PC, Tlh, JAX

I left this big one for later, this blog post. It might be fun, let's see if I can get a swing going. I cut my left index finger with a knife today, so that's a lot of what I'm focusing on at the moment. Really stupid cut. I was cutting through a sausage link with my finger on the other side. It was a reckless mistake. Anyway, so let's get on with it: 

From Panama City I left on a Greyhound bus for Tallahassee. Panama City was becoming claustrophobic and I felt that there was no reason I should be there. More so, I wanted to get to Philadelphia for this PAFA spring semester show where the school guts the contemporary museum to hang student works, all of which are for sale. Apparently $300,000 of work was sold on opening night, so I felt inclined to see this thing. What's more, it was a great way to step outside of pomp which might have come from spending my birthday with my collected family. I asked for no gifts, etc. I thought about how I thought about how Jahovahs Witnesses think about birthdays- not as a cause for celebration, but as an opened ape rather for an earth experience. I thought to put some weight on it. So I bought a plane ticket and a bus ticket and was off. I missed the morning bus out of Panama City, and returned three hours early for the afternoon bus to make sure I wouldn't repeat the mistake. My mom drove me there in her Tesela car. I find it funny and embarrassing pulling up to a greyhound station in a 100K+ car with falcon wing doors. I try to swallow my pride when those doors go up and just think, 'that's what those do and isn't that unique'. In the bus station, a quiet group was activated by this one really loud-mouth girl from Miami. I left while she took a speaker-phone video call with her infant relatives. I went outside to read a little bit of a book. I don't know which. I read Lessing's Lacoön, Nathan, and some play with a woman's name, Minna Von Barheim? I was on to something else, can't recall (edit: Doctorow's, Walkaway) I went back in and the phone conversation had ceased. She'd moved on to engaging the room, and that wasn't the worst. It became kind of nice- entertaining at least. There was a big black prison guard who was there to make shire this newly freed inmate got onto the bus (inmate looked like he was ready to slit some throats tbh), the hypocritical conservative know-it-all, and this funny Caribbean black guy who seemed super shy but was adamant about saying, 'you don't know, I can get crazy', with his baby face. He was this anomaly. He'd taken a trip from Orlando to Panama City for the three-day (Memorial Day) weekend, and inquiring about the cab ride to the beach it was stated that it would cost him 30$, to which he asked whether it was worth it or not, and the cab driver said 'not really', and our friend took him at face value and said, "well, take me to the greyhound station, I'm going back home". When this story came out of him, the room was think with social what-the-fucks. There was this other younger gentleman too, who'd been invited by his girlfriends family to come stay wt their beach condo. The girlfriend ended up hooking up with some other guy, and I guess our friend here at the greyhound station decided to cut his losses and leave. Not too much more to go into. The old conservative man would not stop talking and gave me a terrible impression of what old age could be like. The Miami loud-mouth asked everyone's zodiac signs, to which she said I need to have my own chart altogether, and I felt she was right about that. 

Tallahassee-wise, I hadn't orchestrated much, but put a post on Facebook that I was coming through, to no avail. I went straight to Allsaints Cafe and got a coffee. I'd already reduced my diet a couple days prior, in Panama City, as I'd been overeating. I got a coffee and a bagel after some time, and took a walk. I was considering which hotel I would end up staying in, and that alone feeling rolled in like I was on the road. A friend named Heather and I met eyes at some point, in this parking lot of a bar, and there was a little hip-jig thing that went on, as we're both flakes I think, and maybe both open but don't want to be hurt, or something, maybe both utterly cordial, and wanting to be respectful of each other's time. I don't know. I was happy to see Heather. She was someone whom I met at a very critical and raw time in my life, whereupon I'd just made the switch from 'Robbie', to Kemeys, and I also fell-in with this really loving and supportive group, complete with cuddle piles and talk about your feelings sessions. She'd just moved back, and also in the group was a pretty boy guy who I had a deep bond with, and this woman who I thought was god, and other comers and goers whom I thought the world of. I wanted to talk to Heather more, was a big takeaway from those times. 

