mja home

ok, LOTS of photos to see from my show at Device.

i didn’t get a chance to take very many shots opening night.

looking in the front window:

front window 2 different angles:

me in front of my 2 newest paintings. the one on the left is called “Up” - and the red on the right is called “30 story ranch house”. both are 2′ X 5′, spray paint on steel.

that’s me standing next to greg and amy. they’re the owners of the gallery, and two very fine human beings.

my dame in front of her favorite piece in the show (she made that skirt specifically for the opening)

the other 2 ladies in my life. my mother and sister.

that’s all i have from the opening. good thing i went back during the day and shot some more.

the facade:

the front door:

this is the work of tom thewes. he’s a painter and gallery owner from detroit. i really like this piece. it’s very fortunato depero (one of my favorite futurist painters):

next we have the work of sculptor greg brotherton, a very talented young man:

and finally, on to my stuff. i currently have 8 paintings and 4 drawings up in this show. that’s the most work i’ve ever had hanging in one place at one time. i love looking at it all together. it looks so much more impressive than just leaning against the wall in the corner of my studio. some of these paintings are 3 years old and have never been shown. others are brand spankin new. let’s look:

first, a couple of cut-n-paste-panoramics to give you an idea of the layout of my pieces. click both thumbs for very large view:

man, i love these 2 new ones. i think that white one on the left might be my new favorite:

a closer look at “Up”:

a closer look at “30 story ranch house”:

i also painted the back of both of these pieces a contrasting color to the front. the idea bing that when they’re lit, that light will bounce off the white walls to the color on the back of the steel sheet that’s floating 1 inch from the wall, and in turn that color will cast a very faint reflection around the piece. it worked, but it’s not as dramatic as i’d hoped (at least not with the current lighting of the gallery). so, on the white one i painted the back orange - the orange glows very faint around the piece. the same happens with the red one except the back of that one is green:

the back wall (both angles):

there’s been a lot of interest in that tall thin piece on the left. it’s called “A.D. - 15″, and it’s spray paint on aluminum:

i suppose that about does it.

new work is brewing.

first, i did this mirrored subway car drawing (based on the R36 ) a few weeks ago for a painting i’ve yet to start:

then i photocopied it a couple times, cut it out, and taped it together to make a neat little subway car skyscraper that sits perched on a shelf in between some art books and some ultra flat black.

next, 2 more drawings that will become paintings very soon, and will be unveiled on september 27th at the Device Gallery in la jolla.

“30 story ranch house”

“up”

i love the paper in this book.

when i used to work at MCASD as a security guard it could get pretty boring. there would be stretches of up to 2 hours sometimes where there would be absolutely no one in the museum. thankfully, during those times we were allowed to sit and read. i did a lot of reading when i first started. titles such as “the master and margarita”, “1984″, “hunger”, and one of my favorites, “the confederacy of dunces”. after awhile though the museum got a little busier and it got harder to concentrate on reading when you’d have to stop and put the book away every 5 or 10 minutes. so i didn’t read on the job too much anymore and went on to doing crosswords. well, i suck at those so i went on to just drawing. i’d carry a clipboard with a few sheets of printer paper that i’d get from the front desk, and whether i was sitting or standing i would draw (usually with a ball point pen, sometimes pencil). i amassed quite a few drawings during those long boring days. most were complete garbage that i’d end up tossing out as i left to go home. but some were worth keeping. most of these are smaller than the picture implies. i blew them up in order to see them better.

this was my view across the street of the new museum location at the santa fe train depot from the front desk of the old downtown location at one america plaza. “concept is king” was a stab at the museums choice of the jenny holzer permanent installation on the front of the building. not my cup of tea. same thought was behind this drawing which is based on the museums “X” logo:

this is about as controversial as i get in my work. heh. on to less agenda oriented drawings like these:

want to see the other 26 sketches? check out my FLICKR page.

i got a cool new sketch book at “stationers” in hillcrest

the dimensions are 5.5″ X 8.25″. it’s made of butcher paper and string, with a corrugated paper cover. pretty cool.
i did a few sketches in it last night at art night. here they are:

here’s a few art night drawings. the first 2 are from a couple weeks ago and the last is from last night.

that star has a couple butts on it

this one’s a little hard to see because it’s non-photo blue on chip board. i don’t usually draw like this but…i don’t know. felt a bit cubist at that moment i suppose.

here’s some colored pencil drawings from a couple years ago:

this one was done during a past art night - it’s a collaboration by myself, joeygold, and gubba:

nice lounging bean by GUBBA

this drawing i did for a friends (an ex art night core member, NICK) short lived ZINE:

it was an art zine, and you had to do a piece that was based on a theme. i don’t remember the theme, but this drawing was based on that theme.

close up, just cuz:

fellow art nighter, FRIDA, gave me some of this great paper she got while in mexico. it sat in the studio for a couple months until i finally put something down on it. i did these four drawing the same day i made my “black power” collage. here we go:

on these first three i drew the paint marker lines first at random, and then i did the graphite lines to bring it together.

the texture of this paper is cool:

macro, just because: