From One Side of this Small Planet to the Other...

I have just returned to Lund from a 2-week journey back to Taos. The reasons for my trip were work-related; I exhibited two large sculptures at The PASEO (Taos's own interactive street art festival run by our good friend J. Matt Thomas), and I did maintenance and modifications on two more sculptures which will travel to other festivals in the near future (more on that later).

Traveling one-third of the way around the world (8-hour time difference) for such a short time is quite an experience. For one thing, jet-lag is real. And it's even more real when you are immediately moving big metal things around with heavy equipment upon arrival. I'm lucky I didn't hurt myself!

For another thing, that 8-hour time difference, in my case, represents the gulf between small-town New Mexico... 

and urban Sweden...

and bouncing around so quickly offers a good opportunity to see some differences between the places. I will circle back around to that later as well, because what's more interesting is...

My trip back to Taos was unexpectedly fun. To be perfectly honest I was not much looking forward to it. I anticipated it being a lot of work (which it definitely was), but I also worried that it would feel like 'a step backwards,' when I really would prefer to focus my energy on being here in Lund... on looking forward. Well, these worries were largely unfounded. 

I listened to an episode of the podcast Hidden Brain which discussed some of the ways in which our perceptions of ourselves are often wrong. One example used in the podcast was a story of a guy who referred to himself as an asocial loner, and yet who was often the social life of the party, and I couldn't help wonder as I listened if there was not perhaps some similarity there to me. I often also think of myself as someone for whom social ties are not all that important, and so as I anticipated my return to Taos I gave very little thought to what it might be like to see all the people I know there. And yet, reconnecting with the wonderful community there was probably the highlight for me. I felt well taken care of genuinely missed. And I'll tell you this: if you want to feel appreciated, just do the following: tell everyone in your community that you are moving away, and then actually move away, and then with little warning come back 6 weeks later. Ideally, if possible, make this surprise return visit during a cultural event in which you are featured. It will work every time, I promise!

While there in Taos I got the chance to attend my old figure-drawing group one night, and they actually threw a little low-key party in my honor. I gave a little impromptu speech talking about what a great group it is, and when I said that I missed everyone, a few people interrupted with "We miss you!" Aww.. it brought a tear to my eye! 

Group photo from the evening

And a few of my drawings from that night. I was afraid I would have "lost it" after not having drawn for so long, but they're not too bad. I have finally found a figure drawing group in Malmö which I'll attend one of these days.

As far as making my time in Taos really nice, special thanks go to our neighbors Todd and Marlena, and our pals Matt and Richard who hosted me in their dreamy little guest house.

The PASEO itself was tons of fun. 

I showed Face Forward...

... and Garraplata (or, translated: SilverClaw, or just: The Lobster), which presided over two nights of some pretty rockin' Silent Disco!

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So what about those previously mentioned differences between rural New Mexico and urban Lund, Sweden, which I mentioned before and which I claim to have such insights about? Well, most of them are pretty obvious, to be honest. New Mexico is more wild; Sweden is more organized. New Mexico is poorer, and you can see it in the people who have fallen through the cracks (the gaping crevasses) of the social fabric, as well as in the crazy cars and dilapidated buildings. People talk about the social safety net here in Sweden and apparently they're not all lying; the evidence of a generally elevated standard of living is all around you. 

I think that if you are looking for it, you can see subtle and not-so-subtle differences in the two places which reflect the two underlying systems - free-market capitalism versus democratic socialism - upon which they are built. A friend of a friend called Europe "more humane" and I think that's one good way to put it. There are so many places in America (and Taos is one of them) where if you don't have a car, you are fucked. Public transportation is often rudimentary and inefficient, or simply nonexistent. Airports and other transportation hubs are laid out so as to be easy for those who have cars, and really inconvenient for those who don't. In America if you can't buy good health insurance you get a lower level of care. If you can't pay for a good education, you'll get a bad one instead. We all know that capitalism is a survival-of-the-fittest type system, but what I find interesting in America is that the structure of the place almost seems to punish those who are already struggling. Here in our neck of the woods, or at least in the Copenhagen - Malmö - Lund corridor, the public transportation is so good that you don't need a car, the health care and education are high-quality and free to all, and people in the public service sector actually seem to want to help you. Democratic socialism. You get the idea. (I have been told, however, that Sweden currently has the 2nd-highest rate of increasing socioeconomic disparity in the world, second only to North Korea. I guess it's hard to keep capitalism down.)

People in Sweden are, in general, more beautiful and quite a bit taller. At 6 feet I feel reasonably tall in the US. At 6 feet I feel decidedly average here in Sweden. I would guess that 50% of Scandinavian men and perhaps 5% of Scandinavian women are taller than me. 

