Closet Collector

No, that doesn't mean I collect closets. It means I collect in the dark. In the depths.

Anything. Everything.

It's been thanks to my wife that I live in an organized and navigable home, with a reprioritized life. Seriously. If I showed you a picture of my room as a teenager... archaelogical layers going back through school with a path only to the window and stereo.

What it means also, though, is that I value objects for their own sake, for their place in a group of similar things comprising a set, for their own intrinsic connection to everything and everybody that came together to produce them.

Records, I celebrate with my Vinyl Art.

Books, I'm starting to present with my Liter(art)ure, my drawings in books. http://literarture.info

A simple start, with just a phone number and link to the posts on this blog about the pieces I've done. I'm very excited to gradually work through the practical "affordable and portable" matters that will allow me to sell them. We'll see. I know some pretty nutty book people.

I know collectors.

Peace.

Zen in the Art of

I've been pondering the word 'art' of late. Its scope. It's not just cultural creativity or artifacts. It's way WAY more. It's what happens when you've found internal peace and balance.

Bradbury, one of my literary heroes, the author who signed a copy of a book of his for me that I treasure, and who I haven't done a piece of Liter(art)ure for partly because I hesistate to take a copy of one of his books I love out of circulation, wrote "Zen in the Art of Writing". Zen in the Art...

That's the ticket! I realized that just last week. When you find that moment, that repeated space and time that gives you peace, that puts you in harmony with the Universe, that's what you do, why you are here. You've found the Zen in the Art of it. You're creating art with Life.

Now this is in contrast to creating artifacts, which is more technically what my paintings are. They are pieces of art. Not works. I don't like the word works in this case.

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"If it's work, stop it and do something else."

An Evening with Ray Bradbury 2001
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They are pieces of art created as an artifact of my creation of art.

This probably sounds froo-froo or overly metaphysical, but I really do think we all can find our art, and with it, our moment of Zen.

Once you've found that. Well.

Peace.

A Big To-Do To-Do

"And they began this day with hope." I'm learning.

What could be better?

It's a big challenge to go from being the sort to float and get things done completely haphazardly to the sort to write down a daily to-do list. Besides getting the hang of figuring out how long it takes me to do things, I also need to decide how to break down larger tasks so they don't show up on my list for a whole week. I know I'm learning a good lesson to not be dissappointed in myself if I don't get to check off everything, but when I've written "work on Steinbeck" for the last five days...

But it's done today. I got Dr. Seuss's "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" today to use for my Liter(art)ure. Neato. I still feel a bit weird drawing in books, but the result is pretty cool.

I just sent out a special secret Vinyl Art commission that got a sweet frame job. I'd never floated a record or used matting before. It's really fun to get to do different presentations of my work. It'll be as fun to figure out how to present my Liter(art)ure when it comes to selling them.

'Til then, I'm just doing them for my wife and I. Checking them off my to-do list.

Peace.

(Pre)mature

One thing I've learned while making a go of Vinyl Art as a business is that there are a lot of things starting with pre which are good and important. Preparedness, presentation, preference...

"Affordable and portable" is the catch phrase that Shelley at Wild About Music likes when deciding about work to consign and sell. That applied to me for sure. I had to figure out how to present my pieces. There are options out there for framing records, some fancier than others. I do like the frames with the mats that partly reveal the record coming out of the sleeve. I could use those and have the record on top or coming out if the portrait wouldn't be covered. But they're expensive to buy, to ship and take up more wall space. So I opted for the simpler square frame I can get as a kit.

Now, I'd like to offer fancier frames. I can get them special if desired, but I'd need to charge a premium. There are those who will prefer that though, something special. Premium options are what will bring a price higher than $175, things like framing, color tinting and inscriptions. I've just started playing with both color and inscriptions along the inner groove.

But the main thing I've learned is preparedness is key. So they need tweaking. I offer them if you're interested, but you'll be learning with me. They do look good, all 3 options. As I've gone along, being prepared at different stages has meant being able to say 'yes' much more. That's what all these pre words do, allow me to say 'yes'.

