This guy for president? Wow this country is riding a long running all time low. Failed comedian Trump will not be so funny to anyone when he begins his apocalyptic regime spreading hate, fear and violence throughout the nation and the world. We walk an amazing precipice of low mindedness and complete failure of human kindness and common sense values. What is the purpose of government? Well for me it’s about protecting the vulnerable populations from predatory wealth, monopolies and violence. What do we have? A gov that fights against the vulnerable populations and protects the entitled, privileged and aids in the exploitation of the masses by the ruling class. Anybody here think Trump is on your side or that he’s going to help you in any way? Well I hate to tell you, he’s not, won’t and you are wrong and a sucker. Not only that, you just dragged everyone else into your pathetic doom vision. Just wait till you see your neighbors dragged away and put in camps for thought crimes. Just wait because eventually the fascist machine you put in power will come knocking on YOUR door. It won’t be long, clown. OMG 4 more years of complete nonsensical hateful verbal diarrhea, destruction of an already desperate social safety net, full on pillage of the environment and mentally ill and hyper neurotic fake Xtians calling the shots in Washington with all of their terrible white supremacist ideas. We are entering the beginning phase of an Octavia Butler esque hellscape from which there is no return. We have re entered the fucking DARK AGES.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
This is the flyer to a very mysterious gig I’ll be playing next Thursday evening where I will be providing a backdrop of modular synth music and sounds to the films, vids and poetry of local SF artist Tom Church. Tom is a very outspoken, ironic and dare I say controversial poet. I really respect him and dig his acerbic works. Total SF character. I’ve never seen his films but I imagine they are gritty and critical like their creator. He gave me a flyer which I almost immediately lost and since he has no phone or internet all I have is this pic of a crumpled up flyer sent over text via violinist Kevin Van Yserloo and a memo on my phone to be there at 5:00 for soundcheck. Hope to see you at this counter-cultural event.
Baker Beach/Sea Cliff, Acrylic 11×14 Ala Prima Marina reminded me we used to go to this spot when Maizie was little. You actually park in the Sea Cliff neighborhood where there is a beach access trail. It leads you to the far western side of Baker Beach. It was an interesting day of painting and I was encouraged by a gang of elementary school aged kids who would stop over and check in with me every so often and tell me they liked it. One of them told me her dad can really draw and she is into experimenting with painting too (probably an 8-10 year old kid, so I was quite impressed). One of the neighbors who was one of the kids dad came up and showed me some old pics on his phone of this very “motif” circa turn of the 19th/20th century and 1950’s Baker Beach. A senior woman also came up to me and we chatted for a while and she gave me some ideas for possible music gigs, so it was a very social day of painting. As for the work, I think I found a good mixture for getting the ocean color. Ultra marine, quinacridone magenta cut with a lot of titanium white and from there add some raw umber which pulls green. This entire painting consists of those three colors plus Cyan for the sky and a little Sap Green for the plants. It’s all a work in progress but I’m picking up little methods every time.
Alpine Meadows Backside Bowl Oil/Chalk Pastels 6″x 8” When traveling I don’t bring all the painting apparatus. I take my box of oil pastels, a few chalk pastels (white, earthtones and grey blue), some small painting knives and a small bottle of Orange Terpene for texturizing, a pencil for sketching out the guidelines and a pad of 6″ x 8″ mixed media paper. It’s a cute little to-go kit. The small post card size paper is low time commitment and the entire kit fits easily into my travel bag or suitcase. Oil pastels are similar to painting with the richness of color and ability to blend using the “Rule of Threes” where you take one zone and use three colors then blend them with white then transition to the next zone. I also love them for their immediacy and quick clean up. I always use a snap shot from my phone as a reference photo so when on an excursion I rattle off a few pics to choose from. Later I’ll sit down at the kitchen table, desk, airplane tray table or cafe and get to work. This piece is of the backside bowl at Alpine Meadows up in Lake Tahoe. The weather there is so dynamic depending on your altitude and the wind direction. We got stuck in white out conditions and blinding wind mixed with some blue sky and nice tree lined leeward spots of calm. It’s a very pretty mountain scape probably about 9,000 feet up.
Assemblages #s 1-8 wire, newspaper, screen, plastic bits, ace bandage, metal scraps, tissue paper, leaf, bark, painting scraps, inner envelope patterns, toilet paper rolls, cardboard, 1/24
I’ve recently been putting together these little 4″x 6″ assemblages. I collect little bits and scraps of color, texture and shape. Sometimes this collection overflows and starts taking over. When that happens it’s time to deploy. There is a random mystical cut up element to assemblage that excites me and at the same time puts me into some kind of trance state. There’s also a design composition arrangement element that I enjoy. These are all such little pieces with a minimum of time commitment and before you know it there they exist. The 3D collage/assemblage using screen and newspaper layers creates variable viewing possibilities and viewer participation. Different light/times of day create shadow combinations. The viewer will find obscured substrates beneath under or around the topmost layers.
