no.304
FEBRUARY 21, 2025wake up babe, new collaboration with rachel larsen weaver just dropped
I am a little tipsy. As I write, Ben sits next to me on his laptop, Ged is sleeping on his favorite chair, Ripley likely nestled by the radiator in the other room, and we’re playing the live rendition of Brothers in Arms from 1992. When the crowd sings along it always gets me. How fucking beautiful when people make art together.
We punctuated the week with pizza across the street. We talked about finances, the tough stuff and other important Life Things! Which.. all keep getting smaller, or we are getting bigger, or both. Then a nightcap at the Cellar. I got a Last Word that totally fucked me up and we tried the biscuits and honey. Ben said the honey was like sunshine, like what he imagines a child think honey should be. And that made me happy. I really love honey.
The other thing I’m tipsy or high on or maybe it’s something else entirely, because unlike tipsy or high which are sort of altering reality, I am fully further deep into reality... so whatever that word is I am on that re:art. Because today Rachel (look at her work!) sent me the film from our Feb 2 shoot. We had talked about how we were both craving art for art’s sake back in what, December?And it just so happened that the first time we ever took pictures together was February 2020. Here we are five years later, our lives have changed and we are many photos together later, including an engagment and a wedding! And still there’s this continuity, maybe the continuity is our bodies. Her’s is behind the camera in this case, mine is in front of it. But this is one of the things I love so much about her, she might be behind the camera but it never feels like she’s hiding. Rachel is very much in the room, she’s very much in these photos. Ben too, he stuck around, he got us pastries, helped soothe my anxiety, he pointed to angles, images, combinations with eagerness and curiosity. He made us cocktails: a last word for Rachel, and an aviation for me. Ben is here. And so am I. Many versions of me layered. Old photos with Rachel with new photos it’s like a whole inception russian doll art photo thing we got goin’ on here.
I was curious about this though. The versions of myself that I project out and about to the world, and back onto me. How old versions of me don’t fit so much anymore, they’re distorted. So there it is, made it literal. There’s something satisfying about chasing an idea to it’s literal visual translation. More thoughts, and more sharing to come on this series of photos that are filling me with delight.
For now my ass is tired, and we’re going to bed. But first I gotta floss. I do that now.
It feels relevant that in order for thie movement to look this fluid, she really has to hold tight.
I do love Dire Straits. How is this shit live?!
no.319
FEBRUARY 05, 2025tourist torso with may roses
Roses of Berat, Albania. May 2018.
and making my way through Bad Bunny’s new album. I started the day with EoO and ending on the lovely TURiSTA...
no.321
FEBRUARY 03, 2025the witch says shout, shout, let it all out
Collage number 321, on the third day of the second month. There’s always a first time for everything. The witch says shout.
Didn’t have a new composition in me today, so I went looking for old collages, and I found instructions from 2020:
30 seconds of Everybody Wants to Rule the World lead to Head over Heels, and then Shout, which I ended up listening to on repeat a while. Things feel all kinds of fucked in the US and all around. The lyrics go “in violent times, you shouldn’t have to sell your soul.” I want to squeeze all my friends, eat more of Claire’s delicious olive oil cake, and shout. Gotta ask her for the recipe. My friends are organizing, making art, having babies, doing research, making cakes, throwing parties, working long hours to allocate funds, sharing useful information in the group chats, putting on a show, getting the crowd to shout. All of that and olive oil cake will fuel the resistance, babe, why not.
From wikipedia: Roland Orzabal is the lead singer on the track, and he described it as "a simple song about protest".[5]
no.327
JANUARY 28, 2025grief and beef stew
It’s my grandmother’s death anniversary. Two years ago I said goodbye in a awfully neon grey hospital room. Just me and her against the blank unknown. Today, I made my second stew of the week, and we lit a candle. Ben held me for a while and I allowed the comfort to sink in. While the US government unravels, I made a few iterations of a collage with this photo of my grandmonther, dad, and my two aunts. She would have been in her late 30s here or maybe 40 years old. Not too far from my age now.
no.338
JANUARY 17, 2025i’ve made a decision
Disconnected things:
- long day, longer weekend, longest week ahead
- nino’s treats for the working meeting!
