I should let the truth of things take precedence over the myth.

I should let the truth of things take precedence over the myth.

Toxo in the brain.

Parasites that cause behavioral change in cats to help spread itself. Toxo actually hijacks sexual pathways in cats to make their urine more attractive to rodents.

I should let the truth of things take precedence over the myth.

The Last of the Romantics.

The Last of the Romantics.

Cohen couldn't have put it any better:

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.

Myth for Codex (stolen from Hsiao Ling)

"Everything, then, can be a myth? Yes, I believe this, for the universe is infinitely fertile in suggestions. Every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to an oral state, open to appropriation by society, for there is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things." -Roland Barthes

Oh, what? ... I mean its cool if I take one of these cookies right?

What I've made of what the F just happened to Vancouver.

How do you really measure something as ethereal as confidence anyway?

Words from my friend Salimah:
"Maybe, I have been spending too much time around the Olympic flame, but I don't think so: there is certainly something profound going on in Vancouver at the moment. Everyone knew the games would have an impact - some believed positive, others thought negative - but I agree with Mr. Mason, that the level on which this moment has inspired the opportunity for furthering a deeply Canadian conversation - on our identity, our history, our plurality, our future - has come as a surprise. A very welcome one."

and the words that inspired her words.

Objecthood and recalling a walk with you.

This is my first real attempt at painting. I guess I am approaching this prototypically, but its the only way I really know how to approach things. I didn't think painting would be so cerebral and oddly enough, despite the fact that the painting is a recollection of a memory, all I can think about is commodity and owning.

If somehow you missed her, or want to hear her again.

Love is the movement of the heart.

I wanna be a hockey player when I grow up.

I wish I could take some of your fears away.

Matining Codex 3

Study for Codex

I finally got off my ass started to test out my theories. I'm excited about this study. I'm hoping to make more a cylinder type shape.

I'm with you in Rockland.

     I'm with you in Rockland
            where we hug and kiss the United States under
            our bedsheets the United States that coughs all
            night and won't let us sleep
     I'm with you in Rockland
            where we wake up electrified out of the coma
            by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
            roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
            hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls col-
            lapse O skinny legions run outside O starry
            spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
            here O victory forget your underwear we're
            free
     I'm with you in Rockland
            in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
            journey on the highway across America in tears
            to the door of my cottage in the Western night

Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby

Whats going on in America?

I woke up today to find the end of the Democratic filibuster. Scott Brown, a Republican has taken post of Kennedy's old spot in Massachusetts. A spot that has been occupied by the Democrats for over 40 years. And then this. Cindy McCain posting for the NoH8 Campaign.
What the what?

Google: How it read my mind.

Sorta.

I am sitting at my trusty coffee place again at 1 in the morning and I see this great thing in front of me. Stopped at the red light was a yellow VW Westfalia with an ebony coloured canoe on its roof. For some reason it made me laugh and I knew I had to take a picture, but I forgot my camera again and I debated using the camera on my laptop. but I convinced myself it wouldn't work. It sped away 2 seconds before the actual green light.
I immediately went to Google image that scene. I typed "canoe" and "westfalia" and lo and behold.

Matining Codex

I have begun work on what I deem to be a pretty ambitious piece. Last November I began to seriously research creation mythologies of the Malay-Philippine region. I was looking specifically for stories that were somehow uninfluenced by Spanish colonization in the early 16th century. Here is the proposed proposal.

-------------

The Philippines is comprised of 7,107 islands with 170 different languages, it is a country created from the arbitration of the Spanish Dominion with regard to the bounty of the natural resources of the land and not the distinct cultural and ethnic peoples that inhabit the islands. Their society was organized by barangays (villages) and their property and population was determined by how much they could fit into their barangays (barangay also mean boats). Because of the archipelago configuration it isolated groups of barangays and as a result creation myths became abundant in types and variations throughout the country. The Catholic friars saw the importance of these folklore to exist alongside Catholicism. These heathen stories still exist today and influence the complexity of contemporary Filipino culture.

The Boxer Codex is a manuscript from 1595 of 75 illustrations of people in the Malay-Philippine region. Its namesake comes from Charles R. Boxer, a professor at Indiana University and owner of this manuscript. The codex involve 15 illustrations of the peoples of the Philippines before the first onset of the Spanish Catholic colonization in the beginning of the 16th century. This codex contains a lot of our modern understanding of the Filipino peoples before Spanish colonization in 1521.

