No Man is an Eyeland

Esther had to watch the movie "Red Dawn" for her Cold War class, so we set aside the evening for some serious movie-watching. Some friends also came over, and we ended up throwing an impromptu Communist party to mark the occasion.

It was a night that would have made Lenin proud. Our neighbor, Ken, managed to scare up some Eastern Bloc beer that wasn't half-bad. I did my part by constructing a small ready-made sculpture out of a tack hammer and sickle that would have given Marcel Duchamp reason to pause. And then there were the grilled cheese sandwiches-- lots of grilled cheese sandwiches. As a matter of fact, I was still eating them after all our friends went home. The People are thankful for Comrade Brandi and her amazing quadruple-buttered technique. But I digress. The real star of the evening was the movie...

The movie was horrible. We probably wouldn't have been able to sit through it if not for the company. I alternated between shushing people and talking loudly throughout, earning myself a special gold medal for hypocrisy, but we had some good laughs all the same. And here's the primary reason to watch: Red Dawn is all about the hats. If you ever sit down to watch this movie, get a pen and notebook and start jotting down descriptions of all the headgear that pops up. By the end you'll have a specimen catalog to rival any serious ornithologist.

I was thinking about going on at length about how important it is for a person to have good relationships with friends and family, but the grilled cheese and beer have left me bloated and fickle. I'd be easy pickings in a life-or-death situation, like say, Communists parachuting into my backyard with ill intentions.

My vote for the next ridiculous Cold War-inspired movie from the 80's that we need to watch is definitely Rocky IV.

My Clever Invention

Our cat, Cocoa, is a headstrong little empress who is the self-styled ruler of our household. She's also a notorious coward. Combine these two traits, and you have an animal that likes to go outside, but grossly overreacts to such mundane characters as the mail carrier or a squirrel. This may be the sole reason we never got cable. We sit on the porch and watch the cat for entertainment. She explores the yard at length until something freaks her out. Her instincts for flight take over, and a manic episode plays out where she runs to the front door and begs for her life (For surely today is the day that the mailman will destroy her).

Recently, Cocoa has taken to spending nights outside. This is fine since I have developed an ingenious system for finding and retrieving her every morning. In collaboration with Google Maps and Skynet, I have produced the Cat Finder application. This technology allows a person to track and locate any feline in the solar system. Since the assets were already in place, I only had to coerce the sponsors that it was a worthy investment. Google asked that we call it the "Google" Cat Finder for consumer-user-brand-awarenessiosity. Skynet was aboard for this project on the sole condition that an "air-strike" option be included in the interface, with future updates to give users the option to  teleport cat cyborgs into the past to eliminate John Connor.

Sick Day

I managed to contract a stomach bug from my dear wife this morning. I'm trying to figure out whether sitting with a blank expression and vacant thoughts is one of the symptoms, or if it's something I've developed on my own. I'm half-expecting some horrible consequence from my inaction. There is a high probability that Future Orion will barge out of a temporal portal to scold me and put me to work. For all I know, he already came today.

On the subject of time-traveling, I could also easily believe that some Orion from the Past will jump out of the hall closet and recoil in horror at what he will become. I paint the scene as he sees it: A dim room, with sunlight filtering through slats in the blinds, filled with clutter. The floor is covered with tarps and monstrous creations lay unmoving and half-finished on work tables. Two chairs in the corner: One holds a ball of sleeping fur. The other is filled with a long, skeletal figure tapping away on a keyboard. His eyes stare vacantly into a PC monitor. He's writing a blog. Oh God, no.

"Go back to your own time, lad. Stop this from happening. There is still a chance," I say as he backs away, hands covering his face in horror. He returns to the past and redoubles his efforts. Good boy.

A Career in the Arts

Ever since I was a wee lad, barely old enough to hold a pencil, I have never stopped making artwork. It's what I was made to do, otherwise I would have given up long ago and pursued a career in boxing or some other respectable life dream.

Intent on seeing this art thing through, I went to college for six years, collected a B.F.A. in Art (Painting) in 2004 and my M.F.A. (Painting & Drawing) in 2006. Give me a paintbrush, charcoal stick, glue gun, or video camera and I could make you something nice.

So where am I now? Mostly unemployed, scrambling to make ends meet. I calculated today that it would take me selling a new painting or sculpture every month for $5,000 to break even with the costs of living. How, you ask? Galleries that provide shows for artists typically take a cut of anywhere between 50%-60% of each sale made. That would leave me with $2,500 to $2,000 per piece sold, not even factoring in the taxes taken out. My family's total monthly expenditure is in the ballpark of $2,200 a month. That's still cutting it close.

Even if it was possible to sustain such a remarkable turnaround rate as $5k worth of art a month, where does one find a market? I'd need to look in several cities. When a gallery and artist form an alliance, you can expect to see exhibitions by that artist once a year at most. Any gallery worth their salt would also prohibit the artist from showing in any other gallery within 50-100 miles of their location to prevent others from capitalizing on their investment. Fair enough, business is business.

