one million paintings

one million sharpies dropping from a face

2011-02-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

one million face performances with Sharpies

2011-02-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

one million audible visuals

2010-10-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

East Village art highlight: Chris Coy and I were walking to the New Museum and ran into friend Justin Luke's tiny and awesome gallery, AVA (Audio Visual Arts). It was closed for the night but "on" for viewing.
Antoine Catala's "Topologies"

amazing.

one million functional ceramics

2010-05-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

wish i could have been here for the James River launch of Gian's Adventure Ceramics.

wish i could be back in Richmond this weekend for his show where the video of the adventure will be revealed.

love Gian's wit and imagination, to take a tired academic-ceramics catchterm - functionality - and breathe life and excitement into it with an illogical boyhood logic.

one million shiny color teasers

2010-04-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

one million fragile beasts of burden

2010-04-07T17:44:00.000-07:00

Please help me crate this animal, that it might have a safe trip to Chicago.

one million there may actually be one million things going on in my studio right now

2010-03-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

one million art fairs to come

2010-03-11T16:04:00.000-08:00

I'm back from one art fair (Scope New York) and now its time to work every night to prepare work for the next one called NEXT (Chicago), a little confusing to mention in conversation. Gracias ADA Gallery for giving me so many opportunities to show!

so I will be driving to Chicago in late April with a load of fragile sculptures

one million more pictures from Brigham's photoblog for those who haven't yet gotten enough of the Armory

2010-03-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

Click the link for more of Brigham's great Leica photos.

one million photos i took at the Whitney Biennial...in my mind

2010-03-07T00:36:00.000-08:00

After blogging a bit of the Armory I got a little excited about documenting art museums again after such a long hiatus without a camera. It was a real party balloon deflater however when the Whitney told me i couldn't take any photos...not even from their permanent collection! Before I realized this rule, I had taken my first photos of this David Hammonds piece on the top floor.

weird fake plants you ask?

yes, very weird plants, dred locks growing from rocks and shedding wherever they please.

Those of you who have the history of Whitney Biennials memorized will say, Hey, this already showed at the Whitney, what's going on here?
Well, the Whitney decided to congratulate itself on the artwork it had bought from previous Biennialers, a kind of Whitney Biennial's Greatest Hits. The effect was that of a mini MoMA: Twombly, Johns, Rauschenberg, Hesse, Nauman, Rothko, Duane Hanson, Oldenberg, Kruger, Warhol, McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Vija Clemens ...which was fine. Here's the photo captions of the ones that interested me more than those oldies:
For one, I finally saw a little bit of video from Mathew Barney's Drawing Restraint.
For another they had out the Liz Larner object i love. Imagine a line drawing of a box. Now picture it larger than you, but the lines of the drawing are wobbly. How about if the drawing is made from steel pipes. Then the pipe is covered in paper pulp. And the paper is painted with watercolor. Beautiful, "Two or Three Somethings"
The show helped me remember my interest in Robert Gober with a door folding into itself piece. I was impressed when i learned that he has participated in 5 biennials.
But then i saw a Guston painting and the tag informed me that he had been part of no fewer than 21 biennials! He deserves it. I hate to just parrot the bandwagon, but nine times out of ten when i stand in front of a live Guston i get all worked up excited and want to go home and make an oil painting. that feeling usually dies in time for me to avoid going through with it, but might explain some of my interest in stacking things.
Then i saw the famous Hopper of the long shadowed street with the barber shop pole. 26 biennials! Long live the king of the Whitney, Edward Hopper.
Speaking of getting worked up over painting, this was the first time an Ad Reinhardt excited me, a nice red one with a greenish grey frame.
Liked seeing again the Allan McCullom fake paintings in fake frames "Plaster Surrogates" 1982-1989 (can't go wrong with repetition!).
What i really want to have in my house is this Richard Artschwager cube covered in different colored formica to look like a simple abstraction of a table covered in a cloth. "Description of Table" 1964. [for the record i also want that Robert Gober Giant cube of butter made from beeswax lying on a sheet of wax paper hand painted like a butter wrapper, not pictured but maybe pictured early on in this blog's history]

Man, now I've run out of steam for the real Whitney captions, and to tell the truth, now that I look at my notes, maybe i don't have much to report. So i'll report my friend.
I was excited to see Kate Gilmore's video of performance on sculpture. Yes, i am biased because she is a friend from Art Omi residency, but i like to think that i would still be into her work even if i didn't know her. Here we see Kate in a polka dot dress and high heels stuck in a narrow and tall chimney shape made of drywall. she punches and kicks to make footholds and handholds to climb out of her restrictive box (now make a feminist metaphor).

one million walks from the Armory up to Lincoln Center for Scope

2010-03-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

John and Kirsten my ADA family

Sharing the stage with www.gianpierotti.com !

one million maybe interesting photos from two days at the Armory

2010-03-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

Alexis in front of Bernard Frieze

I would have died to make this as an undergrad ( i tried to make one in steel)

Dawn Clements (see studio visit early on this blog from five years ago)

Pierogi Gallery's booth, may they continue to live long and prosper.

this guy made me feel like i should take my figurine stacking to the next level. His statues are actually moving very slowly up and down on chains connected to a motor, hence the bits of cement you see on the pedestal as they rub against each other. I met him later, John somebody, nice dude.

can't go wrong with neon at the Armory 2010

(more on that at www.david-grainger.blogspot.com)

colors make us so excited!

these kids are so sexist.

i said it at the Allan Mcullom and i'll say it again, you can't go wrong with a little repetition

fascinating

not a real skull everyone, its carved from a phone book

this is how Australia stacks up

wish i wrote this painter's name down for Allan

Poor Casey, who knew he would come all the way from San Jose to become part of a yellow nazi installation. I wonder what fortune his t-shirt color will bring him tomorrow at the Moma...

mmm...colors

poor broken neon...but colors!

