Ink Stained Hands

Being Intellectual without Reading

2010-07-30T12:21:00.000-04:00

The Swiss based European Graduate School, which has English instruction, has a youtube channel with a shitload of contemporary philosophy videos, including the exciting luminaries: Manuel De Landa, Slavoj Zizek, Jean Baudrillard, and Michel Houellebecq.

If you don't like to read, but are interested in philosophy, this is as good as you'll get.

Born Under a Bad Sign; The Mentalists: Darger, Wolfli and Ramirez

2010-07-27T11:43:00.005-04:00

Three patron saints of sensitivity: Henry Darger, Martin Ramirez and Adolf Wolfli have become hugely influential; and except for Darger, paradoxically unknown. All three were questionably schizophrenic, each psyche crushed under the weight of change as their 19th century childhoods were ground to dust in the cogs of the industrial age. They all escaped a normal life, probably as a result of manipulation as much as mental illness, and spent their days toiling in bizarre expressions of self, what did it amount to? Why are they more popular then ever? Is their alienation and fantasy OUR alienation and fantasy?

We're now making 3rd or 4th generation mental illness art, it's taught in college. Previously I floated the idea that intentionally producing "crazy" art is a way to slip the system, or at least be functionally irrational in a world that increasingly demands more rational productivity. Pretending to be crazy is one of the best strategies to let other people know you wish to continue acting on your impulses, even if you are completely sane.

Rational productivity is no fun, and not really a good reason for a society to exist either; it only makes sense if there is something we all agree on apriori, which we do not. Rational productivity should be the means, not the end, but we're in a bad spot because for us its the ends, and the means is a sort of high pressure grind that feels like a nightmare version of Monopoly. No g'damned wonder we're all feverishly fantasizing about the apocalypse in the form of allegorical xombies, aka an object taking the place of our hyper-alienation and aggression.

Adolf Wolfli

Wolfli and Ramirez spent most of their adult lives in mental asylums. Bartering for colored pencils and scraps of paper, their compositions have a peculiar presence that borders on numinous as though they saw through reality right past the normal world and into some magical other place. After examining their work it's obvious they had more powerful inner lives then outer lives. Al Columbia did a wonderful satire of a guy wanting to live in a mental hospital in his comic books Pogo1 and 2.)

Martin Ramirez

Henry Darger was institutionalized on several occasions in Illinois. As an adult he worked as a janitor and dishwasher in Catholic hospitals in Chicago. Darger matches Wolfli and Ramirez in weirdness, but being on the outside he had much more access to art supplies, and employed sophisticated artistic techniques by using carbon paper to trace newspaper photos, photo enlargements to create scale shifts, and wonderfully sensitive watercolor. He created complicated, fantastical masterpieces that recall the intricacy of a Poussin frieze.

Henry Darger

The contemporary artists picking up on the spaces, formal choices, and themes of the Mentalists aren't the bottom of the barrel either, many are at the top of the heap. Abject perversity is sometimes confused as more relevant than normalcy, real normalcy is intricate and hard to pin down, is it just easier to be stupid and disgusting? What would Abraham Maslow say? Or Fritz Perls? We need a new crop of 60's style psychological leaders to emerge, and the closest thing we've got, Slavoj Zizek, is funny and interesting but he isn't doing any heavy lifting of our collective psyche. However, Slavoj Zizek has written some extremely interesting books, and gives one hell of an interview, talk about showmanship: (if you're reading this in a RSS feed and can't see the video, here's the link)

How aware are we, that by using Darger, Ramirez and Wolfli as models, we're picking up on the most articulate of the people who failed to adapt to a new world? How alienated are we? Without any believable myths what's the point of anything? There's no reason or context, there is only persistence.

Maybe we identify with Darger, Wolfli and Ramirez because they had the integrity to achieve a literally alienated life.

Where's the silver lining in this? More artists are making more work, and more interesting work then ever before in the history of humanity. More people are dealing with self-actualization, the highest set of values on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As the information age dawns maybe we just have to be ready to change rapidly. I hope Nietzsche was wrong about the abyss staring back, that is sort of a glass is half-empty sort of thing to say, he was probably a dick.

