Working with Cal

Christmas was Christmas.

I drove back to Jacksonville where I made a quiet entrance. I set to fasting after Christmas dinner, though I didn't know how exactly to fast properly. I spent three days in healing, without food or water, reading Faust. It felt secretly wonderful. I now know to never fast without water.

I broke the fast at the end of the third day with water, then on Monday morning with fruit and nuts. I began working at 8am with Cal Ogelsby, a local to Jacksonville and a latent-realized mural artist. Cal has developed a habit of gorging on huge workloads of painting projects. Sometime last week, through a mutual friend, I made a proposal to Cal that if he found himself in deep, he could surely drop me a line. Somewhere in the midst of a dark, long stretch without stimulus, I received a text message from Cal; "...down to do some work on Monday...?"

So we met in front of a store in five-points. Cal explained the job, we were to paint the facade (which had a purple coat over the the whole of it), and paint a sign too. We began by setting up two levels of scaffolding, which was a new experience for me. "What heavy equipment!", I thought.

The practicality of the scaffolding became clearer and clearer throughout the day. Somewhere during the painting process, Cal mentioned that his dad was a general contractor, and I felt that my understanding of him grew exponentially with this fact. Cal was a tall country boy that had eaten a lot of hallucinogens. He was passionate and bright-eyed. He was joyous. I enjoyed spending time with him. His painting method entailed many checkpoints, so the work seemed to unfold in a linear fashion, which as an employee I greatly appreciated. There was a time for set-up, a time for brush-work, blocking in, cutting back, somewhere in there we took separate lunch breaks, more cuts, more blocking in. It was a huge task. As the night grew long, I began to finish up all of the cuts on the wall. Cal had a lot of work left with the lettering that he started. I wanted to leave this to him, as the commissioned artist. I slept on the sidewalk and woke to an outstretched hand. I reached out and grabbed the hand, two twenty-dollar bills sat within its palm and was transferred to me as I was pulled to my feet. "Help me get this scaffolding down." 

The following morning, Cal picked me up outside of CoRK. Today's job was at a Montessori School. I slept on the way out, it was an overcast and cold morning. We arrived to a locked gate. Cal had the key. Next to the locked gate sat a type of dinosaur- an articulating boom lift. It was beautiful. Cal couldn't wait to try it out and hopped in the basket and began reading manuals. I unlocked the gate and began unloading paint, scaffolding, tarps, and brushes in front of the three mural locations. 

The three mural locations- The school was elegantly designed. It seemed to realize and meet the 'fantastic' expectations that I harbor for this exotic education/lifestyle choice. The lawns were manicured and organized in an easy-to-process-if-not-zen way. Things within the six foot fence enclosing the school seemed very distinct from one another and I felt that this morning was sacred and beautiful. Cal drove the lift (it drives!) from the front gate into the parking lot inside of the gates, yelling to me to join him in the basket. What a funny sight. I got into the basket and up we went. Cal was already familiar with the height and weight distribution so up and up we went. We played with the different buttons and levers. The lift consisted of a base with four wheels attached to a drive train and steering column, a head (which I can thing to compare to the top-part of a military tank), which housed weights and a motor and revolved around the base in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree radius, a pneumatic elbow for twenty feet-worth of elevation, another pneumatic elbow for another twenty feet-worth, a sheathed extension arm for ten lateral feet, a pneumatic wrist which could extend another ten feet, and a basket which could swivel left and right from the end of this long, outstretched dinosaur-robot arm. There we were, two under-qualified (define) artists in the middle of a parking lot 50 feet above the ground, playing in the basket of a rented articulated boom lift. 

