Domino

My friend and colleague Jake Olson was having trouble in finding the relevance of art and had found only pure abstract expressionism to possibly be able capture the human condition. Jake's inquisitive nature rubbed off on me and while painting the butterflies of "Domino", I could not find the relevance of my efforts to the greater picture. "Domino" was a study on chaos theory or "the butterfly effect" which I believe to be relevant to everybody, as it takes everybody to turn a butterflies wings into hurricanes. I find chaos theory particularly relevant to my life as for somewhat chaotic reasons I am being kicked out of Stout and catapulted across the globe to the monasteries of Japan to study Zen Painting. This project was particularly fun, as to capture the chaos I was attempting expressionistic splatter art and spray effect in my prior sketchs vegetation to help in capturing the chaotic nature of the earth. After many trials I found that I could capture chaos with just the Butterflies. I found this solution to really contain a lot of movement and capture the essence of each butterfly effecting the wind space of the neighboring insect. After finishing the painting I burned the image onto my silk screen and printed several copies. I found this to be a very good discovery as I will be turning my future Zen Paintings into Tea-Shirts. I then took ink and dragged stripes across the piece creating the American flag. The end resulted in bringing eastern art around the globe through the very americanized proccess of screen printing. Looking at the finished pieces was having relevance slap me in the face. The lesson I took was that you can live life like nothing (is relevant) matters or like everything (is relevant) matters.

Yoga Immersion

  

        
MandAllah Mat- A mandala is a meditative art designed to have the creator and viewer achieve mental clairvoyance. The geometric pattern found in the circle resembles the cosmos, a map linking microcosmic spiritual growth to that of macrocosmic cosmic truths. At the center of this Mandala, a figure sits in the Lotus with a glow in the dark chakra totem pole resting in front of him. Each animal on the totem pole resembles a different energy center or chakra as explained below. These Chakras are believed to be the source of all our energy and are a doorway into perceiving human  realities such as what drives us as well as what hinders us. This luminous energy body which acts as a template for how we live and die can be cultivated and sustained through yogic concentration. “The rising serpent” is an image often associated with the opening of the nadis channels which allows the flow of prana to circulate through spinal resonators .

The Mulhadara cakra is found at the base of the spine and is resembled as a snake. This is the root support,  often associated with stability, trust, safety and the earth. This cakra expels energetic waste from the the energy  body as well as works as a gateway for the energy of  mother earth. When out of balance we feel motherless, masculine and search for security in material things. The drives are primal, instinctual need to survive and to find food, shelter and a mate. Operating in the Mulhadara one is absorbed in the senses and engaged primarily in the  physical realm.


The Swadisthana Cakra is three inches below the navel and resembled as an alligator. This cakra otherwise known as her favorite standing place is associated with creativity, sensuality and water. This cakra metabolizes energy nutrients  from the earth and expels from the nervous system although can be known to carry rejection residue which leads to anger, fear, a need to control others , codependency or even dependent isolation. The drives are lustful, erotic, fantastical, high adrenaline and romantic, although this cakra has a knack for turning romance into intimacy and sex into love.


The Manipura Cakra located at the solar plexus and resembled by a Ram. This cakra otherwise known as the jeweled city is the home of the ego as well as the digestive fire that woks as the fuel for dreams and can be used to manifest aspirations or if imbalanced  can destroy our primary nature lead to a superior/inferior complex. This cakra can replenish reserves of energy or burn out. Awaken this cakra for fearless resolve and witness obstacles crumble but douse the flames before consumed and be heated by the coals of confidence.


The Anahata Cakra is the heart cakra resembled by an antelope. This cakra is often associated with compassion, forgiveness,  unconditional love for all sentient beings,  and air. Love not in the sense of something to "fall in", object related or sentimental but a true love for creation. This love is not means to let go of previous pain or those who have hurt us  but an end all in its self. Balance in the heart cakra allows for  commitment and integrates masculine and femenine energies and thus no longer seek love outside of ourselves.


The Vishuddha Cakra located at the base of the throat and resembled as an elephant. This cakra is often associated with purity, communication, truth, and ether. This cakra acts as the psychic center where we can envision a freedom of infinite possibilities and act on this recognized field of endeavor to reach mastery of a do (or way). This cakra is the voice to the heart and from the heart that asks what is your truth? and gives you the courage to live it.  Imbalance can lead to intoxication of knowledge and valuing right over right understanding.


The Ajna Cakra is located at the third eye and resembled as an om. This cakra is the telepathic command center  linked to the divine within. Cultivated, this cakra brings humility and allows the practitioner to know their true self at all times.


