During the day I’m a dog walker.
Did you know that?
It’s really an ideal job for someone like myself. It only takes up a few hours of the day, which leaves me plenty of time to draw the nonsense that I do. It also gives me a lot of time to think.
Some of my best ideas have occured while picking up dog poo.
I walk past this tree every day. It’s got this messed up root structure, and one day I noticed something….
Do you see it?
When I first started this blog I talked about a story called “Circus in the Woods”. It’s about a traveling circus that finds a boy in the forest who grows from the ground like a tree. I originally based the story off of a sketchbook page.
But I think somehow it all comes back to the tree.
One day she brought home some shells.
Old discarded ones, the snails all packed up and moved out. Abandoned in the various gardens and sidewalks of the city streets. Like a fingernail or stray bit of hair, biological refuse.
This was before the cold set in. Before the frost. She told me that the snail sightings were becoming few and far between. That before long they’d stop all together. Until the first rains of the Spring that is. When she could once again resume her position as a relocator.
She carefully washed the shells, and one by one they were rinsed under the tap. As she got to the last one, the biggest one, there was movement.
A hitchhiker.
“I thought it was dead!!”
She placed it in the soil of a peace lily that sits behind our living room couch.and there it’s stayed.
We call her Eve.
Several days passed and she brought another one home. Telling me as she lowered it into the plant that she feared Eve would become lonely.That she read that they do better with company.
I often come home to find her leaned over the back of the couch gazing into the plant with a flashlight, admiring our own personal little ecosystem.
She remarks on their movement; slow and measured. Smooth and graceful. It’s like time slows down when you watch them. The haze of the day and the fury of the rest of the world just seems so far away.
the commuters and the complainers
the ungrateful and the impolite
One of my greatest joys in life is my sketchbook.
I’ve been so busy lately that it’s gone neglected. I sometimes catch it out of the corner of my eye.
“Hey Patt, d’ya remembah me?” it’ll say, sensing the gap between us growing by the day.
I took some time this weekend inbetween this and that to attend to my needy sketchbook. We spent some quality time together, talked about old times, and made some cool stuff…..
In 2007 I did my first Halloween painting. Well, probably not my first. I’d drawn plenty of monsters and bloody creeps in my days, but that was the year that I consciously sat down with the intent to make a Halloween painting, and then did so.
Maybe you’ve seen it?
I recall spamming several hundred different people’s myspace pages with it. Do you remember myspace?
Maybe I’m dating myself.
Get off my lawn….
I continued the Halloween pieces for the next three years. Cramming as many creeps and goons as possible into each one. If you want to check out the first four years go HERE
This year I was asked to do somethin BIG for the Halloween show for Space 242 at Fourth Wall Project. Originally the idea was to do a gigantic halloween collage. Much like I’d done in the past but on a much larger scale.
So, I thought about it and my heart wasn’t in it. I’d done the big monster collages for the past four years. I worried it would just be more of the same.
But, I still wanted to do a Halloween piece. So I thought, and there they were…
The first sculpture I ever made was for the exhibit I worked on at The Shelburne Museum. I did two of them and they came out great. I’d made a couple more since, but never anything on such a large scale.
Instead of going with the familiar, doing what I’d already done before, I decided to go for broke…
I remember when you were just a block of styrofoam and pipes.
wire and tinfoil.
Spencer couldn’t take his eyes off of it. Throughout the whole time I worked on the girls he kept me good company. My dog was afraid of them and never visited me.
Lasagna pan pelvis’
The finished armature
For the clay I used Magic Sculpt. I really recommend it. It’s a two part epoxy resin. It’s just like clay, but you don’t need a kiln. It just hardens on it’s own.
I was originally going to do the base in solid black
Glad I went with the planks
I brought them to the gallery this morning, which wasn’t an easy task. They probably weigh about 70lbs. I used 60lbs of clay alone. They measure 3 feet wide by 4.5 feet tall.
On the way down the stairs I missed a step and one of the ladies lost her fingers.
It could have been worse. I glued them back on as soon as we got to the gallery.
It could have been SOOOOO much worse.
They’ll be on display for FOUR DAYS ONLY! October 28-31
Opening Reception Friday, October 28 7-9pm
Costume Ball/Contest Saturday, October 29, 7-9pm
Gallery Hours: 1-7 Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday
SPACE 242 at Fourth Wall Project
132 Brookline Avenue, Fenway, Boston
[space242.com] [fourthwallproject.com]
I also have two pieces in an AMAZING show: A Collection of Bostonia Collectives. It’s at the Lincoln Arts Project (289 Moody st. Waltham MA)
So many artists that I love are involved with this one. The closing reception is Friday, October 28 (7-11)
Stop by and check them both out.
It’s that time of year…
You can tell a lot about a person based on which season they prefer. They all have their high points and low points. Positives and negatives.
I’m a fall person.
orange leaves. soup. sweaters.
You summer people are a bunch of psychos. Did you know that Gacy had an ice cream truck? Berkowitz had NYC in a panic during the Summer of ’77. Think about it…
I’ll take sweaters and soup over mass murder and humidity any day.
Another Fall highlight is of course……..
HALLOWEEN
Okay, mass murder is cool on Halloween.
