If case you were not aware, Dan has his own Facebook page. If you haven’t been there, you should go there and “Like” him. he really needs to be liked. He’s insecure like that.

Also, there is a discussion section about whether or not Dan is an existentialist. I guess it’s not all that interesting, but it’s there if you’d like to partake in the discussion. That is, if you feel so inclined.

I have been having thought of, get this, making a small comic book about Dan. Of course, it will come after this other ambitious project of my artist book, Houses, but I’d like to do a cheap comic book about Dan and all the places he likes to go and the things he likes to do because he is quite interesting. The more I spend time with him and the more I get to know him, I find him fascinating. I think other people will find him interesting too.

I was talking about my 5-year plan before and I thought about how top secret they were. Then I thought again about how stupid that was. Why do artists keep their shit so secret? Are my ideas so great that people are going to steal them? Yeah right. Fuck that. If people want to take my ideas, great. Let them. They’re not going to. They’re really not all that great to begin with. Secondly, if they were to take them, they wouldn’t be executed the same way anyway.

So here’s how my 2011-2016 plan is scribbled in my moleskin notebook. I’ll go over some of the items to explain. Some are brought over from 2010.

Land a NYC gallery

Build a paper drum set
This will be actual size and made out of manila pattern paper. Then I think I will pour paint on top of it. Haven’t decided yet.

The Brief Case Project
This is a metal briefcase that contains original, miniature paintings of large scale paintings that travel with me like a salesman.

Ethereal Research Labs
An Editions project of soft sculptures in Erlenmeyer flasks that are tagged as scientific specimens.

Win another big grant

Mount 2 solos shows and 1 solo museum show

Get a painting in a museum collection

Land a Berlin gallery

Sell a painting for at least $10k

Do an artist’s residency for at least a month at Yaddo, MacDowell, or Millay

Create 2 new bodies or work
The first one consisting of mainly coffee stains on raw canvas, colored underpaint, black and brown thick covered oil paint with scraffito design scratchings revealing the color underneath and embroidered outlines. The edges will be penciled notations.

Make 3 new artists’ book editions

Have the 1st draft of the novel completed
I have been working on a novel for a while now. Very slow going, but I guess you’d call it creative non-fiction. It’s the full story of my life and all the people in it and it’s unapologetic.

Do a large embroidery on a hospital gown

Finish the Picklebird database
Picklebird is my database of all the art and books I have collected in my entire lifetime (the good stuff anyway). I intend to make it an online public collection.

Create a short animated film about my family

Build an interactive character blog
This is something that will be released with my novel, but I will be working on it beforehand. It is basically a site with a multi blog section and interactive functions that the user can have with my illustrated and animated family members.

So There you have it. That’s the plan. Fingers and toes crossed.

So I’m working on a new book. I know, I know… too many books at once! But this is different because this one I’m making. This is not a book that a publisher is making for me. This is going to be a very small edition of 5 handmade artist’s books. Very fine. Very involved. They will all be slightly different because they will all be somewhat original works of art.

It’s called Houses, based on a poem of the same title. It’s a poem I wrote a long time ago and it’s basically chopped up amongst the pages. The pages are french folds, some are letterpressed, some have etchings, some are original watercolor paintings, one has a block print, some are digital prints. The covers are cereal boxes. 2 of the pages will be embroidered. That’s going to be tricky, but I’ll do it. It’s gonna be expensive. It’ll be a Japanese stab binding and have some nice handmade, flower-pressed paper in it. 6 x 9 inches. You’ll see.

I’ve only made the dummy books so far. And just got the plates for the etchings. I haven’t even filed the edges yet. I was gonna do that today if I don’t fall asleep soon. I’m going to etch them myself in the garage with hard ground, then in a tupperware bin with ferric chloride. Then I’ll print them with Poli Marichal at Self Help Graphics. I’m gonna have Bill Roberts do the letterpress work, and I’m going to “die-cut” the covers by hand. I just have to eat a lot of cereal now.

I don’t know what else is going on. I’ve written a 5-year plan, but I haven’t done much in the way of any artwork. I’ve just been planning out this new art book, signing and drawing on the Monsters on Jasmine St. book, and just taking a break, waiting for the well to fill back up. I have ideas roaming around in my head and I’ve been trying to decipher which plans to execute and which to trash. I have a couple lingering projects that need finishing up, namely my Ethereal Research Labs Project. That will be finished this year for sure – without a doubt. That’s been a long time in the making. It involves launching the first 7 editions and a virtual domain. The one that’s been parked there for a couple years now is just a taste.

I looked back on my 2010 plan and I got most of the things done, minus a couple things. I feel pretty accomplished, but I would have liked to have finished the above mentioned project and built a large paper sculpture I have been planning for years. I suppose I will try for that in 2011. I also wanted to do a big embroidery on a hospital gown. Everything else I wanted to do got done thanks to circumstances I don’t think were all in my control really. Well, maybe a little bit.