Here, in Tallahassee, she was going to get a drink or two at the bar, and asked if I wanted to join, and I didn't pass it up. We both got two. After a bit she asked where I was staying. I said some motel, I hadn't decided, and she offered her bed. She contacted her roommate who said it was cool, and we both took off from there to go 'check in' so to speak. I got acquainted, met the roommate, and he and I agreed that the door would be unlocked at around midnight, when I was planned to come in for the night. From there Heather was headed to her partner's house, and she gave me a ride to a house show I'd heard of from the barista at the coffee place. I saw a touring band from Chicago, and met a few graffiti nerds that I'd not become acquainted with. They seemed nice enough, and a little absorbed with being cool, even though I tried to roll out the red carpet out for them a little bit. A friend of mine who'd played the show gave me a ride therefrom to a friend's house, where I met up with Cosby- a good old art friend. He's younger, but I look up to him in more way than just his stature. I've mentioned him before- he's a great guy. We drank as per usual at his cousin's house and Cosby mentioned driving me to Jacksonville the next day, and also alluded to going to paint some graffiti at the skatepark- like old times. So, I agreed naturally. I 'finished' my piece really quick because this cinderella was due to Tuten into a pumpkin, and I had to get back to my hosts house, so I spilt and Cosby ended up going over a third of my piece with his last letter- just like old times. I had a good rest at heather's house. I called Cosby in the morning, and he was really looking forward to driving me to Jacksonville. I cancelled my car reservation and hung out at Allsaints to wait for Cosby to come scoop me up. I bought him lunch and gas, and we were on our way. 

The trip to Jacksonville was filled with interesting conversation between Cosby and I. Turns out, he's a Taurus, which made a lot of sense when I found that out. I'd been getting along with Tauruses swimmingly of late. I felt like our friendship grew at that moment.Arriving in Jacksonville, I phoned Shaun- another art-friend, whom I'd helped install large murals with. Cosby and I met him at a cafe. Cosby had recently become a bonafide professional artist, specializing in murals, so he and Shaun had a lot to talk about. I was very happy  to sit back and let them have this time. Cosby's so low key, or something, that somehow I get opportunities that seem custom-designed for him. Then again, same can be said about some of the opportunities that come his way. He's often on projects that I thought I would've been involved with years ago, but have yet to come in fact. Cosby is strong in following through and applying himself- he's grounded. Cosby splits and goes back to Tallahassee, Shaun and I kick it. He finishes up some paperwork for a mural, and says I came at a perfect time, and that he wants to go get drunk. He says this in a silly way, and we both understanding what our drinking together looks like. I want to do something with the night, so we decide on a long walk to the bar, which was great through the neighborhoods of Jacksonville's Riverside, 30's bungalows abound, sun setting, talking philosophy a bit, getting thirsty. I suggested this ninny-bar, and it was a nice spot- up on a roof, ten dollar cocktails. 

I got something called Rosy Slipper or something, and he got like a Rusty Boot or something. We drank those, got tipsy, and moved on, drank more liquor, then beer, then more beer, then wine I think, and then more beer. It was a great night. All in all Shaun and I had each other, which gave us a sense of freedom to talk around to and with others. We got an Uber ride back to his place, and I guess we were taking really deep, and he made note that the journey to consciousness may well be the process of convincing oneself that the space in between one and another is real. Something like that, and I took it in and felt the sensation of leaving my body, and I came-to when my autonomic leg kicked back to catch me from falling backwards. 'I'm drunk', I thought but did not say. The concept was clear. Bedtime right after that. I woke in the morning feeling well. Hell. I ordered an Uber and went to the JAX airport, where I boarded a flight to Philadelphia. That's surely enough for one post, for one night. We can both agree that this is for the benefit of my mental health first and foremost. why I need this is another thing altogether. Sometimes I read them. Sometimes other people read them. I hope the writing brings you joy as it does me. I'll pick up where I left off, hopefully writing a little more concisely. Peace.  

Panama City, bby boy

So I went to Panama City. 

