nowhere

i wrote the following as a comment to a post here:

http://soloroadtrip.com/

i recently came back from a trip to nowhere, and everywhere. 6,000 miles. me and my lovely new bride in a 1954 ford coupe. i didn’t have to sell my (yukon) saab to get it. and i didn’t have to run away to make it happen. well, i did, a little bit. but i planned the 3 week runaway for more than a year. i can’t imagine doing that trip in anything else. there’s a certain smack it gives to your lips to pilot a machine older than you across america. there’s a certain ‘rightness’ about seeing a country so steeped in history and hard work and ingenuity in a car such as this. the view out the windshield changes the feel of the movie enough to make it epic rather than simply long. there’s a certain satisfaction to knowing you can fix it if it breaks. and a certain pleasantness to the afternoon that it does leave you by the side of the road with your trunk unpacked, tools out, forcing you to prove it. and a certain peacefulness to changing the oil in the yard of a friend’s small farm in kansas. i’ve been back just a little longer than i was gone, and i already feel late for that same destination. everywhere, but nowhere in particular.

i'm not really as bad at blogging as you might think

i've just mostly stopped typing words, and have been blogging with pictures. go here:

http://howwayleadson.tumblr.com/

not sure i've given up on this place entirely, but i am definitely feeling the photoblog a lot more right now.

new kicks

i am such a shoe slut. seriously. i need help. but, until i get professional intervention, i will continue to indulge. these are the latest:


oiled suede doc martens long wings. ooh yeah.

and for those of you who don't know, i could wear a different pair of shoes everyday for 6 weeks without a repeat. someday i might actually do that...

the contextually conflicted post

this blog was never intended to by about me. i mean, it's about the art i make, mostly. and later this summer, it'll be about a fabulous road trip, and hopefully contain lots of photos of said road trip.

in the meantime, i haven't really been making much art. my life is such right now that i haven't figured out how to make time for it. mostly because i have been concentrating on my health. i have changed the way i eat. i have been seeing a chiropractor. i have been exercising. i have been being good to myself. so, it isn't for a pat on the back that i write about specifics. and it isn't about making this place a weight loss diary. but, it's what i am doing right now. and i am hoping that it somehow fits in with all the other stuff that i am concerned with when i look back at it later on. so it is in that context that i will mention that last week i pedaled about 100 miles. for the first time in...forever. and it felt really good. really good. and i hope to do the same this week. i have lost about 20 pounds in 40 days. it's a good start. but it's barely cracked the surface. i am down 5 1/2 inches around my middle. my legs feel good. my left leg feels. which is something. i hesitate to go into it too much more. but i really don't have anyplace else to document this.

and i am so bad at blogging. i am not about to start another.

nothing is as nothing does

is it a legitimate blog post if i come here to tell you that i have been up to precisely nothing artistically? does that count?

or, rather, i have been deeply engrossed in a performance piece about lack of activity as an exercise in self-centering.

woolrich, hanna, and brooks

i've been thinking a lot about quality lately. it may seem to you that i have been thinking about fashion. hanna hats, woolrich coats, pendleton shirts, dickies boots. but it really isn't fashion. i mean, i think a lot of my recent acquisitions are pretty freakin' dope, but fashion (form) has almost been secondary in the choosing of these items. to be historically accurate, i have had the hanna hat forever. and i didn't buy it. it was a gift. but it did sort of set the stage for the rest and get the ball rolling, to be butcherously metaphoric. all the items i mentioned (a few of which are shown in the photo above) are vigorously rooted in quality. that woolrich jacket is about 10 years older than me. and it's pretty much brand new. i wonder if there were ever any pheasant actually in the kidney pockets. they were lined with plastic when i got the jacket in the mail... the pendleton shirt i am wearing now is newer, but was still probably made when i was in grade school. and it looks like it came right off the rack. the brooks bag is new. but brooks has been making bomb proof stuff for more than a century, so i am fairly certain this waxed cotton and leather vision of loveliness will be around longer than me. the dickies boots may seem a little out of context in this conversation, but these things are bomb proof, and water proof, with just a little mink oil.

legacy has been a topic on my mind lately, especially related to my art. but i guess it can't help but spill over into other areas too. and in terms of clothing, i suppose legacy is best recognized as quality. to a certain extent though, legacy and quality are kin. woolrich has a legacy that only exists because of its quality merchandise. well, that and maybe a little 21st century marketing thrown in. pendleton is the same, been around a long time, known for making plain good stuff. except maybe those flag shirts...

it's all related though. legacy, quality, time. how you are remembered depends on how well you spent your time. as i gain what i hope is a little bit of wisdom (just a little), i would like to think that my perspective gives me a viewpoint from which i can use what i have learned to live the best life i can, and make the best work i can. standing here in between those that came before me (thank you, dad. miss you TONS) and where i am going i hope i have enough of a grasp on what they have done to pull at least a little bit of it back into the present, and leave it as the past for someone else's future.

gosh, it's been a while

it's been a while since i posted here, i guess. i haven't been terribly active in the studio, although i have a ton of ideas in my head. i have been active making improvements on the house, and organizing the new shop and the new studio.

i have been looking for ways to make a living making art, and making less art. seems kinda counter-productive, no? except, it's almost as if i am at a point where if i can't support myself making art, i don't want to make it. which is a little childish really, but here i am nonetheless.

i just feel this incredible drive to MAKE. and i am discouraged that i have to spend so much of my time working that i don't have time to get out all the stuff in my head.

instead of looking for ways to support myself art making, maybe i should be looking for ways to survive without sleep. i might get somewhere with that...