Corpus Callosum

The beautiful end

2009-10-28T00:51:00.003-04:00

Folks, it's over, there's no more, this is the end. This blog has reached it's final post. What happens is, I have to paint, is what happens. So I really can't spend my time posting thoughtful thoughts and fun stories on line because I'm not painting instead what I should be painting instead. And don't try to convince me otherwise because the truth is that I don't have anything else to say. At least at this point, for the time being, as things stand and things being what they are. I've had my say, and I'm going to paint.

That said, this end is not actually final. I may write more, from time to time if, for some reason, at some point, I find within me something that I absolutely must express. But believe me when I say that I have for some time now stopped asking myself what do I also want to say. The chances are not fat. It's been a lot of fun, and I wish to thank all of ya'll who followed this and commented and such. Farewell.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Lunar territory

2009-10-16T22:31:00.005-04:00

Years ago, the idea of becoming enlightened was very interesting to me. Particularly the part of being one with everything, seeing no separation between myself and the tree, between I and the sky. It goes without saying that I would not be there, not me —the person I'm used to feeling in my head. I imagined I would be composed of thousands of invisible tendrils of light emanating from where I used to exist as an entity aware of myself, and connecting that to everything around, above, and below. And that point in space would posses infinite compassion. And it would know everything because it wouldn't need to know. But then, why would I want that if I could not be there? I could not be that thing myself: I would be gone. It is impossible for me to become enlightened without disappearing, without death.

I also considered a world where all human beings had attained Nirvana. No more wars, no more hunger, or murder, or thievery, or lies. In fact, not even quarreling between spouses. Not even stepping on ants, if avoidable. Everybody would probably work for non-for-profits. You tell me, could any great deeds be done in such a world? Would any great literature arise?

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Custodians

2009-10-14T23:34:00.005-04:00

In the airplane back to New York from San Francisco my little son sleeps on the seat in the middle while I look out the window to my right. His head is on a pillow next to my wife and his feet are resting on my legs. I see the vast American night outside and the caramel lights of towns and roads an incredible distance below. My son is not comfortable and he's moving a lot in his sleep trying to find a good position. Sometimes he kicks me on my side under the ribs where it's soft, right where you think a knife would find its way to three or four vital organs. But he's a toddler, he's my son, and after all I wanted him and that's why he's existing and trying to sleep. I mean, he's an innocent creature. And besides, he doesn't kick hard at all. But this makes me consider why I am not nearly as forgiving when I find my wife's elbow poking my ribs in bed. I mean, after all, she's sleeping too, or trying to sleep. And I have her too because I wanted her. And I love her another amazing amount.

The moon is thin tonight, the clouds are black. The wing bounces a little in the choppy air and I tell myself it was designed on purpose to be slightly bendable, and it would break if it were rigid and this thing would fall out of the sky. I can read small labels painted on the turbine that say things like ANTI-FREEZE ACCESS, in all caps. And if the plane fell tonight I would go out with my wife and my son, so from a selfish perspective, at least they wouldn't die separately in a car accident or something leaving me to survive the devastation of their absence forever. And in the overhead compartment goes my current sketchbook, in the suitcase. It's the best work I've ever done, a nice collection of very good ideas for paintings that I hope to create in the future. But that would also die with us and no one would ever know I had attained a rather decent level of mastery at my craft. This would make sense, tragedies often manage to come as large as they can. But then descent begins, continues, and we land. It's a rather rough landing, in my experience, but we land. Then the airplane stops and the captain tells us we had lost our left engine.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

El último día

2009-10-03T22:08:00.003-04:00

These dragonflies live only for a season, but every new season, they exist again. I've looked at them for years and they're always the same, exact copies of one another, precisely like their parents in every detail. It could be said that, from a dragonfly perspective, they see each other as individuals, but as for my point of view, they're interchangeable. From their perspective, they live complete lives: they start as eggs, then they swim in the pond as larvae, and finally they dart about as flying adults. But to me they simply reappear, they reincarnate when the whether turns warm.