Well, let's rewind. I dropped out of RIngling College in short because I felt a great opportunity to 'sell high'. The first year was an awakening- what a year, oh my god! Soul-mate, perspective drawing, all nighters, bouts of depression and drinking, identity fluxes. Anyway, all of this craziness was about (i.e. around) learning what pictures are made from- it was boot camp, and it helped me chill out a bit, I think. Second year was just tons of painting- lots and lots of painting. Towards the end it digital was spliced in. It's quite an education. Ringling was a blast. I produced so much and was given really awesome opportunities (including a studio in New York for a summer, and a one-night show for a big metal sculpture at the RIngling Museum, and in general great guidance and facilities)- such an awesome school. Whether I know or not how much more there was to learn there is subjective, but I felt like two years was a great run and I found PAFA school to be strong in all of the areas where I questioned myself, and areas of concentration that went into a vague unaddressed space at RIngling. Ever a rolling stone (and as a kind of policy such), I'll move to Philadelphia in late July, to continue studying painting. Soul mate might have been overkill, have to hedge my bets a little here.. 

Most recent semester: Spring 2017

I finished up Ringling, not terribly strong- I'd put in so much groundwork at the beginning of the semester that after 'spring break' it was kind of a matter of coasting, and in knowing I'd been accepted into PAFA, a kind of 'senioritis' crept in. I focused on glass casting, as the rest of my work was largely painting and the 3D served as resting space- some breathing room. Also, glass, I could hardly figure out its purpose. Why would one cast something to be clear? (Our glass was clear). I cast a couple caves- like, blocks with interior caverns carved out- developed a technique to do so- a two part mold, and I cast a graffiti piece, which could be improved upon, and I cast a couple landscapes, and a couple figurative little 'bangers', (I'd call them, because they have a 'kick'). The little bangers are two. One is a nude woman on a rock face landscape, four inches by four inches with a one and a half inch relief. The other is half the size and is a lion with a sphere (maybe a head, maybe the head of Hercules), maybe a Neman Lion. These are chunky and bold and have a nice naiive quality. I'm pleased with them and in them I feel satisfied with glass. The others, hell, I might melt them down into better sculptures at my other school tbd. 

So the semester ended and I moved into the back half of my parents house da da da. So my sister is about to pop pregnant in Panama City, so as custom (for our family, this being her second child), we drove north by six hours to see her and be with the family, and the new child etc. I felt a pressure to go, and also a pressure to go to Philadelphia sometime before the third of June when a PAFA senior show would come down- I wanted to see that show. So we're in Panama City (PC) on May 27th, and the baby decides he's ready to come out on the 28th, pop! Hooray, all! So we congratulate, and see the baby, and I feel a kinship with this little baby, being born so near to my birthdate (June 1st), and he having my older sister as a mom, and he having a big sister by two years (just like my sister was older than me by two years) who behaves just like my sister. So, he, will in effect be brought up, I imagine in a similar household, or have many similar experiences perhaps. Anyway, my mom wanted 'to see him' and unswaddled him. I felt crazy at that moment. He's like a little recording device and about two hours into the world, he gets unswaddled. It's whatever. I was reading about this site discovered at Vesuvius under a house of prostitution with many baby bones. Like, a baby grave. It is surmised these were buried alive after unwanted pregnancies went through, and the whores went back to whoring, no shame. 

I read something that I believe followed Kant and Nietzsche, about moral reasoning- that it cannot be rightly projected onto another individual or group etc. So, if you see something as immoral, that's kind of your thing, not anyone else's. This has helped me love others more readily, and love myself more readily, turns out, and kind of rhymes with Jerry Saltz's point that criticism is a from of love. I now among other things feel more (intellectually armed at least) inclined to speak my mind, as hey, I'm just an individual with ambiguously reasoned and acquired morals- ready to change and be changed if so they see fit. Whooh! SO, this baby pops out, and I'm suddenly off the hook and eligible to take this trip to Philadelphia, so I buy a ticket and in a day and a half, I'm out of there on a bus. I'm going to end this blog post, to break up the trip from the other trip. It's all a big trippy trip ain't it?

