Music to Paint to

There are two artists that I've been painting to lately. They're addictive, their albums are very long and they seem to get more interesting the more I listen to them.

Cotton Jones:



Moon and Moon has this incredible album, that's really just a singular piece of art in itself. I don't know how it will translate as just one snippet, but here you go:

Corporate Ivy (Updated)

My newfound obsession has already been documented here. I'm finally putting my thoughts into images. I completed this sculpture for my Sustainability class. It combines my thoughts on English ivy with the concepts laid out in the books Affluenza and When the Rivers Run Dry. The basic concept is that corporations like Coca Cola, por ejemplo, are working overtime to manipulate communities of people for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they want to make money off of water supplies that should be free to the people, or sometimes they just want to sell a product. The global offenders that I've glued to these English ivy leaves have all taken part in trying to manipulate the public in some way. They do a disservice to society as a whole and set us back leaps and bounds through money-backed legislation and taking advantage of those who are ignorant to their methods. If you're reading this, I'm sure you know all this already.

The sculpture is made of red clay and is situated on a recycled piece of wood from an old cabinet. No live model was used. The ivy was pulled from the forest around my house. This little guy is about 8" tall, with a base of about 10". He inevitably will deteriorate with time, and I hope to update this post with the continuing status of his decay.

UPDATE: The Decay...

Faith in the Kitchen

I love being in the kitchen. It's pretty much always my favorite room in a house. My sister is a chef, my mother used to be a chef and both my parents are excellent cooks, who have a passion for creating great dishes. I also love to cook and bake myself. When my parents owned The Deer Head Inn, we spent an extraordinary amount of time in the kitchen. My mother was the chef and both my sister and I would either help or just hang out and chat there. That kitchen was the hub of the business and became the hub of our family in a lot of ways. As is typical, this vibe was not lost on our cat. Faith enjoyed perching on high places in the kitchen to observe the action and perhaps see a small scrap of cheese or turkey thrown her way. This painting is 24"x30", painted with oils.

Ivy

I'm becoming a bit obsessed with the English Ivy that grows around my apartment. It's gnarly stuff, wrapping around trees and sucking the life out of them, creating a six-inch layer of foliage that blocks all other seedlings the chance at life. It's all over the country, but really taking a toll on Forest Park here in Oregon. I've been pulling the seedlings of the ivy when I see them, because the roots are only a few inches long and it's an easy way to try to help. The birds eat the purple fruit and then shit out the seeds to start a new crop. The ivy is all-consuming. Even humans have been unable to fight it back, because other people keep planting it as decor around their property. The ivy creates what are known as "ivy deserts," which I think is a pretty vivid description for the future temperate rainforest if nothing changes around here.

...so, with this all in mind, I've been learning about the attitude of consumerism throughout the United States. I've never been ignorant to the constant barrage of advertisements in our lives, insecurity machines, and constant bullying into spending money "for the economy." Nevertheless, when you really start taking the time to notice the system in its entirety, you realize that you've been battling against it every day of your life. And unfortunately, unlike ivy, you can't just uproot it in order to stop it's proliferation of your brain. Mother Theresa said that the United States is one of the poorest nations she had ever been to, because the people here lacked spirituality. If our spirits were like little plants, reaching towards a life force beyond our capacity to understand, then perhaps the ivy is getting a little too thick in this country.

Oil Spill Birds

I started a painting when the oil spill off the Gulf coast happened last year. The images that were coming back of animals drenched in heavy tar balls were bringing me to tears. This is the image I needed to get out and was finally able to complete:

Oils, 24"x18", raised canvas.