But for the moment, the most interesting and baffling difference for me is the disparity in eye contact. I mentioned this in my last post but I am compelled to revisit it briefly because, after my visit to Taos, I see with renewed clarity the starkness of the difference. In Taos (and I think this is largely true for America... isn't it?), people look at each other. People look at each other on the street, in the supermarket, even while driving. People don't look at each other here nearly as much. It's weird. There is something broadly socio-psychological going on here, and I don't yet know what it is. At this point my only theory is a bit murky, having something to do with 'security' of social standing. Something like: in America, people are constantly trying to figure out how they measure up to everyone else, or where they fit in the social/economic/sexual hierarchy of things, while in Sweden, because conditions are more broadly egalitarian, there is less anxiety about individual standing - more of a sense of security - and so there is less need to visually check oneself against others. Have I cracked the problem, here? I don't really know... I think there must be more to it than that. It feels like there's a lack of curiosity about other people here. Why aren't people more curious about each other here? 

There is, however, an exception. I have, on exactly three occasions, had sustained eye contact with pedestrians when I was either on a bicycle or in our car. This suggests a different theory, which is that people might actually be curious, but simply don't want to risk eye contact when there's a chance of it developing into something else... such as perhaps a conversation (Oh, the horror!). One person being in a vehicle presumably guards against this terrifying possibility. I was part of a conversation recently in which it was suggested that Swedes are pretty hard to perturb or offend, unless you try to sit next to one of them on a bus, or try to actually talk to one of them. So perhaps this 'eye contact problem' is just another iteration of the famous 'Scandinavian coldness.' But if this is the case, I then wonder... "Well why are they so cold, so insular?"

There is something deep in the culture here that I'm going to have to keep investigating...

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For some years now I have consistently identified Jonathan Glazer's 2000 film Sexy Beast as my favorite film of all time, and yet I've always had a hard time explaining why exactly I liked it so much. I knew it had something to do with a certain identification I felt with the main character, played by Ray Winstone. Sexy Beast now has some competition for the top spot in the form of Pablo Larraín's 2021 film Spencer, a highly speculative and somewhat surreal interpretation of three days in the life of Princess Diana. I watched the film three times (!) during my Taos trip, and am looking forward to seeing it again. Even though I've always felt a weird connection with Diana based on our near-identical birthdays and the fact that I sustained the most devastating injury of my life (shattering my calcaneus (heel bone)) on the day she died, my appreciation for the movie has little to do with her. I am entranced by the movie for two reasons. Firstly, Kristen Stewart in the title role is fucking amazing. Entrancing. Mesmerizing. And gorgeous. A huge percentage of the movie is just tight closeups on her, and she just carries the whole fucking movie in those closeups. I can't take my eyes off her. Secondly, there are elements of the protagonist's arc which parallel that of the protagonist's arc in Sexy Beast, and which thereby finally shed some light on why I identify with Ray Winstone's character, and which furthermore must have some relevance to my life, personally. 

Specifically, each character is struggling for a kind of freedom from stricture, a freedom to live the kind of life that they choose for themselves, rather than a kind of life that others are trying to make for them. If we work from the assumption that seemingly unexplained outpourings of emotion are important keys to our inner lives, and if we furthermore examine the fact that the first time I read the following lyrics for Warduna’s epic song “Helvegen"...

"You will be free from the bonds that bind you
You are free from the bonds that bound you" 

... I immediately started crying, I think it’s safe to say that there is something deeply meaningful for me in the concept of freedom and self-determination. 

Well I've been yammering on for so long about films and emotional reactions that I can’t quite remember whether or not you asked me to take a self indulgent detour into self-analysis. But there you have it. 

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Now, back to Sweden. Almost 5 years ago, in my post of October 17th, 2017, I posted the following slide: 

...and I post it now, again, because as a family we are, again, at the irritability phase. Specifically, Kodiak is at the irritability phase. And to some degree, Kodiak being in that phase brings us into that phase as well.

Moving a family across the world into a new culture sounds like an awesome and romantic thing to do, and of course it is. But it's also a move into a place where you have no friends, you don't know how things work and it's therefor hard to get things done, and you likely don't speak the language (which is true for Kodiak and me). When the initial euphoria wears off, these impediments become real factors. The slide above normalizes this process, and reminds us that it is just one step on a path. 

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We are getting close to making some art again. Christina has been accepted at KKV, the community-run art workshop in Malmö, and I will likely be accepted soon as well. Our individual art studios are all set up here in the house. Now all we need is some time.

Speaking of art, while in Taos I struck a deal with our good friend Sasha Vom Dorp in which we got two large prints of his beautiful photographs to put up in our new house. Christina and I each chose an image (and boy was that difficult), and in exchange Sasha will get some of our artwork. Thanks Sasha, your work is so beautiful!