Side Note

Here's a post about posting


When I come across older posts, often, I like them better. they're written more from the outside in rather than inside out- and that's a quote I borrow from an introduction to Joost Swarte's English publication, Is That All There Is. Anyway, I hope to get back to a more clean style of writing- less panicky and more straight documentary. I also will make an effort to work in a more straight-forward approach. I am reading a collection of lectures and writings from Philip Guston. He's full of great quotes; well read and ever the oppositionist. His working method is linear. I don't know whether his paintings benefit from it, but he seems like a smart guy for it or in spite of it.

I have a good sense of mental health right now, although I tend to wax poetic for hours every day, wondering about whom I will pair up with, then going back to thinking 'it's no-one, of course!', or thinking of how I will spend my time or make money, and likewise I think, 'no how, for now'.

My mind nears rest through my work, and so in fits and starts I'll continue on. I've got more to write, but I'll continue it on another post. Here's to a bright future of clean documentation.

Embarassment

And we’re back.

 

 I published my blog address on a different social media platform, and have felt the oblique embarrassment in these days following. Since my last post I read among other things this intro to “My life and Hard Times” by James Thurber- a copy of his book I picked up at a thrift store in passing in Philadelphia on my last visit up. God, a fair amount has happened since my last post. Mostly I feel like a schmuck. I’m embarrassed by my privilege, and it seems especially fluorescent of late. James Thurber, in his into writes about the pitfalls of the disoriented autobiographer- making a quick box within which an ugly caricature is drawn. It kind of deactivated me for a bit. I felt raw. He was right, what he said, and I still don’t know really where to go from there, writing-wise. There’s something else- I forgot who it was- someone said, something about how his writing and his painting being in direct competition, so he ceased to write. This one’s a little cockeyed for me, but I can nevertheless relate. For this quip I can counter with a quote from Hemmingway, which has something to do with his writing so much and so little as only to keep himself sane. That seems to suit me. I feel inclined to write.

 I live with my parents now. I moved from Sarasota, North to Crystal River for an undetermined amount of time. I’ve expanded my stuff into a studio in a kind of second half of their house. They let me have it- this big studio space. I’m like a little otter back there, running around, sorting, picking things up, little paintings, drinking coffees and sodas and devoting unbridled attention to whichever painting I end up in front of. I made a small burn pile for some not-up-to-snuff paintings. Part of me knows that all of the paintings deserve to go in that burn pile. Nothing that I make is any good- it just looks kind-of practiced- it’s whack. For the amount that I’ve been painting, I do not feel particularly smarter, or more cultured- I’m just nerdier for it. I guess the idea is that it’s in the next painting. I’m going back to painting. In a little bit. There’s still some stuff I gotta say. I don’t think I’ll be better off for spending time at my folk’s house. It’s cool to know family and all, but it’s a little whack to revert into childhood. I hope my parents can be nice to me while I’m here- one less thing to worry about while I figure things out. I felt crazy, like nuts, last night before bed, like totally disengaged, and like a waste. This morning I slept in and felt really great upon waking. There’s a few paths, there’s a non-engaged mooch, an engaged mooch (career, etc. – yuppies), and an engaged citizen. (which citizen seems a little patriotic, but whatever). And the difference here between a mooch and a citizen, is a some – god what the fuck am I talking about? There’s something toxic in Crystal River which is funny. An effect which has to do with relative IQ, and the lowered bar which subordinates others to your opinions-as-facts. There are no shortages of locals who feel qualified to look down their noses at you and deliver a contrived, cable-television rhetoric at you. That’s some of the source of my second guessing. God, I just feel toxic I guess. At least now I have a local library card. I’m not having a good time here, regarding being a yuppie. I left Ringling College, and am transferring to PAFA in the fall. What could I do between now and then that might shake some of the yuppie off? Hike the goddamn Appalachian Trail? That was a stupid question, alright, whatever, but, right? Build a Habitat for humanity home is kind-of ringing loud and clear for me right now.

