1.22.2008

it's guerilla art time again

Here is an example of "she" style guerilla art. I make these "creaturas" by forming animal skulls in sculpey and adding the fur of animals both alive and dead, and the feathers of dead birds i have found. Sometimes i use the hens' feathers too. i have a bag full of guinea hen feathers...they are spotted black and white and are very attractive. i lay all the stuff out and match heads to fur and feathers and choose from brown twine to some yarn i had made from my former dog Eva's fur. The figure above is composed with spanish moss, a friend's dog's fur and the feather of a mourning dove.

so what i do is make a stick cross and bind these materials to it. I leave them in holes in trees at parks, sometimes in brick walls, and sometimes in a restaurant or a place i happen to be and spot the perfect place to leave one; that is rare though. typically they are found outside because that is where they belong. my hope is that the person who finds a creatura has a meditation on nature, on things that are loved and lost, and in general wonders what it is and keeps it....remembers it as that "weird" thing they found. maybe they have a cabinet of oddities as i do and it will make it to permanent display status.

i started my guerilla art career while in graduate school (yes even dum bronzes can git in grad skool). typically, guerilla art is defined as anonymous art that riffs on pre-existing advertisement or signage already in the environment;like this crossing sign...now it reads "weird alien-like creature crossing" thanks to the alteration some artist has given it.

some people consider the multiples of handbills produced for bands as guerilla art. I do not. I call that advertising. to me, guerilla art must serve no other purpose than the art itself, unless that purpose is to make someone think, or provoke curiosity or to charm or to add mystery to the every day workaday. if it tells you to go to a club or buy something it ceases to be guerilla.

Some classic forms of guerilla art are graffiti, both the hand done beautiful masterpiece kind as well as the stencil and a spray paint kind. Some of my favorite atlanta graffiti is done by the AK's, the aerosol kings, and "crisis". i dont know who these people are but i admire their work and look for it anytime i ride the train down to that airport. i love it that i don't know who the artists are; its not important anyway.

I make a distinction between beautifully scripted images and the punks that will deface any flat surface with banal and idiotic writing. in short, it is ugly.

sharpies are a classic tool as well and are excellent for defacing advertising. however, i prefer chalk as the ideal commentary tool because it is not permanent and therefore you have not destroyed what someone has paid for.

I started out by making photochoppies and pasting them in multiples up on plywood. I liked to do riffs on famous art works. a favorite of mine was from velasquez's "Las meninas"; the little girl in her dress only i would give her a bird head or something. i used to do a lot of fake picasso drawings...just classic both eyes on one side things or someone getting gored by a bull. one surface that was always available was the wood that separates city walkers from construction sites. since my school was downtown, this approach was a natural. but now my environment and interests have changed, and my guerilla art reflects that.

So this weekend i will place 20 of the creaturas around the local parks. Many of them will go to the dog park. Later i will go back to see if they have been discovered and taken. i keep a ledger of where and when i placed the figures. i am pleased to report last year's creaturas have all found homes. i must resist the temptation to see someone find a creatura because then i have cared about response when the process should be the "end all be all". i will report on my project to a small group in February, and i will get to see what they did too. Though we are a group, everyone does their project alone. at least one of the "guerilla girls" is in my "night out with she" video a few posts down. grrrrrrrherhahaha buts that's all i can say about my top secret group of conspirators. /t sent me an audio clip which i will play in my mind as i send out this years figures to do their work.

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1.20.2008

Mute Monday: Elements




















added monday morning: 3 additional images by sarah pickering see more of her explosive art here



























***artists using Earth as their primary element

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1.19.2008

a night out with she



one door closes and another opens. the surgeon said: no dancing.
now i run the video. grrrrherhahahaha! *NOTE: im not in this video (except very briefly holding a camera)

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1.17.2008

gone to chickory













i headed north to chickory to catch the rare georgia snow day! grrrerhahahahaha. click on the link and drop by for some snow pix and a video! woo hoo!

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1.13.2008

Mute Monday: Dixie

1.10.2008



feathered battleship grey
wingbars flashed
every bird in one
you clever mimic
aerodynamic sky king
jujitsu fighter bird
spiraling
into your twin

later

in the holly
watching and waiting
peanut butter, blueberries, the world!

on the fence
mailbox
rose trellis
birdbath
my heart
and mind

feathered battleship strewn
smeared twisted dashed
gone

vile oily slinking
dull matted pastis
feather on your lip!?!

locked eyes
smooth wood
silver comet
exploding rose
quiet

feathered battleship grey
kept your feathers
in a golden box
with the hawk and
tiny owl
4 years now
i'll paste them on my arms
and fly to you
in another lifetime

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1.08.2008

random stream of consciousness (for iamnot)