Big Picture

2010-07-13T11:59:00.000-04:00

People milling around at the opening. From the left to right the paintings are by Michael Williams, (part of) Eddie Martinez, and Liz Markus's painting of Picasso.

Wes Lang's triptych

Tom Sanford, one of the artists behind this amazing show.

There's a post about Big Picture on Beautiful/Decay.

Dan Attoe Interview on Beautiful/Decay

2010-06-28T23:50:00.000-04:00

Dan Attoe's interview on Beautiful/Decay, fresh off the presses. He's one of the most articulate artists of our generation. Here's the link: Dan Attoe on Beautiful/Decay!

When Allen Ginsberg's wrote in his long poem, Howl, that "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." He reminds us that in the sixties the smartest creative people became self-destructive. Why would they do that? It must have been a hard time to maintain integrity between thinking, speaking and action.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~ Ghandi

It makes me aware that we've come a long way, because things are changing so quickly now. We probably have more societal and technological change in one year than than the sixties changed in the entire decade. Maybe we're used to changing, and they were shaken by the sudden splitting. We're solid. I've seen the best minds of my generation, and they're put together out of the stable molecules. They're carbon, they're cut diamonds, they're unusual philosophers,* and that takes integrity.

While I was posting this a couple of quotes were rolling around, one from H.P. Lovecraft, and one from Martin Heidegger.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live in a placid island of ignorance in a sea of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. ~ H. P. Lovecraft

We do not say: Being is, time is, but rather: there is Being and there is time. ~ Heidegger

Bill's other posts on Beautiful/Decay.

* lovers of wisdom

The Brain is Not the Mind, and the Mind is not the Brain

2010-06-23T13:10:00.000-04:00

Just received a transmission from the galactic god-head while eating lunch. You know, he's impersonal, but at least he bothers to call once in a while.

Anyways - this is the big idea: Philosophy, spirituality, and art have all been vehicles to learn how to recreate the super-intense Jim Hensonish petri dish imagination I've been ~~cursed~~ blessed with. I wonder, as a teacher/writer, how applicable this thought is to others...?

I'm trying to teach my mind to do to other people what it has always known how to do to me.

I think, as a corollary, that the common dictum of "being systematic is bad for art," is totally dumb. Because how can someone establish a language, or build a world for other people to enter if it doesn't have some rules - i.e. a system.

(a new one)

I Like Character & I Like Characters

2010-06-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

My drawin's were featured on the website I Like Characters.

Paintallica 2010

2010-06-17T23:12:00.001-04:00

Paintallica 2010, originally uploaded by jeremytinder.

Jeremy Tinder has the Paintallica tat.

Now I have to do it.

The little thing under the wreath that looks like a skull stuck to a pig's body is something from either the Native Americans or Africans, I can't remember, but the point is that you have to rub bodily fluids into it so it can gain the strength of the people. That means: blood, pee, sperm, pooh, etc... Luckily I already do that to myself, so it won't be a stretch for me.

I guess I'll get the tattoo done in Oregon in a couple months when Paintallica takes over Portland State for a month long celebration installation.

Jeremy is one of those people who are incredibly smart and motivated, and who when you see them energize the situation. He's part of another group called Trubble Club, which is a really amazin' group of illustrators who make hilariously irreverent comics during collaboration parties. He's also Rachel Niffenegger's significant other, and she's a really rad painter.

Beautiful Decay's "Art Works Everytime" Colt 45 Party

2010-06-16T13:31:00.001-04:00

IMG_2503, originally uploaded by Beautiful/Decay.

Beautiful Decay hosted a party with cool art, free t-shirts & Colt 45 malt liquor. The night was highlighted by the t-shirt design finalists getting a gallery show, and a Upright Citizen's Brigade comic, Charlyne Yi.

Dan Attoe, Accretion 40

2010-06-14T15:41:00.001-04:00

Dan Attoe's newest painting will knock your brain around. He's a genius and a good friend. View Accretion 40 is in it's entirety with twenty-three photos of key details below (click on the photos to enlarge them).

Dan Attoe on Beautiful/Decay.

You can buy his new print from Iconoclast for $300.

