Installation

Another Year Has Come to a Close!!! Thank You 2014!

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11 What a Year what a year what a year!  This was probably my most focused year to date!  When I established the production calendar for 2014 I was a bit nervous to be honest, anxious in a healthy way though.  I found myself saying "Holy shit can I really do this?  Can I really handle this entire chain of events and stay sane with a job and my AA program and all in between?"  But it was a healthy thought, a positive forward looking sort of nervousness, an affirmation that I was meant to take this challenge and push forward!  And sure enough, it all happened, and more that came down the pipe out of the blue, and honestly I have to say I fucking rocked it (Hahaha)!  I definitely hit my limit, and it is good to know ones limits for sure.  Needless to say, I will be in NYC in 2015, and Coby Kennedy and I are coming for you (hahaha)! Blade Runner Steez!

4 Windside Out

As I grow and change and move and progress and love and live, coming to understand ones self and ones strengths, ones weaknesses, ones limitations and once fierce powerful drive, to find those things that keep us going, to find those things we need to let go of, to find those relationships that hurt and those that help and nurture us is really at this point in my development what life is all about.  It is this process of seeking that is LIFE to me.  It is not how many shows I can do, it is not how many instagram followers one has, it is not how many things one can pile on and accomplish, it is not praise, it is not critique, it is not money, it is not recognition, it is not affirmations of love and working through loss; it is all of those things, it is every piece of the cosmic puzzle, it is the SEEKING that all of those elements are a part of, that creates the road map and the experiences and signs and guides and milestones and failures and successes and insights that one can truly manifest and become knowing of their own energy so as to continue seeking as a part of all things.  We are all a part of all things in the universe, we are all connected constantly whether we realize it our not. It is how when I seek, when I concentrate inward my spiritual center can be found amidst and working through all of these things.  It is simply to be aware, to be positive, to be seeking, and simply BE.

Charting Future Past

I have to say, the spiritual practice that I have come to find as the cornerstone of my life has really expanded and been investigated, and really is what saw me through this year and made me come to find what true happiness is.  I can honestly say, this year I found what happiness truly is to me at this point.  I had an awesome partner in this journey, my friend Jen, that I was fortunate enough to have come along for what we ended up calling TTT or Transcendental Taco Tuesday, where we explored some new heights and complexities and simplicities in exploring the world within our selves that is a gateway to the universe and all of its different dimensions and planes of existence.  Needless to say, I say some visions, saw intricacies and portals, guides and animal friends, pure energy and the elements of creation and destruction and all that is everything and nothing.  We also ate some incredible tacos and talked about life and the universe and contemplated our places in it all to an extent I have never really experienced with another person.

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I experienced pure love like I have never felt before as I grew and learned and felt and loved with Julie Moon (the illest Piano player ever btw) and saw another person in recovery climb up out of the ego and the fear that is addiction and alcoholism, through trauma and pain, to find herself and help me find myself, and in the process find ourselves together.  We experienced new heights in understanding, compassion, exploration of ourselves and each other. We found what acceptance, patience, intimacy, chemistry, attraction, arousal, sexual exploration and openness, respect, willingness, compassion and an utter devotion to one another's creative evolution and freedom, to understanding that we have to be happy with ourselves in order to love one another, to what respecting and truly loving another human being for who they are on all levels truly means. She is in Korea right now living out her own dream of seeking, and playing music, and re-investigating her homeland and confronting so many things that she needs closure and clarity and growth from.  She is a force of nature and continues to be a magnetic energy everywhere she goes.

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I drove across the country with an amazingly talented young tattooer and artist name Carolyn.  We shared an intimate two weeks that people do not often get to experience.  Intimate in the fact that neither of us had ever driven cross country and we established some incredible memories and a real friendship in the process.  We got to see  some family in Austin Texas as we hung with Terry Addison, saw Bob MaCready in Houston, Nathaniel and his amazing restaurant Boucherie in NOLA, hung with my mom and ate BBQ in NC and more. We ate our way across the nation and brought an incredible happening to New York City, building with Superchief and making life long bonds!  And a huge thanks to John and Lizz for their hospitality and friendship!  We will never forget that damn trip, or South of the Border!  I further got to know Joel and Rhea St. Julien and there amazing daughter Olive as Joel and I made soundscapes and connected our creative minds on multiple projects.  I appreciate that I have such an amazing family everywhere I go now!