Next, we look at the cost of exhibiting in other cities. Shipping artwork is expensive, and increases the likelihood that a piece will be damaged en route to a location. I imagine this is where it pays to have dear, true friends working in these gallery positions. I wouldn't have the time to drive the work cross-country since I'll be busy meeting studio deadlines and mailing out slides to new cities.

A person capable of showing and selling their work to such a degree has the potential to build a market for him or herself. With notoriety, one can expect natural cost increases to reflect demand. Here is where artwork prices are buoyed to ridiculous heights, and the wistful dream of hobnobbing within the high, dark bastions of New York City's art elite is realized. And who wouldn't like to be bourgeois? Most likely, this brief flare of popularity and its subsequent passing would be far too damaging to a human being. The rise and fall of an ego is a great and terrible thing. It may be better to live in obscurity than be contorted by such forces.

Another option available is to simply make the artwork and let everything else follow. If you could look into the future and tell me I'll never sell another painting, would I stop making artwork? I don't think so. Making stuff makes me happy. It sucks that I can't make a real living off of my work, but there are worse things out there.

Thanks for reading.

Junker: Demagogue

I built this thing tonight. It's the first in a series of sculptures that I'm planning. The overall theme involves combining a variety of materials into new objects that are both anthropomorphic and mechanical in nature. This one is named Demagogue and it is a scale model of a fictitious war machine that is so large it could crush a building underfoot. It is made from a flowerpot, plastic bottles, and wooden craft sticks.

Usually, I try to paint everything that I build. I've always painted things, and I usually feel inclined to cover things up as force of habit. I'm not going to paint this one though, because the materials are interesting enough on their own. No point in trying to disguise what is already there.

I felt positive about this piece while I was working on it. It is a machine of death bristling with toy guns, whose purpose is to deal with warfare on an absurd level:  This is war as I see it, filtered through the video games that I play, the tabletop miniatures that I collect, and the science fiction novels that I read. Absurd because it is so disconnected from the true realities of war. Why do I insulate myself from what I should fear? 

Here's a close-up shot. I've still got some work to do on this. Some details need to get filled out and there are a few more layers of material I want to add.

More to come.

The Shape of Things

While it's fresh in my memory I'd like to recount the story of an exodus I undertook two weeks ago-- to visit Les, a good old friend who just got home from his second tour of duty in the Iraq War. Les lives in D.C., but had come back to Ohio for the week to see his family. I had a couple of free days, so the timing was perfect to drive down and visit.

With my wife's blessing, I packed my bag and left behind the urban comforts of Columbus, making my way down into the mess of rolling Appalachian foothills that came to be called Meigs County. The three-lane highway changed into two-lanes, which turned into a county road, and finally settled into a winding back-road that was so familiar I could have probably driven it with my eyes closed. This was home.

I pulled my car up to a house that looked like it hadn't changed since the last time I left it. There were hugs all around and people I haven't seen since for years. The weather was sunny with a steady breeze; not too hot.

We spent a good portion of the day sitting on the porch, catching up on life, and eating our weight in grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. Occasionally, we would waddle down off the porch to play corn hole, which was really just an excuse to walk around in the grass barefoot and be a kid again.

We went to the local American Legion post that evening to shoot some pool and drink an assortment of beverages. Every stranger that I met at the bar that night ended up being the brother or cousin of someone I used to know. Small world. Not much had changed in this place. Had we changed? Maybe. I think we got a little older.

Later that night, we watched The Matador. We ran out of things to drink. I laid on the couch, very still. Blanket over my nose to filter away the fog of cigarette smoke. Room spinning. Nursing a beer that came out of nowhere. TV off. Darkness. TV back on. Snoring. Blackout.

Morning. Devastation. Barren wasteland of ashtrays and carpet. Breakfast is sausage and pancakes. Orange juice is heartburn so I pour it back into the jug when no one's looking. A neighbor comes by. I think his name is Dan. He's raising honey bees on his farm and we talk about that for awhile. I try some honey and it is delicious. Eating honey from the area where you live nullifies any allergies you might have to the local pollen.

More corn hole and hot dogs. This is a happy place.

We walk through woods and cow fields until we come upon an old car covered in mud and manure. The tire is flat but we attempt to drive it anyway. The flat is directly under me. I feel every rock and divot we pass over-- it's a bumpy ride and I am slightly terrified, but then as quickly as it began, the venture ends.  We walk home. Soon I realize it's time I must be getting back to Columbus. Goodbyes and hugs all around. Sheepish, I realize I was having so much fun I neglected to take any pictures until the last minute. Partings are awkward when the distance measured between friends is in hours, but they are no less heartfelt.

Safe travels, and until next time.

The Art Critic

I've been working on a new painting these past few nights. Although it's far from finished, I had a surprise visit from a serious art critic today.

You can imagine that I was quite nervous, due to the intense level of scrutiny to which my work was being subjected. Indeed, my diminutive guest had a unique strategy of viewing art: gaze, sniff, nuzzle, repeat.

I found myself transfixed. This was a true master of art appreciation-- the discerning flick of the ear, an unimpressed lash of the tail, and the meeting was over. The verdict: I need to add more elements. The composition is too tame and predictable. And more catnip.