The Matining Codex is a collection of found objects and assemblages that speak about the existing relationship of Filipinos to faith; heathen and Catholicism. It is comprised of 12 objects sitting on a low plinth/altar with a Christian cross rising in the middle. Each of the 12 objects is an idol-like representation of a common heathen God or character from the varied creation myths of the islands. Their physical image are based on the literal contemporary translations of their names or descriptions from archived oral histories.

20 years ago today, I walked out of YVR with my family and saw my breath for the first time.

Broad Way Sleep - Too Late

Happy Face of Mars

Rugby guy: "Im gay!", Elfred rejoices.

Balled my eyes out reading this.
Im first in line for a date. But seriously though, heart warming story.

Carlos

Mount Mayon

Creation Myths

Everything there is.

Untitled

The Length of Vulnerability and Strength

A Single Man.

What could be better than being tucked up here with you?

I love love.

People that inspire people.

This is a cool teacher. When gimmick meets education.

Scratch that anti-aesthetic thing: An update to below

Last night I predictably decided to not leave the metal square frame bare and unfinished. After sleeping on the new ideas, I've made new crucial changes.
I've decided to paint the square frame yellow, leaving the sharp blade an exposed metal and to only sharpen one part of the frame.
And I was also thinking alot about how the horse hair will hold onto the wall as well. Right now I'd like to see the hair coming out of a hole on the wall.

I really like the ideas I've plotted out in the previous post. And right now I think that a demanding didactic title like "At some point, you will let me go and I will fall, but you will be the one hurt." feels appropriate for what I want to reveal in the conversation between the 2 objects.

The reason why I decided to only sharpen one part of the frame is to suggest that the horse hair has options. That it doesn't need to grasp the square frame on the sharp blade side, but it does anyways.
And I think that by painting the frame a dull yellow, the blade end will be revealed not shockingly or surprisingly, but not be predicted either. If that even makes sense. The paint I'm using is a non metallic car paint and it has a familiar gloss to it that acknowledges the material its covered is metallic.

At some point, you will let me go, and I will fall but you will be the one hurt.

I've been struggling a lot with this piece.
I think there's mental blocks that's keeping me.
1. I've began to question my art making process and its emphasis on the aesthetic
2. I'm getting bored of what I'm trying to say
2.1: maybe because I don't know how to say it
3. Do I even have anything to say?

I began this piece thinking it would be a faulty tower of sorts with magnets and forks and spoons and knives standing erect. I abandoned that idea 2 weeks into the project for several reasons, most of which are due to doubts caused by academic readings. I decided to approach the materials with somewhat news eyes, but instead I began to repeatedly hear what someone told me last year:

You know you'll eventually loose that interest in the aesthetics. Everyone becomes anti-aesthetic at some point.

So now as a result of an art school tantrum and pressure, I've come to what I think is my first anti-aesthetic piece. Although it's nowhere near done, it may well turn out to be my most aesthetic piece in the end.
I have big plans for it.
All the edges will eventually be sharp like the edge of a knife.
I'll also polish it to a shinier finish.
And the string holding it up will be strands of horse hair.
It's been a pretty convoluted process getting to this stage and I'm not entirely sure I know what I'm doing.
Here's my thoughts on this piece.
I see this piece as 2 separate bodies interacting; the horse hair and the square frame. The horse hair, which is only 6 strands thick, is holding up the square frame. But in that process the square frame is doing 2 things. It's straining the horse hair as it threatens to pull the hairs apart. While doing that, it also threatens to cut the horse hair with its blade when it grips the edge.
Although it seems that the square frame is completely dependent on the horse hair, I am intrigued by the dangerous play that the horse hair partakes in. Its dependence on the square frame is a questionable but defendable act.
This relationship, one of destruction and duel dependence built on issues of trust are all individualistic plains of exploration. This self referential attitude compromises the aesthetics that I often hold too heavy of esteem.

Floorboards

I've bisque fired most of the 64 clay planks and have started to colour them. I originally wanted to throw them in a fire and see what happens, but its started pouring and I got lazy. Instead I've been taking charcoal and colouring them instead. 2 things are important to me; the first is to respect the clay and second, I do not want to de-authentisize the nature of the impressions of wood by using a medium to imitate it. My goal is not to create wood planks out of clay, but to create a new representational object that has the vulnerable qualities of wood and clay. I've also began to experiment with the orientation of the pieces. I really like the gradation factor on a straight line look, but I'm not sure what that will add exactly, other than aesthetic.

