sanguine revisited

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

there has been many times that i wanted to write.
sometimes to write funny things like the olden days of this musing
sometimes to talk about my predicaments with art

but i am just too busy to sit down with this musing and have a solid heart to heart

for those of you who check in, i really do appreciate it.

in the meantime, i reprinted an old woodcut. i never knew how to print well before this year, so the cuts did not get enough justice.
because of this, i am reprinting all my old cuts, and the SANGUINE VELVET ROPE was one of the first

take a look at it HERE
and click on the image for the detail.

GO-BAMA!!!!!!!!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

we did it!
we really did it.

triptuch poetry #25

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

in the advent of modern day something or nother
we start off strong
but can't quite...

just as soon as...ammended

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

hello friends.
sigfrido, the designer of the software EASELWEB which currently hosts this site has just made some changes and you are about to see some changes to the site. one of which is the return of the FOCUS page. this page used to serve as an immediate directive to what is new in the world of my art. it has been down for over a year and that is pathetic... but it shall soon return.

in the meantime, i thought i'd direct your attention to some new work i've done, or printed at least, or sketched - links below.... (click on the images for full screen versions if you should so choose)

two new prints:

the first is a scene in a series i am doing. i am chronicling an average day of mine in 12 woodcuts in a style reminiscent of the nuremberg chronicles... a big, banal undertaking... here's scene 4 when i am at work retouching... click HERE

the second is a piece of corn that i cut as per the request of chef enrique olvera. a large reproduction currently hangs in his mexico city restaurant pujol. this is an old cut, but i never really had good prints until now... there are 2 more food items left to cut for him. click HERE

a sketch:

here's a sketch i did this weekend for a series of forthcoming prints called "overheard conversations". i've been cataloguing some interesting conversation snippets i've overheard and am recreating them in woodcut form. this first one involved a woman weighing the odds of russia versus germany. i will be cutting it tomorrow and hopefully printing it before this weekend... so check back to see the final piece. until then, here's the sketch of the woman. click HERE

...ammended... so i've printed that woodcut from the sketch above. its about a week since i first posted this musing, but perhaps those of you might still go back and read this. i used the actual text from a Bauhaus poster for the russia text, and Die Brucke's text from their manifesto for the germany text. i am quite pleased with the outcome... click HERE

and a process piece:

this was the first attempt at a process piece i've been meaning to do for some time. i wanted to do extremely subtle street art. what i've done is make official looking signs that give very vague directives. however, the message is so vague and unimposing that most people would pass it by, assume it official, or question it... but not enough to take it down. so i've placed the first one in SoHo and will watch if it stays up. If so, there's many more subtle street art bits to come. click HERE

more to come....

IMPOSTER!!

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

my coworker and dear friend groana showed me this horrendous doppleganger of mine you will about to see.
i always complain that brooklyn is full of people who look LIKE me... skinny, white, 20-something, bearded... you get the picture.

but this imposter really takes it to another level.
i almost thought it was me in the pictures.

bizzarro-tj's are not allowed.
if you find one... capture it.
we will question it and figure out what is actually going on here

take a look:

lastly, i started a daily musing all about the palin-biden debate... and hopefully i'll organize and upload my thoughts before its too late.

let's talk favorites

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

this one is a crowd participation event.
i am interested in what people have as their favorites.
now i am not talking "my all time favorite (blank) is...", I am more talking, "one of my favorite (blanks) is..."

ideally i would like to compile a communal list of some our favorite things.
i am going to list a few, and i suggest that you, the reader, list some of your favorite things.

i'll start below, and in fact, i am not even going to list my ALL TIME favorite musician, because we all know that is JOHN COLTRANE. but i'll list another favorite.

so here goes - please join in as much as you can:
--------
ONE OF MY FAVORITE:

muffins are blueberry muffins
musicians is aram khachaturian
pieces of art is Manet's Execution of Maximillian (BOSTON MFA version)
liquors is tequilla
things to do in a park is get real dizzy

ok... now you guys go...

happy bday papa coltrane

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

tomorrow is not only tuesday, and not only the autumnal equinox, but more importantly is the celebration of john coltrane's birth. some 80 years ago North Carolina became home to the young John Coltrane. Some 20 years later Philadelphia accepted the young tenor player into their arms. Today people such as myself celebrate him, his music, and this day with much fervor.

If you too would like to participate in the celebratory affairs it's quite easy and fun. All you have to do is listen to a lot of his music, and eat some sweets as he had quite the sweet tooth. If you want to go as far as putting a candle in your sweets while whistling the song WELCOME (as the melody sounds a lot like happy birthday) ... well that's just dandy. I would however not want you to do heroine... though that was an early vice of Coltrane, he kicked that habit and i'm sure would not suggest to his legions of fans (you included)

it's just art and politics

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Hello to all.
I tried to write this musing once before,
and it was beautiful... filled with ideas, ponderances, pictures, love-of-life.... but it died.

it died a horrible death as i was logged out while writing and as i pushed the "upload" button, all was thrown into the proverbial wasteland that is logged-out-ed-ness.

so, in essence, you missed a musing about mine and fiamma's trip to costa rica and elements of what i did over my august vacation. but now i want to talk about a few other things. firstly... politics.

i am not that smart when it comes to politics, but i know the importance of the upcoming election so i've been paying close attention. i think haruki murakami said it best when he said something along the lines of not fearing necessarily the leaders who have less-than-perfect agendas, but moreso the masses who blindly follow those and are so easily swayed. i'm sure he said it much more poetically, and much more japanesily... but the essence is in accordance with how i am feeling recently. I've been noticing the McCain camp really telling complete lies and fabricating a sound governmental plan on the basis of "hardworking guys and gals who need to shake things up and talk straight! yee haw!". I really have disgust toward this pandering and these lies. On one hand I can completely understand how people have differing views when it comes to republican versus democratic views... but the situation is not really about that. Its more about close minded conservatism and quick-fix, help-myself-first mindsets versus long term good and global humility. I hear people that I am very close to (out of the same simultaneous womb to be exact) call me ignorant for being for Obama. Their grounding was, "So you want your taxes raised and us to fall under attack". At first I was real bummed that people could use this diatribe and use it so seriously... but then I listen to the McCain camp and FoxNews tell such lies that I realize if people don't really investigate the facts, they can become swayed so easily. McCain and Palin keep saying that Obama wants to raise our taxes, but the facts say that 91% of people will have lowered taxes with Obama and that only people with $250,000 / yr salaries will have raised taxes. this is only one example of how complete lies can manipulate an entire country down the road of peril.

With regards to my own art, I am showing some work in a group show in Red Hook (Brooklyn) on Sept 26th. The place is called Basin Art Barn and is showing some friends work as well (Caitlin Maloney and Groana Melendez) Some of the profits are going towards a benefit called Giving for Living. If you are in the area you should swing by... woodcuts and beer... what could be better?

With regards to other folks' art... here are two woodcut presses/ communities that are doing great work.

TUGBOAT PRESS (click link)

- i can't believe i had never heard of these guys before, they are from pittsburgh and apparently have my simulatneous love for woodcutting, tugboats, anchors and whales... an odd coincidence. they also cut beautifully and their art is pretty cheap.

