I am sitting in Raleigh, NC, on a visit home right now reflecting on the world, life, home, how I got here, and also simple things like how much I dig the new True Detective season with Mahershala Ali, the fact that soda water is the truest refresher there is, and why North Carolina BBQ is so damn good. So many things have been moving through my mind of late. Two projects currently under way in the Bay Area, a huge mural coming up in LA through a Dept. of Cultural Affairs grant, wanting to be in LA more to spend time learning from my mentor there, so many exhibition ideas that have been in the mind’s eye for years starting to become actual possibilities in this reality, there is more.
What happens when we decide to show up for family in times of age and growth, how do we move from a life of 12 years in one place into the next phase of our development. Do our intentions and true direction in life often or always take use where we need to be despite what might seem logical in a mine field of late capitalism, societal structures, and broken status quo idealism? Is it that simple pure energy inside that isn’t about feeling good all the time or convenience or efficiency for the sake of investors, but about truly living, exploring what we have at our fingertips with the bodies and minds we were created in and with, that is our vehicle for truly finding what lays beyond systems of servitude to things that don’e elevate us? I feel alive.
Plain and simple, I feel alive. I am excited about life’s challenges, failures, and successes. I am mostly excited about the fact that through it all we learn, we grow, we become better versions of ourselves if we are willing to embrace the energy that is readily supplied us. I first time in a while feel optimistic despite how fucked up our nation is, as it is doing a sort of final vomit of so much poison that it is inside. Maybe not a final vomit, nothing is final, but something, some tearing and some ripping is happening, and from it comes a new way.
I prayed and meditated and accepted and received the energy of the blood moon the other night. It filled me with a sudden awakened moment of remembering, that energy of choice, to let it fill me and guide me and be the path is always real and always there. So I say work for it, work to stay in it, filled with it, work to go and keep it unfolding and see what sorts of amazing things we can create, share, communicate, love, and find form and formless purity within.
So to all this I say, in a more brass tacks kind of way, there is a lot being made and thought out right now. The response to aging and to the worlds ceaseless suffering and infatuation with it has me moving the opposite direction. There are projects, shows, and even some new endeavors in the works. Reprinting my zine Anime Mixtape again soon, getting ready to keep cranking out some new large paintings and assemblages of smaller works exploring armor, the psyche, patterns, ritual, personal and geographic history as a means of identifying our own multi faceted portraits of existence. The gears keep turning and I am also super grateful to be surrounded in a larger international sense, by a community of amazing creatives and people that support and drive each other to keep reinventing and riding our waves. Lastly i will say, I have some work in a small group show coming up from a long time friend and curator who I am honored always to work with in San Francisco. More to come on that soon… thanks for stopping by.