Truth be told, I know that my entries have been sub par the last few days, but there wasn't anything worth mentioning.I did, however, start and finish a new painting. Also, this weekend I think I ran a total of fifteen miles, give or take a few. I probably wouldn't be moaning in pain right now had I not decided to go the extra mile and run up and down stairs for about 30 minutes, which is not as easy as it sounds. If you don't believe me, ask my aching hamstrings. Lately I've been watching videos of the Tarahumara, trying to analyze their running form. The Tarahumara are a group of Indians living in the Copper Canyon who are champion long distance runners. I read a book that spoke of them called, "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall, and have been borderline obsessed with them ever since. They wear sandals made out of used tires to run 100 mile races across the Rockies. Holy Mackerel. Since I read that book, I started running in my dirty, old, worn out red converse shoes, and found that I could run longer and with less discomfort than with my uberexpensive, high tech running shoes. Now, I prefer even running barefoot to running with the unneeded "arch support" that is prevalent in all athletic shoes. Like McDougall says in his book, if we needed extra arch support, evolution would have given it to us.
Still, while I would love to run barefoot, living in Santa Ana makes it a necessity that I wear shoes. Running barefoot in Santa Ana means contracting TB.

Now, time to unveil my new painting. Like always, I finish these usually around night, so by the time I take a pic, the colors are represented pretty poorly. For example, the grays on the scales are really a rainbow of pinks, blues, greens, lavenders, peaches, but in the photo, well, they are just gray.


I'm pretty happy with the painting although I wish that I had cropped in differently. I was hoping that it would have a different affect, but its just a little unsettling.

So, what to do tomorrow? I'll be working on Painting Number Ten. I've been thinking of ways to reward myself as I finish paintings, so I have an incentive, and have come up with a couple ideas for when I finish the first ten paintings.

1. Taking a whole day off painting, without going over to my canvas at all (this almost never happens) and instead spend the day going to yoga, running, watching movies and eating junk. (Shut up, it's called balance)
2. Buying a delicious wine at BevMo, sticking it into a backpack, and taking it to O'neill Park with Tom (?), a blanket, maybe some good cheese, and definitely and some good reading (but WITHOUT Bonsai).
3. Go to the Getty and spend all day there, wandering.
and last but not least,
4. Get my entire body waxed. I know what you are thinking. The whole thing??!! Yes, the whole thing. Okay, MOST of it...legs,arms, and of course, the Brazilian. It's not that I'm freakishly hairy, I've always wanted to do it, and why the heck not? I'll be thinking about it until the day I die if I don't I see what its like. Plus, I got a coupon in my email that claims I can get it done for 40 dollars. To me, that's a bargain for a lifetime of curiosity assuaged. Yes, I am terrified of the certain humiliation that this venture will involve, but I read customer reviews of the grandmotherly Indian lady who will be doing it, and apparently she greets her customers with lines like, "Who's here for pain?", which I think is amazing.

Day 38: Big Fish in a Small Rectangle

As some of you may already know, I listen to audiobooks while I'm painting. I also listen to music, but I go through phases, and when I get tired of one, I switch to the other. I always have to listen to something, because otherwise I'll be distracted by my dog and my boyfriend who will talk at me regardless of whether I'm actually listening or not. Right now, I'm listening to "Gone With the Wind" and enjoying every saucy moment of it. For the record, it's 48 hours long, which I think even outdoes Dostoevsky. The only problem that I encounter with audiobooks, or any book for that matter, is that I get really involved with the characters. I'll pick up the accent of the narrators and start not only speaking, but thinking with, for example, a Southern Georgia twang. I'll think I need to bring back an antiquated saying like "Oh, she's fast!" or "God's Nightgown!" when in reality, it's not cool at all, it's weird, and people look at you funny when you use 19th century slang.
I'm not sure if it was the article I read about Buffalo Bill in a 1974 National Geographic, or reading Gone with the Wind that inspired my ridiculous dream last night, but I highly suspect the latter.
All I remember was that in my dream, I was helping a Confederate blockade runner named "Randy Gunslinger", riding on the back of his horse with him around some old ship yards in the South. He looked more like a cowboy, so I don't know what was really going on. I wanted to see if "Randy Gunslinger" actually ever existed, so I typed the name into google image search and this is what it turned up first:

The resemblance is actually pretty striking.

Anyway, I spent the day painting, photocopying, making pink cupcakes, and then assembling a collage. As I promised, here are the first collages that I made, which I may be using as references for larger pieces. I think that about of every 10 collages I make, maybe one or two will make the final cut for *awesomeness*.