I have dressed up as Dracula, The Headless Horseman, and Kris Kross (you know, the kids with the backwards clothes. yeah.). Which is more horrifying? I don’t know.
But to put it simply, I have always been a big fan of Halloween.
Oh, and vampires. I love vampires.
Which is why I couldn’t say no to doing some art for the credits of a short film made by some friends. “Vampire” is the brainchild of Mr. Phil Healy of I Hunger Productions, and it’s a short film about… well you’ll have to see it when it’s out. It’s really cool and I was glad to be a part of it. I’ll keep you updated as to when and where you can check it out. In the meantime….
Here are ze credits-
And don’t think I forgot about the Halloween piece. It’s almost done, I actually think I’ll finish it up tomorrow. But until then here are my ladies in progress…
So there’s this dead dinosaur that some kids find in the woods. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before….
I finished my first graphic novel on Monday. It took just under a year to complete all 122 pages, and I really can’t believe that I’m done with it. It’s called “What am I Going to Do Without You?”. It’s a story about life and death, with the dinosaur serving as a backdrop for the three groups of characters and the events that are about to unfold.
There’s this girl Katrina who has a dog called Lilly.
and Jeanie. A goth girl vs her mother…..
and the world
Then there’s Murray and Flo who just found out that Murray is sick.
It’s about what we do when we’re thrown a curveball, and what we learn from it.
I started a graphic novel about five years ago called “Pan”, about a boy born wearing a pair of pants. It was a roadtrip story about a kid in a messed up situation looking for something better. I never made it past the 25th page and today it sits underneath my desk collecting dust. Done in a style that barely represents what I do today it’s something that if I ever wanted to revisit I’d have to completely do over and I’m not sure I want to do that.
All of the time that I poured into it and it died. I didn’t want that to happen again. So I stuck it out, and came up with something that I’m genuinely proud of. I poured my heart into this thing, and it payed off.
I was out today walking the dogs and realized I’m done. I’ll never see any of these characters again the way I had this past year, and I miss them. Is that weird? Maybe I just miss the routine. We are creatures of habit, are we not? In the past few months I’ve been working out a new story in my head, and I think it’s good. Once I’m done with all of the post production stuff with this book I’ll be starting on the next one. (more info soon)
It’s been a really cool experience, and I can’t wait to do it again. My goal is to get it published. I’ll be printing a few copies and sending them out to comic publishers who I respect and who put out cool books. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we’ll get this puppy made.
I originally posted sketches of the first six pages on September 20th of last year here, and then later posted those finished pages in a different post here.
After the rain…..
She sends me pictures of them. Next to dimes, displayed on the end of her finger. All to give me a sense of how small they can be.
She tells me that they congregate on the wrought iron fences, and when they stray too far they’re sometimes scorched by the sun.
That’s why she moves them.
Saves them from such an unfortunate death.
The recently hatched are her favorite. Shells still soft. Tiny and vulnerable, she cares for them as the commuters hurry past. Unaware of anything but themselves….
Giant Eyeball is a new site formed by Dan Gaynor and myself, granted Dang did all of the hard work. I kind of just sat back in my easy chair eating Cheetos, trying to catch my breath.
We call it a Comic Artist Collective. Basically we’ll be posting some new comics, works in progress, illustrations, whatever.
I first met Dang (although I’ve never actually met him in person) a few years ago after we both appeared in Jamie Smart‘s Fat Chunk anthology, we’ve been in touch ever since. He lives in Ireland. I live in the US. So it’s really cool to kind of put our work together and post it on the web for anybody to see.
You can find the site HERE. Please stop by often and leave lots of comments.
Be sure to check out Dang’s 2 page comic “Resurfacing” it is awesome!!!
I was recently asked to do a piece accompanying an article/interview with Max Bemis of the band Say Anything for Vessel Collective. The project will collect thirteen different illustrators’ takes on the thirteen songs off of the band’s 2009 self titled record.
I’ve always thought that music and art mix well together. For my “Mixtape” show at Space 242 a while back I did interpretations, abstractions, of various song lyrics…
“I’m Miss World, somebody kill me.”
Hole- Miss World
“Our house was filled with many birds, she said to me I can understand their words”
Frank Black – I Burn Today
So, while still dealing with music, this time around I had to do an interpretation of a song.
The song I got was “Less Cute”, which is about a love triangle where a girl is infatuated with some guy who could care less, so she gets another guy to make the first jealous.
Complicated I know, but it was a fun project.
Here it is….
So, I’ve been busy…
I just had the opportunity to work on another show poster for Angioplasty Media Future Islands!!!!
I wasn’t alone on this one though, it was the first collab I’ve done in a while, and I couldn’t be happier with how the final piece came out.
We have a bunch of beautiful Annie Sollinger art in our house…
So it was only fitting that we collaborate on this poster. We decided on an Earth/Water theme. Annie provided the earth, I brought the water. Mix together and…..
In addition to the poster I was asked by Evoker (Ryan Robidoux) to do a page for a zine he’s putting together for a show and zine library at Powerhouse Books in Brooklyn
Speaking of Ryan we have an Evoker original Cupcake Monster in our kitchen…
So the zine is going to be called “Monster Truck Keg Party Massacre.” How could I not be involved? Here’s my page…