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Eric Araujo, one of my best buds that I met in SF, connected me with the amazing people at BRIC arts in Brooklyn for the opportunity of a life time to work with some incredible people during the winter vortex!  Julie Kim and the Littlefield crew flew me out yet again to paint on of the best large scale paintings I have ever done. There were the great people at the Shooting Gallery that helped me realize the biggest show I have ever done with "Pilgrimage". "Champagne Tigers" at LeQuivive, hanging out at Old Crow with Sean and Evan and Victor, talking about the world with Dre and Bleu Cheese with Chris Burch.  I went on a couple trips to LA where I got hang out with Stephanie Inagaki, meet Andrew Kline from CMHHTD and Strife, and finally explore the city with an open mind and heart which made me finally love that place! Spent some killer times with Salem OFA! I reconnected with Joseph Gross, and was so incredibly happy to see him thriving and doing great things with his gallery.  We have continued to build and I am super happy to announce that I have a solo show with Joseph Gross Gallery in October of 2015!  Joey is a intensely positive force in this world and will continue to do amazing things!

August Storm's

I experienced the most amazing send off I could have ever had with Rachel Ralph and John Trippe at Fecal Face as I closed out 8 years of living in the Bay Area with my solo show at FFDG, "No Destination".  Lale Shafaghi helped spread the word and vision of my artwork to the big world we are a part of as we built a friendship.  As things wrapped up, I came to an end of over 4 years of working with the best people on earth at Clean Water Action, a place that showed me that people do care about others and have a desire to work hard for a cause that aims to help others and the world as a whole.  We had a lot of fun, and that job helped me grow up into sobriety and work hard with a sense of purpose.  It also goes without saying that every moment I spent with my AA peoples in Oakland and SF and my rad Sponsor Bucky were great and vital to my development as a human being.  Timmy the Optimist kept popping up with  a lot energy and a great vision of things to come.  Manley Tantuico and his amazing family facilitated the biggest commission I have ever done.  They showed me a lot of compassion, friendship, and treated me like family every step of the way (and we have some designs for some things to come in the next couple years!).  Birthdays, break ups, hook ups, sign up sheets, late night calls, early morning flights, babies being born, people getting married, Fed EX, memories worked through, new pain, new pleasure, new love, old habits broken, new habits made, great food eaten, its all life, and it's all important and amazing!

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I sit here in Durham, NC, in the house I grew up in writing this, seeking, living, and loving the fact that I have been given this time in this world on this planet with all of you to keep moving forward and to be grateful for all of it.  The good the bad the ugly and amazing... Everything is everything.  My friend Jen and I will be living in the same place again soon and will continue our TTT vision quest. May Julie Moon continue to make the world feel deeply with her music and build amazing new heights as a person and my partner.  May Chris Burch keep climbing the way he is meant to, opening the eyes of all that come into contact with him.  May Alfonso Cosio Monique Delauney keep tying the Bay Area art world together and supporting the arts passionately and with all the energy they put out there in the world. May Dana James keep moving up to the sky tattooing amazing work and being the prophetic voice and compassionate person he is.  May Rachel Ralph keep bringing intricate and beautiful conversations that involve all of us with FFDG.  And may I continue moving to NYC, one of the places that raised me up to the man I am today, and where I shall call home again and continue seeking.  To all those I didn't mention, you know that you are as important as anyone else in this world!  May everyone have a full 2015 and continue to grow and evolve and change!!!  We All Do This Together! Thanks to everyone for making the Unstoppable Tomorrow one that I am incredibly happy to be a part of. -JFA III 12/31/2014

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Fall Cleaning...

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I have been cleaning the hell out of my apartment and studio getting ready for my big move coming up on December 2nd back to the home front.  Excited is the very least of it, really looking forward to this new phase in my life.  Can't wait to see my family and make art as a sober adult in the places that really shaped me early on, well until I was 26, and even then through memories and constant revisiting and having a life still in those places, until today.  Finding some awesome images on the internet from the past few years. Enjoy. IMG_0875-2218189038-O-1024x772 img_1704 img_4618 Astroknot neu DSC_0401 MG_8502-copy glory

Damn, a Whole Month Went By!

