Where Seagulls Dare

The clouds of Los Angeles were crazy today!
We hiked to the top of the Verdugo Hills and saw this:


..and these..


We saw Glendale, Downtown, and Griffith Park:


We saw a happy Otis:


And I saw a creepy eyeball staring back at me..


But the most magical part happened when we came home, in the backyard, in Sun Valley:


Beauty.

Done and Done

I finished!


Thanks to an encouraging soundtrack of Etran Finatawa, Hot Snakes, and Dennis Brown, I was able to complete two paintings in time for the 'Lovelorn' group show in Tacoma. Props to Liquitex Heavy Bodied Cadmium Red acrylic and Kousmichoff Russian tea as well..


It's about long-distance-love. That gap in communication that exists even though you're both trying to say the same thing. It's also about two birds that have some crazy antenna transmitters attached to their heads. And it's always about color.. pthalo turquoise, organic vermillion, and the aforementioned and most coveted: cadmium red.


Off to the post office!

Say Those Magic Words

I love today's palette.. pinks and gold and yellow. It's like some sort of metallic sherbert sunshine surprise.


I'm working on two small paintings for a group show up in Tacoma, Washington. I think it's a Valentine's Day themed show. Which means I need to finish tomorrow! Yikes.


These birds need feet. And a whole lot of other stuff flying around.. leaves, rain maybe. We'll see what happens tomorrow.


Today this photo, along with a bunch of others, arrived in the mailbox. In the Awesome Friend category, Stefan Simikich is pretty high up there. He's an old Olympia pal who lives in S.F. now and is part of the whole Hamburger Eyes photo collective.. he sent me all these great pics for my dog Rosebud's vet bill benefit (which is hopefully going to become a reality on feb. 24th, and I will definitely post the when/where/what details). Check out his work here!

The Hidden Light

It's Cultural Friday again.. the day where Sam and I try to do something that is perhaps informative, challenging, dazzling, or simply pretty. Today we ventured to Pasadena's Museum of California Art to see an exhibit of paintings and drawings by Irving Norman. He produced what might be called an 'assload' of work between the mid-1940's and his death in the 80's.. a Polish immigrant who settled with his family in Los Angeles, Norman was a lifelong leftist who volunteered for service in the Abraham Lincoln battalion, part of the Int'l Brigade fighting to defend the Spanish Republic against the fascist forces of Franco.


Much of his work, which the museum calls 'Social Surrealism', deals with the atrocities of the Military-Industrial-Financial complex. Norman says '..the experience was so powerful and my realization (was) that this society is based on war'. He stated that his paintings were not political propaganda; rather a straightforward unpretty look at the human condition. Industrialization, overpopulation, chronic anxiety, debauched humans, congestion, corporations, advertising, and hundreds upon hundreds of naked clone-like commuters are his subjects. This painting from 1978 is called 'From Work':


In the 'Project Room' there's a neat installation done by Dan Goods, an artist who works at Jet Propulsion Labratories. It revolves around the principal that entities in the universe can be hidden or obscured until scientists find new ways for understanding or seeing them. A primary projection fills the wall with a beautiful lemon-lime static, and as the viewer casts their own shadow upon the wall a second projection is revealed: planets moving through space.


It's a great juxtaposition-- a giant room filled with enormous paintings crammed with tiny details (which generated feelings of anxiety and a slight headache, though I found the work thoroughly amazing) and a smaller space with a silent playful color field. Definitely worth the trek.

Spotlight On: Chili John's

I'm full of beans. Seriously. I just returned from a lunchtime rendevous at Chili John's with the Scheid.. today we're going to have a chili-themed blog-off!


The Scheid was the first one to introduce me years ago to Cincinnati's famous Skyline Chili Parlour. Out here on the west coast you don't see this sort of thing very often: spaghetti noodles, chili, onions, cheese, and oyster crackers piled into a chili mountain:


In Cincinnati, this is known as a 'four-way'.. scandalous. At Chili John's, you can choose a 'Bowl' or 'Super Bowl'. And this little menu item looks very intriguing:


Just a little bean juice? What exactly is bean juice??


A satisfied Scheid: Satis-scheid.

And now I collapse into a delicious chili coma.

Infinite Cosmic Jamming

Whoa. Wow:


This record came in the mail a while back, along with a bunch of other new Kill Rock Stars releases. To be honest, I totally forgot about it until yesterday, when I found it under a pile of junk on top of our stereo. Marnie Stern is crazy! In a really good way. Her guitar playing is insane, I guess you would call it 'Progressive' in the way that other avante-jammers are (Hella, etc..). Now, even though I consider myself to be politically and socially progressive, sometimes I don't like my music to be so liberated that it becomes 'bleep-blorp-noodley-noodle'. I know, I'm fairly lame. But there's something different about this record, it has millions of layers that immediately bring to mind one of those fast-forwarded time-lapse movies of plants growing and stars exploding. It's the kind of record you want to play on the first day of spring and turn up all the way while you flip pancakes in your pajamas and look forward to a day of making stuff.

