LA

I've always thought of LA as the stage where people from all over the world come to do their thing. They  flood the 405 with their cars packed to the crack of the window and their dreams glowing in their eyes. Bringing their talents to a stage where the rest of the world will watch and if you're good enough this place will reward you abundantly.

It can be a great place to be. It also can be a tough place to be. You have to have a strong sense of yourself, tough skin, and even stronger self control. It's easy to ride coattails of delusion here in LA and get lost in the smoke and mirrors that the proximity of celebrity can have on people.  Especially on arrival. Every night there's a party to be seen at or to see. And that can be very alluring. You feel powerful and the nightlife/promoters/and alcohol embraces you. That's hard to resist for some people. Everyday there's a beautiful set of waves and babes waiting for you at the beach. That's hard for others. You have to be prepared to put your goals ahead of your leisure if you are trying to do something great. That's not to say I don't enjoy a nice nightlife or beach every free chance I get!

Life

One of many evolutions that is sweeping our culture today is accountability for how we treat each other. There is this clear distinction that it is not what you accomplish in this world that matters nearly as much as how you treat people. Recently there have been enormously powerful people that have reached the pinnacle of their careers only to have it all reduced to nothing as they fall from grace for harming someone else along the way. This trend has been happening for the last few years and has reached an all time climax with people coming forward and finding strength in numbers.

A long time ago Socrates turned against the brilliant scientists of his day and said that their progress in knowing more and more about their physical universe would do no good unless they also learned to understand their own souls and found out what it meant to live a good life.

Even as I recall that quote from Socrates I realize that he verbatim said  it would do no good unless men learned to understand their own souls... In other words I rephrased it to a universal "they" in place because brilliant scientists are not just men. A case in point that even Socrates and his wisdom are not exempt from further evaluation and evolution. We see these authority figures mess up on the most basic ethical guidelines and golden rules, abusing power and lacking empathy.

The earth school has an interesting way of directing our evolution. There is always room, lots of room, for dialogue and improvement no matter who you are.

Work

Last weekend I had the opening of my first solo exhibition. There were showcased, roughly 20 paintings and over 45 photographs. The exhibition was about finding our commonalities; tracing our bonds as humans with lives and ways of thought that are all so different from one another.  It was entitled "All in The Same Boat" [sidenote] If you got a picture in the yellow boat we brought in for it, please email me it to me! It was so much fun and I was literally emotionally overwhelmed once it ended come Sunday night. As an artist you strive to find your voice. If you don't you're fooling yourself. But also you want to inspire, to achieve a certain goal on how it affects your audience. I felt both of those objectives come together in such a pure way it was really remarkable I must say.

Food & Drink

AS the sun goes down earlier and the days grow shorter let's all congregate more with the ones we love. Let's spend more time laughing, loving deeper, and hugging tighter. With so much global chaos we need more than ever to connect. I don't mean on facebook or over the phone in general. Get in some good old-fashioned face time. Life is precious and we need our personal community to stay lifted. 

That said one of my favorite drinks to make during this time of the year is The Old Fashioned. It tastes like autumn feels. Whether you're hosting or a guest, ad this OG cocktail to the menu. 

2 oz bourbon 

1 sugar cube

two cherries and an bit of an orange peel

club soda

muddle the cherries and the sugar cube at the bottom of the glass add bourbon and club soda put in an ice cube or two and add the orange twist at the end. For the non-alcoholic version use ginger-ale instead of bourbon. 

Another awesome item to add to your arsenal is the Easy no bake blueberry pie. show up with one of these and it will be remembered. IT takes two minutes to make but 5hrs to set. Serve it up and you will hit sweet spots. 