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Yeah it did.  To say I have been busy is an understatement.  The FFDG show has been great.  Really solid response and turn out at the opening, and its done quite well!  Building, building, building... We all be screamin and shit

 

Since its opening I have also jusssttt about finished the big commission I have been working for Manley Tantuico, which is now out of my studio and residing in his living room in Millbrae.  Taking the idea of a family portrait to a new level...

FInal COmission image1Now its time to start cleaning out my studio and my apartment and heading back to the Big Apple for the next stage of this life I have been given.  But first, this Saturday at FFDG at 2277 Mission St. in SF, we are having a closing for my solo show "No Destination" featuring an artist talk by Joel St. Julien and myself and a live PA by Joel (my sound collaborator) from 6 to 8pm.  Should be an awesome time and a great way to begin my exit from life in the Bay.  Much Love!!!!  Do what you feel and remember to #makeworkson!

 

 

This coming Friday, October 3rd, "No Destination" @ FFDG, SF

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It is officially coming down to the wire.  The work is finished, the stage is set, the sound is almost ready, and I install on Tuesday at FFDG in the Mission!  I cannot even believe that I am about to wrap up 8 years of living in the Bay Area with a solo exhibition at the gallery I have dreamt of working with since I arrived here.  Life works out in funny ways when we continually put our best foot forward, work as hard as we humanly possibly can, and appreciate all that is around us, or at least try to as much as possible.  D Young V had a show called Make an Effort once, and I have to agree, make a fucking effort!  When we do life opens up and gives us more, well, life to live.  Deeper, more intense, more thorough experiences, both good and bad, but none the less, life.  I am into it, I am here to live it, from West to East.  Anyway, I'll close this babble up.  I looked through a bunch of old Blog posts that reminded me of how much energy and passion has gone into the last four years and all I can really say is, Fuck Yes, it is only just getting better! Come to my show this Friday, or will you miss some awesome shit! Screenshot 2014-09-28 14.51.09

 

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Breaking Out of the Cycle of Brick Wall

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Points in Time 1 (Many Years Many Places Many Winds) So we all get stuck in what feels like a cycle of never ending repetition with minimal growth from time to time.  I think that as an artist this sort of cycle and the moments when the mundane are actually a positive and  a reflective moment to learn, I sometimes become fearful of change not happening fast enough, or change not being AMAZING again.  I think it comes back to issues I have dealt with throughout my life that stem from childhood scars that I have worked through, but still do exist.  I mean sometimes if things were wrought with constant flux, and trauma, and change, and movement for us as children, we grow to fear or not understand a life that is simply, all good.  All good.  Content.  Just right.  Most people would love to hear these phrases whispered about their lives.  I have my moments, all good is one I do like, but honestly as an artist and someone that is constantly feeling the universes's energy ebbing and flowing and who feels compelled to strive forward constantly with new shit, these ideas can be sort of debilitating. Anyway, what the hell is he ranting about you are asking?  This is what I am ranting about...

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...movement.  Basically a few months ago when I finished the Shooting Gallery show, and I had a moment to breathe, I became gripped with this fear, this anxiety of the climax of that feeling of the crest of the wave not building back up again.  It's crazy to feel this way because history, even my own short life history is a constant cycle of this happening.  But nonetheless I did become gripped with this fear of "is that it"?  "Did I say it all, did I say it well enough?"  "Is this just going to be the repetitive cycle of things, and eventually will it be so 'normal' that everything will just be content?"  I met with my sponsor and dove very heavily and healthily back into my 12 step work and into some serious meditation and self work.  Suddenly there I was again, breathing, totally in sync with every moment, in complete acceptance of reality, of the here and now, feeling purpose, relief, wholeness, and complete in the understanding that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  Suddenly the true vision for my next endeavor started to come to light (as it had been marinating for quite sometime below the surface, growing like that wave I was speaking of) and I remembered something priceless, something so true to existence at its core.  The guides, the signs, and the ability to reinvent ourselves and our voices are always there.  Building on a solid foundation but evolving is what life and art is all about.  Acceptance of the fact that change and how we make even the most repetitious spans of time evolve and become fulfilling or lead to a new path, is a truth and a miraculous event that is constant.  I accepted that no one thing will ever inform or complete everything, as I have multiple times in the past, and a beautiful sense of calm and comfort washed over me, and suddenly I found myself drawing again.  It wasn't immediate. It took a couple months from "Pilgrimage" but it began to happen.  I remembered that to trust in relationships with the guides and forces, with myself and my place in the universe and "the path" is where the anxiety leaves and the action begins.

