The Universe for Dad

Here is a short renegade project about an enormous topic...

Dad's death has given me a sense of freedom and I feel guilty for saying that - as if I mean I'm glad that he's dead, which I am not.  I wish very much that he wasn't dead.  I wish I could watch him laugh, I wish I could hear him tell one of his wild stories, I wish I could pull up to his house and see him waiting outside for me.  Unfortunately, I'll have to dig into my memory bank when I wish for those things because I'll never live the experiences as new again.

But I love him more and differently because living through the experience of him leaving is a gift that has let me see the world in a different way.  I want to make work in a different way.  This desire is so strong that it makes me feel almost sick, almost poisoned, like it's too big for my body to contain and I have to tell myself that I don't have to act on it all at once, that realizing it and living it and dreaming of it is just as important and lovely as creating it.

Truckin' Along

My version of the Universe 

in an instant coffee jar.

Dinosaur Valley State Park and 

Passenger Pigeon paintings are finito.

 Dinosaur Valley State Park, oil, 32"x48", 2013

Passenger Pigeon, oil, 32"x48", 2013

Completing Bingham Canyon Mine 

is next on the agenda.

And then I shall let the new experience of working at the Zoo drive the work.  I had an experience yesterday that inspired some note-taking:  When witnessing animals confined in zoos, parks, etc., why do different species evoke different emotions?  

For me, a visit to the reptile building is a peaceful and pleasant experience.  The Indochinese Serrated Turtle is hands down my favorite, he puts a smile on my face and fills my heart big with joy.  

Visiting the primate building, on the other hand, makes my stomach drop like when you see a wreck on the highway.  There is one male Silverback Gorilla in particular that reminds me of looking into a mirror on my saddest day.  

Turtle vs. Gorilla - I get it, we relate to the primate and believe we understand his feelings.  But what about the turtle?  

Mental. Pressure. Cooker.

The studio is now a total and complete sweat shop of never-before-tried experiments mixed along with the standard paintings and photographs.  Throw in the anticipation of learning the verdict of six artist residency applications and the embarkment of a new full-time job that will require more hours and responsibility (along with my part-time job) and the lack of desire to execute any of the above and you have one overwhelmed lady. Here is a studio tour of the started but unfinished work....

The dang Universe.

So in reaction to my dad's passing, I've understandably been obsessed with life and death and the universe - you know, existence as a whole.  No big deal.  Except that it is a big deal and it's totally exhausting.  How do I visually articulate the most monumental subject ever?  Well with a small-scale sculpture made from maps, beads, wire, wood, and a coffee jar that's how.  Next step to this project is making the map mountain taller.

Hollywood Texas-style.

A few years ago my friend Lani (hi pal!) and I made some pretty badass stop motion films. I want to make more.  Like immediately. So I bought a set and cast which was the easy part, now all I have to do is make the film.  And.....ACTION!

Testing, testing, 1-2-3...

"Hey!", I said to myself, "Why don't you get a digital voice recorder and record the writing you've done over the past few years?"  "Then manipulate it, organize it, or use it as an element in a piece of art?"

(left) Bingham Canyon Mine (right) Passenger Pigeon 

But...don't forget that you've got these two paintings to finish and they will stare at you all day everyday until they are completed.

And your heart still wants to photograph spaces where the outdoors meets the indoors! Oh yeah...and document everything and write about it on your blog.  

 Bottom floor of my apartment building.

going-away-party-flower

My current patio science project.

Extinction & Destruction

Here is the latest batch of paintings in-progress.  I want to address extinction and destruction.  What I'm captivated by is how breathtaking I find the reference imagery at a completely superficial level but how disturbing I find their historical existences.

Bingham Canyon Mine

Utah's Bingham Canyon Mine, also known as Kennecott Copper Mine, is the largest man made excavation in the world.  The.  World.  It is over .6 miles deep and 2.5 miles wide, covering 1,900 acres.  It's been in production since 1906.  Hmmm...that's 107 years of...well...total carnage to the ole earth's skin.

The shear magnitude of  destruction is heart-stopping, but from a bird's eye view the image of the mine is beautiful.  What an interesting conflict of emotions.

(My buddy Megs took this photo and was kind enough to let me use it for reference.  Thanks Megs!)

