It’s Easter. Ariel and I went to one of my students house, who live completely off the grid, and shot guns at art. I think I really like this kind of critique. It certainly makes it easier to get the point across. Also this was the very first time that Ariel has shot a gun, I think she did well.
it is day 73 in Maine. I am alone…not really alone but Ariel is in Colorado and I have been very tired. Teaching is fine, I feel a little bit like I am in some kind of a bubble that has been sealed off from the rest of the world. I miss the comforts of Boulder luxury, biking, accessibility to things and stuff, biking, warm air, biking, free television, restaurants, biking, and accessibility to things and stuff….oh and friends.
I have had a lot of time lately to work on the public art and have pushed to make the work in a “green” manner by using recycled products, producing recyclable waste, using Leed certified companies, engineers and materials. I’m really excited to get the project done and move on to other art-making ventures.
oh and Shepard Fairy is dead. I mean his work. OBEY your death sentence.
Arrived in Maine on Saturday around 4pm after a pleasant drive from Troy, NY. I drove the moving truck, with Boris as the copilot and Ariel drove her car full of our junk. Juanita Bean-Smith left us a key at her agency for our new apartment, it was hidden in a goose. As we got into the apartment the first thing I noticed was the stale smell of cigarettes and soon realized the neighbor hacking from a smoker’s cough. The apratment is somewhat small, a one bedroom trying to be a studio. I have been told that it is the oldest house in Farmington. The appliances are newish and the bathroom is sad (it also where the smoke smell is most pungent). The bedroom is a room the divides the kitchen from the livingroom and allows the only access between the two. The kitchen is a good size and allows enough room for a small table. Off of the kitchen is a storage space that is unfinished with a small cabinet. There are no closets.
Ariel and I ordered a pizza from the Farmington House of Pizza and walked a few blocks to pick it up. I left my Orangina drink and they called to tell me later, I’ll pick it uo tommorow. Finally we opened the bottle of wine that Casey and Andy gave us ove a year and a half ago for my birthday. It was good! Actually it was great and I wish I had opened it a year ago. Both Ariel and I attempted to do a few things like set up the bed and hang some curtains but were defeated by the strange entertainment center shelf and the blinds that fell off the wall when drawn. Wine drinking led to sleepyness and Ariel fell asleep on the weird 1980’s couch that was left here.
There is this spider that has been on my desk that for almost 3 weeks and is keeping me from doing my work. Yesterday Ariel tried to get rid of it but it just hopped around everywhere. I’ll wait for Barry the Vegan to get here tonight, he’ll get rid of it humanely
.
I think it is time that I take over my own blog for a while. It has been quite some time since I have actually used this blog. I wonder how many people with blogs begin writing in their blogs this way. Anyway here goes I’m getting restarted.
Just returned from Dallas where I attended the College Art Association (CAA) convention. These are my candid journal notes from this experience:
Day 1:
I’m off to DIA Denver International Airport. Ariel dropped me off at the bus station and I am now on the bus. The only thing that I am looking forward to right now is seeing the Luis Jimenez Mustang. I’m really interested in the height of the piece since I am trying to figure out how high to make the piece that I am proposing to DIA in less than a month!
Currently driving by “Mustang”…much more visible from a distance than I thought…it’s 32 feet tall…I’m guessing that I won’t need to “Supersize” my piece for an extra .69 cents. I think that the estimated 42 feet that I want to make should shrink to meet material standards and costs. Anyway this is boring talk….the big horse is crazy as you can see from the links that I connected…I’m hoping that my piece will play well with Denver’s public art scene (Blue Bear, Dancing White People, and others….)
Day 1: Evening
In plane to Dallas, uneventful but nice. I have the entire row to myself. I think that there are only ten people on the plane. I’m listening to classical music from my iPod and reading Art in America from May 2007 about art education in the US. Preparing for interviews by also reading my artist statement and teaching philosophy.
Just got off the plane. Called Casey, no answer. No internet. No idea where to go or what my hotel is that Mike booked for all of us.
Rick called and told me to take some trains and busses. I’m calling a shuttle or a kayak. Rick suggested I pick up a kayak along the way since he had taken every from of transportation to get to his hotel, including the brontosaurus car from the Flintstones.
Called the shuttle. $17.00. Expensive but at least they will take me where I need to be in one vehicle.
My first mistake was to trust a cabbie driver. He drove me around to all of the concourses at Dallas/Fort Worth while screaming at someone on his cell phone and CB radio. I thought that maybe by accident I said that I wanted a tour of the airport and he was getting in a war with another driver about my request since he dropped me off at the place that he picked me up at. (45 minutes of travel time) Upon my arrival back at the beginning another driver scooped me up into his van (it felt a bit like a kidnapping). I met a woman who had been “sightseeing” around the airport as well with a very similar story as mine.
She pretty much told me her life story on the way to the hotel (after another 20 minute tour of the airport). She worked for a company that ran conventions on boating safety. God how boring and mind numbing! She was also from NYC and complained a lot.
Ok so now I am arguing with the driver over the cost of the ride….I really think this ride is worth nothing since I called the service they said 20 mins to hotel and he took close to one-hour and a half. I get the business card and decide I will call the company.
As I enter the lobby of the hotel I immediately see Vernon Minor, a former professor at CU in the Art History Department, then Lisa Becker. I avoid her and head to the right and call Casey. She never answers her phone, so I call Rick. He answers and I can’t really understand what he is saying except that they (Casey, Mike and Dave) are in an incredibly boring lecture about blah blah blah…. He says he will meet me at the hotel in a while.
