just haven't been able to get to Boston, New York or Chicago for one of their brief and infrequent American touch-downs. Now, fortune and Shane MacGowan's liver permitting, that will change, as the Pogues make it to Denver for their first appearance. I did see Shane (with the Popes) at the Gothic Theatre a few years back- Shane only puked 3 times! Ah yes, Shane MacGowan- poet, warrior, drunken toothless mumbler.

So I'm not expecting transcendent musical moments here, though I'm pretty sure tears will flow, especially when they play "Thousands are Sailing". Mostly I just want to say I saw them, sing "Dirty Old Town" with 3,000 other voices, and remember the days when Doc Martens and live music were a bigger priority than health care and mortgage payments, and we had downtown all to our (drunken) selves. It was the best decade in rock and roll, and the best decade of my life. I can't get it back, but- with the help of a wee bit of beer- I can certainly try. Look for me there, I should be easy to spot -I'll be the drunk guy in Docs.

2006

2009-10-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

I posted a few images from 2006 on my fan page on Facebook. There's also 2004, from a previous post, and as I slowly organize my digital files ( and scan in the old slides), I'll try to catch up on all the other years as well. Also, as the class didn't fill, the deadline has been extended to Oct. 16, and the workshop will now run through Dec 7. If you know anyone who might be interested, please mention it to them. They are instituting online registration, and their website appears to be down right now, so no link. It's www.ASLD.org, or you can call 303.778.6990. I'll be posting class doings and photos to this blog, and we will keep it lively and fun. I believe you can also attend certain weeks, and pay a pro-rated fee. The full fee is $220 for all 8 weeks. See you there!

Round Peg In a Square State of Mind

2009-10-08T17:08:00.000-07:00

Whew! Yes, it was a frantic September; yes, procrastination tends to feed on itself, and yes, (oh-no!) the Days-Without-Job portion of the Squish-o-meter is ticking off its final days.

What I like to refer to as Square State Tour '09 did not provide a lot of cash. In retrospect not so surprising given the economy, and the shows I chose, most in places that like most American cities, struggle to see the value in buying fine art anyway. That was actually part of the plan; unfortunately there is no way to find out if these cities ( Casper, WY; Salida, CO; Albuquerque NM; sorry, UT..) will buy art until one goes and does a show there.

Nor was the timing something I could control; with the corporations racing to gut pension plans before Obama stops the Bushies' greed-fest, I was in a take-it-or leave-it situation.

But the experience was still a joy and not just for its effect on the ol' Squishometer. In fact, why don't we step over and take a peek at where it stands, right now?

Days without job: 190

So I made 6 months, and again, I recognize that I'm certainly better off than most in corporate America, where personal time is viewed with suspicion, and creativity is something that appears only in those tacky motivational posters. Simply put, there is no substitute for time spent on your own goals. Other benefits:

- Got to see a lot of the Rockies, always a plus. Mostly stayed on the 1-25 corridor, from Sandia Peak and early fall Raton Pass roughly up to Laramie Peak, with Pikes Peak in the middle. Throw in South Park and College Peaks, with the late afternoon sun glazing the iconic western pyramids. It doesn't get much better than that.

- Got positive feedback, and made connections that may be valuable in the future. Casper and Albuquerque seem within a few years of being viable art markets. Casperites in particular seemed to really be pained not to be able to buy art, as if in Paul Westerberg's words, they were "aching to be" Also saw old friends, including after 30 years, high school buddy George.

-fine tuned my preparation and organization for future shows, and of course, there is no shelf date on unsold artwork. In fact, with all the new work I added this year it's just more choice to offer when the economy improves.

-Finally, the surprising fact that Denver's art scene is quite strong. We knew there was good work here, but importantly, Denver has begun to offer real support. The Denver show nearly tripled the other three in sales combined, and I've realized that it's wrong to put down the scene, which only taps into coastal prejudices.

Upshot, for me, I'll get used to my part time job, and sales will improve, though in 2010, they'll be improving in Denver only. No other Rocky Mountain city is really ready for fine art. After things improve, I'll look at other large cities.