Now you take me, for instance, 137 years old and barely able to walk. It's fair to say, I've lived. It's fair to say, I've danced all I had to dance. I've had my fun. You would think I'm ready to let go of life and put this ugly body on the ground to rot. You would think I had time enough to do whatever I set up to do when I realized that something has to be done with a lifetime. But I'm not ready, no sir, I still have many things to do. I've wanted to accomplish something distinct and extraordinary, but in all these years, I have not yet managed to do so. And even at my advanced age, I do not now how near or how far I am from attaining my remarkable thing. Now I won't live much longer and, likely, I'll die frustrated. I've lived my season, sir, and I will not come back.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Move

2009-09-30T21:17:00.002-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Days

2009-09-28T14:10:00.002-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

A dream

2009-09-25T22:56:00.001-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

That smell

2009-09-23T23:12:00.001-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Moment to pause

2009-09-21T22:32:00.001-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Krucial

2009-09-18T21:14:00.002-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Creative Director

2009-09-16T21:51:00.001-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Math teacher

2009-09-14T21:34:00.001-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Botanist

2009-09-11T21:58:00.002-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil and watercolor (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Russian-Arab relations

2009-09-09T22:39:00.002-04:00

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, gouache (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Paciencia

2009-09-07T20:51:00.008-04:00

Well, I guess I'll have to write something after all to explain this new series of works intended to take me through "silent September". I've been drawing people in the Subway for years. I love it. There is such an amazing variety of humans in New york City, it would be almost unethical not to take advantage of it as an artist. I have to draw them while they're reading books or sleeping because when people realize you're drawing them, things can get complicated in a variety of ways. Most times, I only have time to draw their faces, and I have to do it quickly because, for all I know, they could be getting off the train at the next stop. I have hundreds of faces in my sketchbooks. For a while in 1997, I worked further on these drawings at the studio, giving bodies to the faces and completing the picture according to my fancy. Then I glued the drawings onto pieces of wood in order to give them more presence. It works well and it eliminates the need to frame them. I revised them in 2003, to make them more clear and easier to read. Now you know. Click on it for actual size view.

Size: 8 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Year: 1997 (Revised in 2003)

Media: pencil, color pencil, gouache (on paper glued onto wood)

Price: $149.99

Crescent question

2009-09-04T22:36:00.004-04:00

I've been wondering for some time now —in the sense of debating with myself and suffering from a mind-boggling and inscrutable dilemma— whether or not I should take a vacation from blogging, and I've come to the immutable and unmodifiable conclusion that I should. But there is a complication in the form of the possibility of people giving up on this blog if I don't post anything at all. Therefore, I will only post images for the whole month of September, with the exception and abnormal allowance being made for today in order to make this announcement. I have to let my writing djinni visit her family in Qatar while I recreate my mind in the pleasures of painting, "witches" what I consider to be my truest calling, my most fervent passion, and the area of human endeavor where I may have a fat chance at standing out and finding a few things that may enrich the lives of my contemporaries. I will respond to any comments to this post, but I won't add any new words until October comes around. Thankyouverymuch for your unexpected attention, eat well.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

The remedy

2009-08-29T00:28:00.008-04:00

December 6, 1998

It is something very, very interesting, something fascinating, how alone we ultimately are in this world. In the end, it can make anyone despair and jump out of a high window. Each one of us goes about with a set of beliefs, and each set of beliefs is different from every other one in the world. Or is it? Perhaps it is possible to brainwash thousands of people into believing the same set without question to every last particular detail, but that seems unlikely. Even in societies that, to outsiders, seem very homogenous in their belief systems, say Moonies, Mormons, Hare-Krishnas, Fundamentalist Christians and Moslems, Amish and such, I would be surprised to find two of the same group agreeing on every point of their specific scriptures.