CANNONBALL PRESS (click link)

this group is from brooklyn and do a lot of large-scale work. with artists the likes of swoon in residence, these guys produce a lot of great stuff... some thats not my cup of tea, but a lot that is.

still got it

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

it's funny
i took these pictures
and gave them to josh
but it wasn't until he posted them that i decided to do the same.

today i am sitting at my work at my desk for the last time for a month
thats right... in a few hours it will be august vacation
and we can expect some more musings i have hopes

in the meantime
here's 2 pics
josh and i jumping into the broadway blue hole
and fiamma, josh and i enjoying the splendor of klines

waaay to connected

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

i am writing this mornings musing from a bus. thats right, a BOLTBUS that is transporting me from New York to Philadelphia at 830am on saturday morning so i can break faces with my brother all weekend. This travel is, however, slightly different than most bus rides, as I am plugged in ridiculously. I have my laptop plugged into the seat in front of me and am on the internet. Also my cell phone was low on battery, so that is plugged in as well. Of course, I needed to listen to some music to prepare me for the weekend, so i have my ipod and my headphones on. I look like I am some sort of contemporary frankenstein with all these electrodes plugged into me. and also, i am really green with a flat head and two little knobs sticking out of my temples... thats the part that most makes me look like frankenstein... the green and the knobs. all old-timey-monsters aside, this really is the best way to travel i've found. its cool, clean, cheap... and i even have the seat next to me empty, so i can sit perpendicular to the front of the bus and stretch out my little legs across'd two seats.

The Facebreaker is recording this weekend. thats right, we've been doing a lot of work getting some draft tracks down, but its time to record a real EP of good quality so that we can get that out there, find a drummer, and move on to some new stuff. most of these initial tracks are Dutch's compositions which i have added to, along with the aid of a few friends on the way. my brother has a great ability to write music that is simultaneously complex as well as having a nice folk simplicity...now i hope we can just record them with justice to the concept. while life in new york does make me a busy/tired working-chump... i have also been writing some music and we will focus on a few of those post this EP.

As for visual art. I have been gaining a lot of inspiration from the woodcuts in the nuremberg chronicle. for example...

these woodcuts are so beautiful in their early wrongedness of perspective, and size proportions and wondrous storytelling. so much so that they have become the inspiration behind my newest series of two colored woodcuts. the series (so far consisting of 8 scenes) will be called A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A 27-YEAR OLD RETOUCHER IN NEW YORK CITY. using the above imagery-style as inspiration, i plan to print the mundane story of my day-to-day routine. I think the idea is kind of funny that such a boring day-to-day necessities such a once-glorious means of visualization. i've already got the scenes layed out and have started sketching.

as for other woodcuts coming up, i am starting ideas on a facebreaker image for that aforementioned EP. Also, there has been talk with my friend David Abbott in collaborating on a piece... possibly themed on battle or imaginary geographical locations... or both.

another note of interest. in a weeks time, i will have started my annual august vacation. i have the whole month off to do as i please. and while i was trying to plan the schedule, i already realized that i wish had more time. but in store for the forthcoming month are many-a-fun-activity, such as: bike ride to tilden beach, guitar tune-ups, re-recording my musicbox pieces, dutch visit, mom visit, courtney visit, cora visit, travel to baltimore, radiohead concert, lila downs concert, brooklyn college printing, fiamma and tj trip to costa rica (thats the big one), and more. i am real excited for this august, i have been waIting 7 months since my last holiday in december.

a few weeks back i went to the whitney museum with my friend henry tam. we had a real good time at the museum and post when we ate a ridiculous amount of oysters from all over the atlantic and pacific borders. while at the whitney though, i was reminded how great it is to get to museums. especially the whitney, which is a bit quieter than most of the others in the area when its not the biennial. i saw some great stuff, and here's a little taste. it also served as a great reminder to try and fight the numbing qualities that are inherent in living so close to new york splendor... its a great town, and so often we new yorkers forget to enjoy the seemingly touristy things that are attractions from afar for that very reason... ok... to the pictures (do i use "..." too often i wonder?)...

these first two paintings are by a guy named paul cadmus. who i didnt have much familiarity with. he works in egg tempera and oil. i am always admiring the egg-tempera qualities it exudes... i hope to try it again soon.

this one is a picture of coney island... not too far off from reality

here are two works by george tooker. not all of his stuff is as great i found out after a little bit of googling... but these ones are creepy and neat

more tooker

here we have two charles scheeler works - i think this one is of brooklyn. it certainly looks so.

and i believe this one to be from pittsburgh (what's in pittsburgh?... [cue david bowie-andy warhol voice]) i really like this one. nice and quiet, nice and human-less, nice soft whites.

I also recently traveled with fiamma down to harrisonburg to celebrate mariana bowling's wedding. it was great to see some old friends, and also see some not-so-old-ones such as josh powell (on his last days as an east coaster). we went to the little grill, got klines and daves taverna, and jumped off rockage into into the broadway blue hole. i have pictures of this weekend that i have to upload to the computer, and then i will put some up here as well as hopefully remember to send them to josh.

thats about it for now. i need to go plug in a few more things and see how much electricity i can put into my system before mid morning.

oh shoot... wait... lastly... i have started printing some postcards. i want to send some postcard art out to folks. if you are interested in receiving postcard mail, please send me your address - and if you also want to put in your birthday - maybe you'll get a little birthday treat one day as well (i am thinking of a lot of friends when i write this. one though, that i want to make sure, if they read this they add their address are the hnizdovsky's). but everyone can send their address to me HERE if you like.

no sir... i didn't like it

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

he's sooo competent

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

just picture some foxy ladies saying that... thats the life i envision.

no seriously though. i've realized there are two things in life that i want to achieve. i would like eto be (1) extremely competent and (2) constantly and unavoidably nice.

sometimes with my art, or music or moreso occupation, i end a day feeling less competent than i would like. i wish that the things i spent my time doing, i was able to acheive a constant competency insomuch that people could always count on me and i could always know that i would be able to handle any situation without falter. its hard to explain but i think its a good quality to go for.

the second is to be constantly nice. there are a few people i've come across'd in my life journey that just reak of niceness. in all three instances these people and i have only had breif, albeit 2-10 minute encounters, but there niceness remains in my memory. the first was a mcdonalds employee in north carolina when i was in 9th grade. i forget the conversation, but i just remember leaving that mcdonalds so happy. the latter two both are bike shoppe employees ("shoppe" spelling in honor of mr hackley). the first bike shoppe employee is a lady that works at a bike shop on vanderbilt avenue in brooklyn. she has this uncanny ability to engage everyone who comes in and make them feel just unavoidably good. and the second is a bike shoppe employee i just encountered with my brother a few weeks back in philadelphia. i didnt even directly speak to this moustache-filled fella, but just watching his interractions with people reminded me that this disposition is an important goal of mine. the problem is that i am not 100% sure how to get there, but at least i know where i want to go.

also, there are some things i've been reminded of. or rather two artistic expressions i've been reminded of. the first is tom zé. he is a brazilian musician of great creativity. take a look at a myspace page someone made for him HERE. the second artist is that of josh powell. josh is a great friend and a great artist. though some might notice his greatness at artmaking as he is not as vain as we are to have a whole webbed site devoted to it like i am... but we are however lucky enough that he hid some of his work on his flickr page. his sketches are new and are beautiful, but his older prints are also a mighty force. take a look HERE and HERE.

and lastly, one new artist that i've somehow missed even though he's been doing stuff in my hometown since i was the age of 2. this is a man who goes by joe jack talcum. he's been in a lot of bands with a lot of incarnations of his musical stylings, but you can get a glimpses at his myspace page HERE. i also much like this little woodcut animal

and finally, i was treated to an amazing birthday celebratory this weekend by the infamous fiamma piacentini. she did a wonderful job making me feel great and i wanted to share her ability at gift giving. on friday night we went to see eddie izzard perform his stand up at radio city music hall. he was hilarious and it was fun going to that venue as i had never been. on saturday morning we got my favorite bagel and took it to the park, followed by a surprise trip to the russian bathhouse in manhattan where scary russian guys in hot sauna rooms beat eachother with dead leaves. it was quite the experience that we enjoyed. then we saw the WALL-E film. The final surprise was a 2 hour tugboat ride all up the east river and into the gawanus canal. it was a real great time and the cap'n even let me man the wheel amidst a squall. after the ride we went to grimaldi's pizza where craig one and sami and trish joined us for my favorite pizza and a candle-filled cannolli. all in all a great birthday ehh?..

ok... my hands are really hot from this blasted furnace of a laptop so i am going to stop typing.

triptych poetry #24

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

or so i'd hope the moss to wonder
if pebbles turn into boulders
or if it's the other way around

june 27th

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

joe jack talcum

we here at huffart have been really appreciating the music created by one 45 year old philadelphian who goes by joe jack talcum. many incantations of his talent exist in various forms, some of which you can observe via the internets HERE or you can try HERE

we also quite like this cover/woodcut bit.

male seeking traditions...