Vi ses!

What the hell are they doing over there?

"So what the hell are they doing over there?" I can hear you asking, my faithful reader.
"What is it like to land in a different country? How are they spending their days? In what ways is Sweden different from the US? Or from Taos?" Even though I'm on the other side of the world, I can clearly hear you wondering. 

Or maybe that's just me, trying to make sense of all this change.

Well, I have answers.

I can start by saying that IT'S A LOT. As in: THERE'S A LOT TO DO.

In no particular order, our days are consumed by:

• Getting Kodiak to school, and back (although he's just on the cusp of riding his bike there and back by himself.. which is a big step!!)
• Walking Griselda, or doing whatever it takes to exhaust her inexhaustible energy
• Finding bicycles (we got through that already)
• Managing the arrival of the container (still not here, arriving Friday, lots of paperwork)
• Trying to learn the road signs here so we can drive legally
• Dealing with the paperwork associated with moving here, which differs for me than for Christina, but involves:
-Getting the residency permit card (me)
-Trying to get a personal number, which you need for pretty much everything (me)
-Getting Kodiak registered so he can get health insurance, etc.
-Trying to register our business here
-Insuring our house, and car (car: see below)
And while doing all of the above, we are also of course trying to...
• Explore this place we now live in
• Do fun things with Kodiak in the afternoons and on weekends
• Make art (or at least make plans for making art)
• And learn Swedish. It is perhaps not too surprising that I am not yet finding a ton of time to practice my Swedish.

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We bought a car last week... a VW Up! (The exclamation point is not my editorializing, it's part of the vehicle name)

One interesting thing is that buying and registering a car is quite a bit easier here than in the states. Here in Sweden (and this was true in Spain as well) you do NOT have to visit a government office of any kind to buy a car, and you do not have to show anyone your driver's license. Everything is done by mail. We do not yet have our Swedish driver's licenses, but this was no impediment to buying the car. With the exception of a VW diesel bug that we had a few years ago, this is certainly the smallest car we've ever owned. But... it does get between 42 and 60 mpg.

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Way back in 2016, when we moved to Barcelona, I wrote that visiting a town's thrift stores and book stores (especially used book stores) was one of the ways that I got to know the place. Well, Lund and Malmö have some pretty good thrift stores. The best thing I've yet to find, by far, is this taxidermy Peregrine Falcon... (at least I think it's a Peregrine Falcon...)

I haven't really found any amazing used book stores here yet, which is slightly surprising considering it's a university town. But I have not, by any means, exhausted the search.

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I think it's a natural human instinct to want to compare things... or compare places, in this case... and I find myself often comparing life here in Lund to life back in Taos. But I think it's important that I be careful in the way that I construct my comparisons so that they are meaningful. What I mean to say is this: when one considers, for instance, the fact that Lund has quite a few public-access, outdoor workout facilities...

... it is tempting to jump to the conclusion that "Sweden just takes better care of its citizens than America." But is this really a comparison between Sweden and America? Or between rural and urban? Taos is a tiny town which I would call more rural than urban (and a poor little town, at that) and Lund is a city (albeit a small one.) By population Lund is 15 times larger than Taos, and considerably wealthier. So a more fair question would be: How well does a wealthy little American town of ~90,000 take care of its populace? Does that town have public access workout facilities? I don't have the data to answer this specific question, but the point is that one must be careful to construct comparisons fairly... to compare apples to apples... if one wants meaningful results.

So I'm still working on making those meaningful observations. A few things I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty are: 

• Services seem to work better here. Civil servants are very efficient and relatively nice. Mail from government agencies comes really fast. People working in stores are nice and helpful, and attend to you fairly quickly.

• People seem less angry and fearful here. People of all different races are jumbled together in work spaces and in public spaces, and it's not uncommon to see people of different races walking and talking together. I'm sure that also happens in some parts of America, but there are a lot of places where it doesn't. Anyway it's refreshing to see. 

• The roads are WAY better. Traffic in the cities is significantly more complicated to navigate because of the large number of bicyclists everywhere, and you must therefore drive more slowly, but things seem to run smoothly nonetheless. There are roundabouts (traffic circles) everywhere and they work well to keep traffic moving. 

• People don't make eye contact on the streets here very much. I have some theories about why this might be, ranging from "it's just cultural" to "people are more self-absorbed here" (and smart phones certainly contribute to that) to "perhaps eye contact is really just about sex and people have now outsourced hooking up to apps, so no one needs to look at anyone else anymore".

A last observation I'll make about our arrival in Sweden is that, for whatever set of reasons, it has felt suspiciously smooth. What I mean, specifically, is that it feels to me almost like we've moved to some more northerly, better-functioning part of the US. I've joked with Christina that I think we may have actually moved to Minnesota. I have felt very little "culture shock", certainly MUCH less than when we moved to Barcelona. I attribute this to several factors: 

• Everyone here speaks English.