Now, for a free thinker like myself, finding an akin mind can be a lot more difficult. I can't even agree with my own woman or my mother, much less with my friends on the details of my worldview. What usually gets me in trouble is when I declare that I don't find it necessary to believe in the existence of a soul, in the sense of a conscience remaining after death. What does the whole question mean anyhow? It is a very pointless and unnecessary question to ask as the answer can only be known by dying. Yes, there are accounts of the beyond from people who died and a while later came back to life, but however candid their reports, they can't possibly be verified in any way. And their visions can be explained in ways that are satisfactory to belief systems that accept the existence of a soul, as well as to systems that don't.

In the end, this question is nothing but a distraction. But is seems that many people absolutely need to believe they have a soul or their lives lose all meaning. Just watch how they kick and yell as soon as you try to point out how unnecessary the idea really is. Watch how they refuse to listen, how many times they say "no", and how they protect themselves and refuse to argue any further. They need to believe that they existed in some fully conscious way before they were born, and that they'll continue to exist in the same way after death. Some feel reduced to something lower than human –as if there were such a thing– if you say the soul is an illusion, thereby denying soulfulness to other living beings. If they think humans have souls, why not animals and plants? Others think that they're working in this life toward their next life in some non-material realm or in a fresh incarnation. These seem to me the ones with the biggest egos. They can't give up their own existence. They are the ones who are most afraid of dying. They don't behave as they do because they understand it is the wisest way to behave, but because they expect to get something from their actions.

Give up the soul. Relinquish the urge to exist. Forgo your fear of not being. Live courageously!

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Shrimp showman

2009-08-27T01:03:00.010-04:00

The man walks home at night uphill his dry and dirty street dragging a broken heart fresh shattered by a lovely thirtysomething little woman with sparkle in her movements and crystalline mental activity. Passing an overgrown garden with a dead tree, he hears in a rosemary bush a little hoarse voice saying "Hey buddy! Wanna buy some happiness?" He looks in that direction and finds the head of a leprechaun sticking out of the bush with intelligent eyes and a smile that knows more than you do. The man says "Happiness, you say? I didn't know it could be purchased."

"Of course you can", says leprechaun, and comes out of the bush, "Just don't expect it to be cheap. It's hard times now for everybody. I read in your pedestrian gait the pain of unrequited love. Was she the rarest of all beauties?"

"You know, I loved her more than grandma's stories, more than the best of wines, more than flowery meadows with grasshoppers, dragonflies, crickets, butterflies, and a few spider webs with spiders on the fence. I loved her more than..."

"Plenty!" says the pixie, "I see what you mean. I'll take all you just mentioned plus the best sex you ever had. Your memories of it."

The man looks at the sprite and says "Are you not supposed to be a fairytale character? An expert swindler, con-artist, deceitful, crooked flimflammer well versed in hoaxes and sham?"

"Yes, but I have a powder here that will make you see her as the foul cheater that she's been to you. Dissolve a pinch in water every morning for sixty days and you'll be cured of heartache. Guaranteed."

"Oh, what the hell?" he says. "I have nothing to lose right now, I'm pushing fifty. Let me have it."

The leprechaun believes he has just fooled another Mark, but this man has a nose for lies and quite a way with them. He only knew one of his grandmas, and she was a bitter, mean witch whose stories consisted of complaining about other people. He's a beer collector, and doesn't care for wine. Meadows with insects he detests on account of a traumatizing nest of wasps, and later a mad praying mantis with a taste for eyelids, encountered in such whereabouts in his early childhood. As for the sex, it happened with the charmer he now needs to forget. The dust, if you can believe it, worked wonders.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

The stuff of science fiction

2009-08-20T20:44:00.008-04:00

In an XY diagram where X is future time and Y is distance in light years from the Earth, there is a point at 3.47 billion years on the X and 2.83 billion light years on the Y where a lovely counterclockwise spiral galaxy will contain a sun of 1.236 Solar Masses with a planet of 1.143 Earth Masses orbiting within it's habitable zone where life will have evolved into complexity and one highly intelligent species will have developed science and technology to a very advanced degree. These beings will derive their nourishment directly from the soil, although unlike the plants and fungi of our world, they will be able to detach themselves from the ground at will and move to another location. They will communicate in an extraordinarily nuanced visual language by means of an assortment of intermittent bioluminescent globules of various colors on their forward-facing sides. This much is know with certainty.