- it’s gonna be all colors next week, I won’t have time for shit
- theatres continue to be super cool
- gotta find ways to move during this deadline
- it’s the mediterranean blue and butter yellow combo in this piece for me
- don’t know why Almost Famous came to mind, but I am so glad I found this scene again. magic.
- here we were, with my love and his aunt who married us the day before this photo was taken on the K street porch. I can’t wait to make an album with Rachel’s amazing shots from the wedding.
- gotta go back to work now, but it’s friday either way <3
no.339
JANUARY 16, 2025come, change, carry my self with you
Butterflies scattered the
n ordered for a potential North Country single artwork. The art demo didn’t make the cut, but I love these butterflies. Planning to upload the one that did make the cut on January 24 with the single release.
Shit maybe the chaotic one is better.
The illustrations are another public domain find, though surprisingly with very little back story. I love em.
Today had a lot going on. I woke up to orange skies, walked to the office under flat grey, and entered a time travel of work frenzy that included a long site visit to a performing arts center. Concert halls are so fucking cool. I got to go under the belly of the orchestra pit, and start to understand stage mechanics better. Barely, but enough to feel like a curious baby again. Gotta upload my photos to the team. In the adjacent building we walked through a hallway of closed doors with students rehreasing their instruments in the rooms beyond. It was comforting for some reason. Turns out our structural engineer just started learning the piano four years ago. Anything can change. Then a long ride back with coworkers and debriefings and coming down from extroverted exhaustion. And then intense therapy sessions. The cost of being brave is often discomfort, and the reward is hopefully more life. And now winding down. Fuck it, I’m going to bed early to read about fairies.
Been listening to til tuesday again, though I found this performance today. Aimee Mann’s whole vibe. Also it’s kinda stressful but also cool how the song speeds up in the begginning. Something is happening with the tempo, right?! I feel like everything is speeding up anyway. The tempo is changing and I’m moving toward something.
no.340
JANUARY 15, 2025study in tahini after a long day
Long, invigorating day at work, but tiring. Another long one tomorrow. Looking forward to the site visit for the proposal
I do like this yellow. And the arthritis reminiscent hand.
Been on a real Caroline Polacheck kick lately, this song starts like a meadow.
no.341
JANUARY 14, 2025people i’ve been shy
All these images were somehow involved in today’s piece.
Left: b side from the previous North Country album but with new colors taken from the piece on the right. Lovely colors even though it looks like the lil baby jesus is sitting on a sack of testicles.
Namesake from the song I’ve been listening to again on repeat. It’s got a real good spatial quality. Loud, with your best headphones.
screenshots from the lyric video, delicious
no.342
JANUARY 13, 2025the weaver & ideas about a deck of cards
I’ve been dealing in symbols for a while, I know this. The idea for a tarot type deck had been visiting me for a while, too. I would meet it, daydream it, leave it, forget it, find it again. It was never exactly my idea, because tarot seemed to be everywhere all of the sudden when I was in grad school. I thought it a valuable tool for storytelling and after reading Italo Calvino’s Castle of Crossed Destinies, I was already entranced.
Then I discovered and got lost into the Raider-Waite deck, it’s rich colors, textures, symbology, and seemingly endless details upon details. The simplest cards too command my attention. That two of swords gets me every time.
The Strength card turns out is extremely Babygirl. Perhabs both of these are. Romy is definitely two of swords energy in the beginning of the movie.
Had to do this edit real quick. I will never, ever get enough of orange-red and pink, and this photograph of me that Rachel took.
Well, today I uploaded The Weaver. It is not a new piece of work, I had started a more explict development of a deck of symbols/archetypes back in 2023. I called it the Mythologies of Self deck, pairing old collages with ideas of archetypes. Here are a few others:
I want to make something of it. But perhaps, the single most delicious image from today is the back of the original Raider-Waite tarot deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.