I should be a music writer, huh?
She's playing in L.A. with BARR at The Smell on March 3rd. I hope to be there.

This Filthy World

Today was extra-special. This happened tonight:


So cute! It's like the super gay prom I never got to go to.. with a pencil-thin mustache.

Dark and Deep

Today we went into the forest.. to Bear Creek, the first proper stop off of the Angeles Crest Highway. There is a succession of perfect swimming holes, one cascading into the next.


Being February (albeit a balmy, 80 degree February), the only one of us brave enough to jump right in was Otis:


He cannot resist the siren's call (his siren is a stick.. any stick..):


..speaking of the forest, I came across Peter Beste's website today. He's a photographer who spent 4 years documenting the black metal scene in Norway. Crazy stuff:


Mayhem, Enslaved, Gorgoroth, Emperor, Darkthrone. The lead singer of Gorgoroth, 'Gaahl', lives alone in a cabin in a remote valley on the west coast of Norway.. he says 'It is important to have a lot of space for yourself to be able to grow strong branches, which can stand in the most extreme surroundings. Personally I need nature surrounding me- like mountains, trees and rivers in order to relax, to learn and to teach. All this is very important for my inner self'.


Me too, Gaahl!

Moms/Mystics

Yesterday I headed over the hills to the Skirball Cultural Center to attend a seminar taught by this woman:


Rebecca Street, a.k.a the Kashi Cereal Lady! She's actually my friend Amanda's mom, and a wonderful actress too (Rebecca was a series regular on The Young and the Restless for two years - playing the first daytime character with AIDS). She teaches a fascinating workshop based on the writings of Joseph Campbell, this guy:


Best known for his 1949 book 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces', Campbell saw everything through a lens of myth, metaphor and the metaphysical. He viewed artists who connected with their authentic, unique voice as exalted mystics. "The way of the mystic and the way of the artist," he said, "are very much alike--except that the mystic does not have a craft."

These are the kind of opportunities I'm going to miss very much when I move into the forest. On the (huge) plus side, I'll be living in a cabin on the Puget Sound.. I'm pretty sure Joseph Campbell would love it. It's magical.


Speaking of rad moms, mine mailed me this beautiful flower pin that she made by hand! It's assembled from a bounty of vintage kimono fabric that she found online. She's the one who always encouraged me to be an artist.. thanks mom!

Deliciously Yours

My pal Sam invented this thing called 'Cultural Friday'. Each week we try to do something interesting, like go to an art show or museum or film or, uh, casino (ok, that only happened once and it was totally necessary).. today we ventured into Griffith Park to commune with nature.


We trekked up to Amir's Garden, known as the park's 'oasis within an oasis'. Around 1971 a brush fire burned a substantial portion of the chaparral in the hills, and Iranian-born immigrant Amir Dialameh decided to rebuild it by hand. Each day, 7 days a week, he hiked up to the garden carrying tools and plants. Amir planted eucalyptus trees, liquidambar, ash, pines, jacarandas, and magnolia-- his motto was "In the land of the free, plant a tree". Nice.


Then we headed to 'TravelTown', which seems to be a collection of trains. There's even a fun-sized one for kiddies to ride around the park. I like this little skunk guy.

Next, we went to Atwater Village.. to Thee Magical Grocery Known As India Sweets and Spices. Sam shopped for cardamom and lentils, then we shared a giant Dosa, which is like a huge pancake stuffed with "fillin'". The crazy part is that the "fillin'" consisted of raisins, carrots, green peppers, and coconut which sounds thoroughly disgusting, but was actually delicious!


In our quest for even more deliciousness, we made a beeline back to Sam's and baked insane vegan cupcakes.. I'm not vegan, but Sam and her dog are (although her dog, Lala, has been known to scarf down sausages found on the sidewalk in an act of canine rebellion), and I'm always up for anything as long as it is TASTY. We baked two different kinds, double chocolate espresso and chai latte, taken from Isa Moskowitz's crazy 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' cookbook. And yeah, they were GOOD.


That's Sam, chef extraordinaire and four-time Jeopardy champ, about to savor the 'cake. As an addendum, I'd like to post that as I type I am listening to Gram Parsons' 'Greivous Angel' which in itself is quite lovely.. but as far as rich kids who morphed into country-folksters, he doesn't work for me like Townes Van Zandt does. TVZ 4EVA.