The Sahasrara Cakra is located at the crown of the head and resembles the subtlest of subtle, the cosmic consciousness. This cakra acts as a portal to the heavens as the first is to the earth. This cakra transcends time in linear, or causal relations by releasing grips to "a past" No longer are we subject to the imprints on the cakra body, once today is no longer a result of an earlier incident but a completely new moment. Malfunctions here can cause spiritual regression masqueraded as enlightenment but when correctly operating allows for connection of collective consciousness.

Seize the Screen

Take hold of life! Own up to your death, make every day count, live each moment in its entirety for eternity. This is the message I want people to read upon seeing Carpe-. The writer pictured is spraying Diem but has only gotten as far to write Die. This creates a play on the term to seize the day, to seize death. The red outline of the figure is intended to imply that the artist is also sprayed in, a creation of himself, existing beyond the mortal body.


This abstract landscape was built out of a series of pictures taken on a journey through Menomonie Wisconsin's natural phenomenon, Trip Falls, located in paradise valley. Right at the beginning of the spring the water begins to rush and freeze and create absolutely breath taking formations. Capturing the general flow of things on my journey through the falls I felt compelled to capture the essence of water through frozen movement. I feel I accomplished this by building the land masses and water to create the illusion of movement through space. This process gave me the idea to call the piece Trip Walls.



Prints 22.5X42cm -$30

All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull Boy

Upon meeting the psychology club's President Courtney, she was curious to what Qi-Gong was. I very conveniently had a picture of Zen Livings Tea-shirts on me and showing the shirt to her, I told her this was an exercise called holding the wheel. With talk of T-shirts, the psychology club had told me of their plan to print some t-shirts with the quote "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, Than a frontal Lobotomy." Immediately Jack Nicholson of Once flew over the Cuckoo's Nest popped into my mind. I was very conveniently prescribed a bottle of Vicodan's several days later. With a bottle in front me, I took the Ken Kesey Joker approach to the piece.

Tea Shirts - $8  (all profits go towards bringing healing instructors to Menomonie)

Finito

Life Drawing has been a very beneficial class for me. Learning new ways to approach the human form and drawing in general has dramatically affected my process and in turn product. Art school is more about learning processes than product. Everything is a process, especially a work of art. Learning new ways of working as well as seeing helps depict the three dimensionality of form. Seeing internal structures and planes rather than value helps set up a good foundation that can alter ways of building mass on flat surface. An artistic block can be overcome by looking at the process through a different vantage point. These alternative approaches to creating form create new platforms to manipulate space and conceptually develop the figure.

Life drawing has also taught me the importance of line quality. A simple line can hold a lot of information about weight, spatial configuration and planar changes. A few lines together can describe a lot about space, light, form, muscle tension and even motion. A picture of lines is also much more maneuverable than a picture built out of value. A few internal lines can be far more descriptive than an outline or shadow shapes.

Drawing and Yoga are two of my greatest passions, the combination of the two is just utterly delightful. I found the yoga to be very beneficial to life drawing through mirror neurons and muscle memory. I often felt my muscles while building or drawing them. This gave me an intuitive spatial memory of the form being depicted. Actually feeling the muscles through memory helped me develop a sense of tension in the figure and where to stress line quality. Building the muscles also helped me in understanding internal structures, I do wish I could of drawn the maniken from a few more angles.

Free Hugs

FREE HUGS

The first act of the evening involved me settling a debt between a friend through one of my notorious exchanges. I don't accept or give back money when owed as monetary matters are moot. I had managed to find an antique drafting set and thought my good friend could find some use as he once had dreams of designing shoes with an Industrial Design Major. My good friend was not so happy with his compasses and did not believe that the dusty set was worth the twenty dollars despite my claims that the uses found in the compass would be priceless. Regardless he still joined me for the senior shows and to check out the Industrial Design department.

I caused more of a scene than intended in the Interior Design room. All was going well as I snacked my way around the tables and picked up a temporary tattoo saying "Free Hugs". I Began checking a few of the exhibits until I ran into a girls design of a rehabilitation facility. One of the rooms pictured was a yoga studio with a silhouette of a figure doing a standing warrior. I impulsively and very inappropriately leaned over and planted a figure in a tree pose with my marker. Being a teacher of Yoga I was so enthusiastically enthralled with the passion of seeing yoga that I was compelled to make an erroneous decision in an act of vandalism. Before I could finish the figure to blend with the image I was interrupted by a person who was not pleased of my actions. In fairly short time there amassed a small mob of angry people and one student whom was in disbelief of her art being subject to a further act of art. The only thing I could do at this point was offer free hugs to a group of people who really looked like they needed one.