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

that is a strange way to start a musing for sure.

but i just wanted to put a notice out there.
i was hoping to start some new traditions in my life
and traditions are much less fun when one does not have another to share the tradition with.

i am looking for certain things that i need to do regularly (albeit it weekly, monthly, or annually). these things can be things i ideally look forward to and experiences i can share with someone. for instance, my friend craig had the idea of starting a tradition of monthly riding the staten island ferry to and fro. this is an exemplar of what i am talking about as it will undoubtedly be fun, and i am sure, at some poing i will have to turn down someone's offer to do something because "sorry, i have this staten island ferry tradition that i have to do because its the 3rd sunday of the month". just having that excuse, and something that i can count on... is great.

if anyone is interested in starting a new tradition and is looking for another to join, i would be more than willing to entertain any ideas,
thus augmenting our tradition-needing beings.

please feel free to use the comments space below with your ideas, or if you'd prefer anonimity, you can email me at contact@huffart.com

lastly... on the art front, my woodcut class at brooklyn college finally has ended, and i am able once again to pursue some other ideas.
the first of which is a dual portrait of fiamma and myself.
we will hang in two separate gilded frames and be painted with an homage to albrecht durer stylings or rather any other early renaissance profile portraits. the painting is only one aspect of the piece... i hope to use these paintings as a barometer of the current state of our relationships... the closer i hang the two portraits together, the better our relationship is that day... if perchance we get into an argument, i could go as far as swapping the portraits spaces so instead of facing one another, they face apart.

to get a quick idea of what i am talking about, click HERE to see the preliminary sketch.

also, out of that sketch, i decided to do a tiny linocut of my profile. this piece is called SELF PORTRAIT FOR WHEN I WANT/NEED TO FEEL IMPORTANT. click HERE to see it

also - my portrait reminded me of this Ilya Repin portrait

there are more works in the... well... works.... but i will talk about them as they start to get their respective momentums (momentii?)

new arts

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

i've attempted to write a musing now for quite some time. i keep starting them, but life has been so busy that i have yet to finish. and when i don't have time to even write about the life or lack-thereof things've got to change.

in the meantime though, there are some new arts to talk about.

firstly, welcome ryan clinton (*used to be called shean) to the interwebbings and art exhibitioning therein. ryan's artwork continues to develop and we here at huffart love it. now you can too... click HERE.

also, another artist whom we really enjoy work from is damon kowarsky. he's got a new show up of his etchings from mexico... and seeing as we love mexico so much, we were bound to enjoy these. click HERE.

thirdly, i've made a new woodcut - 6 colors for your enjoyment. its called SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO EAT SOME EXTRA CHEESE TO BE HAPPY... and oddly enough, that statement is so true on so many levels. anyway, click HERE to view.

and here's a great video erin mcmonagle passed my way via craig one. a great, giant stop animation, click HERE.

there has been some initial planning for a fort greene park installation dealing with walt whitman, more to come on this.

lastly, the idea of posting official-looking signs around the city is solidifying, more to come on this.

things i want to discuss in the future:
- the man who told me at 530am that he would "restore my faith in humanity" and then swindled me out of my $5.
- umm... other things too

name-a-baby

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

i am not sure if i will ever father anything.
but iiiiiifffff i do.

i have an idea of how to name this tiny human.

my idea would be this: just after the little person is born, and his limbs are all flaily. i would put he/she near a computer keyboard. the first mash of keypad that his tiny hand or foot or bobbly head makes onto the keyboard would become the childs name. for example:

uiy89y7
jfl;ju
hy9aha
u90-r2

or maybe

dfszbp89uy

that would be how you spell it you see, but perhaps "uiy89y7" would be pronounced "peter" or perhaps "u90-r2" would be pronounced "samantha". so for all intents and purposes, the child would leave a normal life with people pronouncing his/her name in a regular fashion... it would just come to light that his dad is a weirdo and that the child named itself when it was 1 day old when she/he needed to sign a document or a professor was doing roll call or something, wherein after a funny attempt by the professor to say the name he/she'd have to say "its spelled 'j-f-l-;-j-u'... but its pronounced Mark". then everybody else in the vicinity laughs and communally says in chorus "that is funny and so neat and i like you, young Mark!" BLAMMO! - this kids got friends now!

just looking out for the little one you know?

-------------------------

ok, the next portion of this musing takes a turn for the more serious. its actually something that made me quite angry and a little disgusted that this mindset exists today... but i thought it necessary to share. i rarely use this musing as a platform for political, or religious debate, but every so often there comes a time when i feel i must put in my two cents.

the next set of images are screenshots from an email i received from a relative. now i can only hope that this relative doesn't actually agree with the socially inept and close-minded attitude presented in the email forward... i am going to assume that they do not and were simply passing along this forward in an attempt at humor.. so this musing has nothing to do with the forwarder of this forward or of anyone in particular at all, just a mindset that exists in our world.... but it struck a chord with me in a negative way.

now i really like religion, and i enjoy the comforts afforded to me by living in the united states, but things like this reeeeally make me dislike some people who claim to be religious and patriotic, but are really just cloaking their close-minded perspective in an insincere faux-religious angle.

religion is a great thing in my mind, but sooome people really know how to warp it and misuse it thus giving it a bad name.

ok.... so here we go... here's the forward that was sent to me...

first off... how ignorantly racist about the "learn english" bit. they show an arian young suburban looking lady smiling, and then elude to hanging up on anyone who hasn't mastered an american accented english. i don't know when it came to be that people think americanized english is the standard of excellence as far as language goes. the way i see, america is probably one of the few countries wherein the vast majority can only speak one language. so sure, you have people who come from other lands to the states looking for a better day-to-day, and they've had to overcome some obstacles to get here... the least of which is probably learning a new language. but they get it done, they can speak in two languages, yet also get berated by close-minded-email-forwarding-one-language-speaking people with a bad attitude. has that general public forgotten where they come from? this country is founded on immigration. it only exists because of people immigrating here from some ancestry, and just because we've been here 200 years or something, we think we have the right to this uppity attitude? it bothers me. perhaps i am just a bit lucky having a girlfriend from mexico, and living in a city where cultural diversity is the norm... but thats no excuse for people who don't get the privilege of that exposure to perpetuate hatred.

and thats just the tip... to then combine a misapropriated religion and war analogy into that forward makes it all the worst. for one, the very fundamentals of the christian religion is founded on being non-judgmental and being loving. Christ was a compassionate and loving person... yet a couple thousand years later, we have people who claim to be religious, yet somehow have completely warped the beautiful concepts in the religion and turned it into something that i am ashamed of. I really like religion, its just some religious people reeeeallly get to me. now don't get me wrong, there are some great ones out there... Martin Luther King Jr is a hero of mine. Christian as well as Jewish and non-western religions are beautiful and have a lot of validity in my mind... and i am sure there are people that warp the beauties of those religions too, but whats in my face day-to-day is that small percent of American religious persons who has somehow lost compassion and acceptance and are manipulating it to include this war we are in as a religious effort.

this war was a big mistake and has nothing to do with religion no matter how many lame-forwarded-emails people send about it. and yes, i appreciate military personnel who live their lives to protect others, but when people who send these forwards use that sacrifice of lives as leverage to validate this war its ridiculous to me. i don't know much about politics, but all i can see is thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars lost for little to no benefit. yes... democracy is a great goal... but this war seemed more about oil and money than safety or bettering life in the world.

and on a slightly more light-hearted note... as an artist... the imagery is just ridiculous, the moving gif at the end of the ribbon swinging is silly, and the weird crucifixion movie set image is just a weird choice... if people are going to spend the time to design these weird forwards, they should at least work on the aesthetics a little bit.

pheuw - sorry about all of that - i, for some reason, felt i needed to react to that forward. i hate forwards to begin with, but i hate when pseudo-religious people try and destroy the beauty of religion, and i really hate racism...