Richard Jackson? That IS a squished Degas statue

Oh Jim Lambie, why must i always love your simple drippy painted objects and taped floors? i try to become indifferent, but you used pink! on mirrors! and called it radiator!

If we thought statue-friction guy had me beat in the upside down figurine arena, this guy totally rocked me in the stacking animals on top of each other genre. Mark my word, this taxidermy fashion is going to get out of hand! ...I'm not ready to see stuffed dead humans as sculptures no matter how cleverly they're stacked.

Fun map for a kids room or something.

I love everything about this painting.

i feel like i know this guy, but its just because Mike Erickson knows him from Kansas City before he became famous at UCLA after the Thing show at the Hammer. Nathan Marbry, or something. Not his best example, but always using this fun idea of using modernist sculptures as the bases for archaeological looking sculptures.
Nick Cave, not the singer. Jealous of his ceramic bird collection.

This chick's alright, but maybe i'm getting tired of seeing her make the same painting for two galleries in every art fair. really nice though on thin aluminum.

i know this one! Mary Heilmann (two many Ns? i before e?)

i think that's glazed ceramic on the roundy next to oil on canvas.

one million returns to painting

2010-03-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

My Brooklyn room a year ago, from which i now post as a visitor for the first time since leaving to Utah.

one million ways to stack some owls, a bunny, a cupid and other people, and an irish setter

2010-02-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

one million things to draw in a middle school classroom

2010-01-26T22:39:00.000-08:00

one million Ruel glimpses into my salt lake city studio

2010-01-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

one million art favors i did for andy kozlowski three years ago on a trip to chicago

2010-01-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

here you go andy! finally, the missing pieces to your portfolio.

one million soaps, trophy bases, and knife blocks

2009-11-13T13:31:00.000-08:00

one million soaps and where they used to stand

2009-11-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

my new soap piece from the show Oh So Material at the GARFO of VAI in SLC.

one million awesome unexpected combos of Mexican artists and temples

2009-10-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

Martin Ramirez and the St. George Temple

(thanks to Ben Howell for delighting me with this)

one million pipes on a roof

2009-09-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

After three tries this year (rain and tardiness thwarted my first two visits) i was finally successful in reaching the roof of the Met to mingle with this masterpiece of plumbing by a favorite of mine, Mr. Roxy Paine

one million spectacles

2009-09-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Music,
I'm late, but i'm back with a new hero.

Last night Jeffrey (on Paul Jacobsen's urging and jealousy) obtained free tickets to Spectacle, Elvis Costello's TV show, about songwriting. Its filmed in the famous Apollo theater of Harlem. The following clip is just for an example the interviewing that went on in addition to the concerts (i did not see the police).

The line up: JOHN PRINE - LYLE LOVETT - RAY LaMONTAGNE
Theme: one man (singer/songwriter) alone in the spotlight.

This song blew me away.

Lyle, always the gentleman, looked very sharp and complimented others sincerely profusely.

Mr. LaMontange, possibly even shyer than Michael Stipe (was).

All four legends kept talking about this one legend:
Townes Van Zandt, maybe my next hero.

one million spokes on post

2009-09-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

3rd street and Avenue B.
Across the street from Mama's Foodshop...where you will find me tonight saying goodbye to New York.

one million Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere that sometimes form bands

2009-08-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

That Punky Brewster post is a nice segue into this next love of my eighties youth: M.U.S.C.L.E.s.
The characters in Collin's latest video are the very ones i collected as a 3rd and 4th grader in Ann Arbor Michigan with Alex Bigelow.
We coveted that "Hand" character so i'm glad he made the cut.
Thanks to Collin who just started grad school yesterday at Bowling Green, OH working on a degree in eighties toy animation.

one million seventy sixers turn thirty three

2009-08-06T20:35:00.001-07:00

its the last half hour of soleil moon fry's birthday. the significant detail to note is that my boyhood crush on punky brewster has been legitimized by the fact that we have been the same age this whole time!

if you are a seventy-sixer (and i know who some of you are) email me a first grade photo and i shall put you up here next to me and my girl punky.

one million loves and one million devotions

2009-07-31T19:51:00.000-07:00

also shot by ben at black and white gallery

one million ducks

2009-07-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

"Pond"

Images shot in Black and White Gallery of Chelsea
by Ben Howell
(who saved the day many times to make this show possible)

one million early works from my parent's basement

2009-06-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

don't be fooled, i could never even ollie, but i was an excellent webelos scout.

i could never convince my best friend, Alex Bigelow, that i hadn't traced Garfield, even after showing him the tiny newspaper image i copied it from.

my precociousness spilled over into literacy, i could spell my parent's names from early on.

one million new york adventures with an aritst prodigy

2009-05-27T15:38:00.001-07:00

Meet "Granteeny", a visual/conceptual artist prodigy (seen here being jealously karate kicked at by his artist father) whose work you may find linked to the title of this post.