Short-term, these positives won't prevent the necessity of getting a job. Riding out the rough weather a bit. Just as those of us who may have wished for a quick turn around from the dark years in the political landscape are finding out, it's going to be a long haul. Sunshine on amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesty, eyes open, one foot forward.

Squish-o-Meter: Aching to be

p.s. Squishtoid will certainly continue, though I'll have to re-calibrate the Squish-o-Meter a bit. Next up: more works-in-progress; approximately 4 solid weeks of Pogues/Detroit Cobras pre-hype, exegesis, and review; and Ohhh Yesssss- pointlessly bitter and scathing remarks about whatever benighted part time job I wind up falling into ( unless it provides health care, of course).

Stage (2) Fright

2009-09-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

As promised, stage 2 of the aforementioned, as-yet-untitled print I posted a few weeks ago.

The blues and tans give it a bit fuller, more painterly feel, but of course, there is a little bit busier, patchier look now.

Planning an image is a bit tougher when you start from the black and brown ghost of the original drop, then work toward lighter, fuller colors. I'm usually traveling in the opposite direction (lighter to dark).

Still, I think a third drop is in order; probably another brown /black overlay to add detail and, as the Dude would say "tie the room together".

I'll post that one when it's done.

Hot Off the Press

2009-08-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

I've been adding fences and telephone poles to create at least a little tension. I do like the rhythmic minimalism, but fear that they don't communicate the real visual power of western landscape. I often post new images, including intermediate stages at my fan page on Facebook.

Days without Job: 146
Squishometer: Squish, or be squished!

Weekend Squish: Book Review

2009-08-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

It's Pynchon month in Squishytown! We started the festivities off by bussing down August 4 to Tattered Cover for his latest, INHERENT VICE. Things really ramped up with a 94-word run-on tribute sentence wedged into the previous Squishtoid post - still far short of the 400+ monster that opens MASON AND DIXON, but I guess that's why TP has a MacArthur Genius Grant and the Squish doesn't (yet).

And now, because 77,000 reviews ( one for each wacky TP character moniker) in 2 weeks just don't seem enough, comes my review. And unlike all the others, this one doesn't mention the word "paranoia". Oh. Damn.

Thomas Pynchon, a writer whom many associate with dense, hard to read doorstop -type books, has created what will surely become the entry point for his work with INHERENT VICE. The previous entry point, CRYING OF LOT 49, deals with the same place, Southern California, and many of the same cultural and metaphorical issues, but doesn't have two things that VICE does: the easy flow of genre (here, detective) fiction, and an agreeable, heck, lovable- central character who smokes way too much pot, in much the same way Phillip Marlowe drank way too much whiskey.

That combination, lifted whole from the classics of the Noir era, smooths the way for Pynchon's usual mix of irony, pathos and satiric humor, and provides a peek into the heartbreakingly funny and ineffectual lives he celebrates, along with the crushing, relentless systems of power and control that provide the juice for his electric and very post modern prose. It's always sex magic versus death-mongering with Pynchon, but here he adds in a lot of nostalgia for late 60's Los Angeles, and a spirit of place that, like Raymond Chandler's, feels like the real deal.

Like LOT 49, and another earlier NoCal novel, VINELAND, that are quickly being formed by the commentariati into an ad-hoc trilogy, the goofy proles and bra-less babes who redeem their floundering, drug enhanced lives, speak to the betrayal of simple pleasures by those nameless, humorless forces of greed and frigid fear that would bulldoze a community to erect soul-less developments rather than nurture a neighborhood. Only this time, unlike past TP epics, even some of the villains have names and come off as flawed, almost lovable losers themselves.

Discussing plot is always somewhat beside the point in Pynchon. His characters are questers, lighting off manically in search of answers to questions they know not, stopping for a quick buzz or fuck along the way. There is enough here to keep the lovable losers scrambling and the pages turning, but Doc Sportello, The laid-back, hard-"baked" PI who tries to sort it all out, understands that in the end, it's finding kinship through the smog that makes a city, however Noir, vivid and real. Pynchon appears to have made that leap as well, with the later novels, from VINELAND on featuring progressively more sympathetic characters; special mention made here of the exquisite MASON AND DIXON.