-------------------------------

sorry for that rant there...
lastly, to get back to art...

julie melton, my one-and-only sister-in-law sent me a link to the boston globe today.
click HERE to take a look at what the Globe considers to be the top art made by MassArt's MFA student peter froslie
now, if you'll be so kind as to click HERE and HERE to see a sculpture i made 5 years ago in undergrad.

so similar hmmm?... assassin mugshot sculptures made out of found material.... i'm not implying this fella stole my idea, it's just interesting to see what some people are calling the top graduate art today, and its so similar to something i worked on years ago.

oook - the first part of this musing was more fun huh? the baby name thing... remember that?... that was funny

www.elcome back

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

the internet world has just been decorated even further this past week with the come back of a newly revised webbed site
this proverbial bow-in-the-hair-of-the-world-wide-web is none other than the site of fiamma andrea piacentini.
fiamma is a photographer extraordinaire who is attempting the daring feat of making art for ones self combined with making a small business of shooting pictures for people in need of their souls being taken.

you can view her photographs and projects HERE

i suggest taking a look at the 2nd picture in the portraits section
if i ever wrote a book, the inside back leaf would most certainly be this picture.... so authory in its picturing.

things i was thinking about this morning

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

here's just a few thoughts that have run through my mind today.

with regards to....

...coffee: i really like when i can add my half and half prior to the coffee, and then use the thrust of the coffee pour as pneumatic stirring pressure

...fruit salad: if i am to ever make a fruit salad i am not going to go and class it down by adding a whole bunch of melon just because its cheaper and a good looking light green and orange space filler... because the truth is, the melon is good, but i feel like a lot of people fill their fruit salads up with like 65% melon and leave a tiny bit of 35% for the strawberries, grapes, raspberries, pineapple (and if youre lucky... mango) to be hunted and pecked until your left with the dregs of melon-town.

...wet foods: i like my fruit to be constantly wet... like i wish at the edges of my plate i had one of those sprinkler systems that grocery stores have for their produce sections... it would sprinkle every few minutes with a delicate chime just prior to let me know to fork down and back away... because my fruit is about to get all shiny and delicious looking... on the contrary, i like my bread not wet ever. sure, its delicious if its slightly moist from freshness, but maaaaan, when i see a wet piece of bread i'm all heeebie-jeebied out.

...sidewalking: i like to walk like i drive, always on the right... and if i feel like moving slow, i'll go to the far right to allow left lane passers. if i am in a big group, i say caravan style is great... now i'm not talking single file like we're going from the 1st grade classroom to the library for story time... i mean breaking up into small groups one ahead of the other. this allows traffic to pass at will, as well as makes for interesting sub-groups of conversation amidst an otherwise larger and less collaborative approach of large huddles of groups with one conversation going... kind of like an elementary school soccer game... a giant cluster of humans around one central element and like only two people get to kick that central element and the rest just are trying to find the central element to kick.

...tackling: should be done more often of people above the age of 15. don't get me wrong, 15 is the ideal age to tackle someone... but that doesn't mean we should stop when we're 25.

it is still early in the morning... and as it seems... my thoughts have been mostly about food. but i will hopefully update this with a bit more whence i start thinking about other things.

oh... one more... subjectivity versus objectivity: subjectivity exists due to multiple objective mindsets... perhaps that sounds wordy... but i've been in a bunch of situations recently wherein people think that issues are objective and will argue suchly. and i am beginning to realize that those people who think that those things are objective, never see anyone elses viewpoint long enough to know that they are subjective. so say you have an argument or differing opinions... both arguing that they are right and that the answer is objective... well i'd beg to argue that they are both wrong, and multiple objectivities don't exist... thus... they deserve a punch in the eye or something

feel free to add your own...

and just for good measure... how about a link?...

click HERE for a new woodcut. this one is called THE EXHUMIST AT WORK. you can also click on the image for an enlargement. there are some more to come as well.. normally this would be on the FOCUS PAGE.. but it is still being worked on unfortunately.. but for the time being.... this'll do...

spring is nye

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

spring is nye.
this is true.
i could tell by the semi-warm rains this morning
and the skinny birds on my window-ledge that strongly interest my quadro-pedalled cat named tugboat.
i could also tell by the lack of my beard and the spritelyness in my step.
though temporarily, my step has been sideswiped by sore muscles from my return to the aerobic exercise of the fort greene park run.
i run a loop that goes up and down the terrain of the park neighboring my apartment, up some steps, around a wall, past a few dogs, and the like.
it's a good run and allows me a few moments of quiet time in my otherwise non-quiet days. it has recently, also been a reminder that i have been doing this run for almost 4 years now. That's a long time to be running the same loop hmm?...

on a different note, my friend trish sent me some inspiration for next year...
check out these beards HERE

and for a different bit of inspiration, here's a painting i enjoy.
'twas made from a friend of mine who goes by edward holland, though i like to call him "ted", which reminds me off middle school.
he made this painting in venice... fancy pants...

it's called BEATING AROUND THE BUSH. i like that color blue a lot, almost as much as i like carlo crivelli pinks.
more of his work can be seen HERE

As far as painting is concerned, I have been developing some ideas for a new series i hope to start just as soon as my woodcutting class ends. it is the first series of paintings i have conceived as a show in advance, and i hope to one day show them together. i don't want to give too much away before the idea matures a bit, but it essentiallly will be directly referencing scene paintings from greek times through the renaissance and into the romantic periods, but more specifically, focussing on a few of the more interesting, yet more trivial components of those previous works.

welp, i would like to write more, perhaps if i think of something interesting throughout today i will add.

lets talk growing-old-shop

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

ok.

welcome back everybody.

welcome back me.

i will probably have to stop this musing frequently because my two cats are quite intrigued with the remnants of my trash can... i must thwart their attempts to un-bin the refuse.
in the meantime... i'll start you off with a picture just for good measure.

when i woke up one morning, i looked down at two of my books which were placed atop one another. completely accidentally, they lined up pretty well i thought with regards to feet and cloth.

ok... but down to busines... in general, i am writing this musing because i need you, the readers, to reply with advice. as it turns out, i don't know how to properly live a life. i am constantly struggling to figure out if growing up is a wise decision yet. see, as it turns out, i have a job that i think is slooooowly draining my soul. or recently, not quite slowly enough. i think i have, or at least at one point, HAD, potential to lead an interesting, funny life.. but recently, i feel like i have to watch scrubs just to remind myself of being young. and i feel like thats quite pathetic, and i really like to make sure i don't lose my ability to enjoy life on a day to day basis.... which is recently the case. and i know some jobs can afford oneself a balance - but i cant quite figure out where to find it... i mean, this week is supposed to be beard-week-2008. the very week where i shave my beard off in designerlly sections prior to March 1, wherein I am cleanly shorn. However, i can't even bring myself to find the will or time to design my facial hair with the frustrations that berate me from 9am-7pm everyday, let alone want to face those berrations with a funny looking swan-shaped moustache.

