Par l'odeur alleche

WHY VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS & ATTACK OF THE HORNY SEA GOD

2009-06-24T06:40:00.002+02:00

2009-06-24T06:07:00.005+02:00

3 CRITICS

2009-05-11T23:13:00.001+02:00

still unfinished at this point

the real deal

Senior Thesis: The Masquerade

2009-01-16T13:54:00.003+01:00

School Art

2009-01-16T12:38:00.003+01:00

Reflection
Oil on Canvas
2004

Road to Saqqarah
Oil on canvas
2005

Still Life #1
Oil on canvas
2004

Still Life #2
Oil on canvas
2004

Self Portrait
Oil on canvas
2005

DOLLZ 4 sale

2008-10-21T23:16:00.004+02:00

i found these jems. i love colorful creepy crap. thats what i love.

2008-09-19T13:49:00.002+02:00

This small painting on the Madleine Phonebooth is done, and now I have moved onto bigger and better things. I am now working litterally big... like 7X3 feet big to simulate the claustrophobia of these big city - little boxes. Bigger struggles arise obviously. Reflections are harder to simulate. Rather than one small stroke of white, I'm forced to dissect the forms into pieces.

I have been offered to work on Sergio's 'Hillary' painting in the photorealistic style in exchange for all that he learned from his 'master' that he can teach me. I have been told to first determine what I really want... 1) to get into the Ecole des Beaux Arts and create a complete portfolio of work and cement an 'applicant personality' or 2) really focus on just painting for paintings sake to cement my 'artist personality'. They are 2 very distinct goals.

I have not figured out which one I want to spend my year focusing on but I need to decide soon enough.

Also, I have no desire to go out anymore. I don't know if that's a product of laziness, oldness, lack of people that I really connect to, or just plain understanding that one night of work is more valuable than 4 pints of beer, unintelligent conversation, and the shits the next day. I also had my first real bout of missing the US. I never thought it would happen, but it certainly did.

This was part of my work space until I came in one morning and all of the shit in my studio disappeared. Such is the way things go around here. Once a cozy place, it has now become really a work not lounge area. I think it's better this way. As my old Friendly's manager once said 'if there is time to lean, there's time to clean.' Who knew friendly's breeds such peotic geniuses?

Jeff Koons is at Verseille. Which is the most amazing venue that I can think of. A huge collection of his most vulgarly kitsch work is spread throughout the palace. I am very very excited about this, but I think it would be all worthwile if B. KANE were here to experience it too.

Cult Collective

2008-08-24T20:39:00.003+02:00

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

2008-08-24T20:32:00.002+02:00

2008-08-21T22:24:00.005+02:00

hope ur 70 yr old cocksucks don't break

paris from a telephone booth day two

2008-08-21T21:53:00.003+02:00

paris from a telephone booth day one

2008-08-20T21:35:00.002+02:00

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

2008-08-18T23:06:00.005+02:00

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.

2008-08-18T22:34:00.004+02:00

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.

2008-08-18T20:42:00.003+02:00

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

2008-08-02T23:16:00.008+02:00

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.

THE TREE WAS ZAPPED

2008-07-26T23:19:00.000+02:00

Paris is for wannabes.

2008-07-26T17:47:00.000+02:00

Alright alright. alright alrite allrite.

So I've been in the dirty pigeon city, the city of lights, the city of love, the city of art (call it what you will) for 5 days now riding on this steep roller-coaster of emotion which started gently with overall satisfaction and confidence. When I began to see the first peak of insanity on the horizon I jump-started my search for work and studio on the second night. I e-mailed this man named Sergio whom I was in contact with in Jan. about possibly being his assistant for a free studio space. I sent the french version of a resume and a photo (which are required in France, because they like to know what they are getting into visually i guess) where I look much more well-endowed than I am. I've gotten no response, maybe he likes flat chests.

Bra sizes aside. Today I went to an horlogerie (translation: gaudy as fuck clock shop) to try to get an apprenticeship. Imagine me working in here:

Of course they wouldn't let me out of the back during store hours. I'd be like the hunchback of notredame, befriending the rats and roaches.

But anyway. They said non, and i said merde. But I told them that I was teaching little kids english and drawing because i didn't want them to think that I was completely unemployable. One of the ladies told me that she would e-mail me because she might know some kids whose parents want to make them speak english. I may have landed some sort of little gig there, by getting rejected from another.

