A new Renaissance Man * Grayson Perry  -  fantastic potter, brilliant thinker and utterly unusual fashion divanista.  I read somewhere that the stars are aligned similar now to what they were at the high Renaissance.  I've been looking for the current stars among the millions of artists - by George I've found one.

Snow Circles from Beauregard, Steamboat Aerials on Vimeo.

Pretty Lights - We Must Go On (official music video) from Pretty Lights Music on Vimeo.

Hey before January is over I'd like to wish everybody an excellent 2012.  May it be all that it's cracked up to be.  Stay alert!

Here's a little shrine I made a few years back for my friend.  I tied copies of every friend I met at his house, put them in zip locks and tied them to this tree in his garden - all waving goodbye in the wind.

This is my design for a garden terrace in Hillcrest.  I pretty much have sold her on the window frame elements: the arch is a long shot - and the tiger.

Imagine tea here with your friends.  A taste of Versailles with cakes and music.  

Very little gets done these days as no one wants to spend money - especially on the arts. 

My friend just sold a $4000 painting for $600.  I worry about her throwing herself off a bridge.  A beautiful bridge would be in Balboa Park but who wants to die in lanes of traffic. 

I know an artist from the dog park who drove his dogs to Tuscon and then did himself in with a gun.  

I'm too excited to see the outcome of all the 2012 hoopla.  It's hard to make plans beyond that.

The Whale Story from Tess Martin on Vimeo.

Jeff Harris: 4,748 Self-Portraits and Counting from We Know Music on Vimeo.

Time is Nothing // Around The World Time Lapse from Kien Lam on Vimeo.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/7982814

Throw Down Your Heart

My friend Paul giving it his all.

Weaver Street Toys

RED SAILS INN on Shelter Island

Just completed yesterday with shots of Sambucco chilled at the bar after loading the equipment.  Great food and patio dining and huge credit to share with my friends who have been looking out for me over the years.  

A chance encounter with Dennis Conner and we will be working together next week on a project at his new gallery at the end of the point.  I said we should do a commemorative mural of The Americas Cup.  He said nobody is interested anymore.  His assistant was polishing up his trophy and I thought I'd really like to find a wall five stories high at least and paint that thing.  Anybody that knows me from school days knows I can do killer chrome.  Is it illegal to post a wanted ad soliciting donations for such a project?  I asked the folks at the Port District if I could hit them up for funding for my brilliant ideas and they said NO.  It's got to be their idea, their organized competition, their jury who trashes 99% of the submittals.  No ART beggars nocking at their illustrious doors.  Think of how beautiful this City could be if I could have my way with it.

It was rather like a forced-on numbness of spirit. The long, long stress of a gale does it; the suspense of the interminably culminating catastrophe; and there is a bodily fatigue in the mere holding on to existence within the excessive tumult, a searching and insidious fatigue that penetrates deep into a man's heart, which is incorrigible, and of all the gifts of the earth - even before life itself - aspires to peace. J. Conrad TYPHOON

We survived together the great hurricane Dennis of 1986 - four days off the coast of Nicaragua.

We should have heeded the warning - the mass parade of dolphin headed south. Thousands of them leaping and spinning giving a wide berth to what was coming. The next evening that first big swell. Many of us huddled together watching a matinee couldn't help but jump from our seats - the cadence of our rhythm broken. We surfed that one massive rouge wave gentle in its passing but the effect on our nerves was dazzling. Something was amiss.
We were two days out of Alcapulco and headed for New York to be part of the Liberty Celebration. That harbor to be full up with mega yachts and high dollar attendees for what was to be the biggest fireworks displays outside of China. The owner a restauranteur bought Wildcatter (once owned by Al Capone and used in the Great Lakes as a rum runner during the Prohibition) which lay derelict in San Diego harbor, hired Nick to oversee its retrofit, most of which was done in Ensenada Mexico. Things there happen manana style and our departure was late into the hurricane season.
Riding out a storm at sea is a surreal experience. We were on a constant rollercoaster thirty-five foot from crest to bottom where what they call 'Hotels' broke over the bow. The hours pass slowly and the wind howed. Nick stood sentry in the wheel house. His hand on the telegraphs as he felt the minute he walked away we took a bad roll. It was his will that kept us pointed to the best advantage to survive each wave.
It was impossible to sleep, nowhere to lie safe. Some of us lay spread out on the floor together, arms and legs splayed to keep from rolling. No one ate as cupboards were drums of dishes broken and churning. Refrigerator a dangerous missile thrower of jagged mayonnaise. Cheerios and flat tins of Coca Cola would spew back up and fly across the deck to mingle with the flotsom and jetsum in the surf.
The nights dimmed the view but the sounds of its fury never left you. Ones soul is jarred loose and drifts out beyond the railings and I could see our battered hull from ever vantage point. From far below I could visualize clearly the dark mass with a white of thrashed propeller tail. From the side a profile of regal beauty descending over a crest like a train into a canyon. From the air I saw the whole plane of frothing green. A sea struggling to find its center. Chaos of regulated pits and crowns. Our tiny vessel plugging along and forced into it by our Captain. The night he cleared the bilges I bathed his blackened body, wiped his eyes of grease, sent him back to his duty. Crew surfed plywood across table saws to fasten up windows. Human barriers broke down and kindness and concern filled us up.
At long last Corinto and a feast that I knew had been played out in history as long as men have been traveling at sea. A survivors bounty and cheerful celebration. Slowly the spaces between us filling once again. Phobias towards lesser things washed away. One walks away a changed person. A kinship towards your mates, a stronger back.
We never made it to New York. All Nicks crew threw their belongings onto the dock when he was relieved of his duty. That brought him to tears.
In those hours a decision to be made. From whence to travel. A return to San Diego and a career as a painter. A sensible choice.

Maid of Nazareth - An invitation to tour the coast of Scotland.
It will never happen but I know in his heart the offer of a precious gift.

Big Rock Candy Mountains

Recognition of the cosmic order of things.  Graceful, complex, dynamic, unfolding of time.  Beautiful in it's orchestration.  Emotions, needs, wants, desires confounded with this earthly realm.  Waves of conflict, trauma, bliss and art - beauty, death, hunger, satiation.  Comings and goings of people, seasons and tides.

Chaos and grace,  fear and laughter, decay and bloom, win, loose, feast and famine,  

Raise a glass ! !

Nick is ready to cast off.  

On the journey of a life time.

Skirting through summer without making much art.  Waiting for the right conditions - erroneous!!  Perhaps come fall and darker days I will long to turn on the big lights, crank up the tunes and stir up an aroma of turps.  

Without a venue or a market in which to entice the public, to engage in viewing,  purchasing - it's sometimes a tiring affair.  For what do I strive to create beauty, challenge my creative skills, prove to myself and to the world that ah - this is my calling, my purpose.  Some people might just be sick to death with such demonstrations of.  Enough already Linda - go get a real job - who do you think you are.  

The world is aching for art and stories that remind us of our great capacity to love and feel. This is a great time to celebrate your imagination, and claim its power to shape your life.

Gave a tour yesterday of the mosaics I did at PP's house.  People get their feelings activated here - marvel, wonder, giddiness.  It is impossible to not feel good around such grand expressions of pattern and color.  Went to the Hillcrest City Fest, ate street tacos, rode a Whirlygig, watched the costumed people parade around and Chocolat for desert.  Late into the night - Mad Men with Peeps and Marcel in from NYC.

Today I will exercise my imagination and embellish the renderings for Aero Auto to it's max glorious stunningness cause I know the stars are with me.