But will VICE please the lovers of intricate, labyrinthine masterpieces such as LOT 49, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, and V? As one who's read all of his books, many twice, and counts RAINBOW among the century's best, I say it doesn't have to. Pynchon's done his fair share of heavy lifting. He's metaphorically compared Information Theory to Thermodynamics, hefted Riemann surfaces and Hollow-Earth theories and squished in hashish and weird menages a trois. Now he wants to be Chandler or Elmore Leonard, or even Jeff Lebowski. Or all three. Wait, that's a weird menage a trois, too.

Pynchon, if the famous Simpsons "appearances" and the trailer he did for VICE are any indication, may want to be popular for once. That's not such a bad thing, and INHERENT VICE is not such a bad way to get there. If you never got past the famous 100-page barrier of GR, this eccentric yet agreeable book may get you to the bottom of the mystery of why it's worth another try.

Goin' Down the Road...

2009-08-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

We've all got wheels,
to take us far away.
We've got [Squishtoid blogs] to say, what we can't say...

-Flying Burrito Bros.

Spent the weekend listening to mountain music. That specific mix of Bluegrass, Folk, and Country Rock I first inhaled after leaving the bleak, Hard-Rock steel yards of the Queen City of the Lakes many moons ago.

It hasn't changed much since I left the Queen City of the Plains (so many queens! There's a Dame Edna joke in there somewhere..) to come to the Denver Punk scene. Some of it I can go months or even years without. But I don't mind snoozing through the obligatory Grateful Dead homage to get to the good stuff- Billy Bragg or Gram Parsons. This is the sound track of the many mushroom- and pot-fueled mountain camp outs I've stumbled through out in the sage, under the Wyoming moon.

It's late summer in the Rockies. That time when each hot day contains a hint, like a strip of cool white tan line at the edge of a well-filled yellow bikini, of something to be simultaneously longed for yet postponed as long as possible: Fall. Downtown Salida sitting in its 19th century glory on the banks of the preternaturally turbulent Arkansas River ( August would normally mark the end of flow, and the rafting, but we've had a wet Summer), rimmed by the Collegiate Peaks -tall iconic pyramids dappled with the slightly tarnished sunlight of August and skimmed by the fluffy billowing white clouds strobing by like freight cars, with the rustle of cottonwood leaves and the strum of mandolin riffs from the stage at this little festival in the park, is where wraith-like, Autumn '09 first appeared for this Squishtoid.

It was a pleasant enough show, with a fairly steady stream of interested visitors, many of whom, I heard later, were still raving about my work when they entered the local Mexican bistro across the street; faint praise indeed when none were willing to put pen to checkbook. Oh, well.

Driving out, late sun sliding across rippled arpeggios of mountain peaks like a Sneaky Pete Kleinow solo, then up past the tailings and Superfund degradation of Leadville and onto 70 and down through its interminable, apocalyptically signed descent- " TRUCKERS DON'T BE FOOLED! STILL 4 MORE MILES OF 6% GRADE WITH TIGHT CURVES!" and as a GP-synth-fill grace note the jagged lightning strokes slashing and hacking away at Lyons, or some other some poor farm town east of Denver.

I spent Monday organizing the garage, to avoid the sort of loading slip-up from Friday, in which a minor part of the tent was left behind ( Um. The roof). I avoided the 5 hour retrieval round trip thanks to a nice woman who had a spare, slightly wind-mangled pop-up, which thanks to the calm weather, worked like a charm. Except, of course, for the no sales part.

But to paraphrase Freewheelin' Franklin, times of time and no money are better than times of money and no time. Part of the promised but still undelivered Squishtoid Manifesto, folks! Watch for it!

Of course, Freewheelin' Franklin and his cannabinoid musings are very much on my mind lately, as I solaced my self after my zippo blanco show by laying in bed and finishing Inherent Vice. About which, full review tomorrow, though speaking as one who the only Pynchon books he hasn't read twice are the ones he's about to read twice, don't expect a negative reaction, as it turns out to be kind of a page-turner without losing that delightfully bizarre TP mojo.

The run-on sentence in graf three being in his honor.

Days with out job: 139
Squishometer: "We're not afraid to ride..."
Number of Words in Graf 3 Run-on: 94

Progress

2009-08-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

I did say I would post this image, from the plate in "Prelude to a Squish".