Maybe it’s the Calvino connection, but I was craving italian music while writing this. Particularly Lucio Battisti and his loving lyrics.
no.343
JANUARY 12, 2025sunday rose, i want more self portraits
I’ve been holding on to this one for a few weeks. I think I worked on it back in December and for whatever reason it’s day is today. Earlier this morning, in bed, I was telling Ben that I want more self portraits.
Rachel took this photo five years ago, in February 2020, before the pandemic, before everything changed. We met in my apartment and made art. It was so cool to be seen by her, through the lens. I want to group all the photos from that session and all the collages I made from them.
Now Rachel and I are chatting about doing another art date. We also took photos in June 2022 (photos from there in no. 359, 355, 353, 349, 347, 346). But that time, that session felt quite different. We tentatively said we would meet today but didn’t make explicit plans. I felt anxious and avoidant about being seen. Sounds like that’s exactly why I should start self portraiture again. In the mean time revisiting these is not a coincidence. February 2020 and February 2025 might be connected - two portals. What will emerge this time?
no.344
JANUARY 11, 2025brutalist bummer
we saw The Brutalist today at the Alamo. Gorgeous, haunting, brutal. I want to revisit stills, scenes, and keep them with me forever, and also shake the sadness of the movie immediately off me. Won’t happen any time soon for better or for worse.
One of my favorite little sequences in the movie was the road fleeting underneath us as we’re on the bus, and the credits sliding horizontally across the screen. This movement in two dimensions/directions at the same time was a wonder. I felt a bit confused, and a bit free.
Home late and all I could come up with were these grey rebars and oversized column/dots.It’s trying to connect something, but it feels superficial.
no.347
JANUARY 08, 2025crumpled up like a piece of girl, on the verge of something
I feel it. Some slow slow realisation, moving toward me as I move toward it. So we are gentle lovers. Buttery time between us, soft space. Eager to get there, but also enjoying the easy pace of it all.
It started with wanting to make a very simple drawing. In the shower I wondered
What’s simpler than a square? Maybe a circle? What’s simpler than a circle? Maybe a straight line? What’s simpler than a line? Maybe a point? What’s simpler than a point? Maybe pleasure
So I set out to make that drawing. And I do like it quite a lot:
But I wanted more and I still can’t get enough of this one:
And then I craved more of myself so here we ended up.
such lovely gifts, these sounds:
348
JANUARY 07, 2025what’s up with these floating torsos, babe
349
JANUARY 06, 2025period red and baby blues
moss and freckles soft speckled reverb
photography by rachel larsen weaver, june 2022
350
JANUARY 05, 2025mellow color squares on an off day
Every day I change a little and it scares me.
351
JANUARY 04, 2025my eyes are wide open but i'm stuck on a 2D surface
I was striking out a lot today, but these guys made it out while Ben was telling me about his latest character and plot development.
352
JANUARY 03, 2025my mustard magritte
353
JANUARY 02, 2025babygirl (and smuggled butterflies)
photography by rachel larsen weaver, june 2022
355
DECEMBER 31, 2024tic tac symphony with blue square
An old diptych with Rachel’s photography turned triptych today. Adding the sherbert colored one to the left really tied it together. The colors reminded me of all time favorite Blood Orange song: Bad Girls.
356
DECEMBER 30, 2024crying metal tears into an empty cup
The Darkness.
357
DECEMBER 29, 2024like the title from one year ago says
I woke up (quite late again, am I depressed?) to a missed call from my mother, and a message from my cousin in Albania that aunt Malaka had passed. In Albanian we say “ka nderruar jete” and there must be a better translation but “changed life” is the most literal and available to me right now. She was beloved to my mother, and her children and grandchildren. A very sweet, very loving lady who radiated a warmth whenever I met her. She passed surrounded by family, and always, my heart breaks remembering me and my grandma alone in that horribly grey hospital room. She deserved better. So I feel sad, and a bit low to the ground. The day changed quickly from light blue to grey, and even though there’s supposed to be a bit more light, for longer, it definitely doesn’t feel that way yet.