Bill Casts "Work of Art" for Bravo

2010-06-13T14:55:00.005-04:00

Any really good artist, or just any happy smart person can explain quickly and simply why things like fame, or the art world, or war are essentially meaningless and then also how these things attract young stupid white kids, or people with mental problems, or classic Americans as a result of these populations having low consciousness and/or intelligence. If you really are into the art world or TMZ or the Taliband it means you have a type of retardation.

~ Ben Jones

Bravo has a new reality show called "Work of Art, The Next Great Artist." The show is a competition, and the person that wins gets a $100,000 and a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Paul McCarthy comes out looking like a prophet, having made "Painter" in 1995:

Money & Fame competitions work perfectly with shows like Survivor or Top Chef, because Survivor and Top Chef are totally about the contestants' drama.* In the case of Work of Art, the show runs into a few philosophical and psychological roadblocks. Supposedly WoA is about the "Next Great Artist," meaning that they've a moral obligation to say something important about the human condition. The structure of the show guarantees that they'll deliver something closer to an indictment.

Based off the first episode there is a fundamental problem, as Christopher Knight of the LA Times puts it: "Rather than making art, the cast is charged with dramatizing the act of making art." In the process raising the art world version of:

Question: Why is Paris Hilton Famous? Answer: Because she's famous.

It's tautological - this is a big problem, and it is that the ~~philosophical~~ foundation of the show stinks.

To put a psychological spin on it, and make it simple, real artists deal with the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and the people on the show, by the nature of the show, are dealing with Love/Belonging and Esteem.

They did get a really good critic for the show, Jerry Saltz, he's funny and smart and bought some of David Dunlap's drawings. I like him and he can stay. I don't know the other critics, and maybe they'll turn out okay, but I thought they were boring, if earnest, during the first episode.

Ok, here goes. I would try to make the show about something other than fame and personal drama, enlarging it into cultural drama, and force the artists to engage the world in a way that was embarrassing and truthful.

The people I'd really like to see as advisor/critics:

Kara Walker and Wes Lang: Both artists deal with American history and racism. Walker is a black female, and Lang is a white male. If these two were on the show it could deal with taboo issues in a fascinating way. She makes art about racism, violence, and sex. He got kicked out of a show called "Fucked up Figuration" for making a black "pickaninny" doll that was 15 feet tall. I'd be interested to see the two artists give advice to the same people.

Kara Walker

Wes Lang

Javier Peres and Kathy Grayson: Two people who have a gift for curating interesting exhibitions that deal with controversial issues and also fun stuff, and sometimes gay porno.

Javier Peres, left, with Bruce LaBruce

Kathy Grayson

Tom Sanford, William Powhida, and Michael Anderson: Three artists in NYC who all deal with current affairs. Using mass media in in a way similar to how the old-masters used religious iconography, these three have something to say about the times we live in. All three are eloquent speakers.

Tom Sanford

William Powhida

Michael Anderson

Diana Cooper and Magda Sawan: Diana Cooper was my boss for a while, and I know from first-hand experience how incredible she is at explaining exactly what she's thinking. Cooper's a force of nature in the studio. Magda is her longtime gallerist and one of the smartest people I know. Magda runs Postmasters Gallery in Chelsea, and the exhibitions there cover a wide range of material, but are most well-known for mixing art and technology.

Diana Cooper

Magda Sawan

Amir Fallah and Sasha Lee: Respectively the creative director, and editor of Beautiful/Decay Magazine. I've learned so much from working with these guys. They both have incredible integrity and know how to make serious art fun.

Amir Fallah

Sasha Lee

The gang from Bad at Sports: Representing middle America, the BAS crew could bring something to the table, I'm not sure what - but it would be interesting. Duncan from BAS had something sort-of-funny (at the time I was pissed) to say about my performance group PAINTALLICA: "Look Scott (Speh), “Hipster” is something you do well. I, myself, often do “jerk” or “Asshat” well. Embrace your strengths. I meant no disrespect but what was “Paintallica” if not “Hipster Douchebag” at its finest? I didn’t intend it as slight. I intended it as category of thing."

Bad at Sports

*You can't taste food through the tv.

Adders

2010-06-09T13:27:00.004-04:00

It's the practice of artists to share loosely logical, primarily intuitive ideas in private. Often these associations are the most productive, and hold the morsel of power that fuels hours of lonely work. Here are some artists I associate, because their images are built up with similar, small elements until they become biggish and masterful. One step at a time, so to draw.

