New Street Art

My work is featured in a killer new book by Claudelondon. Seeing my work amongst so many artists whom I admire is always thrilling. Check the book out if you can snag a copy. It's basically an encyclopedia of street artists from around the world- and a surprisingly thorough one at that! It might be tough for those of us in the States to get it (as it's published in the UK) but hopefully a batch of copies will make their way over here in the near future.

Inferno

Fire is a fascinating thing. It is at once a fundamental element of life- of warmth, protection, food and light, while at the same time a deadly force to be reckoned with. Fire is to be feared and respected and yet, wielding it is vital to our existence. 

In many ways, it shares many aspects with the swirling emotions that breed within our heads and hearts on a daily basis. These emotions are responsible for every kind word and gesture, every modicum of hope we hold on to in desperate times, and every unintelligibly pure ounce of love, while at the same time, the source of our shame, greed, fear and cruelty. Day to day, our inner emotions paint us in happiness and sorrow in disproportionate, ever evolving measures. We do our best to control these elemental forces and point them in the direction of good, but often we lose control and before we know it, we've burned something down. We sift through the piles of ash that used to be a relationship or a potential opportunity and then, in time, we start to rebuild. And we look to those same emotions to help us weld a few load bearing girders together.

Each of us has a fire burning inside. Some do a good job of keeping their bonfires contained. Others just light a match and see what happens.

Monsters

"If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves."

- Junot Diaz 

Enjoy The Silence

In July I'll have been married for three years. To many that number still lists my wife and I in the newlywed category- but in LA, we are practically considered wise old relationship Methuselahs. I'm not sure if it's the state of arrested development that so many people find themselves trapped in around here, or just an overall cultural bent away from commitment- probably a little of both- but being married at all in Los Angeles is often seen as strange and exotic. Someone noticing my wedding ring tends to have the same reaction as if I said I spent the last ten years living in a monastery. It's that look of "Wow, I really respect the kind of discipline that takes but I also pity you for making such a crazy life decision." Ironically, this reaction often comes from the same people who date their significant others for decades before being thrust into a full blown emotional crisis when their girlfriend begins hinting at a formal commitment.

For me, being married is great. Is it tough some times? Of course. Is it any more difficult to manage than any other aspect of being an adult? Not really. That might have something to do with my wife and I working well together and getting pretty good at suffering each other's habits and quirks. For example, I have gotten used to being in charge of giving our 17-year-old cat his 'really old cat' medication, and she has gotten used to turning off the lights that I seem to turn on in every single room I walk into for five seconds and then leave. In marriage, hopefully you discover your roles naturally, your strengths, what you do well, and over time you notice how well those strengths compliment the other's weaknesses.

Sorry, when you're married they're not weaknesses, they're "not quite as strongs".

I've found that one of the best examples of being comfortable around someone is when I can manage to stop talking. Awkward talking is a "not quite as strong" suit of mine and the moment that I can sit in a car with someone and not feel the need to fill the silence with noise is usually watershed for the relationship. It's not that I don't like talking to my wife, but the fact that it's not an unspoken requirement. The fact that we can sit quietly and she doesn't immediately turn to me and ask me "what's wrong?" is, in my mind an example of intimacy- which, I'm sure as I get older, and my brain slows down a bit more, creating a collection of thoughts that resemble a cow lazily chewing cud (Simpsons reference), will become a corner stone of my marriage. 

I enjoy talking to my friends and family, I love lively debate. I love impassioned discussions. I love sharing ideas and plans, hearing a funny story or listening to someone who needs to vent or just be listened to. But the older I get, the more I've learned to embrace the moments when words go quiet and my world slows down a little bit, and sharing that with someone is vastly underrated.

An Easy Matter

"Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness."

- Leon Trotsky