Points in Time 4 (Swosh)

 

So therein, having been in the job, eat, sleep, watch, over analyze, job eat, sleep, watch, over analyze, and then falling into some old bad habits (that fortunately pale in comparison to drinking or drug use, thank you sobriety) all of a sudden, it hit me.  The vision to reach into my unconscious and conscious states of being and nostalgia in the past couple years and chart the miraculous journey I have been on in a non literal way (for the most part) and the amazing connection I have made with these forces and energies and informations that are so beyond this world, yet with us here all the time, suddenly became my goal.  A body of work that would have to embrace repetition of self care and seeking, embrace a work schedule again, but would allow me to explore some seriously new ideas ways of doing things and even colors and process. Once again my fear of contentment, of my idea of the mundane, brought me back to the reality that life has been and will never have to be as such for me, for anyone that truly seeks and wishes to be on a path of evolution.  So word, I get to invite the audience to experience it with me through signifiers, colors, sounds, onomatopoeia, textures, tones, and a lot more.

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I kicked it with Skinner the other day, and we definitely talked about this exact, sort of hard to define set of experiences, feelings, moments, mental states, and more.  It was a fucking awesome chill session and we really talked about some heavy philosophical, as well as looking at rad figures and talking about Jack Kirby and stuff.  I have to say, to all the people who totally relate to what I am saying here, this is our task.  We are here to work and thrive through all of this intensity and create and seek and put forth the universe for everyone to see further.  If you don't quite relate to it I am very happy for you because you may know a type of peace that I never will, a certain ability to be content and enjoy it in a way that really does not bring anxiety and make it feel like a magnetic hurricane of the universe is swirling inside of you sometimes.  But to everyone out there reading this, I thank you for doing so, I thank you for engaging in this conversation with me and I am very very happy to bring you a new, truly personal, truly explorative, honest, and different, I guess evolved body of work and experience.  My experiences with the collective unconscious, dream and meditative states through the lens of Unstoppable Tomorrow is coming this October to Fecal Face!  No Destination , for me it has become a way of life.  Every moment is important, and there is always more and a new step forward.  Let's Party People!  Whose bringing the whole pig to roast?  I love it all.  Also there will be Prints, and Zines, and Ice Cream, and Yummy stuff, and maybe I will put liquid acid in your beverage, just maybe...

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Street Conversations

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UPDATE TIME!!!! Cool, so life keeps winding on and getting more and more awesome.  I would like to thank everyone at Superchief, everyone at BRIC Arts, everyone at Littlefield, everyone at Shooting Gallery/White Walls, everyone at Fecal Face, and everyone at LeQuivive for what will, by the end of it, have been a seriously accomplished year of art making and growing.  So first things first, this Thursday, Superchief NYC is having a massive group show, seriously, massive!  I can't be there, I wish I could, but if you are in NYC and you can be there then you better be there.  Nuff said, here is the flyer and info!

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Yeah it opens this Thursday night and is going to be wild.

So in other news, I have begun making new work rather diligently.  A lot of the experiences I had in Okonuin Graveyard on Koyasan Mountain in Japan, the meditations I experienced in Kyoto, Nara, here in the Bay, visions I have had, are coming up in my practice and it feels amazing.  The premise of the exhibition is that the people in the Pilgrimage from my Shooting Gallery show, the tribe of Unstoppable Tomorrow that is seeking a new positive future, wake up one day on their journey to find they have all shared a collective dream.  A dream of universal truths, a dream of visionary colors, textures, nostalgic imagery, future past visions of places and paths, sounds, images of rebirth of cyclical destruction into creation, of signs, guides, the past into the future.