I don't have a title yet, not unusual for this stage in the proceedings. It's 42x30", and contrary to the original post, I don't think it's "finished" yet. This sort of indecision is also not unusual. I like to sleep on it sometimes before I make another "drop", especially on one so big and time consuming.

It'll be fun (for me, anyway) to compare the various stages when the print is done, so I'll return to this again.

2009-08-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hard at work, getting ready for a show in Salida, CO. The complete info is on my Facebook page. Here's a link. For those in Denver or the Rockies, it's a great little daytrip, and you get a good view of College Peaks.

The show itself is right on the Arkansas River. The website for the show with travel info, is here.

The picture is untitled as of yet, but I've been working on several of these sorts of minimalist, receding landscapes. The repetitive visual rhythms
and homogeneous tonalities put me in the mind of the musical concept of ostinato.

There are several more photos posted on my events page on Facebook at the link above.

Weekend Squish: A Squishing Comes Across the Sky.

2009-08-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

Days without Job: 122

Days Without New Pynchon Novel: -3

In this newly job-less 'slacker's' version of heaven, the required beach read is Thomas Pynchon. So the news, late last year, of an new TP novel, Inherent Vice, out August 4, is welcomed. The unusually quick turn-around, three years - with 10 not unusual for Pynchon, 13 the longest- makes me all squishy inside.The fact that it's a Noir detective story, unusually light at 369 pp. compared to his last monster (Against The Day, 1000+), is intriguing.

The first reviews have been trickling out.Now they have reached flood stage. They tend to fall into three distinct categories: outraged screed; jaded, knowing intro for newbies; and thematic speculations.

The first, a hallmark of his Gravity's Rainbow era, is now rare, though you can usually count on some curmudgeon at Slate or wherever to trot one out at some point. That 1974 blank spot in the list of Pulitzer Prizes for Literature is the legacy of this mindset. The second is now standard, and this one typifies the genre : bemused listing of Pynchon tropes; disclaimer about the rather nonchalant plots; toss in a snarky comment about the character names; and you're done. Mail it in.

The third, my favorite, links the subject novel with his others in terms of Pynchon's ongoing thematic obsessions, but without the jargon that tends to choke the academic journals clustered around our era's pre-eminent Post-Modernist writer. These are the most useful to those trying to enjoy or understand the cult surrounding him, and Sarah Churchwell, in the Observer, provides a nice overview:

"The book’s title provides Pynchon with a new metaphor for three of his oldest preoccupations: entropy, capitalism and religion, specifically Puritanism. For insurers and preservationists, “inherent vice” describes the innate tendency of precious objects to deteriorate and refers to the limits of insurability and conservation; it suggests that matter (and thus, by extension, materialism) carries within it the seeds of its own destruction."

But since this is a Noir novel (of sorts), another kind of review has joined the fray, basically asking the question "Is it Noir?" And since the gumshoe genre is one of my favorites, I had to read "Death Becomes Them", an exploration of literary giants trying out Noir in Newsweek, by Malcolm Jones:

"No one will ever accuse Pynchon of wearing his feelings on his sleeve, but in Inherent Vice there's no mistaking his affection for his private detective, Larry (Doc) Sportello. Using Chandler territory as inspiration, Pynchon launches a tale as complicated as anything he's ever written, a tale that involves rotten cops, a missing girlfriend, a murdered developer, and a sinister menace called the Golden Fang, which is a mysterious schooner used for smuggling, but also the name of a shadowy holding company and maybe even a Southeast Asian heroin cartel. There are times when the false starts, red herrings, dead ends, and duplicities get so tangled that all a reader can think of is the story about Faulkner and Leigh Brackett, who, in the midst of writing the screenplay for The Big Sleep, had to call up Chandler to ask who killed the chauffeur—and he couldn't remember either."

Jones' conclusion:

Does it add up? Maybe. Do you get lost? Lured down a long linguistic dark alley is more like it. It's always weird but always fun.

I'll be at the Tattered Cover early Tuesday for my copy, and I'll post my preliminary thoughts in a Weekend Squish soon, and more when I've finished it. The single quotes around "slacker" in the first graf above are a warning that I'm actually quite busy in the next three months, and don't know when this will be.