I’m pretty much in an anxious mood since I have no idea where I am staying, the hotel that the conference is in is not the one I am staying at and Mike has booked out hotel clear across town! I have 11 interviews to fulfill and I need rest. My bags are heavy and I need a beer.
…..
When they knocked
on the door it apparently became
an excuse to leave,
following that quiescent devience,
vicious but localized,
those scientists found nothing that would make the difference
for several years.
to appear, accompanied
characterized by emotion
the face of motivation and romance takes over
hindering what we really are seeing
and if the sun sets, sunsets, and the sun is setting over her house, birds might call but mostly they wane;
especially when associated with the operas.
can’t stand up
guaranteed to hellos swept up by tomorrow’s goodnights
and missing frantically what was there
and is now lost into parts of my mind, somehow.
seeping back out into betweens and origins.
you stood there asking me to come in
i find myself asking to come in
a change
hello.
often times here i find myself coming in with no way to let myself out
to multifarious occurrences
i wake this morning, expecting.
getting to know myself with a prodding kind of action
with a stick
with a metaphor
with an obsequious gourd
i am submissive to each beat of my heart
the first appearance is similar to the first appearance: a deception.
a diminutive talking bird is quickly shifted from below
one to another
of three cups.
i am trying to guess the location from a distance
avoiding control
this is the shell game.
and occurrences are happening where i find myself slipping
some might say it is the banana peel on the sidewalk
pealing. loud. harmonious.
some might find a banana in the parking lot
some might see a banana in a dream
some might eat a banana
Undoubtedly, you will eventually dream about bananas.
the futon mattress ended up in the hallway
you left behind the system for supporting my tendencies to cut off my hair
walked home inside of my jacket, a jacket your jacket.
i am pretty sure that it was frigid in temperature.
it laid there for a week in some kind of memorial to the end of frequencies
ending of twins and seized catastrophes
a reason to break away and desire.
it happened like this
i woke up after
those ghosts went to Denny’s
in a black sports car
coincidence was you lost and I drank too much
and thinking of her behind that four-foot thick glass wall
you were lucid and asleep at the wheel
and it happens like this
one day you wake up and realize that your confidence has been disintegrated,
split the hive in two parts:
one for you to hide in
the other to give to the world
out of insecurity
and it began like this
went bowling and ate her cupcakes with bunnies on them,
frosted and magic
tricks swarming about
through cult like rituals behind curtains of priests.
cult
cultish
cultish-ness
cult-like
venerable
behaviors forsaken for a teenage boy that I have become.
and it really happened like this
I woke up after eating cupcakes covered in pink frosting
and bunnies were stabbed into the top
went to sleep thinking that I had done it
and woke up thinking about those regrets of the time previous to now.
every moment tries to synch itself
into a bag that you keep hidden behind your dresser
you think nobody knows about that, but I do.
i keep it there too.
and it really happens like this
a box full of rubberized emotions
not bouncing
but full of color,
float out into that place you try to find solace in
they infiltrate, it really is their job.
to become that threshold you keep close to the organ
it keeps you alive.
and I have been thinking of bees and of my separation from my spleen
and it was such a long time ago
sometimes it punches through, giving you a glimpse of what you once thought of how cakes should taste when you wake up at 2:30 in the morning looking for that one thing that will fulfill you.
to keep you from thinking about how lonely it is here without appliances.
of dishwashers
of toasters and whining refrigerators
and i wake up today to find that those cupcakes have disintegrated
pool of milk
i spilled that night when you were rupturing
and i wake up today to the howling of that dog
and I wake up this day and go back to sleep
and I wake up holding my breadth for something warm,
that’s when the sun peaks in.
light enters and you find yourself standing in a parking lot,
getting away from the parking lot,
forsaking the parking lot,
realizing that your problems will never be found in the parking lot,
never being solved in the parking lot.
the truck drives up to you standing there.
sometimes it leaves you a cake for your birthday,
mostly it just ignores why you are standing in a parking lot with your pants around your ankles.
i wake up with a terrible hangover because i ate too much sugar that a rabbit gave me in the form of a cupcake from Japan translating itself into the water. i remember that incident when i felt uncomfortable standing in your yard, grass around my bare feet and lost at a stop light. it is lamentable, at best, when you are staring at an ocean water sized abyss, stopping you, crossing you, letting you find your spleen.
in the last year
dioramas have been constructed
erected in rooms
to close to get a good look at.
and we grew up, finding ourselves as adults once again
rode the bus
flew in planes and made plans for tattoos
burned down the house
remade the house
bought new appliances
found your name in a 12 year old electronic posting
watched you sleep, held your head
wanted to sleep in your life
moved out on a thanksgiving
fell asleep for three weeks and missed the birth of Jesus
took another plane home, wincing at what i said
watched them walk away,
dispersed into new lands
saw her wash away the world
walked away,
the sun shone to my side.
in the last year
went to the store,
bought McIntosh apples
watched them rot in a monumentalizing action
paid my rent late
saw my last fleeting moment
ran around in the rain
threw a baseball to you at midnight
rode in a cab as you fell asleep drunk
walked you home
got some rocks from Texas in the mail
looked into eyes that I never could before
feel asleep on the plane
flew over your house, over the water and into a mountain
rolled down a hill
locked my keys in the car
and met you for the first time
mowed the lawn with an old machine
planted flowers in old soil that never grew
left my apartment
and drove north in a pickup on the first sunny day
you wore red boots, I wore a sweater.