PetMan, BigDogs brother.

Dave Salmoni as Tarzan.

Fluff

I've started working on a fluff piece. Its supposed to be a really bad but very decorative speaker. I needed to make something that just looks pretty, period. No concept, no symbolism, no meaning, no whatever. It's been a while.

Floorboards by chance.

I've recently started on a small floor installation of wood planks made from clay. I'm thinking of laying them out by 3s on the floor and hopefully fill a 3 ft x 3ft area. By leaving them bisque fired and then throwing them into a fire pit, I'm hoping to do 2 things. I'm hopefully letting the clay material speak for itself and allow its breakable vulnerability to filter through the smokey soot that then refers to the vulnerability of the mimicked wood material.

A week ago, I saw Mona Hatoum on a lecture about a large span of her work. I had already been thinking about intention vs. intuition in the last couple of weeks as a result of a very long critique and one thing that Ms. Hatoum said during her talk really keeps bothering me. When asked about the titles of her work, she replied by saying that in most cases she completes the work and then finalizes the intended meaning of the piece.

I feel like I've been struggling with this notion for a while now. How much can an artist rely on intuition before the piece begins to fall apart? And how much planning and deliberate intentions should an artist have before the piece begins to feel too didactic?

This particular piece with the floorboards has had a pretty shifty start. It began as a chair constructed from the wood clay planks and then I became ambitious and so it multiplied into 3 chairs. The decision to compose the planks into floorboards instead only came to when I began to lay the planks down to let them dry and I only honestly only decided to change the idea into floorboards because I realized that there is a poster in the studio of a piece that looks very similar to what I eventually wanted to do.

So what began as my intention changed only because of fear of plagiarizing someones work. And although I feel that I have made some intentional decisions, ie. using a rolling pin rather than the slabroller and not trying to hide the fact that there are very similar patterns on some of the planks, etc... I feel like this piece has been guided more by chance.

I now have a definitive plan for this piece and so I guess that there is a very strong intention to what I want to eventually do; which is to allow the piece to show vulnerability. But I really have no idea where that particular push is coming from. How did decide "vulnerability" as my intention?

And so I am left with this conundrum. Is this intention a construction of my intuition?

Oh yeah...

My man, David Altmejd, won the Sobey Art Prize. Le sigh.

An interview with David Chang.

David Chang is the owner of the Momofuku restaurants and bakery in New York. This 2008 Charlie Rose interview is a nice insight into his way of thinking. Chang is one of my inspirations. Lined up with seeing Guernica and reading Guns, Germs and Steel, eating at Momofuku Noodle Bar a year ago has to be one of the most surprisingly inspiring experiences I have come across in the last couple of years.
I know, I know. It sounds stupid and really pretentious go back to art school chatter.
But the way he composes complicated flavours, texture and technique in his work had such resonance. It was the first time I realized that eating can be an intelligent activity. I am still blown away by how his work interacted with me.

Door Ajar

I think I want to do this.

Here, there

There is stiffness in the damp wrinkled air of our sitting here
The smell of birch burning

heated embers linger in this white room
You sat across from me comfortable in your uncomfortable seat
I slouched
Cushions surrounding me
but I would rather have your elbow crooked on my right leg
In the crackling sound and heavy smoky scent the room is created
Here in this space I feel at my most ease
Here inside
the fire glows against the walls, shadows casting
I feel at my most ease
There in the shadowed darkness skips with light
There by the black cast iron fireplace
an orange glow attacks the blistering cold and gives it warmth
And when you're there
and I'm there with you
Here, there
is where I feel at my most ease.

Ex-Gay vultures and their babies.

If there is a such thing as a Divine Design, I think this is proof of the tragedy of star crossed lovers.

Creation myths.

I was listening to CBC's Writers and Company earlier today and someone mentioned that according to the Qur'an, Allah molded man and woman out of clay, earth, sand and water and then breath life into them. As a child I was told a creation myth of God molding men and women out of clay and baking the clay to life. It makes me wonder whether or not this use of clay was a direct influence from the Muslims of the deep south of the Philippines.