don't get me wrong, i really appreciate what a steady, professional job can offer. i have a great apartment, and cats and can go to nice dinners with my girlfriend... but i need to figure out if i should try and break free of the shackles of a debilitating day-to-day routine, or is that just trying to hang onto a college mindset that i should let go of.

any thoughts?

wood-er

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

i am back into the woodcutting swing of things as yesterday began my first woodcutting class at Brooklyn College under the wing of master printer David Lantow. Already, after the first day he has given me a few different angles into printing as well as a few good resources. The first of which is a site www.imcclains.com . This website is a good resource for supplies and imagery for the relief arts. All of the images below are taken from there, and while I remembered some artists names, some I was too lazy to go back and look for it, so for that I am sorry... but please enjoy these prints. I do.

linocuts above by david page

woodcut by Rick Finn

woodcut above by Jim Meyer

woodcuts above by Margaret Parker

linocut by Carl Montford

woodcut by Bill Paden

woodcut by Stuart Ross

linocut by Sally Piller

me and mlk are best friends

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

today is monday january 21st. i know this date for a few reasons. reason number one is that i wanted to make delicious pancakes this morning, and noticed that my eggs were not fit to be consumed post the date of january 18th... i quickly consulted my cellular phone for its calendarage and noted the date had since 3 days priorly passed. though it was only in the 20 degrees zone outside... i put my favorite waterproof pants and jacket on over my pajamas and headed to the deli for fresher eggs.... i really wanted those pancakes. oh and also. i wore waterproof pants because i like them. it wasn't raining.... i just like them.

but secondly, i know the date because of the fella above. he and i are best friends. i really wish i could high five with him and john coltrane and albert einstein all at once. that would make me real happy. but for the time being, i will high five myself as i lay on my studio floor on the celebration of his birth and listen to his sermon A KNOCK AT MIDNIGHT. if you have nary heard martin luther king speak... that'd be silly... but if you have nary heard his sermons, i strongly suggest them. regardless of your religious beliefs or disbeliefs, the sermons are wonderful on a socio-political, moral/ethical standpoint. i really can't get enough of them. you combine that with listening to a coltrane song - and you have yourself a pretty happy situation if you ask me. even john coltrane loved MLKjr and fashioned his playing in the ALABAMA tune he wrote after the phrasing from MLK's funeral speech post the Alabama incident... so yeah... we're all friends

and here are a few of my other friends below...

above you there, you get another glimpse of tugboat and mousetrap... mynew living companions. this shot was taken seconds after i brought them into myhome for the first time. i openned their cardboard traveling boxes up in the bathroom becuase that's where there litterbox was to be and i figured if there's one room to be comfortable in, that'd be a good one to start. becuase of that, they hid in there for the first few days, but now seem to roam around the house without a care. and i like that.

above here you have fiamma... i tried to make her get into a cardboard box filled with newspaper, but i couldn't find one big enough. i mean... i found the cardboard box... but you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find gigantic newspapers. i needed like a reeeallly blind person to give me there superlarge print copy or something.

and yes, another friend david abbott... i recently traveled across'd the seas to seas him and seas his family. not seize. i had a really great trip with him. we made it a point to plan nothing and just relax, and it turned out to be my favorite way to travel by far. of course it helped that we had so many amazing things around us, that doing nothing usually incorporated something cool even without trying... but its a mindset i will try to take with me on future travels. another bit of traveling advice that i took (and gave) was to come home with a couple days to spare prior to returning to work. usually i like my trips to extend as far as they can... which usually involves red eye plane traveling early into the monday wee hours before returning to work. as a result, i usually get back to work from vacation time feeling more tired than when i left. this time 'round i came back on a friday afternoon and had a whole weekend of re-acclimation. which is especially nice.

here is proof positive that we spent days just relaxing. you can see david working on a jigsaw puzzle complete with mary poppins and lightening and tom (his younger, yet still quite tall brother) on the computer.... probably talking to his newfound feminina that he was going to travel and see just post my visit.

and here we have a glimpse of SNAP studio. go ahead... click that link... i dare you. it will show you a super great artist space / gallery / studio run by david and his friends. i am sorry for the lack of pictures of SNAP. you see... i accidentally left my camera in fiamma's purse when she went off to mexico, and while my mom was gracious enough to let me borrow hers, i had a hard time without my favorite little DSC-T10 and took fewer pictures than i should've. but i did like this one. it was someones desk there... i don't think david's desk, but someones.

here is a photo from a fancy part of bristol. david and i were walking around one afternoon after visiting the town's gigantic bridge. we were looking for a pub and/or some ideas to make dinner with. we walked down this street during one of my favorite parts of the day... the oncoming of dusk. now luckily, england seems to rest in this state of day for a good portion longer than here in new york city... so i felt like i was constantly in a bluely-lit, cloud filled dusk setting. but i liked the way all of these buildings got their collective energy from this central pole. it doesn't happen here so much this way... but david seemed unphased by its coolness, so maybe its more a UK thing... or maybe he's just got a higher tolerance of cool than me.

this photo (we're moving reverse chronologically here for some reason) was taken just as i arrived into England. I was immediately wowed at the landscape. though this is not my first trip to England, it is my first time flying into the island. Because of this, I was able to get a great planes-eye-view of the lush landscape, and was wowed at the fact that even the homes right next to the airport seemed old and neat with farms and everything. in jersey or philadelphia, all the homes near the airport seem like bad places to live, here... not the case

i was trying to capture the face of this statuette as we had similar facial hairs. i tried this once priorly with a statuette in the Boboli Gardens in Florence, and would love to show a picture of that one as I feel I did more justice there... but alas it was before the time of the digital camera age... at least for me. this photo was from Oxford. A quite beautiful town where you can see scenes from Harry Potter movies and eat dinner with bassists from Radiohead if you like.

but speaking of the digital age, as i was leaving england I got to the airport a few hours early, and before I could even find a meat filled sandwhich or a cappuccino, i stumbled across'd an advertisement i worked on for Raymond Meier Studio. This one was particularly interesting to see so large and at head height because this was a shot that was composed of many many different shots. I dont believe the actual bottle existed at the time of the shoot, so I had to make a good amount of the glass, and rework a lot of the imagery to look real. Also, the background was completely reworked from some other shoot so it was fun to see hours and hours of my work up close.

but now its time to look at some bad artwork. i put these sketches up here for a few reasons. (1) they would normally just go into the FOCUS page, but unfortunately, as sigfrido has been getting the easelweb software ready for public use, it has been down for quite sometime. that page is supposed to tell all you readers of the newest in new things and be updated almost daily. but i think the last change was early june. since then i have done a lot of stuff, but have been unable to really post it in a temporary way. i have finished some webdesign work for enrique olvera, i finished some album design work for stephane wrembel, i've done some drawings for a mural that never went up, and a bunch of other things. the two most recent bits of art news were that I am officially enrolled back in school. I will be taking a woodcutting class at Brooklyn College starting this January 28th in order to keep up my teaching license. But secondly, my boss offered to pay for figure drawing classes for me. Now I believe he offered this to me for annoying reasons i'd rather not get into... but i am going to thankfully accept free classes that would otherwise cost me a lot of money. this past week i went to my first class and felt rusty for sure. i normally wouldn't put any poor art such as this up on the site, but i figured it would be a lesson in humility and making myself show some drawings at least.... so here are a few croquis. those are short sketches that are anywhere from 30 second drawings to 2 minute, 5 minute or up to 20 minute studies.

focussing too much on the linear elements and i really want to focus more on the light on the character. this was a 2 minute drawing i believe.