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The first major meditation I had in Kyoto last year was proof to me that collective spiritual resonance exists and that anyone who had meditated and crossed the dimensional threshold in the temple of Tenryu-ji has seen a universal sort of vision or imagery there.  An intense materialization in the mind and spirit and body of forms and movement, of the essence and basics of the flow of energy and its way of weaving our human forms from this physical "reality" through levels and landscapes encompassing pure energy and beyond.  So what more fitting way to explore Unstoppable Tomorrow further than through a state that is beyond logic and this physical world.  The saga has been concerned with actions and lives in the here and now, not with the ethereal or specifically illustrating the spiritual, the visionary, the guided world of the unconscious and the visualizations that collectively lead it.

Okonuin piece

The work has an air of nostalgic tranquility, explosive aurally representational flow, entering a calm and almost magically blanketed future past.  It will feature rough drawings on paper, diamond like found wood deconstructionist abstractions, paintings focusing on the figurative and organic abstraction, another round of even more explorative strangely shaped pieces, on bringing color back into the equation, on the erotic (blatant and subtle), on creation, on reuse and respect, on lovemaking, evoking guidance through minimalism and pure color and the way in which it carries tracers and trajectories through life, and much much more.  I spent hours in the studio yesterday working with found pieces that I have had for a while, creating this gateway back to my experience in Japan, back to the dream like memories of my childhood in Durham and New York City, back to a place that wraps me in almost hallucinatory vision of spirits, and points in time, and shape and color, and moving textures and patterns.  While exploring these nostalgic moments in the present through my process I found myself realizing that this is also carrying me into the future, as if to say "you will go back to Okonuin, you will see Southeast Asia, you will find places in New York and LA where these environments that you are reliving will embrace you like a cool moss blanket and give you love and inspiration."  The show will be at Fecal Face this coming October.  It will narrate this collective dream in a lot of different media and will at the same time give insight to the journey which my inner workings have developed through over time, specifically in the last year and a half.  Not all of it will be explainable even for me, but it will all make sense as an experience.  This comes at a time that I am really reaching inward to know my path as begin to transition back to the East Coast for a while.

Lazer Feet

 

This show is as much a step in Unstoppable Tomorrow as it is in a continued exploration of process and just letting go of my idea of a "willed plan" and letting the magic happen in the studio as I go about fleshing out the original ideas.  It is a celebration of my unconscious guiding my conscious hand and feeling, intuitively coming to solutions that once cause chaos in my mind, and explorations of these images, sounds, visions, dreamscapes that I have locked in my psyche.  It is as much therapeutic in practice as it is thoughtful.  Street Conversations, talking with my surroundings, letting the effect of my being in its natural state, knowing that I am a part of all things and not simply one thing apart from it all.  It's about me with the world not against it, always and forever. Knowing that each action and each movement needs to be felt and needs to be streamlined with my path, and if it isn't that is okay, as long as I can stop and pay attention to my guides my gut and the way which the universe needs me to move.  The tribe of the Pilgrimage wakes up from this dream, this conversation with the streets and paths and plants and trees and sounds and breeze and rain and everything and knows that they are on their path, that the path is the way and the way is life.  That it is not the outcome but the process that makes each next step in the evolution, in the present and in hindsight, so amazing. I will be having street conversations until the day I die.

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The Last Week of "Pilgrimage" at Shooting Gallery SF! Closes June 7th, 2014.

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boar_1 Hello hello!  First off : "Pilgrimage" is up for ONE MORE WEEK!  Until this Saturday June 7th!  So if you haven't seen it go check it out.  I have been so wrapped up in life since the show opened that I haven't had a chance to sit down and be in touch with you all, my apologies.  I went to LA this past weekend to begin connecting and to see some old NYC friends that I work with and have known for some time, that are doing great things.  The future is shaping up nicely!  I am grateful for this life of mine for sure, and LA and I have some things to look forward to.