I've been biking around on these really cheap rentable bikes that are supposed to boost the rep of Sarkozy while maintaining a greener Paris. However they prove to do neither- a) today on my excursion to the art store I saw a man with a surgical mask on smoking a cigarette. I was tempted to ask him what the point was and how he did it and if the cause was really greater than the hassle, but I decided to leave to it because he seemed to have other things on his mind.

b) this is what the french do with the bikes:
Tomorrow I must go to the south of france for the mother's 60th, but when I return I am going to whore myself out like i would if I lived anywhere near the molin rouge.

But for now I will leave you with little treasures inspiration for my own little bouts in un-origonal
tagging. <-- says 'draw me an asshole': Sarkozy. and the bottom one is my fave. When in doubt use silly string.

2008-07-18T20:30:00.000+02:00

Its time for the big gunz. You wanna fuck with me Wolfy... bring it bitch.

2008-07-18T19:28:00.000+02:00

So... I'm pumped to leave in less than 48 hours. I'm all set. Health insurance -check, credit cards- check, passport- check, phone company contacted- check. Everything is locked and loaded

There is only one small set back: I cannot pack.

This fuckin crazy eye killah decided to lay her wet steamy ass eggs in my clean laundry. Bitch won't leave! She WILL NOT LEAVE!!

I have been waiting for 17 hours for her to pack up the family and leave the sweet haven that is the pocket flap of my jeans where i am guessing 1 million little "charlotte's" will soon emerge and infest the rest of my laundry. I've come at her with a glass for a clean capture. She jumps like 3 feet onto another pile of laundry, at which point i have already run up the stairs and outside to hyperventilate and jump around screaming like jiffy-pop.

So, after half an hour i go back down and she is right back where she was all flat and threatened so i come at her with a vacuume cleaner and the entire process starts over again.

Her crazy eyes glow at me and i know this is a battle of the prides, which i lost on that first sprint out the door.

I really don't know what to do. I've survived an non-refundable plane ticket, a warrent for my arrest, and a slew of other potentially threatening set backs... but i really was not expecting this.

Life has a funny way of fucking with you.

Art therapy at the Wetzel

2008-06-17T05:32:00.000+02:00

Moth In Glass Cont'd

2008-06-06T03:36:00.000+02:00

Excuse my sideways, broken up, or teensy-weensy posts. I understand that display is just as important for broadcasting your art as the art itself, but I'm like a fucking 2 year old with the computer and my fingers slip and I'm too lazy to figure out formats and whatnot.

But anyway, onwards and upwards.

This was my first attempt at integrating my clocks with art, even though I think that the beauty of the movement is so magnificent that i need to produce something that does not hide it and does it justice by working with it and not over it.

What you cannot see in the pictures is that the moth moves from side to side with the rapid ticking of the clock. The movement does not have a pendulum so the escapement is not as steady, regular or slow as it was intended to be. The ever moving moth is suspended in the air so that the entire piece seems weightless, yet its power is derived from a 3 lb weight hanging from its chain. It is covered in glass to exaggerate its immobility and accentuate its fragility.

It is made from an old cuckoo clock movement from the Black Forest. It is wrapped in copper and fishing wire. The moth is made of feathers and copper wire. It is suspended by fishing wire.

Moth In Glass

2008-06-06T03:10:00.000+02:00

2008-06-05T06:35:00.000+02:00

So obviously i am having problems with iphoto and its inability to conform to my demands but if you turn your head sideways you will see that i have begun a painting that will be called: Garlic Breeding Modern Man

Pablo Picasso says:

2008-06-05T06:24:00.000+02:00

What one does is what counts and not what one had the intentions of doing.

On Creativity

2008-06-03T07:15:00.001+02:00

Creativity is not as glamorous or pleasurable as all those masters make you believe. It is more like a scorpion in your bed. There it hides in the farthest, darkest, moistest cranny just waiting for its time, for it knows it will have a time. It attacks when you most need rest, when you most need clarity, when your day has turned to night and your brain is digesting the lo and beholds of the hours past. When it stings you your heart pumps your adrenaline curses and your mind reels. It makes you sick with hallucinations and restlessness. Such a sudden rush is welcome in your bored and lethargic body. But this venom passes time and distracts you better than any drug. If the sting is deep you will jump up with its stinger still dangling from your vein and tend to the madness. You will write and draw and drink and smoke and brood and read and isolate. If the sting is shallow you should feel pretty lucky this time, because the hangover is much less severe.

