oh yeah and not to get sentimental but i ran across this image today and i think to date this may be my most favorite painting that i have yet made. not that i don't feel that i have progressed immensely as an artist, but shit, this song rocks.

our 3rd saturday salon

poet chris davidson and myself got the bright idea last month to cross polinate our insulated worlds and create an evening of literature, art, music, and a roaming lecturer of interest which this month was sociologist and author dick flory talking about the post modern metropolis (la, tijuana, las vegas). dude and barrett johnson played music which was super epic and beautiful. the art of mike hernandez and the poetry reading were great too. we had over 50 friends, neighbor, and interested persons packed into chris' tiny beach bungalow and it was a scene out of a kerouac novel. so good for the soul. this is a thing about making art that i love, the creation of social settings. we will have the next one on the 3rd sat. of jan so i will post for those interested. like a good old fashion kaprow happening i take no documentation, but just relish in the memories of a life changing night (not unlike the broadlind happening).

tuesday

i am getting all back into like, basic design jamming. primary colors and shapes and getting clean and honest. i know i had refered to that in a post below but as i keep going i am digging the return to basics. i like the way these turned out. i also, conceptually, like that they are somewhat ordered, but still create a good amount of visual tension.
in other news i washed a mans feet at church on sunday as part of communion which i had never done before.
lastly i am in between classes right now and have to go teach more. we are doing video art right now which is tough because students view the world through movies and music videos so to try to get them to think outside of that is tricky.
Also I assigned them a reading out of a really beautiful book that a grad school buddy let me borrow and I have been re reading and loving. It is John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket. Art, economics, awesome writing and stories, and some good life philosophy.

cocorosie _ by your side

i have posted these gals before, but i never cease to be impressed by the beauty of their songs and how unique their music is.

Teaching some art

Just as a quick bit of info: it still blows my mind that a university pays me to teach students about art and art making. And I say that with no pretention in the least, it just is really weird. Especially since I change the way I think about my own art making, and life in general, all the time. So then to teach in a factual and static way is counter intuitive. Art students should be dropped off in the middle of the wilderness and told if they can negotiate their way and survive that, they will know everything that they need to know about how to have a sustaining art practice.

My New Etsy Shop (and paypal system)

Dudes, the new etsy shop is up. www.ryancallis.etsy.com (yeah, my wife set it up for me). So check it out, and also for those who are interested in the Ryan Art of the Month Club, do it through there suckas.

dudes, here are a few new doo's. tammy and i went to stay with a buddy in san francisco this weedend and i was able to go to the olifar eliasson show at the moma which was awesome. there was also a little gallery with devendra banhardt and paul klee drawings side by side which had alot of magic to it. the eliasson show was, dare i say, transcendent. you lost yourself in a few of the installations. wow. we also played parchesee which i had forgotten that the board is out of sight and worthy of me painting one. pictures later.
here are a few jammers i did over the weekend. i have been increasingly interested in achieving considerate, peaceful balance in my art making. i have begun to figure that my life is mad enough without bringing chaos into my art making. this should be my peace zone. even though i use many shapes and colors, there is still a sense of balance that is happening and hopefully some peace making.
i think that my whole artistic project is veering away from adding to the objective visual chaos and veering twords something (hopefully) more nourishing to the soul and brain. we'll see.

For info on My New Project check my nov. 8th post

I will be in San Fran for the weekend so if you need more info and images of the first mail out scroll down to "My New Project". The response has been really exciting and as the reality of doing it sinks in, the possibilities for what to make become super exciting. YEAH!

