rollertrain

Buffy, Season 6, Episode 7: I’ve Got a Theory/Bunnies/If...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:39:00 -0500

Buffy, Season 6, Episode 7: I’ve Got a Theory/Bunnies/If We’re Together, Once More With Feeling.

[oh look, there it is!]

What Happens When You Pay To Go To Art Skool - Size 8, glitter...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:54:13 -0500

What Happens When You Pay To Go To Art Skool - Size 8, glitter on a fine cotton/polyester blend.

Destruction: No faith in practice. Wrong time for patience....

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:42:00 -0500

Destruction: No faith in practice. Wrong time for patience. Blame your parents. Claim mania or intoxication or the democrats or green products or republicans or some clever excuse. Fuck the world! Also, expensive and spoiled rotten. Time for an effective plague.

[see also: someone who does his job better than you ever will. ever?]

Photo

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:23:32 -0500

[heh. nccu kinda rules now, dukie boys.]

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:56:57 -0500

[heh. nccu kinda rules now, dukie boys.]

Pop That Teacher Cherry Two years ago, I learned a little bit...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:19:00 -0500

Pop That Teacher Cherry

Two years ago, I learned a little bit about encaustic painting at Penland. I met the unsinkable diplomat artist Sarah Kuhn in that class, and after stints in Kentucky and Brooklyn, she ended up settling in North Carolina. Since then, we’ve become good friends, and, now, business buddies.

A couple months ago, she came up with the idea that we should take what we learned at Penland and teach it to anyone interested in archaic anachronisms. When you’ve never done any sort of artfag entrepreneurial deal that involves investing your own money in the risk of hoping it might pay off, this can keep you up at night.

We happened to have enough money and time to try and pull off an all-day encaustic collage class for beginners. Neither of us was sure it would work, and we worried a lot, and we did a lot of work, and math, and buying materials, and advertising and business crap, etc.

Thankfully, I worked the 3AM shift at the Maxxipad last night (this morning), which led to three hours of REM sleep in lieu of staring at the ceiling and worrying about shit. The class was great. No hitches, no drama, no money issues, no figurative or literal fires.

I can’t speak for Sarah at the moment, but I’m very stingy about giving myself credit on a job well done. Today, we did a great fucking job, and we even made money. But the best part is the cliché: All the students learned some good skills, and everyone had fun. Here are some photos for any hot-wax geeks out there.

Learning the madness of art making is insane. It’s sweat and blood and tears and shame and lies and truths and fun and hell. I can count the times I’ve been truly proud of myself since this art skool insanity began on my good hand, and today is one of them.

Thank you, Sarah. This grand hell makes much more sense when you’re working with someone wiser and younger and full of just as much uncertainty.

Photo

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:09:31 -0500

Cutting up old t-shirts for cleaning hot wax and griddles (hint:...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:22:00 -0500

Cutting up old t-shirts for cleaning hot wax and griddles (hint: paper towels catch fire), my scissors hesitated at the following:

1. Parkman Family Reunion t-shirt: XXL, white cotton, green and yellow font, Deere tractor graphic. Gift from my grandmother, Mary Parkman.

2. Big Ridge State Park t-shirt: L, pink cotton, illustrations of butterflies found in the region. Bought in the souvenir shop with Matt and my best friend.

3. Hematovore t-shirt: M, beige cotton, black iron-on lettering, covered in paint. Gift from the band, who put on the most holy-fuck shows I ever saw.

4. Museum of Sex t-shirt: L, black cotton, red logo. Gift from a friend. Cutting it up marked some kind of shift between selling and seeing people eat the sausage.

[#3 lived.]

You’d think that after blogging since 1998, I’d...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:13:18 -0500

You’d think that after blogging since 1998, I’d learn to promote the projects I’m working on. I’m gonna guess that all five loyal rollertrain readers probably wouldn’t be interested in taking an encaustic collage class with my friend Sarah Kuhn and I -

[This Saturday, 11/7, at the Arts Incubator in Siler City - ]

but if you are, you know how to contact me. And you get the friends and family discount, plus a bunch of paint and skills to take home. Holler.

[count the ways.]

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:50:07 -0500

[count the ways.]

RIP, pretty young thing.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:27:44 -0500

RIP, pretty young thing.

Maxxipad ensemble. (danks for the pic, rachael and seabrook!)

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:17:00 -0500

Maxxipad ensemble.