Public service announcement: don't get bit by poisonous snakes, it sucks.

The Grandaddy, Archimbolo

Placers Vs. Spacers

2010-06-07T20:35:00.002-04:00

Jamie Boling holding up one of David Dunlap's catalogs, with David looking on.

David Dunlap once told me that we were both placers. Which could mean a few things, but he was talking about drawing. Placers are people who arrange pictures, sort of like a collagist. In David's and my case, we both draw a lot.

David makes a calendar by hand every month. He's been doing it for over twenty years.

About a year ago I went over to Jamie Boling's and Cece Cole's apt in Bklyn for a drawing party. Towards the end of it I chopped apart a drawing that had the illusion of deep space, and then collaged it back together so it looked convoluted and flat, and seeing it made me really happy. However, it wasn't too sophisticated, and at the time I wasn't sure what to do with it.

Placers think of the working surface of a drw/painting as something flat. And that flat thing has other things on it. The main motivation of this kind of art is too make a picture using associative logic. Like if you put a beaver and Pamela Anderson, people are going to think about dirty jokes. If you put a President/Prime Minister and screaming mothers covered in blood holding dead babies, explosions and corpses in uniforms, people will think about war. If you put both of those groups together, people will think about American culture.

You could have Count Chocula and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Suddenly Count Chocula becomes a racially charged cartoon. You could have Count Chocula and Frakenberry, and then people will reminisce about cereal from the 1980's. You could have two totally invented characters, and then it's harder to understand what the artist is saying (that's my problem right now.).

These are pretty simple examples, it can get complicated, and the meaning of an image shifts. Time changes the way an image is perceived, sometimes changing meaning completely. Having the meaning change doesn't mean the the emotional punch goes away. For instance, Sarah Palin is a totally loaded image right now. Depending on what she does in the future, people may have forgotten about her, feel horrible about her (i.e. she starts a nuclear holocaust), or great (i.e. she turns the country into a capitalist paradise where obese people ride around in levitating chairs like the people in Wall-e).

Some placers:

Spacers are a totally different breed of cat. They are aiming at a complete picture. Where the surface disappears in the illusion of one type or another of space. The motivation for these artists is so broad it's hard for me to put a finger on. Most of the time, it has something to do with recreating reality through the filter of the artist's vision. Which means that they are asserting their metaphysical value judgments through visual language.

I don't really know why I picked the examples below, except that they follow one logic of space, and I perceive this intuitively.

Some spacers

Tom Sanford

Aaron Johnson

Al Columbia

Rachel Niffenegger

Penis and Knives

2010-06-05T21:09:00.003-04:00

Confession time: I was a knife nut. After getting out of the Army I made the executive decision to focus my Freudian dagger love on pens instead. I didn't want to be the disheveled guy wearing half a stained Army uniform; sporting a 100 yd stare, and carrying a wrist-action blade honed by countless hours practicing in front of the mirror in a scary one room apartment, that's uncool.

Anyhoo, I found a "tactical" pen made by Benchmade, perfect for sublimation, which is forged out of steel purchased directly from Darth Vader (check the link, it has space ink). 187 bucks is pretty steep, maybe I'll wait till they're on clearance. Amazon has a Benchmade Aluminum Writing Pen In Grey with Black Point And Black Ink Cartridge a little cheaper at $102.

It's the kind of pen Steven Segal would round house through some dude's temple, lobotomizing them; then calmly sign the Declaration of Independence with. All while holding the drooler up by the scruff of his neck, saying "You'd never understand" entirely without irony, because the pen is ironically that cool. (does that make sense?)

As I mentioned, in the Army I was obsessed with knives. My favorite slicer was a SOG Pentagon Elite Folding Knives - AUS8 Steel Blade, cause it was basically a huge, super-sharp switchblade. Laurie gave it to me just before I left for the 'Stan, my lady knows how to protect me. That's it below. I loved it to death, just like Lenny in "Of Mice and Men," cleaning it religiously until I lost one of the key parts. Sometimes too much love can be the most dangerous thing of all.