Be that as it may, however, nonetheless, and on the other hand, as everybody knows, the light from the most distant galaxies took some 13 billion years to arrive at the dark and cloudless skies above the desserts and high mountains where astronomers like to place large telescopes. We see things in the emptiness of space as they were in the past and not as they are now, this very minute. Which means that we are always looking at the universe through the rear-view mirror and the objects in it are actually much younger than they appear. So the closer we get to any source of light out there, the nearer we are also to its "now". Our "now" is ours and only ours for us to live in, and every star has it's own "now". Also, two "nows" don't make a "then"; no matter how spectacular the galaxy collision, you get only a larger "now". So if, in looking toward the future, it is quite likely that the telescopes of the above-named world will capture the light of our present sun, at which point, to them, a past star in the distance, then it is reasonable to say that, in all probability, they are watching us now. See what I mean?

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Offering for prosperity

2009-08-15T00:02:00.011-04:00

Zeus and Krishna were engaged in a spirited sexual act —the particulars of which I won't describe here out of respect toward those who need to be protected from too premature a knowledge of said aspect of life and behavior— when, quite unexpectedly, someone rang the doorbell. "Mighty divine seed!" said Krishna, "Who is it now? It's becoming very difficult to enjoy five minutes of tranquility in this neighborhood anymore."

"I know, dear," Said Zeus. "The solicitors keep calling all day. And to think that we live in one of the most upscale areas of the extra-temporal dimension. You stay here, love. I'll see who it is."

Zeus wrapped himself in his toga and went to get the door. It was a well-dressed old god with a tired and slightly crazy look in his eyes.

"Hello, sir," he said, "I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time. I come to bring you very exciting news. Did you know that it is possible to enjoy eternal life in complete peace and happiness. Can you imagine that? To live forever without pain, without hunger or sorrows?"

"What is your name, sir, first of all?" said Zeus.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm God, God Almighty. And you sir?"

"Well, I'm also God Almighty. Sir, please, kind lord, can you be more specific? This neighborhood is full of individuals with that title."

"That can't be. I'm the only God Almighty."

"Please, my friend, let us be frank. Not even mortals go around saying hello I'm Man, I'm Woman. Let us surpass them, at the very least, in that regard. Provide me with your given name. Be courteous."

"Dear lord, with all due respect, I must insist, I am the one and only God Almighty."

"Man! You are a stubborn case! Are you...? Now, wait a minute. I've heard about you! Yes, I remember now. My friend Odin told me last week about a strange old god who's going around knocking on everyone's door with promises of happiness and joy. You are Jehovah, right? Isn't that what they call you? Also Yahveh. Those are your names."

"Sir, my true name is ineffable, unknowable, impermeable, and unpronounceable. The syllables you've uttered are but a crude tag imposed upon me by ignorant minds that..."

"Oh, please! Enough of this, my friend. I'm rather busy at the moment. Look, I know you have a program, a method, and a discipline that you are selling. I'd love to hear about it sometime as I am rather fond of fantastic stories and, word has it, you can be quite inspiring. But as you refuse to pay basic homage to common courtesy today, I must ask you to call again some other time. Please leave in peace, and don't come back without a name."

"Very well, sir. I will consider that."

"You do that now. Good bye."

"Good bye."

