December 2003 Archives

I've given myself little drawing projects to do.

My house received new Yellow Pages the other day. I thought it would be really fun to use one of these huge things as a sort of really incredibly cheap sketchbook. The problem is, I don't have a phone line provided by Qwest since their customer service is so atrocious as to have the US Government fine them millions because of it; and so I don't get a phone book.

Their offices are located in one of the tallest, if not the tallest building in downtown Denver. On top of their building is a giant blue neon sign that proudly displays the company logo. Pretty neat idea, huh? No. The logo itself breaks some sort of regulation, so Qwest then pays a daily fine of thousands to have the damn thing up there. And I swear, you cannot get away from its other-worldly glow. It haughts you while you can't sleep at night. Perhaps this is why I now have a basement apartment...

So, when I stole the last of the Yellow Pages that were lying around next to the mailboxes, I didn't feel too bad. Qwest: turn off the sign, I'll stop stealing phone books.

I took the Yellow Pages to Penelope's work, ate some pasta, drank some coffee, ate some pastries, drank some tea and got to work. I brought ink and a few brushes I bought for a buck at the local art store that I found in the kid's section. I am going to, before this break ends, fill up each and every page with a drawing. Good loosening up exercise.

But it's actually interesting.

You can either chose to use the text and imagery that's already printed on the page as content to the drawing, or choose to ignore the text and just use that as sort of... texture to the painting.

For instance, on one page, I drew a line over every single name and left just the phone numbers. The page, for intensive purposes, is now useless in its original purpose. What's the use of the numbers without the label associated with it? On other pages, I outlined the boxes created by large ads and used the colors on the pages themselves as shapes and such.

I had moved from cheap kid brushes to a piece of yarn Julie gave me from her knitting scraps. I soaked the yarn in my ink water and and anchored on side of the piece and swiped the other across the page like a compass and made sort of interesting design - one of the more interesting pages in the book. I looked closer at the page and realized that it contained the listing for my school.

I also started to read a book on Synchronicitythat I found on Penelope's bookshelf last night.

There's absolutely too many things you can do with a mirror, a silly t-shirt, a camera and someone licking you.

"Yes, yes I do."

I swear, give me anything and I'll make it a toy,

and eventually break it.

I'm going to miss Jerimiah when he graduates next week. He's one of the only students at school that I really and truly appreciate being there.

I had strong feelings that I was going to be offered a job starting this January. Receiving this job would have validated my entire college experience. The job wouldn't pay much, would take even more of my receding free time, but I would have loved it. A job I would have loved: that doesn't happen much. It's the reason why I work for myself now - why I don't have a real job. I found out in overheard conversation that I didn't in fact get the job.

I also received word that I didn't win any of the school's scholarships. I passed in a drawing I actually invented the technique for its rendering, a huge mural (the slides of it at least) based on this drawing, a self portrait charcoal I drew using high tech consumer equipment and a process film of myself painting for 30+ hours. Fairly risky, highly experimental stuff. You know, interesting, different, unique: Good. I could have passed in three of these:

And been (cringe) more traditional, but I wanted the jury to think. They must have thought... I don't think they thought at all. Fuckers. I can draw or paint anything I want. I want to self realize that I can do more than draw pretty pictures. My life will not be the drawing of pretty pictures.

Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.
Rene Magritte

I'm pretty sure I work best if I make everything some sort of project. My latest project is the, Paying Off My Debts Meta Project. It may be my most hardest project yet: paying my credit cards off, hosting bills, taxes (they owe me but still...), parking tickets,

etc,

etc,

etc.

But you know what? I feel happier right now than I can even remember because I am in love. It seems that this has happened in less time than I have ever experienced before, (all one other time) - less than a month! but it feels even better, more correct, natural; less controlling, less skewed, less like I was just a virgin that got short circuited by the first person that would have him.

I was driving around with Lauri Lynnxe Murphy while setting up the Andenken's booth at the 1st Annual Denver Art Expo. We drove through Larimer and Lauri told me that she used to live there, right on top of I think Joe's Liquors. I told her an anecdote about a time when Jack, half drunk and killing time before a show at the Larimer Lounge, asked the clerk and owner what the craziest thing he ever saw/did concerning a customer was. The location used to be really dangerous, he used to get robbed quite a bit. Before telling us, he looked at nothing in particular in the far off distance and told us of a time when he pulled a gun on someone who was trying to hold up the store. Jack asked if he shot him and the clerk denied.

"That's bullshit," Lauri explained. "He killed that guy. Total self defense of course, but no, that guy was murdered."