I set up scaffolding as Cal drove the lift into place. The task at hand were three murals, each of which were perched in the eves of the primary education buildings. The murals were planned and prepared by the school. They represented cultural diversity and other good things. Cal had already worked on one of the murals (each 4 foot by 4 foot sections) in a day prior, and from it gave direction on how the others would come into fruition. We used pouncing techniques to transfer a to-scale print-out of one of the murals (hands, cupping a potted plant). The other, central mural, was my designated project. Based on math, my job was to transfer a sketch of two circles (globes) suspended in front of sixty international flags onto the wall. I used measuring tape, a level, and a calculator and had all of the shapes up quickly. I find this type of process-based prep-work very beautiful and healing. I blocked in colors before we took a lunch break. The rest of the day flew by. I blocked in many flag colors, which placed next to each other, create a symphony of colorful geometric shapes, or maybe more like a quilt. We called it a day a few hours after the sun went down. I felt tired. 

The sun hadn't come out in over a week and I drifted into a light sleep as we drove back towards Riverside. I heard Cal exclaim "2015!"- a punchline. I laughed out of the subconscious and into what seemed a parallel subconscious. Through the windshield of the truck, from the center lane of an eight-lane highway, in the dark cold night, we approached three bridges, one layered above another, stacking one hundred feet into the air. Each bridge, a highway and full of automobiles like the one we were in, expressing themselves in amber streams of light. The sound of wind pouring in through cracks and gaps in the panels of Cal's pickup truck. I hadn't realized the future would sound so familiar as wind. Cal dropped me off at Cork and I got out of his truck without my cell phone. I took a bike ride after I realized I was alone. Five points, Brooklyn, Downtown, The Landing, Springfield- the town looked mostly the same- strange faces out at bars. I went in to a couple of them, ones that I was familiar with. I didn't talk much. When the new year came around, I was standing next to a funnel cake stand, looking out at the Saint Johns River in anticipation of a firework display. 2015 rolled in with less pomp and circumstance than the end-of-the-world 2000, or the end-of-the-world 2012, which was a welcome change. I went home after the firework bursts began to extend their welcome. On my bed I thought, "If a resolution is to be made, be it one of happiness". I slept in the following day, and made only one errand to visit Cal to retrieve my phone. 

Cal met me again in front of Cork the following morning. We drove to the Montessori School to begin painting. It was a teacher-planning day and we talked with a couple of teachers about the Montessori Method. They together walked us through examples of exercises designed for three-to-five year-old's number relationship comprehension skills. I was very fascinated and slightly envious that I was not educated this way, before I checked this self-defeating thought. (Who am I to be jealous of the I which I am not?) The teachers left the school in the afternoon, and Cal and I painted for hours in silence. The sun's rays still remained behind miles of cloud and the air was cool and heavy with precipitation. In the basket of the articulated boom lift, postured above manicured gardens, presumably planted by young geniuses, I painted colored geometric shapes. I felt that I could be painting the crest on a mid-evil castle, or the altar of a church, or likewise the symbol for an alternative future-civilization. In short, it felt surreal. Again, lunch, again, nightfall. We packed up around 10:30, and went to the bar to have two rounds of drinks. 

My parents came into town the following morning. I woke to a text from my mother saying that she and my father were 'on their way up'. I got my basket of drawings together, and went out to our agreed-upon meeting point- under the bridge at the Riverside Arts Market, where I set up a small display of drawings for passers-by, busker style. I did not talk with very many people, but did find time while sitting to write a return letter to a pen-pal. I had a conversation with a bright ten-year-old named Jacob about beetles, gobies, (some of my favorite subject matter), and boomerang hunting. I missed several calls from my parents, but in short time found them. We took a walk around five points, and I showed them my current exhibition at Brew. From there, we took a walk to Black Sheep, a great local restaurant, and had lunch. We split up and met back shortly at Cork, where I gave a tour and made introductions among friends. I loaded up a backpack and hopped in my parent's car whereupon we drove together back to their home in Crystal River and I write to you now. 

Here, in the comfort of my parents home, I will seek perspective and contemplate. 

Crystal River

The following day I made the motorcycle trip back to Crystal River, committing to a holiday henceforth. The ride back was nothing short of a miracle, riding west into the sunset on a motorcycle which on this second ride, I was now very comfortable on. I hauled ass. And from here in the comfort of my parent’s house, with my father and his two dogs, I write to you. Goodnight.

