Oakland resident

By admin on July 7th, 2011
Posted In: journal
I finally moved to the bay area a few months ago. It’s been a plan of
mine for years, and I am now moved and settled into a lovely house. If
nothing else, the wetter climate means there are more bugs here.
A couple weeks ago a cat’s face orb weaver dropped from an orange
tree and dangled in front of my face until I snatched him up. I have him
in a terrarium on my bookshelf

I finally moved to the bay area a few months ago. It’s been a plan of mine for years, and I am now moved and settled into a lovely house. If nothing else, the wetter climate means there are more bugs here.
banana slugs!
Swallowtails!
Paper wasps!
And a couple weeks ago a cat’s face orb weaver dropped from an orange tree and dangled in front of my face. I snatched him up and have him in a terrarium on my bookshelf.
The first two months in Oakland I lived in a tent in my friend’s laundry room. The house I live in now is a Craftsman-style duplex from 1895 with big beautiful moulding and high ceilings. I just finished painting and installing my new chin-up bar.
These things are essential if you are hyperactive and work from home.
I had my first Oakland art show while living in the tent. I painted a series called “Cumulative Amalgamation” on pieces of scrap wood collected from the street around my house. The series is a set of noun-fusing experiments where I built each piece by fusing a new concept with those that preceded it. I also doubled the area of each painting as a new concept was added. It debuted at Bevel Salon in Berkeley.
I’ll be adding things to the website more regularly again now that life is settling down. I’m pretty excited about living here, taking more biology classes in the fall, and living near friends and redwoods and a big art community.
If you are in the area, right now I’m really into the idea of doing portrait painting with posed models, and you should contact me if you want one. Although, for the record, you don’t have to be weird or rich to get one, painting weird rich people is the option I would have preferred for earning a living wage had I lived in the Renaissance era. They may have burned me at the stake for drawing all those tit-fish, though.
Talk to you later.
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Here is the Church

By admin on April 29th, 2011
Posted In: journal

I made the Here is the Church comic into an animated gif. I want to make another series like this soon! Maybe I will add 10 random nouns next time.

hereisthechurch

Click the image for the animated version.

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egret friend

By admin on March 8th, 2011
Posted In: journal

There’s a nature reserve behind my house. I have the room that faces it set up as my work room, and I leave the curtains open all the time, obviously.

Anyway, an egret has been watching me sew through the window of my work room lately. It’s probably a different one every time, but I like to think it’s the same one, and that he wants to be friends. The attraction is more likely my shiny metal scissors or something, but today he added some validity (I like to think) to my nice bird-friend delusion by trying to bring me lunch! He landed with a dead alligator lizard in his mouth. I thought I’d get to watch him eat and was already delighted, but he spent ten minutes just wiggling the dead animal at me. I reluctantly ran to get the camera halfway through, expecting him to be gone when I got back, but he picked right up with the wiggling again. Then I decided to try going outside to get better pictures, expecting to scare him off. He walked away from the window, closer to where I was standing, and finally swallowed the thing. He started walking away after he finished, and I thought I’d spooked him by getting too close, but he turned around when he found another lizard and came back to eat it in front of me. He ate the second one alive. He bit off the head and torso first, and when he picked up the dropped lower half of the lizard, the disembodied tail curled around his beak.

egretI love you, egret friend!

egret2

See you later!

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