Graham Cracker pre made pie crust

2 packs of cream cheese

one tub of frozen cool-whip

1.5 cups of walnuts or pecans

1 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 can of Duncan Hines Comstock blueberry pie filling

In a large bowl mix all of the contents accept the nuts and the blueberry filling. Mix until you have creamy white gooey goodness. Add the nuts. Spoon all that sweet stuff into the grahamn cracker pie crust. Top with the whole can of blueberry pie filling and refrigerate over night. 

music

Here is a playlist of what I've been listening to lately. Enjoy!

life

Yesterday I began the day by cleaning out my garage. I had piles of things old and new. I would hold these things up to the light and decide wether they still brought me joy and service and if they didn't I threw them out. Half-way through the mindless ordeal I realized how this was a metaphor for what we should be doing with our mental storage space. We could really benefit from letting go of thoughts, memories, and relationships that no longer bring us joy or value. And by allowing yourself to detach from the clutter you make room for new things that will bring you joy. 

How do we go about letting go of these memories, thoughts, and relationships that no longer serve us? We simply forgive ourselves first and foremost. That can take many forms. Letter writing for closure is a great place to start. Another exercise is simple mindful meditation where you internally forgive yourself and decide to move on with full intention and effort to make better decisions going forward. If it is something that someone else did to you then you must learn how to let that go. It is not easy and of course takes daily maintenance in some serious cases. But you must realize that this is the only way to bring forward the quality of life that you deserve. A life void of that negativity that happened to you. We cannot control what happens to us but we can control how we react to what happens to us. We have to be at peace with the fact that by letting go of that memory and pain we are letting go of the poison and darkness associated with negative thought. 

Life

I started this blog because I wanted to share my evolution and journey. I needed a place to share my thoughts and advice and I wanted to engage with technology in an efficient way to spread my messages to people that may care and relate. A lot of what I discuss will be deep and some of it will be casual. But it will always be honest and positive. I love to create paintings, I love to write, and I love to photograph. I find life interesting and full of lessons, emotions, and gifts. By capturing some of that I find a lot of fulfillment. But I also seek wisdom and evolution and I know many of you do too. I am more than an optical contributor concerned with aesthetic. I am concerned with being alive, being human, and making my mark on the world. We all create; everyday we create moments, feelings, and reactions to people or ideas. To be human is to create. Do you create with reverence or with neglect?

Technology can be an incredible tool. It can allow people to share ideas with the click of a button.  It can allow us to order up a car, blouse, or pizza right to our door step. It can allow us to build communities while being miles apart.

Technology is racing to be the innovators of everything that isn't and it offers dollar signs to whoever can get there first. The tech industry is at the top of the industrial food chain these days and therefore, we are influenced to keep up with the innovation to fund the giant beast. We are conditioned to feel like it is everything and we are less without it. We are marketed to like crazy toward the latest gadget. For instance the new Apple iPhone is about to be released. They are hyping the release of the latest iPhone 8 while also creating a demand for the release of the next latest iPhone 10. What happened to iPhone 9? Confused? Me too. The iPhone 8 is coming out in the near future but that's not what all of the media and buzz is concerned with. Instead the buzz is around the iPhone 10. To be released in the more distant future. This new iPhone 10 has technology that will recognize the users facial features to access the phone in the same way that a password once did. This means that apple with create a data-base of every users face and store that to be associated with their digital footprint. We will further be integrated with technology. Literally in your face technology is here and it's here to stay. 

Integrated is a great word but things get choked in clouds of smoke when integration becomes inundation. When the technology that was meant to serve us begins to rule us. I know it sounds dramatic but honestly I get a little freaked out when my uber driver pulls over in the middle of five lanes on Santa Monica blvd just because the gps system on his smart phone tells him we have reached the destination. And if you google "person drives car into water following gps directions" you will find results of atleast a dozen or so stories of people driving into lakes and rivers because they were so inundated with technologies' directions they didn't engage their own common sense to literally stay on track. Technology is great entertainment and facilitates a lot of convenience. But wisdom is still out there in archaic books that house voices of the pioneers that made this world the incredibly rich and fruitful place we have come to know. Pioneers that took us to the moon and made discoveries like we haven't seen since. Wisdom is still out there yearning for it to be soaked up along with the latest technology so that we walk responsibly into the future. Last week the LA Times ranked George Orwell's futuristic thriller 1984 as the top bestseller on the fiction list. I think a lot of people out there are starting to become aware of how real that fictional book is today in 2017. Let's stay one step ahead of the technology curve and exercise our human power to decide which technologies we engage in, when we engage them, and how. 