The multi-tool I kept handy was a SOG Specialty Knives & Tools B61-N EOD PowerLock, Black Oxide. It has a gear system hidden in the pliers which uses leverage to double the force exerted, meaning that when you squeeze down they clamp the living shit out of stuff. If you were KGB (and this was the 1980s) they'd also be great for pulling the teeth out of defecting chess grandmasters. This model has tools for using plastic explosives, which I did use when I was overseas, but hopefully you wouldn't have any use for it over here - except for safe cracking, which is fine.

Updated billdonovan.net

2010-06-04T01:54:00.000-04:00

Billdonovan.net just got it's teeth brushed, pulse checked, blood drawn, and some plastic surgery. Pretty much every section needed a dusting off; I updated ye olde CV, re-crafted my bio, purged my portfolio - including a face lift and tummy tuck for the Afghanistan section.

Subscribe or Die!!!! to Beautiful/Decay

2010-06-01T15:40:00.001-04:00

If you're my friend and reading this - I am officially twisting your art arm to pony up the money and subscribe. Beautiful/Decay is my favorite website/print-magazine by far! You'll get one years worth of the book sized B/D, which has no traditional advertising, and comes with really great extras like vinyl stickers, silk screen prints, or original drawings. It will satiate your need to stay on top of what is happening, you'll know what's up before your peers. Two forces of nature are behind the book, Amir Fallah and Sasha Lee. It showcases a lot of the best and brightest emerging artists throughout the world, and has its pulse on the LA, Chicago and NYC scene like no other periodical.

Cats

2010-05-23T17:21:00.000-04:00

I saw a couple of paintings of cats I like, they're on Marion Peck's website.

MIchael Anderson Studio Visit

2010-05-20T14:04:00.000-04:00

New studio visit with Michael Anderson on Beautiful/Decay. It's worth looking at, you can trust me.

coupla new doodles

2010-05-18T22:37:00.000-04:00

I bought some gouache, so hopefully I make some cool paintings.

I am thinking these drawings need some hans holbein quality portraits, or some really beautiful colors to make them into something, something. That's the most of a plan I have at the moment. I am also makin' a big drawing of lots of faces on the kitchen table.

Jason Redwood

2010-05-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

Jason has a good blog, archived.

Ben Grasso

2010-05-05T13:26:00.000-04:00

posted about Ben Grasso to Beautiful/Decay. Check it b4 u wreck it.

Ryan Schneider Studio Visit on B/D

2010-05-02T16:03:00.000-04:00

Did a studio visit with Ryan Schneider for Beautiful/Decay. He was mellow.

Dan Attoe and I at the CUE Foundation, representing PAINTALLICA

2010-04-28T14:52:00.000-04:00

Dan and I participated in a panel about Collaborative groups at the CUE Foundation last night. It was awesome getting to see Dan. I made a couple of new friendly contacts in the form of Jennifer Dudley from Ad Hoc Vox, Scott Lawrence from Dos Pestaneos, and Sasha Dela from Skydive.

I tried to stick to the gameplan that says "brevity is the soul of wit."

Michel Houellebecq

2010-04-27T12:55:00.001-04:00

Dan Attoe - Print, New from Iconoclast

2010-04-26T10:28:00.001-04:00

Awesome new print of a Dan Attoe drawing, it's only 300 bucks. It's being put out by some of the same folks that are behind the Beautiful Losers movie/exhibition/book.

Sonny Smith's 100 Records

2010-04-25T14:57:00.000-04:00

I am in this shoe. at the gallery16 in San Francisco.

SONNY SMITH: 100 Records

Gallery 16 is pleased to welcome San Francisco based artist, musician and playwright SONNY SMITH to his first solo show with the gallery. 100 Records is a dauntingly ambitious project that bridges his interest in art, music and dramatic form. Smith invited 100 artists to produce artwork for the record covers of fictional bands. Smith concocted the personas of all 100 fictitious bands, then wrote and recorded two hundred songs (the A side and B side) for each. On display at the gallery will be all the original album artwork as well as a jukebox that plays all two hundred songs recorded by Sonny Smith and other notable musicians. Artists include, William T. Wiley, Mingering Mike, Chris Johanson, Reed Anderson, Jo Jackson, Harrell Fletcher, Chris Duncan, Tucker Nichols, Paul Wackers and 91 others!

This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one's for shooting, this one's for fun.