Open Letter to a Blue Dog

2009-07-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

But you never see the lies
you believe

-Elvis Costello, New Lace Sleeves

Health care reform, without a "re-forming" of the corporate-dominated and profit-motivated system we have now, is not reform at all. It awards maximum profit for minimal efficiency. Americans largely took that fact into account when they sent a Democrat to the White House and gave them a Congressional majority. Its success or failure will define this congress. Yet the people who should be most conscious of this truth are the ones embracing the old lies and myths.

Unfortunately, Republican fear mongers have succeeded in hijacking this debate with their rhetorical warhorses: attack-ad phrases such as "Socialism" and "Health rationing". This cynical jargon does not serve honest debate at all. It is intended to distract from the real successes of government-run systems in Europe and in Canada, and to intimidate newly elected Democrats, the so-called Blue Dog Dems. Conservatives will try to play the socialism card one more time, and when these new representatives buy into fear, they are abdicating from leadership they were sent to provide. They are adopting as the major defining characteristic of their first terms the fear of not winning a second.

It is sad that these representatives find it easier to ignore the American mainstream -many of whom are unable, or barely able to, afford health care in a system that values corporate profits over medical efficiency- than to ignore the lobbyists swarming their offices, and the demagogues who would deny 45 million Americans better health care that is less costly and more efficient.

The Republican obstructionistas want us to visualize jack-booted Star Wars Troopers click-clacking down the hospital corridors. It is left to the true leaders in Washington to visualize 40 million uninsured, and 14,000 losing their insurance everyday. There can be no doubt anymore that the private insurance industry lacks the skill or the will to efficiently provide for all Americans. Only the Democrats can provide leadership. Tax credits for people who can't afford to buy health care anyway is not health care reform. The conservatives opposed Medicare 4 decades ago with the same tired negativity that they are using here. Now, Medicare is a documented model for well managed public health efficiency. leadership is needed now, not reflex conservative negativity. Don't let them Swift Boat health care reform.

A mechanism must in place to protect the battered main street Americans who do not have cash laying around to afford health care, no matter how many tax credits are offered. Tax credits mean nothing to a large amount of citizens who can't afford the original premiums anyway.

That mechanism is called government, and placing the needs of all citizens in the forefront of health care reform, rather than a distant second behind profit, is called governing.

I urge all Democrats to advocate for a real reform that provides a strong public option for those the health care industry has ignored. Anything less is a failure, and will be remembered at the polls.

prelude to a squish

2009-07-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

Back to the press to work on some larger workSee the finished work here in a few days. See other finished work here. Find out about my upcoming workshop here.

You'll Feel Better

2009-07-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

"New day rising, new day rising,
new day rising, new day rising

new day rising,new day rising

new day rising, new day rising

new day rising, new day rising"

-"New Day Rising", Husker Du

Health care reform is begun in both the House and Senate. Those who are part of the alternative economy, and many who are in the mainstream economy, need to pay close attention now, as bi-partisanship is nowhere in evidence. In the Senate, the legislation was approved by the HELP committee, but without a GOP vote, even though many Republican amendments were included. It now goes to Finance.

In the House, funding issues are causing even Dems to jump ship. Obama has now endorsed Hilary's plan of required health care, but incentives for cleaning up health care mega-corp inefficiency have not as yet been addressed. Nor is the issue of a public plan safety net, a major Squishtoid talking point, settled. There is hope: some moderate Republicans, such as Olympia Snow, are willing to work on this issue, though she has asked Obama for more time to settle differences.

While Squishtoid is no political junkie, I've written enough letters and e-mails over the years to know that contacting your elected representatives with concise issue statements makes one feel good.

And since feeling good is what health care is all about, what better time to do it than now ?

Days without day job: 110
Squish-o-meter: Army of One

I Sing the Body Eclectic

2009-07-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

"..I speak the pass-word primeval..."

Well, not exactly. Still can't comment in my own blog, apparently a Blogger issue, but can't discount Baby Blogger Bumbling yet. I apologize-working on it.