I found various other creation myths.
And from Plato's Symposium, a speech my Aristophanes pop cultured by Hedwig.

A Single Man

I have concurrent expectations for this movie.
Either its gonna blow my freakin' mind away or its gonna suck harder than one of his groupies.
I will be extremely disappointed if this movie was just mediocre.

Also judging only by the trailer, I see him channeling Almodovar, Greenaway and Kubrick.

She cries.

Nice to meet you.

GAZE

This, it sits.
In the background.
Like my grandfathers radio.
Or my fathers television.
To drown out the silence
of an otherwise empty room.

Bill on DADT and DOMA

Ummmmmm...

Im virtually here 3

Im virtually here 2

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus

He beat me to it.

Although I doubt I couldve made it any more interesting that him. Chad States takes his models from Craigslist. His ad asked them what masculinity is.

Who's gonna save soul now?

I woke up really wanting to see this video.

RIP John Hughes

3 things I'm actually working on in the shop.

1- The shop itself.
Ive been working on my studio space since the first hour I got back to Vancouver and I am only now really just getting going. I pulled up the flooring, prepped the raw concrete to be stained and sealed. I still need to build a wall and paint the walls and the ceiling. I have plans for a retractable wall so that I can shrink or enlarge the space accordingly and hide stuff for storage. But the deal is, I also needed to get a job to pay off my massive debt. So progress has been a tortoise pace. I plan to have the entire thing completed by August 15.

2- Thin man/Fat lady chair.
I am going back to my furniture making roots with a new piece. This one is more furniture than art. And yes, the third chair related piece in the last 9 months. I found a great 60's Canadian/Danish influenced armchair frame and I still have 2 massive cushions that I acquired from my days working at Bensen. I am mainly inspired by an image that has been in my head for a couple of months now.
Sitting on a park bench, a tall thin man embraces his short, fat wife who sits on his lap. I want him to be the thin wood sparse chair frame while she is the over sized cushion.

3- Nothing is abstract anymore.
In my last months in Toronto, I started to experiment with drippings of watered down acrylics on paper. I was then taking lyrics from songs and adding the lyrics on top of the abstraction. I was hoping that the juxtaposition would create organization aesthetically and in meaning. I have started working larger scale now on stretched cotton and watered down acrylic reductions. I have canvases that are 4ft x 8ft of stretched grey cotton and white vinyl.

Bouroullec Brothers - Vegetal Chair

Norman McLaren - A Chairy Tale

Arthur Ganson - Cory's Yellow Chair

RIP Cory Aquino

Sobey Art Prize Shortlist (2 months late)

Graeme Patterson is one of the shortlist finalist for the 2009 Sobey Art Prize. He will represent the East Coast. Winner announced October 15. Other Finalists are; for the West Coast and Yukon, Luanne Martineau (who? but cool); for the Prairies and The North, Marcel Dzama (snore); for Ontario, Shary Boyle (!YAY!); and for Québec, David Altmejd (le sigh)

Time

Another idea that Ive been thinking a lot about is time. In the sense that time doesn't really move forward like how we customarily visualize time to behave. Time actually more accurately explodes. And not just for me or you, it explodes from every atom and when it begins to exist it explodes again. I wanted to really think about that idea, and in doing so I have been doing a lot of sitting and observing and recording the most seemingly mundane things. For 24 minutes on Wednesday I filmed a Smokie vendour setting up on English Bay for the fireworks festival. It wasn't until I got home and played back the video that I realized a story of the Smokie stand from the beginning set up and up to its first customer was all neatly encapsulated in that 24 minutes. And things existed around it; in the background and to the left and right of it, but it was the Smokie stand that still exists in my head. Time is constantly creating presence, it doesn't discriminate between pivotal historical events from the everyday mundane. Time only grows significance once we package it up and convert it into memories.

Im virtually here

I have been completely out of it for the last couple of months.

I moved back to Vancouver in the beginning of June and have been slowly renovating a space for myself in the back of my parent's backyard.

In a failed attempt at cutting out phone and internet for the month of July, new ideas have emerged. I was already thinking about the idea of using internet spaces like comment areas in blogs and using them as a place where stories unfold.

In this new work that Ive been toying around with, I plan on taking screen capture images of spaces in the internet that I have intervened in.

Stewart Brand on real city planning.