I was kicked out of the room without receiving a single hug. I kept my hopes up despite not a soul finding enough love to accept a hug, or turn a cheek for a peck. We were told we needed to vacate the premises. I wasn't going anywhere until my friend saw the ID department but he told me he was leaving and would make it there some day. Susan Hunt, UW-STOUT'S art director, began chasing me around the building. I ran up to the organ room where I played a song and dedicated the piece to Susan, standing just outside the door on the phone-line.

I was escorted out of the building and very shortly running from the police. I ran to a discrete location where I felt it appropriate that the Police meet me. After we establish the setting I begin on the next scene of rolling back through the exhibition and getting matters sorted with an entourage. Outside the building the police cite me my first vandalism citation. I tell them instead of writing a ticket of bullshit monetary infractions that I would get my club, Zen Living, to submit to community service and clean up the towns graffiti. The police had refuted my claims of monetary matters saying that my group should not be subject to punishment, I told them my fifty some hands would enjoy cleaning the community up and consider it a Chrismas gift to the fine town of Menomonie. Alas against all reason the police fined me two hundred and fifty dollars to which I do not have a dollar of.

The next morning at the raw deal cafe I ran into our director Susan Hunt. I stopped by Susan's table to reminisce on Cy Twombly. A woman named Rindy Sam traversed a gallery, and put on a deep cannon red lipstick and plucked one onto one of Cy's finished canvases. The woman stated she was overcome with passion, with love, a testimony to this moment, the power of art and Rindy thought the artist would understand. Rindy was charged with vandalism despite the fact that the only reason a majority of people know Cy Twombly is due to that infamous kiss.

I was offering Hugs and only asking for forgiveness. In search of human compassion, humility, community, and proper justice I only found anger blinding the love I offered to a community, and a debt for a few dollars. The victimized womans artwork was defaced, however I believe her piece recieved more attention and will be remembered over many other pieces. The students work was executed beautifully and professionally and my actions were entirely inappropriate. I will continue to offer my apologies even if the student cannot find it in herself to hear me out and accept the present situation for what it is.

a motion for commotion

In my most recent painting project our assignment was to pick an artist to emulate. Studying cubism in art history, I fell in love with the cubist tools to depict and condense space. I particularly found an interest in Marcel Duchamps' futurist cubism study of motion, as seeing in Nude Descending a Staircase. Cubism is as if an object is static and you were to move around it where as in Futurism, the viewer remains static as the object moves.
I've also taken an interest in Graffiti and have attempted to combine Japanese Graffiti with Cubism. Cubism introduced entwining words into compositions, an example being the infamous "Jou" seeing repeated throughout cubism. I chose Japanese Graffiti because I am quite fond of the foreign colour influence as well as culture, the act of writing graffiti is reminiscent of the spontaneous "NOW" of Japanese calligraphy. Graffiti has so much motion and flow through the letter's natural characteristics in the writing as well as in the actual process of reading the graffiti. I chose to depict a train because of the associations throughout graffiti and art history. Trains also contain much movement and cube forms. One of the futurist's concentration was embracing the machine of mankind, which is often symbolized by a train. The word and title of this piece is Locomotion.


Taking an academic approach to Graffiti has proven to be beneficial to my education. I had never been any good at drawing letters and learning to write will compliment my pictures greatly. Being able to form and manipulate letters will enable me to make poster art as well. Going to Yo Dawg for my free lunch of the day I suggested to Diane, the owner of Yo Dawg, that I could make her a new coffee sign as the one currently up isn't very aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. She replied no that's fine you'll have to sit down and wait for your food. I replied No it's really no problem, I've been studying graffiti and would enjoy making you a new poster. In response she said "Don't worry about it, sit down and enjoy your lunch" I said "Sure, I'll sit down with some markers" Diane snapped back "Sit down, eat your lunch and get out of here" After I ate my lunch and studied the graffiti walls, I walked up to the other manager and told him I'd make him a better coffee sign if Diane allowed it. Mark, another manager, replied "What? you don't like my sign? My wife made that sign... And you know what, she's going to finish painting the bathrooms to." Not wanting to see my work complimented by such distaste, and wanting that wallspace I took down a poster from my Dormitory stating "hot dogs: $1 Brats: $2" and wrote "Competition" in graffiti on the back. This is to open there eyes to the competitive business of selling hotdogs and advertise my own Graffiti abilities.