About Me

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Michael seeks to create works that reflect his struggles with the world he finds himself living in, and the commonalities that we all share in this. Desire, Defeat, Acceptance, Judgment, Love, Fear, Time, and Space. Michael's studio is downtown Los Angeles in the Spring Arts Tower. "Happiness is that funny little place halfway between fantasy and reality." -me

Friday, October 29, 2010

Abeyance

The condition of being temporarily set aside; suspension:
Sometimes it is best to let things hang in limbo. Sometimes it happens all on its' own. Sometimes you're not ready to finish it, or at a place where you have the understanding of what is coming next, or where it is going, or what it is to be. It suspends. I painted this painting in N.Y. It was the last painting I did while I lived there. Well, basically the last one. There was a point at which I couldn't make such huge paintings anymore...and had to prepare my place so I could leave it. N.Y. for me in my mind is that place I left behind in abeyance. Even though I know much has changed about N.Y. since I moved to Los Angeles, in my heart I still think of N.Y. as the place I moved to in 1988. Big, mysterious, full of energy and life and fear and possibility. Some of the people in this painting I knew, was, met, hoped to be, encountered, and left. Other's are ghosts. I am a ghost of N.Y. now. Friends tell me they walk by my old apartment, and still think of me as being there. Sometimes at night as I fall asleep I imagine myself back there, in my apartment just as it was when I lived there...I see the red light on the M of the Milford Plaza, casting its' shadow on my wall. I light up a cigarette and listen to the wolves of the night as the drive up 8th Avenue in their yellow taxi, or leave a bar on 46th Street. My window open if even just a crack in the middle of winter, to hear, smell, taste, and feel the air of the City. Surprising how quiet my apartment could be even in the middle of all of this. That apartment was a channel and a window for many souls, spirits, beings...coming through. I wonder if the person living there knows this? Knows all the magic that happened there. All the prayers that were said, the dreams that filtered through the night, the starlight of my friends who shared time with me...laying on the floor at 3 am listening to Gorecki and smoking. The past hangs in abeyance, and you carry it with you. Your whole life through.



Abeyance: Oil on Canvas 10'x5'

Saturday, October 23, 2010

"On a balcony in N.Y. It's just started to snow."

When I lived in N.Y., that lyric felt sentimental, even as I lived it. The ability to place a moment so encapsulating...as if my experience had been read from far away, lifted, and transposed into word and music. Made me feel less alone even as the alone-ness was thriving for me. And then she sings, "...hey there Michael, do you really love me." Yes Kate, I do.
By peculiar chance, The Red Shoes had been musicalized into a Broadway show, the same winter the Red Shoes cd was released. My friend Wade was an assistant costumer on the show, and I saw quite a few incarnations of it during previews as a result. The ballet was so spectacular, for me it would have been enough to cover the price of admission. "These moments given are a gift from time." Because you will never have the opportunity to see that piece again, with those costumes, sets, or performers. She runs to the top of the building on the set and leaped with all that was within herself and blackout. Perfect theatrical combination of elements. You didn't need to see her jump conclude with a fall. You knew she did, and fell to her death. I remember 4 very specific things about that show; how fast she danced the adagio when asked to do it double time in "rehearsal", the beautiful blond hair Jonathan Sharp had, the ballet of the title, and the red robe that George de la Pena wore in Act 1. Funny, huh? But these are the things I took away, and Moments of Happiness are derived of these things. Fleeting pleasure sentimentalized and captured in our hearts' eye. Looped over when lost in thought, reminding us how time passes. Marching on. Paul Thek was right, the face of God is a clock. And time rolls on...


The Face of God, after Paul Thek


UPDATE: 10-24-2012 From a link posted by Scott Fowler, an original cast member. Footage from The Red Shoes:

Friday, October 22, 2010

The Night Sky, and The Others.

Growing up in the Great Plains of the Dakotas, I always had the Big Night Sky overhead. I had a father who could name every star, and constellation, and night object I would point to. My favorite was always Orion. He seemed to be the clearest, and most tangible of the constellations to me. The Big and Small Dipper, also very clear and easily read in the northern night sky, came in close second. I think John Guare summed it up best in House of Blue Leaves...he captured that feeling of "...you got to come see Orion. He's the hunter and he's pulling his arrow back so tight in the sky like a Connect-the-Dots picture made up of all these burning planets. If he ever lets that arrow go he'll shoot all the other stars out of the sky."
Lately I can't find Orion. This time of year I always go out and look for Orion, because I follow his belt to find the Pleiades. Pleiades. Who two years ago looked so close to me one night, that I was actually shocked in amazement. They seemed to reach forth with their light, bringing close to me who and what they are. The Brotherhood of Light welcoming me. Initiation. Catching my attention in such a way that I stood in amazement for quite some time staring up. Or is it out? Maybe down...or more than likely inside out. Now however, Orion is nowhere to be seen. It is baffling to me, because I actually have posts on Twitter from the previous year, at this same time, mentioning looking up at Orion, and the Pleiades...and how beautiful the Giant Wonder is of the Night Sky. The shivering excitement of the dark and the stars above. Feeling the secret thrill of being alone under the heavens. The night is quiet...even the buzz of Los Angeles can't overreach the hum of the Universe at night. The stars may appear dimmer here than my childhood home, but I know where most things are, and where they should be. Where is Orion?
I think of the Universe as a giant undulating being. Like waves, or maybe the wind...heaving and sighing. Exhaling out light of stars, inhaling the deep dark of the sunless night. Moving. Alive. And in this I guess it makes sense that Orion is off on his own somewhere else. Taking aim of his arrow in another Universe, where another being follows his sweeping bow across the sky. Wouldn't it be something if a constellation disappeared? Proof that the Night thrives, and moves...rolls and undulates. Bringing a story of light forth, and taking another with it in its' wake. Giant flapping wings of a bird that flies across the expanse of our consciousness. We are but fragments of All That Is. And our consciousness grows with every breath. That night two years ago the Seven Sisters made their presence known to me in a manner I will never forget. Showing me that sometimes "objects in mirror may appear closer than they are." Whether that object is a car from behind, or the Beings of Light in the sky.

Installation: Tire Swing in the Night Sky

Thursday, October 21, 2010

"Said by you though, George"

Has it all been said, written, composed, shaped, drawn, painted, designed...? Well, I have stuff to "say", and even though maybe it's been said by another in their voice, ultimately it hasn't been said by me, and I am not an appropriationist. But to think that what has come before hasn't influenced me in any way, would be to deny the historical line created by those artists before me. And so, in that vein, it has to be said by me.


                                                  Childhood #3 (detail)