so this woman rants at me about how Hillary is going to bring health care to all in this oppressive hideous heartless nation known as the USA. all this while holding an iphone in a hand with a fancy french manicure. i said "dude, if you have a cell phone? you can afford insurance. you CHOSE not to buy insurance cause you drank the kool aid and think if you tack all this shit onto yourself you are living large. this nation doesn't owe you "large".....but it does offer you an OPPORTUNITY to get.it.for.yourself." this woman's statement, and more specifically this way of thinking, and it is endemic this nation, is that people want what they want but they want ME and YOU to pay for it. and there isnt a candidate strong enough to get up there and tell all these bed wetters what time it. there is NOBODY to vote for. all i can do is put my head down and work and pray some moron doesnt run the free market system into the ground before i can get my game together. speaking of free markets, when i realized i wasnt going to cut it as a painter, i looked at what i produce that consumers actually want to buy and adjusted accordingly. i didnt start writing a bunch of grants looking for tax payer funding to finance work nobody wants to buy! that is how it works here. you figure it out and shut the fuck up.
im not rich, but i still hope to get there and so therefore im not interested in soaking people who got there just because i haven't yet. is anybody else out there fed up with people getting up and asking the candidates about what they are going to do for whatever problem in their life they will not handle themselves? what a bunch of selfish punks. with no vision past themselves, no long term for the greater good of the nation just whatever they can get. i bout fell out of my chair the other day during a phone call with one of my left-coast relatives who started ragging on the price of gas. "really?" said i, cause your state is full of caribou huggers and "dont build a nuke plant" chanters who make us do business with the saudis since we cannot even tap our own resources. why dont you take a good hard look at how that price is divided. find out how much of a cut goes to your state and the feds and get back to me. meanwhile you want to punish the oil companies for actually finding the shit, pumping it up, refining it, employing people and delivering it to you so you can just pull up and load it into your gas tank cheaper than you could get a gallon of starbucks triple soy skinny ass bullshit latte! but the jokes on you because the government is going to subsidize companies that develop other fuels and give them a tax break as well. who do you think is developing these alternative fuels?? who has the infrastructure? its a whole lot like archer daniels midland getting a farm subsidy. like that? then you are going to LOVE that 10 dollar ear of corn and 100 dollar steak. how about this: in florida they will not drill for oil cause it might mess up the beaches. thats hilarious since chavez and castro are going to sail right up to the line and drill it for their nations and florida might STILL get tar beach but not the oil. but its worth it cause at least they can feel "good" about themselves. those feel good florida people will be chokin' on their puka shell necklaces over that one and they'll blame blame blame just like everyone does now for every damn thing that happens. nobody seems to understand the cause and effect that these selfish desires result in when people get what they ask for. can anybody tell me what barak obama's message of hope actually CONTAINS? ive yet to hear one concrete idea out of his mouth. yes he looks good and yes he is positive but what are his ideas? and mike huckabee? are you kidding me? listen, when i am ready to attend a tent revival i will ring him up until then he should shut the fuck up unless he plans to apologize to the families that have been victimized by the killers he let out of prison. are people seriously considering electing another snake oil salesman out of arkansas? john edwards. his nickname in north carolina was "senator who?" get it? he was never there never introduced one substantial bill, he says he never took money from a PAC. what do you call the trial lawyers association! hillary. these guys are so bad...the clintons i mean...if you can punch a chad for her i say you have committed treason. fred thompson will you please drink a pot of coffee? you say some good and very specific things and are a constitutionalist but would it kill you to give it some effort? ron paul; nice voting record i wish i could choose you just for domestic policy. perhaps as the immigration czar, but your appearance on coast to coast and some of the new world disorder boyz got me worried. lets see who else; mitt romney? *shrugs*
then there was the episode of the "lost dog" that i had the insensitivity to find "amusing" which makes me a "hater". in a nutshell, up in maine where people are a bit frustrated with some muslims who will not assimilate while making demands that their culture be accommodated, somebody made a lost dog poster that shows a dog named "mohammed". the poster says the dog is "not good with children and can't be trusted". grrrherhahahahaha! thats clever! but its been called a hate crime against islam. well i say "roll with it" the way people like me do when mega-gheys over at the folsom street fair talk about how oppressive and homophobic america is while selling baby jesus butt plugs and virgin mary dildos. you mean you guys cant get your freak on without getting a medal for it? someone might judge you? what just letting you be isnt enough? you want special treatment? bite me! speaking of judgement...it's become a negative: "don't be judgemental" are you kidding me? i can, do and will make judgements as i see fit. i can judge that i think simulating oral sex on a gay pride float at 1 PM in the afternoon on a public street is at least as open a topic for concern and discussion of it's "rightness for the community" as a nativity scene is. i can judge that the goth chick across the street that allows her cat to roam around all day and come over to my yard and stalk my bird feeders is a selfish jerk! oh, you don't like having a catbox? then get a fucking dog! and you are free to judge and even hate me when i let Trout the land shark out to snap your cats ratty ass neck if i ever catch it over here again. what's more; i can judge people for not using their turn signal. i can judge people for wearing crocs if i want to...and do! grrrerhhahahaha! and you are still, as of this posting, free to judge me back and i celebrate that. i sure dont expect the gummit to legislate you to feel a certain way about what i do. the government has one function which they fail miserably at which is to keep this nation free of foreign invasion. right. anybody who believes in amnesty for the 12 million illegals in this nation does not stand for justice. tell all the people in africa being persecuted and killed they cant come here you'd rather give the cheapest citizenship on the face of earth to anyone who can walk, swim or hide in a van and sneak in here. other nations don't do that. no, other nations pick and choose who gets in: engineers, scientists, doctors...people like that. mexico doesnt even let anyone just come in like we do...ask the dominicans and people from central america. and speaking of mexico...since their government exports their poor here, having no incentive to fix their own massively corrupt government we get to hear the demoncrats talk about the widening gap between rich and poor in el norte. wonder why!

but in spite of it all, i remain optimistic that i can get my new business off the ground, open a showroom in july, and get my game on and live enjoying all the beauties and virtues that have come my way while minimizing my focus on what isnt going my way. my point is, iamnot, that i wasnt "slacking" just realizing that the way things are shaping up? i will have to work 3 times as hard to offset all the bullshit these candidates are going to implement to appease the bed wetters with the loudest shout. grrrerhahahaha. have a nice day everyone.

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