His father and I considered ourselves prodigies through college and on until we realized that the cut-off year for being a prodigy is age 33; a number i meet in less than seven days.

Granteeny after critiquing my work at the opening of "Commune"

ShakeShack

Yayoi Kusama at one of the Gagosians

Ernesto Neto at the Armory

The awe of the Guggenheim
The awe of Dylan's Candy Bar

it was a great week

one million summer shows

2009-05-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

BLACK & WHITE GALLERY is pleased to host COMMUNE – group exhibition organized by the independent curator and critic Dominique Nahas.

Curated by Dominique Nahas

May 21 - June 27, 2009

Opening Reception:
Thursday, May 21, 2009, 6-8pm

COMMUNE brings together twenty-two nationally and internationally recognized artists whose diverse and surprising works examine networks of forces brought to bear by exchange through the social bond, be it through family, fellowship of friends, lovers, school affiliations, secular and religious organizations, class structures, collectives, and nations.

NORIKO AMBE, OSVALDO BUDET, BRIAN BRESS, CAROLINA CAYCEDO, JARED CLARK, BLANE DE ST. CROIX, OANA FARCAS, CAOIMHGHIM O FRAITHILE, CHARLEY FRIEDMAN, CHITRA GANESH, ISHII HIDENORI, ODED HIRSCH, STEVE KEISTER, JULIA KUNIN, OLIVER LUTZ, MAURIZIO PELLEGRIN, JOHN POWERS, MICHAEL REES, PETER ROSTOVSKY, JULIANNE SWARTZ, JACQUES LOUIS VIDAL, ROBERTO VISANI

The Studio I've been sharing with Alexis Semtner to make work for the show

one million ways to paint like an electrician

2009-04-09T04:16:00.000-07:00

These two pieces are also from the Swarm show (that just came down) in Oakland

I'm aware of a couple of blog entries on the show:

http://dailydujour.com/category/blogs/svea-lin-vezzone/

FecalFace
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1448&Itemid=27

one million balls that might be rocks

2009-02-26T15:32:00.000-08:00

one million bouncy balls and glass

2009-02-22T22:31:00.000-08:00

Installation at Swarm Gallery

Bouncy Balls and Glass (no adhesive: just friction and gravity to the wall)

one million bars and balls of color

2009-02-22T22:25:00.000-08:00

Graphite, gouache, and map pins on digital giclee print on bfk of enlarged to-do list

one million red lines on top of a million other lines

2009-02-22T22:17:00.000-08:00

As currently hung in Swarm Gallery of Oakland

prisma color pencil, marker, sharpie, gouache, and map pins on digital giclee print on bfk of an enlarged to-do list.

one million valentine paintings

2009-02-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

"Apron String", 2007. Found painting on wood cut into found painting on wood.

one million details of nearly done list drawings

2008-12-27T14:51:00.001-08:00

one million more ways Mexico is a better artist than i am

2008-11-17T19:39:00.000-08:00

one million headers

2008-09-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

I came to the computer just now to find a bloggift (did i just coin something or am i way behind?) from my good Richmond friend Brian Thibodeau: a new header for "one million paintings"!

brianthibodeau.com

thanks Brian!

one million reasons to keep returning to MoMA with friends

2008-09-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

remember these?

allan
karisa

mim (getting married on Friday! congratulations!)

andy

nicole

And now for the new ones.

Meet Leslie visiting from L.A.

The first attempt, obviously way too cute, was retried:
some improvement, but still way too cute.

Leslie's fiancee, Keith, also had issues overcoming his natural good looks and cheer

sorry Keith, even with the visual aids, still too handsome.
This is how ugly is done:

one million gold mines of colorado springs

2008-09-24T13:30:00.001-07:00

Don't let the rugged Colorado Springs hills and our concerned looks under this title mislead you to conclude that Chris Lynn and I are about to descend into a dangerously unstable mine in a rickety roller coaster from the nineteenth century in search for treasures untold.

This is the scary mine

and refrigerators were my gold strike
An obsolete building that used to produce satellites and now housing obsolete equipment and furniture of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was the goldmine that brought me this:
and made me want to mine this:

Roy helped me collect a truckfull and haul it into the gallery

But the first goldmine was a Styrofoam factory around the corner from my hotel.

They even lent me an official school minivan to stuff.

My concern over finding and transporting enough Styrofoam was transformed into glee.

The gallery storage held a goldmine of sculpture plinths.

which were perfect for a Mondrian Bild.

For the afterparty Colorado Springs showed us a goldmine of western fun.

That's the group x-plo on the left, an artist group also in the show.

you can probably tell from our countenances that Chris proved himself the better pooler.

p.s. colorado is also a goldmine of the art of our fellow undergrad alumn: sculptor Mike Whiting

one million plinths and fridges and Styrofoams

2008-09-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

"Mind the Gap" at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

the dimensions are based on this 12 ft. doorway to the dock

one million repeat photos for a class presentation in colorado university at colorado springs

2008-09-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

Richmond, Virginia, 2007

READYMADES

Marcel Duchamp, "Fountain", 1917

Damian Hirst, "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living", 1991