Dead Man’s Point Acrylic on Canvas 1/2024. With my last 11×14 canvas I headed over to China Beach, SF but there was a massive construction site going on probbly to do with it looked like updating the bathhouse. Sometimes I can get into the musique concrete of concrete mixers but I was thinking something more surene so I went up a half mile or so to the entrance of Lands End and hit the trail. Of course I can not be contained by trailmarkers. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I have set up on main trails a couple times but you sometimes can’t get the framing and you have to be in a more social mood as people come up to you for a looksie. This can be fun and performative and a general positive engagement but on this day I had just eaten a gummie and was feeling internal. I came to a side trail down the cliffside which was roped off with signs Warning! Steep Cliffs/Unstable. I discovered another entrance to the trail so I popped over a branch and scrambled down the path where steps where roughly carved into the side of the cliff. Some clever and amazing person/people built a couple platforms in the trees and had ropes hanging for ease of climbing. I had my trusty easel on my back and my small camping seat so it was a little clumsy but I ended up finding a good spot perfectly discrete with a clear and open vista. The cliffside rocks comprise what is called Dead Mans Point. There are a few shipwrecks along that stretch of the Golden Gate so I imagine some awful deadly crash on a thick foggy night of yore. The piece was done in about 2 and a half hours, textural, pointalistic, vibratory, marbleized. Always a practice for next time. I feel like it captures the rugged Nor Cal Coast, a mini SF version of Sonoma/Mendo. As always it was great to be in the ocean air with the sounds of the waves breaking on the cliffside. On my way home I stopped into a cafe in the Outer Richmond for some caffeine. There’s these two kinda freaky guys in front of me in line and one of them asks me if I’m a painter cuz I had paint on my face. He’s an artist too and they invite me over to their very cool studio/gallery/sound lab. Very on the level guys, we totally hit it off. I hope to follow up with a visit to one of their upcoming shows and if I do I will report back to you. Another perfect day of painting!
Warm Spell performed their immersive improv soundscape at the Make Out Room on 12/10. The show was recorded by Tom Scharff and is available for stream/download at the WS Bandcamp page HERE.
Thanks to Brooklyn goth cabaret duo Charming Disasters, SF songster the Slow Poisoner, Martin, Kenny and staff at the Make Out Room and of course our friends new and old who came out and supported us! Rumor has it we will be back in February.
The Crane, wire, hoop, fireplace screen, lens, plaster, thread . The Crane is a stabile and minimalist lamp/projector. The armature wire was applied as is. As I recently mentioned, I appropriated a bunch of wire from a nearby construction site. The wire was used to wrap rebar and was cut by the workers and left in unusually shaped twists and knots. I only really fabricated the part where the lens is held. The rest kind of just stood up on its own. I poured a base which is a hoop filled with plaster for extra support. The piece works both as a daytime sculpture and as a night time lamp. Part of the thesis is the creating of multiple Moire patterns with the lens, wire screen and backround screen as well as the projection of the spiral that surrounds the candle. This is a prototype of more 19th Century Lightshow
pieces in the works.
Dunes Beach Hillside, Acylic 16×20, ala prima, 11/23 I took a drive down to the Half Moon Bay area looking for a good vista.The plan was to hit Moss Beach but the spot I was thinking of was closed off for the seals. I continued down to Dunes Beach and checked out a few spots. I decided to hit up this view looking north east towards the coastal hills and discovered a good spot in the meadow where I could hide out from human passers by on a nearby bike path. This painting came out a little less figuratively than recent paintings but the pointalist effect asserts itself creating a subtle eye op energy field. It took about four hours to finish and I probably rushed and could have carved out more details and added more psycho-perspective effects but I’d rather have got it down while on site. I was a little tired at the end and the November air stated to chill later in the afternoon. Life on earth is rich with subtle stimulation and often times we are so in our heads we walk right past it. Here an ordinary snapshot is turned into a sentimental art piece, the underlying motive behind this excursion being the focalization of radical peace, a slowing down of time and the journalistic document of free movement. I got lost on the way down but in doing so found a few more sites of interest for future paintings.