Passenger Pigeon

When I took this photo almost a year ago I never would have realized it's immense contribution in the inspiration department.  I mean, it was a big deal when I was living it - I was holding a dang passenger pigeon after all - but looking back on it I now realize how special that moment really was.

I became aware of environment in a big way on this trip.  The specimen itself is beyond amazing but I became fascinated with the space in which it exists as well.

Dinosaur Valley State Park

I visited Dinosaur Valley State Park circa April 2013 and walked away with two main points:  Consumerism and Extinction.  That's what the above image represents to me.  But like the Bingham Canyon photo, this image also raises battling feelings.

My gut reaction when I saw the basket of plastic dinosaurs was childish glee.  The bright colors shaped like near-unbelievable-creatures are just small enough for a kid's hand and resemble candy. 

But then I switch to grownup mode knowing that this one small delicious basket isn't the only one in existence.  In fact, I'm sure truckload after truckload of these same dinosaur toys ramble down the road filling every science museum gift shop from Seattle to Savannah.  

INDOORS OUTDOORS

                                                      

I just finished a project called INDOORS OUTDOORS.  It's a book of photographs taken from 2010-2013.  Here is the project statement:

I wanted to write a slick statement about how taking and later exploring these photos fulfilled my intrinsic need to contain the intersection where the indoors meets the outdoors but that made me sound like a pompous robot so instead I'll simply say that taking these photos gave me the same feeling as when I captured a lightening bug in a jar when I was a kid.

Here is the link to the project:

FEAST YOUR EYES ON INDOORS OUTDOORS

Dad

The number six is now my number.  I never knew that a number could evoke such strong emotions.   

He was born William McDonald, became Wild Bill, but I knew him as Dad.  He came into this world on 6/6/1951 and left it on 6/6/2013.  Full freakin' circle.  Nice work Dad.

He was hands down the funniest person I've ever known and at the same time I've never known another person to hold such sadness at times.  I miss you Dad and have a love for you greater than a heart can hold.

Dad, watercolor, 20"x15", 2009

                            Dad, oil, 24"x18", 2009                                                   Dad, pastel, 12"x9", 2009

About a week after he died, Kona and I were going for our morning walk when we came across something in the middle of the sidewalk.  It was a tattered white foam cutout that looked like it had once belonged on a kid's school project.  I looked closer and could see it was an image of a bearded man and I instantly knew it was Dad saying hello.  I scooped it up and framed him.  Hi to you Dad.

Passenger P's.

I took some reference photos today - subject in question...passenger pigeon.  As I snapped the camera I couldn't help but think of other passenger p pics I've taken.  I've come in contact with 3 specimens so far.  How many more will I meet in my lifetime?  I hope lots.  Like super lots.  Like passenger-pigeon-national-tour lots.

Facts:

• At one point in time there were 3-5 billion (yeah...freakin' BILLION) passenger pigeons in North America.
• We hunted them to extinction.  
• The last passenger pigeon, named Martha, died in captivity in 1914.
• Passenger pigeons are awesome.
• Humans can be careless assholes.

 International Wildlife Museum, Tucson, AZ (2010)

Tulane University, New Orleans, LA (2012)

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, F-town, TX (2013)

Dinosaur Valley State Park

Last month I went to Dinosaur Valley State Park and I saw this...

dinosaur footprint

It was hot and there were about a million people crowding around the dinosaur foot print taking pictures and behaving like typical Americans.  We collectively mumbled under our breathe, "This is it?" in regards to the footprint.  

What a bunch of assholes we were.  Yeah...this is it - it's a fucking dinosaur footprint for the love of god, we should have been beside ourselves with wonder!  But we weren't. Even as I lived that moment I felt gross.

And I saw this...

 dinosaur figurines

On the way out of the park I wanted to stop at the gift shop because it was so obnoxious. Sun-faded dinosaurs were posted on top of the shop and sprinkled throughout the parking lot.  There were even dinosaur trashcans.  It wasn't okay to me to shovel garbage into a smiling dinosaur face.  

What was wrong with me?  This was supposed to be a cheerful outing and I was acting like a senile fun-nazi.  It all seemed so cheap.  So I started this painting.

 Dinosaur Valley State Park (in-progress), 

oil on wood, 32"x48", 2013

One of my favorite Brautigan poems.