(danks for the pic, rachael and seabrook!)

Buffy, Season 6, Episode 7, Overture: Once More, with...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:35:00 -0400

Buffy, Season 6, Episode 7, Overture: Once More, with Feeling

156 or 4500 days since the series ended. Got the whole soundtrack. Holler if you’d like all the old-school MP3’s.

[aside: true blood, twilight, what? i’m old.]

Photo

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:32:58 -0400

"It could go either way… Civilization is over. Our culture is bankrupt. These people’s..."

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:54:00 -0400

““It could go either way… Civilization is over. Our culture is bankrupt. These people’s priorities are fucked. I hate ‘em all. That’s one notch away from Oh, look at all of us. We’re lost here. We’re sad, tragic animals. We did the best we could, but it wasn’t enough, and it got away from us. And we’re all in this very sad, tragic place trying to coexist on this planet that is just hurling through space without a hope in the fucking world.””

- Marc Maron, WTF #16

Navy Nurse Grammaw: Beat it like you beat the rest of it.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:48:10 -0400

Navy Nurse Grammaw: Beat it like you beat the rest of it.

the body is nothing more than a series of events - 18 X...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:19:02 -0400

the body is nothing more than a series of events - 18 X 24” india ink on paper

Fart School Update #0H 7H3 P41N Midterm hell week turned into...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:08:00 -0400

Fart School Update #0H 7H3 P41N

Midterm hell week turned into Midterm hell 5+ weeks. I scored my second and third B’s (photography, Renaissance art history, sigh), which will take a lot of work to maintain my beloved 4.0.

Some friends and a couple of total strangers have mentioned how much they envy this whole art skool deal, especially when I get bitchy about not making straight A-holes or complain about having to actually study or do homework and all that shit most of us did more than a decade ago. Here yee:

1. The agreement made between Matt and me, back in early 2007, back before the money bubble busted, was this: He (and a fair chunk of our respective savings) would become the breadwinner, and I would maintain a 4.0 no matter what.

2. Failure to maintain my end of this agreement means no more art skool. That’s why B grades suck so hard. At least F’s mean you don’t give a fuck.

3. When you’re in your mid-30’s, your brain isn’t as flexible as it used to be back when all you fed it was booze, music, drugs, sex and a steady income.

4. I’m in an unusual position at NCCU. This is both my junior and senior year. Trying to knock out art school in three semesters isn’t the easiest task. Try it some time.

5. The financial stresses of the last three years haven’t been easy, and that’s the massive sugar-coated version. Money issues have been particularly hard on Matt, who manages to keep finding clients and work. Every morning, no matter what he has dealt with the previous day or during the night, he wakes up in a good mood. This is a dude who runs his own business in a really shitty market.

6. Matthew, I love you, and cannot wait until - - -

7. Once I’m grajumated, it’s *finally* Matt’s turn to pursue his own goals. This has been a very long time coming, and he’s stoked. He’s also a little worried, because - - -

8. Figuring out how I’m going to pay off loans, pay bills, find more pay-gig work, decide what kind of art-making I’m going to pursue, how to financially benefit from that work, and continue the selfish pursuit of happiness weigh more on one’s mind than most of the southern folks at the human feeding trough that is Golden Corral.

9. When the art skool gig is done, we also have to sell this house and move, most likely, all the way across the country.

[aside: we’ve been in the south, more or less, since 1992. it’s 2009. we’re ready to leave the lovely state of north carolina to be closer to family and friends. there’s a good chance we won’t even bother selling the house, since the market still sucks. but either way, and as much as i have always loved the south, it’s time to move.]

10. If you haven’t already, don’t buy a house because you think it makes you a grown-up. Buy a house because it’s a home located in a place that you love and want to raise babies in and shit.

11. All said, these last years have been the best and toughest of my life. I’d argue that Matt would agree when it comes to his life, which is more interesting than mine will ever be.

12. God, dear god, there are so many details that want to come out, but cannot, because that’s the way these things go.

And next semester is gonna be much more difficult. Figure drawing at Duke is gonna be 150% more difficult. I can’t wait.

Denial is God. Apologies for the ill-composed post. Lesson? The risk is always worth it.

Hell yes.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:22:28 -0400

Hell yes.

Midterm hell: 4 down, 1 to go.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:38:35 -0400

Midterm hell: 4 down, 1 to go.