To continue last week's speculation, during my down-time I picked up "Walt Whitman's America, A Cultural Biography", by David S. Reynolds. Whitman aligned himself, in "Song of Myself " as well as other places, with loaferism, an actual subculture in opposition to the prevailing Puritan/Industrial mindset of 1840's America. Of course, he also got fired from more than one newspaper job for "laziness". So I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, but just as today's global MegaCorps seek to manage our time for us, so the Romantic/Beat/Hippie/Slacker /Punk ethos has always provided an alternative viewpoint. Ann Powers, in "Weird Like Us, My Bohemian America", has a more modern take on it. A music critic at the New York Times and Village Voice, she explores, among other things, the alternative economy.

A longtime friend, at Zippidy Doo Da, a very interesting blog from a Large Red State, also suggests “World Made by Hand,” by James Kunstler, and Kevin Phillips' “Bad Money”. Are there other " Slacker Manuals" out there? Baby Blogger promises a review or two, after finishing a couple of these. But he'd better get back to his own "alternative economy".

2009-07-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

The decision to leave my day job came in a rush. I hadn't planned to leave till 2010, but was presented with a use-it-or-lose-it situation as regards the pension. The corporation that employed me, like most in the notoriously venal grocery industry, simply saw inflated corporate bonuses and record profits as being of more value than rewarding employee loyalty.

In my haste to start working for a CEO who exhibits a bit more respect for all my hard work (namely, me), I didn't really have time to do one thing that the world's prototype Squishtoid really should do [hangs head in shame] :

Publish a manifesto. And I promise I will do that, one of these eras. Suffice it to say that while my pursuit is one of freedom from insipid corporate stupidification and a quest for real craft, it's also a pursuit of the meaning and value of time, especially time creatively spent with other people, whether at work, play, or simply in good conversation.

There's quite a bit needs to be done in the US that won't get done until Americans cop to the fact that we have conceded too much of our precious time to banal corporate interests who give little but coupon discounts in return. Health care is one issue that sticks out in this regard. We treat it as some kind of separate issue in a list of issues without seeing it as integral to our basic quality of life. Like respect, dignity and the simple freedom to spend time with our loved ones, health is something that corporate America spends billions of dollars creating the illusion that they provide. At the same time, billions of other dollars are spent in making sure that these things are placed well behind profits in public policy making. Making us the laughingstock of cultures that we often, and superficially, treat as laughingstocks. Like France.

And in health care, if nowhere else, he who laughs last...

I intend to move forward, and create a positive place for myself in my new (working) life. And I acknowledge that I AM one of the few who did, indeed, escape (barely) with a pension. But I couldn't help but notice that others are starting to look at these issues. For now, I'm going to let this gentleman wrestle with the big questions. Out of the Office, a look at workplace wars in the New Yorker.

PS Thanks to you guys who have left comments. I'm having a hard time getting the site to recognize my profile to return comment, though I comment in other blogs all the time. In researching the issue, I see that this is a common problem around here. Hopefully, soon...

Eyes on the road, hands upon the wheel

2009-07-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

Now comes the tricky part. Producing and preparing for a show in August. Should be a quiet summer, as the last one didn't produce much cash. So plenty of time to make and frame prints, and hope that Salida is a bit more art-oriented than Casper during these recession times.

I will also be preparing for a September show in Albuquerque as I got accepted for that this week. Then a small show in the Open Press Gallery for October, along with the start of my Art Students League Workshop. So keeping busy won't really be a problem, it's feng-shui-ing my noodle to eliminate distracting money worries.

I am definitely accepting hints and advice from all you teacher-types out there as I gear up to teach an 8-week workshop! What's the most important thing to remember?

The Weekend Squishtoid

2009-07-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'd like to think of me returnin when I can
to the greatest little boozer and to Sally MacLennane

-Pogues

I found out, to my dismay, that in the frantic preparations for Casper, I'd missed the announcement of Pogues tickets going on sale in Denver Friday. They don't like touring much, and usually California or Chicago is as close as they get to Denver. So it qualifies as a rare, and possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them at the Ogden Theatre.

Fortunately, there were still tickets left when I got back ( after all, this IS the city that didn't sell out for the Beatles)! So now, all I have to do is pray for Shane MacGowan's liver to hold out till October.

