awash in blossomage

yes, it was crowded down on the mall, along the tidal basin
but the crowds were fluttering en mass above the ground.
everyone was just stumbling around dumbstruck by these trees
looking through camera lenses we think the flowers will last forever
i saw the washington monument swallowed into pink fallout
childhood photo album pictures came to mind,
parents lifting us up into the cherry atmosphere,
combined with dappled sunlight, the smell slows time
and we all succomb to our surroundings...

the blossoms always make me think of my monica
who i am sending these images to, cause she can appreciate.
and who reminds me of the time several years ago when there
was a notorious sneaky beaver who under cover of night
was blatantly gnawing his way through our japansese treasures!
that year we happened to check out the blossoms after hours and
we spotted the devious rodent floating ominously close to the trees..

and when visiting the cherry trees, i think it's always a good idea
to check out our national tulip library which i just discovered was a gift from canada, and this sparked a global tradition of one country honoring another country with a peace garden to celebrate friendship.

we gotta thank the japanese for sharing their cherries.
there is a word in japanese-hanami- for the event of sitting under the trees in full bloom and picnicking with friends or coworkers where " it is not unusual to see a young man in a business suit sitting under a cherry tree early in the morning reserving a space for his company"

stampylicious!

well if i am gonna blog about my newest plant,
i figure i gotta pay respect to the plant that started it all...

my first houseplant was actually a dormplant
i got it in the first few weeks of college back in 2001
it was the first plant that has ever thrived in my care
and managed to survive several moves from dorm to apartments.
i named him Stampy, after Bart's elephant on the Simpsons
which might have contributed to how much he has grown
over the six years i've had him. he even showed up in my artwork,
showing his sexy side in my book charismatic megaflora.

my heart was broken when a repotting accident
severed one of his three large stalks but i nursed the broken limb
back to health in a bucket and now stampy is back in one pot again.
and i think he just loves the excessive sunlight in my studio
because he continues to grow and liven up the place.

electric equine

"it was a black tube he felt himself disintegrate
and go inside the black tube..."

"suddenly johnny gets the feeling he's being surrounded by horses horses horses horses coming in all directions, white shining silver studs with their nose in flames he saw horses..."

patti smith, horses

say hello to my lil' friend

better known as a brother sara gold of the "peach" variety, belonging to the genus phalaenopsis, referring to their moth-like appearance...got it in NC this weekend on a trip w/ my dad to see my sister present at a science conference (which she rocked) then she took us to the NC arboretum to see some logging work she had done when we stumbled upon an orchid show... and just last week i was super tempted to buy an orchid after a coworker told me they weren't as impossible to grow as i thought... so the only challenge now is to find somewhere in my apartment w/ indirect sunlight...

sounds of silence

a sound like someone not trying to make a sound is one of many themes from the john irving book i just finished and it has all sorts
of creepy implications...

it makes me think of the squeal of silence that used to drive me crazy when i would stay home sick from school and lying feverish on the couch of the living room, too uncomfortable to sleep and the vast silence of midday in an empty house closed in around me...

it also makes me think of other haunting sounds that make my skin crawl one is the noise of a television...not the sound of what is on the tv, but the sound the tv makes, another unyielding squeal kind of a sound... or the sound of my stereo between cds or the unusually loud hum of this very computer can practically induce a migrane...

well, now i must retire and crawl under the covers but not before turning on the air filter which provides precious white noise to keep all of the sounds of silence at bay...

sketchy selections 15

circa 2001
what are they, you might ask?
well perhaps an unnamed species of self energizing organisms...
a space fungus found throughout the lunar planes?
the missing catalysts for a life-changing mind eruption...
or simply a line of fiberoptic mood reactors?

sacrifice self for story

reading john irving's a widow for one year...
the main character is a writer who is very anti-autobiographical and prides herself on the power of fictionalized facts until she encounters a rupture in her planned plot structure while doing research on her next novel, forced to rethink her approach
she is drawn into the newly forming narrative, just to see "what happens next" she gives herself up to the story as it merges with real life... i love the idea of an artist straddling the boundary between fact and fiction a dangerous middleground where anything is possible.

unfortunately everything goes awry for the novelist in my book.
she is drawn into a totally unexpected chain of events
and somebody ends up dying but by then the story had
gone in a different direction and she was returned to her life
she had used her story as it was using her.

so...yeah

i think what i am basically trying to say is
that everything we need is right in our grasp.
it's not about waiting for it to happen
or thinking that we don't deserve it
or that someone else will bring it out of us
it's all right here and we need to snap out of it!

as tom robbins would say...
"What limits people is that they don't have
the fucking nerve or imagination to star
in their own movie, let alone direct it."

sketchy selections 14

circa 2001

i wanna be where the monarch bloom. or at least back in my head
when i was obsessed with these forms... a place where all was connected web-like. where pens gave good ink and one thing blossomed into another and back again

i'm suddenly ripped back into the present as this article explains the 3 news crews we saw this morning, not to mention all the cops and the guy measuring the front of a schoolbus! yikes, this was 2 blocks from my house...but seriously, a pellet gun?

wicked thoughts

"the world unwraps itself to you, again and again, as soon as you are ready to see it anew"
-gregory maguire, wicked

sketchy selections 13: fantasy footwear

circa 2001

this one goes out to all my boys!

i'd like to start us off with my orange flamed valentine rose
as a tribute to all my boys in foreign lands...

then through a curtain of skaterboy hair to lords of dogtown
a movie that was born from a documentary based on facts
the skating and the acting totally had me hooked
but it was the cinematography and art direction that spoke to me

the movie takes place in 70's venice beach at a run down pier
which has this wonderful edge-of-the-world kinda feel
that gets me every time...much like the amazing beach-front
ruins from baz lurhmann's romeo & juliet...
would love to be a set designer for this kinda thing
it sets so much of the mood for a film..

shady dealings

a return to my hidden grove... back in 2002 during a outdoor sculpture summer intensive workshop kinda thing i did 2 outdoor installations in this shady grove of trees right off of a pathway. it wasnt far from several buildings and students walked by it to and from wherever. but when you looked outward from within this shady hollow everything seemed removed and distant...

while the space was relaxing it was also frantically alive with the dappled sunlight and the branches shooting out at perfectly awkward angles. it was quite the invigorating atmosphere for artistic endeavors.

my wonderful friend katie cooper snuck this picture we took the class together and laughed our asses of the whole time.

oh, the city paper just redesigned their classifieds website, so do feel free to browse my flashy new classified ad! with pictures and everything!

he's got a ______ and knows how to use it!

oh the joys of the wacom tablet...
and i could get lost among photoshop layers.

how would i fill in the blank?
a fiery web of liquid potential.
anyone else?

clouds and wows

kinda delirious today... stayed home from work
feeling at odds with myself and saw similarities in the sky
it was as if a sunny day & a stormy one
had both reserved the sky today
and were fighting over who would get to stay
and the results were wowing me

but out of nowhere a huge spectacle of a bird
appeared before me and i would follow him anywhere.

sketchy selections 12

circa 1997

a few sketches from back in the day...

first, a rumination on divorce...
emotional/physical/temporary, whichever it may be.

a sketch of calder's Black Cascade, 13 verticals 1959
the only thing i have ever considered tattooing on my body
but still haven't gotten up the nerve to go through with...

and then a celebration of some ancient egyptian love?