Unfolding Struggle

From this....
To this....

and finally, this...

The beauty in all this is that there is no logic from which I could explain the evolution of this particular piece--though I do think time had a lot to do with it. I started it about two months ago and then left it sitting while I went through various stages of experimentation. The fact that I am currently looking at ornamental motifs in other artists' work can explain my use of decorative mark-making. A lot of it was also trying to cover up mistakes, or in other words, "to navigate between contradicting choices". But this is exactly how I work: I will not stop deviating from whatever skeleton of a plan I may have had to begin with, until I feel that there's something there worth preserving--some evidence of a struggle, may it be a small or significant one.

New Studio Space

Same building, same floor, but a fresh new space! I now have a sun roof directly above me which has made me realize that I've been working in the dark this whole time. My new lucky studio number is now 341. Let's hope that this sweet spot of wooden flooring will bring me nothing but good vibes.

Slowness

"Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafing heroes of folk song, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars? Have they vanished along with footpaths, with grasslands and clearing, with nature?"

--Extract from the book, Slowness, by Milan Kundera

Revival

Just trying to finish off some pieces that have waited long enough...

Back To Filling In The Blanks

Ready for some action

It feels amazing to be back in San Francisco. All the things you think you won't miss much, you end up missing the most after a long break from all things too familiar.

My list includes:
-my bed (I thought I'd be ok without it)
-the little art store in my corner and the whacky lady that works there
-my fold up bike
-the cool breeze and piercing sunlight that penetrates my bedroom window every morning like an alarm clock
-the crazy (and/or) cool people of my neighborhood
-the freedom and privacy of anonymity (looking different warrants the kinds of attention that I'd rather live without)
-cappuccinos (they just can't seem to get it right in many many places....sigh)
-and of course, reliable wireless internet!!!!

My senses have recaptured the energy of this city translating it back to me in new and wondrous ways: the smell of the air; the sway of the trees; the wind's song and dance; my two cats and their welcoming purrs; even the sun feels different here...

I biked over to my studio after breakfast this morning to announce my return and make it astoundingly clear (my canvasses and paints being my audience, of course) that I mean business. I took down some older work off the wall and replaced them with two empty, yet hopeful, pieces of gorgeous, cold pressed, heavy-weight, water color paper. Their empty silence will remind me tomorrow--when the magic of my first day back starts to wear off on my sleepy face--that there is much work to be done. The summer has just begun.

Another Consciousness Exists

"The key experience for any artist in all the arts, is the solitariness of the studio, the thousands of hours we spend alone with our work. Time passes; we paint and watch this object grow. The most complex web of associations and connections develops from fleeting stuff to long skeins of connections. We remember things, reference ideas, imagine possibilities. There is so much that crosses our minds as we paint, so much I think it's folly to imagine another person being able to even come close to the richness we create for ourselves in our work. The only interesting meaning a work of art can have is that another human made it, another consciousness exists and that consciousness could imagine something so beautiful or so rich and complex..."

-Thomas Nozkowski, 2010 interview for Turps Banana

CRUDE

A little extra something as an extension to a previous blog post of mine, to give a better idea of the Chevron trial here in the Amazon basin. This Joe Berlinger documentary "CRUDE", premiered in 2009 detailing the case against Texaco's (now Chevron) contamination of the Amazon rainforest and affecting up to 30,000 of its inhabitants in Ecuador. If you get a chance, watch it!

Read my old post here to get a sense of what I saw and witnessed during a visit to the affected communities, or for more official info on the situation visit www.chevrontoxico.com

Mis Dibujos Ecuatorianos Part 2

A couple more newbies to my Ecuadorian drawing series.... (see Part 1 and Part 3)

I am in thrall to the colors of the rainbow. I see them in everything.

La Fruta Del Mar

Spent an early morning on the beach of Canoa observing the local fishermen at work. I'm in love with the dramatic grey skies that heralds the break of dawn. Its weightiness slowly lifted by the early afternoon to reveal the sun's glorious reach across a blanket of blue. It happens to be the wet season on the coast of Ecuador right now. This is the season when the waves don't behave so nicely and thrash about like an adolescent's claim to freedom. Come November/December when the dry season commences, the waves return to their disciplined stature of clean cut rows and an organized inertia that surfers can't get enough of.

Toxic

Our guide showing us how much oil is still left in these open pits that have caused the rivers to become contaminated in the surrounding areas.

I just returned to Quito from the Amazon rainforest. There I witnessed firsthand the long-term damage that Chevron has afflicted on the health of local people and the environment. Substandard oil operations by Texaco (now owned by Chevron) from the 60s until the early 90s has wreaked havoc on the health of the forest and that of the affected population now known as the "afectados". During this time, extremely toxic waste from oil production was dumped into open pits in the surrounding forest, which found its way to the river streams that were the major source of drinking and bath water for local residents. Since then, generations of families have witnessed elevated rates of cancer (leukemia in children, in particular), birth defects, miscarriages and other minor illnesses from exposure to contaminated water like skin rashes and diarrhea.

In short, these brave souls have been fighting a long and arduous battle in court (since '93) prosecuting Chevron for years of contamination that has affected over 30,000 people and hundreds of hectares of Amazonian rainforest. Earlier this year, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs won a landmark judgement: Chevron is to pay $8.6 billion towards remediation and provision of potable water to those affected areas. But of course, Chevron has appealed, so the fight continues.This case is unprecedented. It is the first time indigenous people have won a judgement against a US company in a foreign court for environmental crimes.

What I saw in the rainforest will forever haunt me. The stories of the families affected need to be heard, and the contamination itself, so visible and so undeniably present, must be seen. For more information on this please visit or click on www.chevrontoxico.com

Magic Mediator

"Men had made those masks and other objects for a sacred purpose, a magic purpose, as a kind of mediation between themselves and the unknown hostile forces that surrounded them, in order to overcome their fear and horror by giving it a form and an image. At that moment I realized that this was what painting was all about. Painting isn’t an aesthetic operation; it’s a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange, hostile world and us, a way of seizing the power by giving form to our terrors as well as our desires. When I came to that realization, I knew I had found my way."

— Picasso (commenting on the first exhibition of African art in Paris)

Mis Dibujos Ecuatorianos

it shall never be washed away 2011 indian ink, water color, gouache on paper

This is the first piece I got done on my second day in Ecuador. I have a few other pieces in progress currently, and all have a lot of color in them...more than I usually play with, I think. I know for sure that the new environment I'm in has allowed me to take certain plunges in my palette that may not have appeared otherwise.

I just returned to Quito from the coast where I stayed at a hostel in a small surfing town called Montanita. I managed to get several pieces going despite the beckoning calls of the ocean--of course I catered to its every whim.

But the drawings shall continue.....there is always time for them.