 

I think that’s all I have to say.

Yikes

Yikes on that last post. All's well, just drank a bunch one night.

Backstory: I took a day trip down to Miami with the fine arts students, hoping to further rub elbows with the intern program coordinators at the Rubell Family Collection. The bus left campus at 8:30am. I'd stayed up the night before working on paintings, then also, skateboarding around (I ordered a skateboard from online, and have been blissing out, like finding a long lost friend) until late. SO I got on the bus and ate a doughnut, as provided, then napped, and we stopped at a rest stop, where I peed, then ate another doughnut, then napped, and then we were in Miami, where we got off the bus and promptly ate lunch, provided to us by a corporate deli. I had a chicken salad, much as I usually go vegetarian, I've been on a high protein thing, which, eh. I'm closer to veg again now. Went into the De la Cruz collection, where I saw a few Peter Doig paintings. One of them excited me. Also a sculpture by Thomas Houseago. The fine arts students promptly went up to the third floor to see Torres's (or 'Felix's') pieces: a pile of candy, and a pile of papers with printed sentences on them, yikes. Felix is a museum legend, and I'm down, (look up his work if you don't know it- Alex Felix Gonzales Torres), but the campy attitude which my knuckle-dragging compatriots ate it up was bothersome, and I (perhaps as an oppositionist first and foremost) could not line up to take the candy, or a printed paper, as granted permission by the artist. It so happens that the candy represents the body of a deteriorating human (plagued with HIV). It's a statement piece about how we all participate in the undoing of these unfortunate individuals, which is so so literal, right? SO here's a bunch of fine artists in the museum space, having eaten doughnuts, and driven down on a private coach, and lunched, and cookied (provided by the museum), and topically involved with Felix's work, and they trounce up and take the candy! I know they're not hungry. Whatever, I couldn't. Here I've talked more about the whack piece than the Doig's, because the Doig painting (with a ferris wheel) speaks for itself- it's queer and plain, and subtle and honest. It is whole in itself, and interesting. So I left that gallery/museum with a bad aftertaste of pot-shot post-modernism, and a good memory of a Doig.

Then we went to the Rubell, where I'd been just two weeks prior. Things went well- I spoke with a Lauren, and the internship prospects seemed bleak but not impossible. The paintings were mostly the same since the last time I'd been. We moved along to the PAMM.

The PAMM is the Perez Art Museum of Miami. I'd also been there two weeks prior, but this time there was a lecture by Sarah Oppenheimer, a Yale graduate who installed these architectural sculptures that were tied into the PAMM building itself, and moved- they're hard to describe. I ask her eventually whether or not there was anything to be 'seen', actually, (as the conversation had that far been regarding tons of theory). I wanted to know if the photo-documentation, or video, would suffice in conveying what the piece was, or to what degree would it communicate its eventness. (like in painting, or graffiti, it kind-of is all about the 'fick'. So I wanted to know, and I said this part too, "if there was anything to be seen). She replied, and I was slightly embarrassed to look her in the eye- she was honest and direct in her answer. She looked me in the eyes and didn't break contact- like she was imprinting, or programming into my brain a great insight. I don't know if I got it all to be honest. She made the case more cunningly that I feel capable of expressing, that in fact the sculptures, in their construction of two planes of glass, and the air space in between, revolving about an axis, suspended by their steel frame, acted as windows, or viewfinders, and in their abstraction (that is, in their making-planar-of-what-beyond-is-real) they are in fact perpetually generating images.

I sat in bewilderment, thinking of what a brilliant idea, and how eloquently she expressed it all, it was, she did, and I realized that she did not answer my question, and the guy next to me wanted a shot at asking her something (which he turned out to be oratorically challenged), and I passed the mic.

I left the museum and it was time for pizza. The Fine Arts students ordered a slough of expensive (presumably- it looked very designed) pizza. I ate two slices, as we had an overabundance and were encouraged to put it away. We got on the bus and went back to Sarasota, wherefrom I went straight to the bar and drank to forget, and drank with new friends- thespians it would happen, who made for entertaining company, and refreshing quips. I went to bed after closing the bar down and had a rough night, vomiting (thank sweet God, to get some of that food back out from overeating). Then in the morning, more roughness, more vomiting, and again. Fuck fine arts.