Warm Spell had the recent privilege of recording with Elton at Light Rail Studios. We hope to have a substantial document of our work together for your listening pleasure in the reasonably not too distant future. Warm Spell will be performing our technicolor soundscapes at the Make Out Room on Sunday, December 10th. Showtime is at 6:30. Warm Spell goes on at 8:30 so plan on getting there by 8:15. We are pleased to be sharing the bill with the SF Goth folk duo
Charming Disasters and indie-surrealist balladeer the Slow Poisoner
so please come early to support and open your minds to the live sounds of these fine local acts. Stop By. Make New Friends.
Pt. Bonita, Marin Headlands, Acrylic on canvas, 16×20, 10/2023 I haven’t painted outdoors in over a month so it was good to get back out into the sea air on a perfectly sunny autumn day. I’ve been hitting the Marin Headlands a lot. It’s one of my favorite spots. There’s a lot of different hillside terrain and of course, a great place to expereince the seascape and bluffs. This time I went through the 5 minute tunnel and drove almost all the way to Rodeo Beach but hung a left up the hill to Point Bonita, famous for its lighthouse. I also discovered some cool army installation ruins that would be a great place for an eventual en plein aire synthesizer generator session (which I will vid/post here). I parked and hiked to the end of the northward vista trail, went under the barricade, down the path and found a spot to set up my easel. I always look for off trail spots so hikers can easily get past. I came to a fork in the trail and I was able to set up right on the cliffside with an interesting perspective of being able to look down a couple hundred feet and out over the bluff so my horizon was uninterrupted ocean. Off in the distance is Pt. Reyes and Bolinas. There is a lot of foreground, not my forte, but I thought it would be good to get out of the usual comfort zone. I am not a figurative painter so when it came time to paint the ice plants right in front of me, I had to defer to my abstract methods. Also in the frame is a magnificent sandstone cliff that I gave the impressionist treatment. The rock jutting out to the left is the same one I’ve painted from different angles. It always somehow looks like an elephant and so it happened again! Do rocks have spirit animals? The painting took about 4 hours to complete. I’m a little rusty but I generally like the piece and it was good to be out there hearing the seagulls and watching seals pop their heads out of the water. As always I hope this painting puts you there.
Starry Skemes live at Winters Tavern 10/17/23 When I was a kid I often saw my future self as a crusty musician pulling up to an old Highway 1 roadhouse on a full moon lit night and laying down some heavy guitar rock with me mates. That prophecy was self fulfilled this night at Winters in Pacifica. No and Knower is a song from the Rabbles that I feel still had some performance life left in it and was a good starting point for the first Starry Skemes setlist and gig. Thanks to David Lovato for the videography. *not pictured is Dave Mairs on drums who I promise was there.
Pt. Bonita, Marin Headlands, Acrylic on canvas, 16×20, 10/2023 I haven’t painted outdoors in over a month so it was good to get back out into the sea air on a perfectly sunny autumn day. I’ve been hitting the Marin Headlands a lot. It’s one of my favorite spots. There’s a lot of different hillside terrain and of course, a great place to expereince the seascape and bluffs. This time I went through the 5 minute tunnel and drove almost all the way to Rodeo Beach but hung a left up the hill to Point Bonita, famous for its lighthouse. I also discovered some cool army installation ruins that would be a great place for an eventual en plein aire synthesizer generator session (which I will vid/post here). I parked and hiked to the end of the northward vista trail, went under the barricade, down the path and found a spot to set up my easel. I always look for off trail spots so hikers can easily get past. I came to a fork in the trail and I was able to set up right on the cliffside with an interesting perspective of being able to look down a couple hundred feet and out over the bluff so my horizon was uninterrupted ocean. Off in the distance is Pt. Reyes and Bolinas. There is a lot of foreground, not my forte, but I thought it would be good to get out of the usual comfort zone. I am not a figurative painter so when it came time to paint the ice plants right in front of me, I had to defer to my abstract methods. Also in the frame is a magnificent sandstone cliff that I gave the impressionist treatment. The rock jutting out to the left is the same one I’ve painted from different angles. It always somehow looks like an elephant and so it happened again! Do rocks have spirit animals? The painting took about 4 hours to complete. I’m a little rusty but I generally like the piece and it was good to be out there hearing the seagulls and watching seals pop their heads out of the water. As always I hope this painting puts you there.
