Arthur Rubinstein plays Liszt.

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.

Arthur Rubinstein

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.

Arthur Rubinstein

Inspiration of late...total stoke-ed-ness.

Eric Trine let me borrow his copy of Builders of the Pacific Coast and I found the Reader's Digest Practical Problem Solver book being thrown out by my neighbor. Both of these books have really shaped my life lately.

Book 1. Eric is a maker of things who sometimes paints, where I had pegged myself a painter who found interest in building things, but never really followed through. After browsing, and then reading this book, having my mind blown, and God giving me what feels like a huge smiling nod, I quit all of my art jobs and am now repairing and painting my families commercial building, post surfing, under the Seal Beach sun (where my studio is, that my naval architect grandpa designed to look like a freakin' boat). As my best pal Earl and I are are doing this, we decided that this is what we want to do now. No more preparator work and stressing about my art "career". Earl is really good at making, building, etc. but I was always too busy painting to take him up on this awesome skill, but BAM, all things align. So we have since completely overhauled the family workshop in the boat building. The shop is usually used to store crap and build stretcher bars for paintings, and needed to be cleaned and organized to be fully functional. Earl has taken to grinding, oiling, de-rusting all tools and we are set to make (more of this on my next post). YES!!! We are ready to make and it is due in large part to going over this book and saying, I want to do this too. My favorite moment was when Earl said that we, with a ton of tools, a workshop, a desire, friends who are contractors who constantly are demoing and throwing away usable wood, (and I will add Earl's skills and my ability to be a helper monkey) would be assholes to look at this book, say "hey that's rad that those people do that" and not do it ourselves. Want us to build you a deck???


Book 2. This book is full of a million practical problem solving tips, shortcuts, etc. Cheaply acquired from Amazon, I totally suggest getting this book. It is helping me get out of post stoner 20's, suspended adolescence brain, and into early 30's, double dad mode that now knows how to quickly break up a dog fight, or deal with lost airline tickets. This may seem like a weird juxtaposition, but I need both more than I knew. I love it.

Thanks books.

Barrett Johnson t-shirt designs

Here are three drawings that I did for Barrett to make t-shirts from. He will premiere said t-shirts this Saturday when he plays Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, which for the singer/songwriter set is the ultimate venue right now in Los Angeles, and Barrett is playing the coveted Saturday night slot. I'm proud of ol' Boo.
Hopefully these will translate well into tees.

Of course I would like this....

My wife sent me the link to the awesome makings of artist Olga Ziemska. Her work is beautiful and these two pieces in particular have an almost uncanny kinship to figurative imagery that shows up in my own work (clapping hands, silhouette heads) . Give it a look.

Just finished these three. The one in the middle has Picasso's eyes. It kind of has a great deal to do with my (and most other "painters") haunting by Picasso and for me Hockney who dealt in great volume with his Picasso ghost. But as per the other pieces from this series, they mostly are to do with me rocking out system based, abstract experiments. They are all gospel "songs" and I have begun a few choir member pieces, and a story piece.