Artist in Residence

SO WHAT IF IT’S RAINING ALL OVER US RAINING ALL OVER THE FOOD RAINING ALL OVER THE MUSICIANS RAINING ALL OVER THE BEER? Here at Struts Gallery and Sappy Records we eat adversity for dinner and spit it out as gallosh ghost dances.

gallosh_pancho_dance.avi

Denis’ film, Rock the Bells, became available for sale today. This is exciting because because many of my friends at home in LA have been waiting for this moment for 15 months (or 39 months if you count production time). Anyway, I’ve watched the majority of this experience of trying to make and then release a feature length film commercially and it’s a hernia wrapped in an ulcer with a two year migrain on top. It’s an incredible film. Really. (i helped) (am proud of that)

My wax figure sculpting madness has met its match in manic energy here in the (studio) gallery. Lesley Johnson and Lianne Zannier have been in here at night preparing and putting up their shows which will open on Friday night. There must be an ancient and true proverb about how everything goes slower than you think it will.

Here is Lianne responding to that reality. Yes, that is a tiny gun in her hand. Lianne, no…

Lesley was putting up photographs, 250 or so of them, several series of digital images taken in different places of different subjects. I have a few favorites. Separately the photos are sometimes very cool and strange and interesting. Sometimes they are flat and boring. But all together they make a joyful noise and create a palpable rhythm and thrum and speak to you of place and the imagistic impulse. (again- made that up- hope it makes sense).

Lesley also mounted two series of illustrations from her books. I am wild about her illustrations and her very odd and sad and restless narratives.

Here is Lianne, very late at night, hanging guns and trees and clouds on the wall. After having her animation arrested in progress twice, she triumphed over the machine and finished a beautifully poetic and strange animation with wood paneling and trees and a wood paneling man and colorful ties and hankies and guns and geraniums and pencils and clouds and forests and conversations.

Here are my wax figures after a model-a-thon. You see here Tantramar Tille in two poses, one will include her favorite activity -stealing bicycles, she is dragging an invisible ten-speed down the street toward the marsh where she keeps her cache. The other Tille figure will be in a diorama under the Radio Canada towers, she is defiantly guarding her nest of stolen skateboards and scooters from an angry mob of Sackville youngsters. The other two figures are Bog Billy, in one he will be suspended in water swimming with his adoptive parents and siblings. In the other he is undergoing harassment from Mount Allison students during his brief tenure there as a “student” -details TBA.

Charlotte, Rose and Ben hung out with me for a few hours and made use of the fancy table and chair set I picked up from the Salvation Army.

Charlotte made two life-like swans for her swan pond scene. Rose made an expressionistic swan and then decimated it in favor of an enormous family of snakes and worms. Ben made a dragon with the thinnest white wings which ended up burning black in the firing process to excellent effect.

I’ve been working on wax figures for the feral children museum. Both for the dioramas and also for stand alone figurative tableaus. Note to anyone interested in wax: do not decide to do a lot of wax sculpting in a short amount of time! The whole process requires friction from your fingers and heat from your hands, you’ll take off the majority of your outer dermis and then burn what’s underneath it- super ouchy. Oh but I love modeling in wax, and my figures always turn out the same. I set out to make them different but the longer I work them the more they turn into the same old figure but in a different pose or with different characteristics. Lesley rated them a 7 on a scale from 1 to 10 of crudeness. 1 is very very crude, probably like a puddle you’d call a figure. 10 is porcelain figurine fancy. I’m casting them in bronze eventually, progress shall be reported.

Kaeli is schooling me in carving porcelain. She brought me to her studio out on the marsh and showed me her work. The woman is super-talented and there seems to be nothing her hands can’t do. Has anyone seen her exquisitely knit socks? I just can’t get them out of my head. Her socks would make turn-of-the-century Parisian fuss-pot toillerists tres envious. I made up that word-toillerists- I hope it makes sense. Anyway, Kaeli has this really nice scene, a fully equipt ceramics studio in the middle of a field of wild flowers with a view stretching down to the Bay of Fundy. Every now and then a train goes by outside making the iconic train whooo whooo sound, everything around here is just so…- I feel like I am in the idea of a place rather than a real place.