You awake from your slumber tired, thirsty, and jumbled. For approximately two seconds you feel completely satisfied. Last night something happened that stirred your mundane schedule. You look beside your bed and on your bed and under your bed and on your hands and shirt and face- all the evidence of a fit of brilliance. You would invite all of the scorpions of the world to come and sleep with you because that is just how excited you are. But those are the last little drops of the stuff inside of you talking. Because, with this venom there is always a successful antidote --!because after all of that!-- you realize you've produced

nothing but shit.

2008-05-24T19:54:00.000+02:00

Would you buy these? Clock purses?

the faster, easier, more stylish way to tell time. Please judge with impunity.

Alma Mahler-Werfel is my hero

2008-05-22T18:13:00.000+02:00

Although her track record suggests a golden or at the least floozy vagina, Alma Mahler was the muse to a crazy collection of genius artists. And she didn't just stick to one type of artist, oh no, she had quite the varied taste for aesthetic seduction.

She trampled on hearts, cheated and lied, over and over; and the fragile geniuses wept and moaned as the sadistic angel floated away.

she was the childhood friend of Gustav Klimt-- she gave him her first kiss

am i suggesting a correlation? I most certainly am not entirely! I do not see how such a universally identified beauty, labeled flirt, and heartbreaker would not at least have some sort of influence on Klimt's Masterpiece. All I'm sayin is he was a playboy, she was a playgirl, in the art world that relationship is represented in golden shrouds. Signs and symbols baby.

let us move on. In 1900 Alexander von Zemlinsky (Austrian composer) got shot in the ass by cupid's arrow, but however mutual or pure Alma's intentions were, she was dissuaded by her family to pursue the relationship because of his displeasing face and lack of international fame. They were right on both accounts. He was no James Dean and was completely under appreciated and neglected in his later United States home, but since when has that been reason enough to sever heartstrings, huh? That's unheard of.

So anyway, later she ties the knot with Gustav Mahler who was director of the Viennese court opera (so apparently he has a few things up on poor von Zemlinsky.) But apparently not too much cause after her two babies, Alma shacked up with the young architect Walter Gropius (Bauhaus.)

So Gustav was all like "shit, I gotta take the intiative" and tried to win her back. He died. And she moved on. But not with Gropius- he was so last year. Oskar Kokoschka, the expressionist painter with the best painter name, fell in love blah blah blah with we all know who. Many of his painting were inspired by her (and this is not just me assuming) and he was a posessive bastard. When she left him, he got a doll of her made and brought it to operas as his companion.

Alma said "fuck this, I am my own woman. And my body has been too long with one man" and ran back into the arms of Gropius. She had a baby together, but he had to go into the army and leave her alone. BAD IDEA GROPIUS...!!!! She went and had sex with poet and writer, Franz Werfel. She had a baby Werfel that she named Martin Carl Johannes Gropius because she didn't really want to have a bad reputation when hubby Gropi came home. Whatever, he figured it out and she lived the rest of her life with Werfel.

yes... Alma Klimt-von Zelimsky-Mahler-Gropius-Kokoschka-Werfel is my hero. Too bad i have no game.

2008-05-21T19:01:00.000+02:00

For the sake of saving time (which we all know how much i love to do) i'm going to post the projects that I worked on in the past year with minimal description.

These a few of the 24 or so illustrations that i drew for my father's book 'The Swing Under the Eiffel Tower.' Which is basically a light-hearted and imagery saturated physics 101 book set in 14 different parks in Paris. It describes physical/natural laws in relation to the world that he sees in these utopian pockets of a gritty city. My job was to capture the essence of these park, which naturally turned out to be the most relaxing job i have ever and probably will ever have. It should be published novemberish?! in french and english.

sorry they couldnt be bigger. but they got cut off. if you want to go to the non-migrane inducing sizes you can go to http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a123/tapsnatch/Illustrations/

2008-05-21T18:29:00.000+02:00

I'd really rather just jump right into this than speak of my goals, desires, and fears linked to this webpage only slightly more informative than myspace.

It's really just a matter of having a spot to burry all the failed or executed ideas that run though my brain like wile e coyote. this blog is like my rocket that i genuinely believe will get me one step closer to the pursued. it's the best idea that i've had so far! it's the element that i've been missing by god!