 

Charting Future past

So about three weeks ago we saw the opening of my solo show "Pilgrimage" at San Francisco's famous Shooting Gallery on Geary street.  The opening was a success, and we have been fortunate enough to get some amazing press from it all!  Press including my friend and awesome writer Goldmine Sachs over at Impose Magazine did a really fun interview with me, as did one of my favorite people Tracy Jones at the Microscopic Giant, the awesome and uber talented Lale' Shafaghi at Juxtapoz Magazine gave a great preview piece, Zach Tutor and his widely loved Supersonic Electronic blog gave us some support a Fecal Face round table interview will be coming out this week, and lastly Kimberly Chun from 96 Hours did a really awesome interview with me that came out in print as well as online in 96 Hours.

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The response has been unbelievable, the opening was awesome, and I have been getting tons of inquiries and new conversations have blossomed out of it.  Really proud of this one!  I still have some photos to process and get from Shooting Gallery of some of the work but the majority of it is viewable in the PILGRIMAGE Section of the Portfolio on this site, as well as on the Shooting Gallery SF site (Where you can also find information on sales and purchasing).

Floater

 

So amidst all of the things that life brings, amidst the non stop flow of energy and thoughts and experiences, I am very very happy that this show was realized with Shooting Gallery.  The space was simply perfect for it, the people there were a pleasure to work with, and this exhibition truly did embody a "Pilgrimage" for myself.  The events that took place in its initial conceptualization, the journey I went through with life, love, pain, joy, progress, and time during its execution, and the final result have all brought me to a new place within myself and my relationship with all things around me.

Bucky

A true sense of balance, fulfillment, acceptance and the yearning to continue seeking, to strive on and continue moving forward, has really overcome me.  I am having really beautiful visions in my meditations, I happened upon a Koyasan temple at random in LA (Buddhist Twilight Zone Sounds haha), and my eyes are very open as is my being. I am excited to embark on everything from here on out.  The past four years of making art in the Bay Area have really helped to shape my path and to bring me to center with an open mind and a watchful eye to see where my next guide may be.  Fecal Face Gallery solo is in the Fall, and then who knows, who knows where I will go.  Maybe LA, maybe back to NC, maybe NYC for a reunion with my home.  But the one thing I can take away from this experience is this, I am doing exactly what I was put on this earth and in this universe in this form to do, and I am overwhelmingly grateful for the path I am on.  John Felix Arnold III 06/02/2014

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BAck to front view

 

Saturday, May 10th, Pilgrimage @ Shooting Gallery SF

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Motocycle close up straight on headset I am beside my self.  It has been about a years worth of a journey.  Hot off of the heels of the "Excorrigia : The Scourge" Solo show at Superchief in NYC I just had with Superchief, I present to you the other side.  The opposite side of existence and the journey forward.  I present "Pilgrimage" at the uber famous San Francisco staple, Shooting Gallery!  I have partnered with Paxton Gate on this amazing show.

Motocycle 3 quarter left side close

They have supplied me with bones, skulls, and really awesome news, they have officially procured a taxidermy warthog that will be part of the central sculptural installation piece of the show! We are already getting all sorts of press for the show, including an awesome interview piece from Sjimon Gompers at Impose Magazine, Tracy Jones at The Microscopic Giant, and the show is in print as part of the hot picks of the week in the SFWeekly as well as on their website.

Charting Future Past

The opening is going to be killer, there are other openings in the White Walls/Shooting Gallery complex the same night that are all going to be incredible.  Here are some images of work to look forward to seeing in person in the show.  I am in the home stretch and tomorrow will see the final realization of a lot of hard work and love for what I do.