• Sweden is, in general, not VERY different looking than America. It is useful here to think of Barcelona, with its narrow streets, gothic architecture, and generalized 'visual density', as a contrast.

• We've lived in Europe before, and so it's not so new to me anymore. 

It's exciting to feel you're in a brand-new place that feels really different from home, and so in a way I miss the culture shock. 

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I joined the public library (which is quite good) here in Lund in my first week. It's one of the few things you can actually do here without a personal number. I immediately checked out a few books... one on learning Swedish, another on understanding contemporary art, and another on J. C. Leyendecker. I was already vaguely aware of Leyendecker, but the book was a revelation. I have now added him to my list of favorite artists, and... more importantly... he shot to the top spot in my list of painters I would like to emulate (at least in terms of his style).

These are good examples of why I love his style- it is crisp, bold, and high-contrast... a very "illustration"-style. 

Amusingly, as a gay man he fits right in with all my other favorites... Bacon, Caravaggio, Cadmus, and McQueen. One thing I find quite entertaining is that he managed to surreptitiously insert homoerotic imagery into his work in a time when it was not at all acceptable...

Observe the barely concealed erection... in a national advertisement!

... and he did this while working at the very highest levels of the American advertising industry! That takes some daring!

He was a direct predecessor to, and inspiration for Norman Rockwell, who borrowed his style and became even more famous, despite being less talented (I'm sure some will disagree but to me it's obvious!)

Am I guilty of talking about painting, and how I'd like to paint, more than I actually paint? If you read this blog, you know that I am, and it's a fact about which I am embarrassed and which I intend to rectify. I now have my own painting studio in this home we've newly rented in Lund, and our container is finally arriving on Friday(!!!) so I will have no more excuses to get back to it. My first few dips back into painting will simply be copies of some of Leyendecker's faces and hands.

Until next time... Hejdå

Getting Out

I suppose that, by necessity, this post will largely take the form of reportage. So much has happened that, in order to maintain some sense of continuity, I'd better just tell you the story. If I'm able to sneak in some opinions, anecdotes, or asides, well then so much the better.

I last left you, my reader, with the news that we were moving to Sweden. So much has transpired since then that, as I write to you now, I am writing from our newly rented home in the small town of Lund, in Southern Sweden. 

The last few months in Taos were a whirlwind. So much work. Too much work.

Christina and I, despite having gotten married in Sweden in 2017, had always wanted to have another ceremony... in Taos. So on the blustery and rainy day of June 25th, in front of about 12 good friends, we tied the knot... again!

We then followed that with a going-away party at our pal Steve McFarland's Revolt Gallery, where we took this lovely group shot...

The subsequent week was consumed by the job of preparing for our container shipment. Knowing that we would be given only 3 hours free-of-charge to load the container, I spent several weeks mocking up the load in our workshop.

You can see the 'island' of stuff in the middle of the floor... which is the load waiting to go into the container.

This turned out to be time well-spent, as the load went flawlessly. We stuffed that container full, to the ceiling and to the doors. I like to say that we put the best 25% of our stuff in there. The load included a small mill, a small lathe, quite a bit of Christina's blacksmithing equipment, hundreds of pounds of books, 2 motorcycles and a moped, a piano, 30 or so pieces of artwork, all my painting equipment, 3 mannequins, 2 sewing machines, furniture, beds, bicycles, clothing and kitchen equipment. Et cetera. 

The original estimate for the arrival of the container at our home in Lund was the 8th of August, and to a large degree we built our travel plans around that date. As it happens, that date has been pushed back by at least 3 weeks, which has precipitated a few difficulties. More on that later.

After we sent the container off, we entered into a somewhat strange 3-4 week period. It felt strange because, even though we'd made this big ceremonial 'GoodBye' to Taos, we were actually still there, engaged every day in the hard labor of cleaning and organizing our land, preparing our home for rental, and selling off big items like tools and vehicles. It was during this time that I also installed Fledgling (with help from friends Cedar Goebel, Josh Cunningham, and Shiloh Gossner) in its 'forever home' at Revolt Gallery.

Then, finally, it was time to leave. Christina and Kodiak departed on July 22nd, landing first at a hotel in Lund and then taking occupancy of the house around the beginning of August. The house was literally empty upon their arrival (save for the fridge, stove, and laundry machines) so their first few days were occupied with the task of finding some basic furniture and light fixtures. 

