First blog entry of the decade. This is monumental. So far this decade has been pretty low key. After the madness of New Years, I've been hiding out from the Portland rain, painting and watching Deadwood for the millionth time... love that show. Year by year I feel less inclined to go out and hang out with other human beings. If this doesn't improve, I'll be chasing people off my land in my long johns. At least I'll finally get to use my rifle.

My show at Thinkspace was a great time. I spent most of the week in LA setting up my installation and playing Mortal Kombat with Michael Hsiung. I created a character on the game named DangerGuy and he brought the pain and vanquished many foes. Michael is also a blogster of Fecal Face so you can see photos of the show here.

or here if you need a separate and special place for a link.
Here - - Fecal Face

Of course it rained the night of the opening and since it only rains 2 times a year in Los Angeles, people tend to stay indoors. It's weird that every time I visit LA it decides to rain. And by weird I mean fucking stupid. But I gotta say that the turn out was still awesome and the opening was a blast!

I'm working on a couple pieces for the Jonathan LeVine 5th year anniversary show that's opening on February 27th. I got some cheap plane tickets and I'll be attending the opening for sure. Can't miss this one! Come out and celebrate if you're in New York and feel like celebrating. Besides that, I got a couple commissions in the works and a new print design for BLDG on the way. Looks like I might have some open time during the middle of the year, so if anyone is looking for a commission, this is primo commissioning time for me.

Since the economy fucking blows, I'm releasing 3 small 8" x 8" prints for $35 in my Etsy store. I'm also cutting down the edition sizes of my prints to 35 to get them up and moving so I can plug new ones in faster and in exciting fashion. Here's 2 of them.

I think I've just connected my blog, via RSS Reed, to my Twitter account so my updates on here will show up there and I can bother even more people in an even easier manner than ever before. I almost understand what an RSS feed is, but I think I figured out enough to use it. If this doesn't work, I'll hate RSS feeds forever for making a fool out of me. I wonder if I'm getting closer to the age where new technology seems too confusing and stupid to bother with.
I'll be in LA next week. Holy shit what happened to November? Tomorrow comes the day of dread for me when it comes to shows. The packing and shipping of new paintings. The process itself is a pain with all the bubble wrap and the cutting of two boxes to make into one big box to fit all the paintings, etc. But the stress of having five months of work flying across the country and zooming down highways is not a fun time. I usually kill a goat or two to appease the shipping gods.

update: I have also put Twitter updates on the side of my blog. Insanity. So when I update on the blog, it updates Twitter and shoots back over to the blog and updates that I have just updated. This loop might just break the internet.

December is almost here... where did the time go? Oh yeah, I've been in the studio drinking coffee, painting and listening to Harry Potter audio books all day. Not a bad way to spend the day. Throw in some hot chocolate and a space heater and we are in business.

Portland has been absolutely beautiful the last week or so. But the Portland rain has moved in with a fury and it looks to be a soggy week ahead. All the more reason to stay in and get some paintings done!

Print news. The print I was working on with BLVD fell through and we decided to go a new direction with it which is really exciting. I'm going to get them over an original design instead of rehashing an existing painting. Should be fun! In light of the new direction, this frees up "The Wandering of the Wicked" piece so I am releasing it myself as a print. It'll be another larger 22" x 22" print. Check out the shop for more info>>>
This will be the last print I release for a couple months.

Fall is here and Fall is wonderful. I took the picture above at Multnomah Falls in Oregon. It's only 20 minutes outside of Portand and I'm sure many Portlandians have visited. It was my first time there and I'm glad I waited for Fall to kick in.

I'm in the last month or so of my upcoming solo show at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles... going crazy right now! But very, very excited for this show. The show is called "The World Unseen and Those In Between." I've been delving into the spirit world in some of my recent paintings and this show will be all about ghosts and demons and... acorns. I'll be posting a couple preview images on my Flickr site soon. Keep posted.

On the print front, I decided to release the "March of the Exiled" print as a second edition. I wanted to make a larger version of it and it looks too amazing not to go ahead with it. It's a smaller edition of 30 and is going for $125.

Thanks!