With my new venture, Liter(art)ure, I'm not prepared yet. I don't have options sorted out, much less presentation. Do I freeze the book open to the drawing with glue so it can be hung or propped on a shelf easily? Or do I affix it somehow to something so you can show it or still read it? Do I mount it under a plexiglass box for protection? Lots of questions to be answered, so offering them for sale would be premature. But I'm still learning!

Peace.

That Was The Last Day Before The Fiesta

Back in '91, my English class participated in a contest to parody Hemingway's style. My friend Bret and I decided to work together. We still did 2 stories, just together, to have fun. Boy, did we. I rarely remember laughing as long and as hard as that afternoon. The sun set slowly over the water. Our stomachs hurt. It was good.

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The End with Nothing
by Bret Naylor and Daniel Edlen

Nick's head hurt. His head throbbed because of the drinks he had on the last day of the fiesta in Pamplona. Lying in bed, he thought of the past week, of the explosive fiesta. The fireworks still rang in his ears. Sluggishly, he pushed himself out of bed. He stood up but fell as the blood rushed from his head. It hurt. Nick exclaimed, "Ow, that hurt."

He got dressed, forgetting his shower and thus, smelling of the previous night. The wine bottle that once sat in the table was now shattered on the ground. Other bottles were strewn about the room. Nick lumbered through the door and into the hallway. Stumbling down the stairs, Nick reached the bottom with a thud and a sigh of relief.

He crossed the street that just yesterday he had run along with the bulls. He went to the bar across the street. Jake and Brett were already at a table. Nobody else was there. Waiters sat in the corner, rarely bothering to wait on customers. The chairs had been changed from the cheap folding kind to the comfortable wicker type. Brett was sipping a drink and Jake greeted Nick.

"Hello, Nick," said Jake with a smile in his comfortable chair.

"Shut up, Jake. I need a drink. I got too tight last night. You should've stopped me,Jake," Nick mumbled.

"Oh, relax, Nick, we all got too tight last night."

Brett added, "Jake definitely got too tight last night."

"Get me a drink," Nick retorted with a frown.

"Here's an absinthe to make your heart grow stronger," Brett said pleasantly as she handed Jake's drink to Nick.

Jake declared, "She's quite a bitch today, isn't she, Nick."

"I don't want your dirty absinthe, anyway," Nick said to Jake.

"Well, what do you want?"

"I don't know. What do you want?"

"I already have it. What do you want?"

"I don't want a drink. I want to eat."

"Ok, what do you want to eat, Nick?" Brett inquired pleasantly.

"I hate this bar. Let's go somewhere else."

"Those damn English have ruined it. Let's go to Harry's Bar in Venice," Jake suggested.

"That would take a while," Nick said dejectedly in the empty bar in Pamplona.
"Stop having such a bad attitude," Brett said in the hot, isolated, post-fiesta Pamplona atmosphere of the bar. The three of them sat alone in the nothingness, silent.

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Thanks to my contest winner and new friend Zane for the suggestion to draw Hemingway.

Peace.

Wit and Depth

Often, sarcasm is used to deflect, to avoid what lies beneath. For Twain, it served to reveal what lay beneath, to cut through the shiny surface, not thicken it. That's wit, I think. When you wince when you read it, not when you ROLFMAO.

It's hard to be open to that. Usually if wit is the purpose, it ends up being watered down to be PC or whatever. People who speak their minds sharply like Twain and Cronkite are rare, especially today. Snark is what's replaced them, the offhand quips that people trying to be smart without paying attention throw around designed as a response without substance.

I draw or paint dots on a page or vinyl record. There is no actual depth. It's an illusion, if I've done it right, that somebody's there. An illusion that's damn hard to create and then not screw up.

Why would you WANT to glance off the surface when there IS real depth below? Life's too precious to just give it a glance.

Peace.

I'm Left-Handed

That sounds like a confession. Must be how I'm reading it.