Meanwhile I stayed in Taos an additional week, wrapping up the last things, and then set out for the East Coast in a rental car with our dog Griselda. Most US-based airlines no longer fly dogs in cargo (allegedly because of... the pandemic!) and Griselda is too big to fly in the cabin, and I had been wanting to visit my brother Trevor and his family at their new digs in New Hampshire. So off we went on a 4 day drive across the country. After spending 4 lovely days with Trevor in the rather idyllic little town of Portsmouth...

we were finally off on our big adventure. Luckily SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) still flies dogs in cargo, so on the grey and rainy morning of August 5th Griselda and I landed in Copenhagen, where we were met by Christina and Kodiak. Griselda went wild when she saw them!

I mentioned a few minutes ago that the delay of our shipping container has caused some problems, and what I mean is this: Christina and I put quite a lot of thought into exactly what to pack, and one of the guiding principles in that process was that we did not want to have to buy - in Sweden - a bunch of stuff that we already owned. Why buy mattresses (which are expensive), or kitchen stuff, or a dining room table, or bicycles, when we already own it all? So we were quite careful to time the arrival of the container with our arrival. But the fact that it's quite late (apparently caused by congestion at US ports, a result of... the pandemic!) has meant that we have needed to buy exactly those things, again. After all, we need to sleep and eat and get around.

The other problem it has caused is a little less concrete. The last few months in Taos were marked by a non-stop sense of purpose and focus. There was never a lack of tasks to accomplish, all in service of the larger goal. Now, having arrived in Sweden with nothing to unpack, no art supplies, no tools or motorcycles to keep us busy, we are in somewhat of a 'holding pattern.' This dramatic change of pace felt quite strange to me for a day or two. But then again, if I'm totally honest about it, it has been nice to have nothing particularly pressing to do most of the time, other than explore and discover this new place we are in. Things have been so busy, so intense, for so long that I never felt I had the breathing room to write a blog post... until now. I'm even going to get back to studying the Swedish language pretty soon. This week or two actually feels a bit like a real summer vacation and it's nice to enjoy the downtime with Kodiak before he starts at his new school next week.

I suppose I'll wrap things up with a few early observations about this place, and how it compares to America. My overarching theory of America is that it is fundamentally broken because it was built on the wrong principles of capitalism, racism (and sexism and homophobia), and guns. Having spent the overwhelming majority of my first 52 years in that place, I think the filter through which I'll be looking at Sweden is something like: "In what ways does this place, which purports to prioritize people over profits and the collective over the individual, and which furthermore has no history of slavery, differ from America? And is life actually better here?"

To be honest, I can't give a real answer yet. I've only been here 6 days, and I still feel like a tourist. In fact I imagine I will continue to feel like a tourist for the next year or more. That being said, there are a few things that are already apparent. Wealth seems to be more evenly spread around; I have seen almost no signs of either very rich people or very poor people. And people of different races seem to get along more smoothly. I've noticed this especially in Malmö, the larger city to the southwest of Lund. Pedestrians have an inviolable right-of-way, followed closely in the hierarchy by bicyclists. Cars will stop for you, without fail. Also, the police are more integrated here and their role appears to be closer to the old-fashioned idea of "serve and protect," as opposed to whatever it is they're doing in America now. (For the record, I don't believe the police are completely to blame for their current role in American society; I think economic inequality [poverty] mixed with racism and guns makes their job quite difficult, and dangerous.) 

Malmö, despite having a bad reputation, seems like a very cool city. Christina and I both envision ourselves spending a lot of time there. KKV, the collective artist's workshop where Christina and I will likely be working quite a lot in the next few years, is located in Malmö. The city also has an off-leash dog park which borders the North Sea... and therefor has a 'dog beach'... and which measures approximately 60 acres (!). This feels like something one would be hard-pressed to find in the US, and needless to say, Griselda loves it.

Griselda and one of her many new friends running on the Dog Beach!

Our home in Lund is lovely, although rather large for our purposes (not complaining!) and also still quite empty. It has a luxuriously large yard complete with apple trees and a tree house. Our goal, if we can manage it, is to stay here in this house no more than 2 years (or maybe less) and purchase a home or rural property in that time. It's ambitious, but property is more affordable here than in most parts of the US, so we shall see.

Our yard, just now!

I feel that this post was necessarily superficial, as there was a lot to cover. I imagine that in the coming posts I'll go into more detail and offer deeper observation about what life is like here, and how it differs from the good old US of A. I hope to also talk more about the bicycle culture here, and maybe even get back to talking about art-making!

Cheers

Why I Have To Keep Trying To Paint

- An interesting conversation I had with Christina about Black Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter. 

- The new Alex Garland movie MEN, which I just saw... and can't stop thinking about and want to see again.

- Nihilism, and the antidote to it. 

- My difficulties finding a good pair of shoes, and my gripes with the shoe industry in general. 