here was a five minute pose. his butt was hoisted funnily up in the air. and i always find it hard to draw muscular men because the drawings usually turn out to look like my drawings when i was 7 and I was drawing He-Man and Rambo characters. overly muscular and such... though He-Man and Rambo were not ever fully naked... so its a little different. i always find the best people to draw are reeeally heavyset women. so many curves within curves to work with. thats really the trick to line drawing the figure i believe, focussing on the nuances of curves within curves.

i zoomed in on this one. i forget if it was a 2 or 5 minute pose. i also have trouble drawing african american faces because its easy to fall into making the drawing looking stereotypically african american.... i don't want to insinuate any racism in drawings thats for gosh darn sure.

and here we have a 20 minute pose that i didn't quite get to the legs when the timer rang. all in all, while i don't like the drawings, i liked stretching my drawing hands and will hopefully be going back on a regular basis... assuming my boss will keep paying for it. though it did remind me of a book i would love to make. this book would consist in two sections. the first being all unfinished works by artists. i really love seeing an unfinished piece of art... i don't know if its the raw-ness of it, or just the fact that the process becomes so evident... but sheesh you can't find a book that puts a bunch of unfinished works together and i think you should be able to.

this is an unfinished work by da vinci, st jerome something-or-nother...

a benjamin west painting.

a picasso of a harlequin - i think the sitter was a painter friend of his named salvado.

i'm not sure who did this one but i like it.

this is one of my favorite paintings of all time. i don't like the artist so much - laurence alma tadema. but this unfinished painting was at the van gogh museum when my brother and i went to amsterdam. and out of all the great van gogh's there, this one might've been my favorite piece there. you don't get a sense of the beauty of it online... but let me tell you...

ok - i think that's enough examples -you get the point. the second half of the book would all be bad paintings by the masters. i think it would be a great resource for artists to have a giant book that had some paintings by... say... jacques louise david, or ingres where they really just messed up or did a poor job. because all we ever see when we look in museums or books are the great works, but there has to be hundreds of bad works in private collections or in basements of museums that don't get shown... but i think should be compiled somewhere. so that's my book idea. i hope someday i can find the resources and time to do the study needed to put it together.

ok - and lastly. i thought this would be a good ending to my musing. here is the best cappuccino i have ever had in my life. for a while it was one i shared with some friends in florence along with some delicious peanuts.... and i always thought peanuts were the trick to delicious cappuccino's. but now i think its lots of cocoa on top.

fe-dots and fe-lines

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

i would like to introduce the huffart musing readers to my newest friends.

today fiamma and i went to the Brooklyn Animal Rescue Center (BARC) and took home two brother cats. we are now the proud owners of two cats (and a total of 7 legs on them).

named: mousetrap and tugboat.

that was them some weeks ago

this is them more recently

new stuff i've seen

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

there have been lots of neat things for me to enjoy recently.
what with the holidays, visiting good ole david abbott in england, and seeing some new artists... i do need to have a good typing session... for the time being - here are a few pics - i will fill with text soon

these first bits of work are by a brazilian artist eduardo recife...

here we have some work ofa japanese artist roger shimomura...

and lastly, a recently deceased british artist named euan uglow...

these next bits are by an artist named david foldari... you can see his work at BIGACTIVE.COM

and then a few by someone named parra on the same site....

sooo scary

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

massimo alan dale pacchione shared this

its gross
watch with caution
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Krfew0Jyvbw

test

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

testing focus

what we needed

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

what we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities

haruki murakami

it's snow good

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

my spacings

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

i have had a rocky relationship with myspace.
at first i liked it,
and what it could offer with regards to keeping semi-loose ties to people that you would feel too awkward to write a direct email or give a direct call to. it was kind of like when you hang out with a whole group of friends so you don't feel awkward just being one on one with someone.... a buffer if you will

but then i started disliking the ratings system and having to keep up with another internetty mode of communication and all the nuances that go into that.... so i jumped off that myspace boat.

but one thing i have come back to really appreciate is what myspace has done for music. it is a great vehicle to listen to free music and to travel through a whole web of different bands to almost infinite proportions.

inasmuch, here is a list of some bands that i like that i have either found on myspace, or have taken advantage of the taste tests of music

click the links for goodness sakes:

http://www.myspace.com/kneuringer
http://www.myspace.com/mbauder
http://www.myspace.com/hootshellmouth
http://www.myspace.com/aaronsbsides
http://www.myspace.com/michaelleviton
http://www.myspace.com/fredfrithmusic
http://www.myspace.com/softpeople
http://www.myspace.com/louismoondoghardin
http://www.myspace.com/shugotokumaru
http://www.myspace.com/tobygoodshank
http://www.myspace.com/ahawkandahacksaw

if there are some that you'd like to pass our way, please leave them as a comment on this musing.

is squeaky there?

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

hello.

hello is squeaky there?

who?

squeaky.

i think you have the wrong number

ok.

<click>

either its new , or...

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

i reached an important stage in my beard yesterday. every year there gets a point where i can push a pencil from one end of the bottom tuft through the other side... if the pencil holds, and hangs under my chin without the aid of my hand... then my beard is a full fledged adult beard. that day happened yesterday and i was proud to be the owner of said beard.

on another note... sometimes i get nervous that there are no things that i can encounter where i say "whoa... i never even knew that existed". but i am happy when i am proved wrong. for instance, when we are younger, there is a whole world of things that once you experience, your eyes are opened extremely wide because you never even considered what you just experienced because you didnt know it even existed. for instance, like a first kiss ever... thats an experience that you've seen, but until you take part in... you really can't gauge those feelings. or being in an airplane for the firs ttime. or perhaps you taste pesto for the first time in college and you never even knew that flavor existed. well... i figured that once i left college, that those experiences would be few and far between... but luckily... just last week i experienced another. for the first time ever i experienced the flavor of concord grapes. up until that point, i often questioned candy-makers choice in the grape-flavored-candy. i always thought... this doesn't taste like the grapes i am used to eating. but just last week at the farmer's market i tasted a concord grape... and not only is the flavor exactly what was used for impetus for the grape-flavor in candy... but the gelatinous innards of the grape make for fun playtime for your tongue as it tries to pierce the funny membrane. please try one if you never had, they are really weird.

on another note even more notey... i attempted to take part in a rooftop mural for the new design high school of new york. i was asked to paint a 12' x 22' mural on the roof of this school along with street artists and graffiti artists and was pretty excited to do some public art... but when i got to the roof last night... i found it raining and deserted. even though i checked multiple times to see if the event was still going on regardless of the precipital situation of the evening... i was told over and over that it was still on. so here i go, walking through the lower east side, with a projector, transparencies, paint and the like... getting wet in the rain.... i finally arrive to the roof and find this....

a little disheartening actually... though very interesting and strange to be standing on an unfamiliar roof in manhattan in the rain by onesself.

to lift your spirits though, there is a new artist whom i quite like. a very old woman nowadays who lives in philadelphia named helen siegl. here are some of her woodcuts...

these woodcuts are quite simple... but beautifully done. i really like the second color printed slightly off of registration and how she uses is in just the right ways. these prints reminded me of some beautiful prints i saw this summer when fiamma and i were traveling through mexico... we woke up one early morning and went to a government building to see some diego rivera murals which were beautiful indeed... but also the library had some beautiful prints from an old book called el mexico de beinto juarez. i've looked all over to see if this book was available, but i can't find it anywhere... the whole morning was a great morning with nice light... and the art was pretty inspiring. here are some images from that morning...

this was the morning light which i felt pretty good about.

here was the main mural in the building that told the history of mexico from left to right.

showing these images just reminded me that i never shared any images from my trip to mexico with fiamma and up the west coast with josh... i will have to upload those images soon, but i've been musing for a good while now and i have lost the patience... please remind me if i forget.