I read Jung's Man and His Symbols recently, as well as Ringworld and Babbit.

Boring Fuck

Life is boring. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. 

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz boring boring i vomited bile before coming down to the labs. I’ve been dreaming all day. Resting and letting the poison of booze stew in me I feel crazy..I can’t escape my thoughts. I get pictures  in my head, and I want to draw them, but there’s so many. I need things to slow down. Booze is the worst. Oh my God have mercy on me. I want to have relief. Mercy, mercy. Sleep brings me no comfort, nor food joy. Let the sun burn my flesh, and with it my desires- boil out of me. I’m dying. d

3-30-17

Yesterday’s dream (again) was about rolling black and grey earth- soil. 

This morning’s dream was centered around Ringing College. What a strange place. Carl Johnson’s facsimile said something along the lines of ‘how fortunate we are that in the morning, the bright red door is not red at all- it’s pink.’  And Patrick Lindhart’s facsimile expressed joy in my half drank opened beer. My mother and I went to New York, with some classmates maybe, to some industrial yuppie-ilex, which I’d seen on my timeline on snapchat and thought ‘those kids are lame, and those shirts, etc.’. the Yuppie-plex was brimming with designer junk. Screen printed Japonisme shirts abound. My mom, I told her to watch her things, because she’d left them out on some table of accessories and they blended in. She went over and sought to pick up her wallet, while another woman, a trope of the fingerey shopper, picked up her purse and began to open it up. My mother intercepted the purse, breaking a social rule by taking it from the woman’s hands. There was a cute heroine figure, who came through. She had a roommate that was lesbian, and she herself was one to hold her cards close. I knew I could get her. I played the game some. Meanwhile, there was a real game going on too. My heroine figure was in fact a cheerleader/ competitor. The  game was a ring-hip game like that of the ancient Aztecs, though in the dream there appeared no players or action. The world toggled between completely submerged and a still like in a De Ciricho painting. I stayed on a red-clay roof, doing some asinine job of some kind. There was a teacher figure dictating my instructions. I had to clean gutters it seemed. Also present were an army of students, ready to become players in the game-to-be. The heroine had outlines on her face that came off and transcended her, like a Picasso cubist composition.  She seemed to mean everything. 

It’s not been easy nurturing this fire in my heart. Something’s changed. I wonder if it is because I feel sick, or because I feel no longer tied to Ringling that I find it hard to get moving on assignments. Last night, at 2am, I thought ‘it’s probably these eighteen hour days, though in the past it was more like an event than a chore- now it’s like a chore. Here’s my schedule:

M- 8a-6p Printmaking, Illustration, Figure Drawing, out at six

T- 8a-10p Digital Ill, Glass Casting, FEWS

W- 8a-12p Painting, Painting, (painting), lab monitor 

Th- ditto monday

F- ditto tuesday, studio time into late

Sa- day off, Fews

Su- Clean up, reset, studio time into late. 

This is the way I can do school this semester, and there’s hardly room for breaks. I love it when I’m manic. I feel like school has given up on me, or I on it. Both really. Yesterday I explained why I wanted to go to PAFA- it seemed to get at some new thoughts- “it just seems to make sense. I’m 26 now, and Philadelphia, I think will be a good spot to graduate from with a bachelor’s, at 28- I’ll already in a way be somewhere. The museums are good, the lineage is good,” (I didn’t say that lineage part, but it’s there) ,”New models, new teachers, different teachers, different techniques, a good big library, that kind of stuff. Also, we’ll always be friends, especially if you keep painting- the connection’s been made- we’re going to see each other again and I can’t wait! I see the groups here at Ringling, and I know what jobs we’re competing for, and I would like to work for one of these places too but, it’s like, the factions have already been made, and I don’t feel really ‘in the club’, you know?” So, in that regard too, it might be good to move away.