Product

Every now and again I will come across a great product and it's only right I share it with whoever will listen. I found a fantastic dry shampoo. Dry shampoos are awesome for a number of reasons and this one is top notch- I first heard the name and immediately thought; my hispanic brothers have broken into the high fashion hair market! -Not quite- this little ray of freshness comes to us from Stockholm Sweden. It's called Sachajuan (sasha--hu-on) Dry Powder Shampoo. It's light-weight, provides great texture and separation for that messy look and comes in light and dark tones. Definite upright thumbs for this spray can. 

Life

September is here and it's time to put away those white pants and those incredibly bold floral patterns that were the rage and start looking to darker mochas and earth tones that define our autumn palette. It is also time to start thinking about the future. IM not just talking autonomous cars and uber shuttles to mars. I am talking about the progression of our best selves. 

    It has been a turbulent start to the month with Hurricane Harvey flooding Texas and the southern united states and with political unrest and what looks like the beginning of world war III. It is easy to feel overwhelmed. Or quite the opposite to grow uninterested; lackadaisical in spirit. With so much chaos going on around us it is possibly the most important time to take personal responsibility for every one of our actions. Most importantly, how we treat one another. How we treat those we perceive as different than us. We cannot control when our world leaders will lash out. But we can control how we act and react to each and every circumstance inside our control. Yes it sounds idealogical and unrealistic. But it is ultimately hope that I have that possibly one day we will abandon the notion that for me to win you have to lose.

   Today we still talk about a man who was born in Judea and who's most important piece of teaching was to love one another. Not to just love those in our economic circle, not just those that are thin and pretty, not just those we think are worthy of it. But to love each other as he has. We still talk about this man so many years later because his teachings are real and aspirational. They are divine but they are inside each of us and we have the potential to get there... to Love as he loved.  

    Life has a way of hammering out our path of evolution. But with much resistance we are often finding ourselves up against the wall spinning our wheels with little progression. Let us just take the primitive tendencies for jealousy and greed. These two vices are still at the heart of our ugliest characteristics. They are pointless emotions centered on fear. Does it not make sense that they should not exist? Without boring you from my soap box, I just want to ask if you don't see inside the grand scheme of things that jealousy and the feeling of it should be just a passing feeling that we conquer and rise against. That experience after experience as we react to these feelings with strength and logic they will fade in significance until we no longer have to struggle with this unnecessary negativity. I challenge you to simply acknowledge these primitive emotions and work through them so that we get stronger and rise above it. If you are jealous ask yourself why. I'm sure the answer as you navigate through it is really hard to justify and the true reason- fleeting, and superficial. Those emotions have deep lasting effects. You can do this with every single negative emotion and characteristic you encounter every day. Steer your thoughts to only those things that serve you and the rest of humanity. It can be like a wave of momentum and can serve you in every category of life.  And with your "positivity" frequency, you'll attract that same frequency in others and better yet change people from a lower to a higher state of awareness. GO where the love is. 

I have seen an incredible outreach towards everyone who was displaced or in need in the wake of hurricane Harvey because at our essence that is who we are. We are connected and we have the potential to actualize our most loving selves. That is where we need to be. Holiday season type feels all year round. Until next time!

Life

One of the best things about creating art is that you capture a moment in time to be appreciated for as long as you desire. We all vibrate at different frequencies and are full of emotion. In art across all genres you capture this energy and it always will resonate with someone else. It can have great historical value. Just think of all of the tributes, especially in song writing, that came after  tragedy. We are meant to express what we are feeling.  I love sculptures of dancers in mid form - suspended in time in some ridiculous pose that defies gravity. Inspirational and emotional is what I seek for my own art. Through all the mistakes, the accidents, the crappy pieces I may have spent hours on I just want that one in a million piece that I stand back from and sigh at. Contentment is fleeting.

  Art can be also be frustrating; there are so many incredible master-pieces out there. We would get blistered feet chasing down the ghosts of great artists from the past. Quite realistically the whole of the art community is predominantly made up of hard working artists that never stop exploring their emotions and expressions. Hard working and never satisfied because it is the hope that just around the  next corner there's that moment caught in time that will last and connect with someone or something and transcend the realm of decorative.