My favorite season is in the air. I can see it. I can smell it. I can feel it... Or maybe that's just gas. It's sad to say goodbye to summer, but Fall is officially the shit and I'm standing by it.
I am finally releasing 2 bigger prints of two of my favorite pieces in my Etsy store... word. They are 20" x 20" with a 1" white border, so that's some 22" x 22" print goodness if my math doesn't fail me. That's special and they are going for $135. The prints won't be ready to ship until the end of next week, but I decided to put them in the store a little early. Get these babies ready to go!
So please check out my Etsy store if you're interested.

It's been a busy couple weeks. Some of it fun busy... and some not so fun.

I got to go down to LA for the Blab! show which was amazing. I got to hang out with the ever awesome Michael Hsiung. He even let me sleep on his couch and made me eggs in the morning. What a guy. Finally got to meet Monte Beauchamp as well. He's the brains behind Blab! and been meaning to meet him for a while. The shitty part of the trip was me oversleeping my 6:00 am flight to LA... maybe whiskey drinking wasn't the best idea the night before but what the hell? I had my piece for the Blab! show with me so I HAD to make it to LA by that afternoon. Fuck. The airline tried to put me on standby but I needed a concrete plan of action so I bought another flight with a different airline. Fucking hell. Then on the way back to Portland, I go to get my boarding pass and they tell me that because I missed my flight to LA, they canceled my return flight to Portland. Major FUCKERY! After another $150 to book a new flight, I was on my way home... That extra hour of sleep ended up costing me as much as a new Playstation 3 with a couple sweet games. Instead I got a poorly printed boarding pass and more bottled up rage. Flying used to be fun right?
I also drove up to Seattle last weekend for the Travis Louie opening at Roq La Rue. I've been wanting to see his work in person for some time and I was not disappointed. How he gets that delicate of line work is beyond me. I've met Travis on the Internets before but never in person. Meeting him in person was a delight and he signed a new book of his for me called Curiosities... my god does he have some good penmanship!

I'm in the process of finding a new place to live in Portland, so I've been obsessively refreshing Craigslist apartment listings all day for the last month. Also checking out a bunch of apartments here and there has been pretty interesting. There always seemed to be one glaring factor that ruined the place. Whether it's the overbearing landlady that made us take off our shoes before entering the apartment, the extra small house that looked bigger on the posting with a creepy dog man living in the basement, the dirty litterbox smelling carpet, bedrooms to small, living room too small, and on and on. Still kind of fun though in a strange way.

In light of new move and all the costs associated with it, I'm posting a sale in my Etsy store. I'm having a buy 2 for $100 sale which will save you a handy $30. Go ahead and buy yourself something nice. And I'm also having a Buy 2 Large Prints, Get a Small Print Free sale... if you're the type that wants more bang for your buck.
You can click on my mini-Etsy store to the right to visit. Or Here.

Thanks!

I have a piece going to the Blab! Show at Copro Nason Gallery this weekend. It's an Apocalypse themed show so it should be some dark and beautiful good times. I'm actually flying down for the opening so I hope to see you there! I'm renting a car for the weekend so please don't run me off the road. I'll be the guy driving slowly looking at the GPS and cursing.

More info at:

www.blabshow.com
Copro Nason

I just survived a record heatwave here in Portland. It reached a balmy 106 degrees earlier this week and people were freaking out! Almost every store sold out of air conditioners and people were checking into hotels just for the AC's. Madness. It got so hot, that I had to sleep with my fan in my bed. Don't worry, it was consensual... I think. Anyways, I had 2 fans blasting, my window wide open and I wake up to my landlord and the building manager inspecting my apartment. They walk into my bedroom with me hugging a fan in my bed in nothing but my underwear. I jolted awake and they ran out apologizing and all I could think to say was, "I had a late night last night!" I thought it was the afternoon, so I was embarrassed to be sleeping so late, but it ended up only being 9:20 in the morning... assholes! I guess they had knocked, but whose going to hear anything with a fan blasting right in their face!
I did have to move my work into my apartment since my studio probably reached over 120 degrees... no joke. Probably would've seen visions of spirit animals if I spent more than an hour up there. In the time it took me to get my supplies out of there, my body started weeping sweat.