in the meantime, here's a few more images, a rivera sketch which i like (i am also finding it hard to find a book of his works on paper, if anyone has seen one please let me know).

and as i was waiting in line when adam hopkins came to visit out front of grimaldi's pizzeria, i stumbled upon a judith supine that i believe to be my favorite yet. which also reminds me that i have an idea for a bit of street art, i think it is quite humorous and will work well, i just need to figure out a few kinks in the situation and once i do, i will tell you all about the plan. in the meantime, heres the judith supine....

and finally, here are a few pics from my new apartment. in it i have my own studio wherein i can be productive without having to work in my bedroom like i have for the previous years... i am hoping this will incite some new work...

notice the j po inspired plant in soup can.

i like placing apples and oranges atop this toaster, but soon might be returning it to craig one as he has befriended this heating mechanism and misses it so it seems.

tumbletwine on the praire carlton...

ok. have a nice day everyone...

snap, bristol and pop

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

"here's another musiing for all you lovely readers out there" - that's how i would start this musing off if i were a disc jockey and this were my radio show.

i wanted to write you to let you know about snap studio. this is a printmaking co-op / gallery / studio in bristol, england started by our dear friend david abbott (among others). even if you will not be crossing the english channel to get to bristol and take a look at the studio itself, i strongly suggest you peruse their webbed site HERE.

As a little taste tester, i've included a few images from SNAP STUDIO that i quite enjoy. its real great to see people starting up projects like this from scratch at such a young age. ok... here's the images:

speaking of images. i just got an email from the Laredo Repair Center saying that I was correct and my camera malfunctions were indeed not my fault but rather covered under warranty. inasmuch, they repaired my camera and i was completely reimbursed for extra shipping. in just 2 short days i will be able to photograph once more and cover these internetty walls with pictures.

lastly, the apple fast ended last night. it wasnt as climactic as i had hoped, but i am happy to be back to food today. real happy

let's talk apples

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

remember when you used to tell someone to hold their tongue with their fingers and then say "apples"?
oh man that was real fun. those were the gosh darned days.

but i want to talk apples on another level today. i mean sure, i could hold my tongue while i type "apples" but thats much less fun and then my keyboard gets slimy. nobody wants a slimy keyboard... except maybe a slug. i bet those guys really love slimy keyboards but seriously. i am on the last day of my apple fast. this fast started on sunday night when i stopped eating regular food and drink and confined myself to soley apples and water until wednesday night. wherein, i would embibe 2 tbsp of olive oil and then slowly but surely on thursday bring food back into my diet. of course this is supposed to clean ones' system as well as give energy and such... but for me it was just something funny and a bit trying. and i like both of those elements. i had two others join me on this adam hopkins and his special-lady-friend-heather. now no offense to special-lady-friend-heather, but she ducked out early in the race - i'd say even day one. now here we are, on day 3... just adam and i left. but to be honest, it wasn't as nearly as hard as i thought. i mean... yes, i do crave salty cheesy things (especially when meredith mcglinchey types to me about cheesesteak empanada concoctions), but the apples were delicious and filling enough to keep me semi-happy for 3 days. though would i want to do another three? probably not right now.

i would love a cup of coffee though.
cups of coffee are great
when the weather has turned octerberly fall-like, and you want to hold the hot mug with both hands. oh man.... in about a week that will be perfect. and i will do just that. perhaps perched on my fire escape, like some sort of caffeine-loving-gargoyle.

this musing was originally set up to talk about art... and i haven't done too much of that recently. but on that front... i recently received and assembled my drafting table... fully equipped with a giant magnifying light. all i need to do now is finish the customizing of it to maximize woodcutting... but as soon as that is done - there are two new woodcuts in the plans... as well as a painting even... can you believe it? a real gosh darned painting. there is some freelance design work in the mix as well... but art is coming... i can feel it. music too - that stuffs coming also.
oh heavens is it ever.

limbs are fun right?

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

i have been thinking lately. and no. let me change that. i think this all the time, but i have resolved lately to get out of the grey area middle of things. i realize that deep down inside i like to be a person of extremes. its like, a see-saw is only fun if youre at then end - the middle of the see-saw is just wobbly and boring... but especially if you put a fat kid on the other end... being on one extreme of some larger adversity can be really great. it can also be real disastrous... but real great. i want to try some new things these days - and try them full-heartedly. thus going out on a limb. for instance starting a new home. thats a limb and i am buying all sorts of new stuff and comforts of a home. but if the day comes that i decide having vast quanities of "stuff" isn't the tj ideal... then i will hopefully sell it all, and reduce my posessions and home comforts to a minimal as possible.

with this in mind, or actually, its a tangent - but somewhat similar... i am about to start a 3-day apple fast. in hopes to do something that i've never done before, and something out of my comfort zone. this will start on perhaps monday or wednesday of next week wherein i will eat only apples for three days... ending with the embibing of two tablespoons of olive oil. i will then supposedly have vast energies, a cleaner kidney... and some other things.

also, this year... beard season is going along swimmingly. i have my red-tinged face that is getting bushier by the day. i hope this year to train my beard to have a long underbelly, short sides, and a large moustache parted in the center. a litle more wiley than the prior two years.

here are some primo examples of beards for you:

the late, great walt whitman

moondog (sans viking helmet)

and of course... stevezie

another bit... while i am not currently teaching, i do plan to take a college course this winter to recertify my teaching abilities. in the meantime, i was recently inspired by my friend and old professor beryl solla. beryl has always been making teaching something more fun and different than most art teachers... and this hasn't stopped recently. she teaches at a college in virginia and recently made a blogspot posting for her class. what a simple and efficient way to bring in modern webby-ways into the classroom. giving the students something to show and be proud of. you can view HERE if you like.

so i hope to put the proverbial fat kid of adversity opposite me on future choices and really go out on the limb trying things - and if it doesnt work out - i will try the exact opposite.. .and only once i have tried the extremes, do i think i will appreciate a balance for what it is - as opposed to just a middle grey.

little prints

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Bichael B. Faster

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

i am alive everyone.
just for the FYI

i dont like the phrase FYI though
so please don't use it around me
i might just keel over.

and then who would write these musings?...

due to the inspiration that i received whilst biking two weekends ago with craig into the city... i decided to bike to work this morning.
and i must say; the sojourn left me feeling pretty awake (sans coffee) and i had a great view of the city and a great ride. bear in mind the weather was 68 and sunny and probably each ride all year long might not be as perfect... but i would like to make this more of a routine i hope.

also... i raced the Q train over the manhattan bridge. we were neck and aluminum neck for a while... but i beat it. so it turns out.. the bike'll be faster indeed. Bichael B. Faster. one thing however though, that i know that i am going to need to change is my breaks. i had two near collisions. one coming off the manhattan bridge as i raced through some curvy terrain... and one near faceplant with a rear view mirror. my breaks just barely afforded me safety. i will have to remedy this

another bit i would like to talk with you about is PANDORA.COM. this is a great website if you want to expand your horizons on your music interests. it works like a personalized radio station, wherein you put the name of a band you like, and the site plays a sequence of songs relating to your selected artist. wherein you can direct this music by thumbs-upping or downing their choices. pretty neat methinks.

another little neat thing is ONE MILLION FORGOTTEN MOMENTS. this is the greatest bit of live art i have seen during my time in new york city. up there (for me) with phillip glass buys a loaf of bread... this is a play wherein the audience sits in theatre seats with the full regalia of opera glasses and handheld fans. now these seats have been put into place in an old porn shop just affront city hall in new york city. the porn has since been removed obviously, and the audience faces out the front window of the shop onto the sidewalk, street, median and park where the performance takes place. a whole slew of dada-esque dance, comedy, magic and acting troupes play on the city hall grounds amidst traffic and the public a play all about new york city, its history and current. it was an amazing performance (with my very own roomate dancing in it ; MELINA GAC-ARTIGAS) but what made is really great... was that it was all about appreciating new york city. in the audience, you realize what a bit of history you are amidst - and likewise - creating.