It's been a momentous summer for my (admittedly, off-the-beaten-track) cultural icons. The US National Team reached its first FIFA Final, A new Pynchon novel, and now the Beatles of Irish-American punk-folk. There will be a review of the show here after it happens.

Days without getting a job: 93

Squishometer: Was feeling A BIT SQUISHED after the Nic show; now, having scored Pogues tix, WARM N SQUISHY.

2009-07-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

"Sad to say
I must be on m' way
So buy me beer and whiskey, boys
I'm goin far away"

Casper, Wyoming isn't much more than four hours from Denver, but it feels like a distant land.

The Nicolaysen Museum show was a success in every way except sales. I loaded up and zoomed up past Cheyenne and into the open range. This is great driving, with few other cars and a road that pays dividends for the attentive; I've seen plenty of wildlife and the nuances of the high plains landscapes make for sublime vistas. Nonetheless, I had to keep a good pace, and the weather was a worry. I went through a T-storm about Douglas and wondered how that would affect setting up for the show. But it cleared up about the time of the show, and the crowd was good, with one sale.

That seemed like a good omen. Saturday, quite a few people took an interest, but no sales. However, enthusiasm was high. The people that bought SNOW FENCES 287 on Friday, Dan and Mandy, sent three other people in! But the hours were brutal. I put in 16 hrs on hot asphalt.

Sunday: one sale, an architect named James who bought RAVINE AT DUSK. Then it was time to pack up and get the rental back down the dark highway. Got in at 1 am, and just in time, too! My eyes were beginning to cross, and I nearly drifted into the other lane a couple of times.

But it was a good experience. Casper is a nice little city with a lot of people who seem desperate for a little culture. I met classical musicians, architects, and photographers, many of whom seemed to know each other, and to be sending each other to my booth. But for whatever reasons, they seemed unable to commit to buying work.

The Nicolaysen seems to be trying to lift the city singlehandedly. Nic Fest is their Capitol Hill People’s Fair, and shows potential. The museum is a spectacular resource for such a small city, and the staff shows a lot of leadership and vision in presenting the town as a cultural tourist stop. As the Executive Director, Holly, told me, " We make our own fun here." Meaning, they can't easily escape to larger cities in bigger states, as the border cities such as Laramie can.

And their vision doesn't seem all that far-fetched. While Casper doesn't seem quite ready to pay for (my) contemporary art, and the show was choked with cowboy tchotchkes, they do seem to support the idea. And I counted four(!) restored movie theatres within a few blocks downtown. Whatever I expected from this experience, a 10 PM traffic jam downtown as the Festival let out, and the movie-goers streamed in, was not it! Well done to a vibrant little city!

Things are a little slower this week, and I will try to post a bit more. July looks set for a more relaxed pace, and after a very frantic June, that sounds good to me! Note to self- two shows in one month- pretty tough! Time to start acting like a retired person, at least for a couple of weeks. My most pressing upcoming deadline is Aug 4- the day Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Inherent Vice comes out.

Oh- and there was very nearly one disaster as a result of this show, but I'll save that for my next (and first Weekend Squishtoid) post. There is a clue in this post, however.

2009-06-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

"Gonna be a twister come
blow everything down
that ain't got the faith
to stand its ground"

- Springsteen

Here's what I SHOULD have made the epigraph for the last post, but I'm just a baby blogger yet! Off to Casper, WY, this weekend for a fair/show at the Nicolaysen Museum

This could be an entirely different type of crowd than Capitol Hill and to top it all off, The USA is playing Brazil while I may be standing around getting blank stares from people looking for nature photography. I'm probably being way too simplistic, my experience of WYO is always that it can't be stereotyped, but the irony is there- the "retired" guy can't drink beer and watch football 'cause he has to work! I'll post a bit more in depth when I get back.

Tornado Discount? Hell, yeah!

2009-06-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

I wish all Art Fairs were like the Art Students League of Denver Summer Art Market
The crowds are always there, and they are rarely there for the hot dogs. They are there for art. It's a great little fair. I'm never bored there, partly because of the strong crowds, partly because it's such a social occasion. Also there's the weather in Colorado in June, which can be ...dramatic.

This year people were buying smaller (at least in booth #57), but they were still buying. Sales weren't as strong as '08, but they were solid, and as it was my first real chance to make money at my new profession, that's huge.