"Bild I", 2005, Virginia Commonwealth University

"Bild 4", Richmond Virginia (backyard), 2005

"Bild 6", Virginia Commowealth University, 2005

HAPPENINGS
Alan Kaprow, "Fluids" Happening, 1967

"Fluids" (re-creation), Angelis Gate Park, 2008

Richmond, Virginia, 2007

Richmond, Virginia, 2008, Soap in Brick Wall

Piet Mondrian

"Bild 22", Kompact Living Space, Residency/Exhibition in Berlin, 2008

Berlin, January 2008

Andy Goldsworthy

Vermont Studio Center, October 2007

Richard Serra "Tilted Arc", New York City, 1981

one million studio visits ago

2008-07-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

cousins Rebecca, Jessica and Alma Christopher paid a visit to my Richmond studio three years ago...seeing this photo on Rebecca's facebook made me extra nostalgic and sad i currently am studioless...look how happy everyone is when i have a studio!

one million clarks in brooklyn

2008-06-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

one million nine to fives

2008-05-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

Photo: Matt Lemon (who rushed down from Brigham's Union Squareish apt. in his p.j.s to take this early morning delivery shot)

one million ways Mexico is a better artist than me

2008-03-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

one million pens of many colours

2008-03-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

Mexico City sidewalk vending.

Eat your heart out, Brooke Inman.

Studio of Brooke Inman.

Eat your heart out, mexican street vendor.

If you are as tantalized as I am by this installation please visit the link in the title for the Brooke Inman website.

one million sombreros

2008-03-04T19:49:00.000-08:00

clockwise empazando con nuestra chiquitita xochilimqueña · Liliana, Luis, Benji, Emilio, Felipe, Pablo y yo.

Si me estas intentando a llamar sera posible que se me encuentre asi aqui en Mexico con otras cosas que hacer, como llevar un sombrero y relajar en los canales de Xochimilco con Benji.

today´s plan : ¡Lucha Libre!

one million kitsch sculptures one could make in Utah if one were so inclined

2008-02-29T23:24:00.000-08:00

Nursery Rhyme Proposal: ceramic cow, easterbunny, ghosts, plastic Casper, epoxies.

Thank Goodness For Unicorns Three: ceramic and plaster unicorns, Jesus, Santa, dog, deer, mallard, epoxies.

Ballerina: ceramic ballerina, ducks, pelican, trick-or-treater ghost, cupids, epoxies.

Moses Ghosts: ceramic Moses and ghosts, epoxy.

Im excited for these little new things. I mailed them to Richmond from Utah and they will next be brought to New York for Scope with ADA Gallery at the end of March if you find yourself in the city and feel so inclined to visit them there.

one million dangers of devil'sland

2008-02-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

Sculpture by Gian Pierotti
Installed on anonymous graffitti

Today Gian invited me for an art adventure at a little post-apocalyptic ruin paradise here in the Utah wilderness we know as Devil'sland
We extracted Ruel from his sickbed to join the adventure.
Gian shot photos of his little ceramic sculptures

and I dropped my sunglasses into a pit half filled with insecure ice.

Just one of the seven dangers of Devil'sland.

one million tapes holding together styrofoam drawings

2008-02-12T18:09:00.000-08:00

New work from Berlin.

Styrofoam and electrician's tape housing pencil drawing on paper. Although I consider the tape lines holding the styrofoam together a drawing itself.

one million Berlin Bild proposals

2008-02-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

"Five Proposals for Site-Specific Berlin Sculptures Using German Real-Estate",
jigsaw puzzle and collage.

one million Kompact Living Spaces

2008-02-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

"Bild 36: Kompact Living Space" (Berlin Bild)

Balancing these computer monitors was a strange afterthought addition that I ended-up loving for the unexpected StarWars reference.

one million prisma colors for christmas

2008-02-05T06:13:00.000-08:00

"Box"

"Christmas List 2008: Dotting the I's and Crossing the T's"
both drawings 10'x11'

one million day-in-the-life-of a blue collar Berliner

2008-02-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

one million toads, ballerinas, and frosties

2008-01-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

Six weeks ago I made two new "Kitsch Paintings" while in Richmond but never took photos of them before taking-off for the holidays in Utah. Then last week I made one in Utah also. Here are the snapshots of the three together then:

"Toad Trap"

I found these garden toads in Vermont and couldn't pass them up. Since I was focused on other work I boxed them up and mailed them to myself in Richmond so that they could be permanently organized into this tar black rubbery trapezoid they were begging for.

"It All Comes to a Head"

While working with the toads I was also making the soap installation (a few posts down) and came across a huge box of these ballerinas I bought with Casey Smith when we were shopping in a dollarstore in Alameda. I went with the triangle form on this one - I love how the jagged bottom gives a stealth fighter reference against the feel of the pink color field.

I was pleasantly unprepared for the field of Larry Poons-esque gold ovals dotting the surface: 'made in china' stickers .

"Snowball"
I got seasonal with my thrifting in Utah and gathered all the snowmen in for this one.

one million tiny fake art 21s

2008-01-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.zanisnik.com for Brian boxing a wolf

I had forgotten about this until an email today. A guy with a camera called NewArtTV came to the Art Omi Open Studios the last day of July and filmed me and some other artists, namely, David Ford, Seeman Ho, Brian Zanisnik and John Nicholson. Mine is the most boring and I don't recommend it, but they are all linked in the title if you dare.

one million mystery berlin residencies

2008-01-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, I will be boarding a plane in a week for Berlin for a residency I know almost nothing about. Now I know a little more due to this new "webbsajt for Kompact Living Space":
http://kompactlivingspace.smorgasboard.org

After Berlin I'd like to invite anyone who can to join me for Casey Jex Smith's show at the Drawing Center in SoHo on February 22nd (worth crossing the country). Soooo excited!