And I'm only mostly left-handed. I play sports right-handed. Do things that require oomph right-handed. But yes, I create left-handed. Well, mostly, again. I do use the computer mouse with my right hand.

I don't, however, cock the paper at that huge angle most lefties do in order to write. This used to tick off all my teachers as I would smear my writing. The long term effect of that response was that my writing shrunk. I would try to write without moving my whole hand, stretching and basically scribbling. Thank goodness for computers! By the time my handwriting turned into scrawled printing in college, I could type up anything that professors needed to be able to read. Oh how I hated in-class essay exams and blue book tests though. We recently got all of my coursework from nursery school through UCLA and it made me cringe to watch the devolution of my writing.

In what I do now, create portraits, the only impact is probably the layout of my table. Paint off to the left, tablelamp on my right. I suppose it subtly influences where I place images in my compositions.

In this case, somewhat planned and somewhat ironically, the line from "Ligeia" which is only slightly obscured by Poe's crazy hair is "huge masses of long and dishevelled hair, it was blacker than the raven". Kinda cool.

Peace.

P.S. I'm goin' on break! Woohoo Summer! Anyway. We're doing some family stuff and I won't be painting or posting until next Wednesday. I'll be around to get emails and read comments, maybe reply, so don't hesitate.

How Do You Book A Photograph?

I mean photograph a book. It's hard to position! The drawing's not totally done. Poe's got a lot of crazy hair. But here's my second go at Liter(art)ure, my favorite author on the page before my favorite story, "The Fall Of The House Of Usher". All of his works are amazing to me. I love dense writing. I love having to reread paragraphs sometimes five times. Especially when the stories told are so captivating both because of their content and their words.

I have a love/hate relationship with words. Always have. I walked before I talked. I like listening more than speaking. I like instrumental music more than lyrics. And yet I know them quite well, and can manipulate them to my liking usually. Thank my parents and my schooling, I suppose. Well no, thank me, because I committed myself to "doing school" and burnt myself out after six years at UCLA in the hardest science major in the College of Letters and Science. I liked reading Schrodinger and Nietzsche for crissakes.

Anyway, outside school I mostly focussed on visual art, whether it be drawing nude models or watching movies like "Kafka" or "Hudson Hawk". So creating these portraits of authors I love over their words must reveal something about me. Don't know what. Don't really care. But I still like the concept after executing (almost) two, so I'm excited. My eyes are blurry, my wrist hurts, but I'm excited.

Peace.

Didn't Your Mother Teach You Not To Draw In Books?

I did it. I actually did it. I drew in a book. I think it might be the first time I've ever marked in a book, that I can remember. I even dog-eared textbooks in college with hesitation.

See, my mom has volunteered for the local Pacific Palisades library for about as long as I could read, helping run the used book sales since I was probably in middle school. I joined in as the muscle, moving boxes until college. I've always loved books. My parents saw to that, reading me Goodnight Moon from the getgo. I did the Summer reading programs and competed with my best friend to read the most. Besides records, books took up the most boxes when I moved to Arizona.

Books, both the content and the physical things, might mean more to me than records. Words were so important to me growing up as an intellectual overachiever. I kept the vocabulary pages from Reader's Digest. My mom and I would listen to vocabulary tapes in the car all the time. I love Poe the most, if that means anything.

So I had the idea to pay tribute to authors the way I pay tribute to musicians. But it meant defacing books! Well, I finally got up the gumption to try it. Of course it had to be Hunter, my wife's and Jason's favorite author. I knew it was time when we watched the Gonzo documentary and in it I saw the photograph I drew inspiration from for this piece.

I call it Liter(art)ure. Well, my wife did. I like the name. So I'm using it. I drew this portrait in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" on the page with the famous passage about the wave. It's still readable, along with the rest of the book. I did the drawing using the technique I'd learned way back in high school, with the same pen in fact. My old rapidograph still worked, amazingly.


So amazingly, I might do more.

Peace.