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

This side

2009-08-12T21:53:00.017-04:00

It's a cold Sunday morning in a lost neighborhood at the very last end of the city. It rained last night and there are puddles everywhere. Three boys, eight, nine and ten years old, walk in an empty lot looking for anything to do. To the adult eye this is just two acres of garbage and weeds, but to the boys it is an indispensable recreational area. There are a few trees here, good for climbing; there are lizzards to catch and centipedes to kill. Cans and bottles are abundant, as well as rocks to aim at them. Stray dogs appear from time to time and, depending on their size, the boys pursue them or avoid them, always with rocks in hand. They climb atop the tallest mound in the terrain and spot one up ahead, only six yards away: a medium-sized and woolly mongrel facing away from them. "He's taking a crap", says Paul, the youngest one. "Let's get him now while he's not moving," says the oldest one, Jason. He picks up a big stone and throws fast. The animal has heard them now and as he turns his head to look the mineral strikes between ear and eye. There is no yelp of pain, he simply collapses to the ground. "You killed him Jason!" now says Lee. He's not the oldest nor the youngest. He says "you killed the dog!". Jason says "shit! let's check him out." They approach cautiously, holding a rock in each hand each. The rear half of the mutt lies inside a large pool of brown water. There is no blood on his head or any sign of damage, but he's completely out. "Well, he's not dead, he's breathing," says Jason. "It's a male dog," offers Paul. "He's clean," notices Lee. Paul says "he looks like maybe he belongs to someone." Then Lee "he looks like he's a good dog, he looks kind." Jason squats and feels the animal's head with one hand. He says "I think his head is in one piece. What do we do?"

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

My greatest concern

2009-08-09T21:51:00.006-04:00

I am beginning to wonder —and not only that, I'm beginning to ask myself— whether or not I am being intelligible or, on the other hand, if I may not be making myself understood, not actually managing to communicate well, after posting on this blog now for a few months —and always with the intention of making some sort of attempt at capturing an insight or two that the average reader may be able to take home, as well as trying to develop, by means of toying with the language this way and that, the sort of poetic verbosity that will make the prose in itself reason enough to be inclined to read my musings by virtue of it's being fairly stimulating to some as yet not thoroughly explored region of the cognitive apparatus— because and generally due to the scarcity of comments in the comments section, except, of course, with the exception of those of my mother, who doesn't really count by reason of the fact that mothers, for the most part, can be assumed to have a great deal to say about anything produced by the persons who happened to have come into being by means of their wombs, and are under suspicion of acting motivated by what is known as ulterior motives. Nevertheless, at any rate, it is clear that, in any event, although it seems fair enough to suspect that there exist a few individuals who follow this blog with uneven regularity —and an indeterminate number of people who have visited it at least one time— very few of them have had anything to say about what I have written, which leads me to believe that either I am not writing anything that is in any way relevant to the actual lives of common persons, or that I write in a way that does not induce in anyone a strong enough urge to reply, but most importantly, and as I mentioned at the beginning of the preceding sentence, I am beginning to think that, in most cases, my meaning doesn't come through, worse yet, I may not be providing any revelations, I may just be writing platitudes and obvious information of the kind that doesn't enrich anyone's worldview. This may be the result, in part, of my lack of correct grammaticalization of the syntax (although I can assure you that I often consider several options for my most persistent sticking points in the narrative, never with the exclusion of utilizing perhaps a different tense, maybe a more forgiving punctuation, possibly a more amiable tone), and partly the result of my limited skills —after all is said and done, all things considered, in all truth, and when the cows have all come home— at this ineffable, ever elusive, and often imponderable art of writing.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

The future

2009-08-07T21:40:00.002-04:00

We know that all is transient in this world, nothing endures forever, and impermanence is one of the fundamental lessons to be learned in life. Everything we've made during our brief existence will disappear in the depths of future time. For perspective, consider that the human race has another billion years —assuming we won't destroy ourselves— to prosper and become better until the sun begins to expand and super-heat the Earth. Even for creatures with such limited intelligence as we posses, that seems time enough to accomplish things that, at this point, seem almost inconceivable. It doesn't take much imagination to see how in ten thousand years, our present point in history will already be considered part of a primitive era. One hundred thousand years from today, our day and age will seem far darker and elementary to our descendants than the days of the cave paintings seem to us. In a million years, today will be a mere second in our primeval origins. What will be left of even the greatest names of our generation? We have existed as a species for a million years already, can we imagine ourselves in another million? Can we imagine ourselves in an American billion consisting of a thousand million? Excuse me but, how about a European billion consisting of a million million? Because the first billion I mentioned up there was an American one, so we are assuming now that we survived the death of our sun. We are assuming we built space ships, packed our belongings, and moved to distant inhabitable planets, having first sent a few robots to gather information about the local micro-fauna in order to figure out how best to immunize ourselves against it. Because the last thing you want upon landing on a new planet is to be invaded by alien viruses and die of a disease that causes erupting pustules on your skin, complete desiccation of the mouth and throat, and unbearable pain all along the spine. Not to mention the parasites.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Generator