Findings- The Harbinger

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Invite the Glow

 

 

It is Officially On! Thursday, April 3rd, The Scourge hits Superchief NYC

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Superchief-Excorrigia-eflyer Yes the moment has come and the time is nigh.  Come lose your mind with us at the opening of my newest solo exhibition... "Excorrigia / The Scourge" premiering at Superchief Gallery (@Culturefix, 9 Clinton Street at Houston, in New York City's Lower East Side). The opening, hosted by myself, Carolyn LeBourgeois (who made the cross country trek with me) the whole crew from Sueprchief, Ed Zipco, Billy, and Tricky Yooth aka Patrick, as well as the owners of Culturefix and their rad gallery manager Josh Allen, will commence at 6pm and go until 10pm, Thursday, April 3rd 2014. GROOAR The work is hung and I am so proud of this one.  The works themselves are ready to be experienced as a full on visual narrative following The Scourge in the world of Unstoppable Tomorrow, individually to be felt and walked around inside of with the eyes and minds of the audience, and they are very ready to find homes here in NYC and beyond. Moonshine babies install   Also Joel St. Julien, one of my family from the Bay Area, has helped me co produce a sound piece of intensely demonic and frightening soundscapes and textures that will no doubt bring the whole thing together, finished by a (human) sacrificial altar piece installation in the 2nd floor street window of the gallery space.  Needless to say, I feel really good about this one and cannot wait to see what kind of response we get!  See you there! Matter of ChangeWho Shall LeadFujinInto the Fiery SkyInstallation altarthe haze isntall  

Look Back to BRIC "Art Into Music"

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So I just realized as I am getting ready for the show at Superchief show that I never put up the final images from the BRIC Arts Media House show I created an Installation for in February... there is some great press coverage on it from Fecal Face and Juxtapoz from the show and the opening.  Many thanks to the trio at BRIC of Jenny Gerow, Elizabeth Ferrer, and Eric Araujo for making it all happen, and Space Meow for performing live inside the piece at the opening.  The Juggs Band with Kareem Bunton will be performing at the close on April 27th.  Here are pics of the final product and the opening.

The Journey of The Scourge...

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Bayou Sunset So Carolyn Lebourgeois and I packed up the car a week ago and hit the road.  Destination NYC... We drove a straight haul from California to El Paso, through Arizona and New Mexico in 20 or so hours and then crashed.  Ate steak, then crashed again... then it was onward to Austin for BBQ with Terry Addison at Rudy's, to Houston to hang out with Bob MaCready and go to the Screwed Up Records store, to New Orleans to hang with amazing Chef Nathanial Zimet who started Boucherie for the most amazing meal of all time, through East Texas, to Mississippi for slammin fried chicken, through Alabama, through Northern Florida, through Georgia, to South Carolina and South of the Border, through my home state of North Carolina for Bullocks BBQ, up through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and finally to NYC from where I type this for you!!! Here are a few images.  There will be more in depth images and stories in the weeks to come but the show is dropping this coming Thursday so all roads lead to Excorrigia I The Scourge!!!

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And like that... He's Gone...

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We are embarking on our journey today!  Carolyn and I are getting ready to pack up the car, get the supplies, get the stickers, get the zines, and head to the FFDG "Salt the Skies" group show that I am in, and then we are offffffffff to the great unknown and wide open that is the reverse frontier.  Well its known, but it is definitely wide open! unnamed

So first off we will be going as far as possible toward Arizona before we pass out.  Then we will be gunning it to Austin, Texas to see Terry Addison from Old Crow, one of my bestest homies and favorite people I have ever worked with.  We apparently going to hit WhattaBurger and eat some ribs at Salt Lick... or maybe not... we will have to see.  Anyway, its time to pack it up... New York City here we come!

Click on the link below to see the video trailer for Excorrigia I The Scourge @ Superchief.

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TONIGHT! Feb 19th "Art Into Music" @ BRIC in Brooklyn, New York City

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So tonight I am in a group show at an AMAZZZZIINNGGGG art institution called BRIC Arts Media House on Fulton Street in Brooklyn's Fort Greene (my favorite place in the world) neighborhood.  I am so honored and feel so blessed to be a part of this show and to be given the opportunity to come back to NYC to give back to the city that raised me after a long journey of transformation and change.  The piece I created is in fact called "Gratitude and Transformation(s)", fittingly enough as I have been hoping and praying for an opportunity to give back to this place, especially this area of Brooklyn where I spent so many important years, for a long time.  Many thanks to Elizabeth Ferrer and Jenny Gerow at BRIC, and huge thanks to Eric Araujo, whom I have known through this art life struggle since 2006, for getting the ball rolling and getting me into this historic event at BRIC.  I am one lucky cat and I went Hard.  As they say in the Bay Area, I WENT HELLA HARD! Hahahahha. The piece took about a week to create.  It is made with mostly reclaimed and repurposed materials from Brooklyn and Queens and truly is a living act of gratitude to this place. panel

Also a special performance by my friends Space Meow will occur on the stage built into the installation.  I have been looking forward to working with Space Meow for some time now and it is going to be EPIC!   They go on at 9pm.   At the end of the show my good friend Kareem Bunton's awesome blues rock band The Juggs will also perform and they always throw down!

