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From a Distance

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

So the past few days I’ve been on the fence – do I go to Tuscaloosa? Do I not?. I’m confused.

As it stands now, there’s quite a few people coming in to see my Aunt Susie at the hospice facility. It sounds like a wonderful place.

I don’t know, if you’re wondering why I haven’t been writing in my blog – especially since I have this great Kickstarter Campaign happening, it’s because I really don’t know what to say at the moment. It doesn’t mean I’m not excited about my project. I totally am! I’m just also dealing with this thing with my aunt too, and I don’t feel much like writing to anybody, if that makes sense.

You know when you just want to be alone with your thoughts? I’m usually so up for sharing mine, but just not right now. Not about what I’m feeling right now. Not tonight, in this moment.

Lately, I have been just diving, no, burying myself in tasks so I don’t have to think about it. I built this rock garden over the last week in my backyard:

It looks better from above:

Don’t be too impressed. I had help:

But between you and me – and don’t tell her this – she really wasn’t much help at all. In fact, there were times she even managed to slow down the entire operation! The job took about a week. Good thing I wasn’t on it every day. It was just something I was doing to calm my nerves, and it super worked. I just don’t have the room in my yard to keep building rock gardens.

Whatever the case, when I was finished with this one, I felt very accomplished, even though I kept chipping away at this thing in my pajamas, so please excuse how frumpily floppy I appear here.

I’ve also been building the ExodusJoshuaTree.com website, but I can’t show that to you yet. It’s pretty simple and straight forward, and really not much to it (now that I’m finally coding it), but it just took a long time to design it. I got picky, then not so picky, got some opinions, got a little sad, tried again, liked it better, started hating it, started over again, changed it a lot, then changed it a little, started seeing monkeys… You know. The usual.

So, I’m still tweaking it a little …I think.

My Kickstarter is 36% funded with about 25 days to go! Pretty good, eh? Although, I was getting pledges like mad the first couple days, and now, none the last couple days. NONE! Not even a pledge for a postcard. What’s up? What do I need to do?

First of all, I probably need to post MUCH better pictures of myself. Okay, okay, I will! I promise! I will look around for some and I will find some fashion shots that will blow your socks off. Will that do it? I’ll try it.

Almost Didn’t

March 13, 2014March 13, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

I almost didn’t launch my Kickstarter last night. I was actually fixin’ to launch earlier in the day.

I went out to lunch with Ellie Blankfort. Always filled with such joy and learning for me when I see her. What can you say about a friend that leaves you feeling more and more healed every time?

When I got home, there were a bunch of messages on my voice mail – never a good sign since I usually have none. And they all came from Alabama where my Aunt Susie lives. My Aunt Susie, whom, last I checked, was in full remission after five rounds of chemo for stage 4 breast cancer. It was some kind of miracle.

I’ve probably mentioned this story about how my brother and I went out to see her days after we received this news and, what we thought was going to be a trip of “goodbyes,” wound up being a trip about celebration. We were able to see her and my cousin Lisa – eight and a half months pregnant – her husband, and my little 2nd cousin Damon.

But not just six weeks after we left, Lisa overdosed and died, leaving her brand new baby boy, Samuel, her other son, Damon, her husband Tim, and my aunt (her mother), Susie, all in wake – not to mention my brother and I. It was a shock. Then again, it wasn’t.

Yesterday, the messages I received were even worse. Susie is in the hospital. The cancer has spread to her brain. No longer able to respond, I am the one to decide on life support. Also, the boys are in Child Protective Services and there is going to be a 72 hour hearing about their placement on Friday at 10:am. The kids will either be going to their other grandparents, or my brother’s family – and who can make a decision like this under such time constraints?! But a decision needs to be made or else they are going into foster care.

On top of that, I find out that Tim died last Thursday. No one knows how exactly, but we can all only guess.

By the time the night came, exhausted from crying and making about 1000 phone calls, I just pushed the “launch” button. Susie wouldn’t want me to hold up my work, and for who knows how long this can all drag on? The work was already done. The button just needed to be pressed and I can go back to making all my phone calls. Maybe it’s inappropriate, but I need the distraction in all honesty. She is the last of my immediate relatives (besides my brother).

So this morning we are moving her to a hospice facility. She will be gone any day, any time, any moment. She has an older granddaughter that keeps coming to see her, but she says Susie is just sleeping peacefully, and there is no way my brother, nor I, can make it out to Tuscaloosa now. All I can do is place others around her and hope she knows I am putting all her interests in place.

The Kickstarter Campaign Has Begun!

March 12, 2014March 14, 2014Ayin Es1 Comment

I’ve done it! I have finally launched, my long-awaited Kickstarter campaign:

An Exodus in Joshua Tree – and – it is what it is.