Tickets

The following day my mother made a drive to Panama City to visit my sister (pregnant with her first child, a daughter) and her husband. From there, they would all make a flight to New Mexico to have Christmas with the in-laws. I was set on attending the art show at CoRK, so after walking my parents dogs, I hopped on my mother's motorcycle and made a ride back up to Jacksonville. It was a cold ride. I rode with the clear sun to my side dimming behind oaks and long stretches of marsh which lined the central Florida back-roads. The air became cold and I made a final stretch into Jacksonville from the west in the early dark of the night. I arrived to a beautifully hung show. I was humbled because Overstreet re-hung my work and made it look much better than I'd arranged it. He is very thorough. I believe most artists in the show sold paintings, I as an exception. The night progressed and the musicians began to play (this was one of the big selling points for me coming back to Jacksonville for the show- an opportunity to play). My drums were already set up. Nathan Smith was there with his wacky soundboards, and Morrison got on the mic, wailing and screaming in his 'house of gore' fashion. I got behind the drum set and played and played and played. It was wonderful fun, especially after being on a motorcycle for so many cold hours. A guitar player accompanied us for some time. His levels were too loud and it seemed like his knowledge was limited to off-tempo blues licks and metal riffs. He was bad, but with our musical verbosity, we made good parody out of it until he got tired and called it a night. The last set between Shaun, Nathan, and I was recorded. We switched instruments several times between each other and had a few laughs. It was a night that almost ended in a trip to Waffle House, though I didn't feel like hurting myself like that, so I heated a can of kidney beans and brown rice that I had stashed away and we split that three ways.

Crystal River

In the morning, I hung a selection of paintings for the Tickets show (only four out of two dozen made it in), then set off to Crystal River to have a holiday dinner with my mom, dad, and grandmother. We had a beautiful feast of spaghetti squash and steak. I didn't eat any steak and no one commented on my withering away, progress! My grandmother left back to her home in Salt Springs that night.

Burrito Gallery

I'd been talking with a local business about the state of their walls for a few days. This needs some explanation; the business is called The Burrito Gallery- the idea being a Mexican restaurant where you can eat among great, local, curated art. I went in for a meal the other day and the 'gallery' was empty. In fact, it was more than empty, it was in disrepair from several shows which had hung there and not fixed their wall mess on the way out. What resulted were walls with holes all over them, and some hardware left hanging. It looked bad. I asked the owner what was going on with his walls and he said, "I don't know, I think an artist is flaking on me and I have no one to show in his place."
He recognized me as 'Thursto's friend' and asked if I could hang a show. I said absolutely. He said he needed a few days to confirm so I gave him my number. A few days later I got the call. He said, "Your Thursto connection really pulled through, you got the spot. Bring some big paintings etc. etc."

I saw many options of what to do from here. I agreed to help him out, definitely, but how I was not personally sure of. I went to the paint store at which the Burrito Gallery's account was filed and picked up a quart of paint and some patch supplies. I was reimbursed by the owner, Paul, upon arriving at the restaurant and began preparing (removing hardware, patching, sanding, dusting, painting) the walls to get ready for an install. His remark about big paintings I believe was an assumption on his part, and I at the time had no large-scale work, only modest-sized watercolor and gouache paintings. I saw an option to build panels that night and cram some paintings, but I didn't want to hang anything that I wasn't sure of (not to mention I already had what I saw as a successful show hanging for the same period at Brew). I thought if the math was right (spacing) the smaller works wouldn't look half bad in the space, but I kept it as a plan B. I thought my friend's work would look great in the space, as was echoed to me again by my friend Overstreet, Jeff Luque. After finishing the wall work at the restaurant and returning to CoRK, I offered the space to Jeff that night and he accepted! He was ready to install within the hour and we transported five of his large paintings to the restaurant and installed them before close. We ate free dinners compliments of Paul, and I hooked up the bar in back with a clean chalkboard sign-job. Big success! That night at CoRK I prepared more work for the Tickets show.

