A Time When Reality Bends Opens Everyday

I have been silent here for over a month. Well over a month. I have been trying to humbly keep up with my duties as a human being in a world that oppresses so many, and simultaneously trying to deal with the pace of unfixed, day after day absorption of stillness while the world I see through virtual eyes falls into chaos. I am for starters so grateful that a match finally has been lit for a much larger swath than perhaps ever of people are finally coming together in mass action to support Black Lives and Voices and fight for real human rights, to educate ourselves (like myself, that are not Black or POC and have so much to learn in order to show up and support properly and work towards living lives driven by anti-racism). I am grateful to have an amazing community of people to be able to call and connect with on a regular basis, I am grateful to be in the Bay Area, to have food, shelter, clothing, laundry, income, to be sober most importantly. And within this gratitude and constant objective sober understanding of how fortunate I am and how much everything is in fact “okay” as can be currently, the amount that is not “okay” the disgusting insanity and vileness of the human ego run riot in the U S of A, is chipping away at my sanity and my perspective of focus and forward movement. The looming truth of the heavy slow grey clouds of an imploding, self destructive nation, that will tear its inhabitants apart for the unsustainable systems that are its guts that are the piping for the greed of many who manage it, is a point of crazy making and surreality that will not cease make itself known. I hear echos of “freedom lovers” banging in my ears constantly, I imagine my old confederate ancestors bellowing similar repugnancies, belligerent and blind and so filled with self absorption and literally driven by a total void of empathy or compassion that they were willing to fight for the most vile of human goals in history. They mirror their contemporaries in their ability to take beautiful possibility and turn it into an ugly waste.

Graphite on paper, A drawing of a torn down Confederate monument in Birmingham, 2020

I see these old ghosts in the terrifying behaviors of so many people that act out of a need to disregard the well being and peace of mind and health of others in their own vein grasp of some shred of control in a world will continue to move forward regardless of their unwillingness to change. And this sort of thing, this unfixed period of shifting states of time with echos of insanity and abuses of power is aiding in my own inability to feel tethered to a reality that I have grown to love where I find direction. So in this the challenge of finding pause, peace, and direction may in fact become a very important mechanism for my art and life to find a deeper groove in the record to connect and let sound fly. So much is not getting better, that I am reflecting on what is truly important and finding the depth of community and connection that I need to explore in new ways. We don’t get forever.

Frontline Health Care Worker, Graphite on Paper, 2020

I am moved to rediscover Buddhist writings sent to me by my friend Jin He from the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, and then discover writings I haven’t yet seen that he sent me in May. I am moved to remember that there is a place where this strange space of waking up and not realizing the day or the time or what is “supposed to happen” is a part of the process, and perhaps an important one. I am moved to remember that with or without me the world will go through what it is experiencing, and I have an opportunity to cultivate and resonate good thoughts, constructive visions, and creative power in it al that will have effects I will never know yet will connect in some way. This gives me a moment of wonder in remembering it is okay to feel out of touch and overwhelmed with the world, for without those moments we have no barometer for knowing when we are in the channel and moving effortlessly through space with passion and connection. In that I also have realized I can be compelled to help to cultivate change in this political wave coming up soon. So many things I want to talk about but have to be metered and prepare for to see what actually unfolds. I have also been drawing some things, and getting the courage to write some pieces about my childhood. I have never publicly disclosed some of the darker stranger things I experienced as a child. I want those who know my art and enjoy and find something honest, that find resonance in it, to know that we all go through the darkness in ways that shape us. Here is some artwork i have been creating while the pandemic continues on without any aid by the leader of our nation. Energy is moving forward while egos are rising and falling.

Graphite on Paper, Drawing of a Torn Down Confederate Monument, 2020

Untitled, Mixed Media on Wood Panel, 2020

Helmet, Graphite on Paper, 2020

A Recent Commission

Not long ago a great artist, business man, and friend commissioned me to create "literally whatever you want" as was explained by him. We share a love of anime and manga, a love of expressive painting and art that evokes narrative, feeling, and permits us to explore time and our own emotional content as tied to memory and to the way that certain pieces of our upbringings help us to channel our present and communicate with others. He is a painter as am I, but our languages aesthetically are very different, yet we find so much depth and connection in one another's language. So it was an honor to paint this for him with the freedom to just go in on it.  I wanted to craft something that spoke to our mutual love of certain manga, to our mutual reality of facing adversity and through acceptance, hard work, dedication, surrender, passion, persistence, and the duality of chaos and thus finding the space to be still through the journey we call life. This is piece is very special too me. It is so personal and then upon it's delivery my friend Kent who commissioned said to me, "This painting is everything to me." Sometimes we have moments in this cosmic puzzle that really shed light on the fact that existence is so far beyond what we see and think on a daily basis. I am working on editing some better shots of this piece but here are images of this diptych for you to see. It is two panels, both 3'x4', house paint, spray paint, acrylic paint, tempera, pencil, oil pastel, acrylic lacquer, and more. 2018 

The Promise of a New Day.

I am fortunate enough to have people in my life that will inspire me until I rise to the next station in existence and then we all join power as we float through these cosmos. To be less abstract and poetic about it, I often draw and document subjects that inject a sense of light, intense awakening and freedom of the spirit into the world and they absolutely remind me that the world is to be experienced and built from as we grow closer to that next level of being. This drawing I started may end up in a group show in Brooklyn, no matter where it goes it will always speak with a force and subtle power beyond words for me. Shaman's are among us as they awaken to their power.