It is not the greatest video on Earth, and in fact, it’s pretty crappy, but, I had a LOT of problems, like not being able to use my good camera (it’s broken), and just a whole bunch of other roadblocks in general, PLUS the fact that I don’t know how to make videos! I’m also obviously not a very good public speaker. It was really hard to put myself out there and you can hear every little vulnerability in my voice. I hate that I am so easily read sometimes. But… it is what it is.

Well, maybe now that it’s out there, everything I’ve been going on about will make a little more sense? I was going to have a bigger lead-up to this, like make it more like a story that would keep everyone on the edge of their seats, but I just couldn’t wait any longer to get this thing launched already. It’s not like I am submitting something for the Oscars, it’s just something to make people understand what my idea for this exhibition is. I hope I at least did that successfully.

PLEASE, pass it around. Fingers crossed. We’ll see what happens.

Something on the Horizon!

March 10, 2014March 10, 2014Ayin Es2 Comments

I’ve been working my ass off lately. Now, I’m positive that when people do “normal” things in their life, they don’t feel like they are working their “ass off,” but I sure do. I feel like my ass is missing if I just go to the store, or take a shower, or, like today, make a circle in the dirt.

That’s right. I made a circle in the dirt. And that wiped me out! So much, that I came back inside and passed out for an hour.

When I got up, I went back outside and started to fill the circle with rocks and planted a few tiny cacti around the outside of the circle. And all of that business did not make me feel nearly as tired as building that circle in the first place!

I just thought you all should know that.

Oh, before I move on to the next deal-o, I finally met Gregg Chadwick, fellow blogger, who has also had his blog up from since to DAWN OF TIME! I met him at one of Peter Clothier‘s One Hour/One Painting sessions at Rosamund Felson’s Gallery. This was on one of Marcia Roberts‘ paintings. It was an incredible experience. First of all, I had never actually done one of these with Peter, I’m ashamed to say – because I know him and I just haven’t put my ducks in line to get my ass into gear to go to one. He does these things frequently and I highly recommend doing it – on a painting you admire OR NOT! Because that doesn’t even matter. I had such a wake up call, and I am someone who believes in that saying …I think it was Agnes Martin, who said something about only needing a chair with a painting? Somebody should comment and let me know what that quote is. But my point is that I am a keen observer of paintings anyway.

But anyway, Gregg Chadwick was there and he is lovely, and I was so happy to meet him in de flesh. And now I think he might join Artists’ Matters – possibly. He’s going as my guest tomorrow night and we’ll see what happens. Check out his paintings here.

Okay, so also, I have been spending an enormous amount of time putting my Kickstarter campaign together. Yup! I am about to launch one! Any time now. You’ll see. Buckle up. This one is going to big, and I am going to be talking about this a LOT, so I certainly hope I do not become overly annoying. I mean, more annoying then I already am, but I truly need to raise funds for this goal, so bear with me. It is a very important project that I very much hope you will be able to back me on, in any way you can. Even your nice thoughts will work!

I have spent the last three weeks, and I kid you not, working on this thing, non stop! When you see it, you’ll think to yourself, How on Earth did that take her three weeks? I could have done that on my coffee break!

Well, you most certainly could have! Most people, and most eight year-olds could have done the video in about the same time the video is, which I think is something like four minutes. So, that’s the amount of time it would have take most people who know how to use an iPhone.

But apparently, I like to do things in the hardest way possible – but listen – I swear – never on purpose!

I happen to have a Sony DCR-TRV9000. If you know what that is, it was like the first tier “handicam” that was created to make HD motion pictures. You could actually make a real “Sundance” film on this thing. Not the best one ever, but it would pass. I got it for a steal a while ago, when I had this great plan to film my family and make a controversial film about how fucked up they were. My inspiration for that was most definitely: Tarnation. If you have never seen that – it is a masterpiece!

Oh, now…I guess I’m getting into the story a bit, but I’ll give you the short version.

Once I got the cam in my hands, everything changed. I had always made fun of my family in my art, but as soon as I watched it from that cam… Let’s just say I had what you call, a

Well, it was 2007 and I had a nervous breakdown. Okay?

There. Because of this camera.

And so, it sat in the bag for years! I didn’t touch it. But then I had this new idea for a project that required video. I said, Hey, I have a great cam! And I pulled it out and drove out to Joshua Tree, and low and behold, the mic started to clip, until it was just broken. I was trying to do my Kickstarter video there. It would have taken a few minutes. A take or two at the most!

