Cult Collective

So, after a very long and grueling cat and mouse chase to get in touch with this evasive crazy artist I finally got to meet him.

His name is Sergio and he runs what he likes to call an underground layer that caters to the needs of the not-yet-disillusioned creative type that seek solace in their idea of Picasso's Paris (ie. me.)

After responding to a craig's list add "in need of a studio assistant," outlining a chance to help an artist in return for some space... I got no response. I e-mailed and e-mailed, sent a CV then an e-mail saying that I did not appreciate being ignored (politely though... but I realize now that was a little bit too much) and no response. I gave up hope until more than 3 weeks later, he sends me a link to this and asks me if I would be interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/05/18/style/t/index.html#pageName=18metcalf

Just like that... the link and then, are you interested?

I said hells yes. And I made a remark about Hillary Clinton being a failed mother figure for the US (because he's working an ass shakingly massive portrait of her as Bernini's Extacy of St. Teresa.) He misunderstood the comment and thought I was referring to his mother. I thought, at that point, I had no chance in hell... but he still told me to call him.

So I called him and no response. Again, no response. One more time and he answered and we got disconnected. Finally we spoke and he had this really thick russian accent and he told me to meet him at the stairs of a subway station at 9 pm.

I get there at 8:58 and i called him. He told me he'd be there in 3 minutes. About 5 minutes pass and this tall guy who does look like the picture in the article, but with a bit of a softer face is just standing by the newsparper vendor. He's not looking at me or anyone, he's just looking up. I stood there and stared at him for about 2 minutes and decided that he was testing me. That he wanted me to go up to him because that would prove that I was bold. So I did, and I asked him if his name was Sergio. The man looked at me and asked if I wanted him to be. I said that for the sake of convenience, yes I would, but its ok if he's not. He said he wasn't, but still smiled... at that point I thought he was really fucking with me even though he spoke french like a french man and not a russian.

As all of this was going on the real Sergio rounds the corner very swiftly and is sort of pacing back and forth. I knew it was him at that point and we embarked together to a beautiful shithole.

We talked until 1 am, at which point I had to catch the last metro. We talked about art and expectations and the place he was running and clocks and russia, the US, harvard, Clark, classical music, work ethic, family, sleeping patterns, and very very slowly his illusive front melted away.

So he offered me to be the nomadic studio user in return for 24 hours of work a week. I'll get the biggest studio space for now, and until someone who pays him comes and wants it I move on and on and on, and in the worst case, end up in the hash hut... seriously.

So I start tomorrow. My tasks include, helping him mix paints, teaching his son how to repair a clock (which he is sure a 7 year old can master), fixing the rest of the clocks around the place, contacting galleries, etc.. a slew of things.

I don't know what I have just got myself into, but whatever it is it will be interesting and we will see tomorrow after I ring him once... just once... and then hang up.

Dat four

hope ur 70 yr old cocksucks don't break

paris from a telephone booth day two

paris from a telephone booth day one

CONTN'D cut and paste... if you care about chronology, begin with the post below.

London audience watching an audience on the big screen.

"Although engulfed by photographers, Phelps managed to greet his mother, Debbie, and other family members on Sunday." --if you look closely it is an all Chinese audience who were once celebrating the Chinese gold medalist of badmitton, but now... LOVE THE USA!!

Photoshop without the photoshop.

The time i did some cut and paste.

all gutted.
all exposed.


This was what I found in today's edition of the Herald Tribune. I was amazed at the amount of material it gave me. Just one day's newspaper, when placed out of context can bring alot of joy and sorrow and thoughtful surges of creative activity.

"Roger Norrington conducting in New York. He may drop the vibrato from 'Pomp and Circumstance' from a London Show" --in my eyes, showing a lil too much bravdo.

"Dimitri Medvedev in Moscow on Thursday with the leaders of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, right, and Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapsh." --lets be cliche. devil on left angel on right.

"Riyadh is a city of extremes-- from the well-to-do, who buy gas-guzzling cars, to the poor, who often lack access to clean water."

Only when my computer died did i feel like committing sucide.

Today I spilled coffee on my computer and it shut off. I opened it up and cleaned it as best I could but the fear of losing $1,099 that I already do not have, as well as the many things that I have stored and worked on for the past year seems to be as unbearable as having all of the fingers of my right hand cut off, honestly probably even more tragic because at least that would give me a good excuse to be bitter.
I thought about how I will lose my entire i-tunes library and opened the window to the bedroom to scope out my easiest death route. I never have and probably never will feel more ungrateful that I live on the second floor.
So I thought about how this whole experience is fueling my already awkward adjustment period. And I realized that its all part of what I need to learn here. Yes there is reason to cry over spilt milk, especially when it was mixed in with the coffee that has raped and killed your mother-board... but honestly, lets be honest... was it worth the shot of need of death that plowed through me more intensely than when I was 16 and emo?
IS IT?
(disclaimer: I still don't know if my computer will work after the cleaning...)
Obviously no, there is no reason I should feel like this about my beloved piece of technology when I realize now that I am trying to fight against it in most of my artistic endeavors. What I really want to do is make a world of art sans technology. Show that a still innovative and meaningful message can be produced without electronics being its driving force.
Our generation is one of technology. We were brought to life before the internet yet act as though we cannot live without it.
Painting is dead they say, sculpture of bronze, marble, and stone have been dead since the greeks aside from various re-births from Michaelangelo and Giacometti. Instead graphic design, video, light installation, photo, even kinetic sculpture (the stuff that is more dear to me than painting itself) are the for-runners of contemporary art. (When I attended the Venice Biennale, out of some 400 artists, only 20 of them were painters.)
And that is part of what baffles me... Who are these are completely nescient critics kidding when they say that we are of a generation of lost creativity? Only in the last 150 (?) years has the art world been stretched from stagnance to movement... but its ok to call Masaccio a genius for composing false realities with 2-D perspective, however when we create worlds that exist in 2-D but make the audience feel as if they were actually moving through a false reality, we are... what? we are somehow bad.
Anyway, I have gotten beyond myself here... way beyond. I do not poo-poo technology or electronics, and I certainly do not want to give that impression (and I also realize that I just compared Masaccio and Stephen Spielberg, but WHAT OF IT??). My life has been simpler and happier and I am very proud of the generation that I belong to. I am very proud of the new strides in art that my generation has produced.
I haven't come up with what I really want to convey with my art, I just think that today I struck a vein. Thats it.

mon pere <3 purty things

I just returned from a mighty week-long excursion with my family and nine aged 60+ family friends somewhere south of Paris. It was quite a change from worm or paris life as you would imagine, it was quaint and quiet and fresh and old and generally more relaxing. I do realize that its great for a week but bad for a lifetime.

People there age so slow (however, not as slow as old americans.) In the country, days feel like weeks and then once a week is over you wonder what the hell you just did to make the week feel like a day.

The last two are my first true efforts in 'en plein air' water-color. Which proves to be much harder than it looks because you cant paint over a damn thing and painting- as my sister would call them 'bob ross' settings- gets to be a tid boring. and hottxxxx as hellz ballzXXX. i ended up pumping Afrika Bambaataa dance remixes and jumping around the field, eyes closed and sunstroked, to regain the sight that was lost by staring at a glaring white roll of paper for 3 hrs. i bet Monet never did that. In fact, I know he didn't cause his ass went blind.