I might actually have approached last year's total, but the whole thing ended in chaos. Around 2-ish, the clouds came in, and tornado sirens started wailing. From experience, I keep a tarp and trash bags, tubs, etc, for quick wet-proofing, and I had a friend there who could help pull framed pieces off the walls when the wind kicked up. I happened to be finishing up a sale as the eerie sirens started, but with my eye on the rapidly thickening sky, I figured it wouldn't take more than 5 minutes to pack and zip up, get in the building and hope for the best.

Then another woman wanted to buy 2 small pieces. These were, to coin a phrase, some cool customers! A steady crowd was streaming into the building, but not Monotype collectors- they're not easily intimidated! Putting the whole 'squish or be squished' manifesto to its first test, I completed the sale as quickly as I could. I couldn't find the tax chart, so I simply rounded it off and called it good, got the nice lady a bag to protect the prints from raindrops and the odd flying trailer home and thanked her as she and her friend exited the tent.

"Okay, Nicole, let's zip it up and get inside."

Only, as Nicole zipped up the front flap, the lady and her friend popped back in the back flap. Her friend wanted to buy a small framed piece. I'd already packed it into a tub, so I dug it out. "Is there a tornado discount?" She asked. Like I said, cool customers! Hey, if I die, at least I'll have art! "Shit, yeah, there's a tornado discount", I'm thinking as I knock 20% off the price, again round off the tax, bag the art and even, out of habit remember to ask for her phone number on the check.

The sirens are on their 3rd go-round, weird suspicious tendrils are trailing off the thick dark clouds, which are beginning to swirl. Someone has taken a cell phone photo of a funnel cloud. By three thirty, the sirens, after 4 warnings, are finally silent, and there's even brightness in the west. We throw the tent back open, and a steady stream of people wanders by, but the crowds never really return. At about 4:30 there's another thundershower, and we pack it up for good. 4 tornado warnings and a thundershower and not a piece of art damaged. Plus 4 sales while the sirens are sounding. A good omen for this Squishtoid, I guess. As for the Summer Art Market, drama is nothing new there. One year it took place during the Hayman fire in the foothills. That Sunday, the sky turned orange, the sun was a big red ball behind all the smoke, and pieces of ash rained on the artwork. Strange days, indeed.

2009-06-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

"Some are mathemeticians,
some are carpenter's wives;
I don't know how it all got started;
I don't know what they do with their lives..."

-"Tangled Up in Blue", Dylan

The first thing that strikes you is: How did I ever find time for a day job? To explain- owing to economic and political realities, I recently retired.

I always envisioned a life with a lot of free time. The question of how to pay for the "free time" ? Ah, there's the rub. So this is a blog about not getting a job.

I'm an artist, and the weekends have been a time split between traditional leisure/social activities, such as sports, art shows and music, and more professionally oriented ones, such as making and selling art. Then back to my job, often at 4 am Monday morning. Now I schedule my own time, a great advantage which I really appreciate. It's rare for working people to retire these days, and most seem to have their next job lined up before the retirement party even begins. My next job has been lined up since I graduated with a BFA: unfortunately, it pays even less than the classic retirement job, wal mart greeter.

I'm going to be a Squishtoid. I won't bore you with a long drawn out definition of what a Squishtoid is, especially since I just made it up and haven't really defined it yet, but I can give you the manifesto: squish or be squished. As background- I'm a monoprint artist. I paint ink on a plexiglass sheet and run it through a press at 2000 pounds psi pressure. What I painted comes out the other side, backward and totally squished. Kind of like life itself.

Then I sell them at shows, most of them street fair type shows. My first show was June 13-14, a chance to keep wal-mart at arm's length and keep scheduling my own time. I'll tell you how it went in my next post. For now, suffice it to say:

Days without job: 76.

Feel free to comment. Let me know if you are in a similar situation. Or contemplating it. For artists, I hope to share some of the things to look for as I stumble into my new career. For art lovers, I hope to share some of the process and thinking that goes into a monotype. For people who hate single subject blogs, I'll slip in a little "weekend squish" about books, music, cooking, entertainment and living the good life on the cheap.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope it happens to you sometime.