(catfish scribble in workbook)

Your Catfish Friend

by Richard Brautigan

                                                    If I were to live my life

                                                    in catfish forms

                                                    in scaffolds of skin and whiskers

                                                    at the bottom of a pond

                                                    and you were to come by

                                                         one evening

                                                    when the moon was shining

                                                    down into my dark home

                                                    and stand there at the edge

                                                          of my affection

                                                    and think, "It's beautiful

                                                    here by this pond.  I wish

                                                         somebody loved me,"

                                                     I'd love you and be your catfish

                                                     friend and drive such lonely

                                                     thoughts from your mind

                                                     and suddenly you would be

                                                          at peace,

                                                     and ask yourself, "I wonder

                                                     if there are any catfish

                                                     in this pond?  It seems like 

                                                     a perfect place for them."

The Path of Phillip

 Phillip 1877, pastel on butcherpaper, 8"x10", 2013

Phillip 2013, oil on vintage wallpaper, 8"x10", 2013

I first saw Phillip nestled in a drawer with others like him.  His rounded belly and toucan beak fit together like two perfect building blocks and his eyes looked like the head of a screw turned to off.

I was photographing animal specimens from Fort Worth Museum of Science and History's collection to gather reference material for drawings and paintings.  It was the moment when I met Phillip that my project shifted, then narrowed and focused.  I wanted to know of the journey that led him to that drawer.

How many hands had he passed through?  What changes had taken place in the world as he traveled from one museum collection to another?  What exactly did his existence mean since having become an object?  He was now a commodity that could be gifted, traded, or sold.

This may not be Phillip's true history, but it is my story of Phillip constructed from the information on the small three handwritten tags that bind his feet.

Phillip is a Collared Aracari (ahr-uh-sahr-ree) which is the smallest species of toucan and native to Central America and Southern Mexico.  He was collected in Panama by Adolphe Boucard in 1877.  That's right folks, Phillip is 136 years old.

Boucard (1839-1905) was a French ornithologist/specimen tradesman, which in today's society would make for an interestingly conflictive vocational combination.  Selling scientific bird skins to natural history museums to build collections and promote public education while at the same time supplying the plume trade which facilitated the demise of many bird species...hmmm...that's pretty jacked up.

According to his oldest tag, Phillip belonged to Museum Boucard for roughly 23 years. I'm not sure if I'm translating this correctly to mean Boucard's personal avian collection perhaps in Paris or not.  Unfortunately no Facebook posts for Boucard could be found and he had yet to register for a Twitter account.

Around 1900 Boucard sold off most of his collection and Phillip was moved to the U.S. National Museum in Washington, D.C. (a.k.a. Smithsonian) where he resided for about 67 years.  At least a portion of his time was spent in the school collection.  It is my hope that Phillip was surrounded by some hot co-ed Aracaris.

He migrated to Westport, Connecticut in the spring of 1967 to Mid-Fairfield County Youth Museum, renamed Earthplace, where he did a short stint of less than a year.

Then in the fall of 1967 it was on to his current home, Fort Worth Children's Museum now Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.

It was on May 6, 2013 that our paths crossed.  I took him out of his drawer and ever so delicately set him on a nearby table.  I looked at him from every angle and dreamed of his life.  How many people like me had come across Phillip thinking they had discovered him for the very first time?

Turkey vulture skins and feet...check.

Turkey Vulture Skins (L), pastel on butcherpaper, 11"x14", 2013 

Turkey Vulture Feet (R), pastel on butcherpaper, 8"x10", 2013 

I drew the skins onsite at FWMS&H's off-view collection and the feet were drawn from a photo I took from FWMS&H's on-view exhibit.  Sure...I may have to eat cat food until next payday, but I can mark a couple of frame jobs off the list.

Don't act like you're tired of hearing about this.

This past Monday was a beautiful day capped with a big warm blue sky but I spent my afternoon shielded from the stellar spring day inside a warehouse photographing dead animals.  Animal.  Specimen.  Collections.  I know, I know...it was over 2 years ago that I first took a sketch book into one and the obsession began, but I feel like the subject is still so new and large with wings fresh and unfolding.

I'm still putting together the pieces of what these odd and beautiful spaces mean to me. It's such a special place and one I feel that is not entirely mine to share...yet.  I could only muster up the guts to post these three photos.

 northern flickers

 delicate frogs

shark

I try not to move or manipulate the subjects, I want to capture them as I found them. They were placed in their new existence by caring hands concerned with taxonomy, not aesthetics, which makes for fascinating, narrative-invoking groupings for a novice naturalist like myself.