I just released FIVE new prints on my Etsy Store. Sweet! There is a little mini shop to the right or you can click here. Onward to Prints

I originally planned to release three, but it was too hot for my brain to decide which ones to release, so I just decided to release a bunch. Why not? I'll have some bigger prints coming out around September so more on that to come.
I'm also going to be partnering up with the BLDG to release a print of the piece, "The Wandering of the Wicked" in the near future. It'll be an 18" x 18" print with a 2" border, screen printed on Stonehenge 100% Cotton Rag paper. Nice! They are an amazing outfit and have done high quality prints for many great artists over the years and I'm honored to be on board. More info on them here--->BLDG

My friend and studio mate, Evan, recently finished a commission for a fine fellow going by the name of Nick. The painting had been finished for some months, but Nick was crazy bonkers busy touring with his band, Death Cab for Cutie. That's an awesome kind of busy. So last friday, Death Cab for Cutie was stopping in Portland to play an outdoor show at McMenamins Edgefield, which is a pretty cool spot by the way. To take advantage of this, Evan decided to go to the show and bring the piece of commissioned artwork to Nick while the window was open and the gettin' was good. Evan asked me, "Would you want to go to a free Deathcab for Cutie show?" to which I replied, "I'm your huckleberry."
Evan also decided to bring a bottle of wine to Nick of which he designed the label for. It was quite a sight to see Evan trying to get a big painting and a bottle of wine through security that have been firmly trained to slap any exceptions in the face. Following much deliberation, Evan was carted off to a different gate and all was well. After New Pornographers played, we decided to take advantage of our backstage passes and get some refreshments. Whist backstage, I meet the manager of Death Cab, Jordan, and it turns out he just bought one of my paintings from my show at Jonathan Levine Gallery. How random is that? I love when these happenings... happen. Then Jordan escorted us to the stage and we got to watch the show from the side of the stage. A good summer night indeed.

On to news of the official manner. I'll be releasing 3 new prints in August so keep posted. The store is looking mighty sad these days, but brighter days are ahead.

Got back from San Fran on Monday and have slowly been putting my life back together since. Had a super great time in San Fran and will probably post more specific details on the trip later. One highlight though was a shirtless man running up to me screaming, "YOU'RE PART OF THE REASON I'M CASTRATED!" and proceeded to punch things around me. No joke. The funny thing about that is that I really think I was part of the reason he was castrated... I used to run with a pretty rough crowd. On the way back, Evan and I traveled up the coast and camped out in the Redwoods. Wow! What a magical place. The picture above is me hanging out with Paul Bunyun... a real man. All in all, a full success of a trip.

On to some other pressing issues. As I've already hinted at, I'm going to be releasing 3 new prints shorty, but they won't be happening until the beginning of next month. I'm doing a whole restructuring thing and will have a whole new deal for August. The prints have gotten so popular that they started taking over my life... which is awesome! But doesn't leave much time to actually get any painting done. So I'm bringing someone in to take over the print business for me... Yes, that's right. I'm going to have some poor person under my employ. Hahahaha. Her name is Heidi Maas and she's an absolutely amazing human being and should treat you just fine. If she doesn't, she'll have hell to pay! So in light of having someone else doing my prints for me, I will have to bump up the prices moderately. Just $10 more so I can maintain keeping them affordable for everyone and make sure my new employee doesn't end up on the street with all the crazy castrated people running around. But I will of course be around and you can still email me about all things prints. This also solves the problem of me dealing with releasing the larger prints I have planned... now someone else can deal with all that madness and I can sell them directly from my store. Awesome!

Speaking of prints! Since it's going to be a couple weeks until the new prints and my store is looking a Depression Era grocery store, I released all my remaining AP prints of all previously sold out editions. There's only a few of each and after these AP's, they will be gone forever... forever... for... ever. So if you missed out on anything, now is the time to jump on it. I usually keep these AP's for request, but I have to put something in the store! Plus, it'll be good to start fresh in August and bring in a whole new era of printiness. Also, since I've got some help now, I will focus on getting some T-Shirts added to the store. Hopefully by the fall. Hi-fives all around.