We went to her house and I brought my bird book so I could sculpt me up some little geese, the adoptive parents of Bog Billy. Turned out that I had once upon a time ripped out the geese related pages from my bird book. So I sculpted some geese from memory. No matter what radical changes I made they looked like seagulls. With every change they would go from seagull to seagull with big wings, seagull with duck head, seagull with fluffy butt. When I thought I had almost achieved goosedom, I held them out for Kaeli and she remarked that they looked like seagulls with swan necks! Happily, the next day I looked at pictures on the internet and was able to give them goose looks by adding a lot of butt and removing most the chest. Also, geese have decidedly ungenerous faces, they look pinched and bitter and not at all cute-faced like ducks. I had never noticed that before.

I’ll fire up these guys in Kaeli’s next firing and they will turn bright glowing white and stand out among the cattails and grasses of Bog Billy’s habitat.

A huge part of this residency is turning out to be about learning better balance in my studio practice. I tend to be one of those entirely on or entirely off types of people. I generally stay in my studio and avoid making commitments in favor of working or resting from working. It’s an unsustainable way of life. I want a better life. I’ve been taking meals outside the studio, going to events and having drinks with people and playing softball and taking walks with the most wonderful Pushkin. I’m maintaining about 10 studio hours a day, but it is really different. True enough, less work gets done, however my energy level for the work I’m doing is higher. But after a social weekend I’m feeling like I need to hide away and work like crazy for 2 weeks. Good bad habits are very hard to break.

I took most of Sunday off and managed to fill the hours all with excellence.

-Brunch at Point Jourmaine at the PEI bridge- Linda took Leslie and I to a scumptious brunch followed by walking and hanging around on the beach. I found some excellent diorama trees from rose bushes and collected sand to turn into something you’ll see later. We sang songs. We swam. It was excellent. But just when I thought we had had a perect day- the day kept on going getting more excellent. Next up: Paul Henderson’s suprise birthday party, a semi-formal softball game. Check it-

Looks like a painting. Can anyone explain why the greens are greener and the reds are reder and the light seems always ambiently yellow?

Linda has very good ideas.

That’s right- you see tux tails there on Alex the pitcher.

Julie and daughter just before Julie unceremoniously struck out her son, Ben.

Ben at bat

Lianne exhibited a casual and gracefully uncompetitive game play technique.

Batting line-up.

The raucous crowd

it was exciting when the lights came on. Sackville, you get good cloud action.

Happy Birthday Paul. You have good friends to throw you a party where you are the best at whatever it is to do at the party. We played well into the night. A seriously good mosquito swatting time was had by all. Sue the dog got sprayed by a skunk for the fourth time.

I’m making some cowboy and indian art this week.

I’m also getting a chance to go try sculpting with porceline under Celeihd’s(sp?) kind mentorship. Tomorrow!
Love this place.

Here Michael is saying: “What’s it gonna take to come up for OK!Quoi?”

Here he is saying, “I want to distribute this flyer to everyone.”

Here he is coming up with a plan.

Here he is saying, “I will raise a small army and we can put them in all the mail boxes along with all the junk mail and crap.”

And below you can see the rest for yourself, I finally had the sense to use the video option on the camera.

The part about the liscence plate refers to the fact that New Brunswick is the only province with tags that don’t have a slogan on them. Lonely liscense plates. So- What’s it gonna take?

New levels of ridiculous and Pushkin and I synchronize our medication schedules. I declare Sackville to be the Treated Lyme Disease Capital of New Brunswick. Love this town. The doctor and I Googled and then checked in his book on how to treat Lyme Disease.  Collaborative prescribing…hm…

Any future instances of Lyme in  this area and the inevitable anger and recrimination resulting  may be directed to The Hound.  Thank you and sorry.