I'm a little bit famous!

My prints are up on the artrepublic website!

http://www.artrepublic.com/prints/16070-push-the-button-silkscreen-signed-limited-edition-of-30.html

Better pictures of the pieces here.

Frühlingszeit (Spring Time)

My German upbringing aka. The Waldorf School still makes me chant again and again in my head this song about spring in German whenever I get the feeling of it being particularly springy out. It's full blown in Vancouver. Vancouver really knows how to do spring. I actually think that the first word that pops into my head for spring is ''Frühling'' rather than ''spring'' or even ''primavera''. I guess that's what happens when you get conditioned at a young age.
 

My new friend Arielle. 

Feathers on Trout Lake.

My favorite water bird, the coot. They're called the chickens of the sea because they bob their heads like chickens when they swim. They have red eyes, a white beak, and a bump on the top of their beaks that look like a 3rd eye. The best part is they have huge ribbed feet that aren't webbed. They hang out with the ducks.

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The swampy part of Trout Lake There are some crows hanging out. 

Kalyn came and visited for a couple of weeks.

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The first nice day, hanging out on the side stoop.

Garrett in The Garden.

This is probably my last post for a long time. I'm going tree planting for the whole summer. I'm going to try and do a drawing a shift (every 5 days) and post them. But tree planting is a creative black hole. I'll try my best to not get sucked in.

Good Boy

I made this as a birthday card for my friend and roommate Garrett. It's a drawing of my long time planting friend and mine and Garrett's crew boss last year. He's one of those people who is so weird and creative that the expressions and nuances he effortlessly makes up spread like wildfire. ''Good Boy'' is one of them (said in a cute high pitched sort of voice). He also killed a bear last year and ate bear fat with everything. As for the spoon ... it's not for what it appears.

Annah Mackay everybody

The onslaught of photography continues. Now the guilt sets in but this is how it's going to be for a while.

This is my friend Annah Mackay. She has some photographs up at The China Cloud tonight. So if you live in Vancouver you should check them out. And all 3 of my roommates are playing shows in their respective bands: Alanna Stewart, the debut of Lacuna, and Wild Ways. It's going to be fun! If you want to know more about Annah and decide whether she has good enough taste to have nice photographs (she does), you can watch this video I made of her and check out her blog .

Clam Hunting

On Cortes Claire and I went clam hunting. We went to an inlet that earlier that day had looked like the ocean, and it was completely drained and covered in shells. We started by periodically squatting and sifting through the surface shells, but we weren't finding much and they were all pretty small. Through discussing our previous experiences with shelled fish (including one time in Indonesia where I put small ones in my bathing suit top only to discover later they are actually alive) we logically deduced their location! We stopped right where we were and started digging around with oyster shells. Turns out they burrow and are everywhere! Big ones too! Then it became the most fun ever. It felt like we were on a psychedelic trip, the environment was so surreal. If you looked when squatting, you could see little tiny spouts of water squirting at random as far as the eye could see. I have found my new passion in life and career.

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After we were done we came across this magical family. They looked so perfect in the waning light, I chased after them and asked for a picture.

Farmer Claire

I went to visit my dear friend and roommate Claire on Cortes Island where she's going to Linnaea Farm School. For everyone who is curious what Claire is up to, check it out:

Claire's garden plot.

Clarie wheel barrowing.

Claire with some seeds. I think cilantro?

Clarie with some garden greens. Out of focus, sorry.

Claire's homemade greenhouse.

Claire potato farming with her class.

L.A.: The Streets

I put up some pieces in L.A. on a Friday night while I was there with the expertise of my local friends from the studio. It was pretty bad ass.

First we did the trial run for the piece that is now up in Vancouver. It's in the Arts District of downtown L.A. Apparently it's a really good spot but it's hard for me to tell since everything looks empty and barren around there. It was right in front of a bar where we went after and I got a pint of PBR for $2.50. Not bad. I never managed to get a day time photo. Tear. Better photos of it in Vancouver here.



This piece made me feel alive. We climbed a fucking building! So awesome!!! I won't give away trade secrets but it was not easy to get up there. It's on North Main Street close to the L.A. River a few blocks away from the studio. I like it. Close up pictures here from the same piece I put up in Vancouver.

Double Exposure, Sophistocated

I finally got a new film camera! She's a beaut! The Nikon FE2. I wanted it mostly because it has an option for double exposures. It's pretty exciting to be able to do double exposures without a range finder and with manual control. I was kind of getting frustrated with the unpredictability especially in framing of Holgas. I hadn't really taken any photos for almost a year since my 35mm Holga and Canon AT1 died tragic deaths. I'd forgotten the feeling of swamping my blog with photography ... but I'm into it.

Nit Picking

A new piece! Up right now on Main street at 7th.
This is something I think about a lot which weirdly comes from my evolutionary biology background. Social grooming. What happened?
Thanks to my little team and getaway car for helping.

The L.A. River

The L.A. River is breath taking wonder of nature. Why people would start and then continue settling in a flood plain to create the second largest city in the U.S.is beyond me. Humans trying to control the river is much less hard to understand since humans love manipulating the environment. L.A. is a in a flood plain that experiences flash floods. Prior to the river being completely paved over, the river's course was unstable and predictable with the mouth of the river being dynamic. The L.A. River was right by the studio where I was working in L.A.. I liked hanging out there. Weird paved river and train tracks, can't go wrong. I found a dead duck. I'd never seen one before.

L.A. L.A. L. L.A. L.A.

I got flown out to L.A. for a week two weeks ago to scale down some of my street art pieces into fine art screen prints. They're going to be sold at Art Republic, a British online print gallery. Drinking in L.A. The song doesn't lie. Craziest week ever! I stayed at at the studio, Modern Multiples, and had a bunch of people helping me get my stuff printed. It was a weird feeling not doing all the work myself. It made me feel really uncomfortable and apprehensive but I sort of got the hang of it by the end and was as involved in everything as I could be. Alone, I physically could never have done editions of 3 different images in one week. I even got to do some actual printing which felt amazing. I hadn't really printed anything in two years. I miss it. Got some new photoshop skills and leaned a thing or two about this crazy art world where people pay ridiculous amounts of money for art for no particularly good reason. Everyone was super chill and nice so I ended up feeling comfortable and having a really good time. Not paying for supplies was pretty wild. Super crazy experience. Plus it was really hot and sunny out! And very Mexican.

Here are the prints:

27'' x 48''
The real thing here.

19 x 35''
The real thing here.

16 x 32''each
The real thing here.

Here are some shots from the studio:

Giant acetate.

Registering.

Tony, Justin and Luis: my printing team.

Hanging out with the finished piece.

Richard Duardo, the owner of the studio. He's really into watering his lawn and feeding the birds.

Sarah and Kelsey also work at the studio. They got award pins at the end of the week.

I also put up a couple of pieces while I was in L.A. super bad ass styles. That post to come.