And then, as predicted and as depicted above, I'm launching from New York into Mexico City!

one million christmas lists

2008-01-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

List Drawings I've made in December here in Utah

one million colors of paper, tape, and yarn

2008-01-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Vermont Studio Center (October)
Blame it on my stolen computer, the holiday laziness slump, or the rain; but two months later here is the second part of my Vermont work I've been meaning to post.
If you look closely you can see the housefly hanging out on this one.

Some bigger versions of the drawings i've been up to. These start as giclee prints of enlarged to-do lists, paired with a newer idea: construction paper/electrical tape 'drawings'.

one million soap bricks

2007-11-19T13:10:00.002-08:00

one million open vermont studio visitors

2007-11-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

My Vermont Studio on open studios night

Fredrick

Pedro
Reba
Elaine
Jason
Jessica
Terry

Emily
Kelly

Lily
Monique

Eleanor

Sarah
Sweat bands of power and inspiration

one million rocks

2007-11-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

Alright, lets show you some Vermont Studio work

and one million toads.

Pedro

Aurora
Reba
Terry
Lynn (in black)

Jason

Nathan and Lily

The first stack rarely stays put does it. I guess that's how they figured out the wheel: while trying to stack really round rocks into a wall. In the terms of Andy Goldsworthy "the stone was speaking to me, I had to listen to the stone and try again."

Jorge and his smoking aura.

More adventures of Jared y Pablo.

one million adventures of jared and pablo

2007-11-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

Or, what I've been doing for the last month.
In October I lived in "The Northeast Kingdom" a.k.a upper Vermont, village of Johnson: Vermont Studio Center. Having driven through Vermont once during "Trip Around America 2002" I had high expectations of natural beauty. My landscape expectations were gratified (proven by my smile wrinkles).

My friendship expectations were overwhelmed. In this post I focus on the adventures had with my dorm neighbor, Pablo Rasgado.

Meet Pablo and Win from Mexico and Thailand, respectively.

Adventure #1: Ghion River. Named after the biblical one running through the garden of Eden. Yes, the town upriver is named Eden. We discovered a junkpile uphill from the river which supplied Pablo and Win with studio materials. I noticed the natural water holes in the rock which later became "Deathmask for Andy Goldsworthy" using receipts from the same junkpile.

Adventure #2: [unpictured but crucial] Local St. Johns church hosts a huge rummage sale. Pablo and I buy one million items for a total of $18. One of the most awesome was this volcano.

Adventure #3: Pablo and I build a volcano.
Pablo had some good ideas about using rocks in the plaster.
I had previously borrowed a shopping cart to collect river rocks.
The roundest rocks ever.

Pablo also had great ideas about the placement of army guys climbing the structure.

The science of volcanic plaster.

Man, look at what a great time we're having!

Then we invited people over for the explosion.

A blast!

Some of the plastic animals suffered from snowy lava coverage.

It was such a success that the public insisted upon a second eruption

[will insert video(s) by Becky and/or Camila here]
Yes! Becky Yazdan just posted this video.

We scientifically made a new colour of lava as you can see in these aftermath photos.

After careful analysis Pablo solemly declares eruption #2 an even greater success than the first.
That awesome vermont-appropriate sweater? Rummage sale.

Light Bright Bomb. You guessed it: rummage sale.
I think the best description without photos of a volcanic eruption in ones studio is that a moose came over, crashed around, and urinated.

Can you see the army camp at the base of the mountain? It sustained some serious injuries.

Kami and Nathanial pay their last respects to the fallen dead animals (notice the smurfs sheet? rummage sale).
El Studio de Pablo Rasgado
You really need to see the video of this stool sculpture floating down the river - maybe Pablo will email it.
Adventure #4: Pablo gets another major thrift deal: really tall boots for ten bucks!

I am masking my jealousy with pleasant approval.

Sooooo jealous.

Adventure #5: Rainy hike.

Jorge and Jeroan talk about how awesome we look in photos.Nathanial and Jorge: Rummage sale.
Pablo has declared this his favourite image of himself ever.
Win was in the car ride up the mountain. He points with his tongue.
Kami drove. We insisted that looking away from the road not be repeated after this photo.
The payoff after a wet, muddy, cold, all uphill hike.

Adventure #6: Vermont outing. Still can't believe these jared and pablo sized matching sweaters were just waiting there for us. Pablo kept singing "I'm a lumberjack and I'm o.k. (monty python) when I wore mine.

Now you get to see our complete rummage sale outfits and performance.

Our Vermont-appropriate/Ben & Jerrys-appropriate outfits.
Pablo coreographed a dance for the occasion: "ice-cream, ice cream, ice-CREAM. ice-cream, ice-cream, ice-CREAM..." with sweater shimmying.

My welcome back since "Trip Around America 2002". Then my outfit included rainbow suspenders on shorts.

No photography was allowed in the factory. Pedro, a writer, joined us for this adventure. The new ice-cream they gave us was Banana on the Rum. I also bought some pumpkin cheesecake. (Pablo hated everything pumpkin - I let him know that this was very un-north american of him).
A respectful visit to the flavour graveyard.

Pablo and I took a leisurly moment to ponder the deceased flavours and how popcorn was never a good idea.

adventure sadly without Pablo: kareoke.