- My theory about the aesthetic and structural organization of things, what I’ll call the “Nails and Spice Theory.” 

- The work I've been doing on Fledgling in preparation for it's sale and permanent placement.

These widely disparate topics are just some of the subjects I’ve considered blogging about recently. But I’m not going to write about any of them today. Instead I will return to an old topic - creativity, originality, and art production, but I’ll write about it in a new way… by going in-depth into a single particular piece of art that I’ve been wanting to make for a while, but have so far failed to complete. 

But first, a very brief digression onto the question: why would someone write a blog? Why do I write a blog? In short, I think the answer is that I’m trying to have a conversation. I guess it might be a strange SORT of conversation… but then again, I have picked up friends and acquaintances from many different places and many different times, and this is one way that I can communicate with all of them (you). But doesn't it seem, in this conversation, that I do all the talking? Well that’s one of the points that I want to make: I love it when my posts prompt people to write me back and start a different, perhaps more traditional, sort of conversation. So, thanks everyone who writes back, I appreciate it! 

I think I am also, however, having a conversation with myself. And probably another conversation with my future self. And possibly yet another conversation with future Kodiak. I imagine it might be quite interesting for him to read this when he’s a little older. But then… Who knows! Maybe he’ll just roll his eyes! Anyway, it’s nice to have a record of these years as they fly past. I hope you enjoy reading them.

So… On to the topic at hand. 

About four or five years ago while living in Berlin, an image flashed into my head. For me, this image was so strong, so personal, and so richly full of meaning* that I knew I wanted to bring it into reality. But then I thought… “I am a sculptor, and this is just an image.“ So I tried to figure out how to make this as a sculpture - possibly as a low relief sculpture - but I just kept coming back to the realization that it would work best as an image. So, I decided to learn to paint. 

And thus commenced a period of a few years in which I taught myself to oil paint. But, as anyone who reads this blog closely knows (and I think there might be at least one or two of you!), oil painting has proven to be quite the challenge for me. Not because I’m terrible at it… because frankly I don’t think I’m terrible at it… 

An example of me not sucking at painting. But... you see those light spots in the dark background near the bottom, and the reflection above and to the right of her head? Keep reading below to discover what those are and why they are a problem...

... but for other harder to pin down reasons that have something to do with perfectionism, and some legitimate technical challenges which are shown in the above image and which I'll fully explain in a moment. And so in the period of two years or so in which I was painting actively, I turned out a miserably small number of paintings. About five. 

The image that flashed into my head in Berlin cannot be counted among those five. I actually built a masonite “canvas“ for the image, I penciled the image, and I began to paint it. But my progress was so painful, so slow, and so beset by technical problems, that I did not get very far. 

This is about as far as I got with it.

I have not given up on the image. I would like one day to bring it into reality, but I can't help wondering whether oil paint is necessarily the best medium in which to accomplish the task.

Sometimes I find myself thinking: "Isn't the idea, the concept, the most important part? Have I not therefore already done the biggest part of the work?" Well, YES. And NO. Anyone can have an idea. We've all met those people who are all ideas, and no execution. And so this is one of the punchlines - the thesis statements - the conclusions that I've come to. A work of art (or any endeavor really) is idea and execution. And only when both are good can the work be considered successful, or impactful. 

I am fairly proficient at Adobe Photoshop, the image editing software. My methodology for making a painting involves the creation of a Photoshop mockup, which I then print and which I then paint. Here is the Photoshop mockup for the "Berlin image" which started it all...

This is what you might call a 'Photo-Illustration' and many people choose photo-illustration as their artistic medium. This particular Photoshop mockup is not refined enough to be considered a presentable artwork (there is no coherence to the shadows, many of the edges are rough, etc... all things I intended to fix at the painting stage) but it raises the possibility that, with a bit more time spent in Photoshop, it could be made presentable and then printed. And then that print, rather than the painting I'd always imagined, would be the artwork.

But would that be good enough?

I guess the answer depends on who you're talking to. 

A professional photo-illustrator would probably say "Yes, of course! It looks like a finished artwork to me." 

An oil painter would say "No that's just a print."

What might a member of the public say.. someone who is relatively unconcerned about art technique? Such a person would probably focus more on the subject matter - the imagery - and therefore in this case the idea would be the most important thing, and the work could be considered impactful.

But, what would I say? I guess this is the important question that I must answer.

And what I would say, I suppose, is: "Hmm... I think it would've been better as an oil painting." And, further: a photo-illustration is by definition a sort of collage of images, and each of those images was made by a camera, not by a hand holding a brush or a pencil. And in my personal hierarchical ranking of originality, there is no surpassing a hand-made piece of art. Because, in the making of it, the artist unconsciously put something of himself, of his psychology, into it. And in the process, it becomes something that could only be made by that one person. If you don't believe me, look at the work of Bacon, or Ingres, or Currin.