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The Opening is tonight, Wednesday Feb. 19th, from 7-9:30 pm.  BRIC is at 647 Fulton Street and will be awesome.  We will be heading to Frank's Lounge afterward for an intimate after party with the artists and friends and such!  Gonna be awesome so swing by.  The show will run through April 27th so make sure to check it out if you are in the area.   Here are some photos of the production of my site specific installation, I can't wait to drop the images with the Space Meow set up on the stage...also the press release is attached at the end of this blog post.

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Also I got the chance to hang out with Ken South Rock's Ken Minami and Adam Amram last week as well as Matt Reilly from Japanther.  Here are some photos of their forest cave in Bushwick with treehouses, mini ramp, silk screen set up, and all...It's been an amazing trip.  I'll be back in a few days with a NYC wrap up!

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Thanks for tuning in!- JFAIII

Back at SFO headed to JFK...Traveling and Watching.

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601805_10151482244583220_227920231_n So here I sit, back at SFO. 9 months ago I was literally sitting in the same part fo the same terminal getting ready to embark on my amazing trip to Japan.The photo above is from "Bright on Time" with my buddy Kyok Chan.  It is now 8:24 PST and I will be flying into JFK at 7:50 EST should everything go according to plan.  I just ate some sushi, forwent the fries and burger, no soda but instead green tea, and here I sit not wasting my time staring off into space nor blankly looking at instagram.  And to think all of this was in no way possible less than three years ago. Why?

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Three years ago I couldn't even get to the airport without being loaded on any number of alcoholic beverages and an array drugs.  I couldn't sit in the airport, nor on the plane without ingesting a continuos flow of booze to numb the inherent fear that I lived in and keep the detox in all of its demonic glory far far away.  I never honestly knew that there was a different "way to fly" back then, and more importantly didn't understand that this was not a way to live but rather a way to die.

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This is from Twist's Mid Career Survey at BAM.

So now here I sit, typing to you the reader, thinking about my first steps when I arrive in the city that raised me.  Mike's Coffee Shop or John's Donut?  How will I react to the cold?  Where will I stay tomorrow night, Pete's house or Mikey's?  The issues needing solutions that arise today are in no way even close to ones I once faced, and amazingly enough every single decision I make now brings me further along in a life that I could have never imagined.  The life I live today is truly beyond my wildest dreams and I sometimes have to stop and breath it in to make sure I am not dreaming.

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That's my dog Sammie Doodle in North Carolina at the homestead

Tonight D Young V, Hugh Leeman, and Eddie Colla have a spectacular group show at 111 Minna.  A triumph in its own right because 111 Minna does not play when it comes to their art shows.  They are fortunate to be there and 111 Minna is fortunate to have them.  Chris Burch just had his show in St. Louis open a couple weeks ago and big ups to him and all of the Screwed Arts Crew.  Also Mike Giant is having a spectacular opening tonight at Fecal Face Gallery, and I wish I could be there to meet him and hang with John and Rachel and everyone there.  Lots of amazing things happening, but I am so blessed and so grateful to go home and show Brooklyn that I am ready and willing to give back something great to its history of art and culture.  BRIC here I come, Eric Araujo and I are going to make a truly memorable installation piece.  This year is really off with a bang and I hope to see everyone I know doing like a Raekwon and "Striving for Perfection".

Over and Out!  -John Felix Arnold III 02/07/2014

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It's insane that this picture is from REAL LIFE!!!! This is the in the 2KM long Okuno-in graveyard on Koyasan Mountain in Japan.  These are statues that pray for the sould of dead children.  This place is magic.  Life is amazing.