Day Labor

One day Morrison proposed that I join him on the job site. He was likely very sore from doing this work for a few days, and was looking to divide the work load. The pitch was simple; ten dollars a board- removing nails. I thought it sounded alright so I agreed. I met Morrison in the lobby of CoRK at 6:30AM, where from we took his car to the jobsite downtown. At the intersection of Forsyth and Jefferson was a building which at a time around March of that year, Shaun and I had painted one of his crystal murals in preparation for his exhibition at the Museum. The building (the very same, as mentioned herein this post) burned down mysteriously. The city bid 800,000 for the deconstruction, which was a high figure. The property development firm (Pine Street) who developed the CoRK Arts District saw an opportunity and stole the contract. As a bonus to the opportunism, they acquired all of the property rights to the contents of the building (though most of them ashes), including all of the partially burned hardwood timber, laid in the early twentieth century. The timber could be stripped of nails (that's where we came in), stored, planed, processed, and reused in other building projects, of which pine street had no shortage. So, in this cold morning, Morrison and I with hammers in hand processed (that is, took nails out one at a time) plank by plank. The patterns and quantities of nails in the planks varied greatly. It was quite an operation getting one of them clean, and the ten-dollars-a-board figure began to seem more justified than before. Boss-man Mac came around in the early afternoon to give each of us one fifty dollar bill. Morrison and I used our bills to take a lunch break. Back to work for a few hours before boss-man Mac came back around. He wanted to take the boards which we'd cleaned thus far (a total of twenty-one for the day and sixty-something adding in Morrison's boards from pervious days) and load them on a trailer to bring to storage. We had our demo friends on the site help us by loading them on the trailer with a lift, then we buckled them down  to the trailer and drove them across town to one of Mac's warehouses in Springfield, where we unloaded them for storage. We did this twice, but it was not explained to us that we were still operating under the initial ten-dollars-a-board contract. In other words, we were working for free for more than half of the day. The deal soured. We were handed the rest of our payment, another fifty spot and thanked for our work. We'd made below minimum wage.

Cigarettes

Back in Jacksonville, I whipped together an art show called Cigarettes, my first solo show which was to debut at my friends coffee shop, called Brew, in under a week. I became a shut-in, putting paint down and mounting paintings and drawings. As the show date came nearer, I found myself out on the town a fair amount, determined to not let the show stress me, it felt appropriate to put up some flyers and to talk with friends about the opening. Truth be told, most of the work was done in the three months prior to going to Miami. I went into the park downtown where I got a coffee from my friend Will's coffee stand. He caught me up on goings on in Jacksonville (didn't seem like I missed much), including a successful winter holiday market, which I'd made a beautiful gouache painted flyer for. A young man walking by asked if I liked hip hop. I replied with a yes, and he offered me one of his hip hop albums. I had no money to give him and offered that we walk together around the corner to a bank where I could withdraw some cash for him. I let him do most of the talking. He was wonderful- very passionate about his craft, and full of life. I asked if he'd played shows. He said yes, he'd emceed at group shows before. I asked if he would like to play a show tomorrow. He was smart and asked specifics. His name was Jumu. We exchanged information and agreed to stay in touch through the night and following day. I felt determined to have him play. I got in my car and put his cd in the player. It was good!
I talked with Jumu via text about equipment- he had none of his own equipment. I need to get him a PA system if he was to play. In addition to the equipment limitations, Brew as a venue had its own set of limitations. A theater next door meant that we could not play music at the same time as a scheduled movie. I talked with Tim at the theater and he offered that he could start one movie early, and another movie late, giving us a 45 minute gap in which Jumu could be as loud as we wanted to go.
Now to get a PA system. Like divinity, while talking with the Brew crew, Liz Russell walked through the door who was there to talk with Summer Wood about lending her PA system to Summer for a show at CoRK the next night. Summer and Liz's deal went through and I piggy-backed. It worked out wonderfully. Liz and I got right into her car and made the drive to her parents warehouse where tons and tons of fabrics are processed for paint companies and thrift stores. In the back storage section of the warehouse, we dug out the PA system, then drove it back to Brew. All was a go for Jumu!