So today I am thinking of the old women in our lives that we’ve lost. When Ben found an eyelash on my cheek this morning and we lazily performed my childhood rites of pinching the eyelash between a finger and a thumb, making a wish, three alternate blows, and one guess as to which finger the eyelash would end up on when he released it, I wished to make a new cool collage today. I even guessed the right finger that the eyelash would end up on: the thumb. But I am not feeling a new piece yet. And I am thinking about grandmas and great aunts and so I uploaded a poster of sorts I had made back in 2023 from the Roses of San Jose series. The series that I started from photos of that lovely day in the Rose Garden with Ben and his grandma. It was so nice just to walk among the roses. It was enough.
Stills from a five second video that I can’t figure out how to upload. I love how they’re floating in roses...
I want to continue, maybe finish this series... whatever that might mean. For this journal entry I tried to collect all the collages so far. I have some other’s somewhere. And for the most recent artwork for The North Country, another one of these roses will grace the center of the single cover. It’s a lovely song and I can’t wait for it to come out.
Last year I experimented with some typography. I have a lot to learn about type, but I enjoyed these as posters. I gotta number the 365 project images too... I keep forgetting.
358
DECEMBER 28, 2024thai iced tea with boba venus study
We woke up late and got out of bed much later. Sad news from back home about my mother’s aunt becoming very ill. And outside a low sky of flat grey clouds and occasional rain. So we decided to talk to Soupy Dumplings, my new favorite place for a comforting bite. I got the tonkotsu ramen bowl and thai iced tea with boba.
We read next to one another, sitting on the same side of the booth, finishing our meal between lines. In my bullshit smutty fairy book, the human heroine (named Feyre smh) just solved the evil queen’s riddle thus freeing her lover and the whole fairy realm (unclear). In Ben’s latest Ismail Kadare book (another gift from the in-laws) he said a Tolkein-y battle just took place.
We smooched in the rain outside the restaurant and Ben went to run errands while I walked home. I called him asking for turmeric root, and lemons from whole foods too. I didn’t consciously realize that all these various orange and yellow food colors were on my mind when I came home and started working on today’s image.
I pulled the orange gradients image (left) first that I had worked on for The North Country back in 2023. It’s made up of old film blanks that I took with my unreliable thrift store fuji, and god knows what other layers. Didn’t end up making the cut for the album or other single artwork but I love the bite it has.
Then there’s this old collage (above, right) that I still am not sure what to do with. I played around with colors, but it didn’t feel done. Ended up lifting the rectangles from it for now.
Meanwhile in the public domain bucket, I found the Aphrodite of Knidos (left, below). Drawn to it’s androgeny, I immediately downloaded it from the Art Institute of Chicago Public Domain when I saw it a few days ago. And also from the delicious AIC Public Domain selection is this photograph of Georgia O’Keefe’s hands taken by Alfred Stieglitz (right, below).
There’s a longer description on the AIC page, and I will absolutely come back to his work but for now:
Georgia O’Keeffe, who became Stieglitz’s wife in 1924, was among the progressive American artists whose work he also exhibited at 291. In a search for objective truth and pure form, the innovative photographer took some five hundred photographs of O’Keeffe between 1917 and 1937. The essence of O’Keeffe, he felt, was not confined to her head and face alone; equally expressive were her torso, feet, and especially her hands, as seen here.
Relatable! I love body parts as expressive of the whole. And that photo is interwoven in the final piece from today though imperceptible as it’s former self. But it was when I superimposed that image and fucked with the settings that I arrived at the texture and color that made me a little giddy and I paused. What am I making here?
Then I sipped more boba tea and when I thought about my blog entry for today I realized these colors were in front of me, the warmth and comofort of deep toasty orange against a cold, wet day. Today I also woke up with hella inflamation so I am seeking extra comfort.