I figured, I’d pull the footage off and narrate over it, but then there was no firewire to connect to the computer. I ordered one, and that didn’t work. Finally, I was so frustrated, I filmed the footage from the television on another camera and thought it looked kinda “cool.” (Not!)

When I went to narrate, I had no microphone at all. The one on my laptop was shit. So I had to buy a new one.

This is getting boring, but do you see how all this got to be three weeks?

Anyway, don’t count on three weeks equaling a great production. It’s the dorkiest thing I think I’ve ever made, but I do hope you’ll be excited about my project. So stay tuned!

The Project

March 5, 2014March 5, 2014Ayin EsLeave a comment

It’s all about the project. It’s not like I’m just now realizing that, I’m just telling you. That’s what it’s always about.

I think before I was guilty about it, and now I am more accepting of it. It’s like, now it’s all okay with me. I don’t know why I used to feel guilty, for always being on a project, for always being busy, for always doing, for being ambitious. I mean, that’s who I am, and why should I apologize for it? I think it’s been because I’ve always had a couple people in my life that I know have/had been judging me about it. They wanted me to feel ashamed about it – for whatever reason, I do not know, but fuck ’em.

Today I spent the day with one of my besties, artist, Rochelle Botello. She and I can talk about art, process, and art projects until the cows come home. What does that saying mean, anyway? Why were the cows away from home, and why is it that the time it takes them to come home is supposedly really lengthy? I understand, “until the sun comes up.” That means a lot of hours, but what’s up with those cows?

Anyhow, she and I had a good day. It feels good to be able to talk to someone else that understands all the ins and outs of the life of an artist; things like naming an exhibition, or expressing narrative in the artwork both while in you’re in the process of it, and while you’re driving down the street – kinda like texting while driving! Or even talking about where you are on your current projects. I use this blog for that a lot (obviously).

Speaking of Rochelle, and projects, we were just at a book symposium on Sunday at Otis, which was super interesting. I was also finally able to see my show there. I was blown away with how my book was displayed in the same display box with Nikki de Saint Phalle, Laura Owens, Paul McCarthy, Dieter Roth, Anat Shalev, and Carolee Schneemann! The box next to me had an amazing Kara Walker book too. Crazy. Plus, there was a beautiful Nikki de Saint Phalle accordion book out and displayed on top of one of the boxes.

The symposium had a few good speakers and a poet. Most interesting was book artist, Sarah Bryant. She had a number of books in the show and spoke a lot about her process and her different projects past, present, and future, and even did a book demonstration on how to do an accordion type folio. She made me feel so much better about being a book artist in general. Everything from how much trash I made, how fussy I am, to self imposed deadlines. I’m not the only one! I felt like I was probably in a whole audience of people just like me, and the key speaker was making us all feel like we weren’t all freaks.

Her books are all very “graphic design” looking, to me anyway, but there were a few that had such lovely elements that reminded me of old-skool typography mixed with modern, abstract minimalism. It was very aesthetic and clean, but not antiseptic or anything like that. Go to her website and check out her books. They are cool. I especially love the cut-outs in this abstract book the most.

And so speaking of books, I’m still fussing with the Monographie book. Always little “problems” I run into, and things to fix, plus shit I change my mind about. Now I’m going to bore you with some of it, because, well, why not? If you get sleepy, have some cocaine.

I decided to have one color page in the front, but not full color, just spot color. It’s such a small detail to make a large change over, but I was already making some other changes at the time, like the fact that I had spelled “foreword” wrong in a couple places (I spelled it “foreward”). I had to fix that typo anyway, and a few drawings needed changing as far as what kinds of files they needed to be.

Remember I had to learn Adobe Illustrator and InDesign “real quick” before finishing this book? Well, I realized that not every file looked “good” once they were a vector image. Drawings with lots and lots of small scribbles in them don’t work as vectors. They only work as super, high resolution jpgs, like 600 DPI, otherwise, as vectors, those scribbles lose detail and wind up looking like ink splatters.

So I had to change a few of those drawings. I also had to reformat some of the text that is in there, albeit, there isn’t much. Michael‘s foreword is barely three pages, and I only wrote a few paragraphs in the back, otherwise the whole book is just drawings – more than 60 now. The entire book is 154 pages total.

And that’s the final count. It’s done. The PDF is finished, formatted and ready for the printer, and the front and back cover plates (for letterpress) are being ordered tomorrow. And I’ll be dammed if I lift another finger, other than signing and numbering them!

I used to do all my own letterpressing, but Bill will take it from here. I just need to put together a few bucks.

And speaking of a few bucks, that brings me to my Kickstarter project…

Okay, I’m tired. To be continued! Oh, I’m not done yet. I’m never done.

(All these photos were taken by Rochelle Botello.)