This is the blog for lookupgospelchoir.com, the art site of Ryan Callis. Here is where I post about influences, and the stories behind my art. To see the art that this blog refers to, visit www.lookupgospelchoir.com.

Monday, September 29, 2008

It's Monday.

I added happy claps to this painting and now I like it a lot more.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Happy claps

Testifying.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Hump day dudes


So one picture is of Matt, a creepy picture that he sent with a birthday party invitation. I liked it. I'll go to his party. He works at Disneyland and revealed that the reason Small World is closed is because visitors to Disneyland are so fat that they need to re-dredge the river because the boats keep getting stuck...fuck. The other picture is of a new painting. A YES!!! painting. A hand clap say yeah painting.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The next salon sucka's.


BE THERE!!!!
Click on this image for info.
I'm showing some new paintings.
If you haven't been to one of our salons yet, you should do us all a favor and come.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

tiny new addition and new addition


So I know it might seem like minutia, but I added another yelleow, blue, and white bit around the "soul" shooting out of our pilgrem. I think it's a vast improvement. Here is a new piece on Arches paper. I like it.

Monday, September 8, 2008

new piece and bearded moms


Our protagonist explorer gets cut in half and as his soul does a geometrically coded ascension he is getting cheered on by the Triune fancy clappers.
Damn it, as I stare at it I found 2 more things that I want to add to it. So this is 95% of a new piece.

In other news, Magnolia is starting to see the world through bearded glasses. This is becoming a frequent toy detailing request from her.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Honest Abe dropping knowledge

Abe Lincoln said it's not the amount of years one lives that is important in life, it's the amount of life one lives in one's years that counts. I like that. Ol' timey sayings are the best. Good way to think about life.

Rufus Wainwright - Foolish Love

Yes..I know, totally, but Rufus melts my heart. He looks like Dave Price whom I love, he writes the most amazingly beautiful songs, and he reminds me of old OCMA museum van times with Barrett. I guess I am nostalgic after all.

The Black Cab Sessions. Chapter Fourteen: Jeffrey Lewis

....and jeffrey lewis is just...plain....great.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Black Cab Sessions. Chapter Sixteen: Elvis Perkins

I'm not a nostalgic dude, I believe that to each time, place, year, etc., it's own. but I appreciate a certain leonard cohen-ness to e.p. and to play in a cab: wooooord. black cab sessions are really great.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Life skills and a work on paper...


The bird has learned to swim underwater whilst holding her breath. She's 2 keep in mind. We also made pancakes. Parenthood. Whoa.
Here's a new piece. Arches papier feels so good to make stuff on.
Do you like the Matta-Clark reference? It's the ol' "house devided."
I got re-stoked on Francis Alys after my lecture on performance via critique of post-capitalist, consumer present madness. I like his poetic approach to being political. Poetic and humble intelligent approaches. Gives me hope for political dialogue in a Sheperd Fairy, Fox News, in your face political yuck season. Obvious stuff and artist to like, but he had slipped out of art brain in the last year.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Dudes it's September...










...and school is in session hosers. I am teaching 4-D design (art in time, space, and body) which is mostly new genre stuff. College kids are a good time. Although I wonder if I was as worried about getting a job as my students are. I don't think I gave too much of a shit, I just wanted to make art (my brief foray into being a psych major wasn't about job security, but my way of rebelling against my artist family: another story). But I know every generation thinks their rock bands were better than the current one's if you catch my drift. Regardless, I am struck at what pragmatists these 19-20 year olds are. Neo Conservatism for ya. They're serious business and it is my 3 month mission to fill them full of a sense of wonder, adventure, and a disdain for the burden of planning for the future. Art is a most bitchin of human endeavors. The artists job is to poke new holes in the sky my dad once told me. To make wild proposals and to see how others sort them out.
Here's a new painting.