When I first walked into the Et al Gallery I knew it would be the perfect environment for a Warm Spell gig. The gallerist is a great supporter of the SF art, poetry and music performance community aesthetic. The space has great reflective Gregorian chant-like acoustics that are ideal for our style of soundscape music. So… thanks Aaron Harbour for giving us the show date! Booking Et al also gave me the chance to bring in the Third Hand Collective to perform experimental light art projections on their massively tall walls. THC is myself and collaborator and underground comic artist Nick Fowler (more on THC in a later post). The date coincided with the art show of one of my friends and favorite visual artists, Will Yackulic . The combined human energy field was strong with creativity and mutual appreciation. Opening the show was Ghost Dub who feature one of my favorite synth artists Thomas DiMuzio performing on his Buchla. For their set, Nick and I rigged up a submersible pump in a Pyrex casserole dish on top of our overhead projector. From there we used small convex glass clock faces to redirect the water creating bubble and drip ripple patterns for what I like to think is a new take on liquid lights. It went nicely with the bubble and drip sounds of Ghost Dubs’ hard and angular sonics. After that Nick took over lights and I proceeded to join Warm Spell for our set. I really got a laugh at how informally and unprofessionally the gig started off. Richard was blowing the trombone seemingly getting a feel for the room as the rest of us slowly stopped chit chatting and started the drone, bouncing between Dmin and D mixolydian with various textures rising to the surface like a whale coming up for air. There were moments of intensity and I felt like we were channeling the Plastic Exploding Inevitable era Velvet Underground. Marina and Brian locked into a slow motorik dirge foundation as Kevin teased super sonic tones through his Mooger Fooger ring modulator and sunk into Tony Conrad esque repetition. Tammy contrasted understated riffing with violin bowed beds of ambient delay. I was barely hanging on, not quite knowing what I was doing which was a thrill. I got a few church fague riffs in there ala Richard Wright. Nick spun circular screens hanging from a matrix grid over the projector for multiple moire effects. There must have been some kind of Einsteinian time relativity spell hovering over the collective consciousness. Even though this went on for over 40 minutes, it was over in a flash. I always get a little self-conscious when performing extended music that peoples butts will start to hurt sitting there for that long. Luckily there was enough stimulus, spectacle, variety, excitement, tension and release as the audience were transported through inner space. It was a very socially and creatively dense day. I’m glad I had the privilege to have been a part of this communitizing event. The show was recorded by Camper Van Beethoven archivist Tom Scharff with Tony Jenkins, both brothers of mine at the Local 16 Stagehands Union.
San Gregorio Beach from the Hillside Trail Ala Prima, Acrylic, 11×14 9/9/23 My 16 year old daughter Maizie and I travelled south down Highway One looking for a good En Plein Aire vista. We pulled into San Gregorio State Beach and looked around. It was pretty crowded with picnickers and beach combers. There was a lot of human stimulus with people and music. We wanted a quiet, less distracting spot so we climbed the very steep hillside trail and discovered this view overlooking the bluffs. We agreed this was the place, set up our easels and began painting. As always, I exclusively used painting knives. They are much easier to clean when changing colors and for resetting a messy pallet. Another reason is I don’t have to hike in or pour out any paint water. I try and not leave any traces of art residue when in nature. I occasionally use brushes but only in the studio and only for tiny details. It was a little windy and overcast that day and after about 2 1/2 hours, Maizie started getting cold. When I’m painting alone I normally take between three and four hours to power through cursing the elements out loud in a mad and desperate attempt to finish the painting on site. It’s like a sport. I don’t want to have to touch it up after the fact. That would be cheating! In a fury I finished off all the green of the hillside and we packed it up for the day. Maizie’s painting came our really great. She’s more into still lifes, portraits and figure drawing and not really into landscapes so I was really glad she agreed to come out with me. We had a nice drive home up scenic Highway 84 through La Honda and the redwoods on our way home.
Nude Ascending Aircase Wire, Thread, Fishing Line, Cement, Craft Hoops, 8/29/23 I often design and create kinetic art sculptures, the desired artistic effect being an hypnological slowing down of time. The circular bodies and spiral armature create an elegant yet homemade improvement on the hypnotists’ pendulum. The orbiting discs are always interacting with the wind and each other. The components are in a perpetual ever changing relationship. My mobiles are “of” my backyard where the wind conditions are perfectly random. Our yard is bordered by apartment buildings to our left and rear which creates a windbreak from our strong San Francisco winds. What we get are the reflective winds from the right side of our yard which are perfectly not too strong as to not destroy or tear the piece down (unless a rather large storm passes through). A few build notes: This is my first mobile using the bowline knot for tying the moving pieces, hooks, fasteners and armature wire. The bowline has vastly improved the integrity and quality of my work. I found and collected the armature wire discarded at a construction site near the Panhandle. I source my craft hoop circles from lampshades these days mostly found discarded on the sidewalk. I like to think my sculpture style is neo-modernist, minimalist, kinetic and reactionist to found/recycled materials.
