A little bit of mania. 1.27.23

All hell broke loose today in the studio.

It started out with a neat and tidy daily painting.

But then the wheel started turning. I've been painting my daily's with Air Ink, which is an ink made from air pollution. They harvest carbon from factories in India, where air quality is very poor due to industry, and turn it into an ink for artists and printmakers and anyone who needs ink I suppose.

I still have a pile of old maps that my friend Noah from Leon Speakers gave me a year or two ago, and I felt compelled to destroy them.

In a moment of inspiration, I thought it would be great to build a show around the idea of travel, and home, and belonging with carbon ink on the maps. I would hang them in my home after painting them and then display them in my virtual gallery which is relaunching in late Feb.

But chaos quickly ensued, and I don't know up from down.

I painted the big one on the left, which was the most beautiful map I had, and the ink didn't hold. So I fucked up the front, and decided to paint the back in shame. But the back turned out to be a really nice painting, with the texture of how it was folded and the frustrated fast brush strokes with nothing to lose. The front is carefully painted and fucked. The back (which is now the front), loose and free.

I really like how there is a successful painting one one side, and a disaster on the other.

The lighting in my basement is so good, but whatever.

After painting the back of the beautiful map, I thought it would be great to do that intentionally, and then cut out the pieces to reveal the front. So I did that, and put it on a black cutting mat just to view it. I kind of like it, but not really sure what it's purpose is. I don't really like the idea of changing aesthetics just for the hell of it.

Most things I do are very intentional. So this session of making in a flurry, treating my materials without care or caution was liberating, but I'm not sure if the work is any good.

Happy and sad are the same.

The sad ones were the most liberating to paint.

Pure destruction.

Getting out the feels.

I think I'm going to destroy all of these vintage maps now with frownie faces and upside down frowns.