My favorite is the first that I've shown here. I've always wanted to paint women in burkas in sexual and provocative ways, but I've always stopped myself (which is probably a good thing). In case you cannot tell from the picture, I've depicted a woman in full burka with a birdcage on head, in which two lovely little song birds perch, imprisoned. Behind the woman, one can see a ramshackle structures, one of which has been devastated by some kind of explosion. Behind the buildings, a huge flock of birds are flying free. I'm basically juxtaposing the imprisonment of the woman and the birds in the cage with the relative freedom of the outside world. To me it might make it into the *awesome* category.

The Ethiopian kid holding the goat just struck me and I had to stick him in a pile of wreckage. I have this thing with skinny african kids. I'm fascinated by their bone structure, the tightness of their skin, the size of their heads. Before you call me a freak, realize that you probably are drawn to them too, which is why whenever someone posts a picture of one anywhere, people start throwing money at them. Except my starving african child twitter project, which you can see here. People only threw insults at me for that little smidgen of genius, and wrote angry articles in the newspaper. That was the ONLY press I've EVER gotten for my art, but it's better than nothing.

I also worked on painting number 8 today and I hope to finish it by tomorrow. Its the one that I started in January.

Day 35:Gone With The Wind

I don't know if any other painters, writers, or musicians go through this, but after finishing a painting,I get into a funk. It's very similar to the way I felt when my first hamster, Scamster, died when I was 8 years old. I was attached to the critter, but I knew hamsters don't live forever so I fully anticipated his expiration.
In reality, it was a little different with Scamster. He got the dreaded nearly always fatal hamster disease, "wet tail", and I had to force feed him medicated Kool-aid through an eyedropper. One day, I over-medicated the little furball and sent him careening into a 24 hour coma from which he never arose. The experience was more traumatic than it needed to be. Kind of like my last Jellyfish No. 1, which I killed and resurrected.
Like I said, I always go through similar feelings when I finish a painting. I need to be working on something, always, and when I'm not I kind of freak out a little bit. What worked when I was a sullen child mourning my dead pet was to move on, and buy a replacement. So, using my theory on the hamsterdeath/painting relationship, I've found that immediately starting a new painting the moment I finish the last one is the best way to avoid the grieving process entirely. RIP Scamster.
That, being said, I'm pretty sick of jellyfish at the moment. I just finished this one today: I like where its at, I might add some glazes from time to time over the next couple of weeks as the paint dries.
The entire reason that I decided to paint them was that they are truly beautiful creatures, but frankly I was trying to push myself beyond painting photo realistically. I have a hard time giving up control and tend to paint very meticulously and methodically. And thanks to the obsessive compulsive genes that I've inherited from my father's side of the family, and the perfectionism that I've inherited from my mother's, this is a completely satisfying way to work. Still, I'm trying to push myself to experiment with techniques, subject matter, and methodology. I surmise that painting things that in life were already visually abstract would make abstracting them on canvasses easier for my brain to accept. It's like Dr. Leo Marven suggests in, "What About Bob?"...

That being said, I'm taking a break from the little jellyfuckers and indulging in the more violent part of my nature to work on my post apocalyptic series, which involves collecting disturbing images, combining them in unexpected and unsettling ways with my own imagery, and turning them into an eerie collages. And then, lastly, converting that to a drawing/painting. I truly love this process because it takes very little skill for the way I think, I get to take a break from oil paint, and its completely creative. Here are a couple of ones that I have done in the past.


I really enjoy expressing the more turbulent and volatile ideas I have through this medium and through watercolor as well. I want to turn these images into huge drawings (which I will consider a painting, let's not have a semantic argument). But, I'm pretty careless about taking care of my work, and I live with 3 men and a rabid dog, so I fear for the safety of a piece of paper that big. Working on the floor is definitely out (see: dog hair, cigarette ash, boot prints). I'm already running out of space in my studio. But, alas, when there's a will, there's a way.

Day 34: The Denouement

I just got back from LA Art Walk and was totally impressed by a lot of the art I saw there. It seems to be getting better every time I go. I passed out some business cards tonight at art walk, but before I left I stuck em in my typewriter and printed Andy Warhol and ts Eliot quotes on the back. just for novelty's sake.

I've spent most of today recovering from being sick, staring at things, and spacing out. I painted for maybe 4 hours. That is, I sculpted with my paints one giant hunk of a chunky arm.