mt.baldy

a few cabin watercolors i found from a trip w/evan and allan

my new project

My new project is thusly. A thing that i really enjoy about making art is having it end up in peoples living spaces or work spaces. Being a painter, i feel really isolated some times by the nature of the art that i produce (it gets lonely in the studio). But when someone puts a piece in their space it becomes part of the social fabric or social, brain, visual, conversation lubrication. It's my way of communicating and starting conversations with my pictures.
As a way to do this more effectively and to start a small new social project i propose the following:
for a fee of $80 a year, or $20 for those who want to give it a 3 month trial, i will send, at the beginning of every month, some original art. Every month will be different, but you will be guaranteed to get a piece or two or three of art in the mail.
breakdown:
$80=1 year of monthly art sent to you ($7ish a month).
$20=3 months of monthly art sent to you ($7ish a month).
If this art social experiment can spread out enough I will use this piece as part of a show that i am proposing to the gallery that I show with, Taylor de Cordoba in Culver City (www.taylordecordoba.com) so a part of my show will be the art i send you displayed and all of my subscribers will have their names included in the piece.
Email me (letgoone@email.com) with any questions or to subscribe to the ryan callis monthly mail art club.
The two pieces above are the first pieces you will get, a "treepreacher" l-print, and an "it's o.k." countdown screen print on watercolor paper (the lines around count down 10,9,8....to the center which reminds you it's o.k., kind of a stress reliever).
You can also do it as a Christmas present for someone else. Go to www.ryancallis.etsy.com to purchase membership under the product Ryan Art of the Month Club. Woooord.

murakami and matta clark show reviews

i went and saw two exhibits at moca yesterday. gordon matta clark and takashi murakami both having retrospectives at the two locations made an interesting pairing whether on purpose or by coincidental choice by the overlords of the moca. schimmel never let's down with the spectacular but there was an undercurrent of something forboding and dare i say, evil, about murakami's show at the geffen. set up as a mall like similacra of an art show one traverses room after room filled with sculptures and "paintings" that use the template of the last 50 years of western art history to play stage for murakami's charecters. i think the truly disturbing part of the show was that it purposely mirrored back (to one sharp enough to realize it) our rabid consurmerist culture, but in a way that vacated "art" of any meaning and made it part of the mechanism. now i'm no art dogmatist, art can do many things, including make lot's of money, but murakami seems out for blood. he critiques our culture and high culture but in a way where he wants to take us along with him like Elsworth Tooey in the fountain head. he seems out for power. he animated a kanye west video that can be viewed in the "theater" that ends with kanye in so many words telling us that to seek knowledge and wisdom in books, school, God, or others will unteach ourselves to be street. in other words, trust only yourself and what you know right now, and oh yeah, don't forget to buy, "street", kanye's album, marukami's t-shirts, jordon's nikes, and........there was a line, a long wrapping around the galleries line, like a concert, to get into the GIFT SHOP... to be a part of the action, part of the installation. i could no longer be in that world. total veneer, surface deep crap. so many metaphors could i write, but go see for yourselves.
i really tried not to be overdramatic or over anylitic but i was deeply troubled by what the ramifications of that show were and what they say and might mean for the future. hmm.
gordon's show was amazing, and beautiful, hands in the dirt, good human in the here and now stuff. so, so good.
while takashi wants us to escape, buy, and melt into his surface, digital world, gordon proposes making marks in this here and now physical world. they both deal in public vs. private space issues but in ways that again pit mind and imagination in a cyber type consumerist world against body, mind and imagination in dealing with what is here already and holding endless potential for renewal and intrigue. murakami is to prozac or labotomies what clark is to rediscovering what it means to be alive.

barrett johnson's album art

Here are a few images from the album art that I am making for the soon to be released album by singer songwriter Barrett Johnson. His songs are amazing and I feel super lucky to be making these for him.

nbm and boc for rc

I am really bad at keeping up on my blog, but in honor of national blogger month in nov. where one is to blog every day for the whole month i say, Okay (thanks Jen). So today I went to the OCMA to see the Birth of the Cool show. YES!! it was amazing. The most beautiful, crunchy, playful, generous, paintings in town. I am a huge hard edge abstraction fan so I am biased since 2 of my favorite painters (Karl and Fred) were in the show with two other high rankers as well (John and Lorser). Go see it and read Christopher Knights review of it for the Times.
ALSO, I get to give an hour lecture on these guys at the museum in December which is mas exciting. That makes me a college art professor, lecturer, practicing (and selling) artist, soo, umm, why am I still so broke? Huh, God has a good sense of humor.