For Creativity is a tree best watered by blood, sweat, and cuss words. 

Foods

Summer nights are the best. There's a special charge in the air. I could hang outside with the fresh air in Ponderville usa I could paint on my patio while energies swirled around me. Its the flower scented air that tickles your nose as you bike down the warm foothills giving you a familiar carefree feeling. Summer is the business. 

It is also that time of the summer where the evenings begin to darken earlier. It's nice to throw some charcoal on the grill and serve up a nice BBQ. the old tried and true meat, fish, and or veggies taste great but I also like to throw fresh fruit on there too. My favorites are pineapples, peaches, and strawberries. They get this rich carmelized savoriness about them that pairs excellent with seltzer water, a cocktail, or straight out of the bowl. 

Relationships

I recently was commissioned to paint an abstract portrait of my friend and his soon-to-be wife after their wedding in September. In the last few weeks we have scheduled and re-scheduled the timing for them to come in and sit for me to get a rough sketch of them to work from. Sensing their hurried anxiety and overwhelmed calendar I decided I would go to them and photograph them in a few poses and paint in my studio from those photographs rather then have them come in and sit for me live. 

My thoughts immediately went to a natural curiosity concerning newly wed couples. Do they actually have time and energy to have sex on their wedding night?  I can imagine after throwing the biggest party of their lives they may forgo sex for a nice big cheeseburger in bed before taking out bobby pins for an hour and falling into deep sleep. After all isn't that what the honey moon is for? I asked a handful of friends about there sex or lack there of on their big night and here is what they said. 

"I had grand visions of rose petals on our bed and this incredibly passionate moment where we would have sex for the first time as a married couple. Michael even went as far as prepping the hotel room with chocolate covered strawberries and some of our favorite songs queued up on the iPod. When we got back to our room we immediately took on the project of getting me out of my wedding dress (which was a production in itself.) Once that endeavor was accomplished and just before sliding into bed we noticed an army of ants had broken into my strawberries before I could ever have a taste. And it seems the whole ant village was privy to the finding.  Needless to say we spent more time cleaning that mess than making love."

-Rachel

"We rushed out of our hotel lobby as the party was winding down from the reception hall and like excited adolescents we recounted all of the funny memories of the day while we undressed ourselves. Jeremy was undoing his tie and I was pulling off buttons and kicking off my shoes while we both laughed and did impressions of some of our family and friends. We just sensed that things were different. We were a partnership and the gaze we had during sex that night was one I could never forget."

-Taylor

"I was so exhausted and starving that when we got back to our room at nearly 4 a.m. I sent Blake to the corner store down the street for some donuts and grape soda. I then began to slip into some black lingerie that without bringing I would have never taken off my wedding dress. Blake got caught up with some guests in the hotel lobby and was taking longer than I thought to come back. So I sent him a picture of what awaited him upstairs. Within minutes he was knocking on the door and I knew right then we would have to work a lingerie expense into our monthly budget. I felt the sexiest i've ever felt. More wanted than any other time in my life up until then. And the 5 donuts I ate beforehand  made no difference to Blake or me."

-Emma

"I remember seeing Adam from across the room and really wanting to get back to our cottage on the lake for some consummating. I had every intention to make the night end with some hot and steamy love scene that would rival Denise Richards and Neve Campbell's performance in Wild Things. I wanted our naked bodies to fall out into the lake and for it to never end until the sun came up. Of course, plans don't always pan out as they do in our fantasies and moments later I looked over at Adam and realized he was too wasted to even walk without assistance. There was no love making that night but what we did do was hold each other as the waves lapped on the shore a few feet below our bed. It was the true fantasy of one day marrying the man I loved that was now a reality."

-Scott

"Kev was never a big drinker So when his college buddies came to town for the wedding and  started taking shots I knew it would not end well. I ended up having to put Kev to bed as he faded into a drunken sleep at the end of the night.  But then a sense of clarity came over me and I decided to take that moment to write down all of the memories in detail from my special day. Small moments I would have otherwise forgotten were instantly documented for safe keeping. I still look at that paper I wrote and it has given me so much happiness. We left on our honeymoon the very next day and Kev was not allowed to drink more than one glass of wine with dinner."