I visit collections to gather reference material for paintings but more importantly to gain an understanding of the space where the outdoors and the indoors meet.  Ah yes...the ghastly overwhelming topic of nature vs. man.  What better place to research the subject than inside a man-made building filled with animal carcasses?

Okay, the outdoors comes face to face with the indoors...let's do this.  At first I thought of this space as a gentle overlay of two places but the more time I spend there, I realize that it is more like a delicate intersection and delicate does not translate to peaceful.  It is an environment where conflict often begins.  Take a tree root and a city sidewalk for example - one is constantly trying to overtake the other.

So visiting and documenting specimen collections is how I explore this concept while indoors.  Got it - check.  I found the reverse when on my recent artist residency at Madrono Ranch.  What is one way to explore this concept while I'm outdoors?  The photos below did it for me.  Freakin' reflections...who knew?

So what does all of this mean?  I have no idea.  

All I know is that I'm going to keep doing it.

Turtle shell.

Turtle Shell, acrylic, 2013

The journey of life provides everyone with a unique arsenal of knowledge.  There are no two people on the planet or beyond that share the exact same library of info.

This information is learned through experiences, most of which are general survival tools - fire is hot, traffic is dangerous, cats cannot be trusted, etc.  But there are a few nuggets of knowledge that are so random that you would never in a million years even think of seeking them out...but somehow, here you are, toting around bits and pieces of weird wisdom.

For example,  I now know that if you are going to paint on a turtle shell then it is best, in regards to paint application, to boil it.  The surface becomes smoother and matte, allowing for a little bite that the paint can adhere to.

But, if you want to enjoy the turtle shell for all its natural beauty (sans paint), then you should let nature have its way with it.

Ranch Ramblings: That's a Wrap!

Two weeks of solitude - check.  And I didn't even have to tap into my reserve supply of sanity, although there were questionable moments and the turtle shell I found did become my Wilson*.  (Except the original Wilson probably smelled of the ocean and Ranch Wilson smells like a creek.)  

Ranch Wilson sat on the kitchen window ledge and kept me company.  I'm taking him home and it feels good to bring a part of the ranch with me.

Ranch Wilson

On my very first day here, I marked off a small square of earth to combat the overwhelming excitement to explore everything at once.  It instantly calmed me and made things seem more manageable.  I figured if I took the time to explore everything within that small space, then I could move on to larger spaces.  (Baby Bird One and Baby Bird Two were laid to rest in that same square.)

I did move onto bigger spaces and there is just something about hiking under the enormous Texas sky that hits your reset button.  I feel de-cluttered and ready to move forward with gusto.

I'm not sure how the fruits of this experience will unfold, but the two weeks at Madrono Ranch have helped define my interest in the delicate spaces where the outdoors meets the indoors.  I feel that my arsenal has been stockpiled.  

Thank you Heather, Martin, and Robert & family for sharing your wonderful home!

Over and out!

*Badass reference to the movie, Cast Away.

Ranch Ramblings: Day Twelve

I spent the entire day yesterday not knowing if it was Wednesday or Thursday.  And I didn't care. "I'll figure it out tomorrow.", I thought.  It was Wednesday but now it is Thursday.  I'm still a little confused about the whole situation.    

One of my absolute favorite things has been watching and documenting how nature has changed in the short time that I've been here.  I took a photo of the same thistle outside of my door everyday.

Day 2

Day 7

 

Day 11

And my favorite bouquet of thistles on the planet…

Day 2

Day 4

 

Day 7

Day 9

Day 12

I've also really enjoyed finding unexpected intersections 

between man and nature.  I give you Exhibit A.

Electric tree.

I've totally been geeking out on nat history books and I have to say that one of the best lines I've read is the description of a nine-banded armadillo from J.J. Audubon and Rev. J. Bachman who thought the armadillo resembled "a small pig saddled with the shell of a turtle."  

If you think that is funny, you might enjoy these as well: 

Still Life:  Adventures in Taxidermy by Melissa Milgrom

The Breathless Zoo by Rachel Poliquin

Natural Histories:  Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library

The Birds of America by Audubon

The Authentic Animal : Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy by Dave Madden