I went to Home Depot and picked up wood, measured it out and am getting ready to build two canvas frames. OH crap, thats right I said I would make a video of it. TOMORROW, people, tomorrow. Also, tomorrow I will post some jellyfish pics that I plan on using for paintings.

Tomorrow I'm definitely going to start a smaller painting while I'm working on Number Three. I don't want to feel rushed. I can feel that it is going to be really good but I know that I will totally screw it up if I try to rush things.

Anyway, time for bed. :)

Day 14: Recovery

I did not wake up early this morning; however, I did go running with my dog at the ripe hour of 9 am. It is a hilarious thing to witness. For those who don't know, I have an Australian Cattle Dog. I got Bonsai a little over a year ago after reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" (highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Shakespeare's Hamlet) and decided that having a ridiculously intelligent and obedient animal companion was on the top of my priority list. In truth, I am just as often surprised by his lack of intelligence as I am by his intelligence. He is smart, playful, and strangely affectionate. He follows me from room to room, talks to me and to several plaster sculptures in the house (not exaggerating, he has this swamp creature voice that is simultaneously amusing and disturbing) and is constantly trying to lick everything that he comes in contact with.
Anyway, he is a herding dog, and he herds anything he can...small children, stuffed animals, bones, you name it. When I run, I am a troublesome cow, and he herds me. I always forget that between trying to pee on EVERYTHING and herding, he is incapable of running, unless its in circles around me while pouncing on my feet.

Why am I talking about my dog? Because I don't want to talk about art. Here is the pic of the progress I'm making. I'm mortified, but I promised a pic, so there you go. I'm listening to an audiobook while I paint this, "The Brothers Karamazov" which is one of my favorites (I'm a huge fan of Russian melodrama) and so I'm trying to imagine that the woman I'm painting is the model of Russian beauty as Dostoevsky would describe, which is to say that she might make a good water polo player.


Anyway, I had band practice today with my band, The Art Stars (presumptuous and pretentious name, I know). Tom made me record vocals for the newest song on our set "Wait for You". It sounds pretty rad. I'm excited to go into the studio to do a good recording of it. We're about to start a 10 week recording session and at the conclusion, we'll have a full length album.

Also, I dropped off three paintings to The Box Gallery for a show that will be opening this Saturday from 7pm to 10pm. Stop by and check out the art if you get a chance.

But if you are in the LA area, and don't want to drive far, please try to make it to Kim Ye's show at the Deborah Martin Gallery in downtown LA this Saturday. It is her first solo show, entitled Synapses and I am expecting it to be totally awesome. "Ye’s brutally delicate chimeras somehow comfort as much as they disturb – they are totems of our shared human vulnerability and dislocation. Her organisms’ unlikely eroticism transcend repellence and beauty, offering a peculiar familiarity and invoking a surprising sense of tenderness and affinity."

Day Eleven: My Just Deserts

So, I already have described the lengths at which I go to ensure that I won't get up at the crack of dawn and maximize my productivity (see Day Two), but last night I truly outdid myself.
Shortly after I posted yesterday's blog, I was scooting over to my studio (I say scooting because I have hardwood floors and I was enjoying the swish-swish sound of sliding across them in my thigh high american apparel socks WHEN I RAMMED MY TOE INTO A F*CKING BARBELL. So much for my New Years Resolution to run every day. After crying, screaming and admonishing the gods for their cruelty, I took about one dozen ibueprofen and seriously considering self medicating with shots of whiskey (Who ever said being old fashioned isn't fun?). Then, around midnight, I got into bed and embarked on the musical journey called "Whats your Raashee?", a three and a half hour Bollywood epic replete with overwhelmingly sentimental songs and dancing numbers.

So entranced was I by the intriguing story of a man who must find an astrologically suitable wife and get married in ten days in order to receive an inheritance from a grandfather that is strangely not dead yet, all so his brother isn't killed by guido look-a-likes in Mumbai...that I did not get to sleep until 3. And according to my plan for ultimate productivity, I was scheduled to be up and painting by 8 am.

Needless to say, that did not happen.

Now, down to business. After being distracted for most of the day by things like laundry, lifesucking online games (Scramble), dog walks, and a delicious bagel with cream cheese, I finally got down to business and guess what? I finished a painting.

Here it is :
(please note that some of the lighter values on the painting are really just light reflecting off of wet paint)



Sure, I worked on it for about twenty hours before I started this blog, but lets leave the scorekeeping to David.

DAY THREE: ONE DOWN, 99 to go