So, it seems, I have to keep trying.

"Well just get on with it! Just keep painting! What's the big deal?" I hear you saying... I hear my few painter friends saying... I hear myself saying. 

For the moment, I can't. 

I have no more studio - I converted my studio back into a living space. 

My head isn't in it right now - I am deep into the move to Sweden and all that that entails. 

And what about those mysterious "technical challenges" I referred to earlier? I had a major problem with my paint drying in a really terrible way, which I finally attributed to the extreme dryness here in Taos. 

In these three images, you can see what I am talking about. Whenever the paint went on even remotely thickly, the top surface dried almost immediately while the paint underneath was still wet, causing this crinkly "orange-peel" effect which catches the light in a totally unacceptable way. These light-catching areas can be seen in the finished painting near the top of this post.

I communicated with the paint manufacturer but he said he'd never seen that before and was of no help. The next time I really try painting will be in Sweden. There is better humidity there, and I will try a different brand of paint. 

But beyond the lack of a studio and the problems with paint, the biggest impediment is in my head. I just have to get over it and get back to painting. 

Because you see, here's the thing: I have ideas. I have ideas for images. But like I said earlier, an idea is not enough. An artwork is an idea, and execution. And so it's quite frustrating to have these ideas, but not be able to execute them. When we get to Sweden, I'm going to have to start painting again. 

OK, enough. 

I probably lost all but a few of you. 

Until next time, when I promise to be less self-indulgent and more focused on actual events, real things that are happening. And there's plenty of those.

Cheers

* As to the meaning of the image: that's not really the topic of the post. And don't you think that I would be doing YOU a disservice if I explained what I thought it meant? Don't you think it's more interesting to let you come up with your own interpretation? In any case, I can think of three distinct meanings for the image, one of which is the most important to me, but all of which are valid. And I'm sure there are others.

Big Things Happening

Sometimes a long interval passes between my blog posts because life seems to be moving slowly - not much seems to be happening.

This has not been one of those times.

The long interval, this time, is due to the fact that so much is happening... so fast... that it's hard to find time to write, and it's hard to know what to pick out to write about.

The biggest news, really, is that Christina and Kodiak and I are moving to Sweden this summer! More on that in a moment.

Two posts ago, in my entry of December 4th, 2021, I discussed the fact that I had been commissioned by someone I know here in Taos to build a new sculpture. That sculpture is now finished and installed. The client wanted a sculpture to bring attention to his ambitious and well-developed solar electric installation, and so 'Electra' was born. 

Electra is an emissary from the future, letting us know that we'd better shift our energy technologies over to sustainable sources before it's too late.

Other than her base (which is carbon steel), she is fabricated entirely from stainless steel, so her surface should require little maintenance and she should look like that more-or-less forever.

And here is Electra taking her rightful place at the evolutionary end of the progression I showed back in December.

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So, we are moving to Sweden.

Well, I should qualify that and say that we are almost certainly moving to Sweden this summer. A grotesque enlargement of Putin's vanity war, or some other unforeseen complication might still derail our plan, but that feels pretty unlikely. I would put the likelihood of us really moving at about 98% and climbing.

The news has been leaking out, so some of you reading this may already know it.

There are multiple reasons for this move. In roughly descending order of importance, they are:

• Secure a better education and a better future for Kodiak. This really is the undisputed #1 reason for the move. New Mexico is 49th out of the 50 states in quality of education, and we feel Kodiak deserves more. We also want him to have the opportunity to become a 'World Citizen' in a way that he never could if we stay in Taos.

• Move to a place with a less divisive political climate, and less Republicans. I hate the conservative agenda in this country, I hate the fact that that agenda is driven by fear and hatred of dark-skinned people and women, I hate the effects of unchecked free-market capitalism, and I hate climate-change denialism. I could go on and on. Sweden does not suffer from these idiotic problems. Christina feels the same way. 

• A change of career opportunities for Christina and me. Who knows, really, how our careers will go in Sweden, but it's well-known that there is an entirely different level of respect for the arts in Europe than here in the US. Serious artists over there can get government assistance, there are collective workshops (places like BBK in Berlin, where I built With Open Arms, and KKV in Sweden), and probably lots of other good resources for artists. We are jumping in a little blind but we are willing to roll the dice.

• We will be in a place where we can grow old and face inevitable health problems without going bankrupt, without enriching 'Health' Insurance executives with everything that should be Kodiak's inheritance.

• We will be closer to Christina's parents in Stockholm, and to my brother Cles and my mother, who both live in Greece. (One regrettable downside is that we will be farther from my dad and brother. But hell, now they will have a reason to visit Sweden!)

