Josh Peters opens tomorrow at TAM...

I like Josh Peters' paintings. He brought some in today and we hung them for his 12 Gauge installment at the Torrance Art Musuem which opens tomorrow and runs through Saturday with a closing reception and artist talk from 3-5 on Saturday.

Check www.torranceartmuseumblog.blogspot.com for details.

Check www.josh-peters.com for more images of his work.

It's in the details....

Here are 6 new paintings (and a bitchen brand new 6' x 4' canvas that I finished stretching yesterday). I started off by systemitizing the phrase "love in the wild" which is a lyric from a Bill Callahan song. I like the phrase becuase it is a good challenge to meditate on. I am not as awesome of a lover as I am at being a judger so I figured if I made 6 paintings at the same time it might help me dwell on the idea for a while.

It was a challenge to attempt to divide all of the spaces equally to keep the paintings more or less identical and symmetrical which became a fun game. I used the same pallette and process for all of the pieces, just, obviously, different sized canvases, using the largest pieces as the template.

I've become really pre-occupied with the idea that my painting is a physical manifestation of me tracing time. Like these are the small monuments to how I spent the last 1 to 60 hours of my life while I worked on them (wether or not it was wasted time is a matter of taste and opinion). But that is becoming the idea behind my practice. Using my favorite art medium to trace time that goes by quickly. Thinking in these terms is good for my soul and makes me at peace with this otherwise time consuming and monastic persuit.

Malvina Reynolds - No Hole in My Head

This is awesome as well. That's Jack Elliot with ol' Seege playing with Malvina Reynolds. This fellow Peglegsam has a bunch of the Seeger show episodes.

Elizabeth Cotten - Mama, Your Papa Loves You

She makes my heart ache. As Barrett said, when she plays she channells.

New painting that I am stoked on...

Just finished this mammamamma last night. I'm still really excited about these systems that I am setting up and letting chance and intuition and experiment take over. I love what comes rolling out. This one is based off of a few systems set up by the fragment of the apostle Paul's talking about "God who has mercy.." and I have been reflecting on that bit of text while making this and it has been a killer experience and I think a good 5' x 8' painting came out of it. Plus I like the idea of turning what is stereotypicaly a vertical format for an abstract painting on it's side, literally. Horizontals are aqquainted with horizons in painting language, and I like the idea of a horizon of BAM. Woooord.

The picture with me in it is to give scale.

Next Salon, May 23

I am really excited about our next salon. Again it will be at the casa Davidson, 227 16th st. in Seal Beach from 7:30ish untill 10ish. Anyone is welcome and it has historically been really awesome.
One of the best teachers that I had the pleasure to have, Rafe Payne, will be lecturing on eco-tourism in Baja. He is a highly renowned marine biologist who knows Baja like the back of his hand. Next up will be a truly gifted and one of those super intelligent artists, CalArts grad student Zach Kleyn (www.zachkleyn.com) will talk about his new work. Poets Justin Rigamonti and Geneve Leone will grace us with their differing poetry styles, and lastly the rock stylings of The Good Luck Bear (www.myspace.com/thegoodluckbear) will close out the evening. Hope to see you there.

Birdflight

magnolia jumping over surfer sue at dogbeach.
thanks Jen for the pic.

Rev. Gary Davis

Torrance Art Museum

So the reason I have been spotty on posting on my blog and spotty in life in gerneral is due to mine and Max Presneill's (former director at Mark Moore Gallery, and Raid Projects) recent hire at the Torrance Art Museum (http://www.torranceartmuseum.com/). We were basically given the post Kristina Newhouse developed, in the sense that she moved on and left an open calender for Max and myself to develop exhibitions and programming. Do you know how exciting it is to inherit a museum? HUH?

So we have been shagging ass to develop our next 2 years here and what is shaping up is biiiitchen.

In the next 2 months before Max's kick off show we will do the following events:

12 Gauge

3 day solo shows in our North gallery

May 7-9 Quinten Bemiller

May 28-30 Josh Peters

June 4-6 Claudia Parducci

June 11-13 Justin Bower

June 18-20 Mary Anna Pomonis

June 25-27 Jaime Shonick

And June 13 we will kick off our monthly film night with Doug Harvey, artist/critic/curator and Lee Lynch. Then on August 6 we will kick off our Society of Interested Persons salon at the museum with (pictured painting) Andy Kolar (http://www.carlberggallery.com/), Barrett Johnson on tunes and LA art collector and author Judy Spence. We have a lot more in the works so I'll keep updating.

Little show, little Tokyo

This new piece is going into a little show at Shojin which my buddy Kio is putting together. Shojin is a good vegan Japanese restaraunt in Little Tokyo in LA and it opens on May 7th. http://www.cafemode.com/ for details.

I haven't been in one of these big group shows since the early 00's and they're not my cup of tea but Kio is an un-boredom crusader and I like him. His band was rocking at the opening at Automat in Chinatown on Saturday night. He was playing this awesome magnet/theramin-ish box. He's a provocateur (http://www.kiogriffith.com).