One of the two artists, Mark George, who was hanging in the previous show at Brew came in to take down his work. He patched up his holes and I agreed to sand and paint. I got the key to the business and took off for the big sprint to the finish.

That night at CoRK studio, I went into production mode. Finishing the paintings, which I could manage to finish and putting the rest in a corner. Shaun came by to take photos of some of his drawings. We set up a camera and lighting and took some photos. I mixed two colors for the borders of every panel in the show, creating a feeling of unity throughout the body of work, though the mediums used in the show were varied. I installed hardware on the backs of some of the paintings, loaded them in my car, and drove the work to Brew in two or three trips. In Brew, I laid the work in front of the interior wall on which I was to install, and moved all of the chairs from one side of the room to the other to get a better view. To my great fortune, my first layout of the show looked great. I took out a pen and paper, and did all of my 60-center math (which I learned from working in the Museum of Contemporary Art Downtown), and hung the show. I finished around 6 in the morning, then went to bed. I arrived back at Brew in the early afternoon to touch base and learn about the show. The crew seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. I'd hung paintings which I understood to be unfinished ( I thought I would come back through with ink and a brush and give it a once-over), but those were the very paintings which upon sitting at the counter and talking with the Brew crew about, that garnered the most positive response. I felt relieved and also trapped in my decision to leave the paintings where they were. I think there is something very powerful about leaving the painting alone as soon as it says what it needs to say. If you treat your audience with respect, they will show respect. They get it, no need to over explain. That afternoon, I went to my friend Stephanie's house who agreed to prepare vegetables that I'd purchased  for the night and a great deal of hummus. As the show time grew near I spent time with the crew (Amanda, Jeremy, Cali, and Jack) making the space look great. We moved around condiments, took down all of the flyers in the window, set out food, and set up the PA out in the front room. Jumu showed up right on time and checked his levels. Eight O'clock rolled around and no one was in the bar for the show. There was a definite calm before the storm feeling. Friends began trickling in and it became a real event by and by. Jumu's performance window opened up. I asked for the attention of the bar through the mic (I have next to zero command through a mic). A friend helped out by yelling through the bar, "QUIET!"- thank you.
"Hello, I'm Kemeys, this is my art show. I would like to introduce my friend Jumu who will rhyme over some beats. Thank you."
I handed the mic to Jumu. He pressed play on his phone, which was plugged in to the PA system. The beats began, and Jumu started to come to life. He sounded awful, but I thought if nothing else, it added some character to the show. It sounded bad. I took a short walk around the corner. Was I mistaken about Jumu? Coming back in to Brew from my walk, I felt the solution was very obvious. I went up to the PA and turned Jumu's soundtrack way up. His beats were killer and the increase in volume sent a wave of inspiration through he and I. At once, it sounded fantastic! Together we danced in the front room, and he looked great through the glass storefront windows. My enthusiasm for Jumu rekindled, I turned my attention to conversing with friends in the adjacent room. It was a wonderful night. There was a lot of talk about each of the paintings in the show selling. It seemed like everyone wanted a different piece and I felt that I may have a sold-out show. The night went on and I'd traded numbers with interested potential buyers. As the show came to a close, I began to re-install the flyers in the front window, and package the left-over food. I returned the borrowed sound equipment and began the load-out. I felt light. I thanked Jumu and paid him (we'd agreed on two hundred and fifty dollars- because artists not getting paid is bullshit). The night ended with a round of high fives basically and I went back to CoRK to clean up the art-mess that I'd made. I thought to myself, 'no rest for the weary'- What does that mean?

Morrison proposed a show at CoRK called Tickets- because he and I and Overstreet all got parking tickets while down in Miami. Morrison has a way of bolstering excitement from seemingly nowhere. Soon the showcase was big, with a lineup I couldn't have dreamed of being a part of. The flyer read Thursto, Southworth, Goethe, Luque, Overstreet, Pierce. Dream team. I began preparing every finished painting that I had.