Had to add the boba obvi. Love these little balls.
The alternates from this day:
359
DECEMBER 27, 2024girl from june in december light
Spent a while packing gifts today. I hope people like them. First sunny day in a while but I feel melancholy. Glad I found Caroline Polachek’s Door, it’s lulling my melancholy into sweetness.
Is this image too saccharine? What about in the brighter red, or the previous blue? Too many Cs in saccharine, who needs em.
SO many bodies on the internet. Do I get to claim my naked body?
I love this imagery in the video, espeically against time and the melody. Reminded me of a collage I made a while ago with a similar motif, but just my face. I can’t find it.
361
DECEMBER 25, 2024xray roses and rice grains on the floor
Xmas... marked by copious amounts of panettone, deliciously thick spiced chocolate (cardamom seeds, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon) with dollops of whipped cream, more mom cooked christmas food, and a failed attempt to watch Seven Samurai. Dad started snoring. But this short scene with the stark white rice kernels contrasted against the dark wood grain of the floor struk me. Beautiful. Added many dots to the piece I was working on during the movie.
Can’t find the rice scene. But it got into me. We also walked on a mostly empty trail late afternoon. Sparse winter branches, flat grey skies. That’s in this piece too.
The two roses are from the San Jose rose garden though I’m not sure if this is in the Roses of San Jose series. Feels different.
Every time I see the Janus logo I feel comforted, like it’s somehow close to me. Or I know them. The god of the threshhold.
Looked up the poster for this journal entry. Seems surprisingly visually connected to the collage of today.
362
DECEMBER 24, 2024i won't rest until i've slain all my dragons
Ah some kind of symmetry. Also christmas. Finished work today and came home for the holiday. Dad is going on about some stuff. Things got heated and stressful. Today’s collage includes at least 4 images from the Met Public Domain. I went back and forth on what to upload today. No time to really make something new and the title of this piece I put together last week or so really got to me “i wont rest until i've slain all my dragons.jpg“
I don’t think this will be the last iteration of this piece. The orange is too posicle, but i adore these elements together: the sword, the pearls in shell, the woman, and the butterfly. A lot to dig into here.
How gorgeous is that sword. Definitely have another iteration here.
Bonkers conversation in the living room. Dad recounting going to the butchers and watching a horrendous pig slaughter with friends as children. Very similar experience to the kids in Kronike ne Gur.
363
DECEMBER 23, 2024mending the wholes in the fabric of self time
I keep making it more complicated than maybe it needs to be, this whole blogging thing. Maybe it’s just what happened. Today I worked on this collage titled “mending the wholes in the fabric of self time“ though I think I meant “holes.” Kept it though. There are two main images in this collage and a bunch of dots and color layer fuckery.
The image I started with is a piece by Odilon Redon called Day (Le Jour), from the series, Dreams (Songes), plate VI. The Met says it’s a lithograph on chine collé. They also say that he’s really into the color black:
As a shy and lonely boy in his uncle's remote old house, Redon discovered that books, pictures, and music opened windows onto marvelous vistas. From his childhood on, he maintained an attachment to a world of fantasy and dreams that he often pictured in charcoal drawings and lithographs he called noirs, for both their essential substance and resonance were black. "One must respect black," he wrote. "Nothing prostitutes it. It does not please the eye and it awakens no sensuality. It is the agent of the mind far more than the most beautiful color to the palette or prism."
I love black too but I did go in and mess with the black big time. I cut holes where the floating things were. I wanted to free the room depicted in this scene of them, or maybe free them too. Colors instead. Light.
The other image is one that I made with Rachel back in 2020. I can’t find the original but this is the edit I had created from it a few years ago.
I feel like the combination of these two somewhat gloomy, maybe a lil spooky images, is hopeful. Or maybe that’s just how I feel today (after yesterday being a remarkably messy depressy day.)
This other colorway is on my mind too, but not quite as pleasing as the computer vomit green.