My first attempt: "You Be Illin'" failed to arouse the crowd despite my dancing and emphatic lyricyzing.

So for my next performance I dug into my bag of tricks and found a clincher: four hot girls. Fellow resident artists and writers Kami, Reba, Emily, and Johanna agreed to stand behind me as back-up dancers.
Then I poured my soul into that of Mick Jagger and performed "Beast of Burden" as if my life depended on it. (dance move for "my back is broken")

Red shirt guy is the d.j. He immediately called me a show-off and accused me of stealing all the girls.

I seem to remember my eyes being open a lot more than is recorded in these pictures.
There was a table of middle aged and old ladies sitting directly in front of me with no emotion.

The bar was called Brewskies and located up the mountain. The locals stopped the kareoke, conferred, and then got on the mic to give me a prize for best kareoke in Brewskies ever. It was a Bud Light t-shirt. I had the dancers wipe the sweat off me with it. This incited much jealous whooping from the dudes of the bar. On my way out one woman offered to pay me to be a performer at two parties coming up. They all insisted I return for the Brewskies Halloween party as Jagger. Too bad I would be gone by then. Thus happened the best possible kareoke ever. I fear I must lay down my mic.

I wish we had recorded more video - it cuts off at my favourite part, right before "aint i tough enough....oooo!"

Thanks to Jason Healy for the photos and video!

Adventure #7: Halloween Dance Party.

This might be my favourite picture of Pablo as robo-mex-andy warhol.
Plus Kami!

Camila insisted upon stealing my ears.
Very scary moment!
Pablo's flamingo neck with afro. Genius.
Aurora (friend of Nate Grover) wearing wigs that would be passed around the rest of the dance.

Adventure #8: accidental meeting after working with outdoor sculpture.

I know this looks staged, but it was really unplanned. Pablo had removed these tire looking sculptures from a pond and I was headed to the river with my cart of rocks and tree limbs.

I still need to load the photos of the adventurous part where we run around town with the cart.

Then we went fishing with my yarned branches.

Adventure #8 (unpictured) Pablo and I ditched our plane tickets and roadtripped with Emily from Vermont to White Plains. We took the train into the city, dropped off our stuff, and went into

Adventure #9: New York City!
p.s. I accidentally had a moustache by then.

I needed Pablo's approval on my favourite mexican place known to us as 'west side tacos' known to them as Taqueria La Fonda. Usually we trick people into ordering the giant burrito. But Pablo beat me to the punch. He saw the burrito and ordered it despite its hugeness, and finished it! This has only recorded to be done before by Jefferey Butler on his birthday.

Adventure #10: Help Jefferey Butler move his stuff to Yonkers.

I know: Where is Pablo? There's me, Collin and Jeff.

We stored him in back on a comfy chair:

Despite not eating all day and doing hard work we were glad to help.
But by the end I couldn't think, let alone have a happy face, with the degree of cold, wet, tired, and hungry we were.
That was cured by Burger King!
Adventure #11: ispired by Pablo and the giant burrito, I actually take down a triple whopper with cheese.
Adventure #12: P.S.1 and tall drinks in Long Island City

Adventure #13: Fat Cat. A bar with millions of games in the basement. We came for ping pong (another unrecorded adventure in Vermont) but the line was so long we settled for pool and foosball.

James Peterson joined us and we said goodbye over pizza. Once again, I am unable to fake smiling due to the impending separation from Pablo "Picasso" "El Guapo" Rasgado.
I have decided I must go to Mexico City.

one million bigger drawings on lists

2007-11-05T16:33:00.000-08:00

In Vermont I finally worked on my large scan giclee prints of lists.

I'm not sure this one is done - and the others I am definitely waiting to work on more before posting.

one million skull paintings

2007-10-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

"Deathmask for Andy Goldsworthy"

When I was in Chelsea last month with Aaron Gerth he informed me that the theme of September had been skulls (the next theme, he confided, was: Quarries [you heard it here first!]). The grandaddy of skullshows, it turned out, was still up at Cheim and Read when I stopped by giving weight to Aaron's facts:

"I Am as You Will Be: The Skeleton in Art"
Bones everywhere! I decided I still like Donald Baechler (large painting in middle).
Is it a bandwagon theme hitching to the Damian Hirst hype...or an early Halloween celebration? I'm betting on B, no one wants to be seen as caring about A:

So I was tempted to wait til Halloween to post my own skull art, it seeming fitting, but I still need to talk about volcanoes so, here's your skull.

This close-up on the eyesocket shows the paper I found up the hill from the river.

Bundles of handwritten receipts from a local hardwarestore that went out of business this year. I guess they prefer throwing their tax records in their backyard forest in Vermont. They were moist and rotting and stuck together. This detail changed a potentially easy and pleasant project into a stinky, slimy, and cold one. I think i just described a salamander (I have seen two tiny ones underneath river rocks here).

Anyway, I love Andy Goldsworthy, (in fact, we all just watched "Rivers and Tides" here at the studio center before this blog entry) but I had to use paper instead of leaves or moss so that he would turn over in his proverbial grave. Can I reverence my heroes through irreverence? It seems like a solution.

And here is a view approaching from downstream the Ghion River

Ah, Vermont.

one million studio centers

2007-10-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

So this is Vermont.