there is much more to come - but i need to return to work - and return to making angry-squinty eyes at the SONY people for breaking my camera and then blaming me (which is the reason there are no photos on the musings these days)

one million forgotten moments -

bacon & chocolate

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

i've been duped!

so i've had this idea for the past 9 years or so.
an idea that is so important with regards to the combining of the pork and cocoa plant portions of the food triangle.

here's the basic premise...
you get yourself some turkey bacon and you cook it up nice and crispy like
now its gotta be turkey bacon because it gets nice and crispy indeed.
then you get yourself some dark chocolate... you melt it... and you dip the turkey bacon in it
you let it harden - and then you enjoy one of the more admirable combinations of salty sweet you will ever come across'd.

now i've never actually gone through the steps - but i always planned to... and then out of the blue... what do i see??....

chumps.... i'll get them yet....

communal,unbridled exertion

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

so i know some of you are awaiting photos and info about my recent travels.
and i dont blame you.
i really dont blame you at all.
and if i did, that just wouldn't make any sense now would it?
so why would i even assign blame?
are you in trouble?.... no... you're not.
why would you be?... i'm not blaming anyone. not even you.

youre grounded!

sorry - that slipped.

ok... well the info about the trips is going to come. there are less images than i had hoped for becuase my camera decided to break on me.
well not on me
but with me

anyway. the trip involved some mexican times with the piacentini/olvera clan. as well as a noreastern roadtrip to the canadian world with the j-po clan(can clan be for a single entity i wonder?).

those pictures and more information will come.
with some fascinating conversational snippets betwixt myself and some old men.
and if we're lucky - perhaps i can put a video or two up from the trip

in the meantime, i want to talk about communal, unbridled, enthusiasm/excitement.
last night i went to the knitting factory to see aaron gause and adam hopkins play in the panacea band. panacea is the rerouted version of a band i was once apart of during my college years named RPM. while adam and aaron were the best parts in my mind, i always enjoy the enthusiasm that hip hop groups exude when they play. even the band prior and post the panacea group... while maybe not the best goups around... really gave off an air of being the greatest thing around.

and i think thats been a thought on my mind a lot recently. i want to have communal exertion. i want to be a part of something, where me and at least a few others are really exerting ourselves in an excited manner to the point of exhaustion. this sometimes comes out in sports, and musical groups... and i miss it in my daily routine. perhaps i need to surround myself with more weirdos like myself to really let the proverbial weird juices flow... but i really want to be less grey.

i need to ponder how best to do this.
i think for me it will be musically directed.

more to come on this later.... as i am at work right now and must return to the actual work part of work. the erk.

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400

hello friends of huffart. we just wanted to inform you that YOU too can now be an active member in the huffarting process. thanks to newly created software by sigfrido chirinos... pages such as the WRITINGS page now give you the option to add comments to things such as daily musings. this recent addition will soon be available on all easelweb pages such as ADAMHOPKINSBASS.COM .

as far as new art for tj. he is just finishing up on a flash site he is co-creating with aforementioned sigfrido. the site is for world-renowned chef enrique olvera and will be up very soon. tj is also working on designs for gypsy guitarist extraordinaire stephane wrembel. tj is working on 3 cd designs, as well as designing stephanes second book and working on the art for a forthcoming instructional dvd.

finally, some new sketches from his travels will hopefully soon be up on this site... as well as some photos for the musings.

mark twain says so...

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400

while doing a search for fonts on my computer - i was using their standard paragraph text for font viewing. it was a mark twain quote - that sounds cheesy if it were in a yearbook or something. but that doesnt mean its not poignant. it felt good to read just before a vacation too:

twenty years from now
you will be more dissapointed
by the things that you didn't do
than by the ones you did do.
so throw off the bowliness.
sail away from the safe harbor.
catch the tradewinds in your sails.
explore.
dream.
discover

one down, one up

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400

i bet you thought this musing was for the great coltrane tune. didn't you? diiiiidn't you?

though i wish it were, and while this musing does have a mention of the great trane... the "one down, one up" was actually in reference to some weblogs.

you see... my friend josh powell just left japan after a two year stint there, and as such, his beloved weblog PALINDROAM reached its demise.
however, as the interwebbing will have it... another wonderful weblog came to fruition at the same time... thus being the "up" of the "one down, one up".

that weblog is a link here called CROWDED SERPENTS and is the work of none other than john mcglinchey. musician extraordinair out in berkely california... john is doing some good work on the left coast and his blog is definetely worth a bi-daily check in.

as for the coltrane reference i promised... recently i've been walking to work with two "C's". a carrot and a coltrane tune. those two really start my day off AOK. the carrott is one of those full, cartoon-like carrotts with the green stems still on. it looks beautiful almost as if bugs bunny himself would be gnawing on it. but no... it is i, as i listen to coltrane and try and tackle another day in the work world that is greying me so.

lastly, i am about to take a temporary hiatus from that work world to do some traveling. i'd tell you where and such... but then what would be the surprise when i return at the end of the month?.... check back in...

pink floyd for breakfast

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

pink floyd in the morning is just gross

t.j. simpson

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

if i were a simpson character... i would look something like this...

i recently posted a musing called "pickles, granola and beer" if you read it already... you are in luck... as it got lost in the transfer from my old website server to my new website server and i probably won't rewrite it.

another thing that got lost was allllll of my email address information. inasmuch... i lost YOUR email address and would really love it if you would email me at contact@huffart.com i would reeeeally appreciate it. also if you want to add an additional email address you think i might like to have - all the better.

"no $#*t"

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

i don't curse. i am not 100% certain when i decided to make that a life decision and not just a coincidence or lack of language usage.

but every so often, i realize how much more zing some of my conversations would be if i could throw in the occasional explitive. not any mean or angry word... just something to pack a little more punch.

for instance, i have been recently thinking how i would like a retort to be "no S-H-I-T!" (notice i spelled out the word there, thus not actually saying the curse but rather illustrating my point). but i think that would just be a great reply to statements like:

    other person:    guess what? i just got fired from my job
    tj response:       no S-H-I-T!

            or

    other person:    i can't remember the last time i had this much fun
    tj response:       no S-H-I-T!

see?.... doesn't it work wonders?

is it worth breaking my 25 and 50 weeks run of not cursing?
the juries out on it....

another quote i liked that i heard last night was during a film that my roomate chandra was watching... it goes as follows:

aerosmith's daughter - liv tyler:     i can't just move to new orleans.
ben affleck brother - casey affleck:    you can if you do

thats comedy i say... gull darn comedy.

j po cell

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

my friend josh...he writes some nicely poetic stuff... here's a clip:

The grand opening of a store, which was celebrating with an old woman dressed in a creepy clown costume singing Korean pop songs from decades ago. Old men were taken back to their youth as they danced suggestively with her.

One morning while sleeping at Ji's place (she lives in a neighborhood built on a very steep hill) we woke to the unbelievably loud sound of ripping and twisting metal. Just as unbelievable was the fact that we immediately fell back to sleep. Later we found out that an SUV which had been parked on the street just outside her house the night before, had somehow began rolling backwards and plummeted down a concrete stairway taking out the balcony of someone's home (Ironically, the previous day the man had been doing cement work on that very same balcony). Also, when entering Ji's house the night before I had noticed the SUV and thought to myself, "I hope that guy put his emergency brake on." Luckily it happened at like 5 am so no one was using the stairway at the time.

When I'm around Mike I can not communicate in my normal voice.

I discovered a new love for the word "parameter."

for more go to his site PALINDROAM