• We will be a short train ride or flight away from the rest of Europe... places like Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Venice... 

• We will radically increase our opportunities for exposure to arts and culture.

• We will be near a beach and an airport, things which are very far from Taos.

The timing of our move is incredibly complicated to pin down, as it depends on variables such as my application for a residency permit in Sweden, our ability to secure a spot in a school for Kodiak, our ability to secure an apartment or house to live in, and some possible job opportunities which might keep me working here in Taos into the fall. In any case it seems Christina and Kodiak will likely move over there in July, with me either coming at the same time or following some weeks later.

And for the record, we are NOT selling our ranch here in Taos. If things don't work out for whatever reason, we can always come back. 

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These last 6 weeks have been some of the craziest times for my career that I can remember.

In a nutshell, I have had a quite unprecedented flood of opportunities, most of which have promised to deliver big paychecks, and most of which have evaporated almost as quickly as they had appeared for one reason or another. And through it all, one or two good ones have actually stuck.

It's really been strange. 

• One job - a new sculpture build - promised to pay almost 3 times more than I had ever made on a previous sculpture build. The pay would have been so good that it would have made sense for me to stay here in Taos through the fall in order to build it, throwing a huge wrench into the Sweden plans. Then the job was suddenly postponed... perhaps indefinitely.

• A festival job disappeared because the guy I was working with threw a temper tantrum when I asked him to verify that I would have the right kind of forklift available at the site. That was a guy (well-known to some of my artist contemporaries) with whom I was possibly going to do other work in the future, and I feel like I dodged a bullet when he revealed himself to be a narcissist and a jerk.

• Yet another festival job disappeared when, over the course of a week, my contact couldn't be bothered to answer my emails and texts... until I told him I had run out of time to organize my logistics. Upon receiving that text, he responded immediately accusing me of being impatient! (I could expand this into a whole blog post... who are these self-absorbed people and how do they get these jobs? And why are we, as artists, so often forced to deal with them?)

• An old friend from LA called me with less than a week warning asking me to come to LA to help work on some droids for a new Star Wars thing. That actually sounded like a lot of fun but I just couldn't fit it into my schedule.

• A new 'traveling festival' is talking to Christina and me about leasing a few of our big sculptures to go "on the road." This could be a nice sort of 'passive income' for us... but I can't tell if they are really serious or not. They know we are moving to Sweden and that time is of the essence. We shall see...

• I just sold Fledgling to a local gallery owner and friend here in Taos. This means that, along with Electra, Taos will have two of my sculptures on permanent display, now that we are leaving!

• And now, in the last few days, I am talking to someone about a new sculpture build for display at an event in the United Arab Emirates at the end of the year. Just like that first job in this list, this one now threatens to upend the Sweden plans, because if it were to really happen, it would make the most sense for me to stay here through the fall and build it. I wonder what will happen?

One must have a high tolerance for uncertainty to work in the arts. It has been quite a roller-coaster as these jobs have appeared, promised to pay big dollars, and then disappeared. 

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Meanwhile, with the awareness that our big relocation is coming fast, Christina and I have been busy like never before. Not only are we selling vehicles and all manner of other stuff as well as cleaning up our land, we are also packing in the trips to see people and places we might not see for a while. 

In April, Kodiak and I spent a wonderful 5 days in San Francisco with my dad. It was a chance for Kodiak and my dad to get to know one another, as well as for me to show Kodiak the city of my youth. We dined with my dad at great restaurants every night, and I gave Kodiak a first class tour of the city. Among other things, we met up with my old friend Sabrina Merlo for a tour of Sean Orlando's cool new Seaport Studios, went to the DeYoung museum (where I was amazed to see Thomas Hart Benton's 'Susannah and the Elders'!), rode the ferris wheel right next to the museum, went to Baker Beach, the crooked street, Coit Tower, North Beach and Chinatown, SoMa and Haight Street. I took him over the Golden Gate Bridge to Stinson Beach where we spent a sweet afternoon with my old high school pal Vasco Agnoli and his family. We even climbed to the top of Fort Point for great views of the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean. What a great city that is.

And just this last weekend, the Vanagon triumphantly returned to take us (along with Kodiak's good friend Marcelo) to Chaco Canyon, home of Anasazi and their impressive architectural triumph, Pueblo Bonito. This trip really arose out of Christina's desire to show Kodiak the best of New Mexico before we leave (she also took him to White Sands and the Carlsbad Caverns a few months ago), but I was also thrilled to go. In fact, I did a school report about Pueblo Bonito when I was about Kodiak's age, so it was actually quite special for me to walk through that place. Much to my surprise, they actually let you walk around the site! 

So I guess that's it for now. 

As you can see, big changes are afoot! 

Stay tuned...