The river is the Gihon. Named after the adamic one, this river also starts in a town named Eden. That's the Red Mill, now converted into the main building of the center for offices and our cafeteria which nearly hangs directly over the water. This view is from stepping outside my studio called "The Firehouse" which, as you might guess, was the village's old firestation. It seems that our cluster of old houses and churches converted into studios takes up about 2/3rds of Johnson which isn't too far an exaggeration if you count just local businesses.
More photos to come (I have a new camera).

one million drawing instructions

2007-10-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

This summer I saw plenty of Sol Lewitt (r.i.p.) drawings hanging around (Venice Bienale, Dia Beacon, James Cohan), in honor of his recent passing; but they only minimally* prepared me for the awesomeness of this cube in Paula Cooper.

Cryptically titled "A Cube with Scribble Bands in Four Directions" Aaron Gerth (foreground) ordered me to behold this feat of pencil and pay my respects before I left for Vermont and I'm glad I did. Even if it wasn't a feat miraculously handled by one human but many - and not one of them the artist...like pharoah's pyramids, it also serves as a giant, monolithic tombstone, ordered by he whom it memorializes, for us to forever remember in awe the power of one of our greatest.
This series of drawings, although pure pencil, moves and fuzzes with almost electrical vibrating gradations, bearing an unexpected correlation to the style of Chicago painter Ed Paschke r.i.p. (who was given a spot in the last Whitney biennial as a reward for dying).

edpaschke.com

Coincidence that these two are arguably the most famous of our recently artistic dead?
All I'm saying is Beware the electric gradation style - it might be as radioactive as it looks.

*(sorry, pun totally intended)

one million art stars

2007-10-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn, during the Dumbo arts festival two weekends ago.

I was a fly on the wall as my good friend James Peterson navigated his now reality-t.v.-lifestyle as a Utah/L.A./Chicago/Arizona artist commuting to New York for season two of Artstar.

He shares this Dumbo studio with other recent graduates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where the search was made in order to give cream-of-the-crop yet non-new yorker artists a chance at the big time.

See the link for new paintings.
This sneak peak from the past is Jimmy and I parking his entry from last year's Deitch Projects Art Parade in the East Village after the parade was over.

It took about two days to be totally picked apart.

Here's the glory day of the car (and my beard) one year ago:

one million ways to clean up the neighborhood

2007-09-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

I am anxious to find a larger project in this vein but for now I'm very excited about how this is turning out.

Today I fulfilled my monthslong desire to become a mason of soaps, laying up the bricks with a bucket of water and a painters brush. A ladder and a blue jumpsuit helped me look official enough to discourage most people's curiosity as I mended the holes in the brick wall.

Two ladies on smoking break: What are you doing? (accusatory tone)
Soap Mason: Just putting these soaps here in these holes. (nervous they might have power to stop me)
tlosb: what?
sm: Just mending the wall with soaps. See, they're like bricks.
tlosb: oh....(continue smoking ten minutes)

one million true grit cardboard heads

2007-09-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

"Marion Robert Morrison"(a.k.a. John Wayne)

Another rad Seattle gallery held one of my favourites:

Scott Fife "True Grit" at Platform Gallery
(please use title link for more images)

"Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell"
(aka Jane Russell)

Oh cardboardheads, you never let me down!

foreground: "Jun Fan" (aka Bruce Lee)
background: "William H. Bonney" (aka Billy the Kid)

I saw Platform's room a week ago today at the Affair in Portland and found out about their current Scott Fife show and began scheming a visit. It was the whole reason I went to see galleries in Seattle my last day in the Northwest. Ever since running into the cardboard heads at 'Bodybuilder and Sportsman' in Chicago three years ago I have been romancing my opportunities to see them. Just wait to you see one being made: http://www.platformgallery.com/artist_pages/Fife/Fife_mov.html

The cardboard is grey because its the archival type, but it adds to a zombie effect you already get with the torn cardboard layers packed on with screws and dripping woodglue. I didn't think of them as zombies until just now, maybe the werewolf made the connection for me...alongside the theme favouring archetypes of violence.

one million swiftly shrinking planets

2007-09-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

I saw three galleries in Seattle yesterday with Rob Nyland (his camera)

The best one, Greg Kucera, happened to be taking down a show of someone I went to school with

Angela White!
That artworld must be dieting because it is getting smaller.

"But it's the chaotic and cacophonous installation by Angela White that steals the show. Spread out on the floor are a dozen or so old-fashioned turntables, each with a ceramic figurine spinning on its surface. While spinning, these figurines constantly bump into fragments of broken ceramic and glass vessels that are suspended -- every which way above them -- by hundreds of threads. The resulting sound has a titillating combination of anarchy and harmony, as if Philip Glass had written the score. The overall effect of the visual and aural components of this seemingly haphazard installation is deep satisfaction at the discovery of a poetic rhyme and reason behind the chaos."
-Edward Goldman art critic for KCRW 89.9

one million olympian metal pole drawings

2007-09-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

My time in Olympia is up, but before I drove off to Seattle I checked to confirm that this alleyway work was still up in the outskirts of downtown.

one million of the last photos i have of omi friends

2007-09-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

Now that you are acquainted with my Omi friends I am now compulsively posting nearly every photo I could get from other people (having lost all of my own during the "steal all of jared's stuff 2007" campaign carried out on two continents the last year)

I'm in the back helping to carry this monster, i promise.

My roommate!