-Stella

Solar

Yesterday marked a monumental day for us earth dwellers. We witnessed for a brief couple of minutes a total eclipse. Here in Los Angeles we witnessed a partial eclipse but the magic of the moment was still very totally present. It was nice to turn our squinted eyes to the sun and project our energy outward in unity. There were no sides of debate to this news story it was simply remarkable. The crescent accented shadows that were cast about were intricately beautiful. What a wonder it was to witness such an incredible reminder that the infinite universe and all it's creation are connected and that no matter how divided we can be amongst ourselves we are part of a beautiful whole. THERE IS HOPE in totality!!

Life

As the summer season slips into a lower gear I have found myself taking inventory of summer '17 and reflecting on the erratic temperatures, the crazy political landscape, and the fact that, like seasons, things change. I mean they really change. Maybe in this fast-paced world we should expect such things but it never gets easy to adjust to change. Circles of friends change, LA traffic patterns change, hair products we have grown to love and cherish are taken off the market. All of these things force us out of our comfort zone and into quests for new paths and ways of thought.

In my paintings I have found changes as well. I have stepped away from the monotone subdued puddles of forest green and grey that I was exploring throughout the last two years. Those pieces would sell and that's because people wanted calm paintings in their spaces. They wanted something that wouldn't over power a room but rather complement it. They wanted decor. And I was ready and willing to supply that demand because I need money. Not just to keep me in canvas and paints but to support the indulgent eating habit of my 7 year old Pomimo and to buy me the space and freedom to live a life where I can learn and explore at will. So I have stepped out of that period and into splashes of bright color and unabashed primaries. Freeing up my brush strokes and really learning how to create movement AND HOW TO WALK AWAY FROM A PAINTING when I believe it is finished. That is not easy to do. And often times i can work and rework a piece until it turns right back into muddy forest greens and greys. And then that sells!  That is when I wash off the brushes and paint from my hands and pack it up for a nice movie or a pint by the water.  

My summer blockbuster list of great movies has to start with "Baby Driver." By far my favorite summer flick and the soundtrack is equally as epic especially on vinyl. I find less and less people that are interested in movies at the theater. And I can see why. We pretty much have been able to access newly released movies right in our homes with equally as great picture quality and sound. Still i love the ritual of going to the theater and watching it amongst an audience (as long as that audience is well behaved and not kicking the back of my seat). I relish in a big bucket of "make your tummy sick" artificially buttered popcorn and some sour patch kids washed down with a big gulp of soda. I enjoy being fully "in it" with my cell phone on silent and my ass squirming in my seat with anticipation. It's one of my rituals. 

Rituals have always been important to me. Important to a lot of people in the way they bring us back to our roots. They have the power to heal and to clear the mind. Some people garden, others basket weave, and others light incense and meditate. Whatever it is we have these sacred processes that are simplified and part of our heritage. They can get us out of our heads and into our purpose or a purpose in the moment until we figure out our larger directive. And why would we want to be out of our heads? I presume most of us are great knowledge seeking humans that have valid thought processes and smart ideas. The reason we can find such problems inside our heads is because we cannot help our 5 sensory personalities from worrying about the future or past. And we cannot help our 5 sensory personalities from comparing ourselves to others.  What I mean by 5 sensory personalities is those characteristics we can sense by touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound. It is a way to describe our personalities on a primitive level. It is part of what makes us human but it is not all that makes us human in fact it doesn't even separate us from primates. What makes us human is our multi sensory personality. Our spirit makes us human. And when we are participating in rituals whether casual or formal we are not thinking. We are connecting. Connecting with ourselves, someone else, or a collective consciousness that may or may not include ancestors who did that same ritual for those same purposes. A ritual is like a glorified hobby. I highly recommend them. Lose yourself in a ritual today.

As I type this my clothing dryer is buzzing like a drunken army of bees reminding me that rituals can also suck! But i better attend to that if I want a calm household and fresh scented clothing. If even for a few minutes. Till next time.