A Kate Gilmore video is happening in this photo. Once again, I am participating but you can't see me behind David throwing the lasso. My job, once the lasso was successfully on Kate, was to pull the cinch tight, pull Kate to the ground, and pull her off the camera.

one million art camp families

2007-09-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

Every evening at Omi we climbed the hill from our barnyard studios and gathered here on this porch until the fine dining was served. Happy happy times.

one million international artists

2007-09-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

In no particular order I give you my artist friends from Art Omi in their studios

Ugochukwu Smooth, Nigeria

Zin Ki Jong, South Korea

Rachel Hayes, Richmond > New York

Robbin Deyo, Montreal

Ruijun Shen, China > Chicago

Seeman Ho, Hong Kong

Mamady Seydi, Senegal

Myung-jin Song, South Korea

Kiril Pantleev, Latvia

Kris Lukomski, Poland

Linda Geary, Oakland CA

Loren Schwerd, New Orleans

Jorge Mendez Blake, Guadalajara Mexico

Kate Gilmore, New York

John Nicholson, Australia

Jiha Moon, Korea > Atlanta

Jeffrey Gibson, New York

Gregor Kregar, Slovania > New Zealand
Kwabena Slaughter, New York

Daniel Joglar, Argentina

Srinivasa Prasad, India

Jared Clark, Richmond > homeless

Issa Nyaphaga, Camaroon > France

David Ford, Kansas City (see him in the latest issue of New American Paintings)

Gabriela Galvan, Mexico City > New York

Bryan Zanisnik, New Jersey > New York

Chitra Ganesh, New York

Christine Laquet, France

one million affairs

2007-09-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

I interrupt my Omi reporting to hear an announcement from this man:
Joe Penrod and I are showing with Swarm Gallery at "The Affair" in Portland, room 250.
So far i have helped him tape this
and this

You can find us tomorrow in Portland capturing more shadows and schmoozing at the Jupiter.

Until then you can find me making Taco Soup here (right after I post this important message)
That's right, 420, home to the famous Granteeny (seen here in the doorway way past his bedtime)

and Happy Birthday Karen Clark Stavast!, mother of 31/2 daughters and my beloved little sister since my brain learned how to remember.

one million loopy list lines

2007-09-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

Some little drawings (7 inchers) I made at Art Omi.

one million lost causes or all thats left one million pictures

2007-09-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Blogosphere,
While it is true that my summer travels have given me adequate excuses to procrastinate posts, the truth is that I have been derailed by continual losses of photos. First in May my camera and computer were stolen and now, after one month in Europe, my back-up camera and cards have been stolen in Spain. The only back-up photos were safely tucked on a computer at school which was wiped clean before I returned. Of these consecutive tragedies one small photo card remains of the millions of photos I have taken. The contents comprise this post below. They are, basically, supplemental photos to the last post - none of the millions of photos taken in Europe* - just some more of Art Omi from July.**

A piece of the barn that has been converted into studios. My studio is visible at the end of the path tucked under the trees to the left of the roof's peak.

Here's Eric Sall who came for open studios taking a photo of his wife's (Rachel Hayes) lawn piece.
This is David Ford from Kansas City. He knows Eric and Rachel from when they were there as undergrads.
And here is some of his work:

David hired these Revolutionary War Re-enactors to camp out the night before open studios and do their thing (including hanging an effigy of King George from a tree in front of my studio). Here there are milling around with us during brunch.
See David's work in Williamsburg September 14th at Jack the Pelican
http://jackthepelicanpresents.com/ford.html

Issa Nyaphaga put on a great show for open studios.
Issa is from Camaroon but has been exiled to France for his inflammatory political cartoons.
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/robertgoldwaterlibrary/2007/03/issa_nyaphaga_i.html

Jiha Moon. A Korean painter living in Georgia and showing with Moti Hasson Gallery.
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitionInfo/exhibition/84615

Daniel from Argentina

Linda Geary made these paintings.

http://www.cca.edu/academics/painting/faculty/lgeary/

Linda had everyone collaborate with her by drawing on top of some of her paintings on paper.

Daniel on the left and Kate Gilmore on the right.

Seeman Ho from Hong Kong. That is her with Bryan in the photos of her studio.

Gabriela Galvan from Mexico City.

http://theartistnetwork.org/exhibitions/strangerthanfiction.html

gabriela studio

gabriela studio

My Omi drawings. I am going to scan these and post them soon.
My studio
My trees.

My Korean friends and my dorm house in the background (the pool is behind those trees to the left).

Brian Zanisnik exemplifying late night studio creativity.
Yummy.

Loren from New Orleans in the background.

See Bryan's New York solo show debut in Chelsea at Priska C Juschka September 20th http://www.priskajuschkafineart.com/

*Luckily, there should be some Europe photos coming courtesy of travel companions Paul Gruwell and Natalie Barba. If any of you have photos of my life/art from this past year and would like to contribute to the Lost Cause Project, please mail them to: 1000 W Broad st. Richmond VA 23284.
**You will see a more complete post of my Omi friends soon using official Omi portraits. I don't want to shortchange any of the awesome artists I became friends with over three weeks even though this last photo card seems to favour only a fraction of them.

one million omis

2007-07-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

This is going to be very quick - not even time to put the photos in order and write captions. off to catch the chinatownbusredeye into new york and then a flight to europe - wanted to at least post photos from art omi before i'm gone another month. more to come!