2009-08-05T21:38:00.010-04:00

Having managed to emerge from adolescence with a strong sense of self and a fighting spirit, we were crazy enough to follow the dreams that the fires of youth engender in the human heart. We were also endowed with the sort of mind that has a certain facility to penetrate intuitively into the contradictions, the incongruity, the nonsense that our species takes for granted as the natural order of things. As this perception is painful, we seek to find relief by delving ever deeper into the causes of errors, cruelty, and mindlessness in the world. This creates a need to organize and shape ideas and conjectures, a need to communicate alternate ways of thinking that may be useful in correcting the rampant lunacy that seems prevalent in society. Using any of several systems available, we give new forms to matter in an effort to capture a dimension of beauty and possibility. We also develop new systems for output. What we present is always subjective, things that are very real for us, but that many people don't see at all. Their blindness is all we need to bounce against.

Another race of seers takes a more pragmatic approach, they labour for peace, fight poverty, take action against intolerance, or give of themselves in some other way, but always moving in the factual world. We operate in the realm of ideas, in the sphere of thought, in the domain of the imagination, and in the field of insight. We find material were others don't care to look, we occupy spaces no one else can occupy, and this is what makes us who we are. We work alone. We're good at forming a bubble, and within our bubble, we are masters. We are in the right place, doing the right action, and everything is as it should be. In the end, there is no other reality than the one we think of, no other life than the one we live. Our revelations may be important only to ourselves, but we can at least be certain that they originated from our own experiences, not from the framed ideas we received from others. This is called, in some circles, the beginning of wisdom.

Click on the image for 100%.

Size: 9" x 14"

Year: 1998

Media: Pen, pencil, color pencil, watercolor, and enamel on paper.

Price: $300

Corrector

2009-08-03T21:58:00.007-04:00

GOOD ADVICE (from fortune cookies):

It is an amazing phenomenon that we manage to make anything at all, the chances of not making anything are much greater.
Make that thing which you hold on to in life.
You must see with the eyes of the seer, but without letting your vision deceive you so much that your version of reality looses connection to the world. The trick is to work with facts that are invisible to others, not with things you merely wish existed.
Be prepared to invent and improvise the entire method for carrying out your odd ideas.
Always give yourself a problem, just don't make it an impossible problem.
It's more interesting if the work is a problem that was resolved, and not just a flaunting of abilities or talent.
You'll practice your gestures and they'll always brake, they'll always be clumsy, but this ineptitude, if accepted, can be the gesture itself.
There is an initial gesture, then some cooking, then some fixing and touching up. Keep the heart and the guts of the initial gesture always present.
You will conjure inspiration at the most improbable moments, and it will come to you at the most inopportune times too. You will call it when it can't come, and it will come when you're not ready.
Doubt and be worried about the work, but while you worry, work on it.
Ask yourself, who am I trying to impress? Who the hell cares?
Try to work without thinking.
In desperate situations do whatever makes less sense.
If it gets too hard, screw it. Make another one.

Size: 9" x 14"

Year: 1998

Media: Pen, pencil, color pencil, watercolor and nail polish

Price: $300

Purifier

2009-08-01T00:33:00.003-04:00

Let me explain the zen and science of keeping a healthy aquarium. The most important thing is precisely what most books on the subject neglect to mention, and you certainly are not going to hear a word about it at the pet store. The most important thing is to mix some plant fertilizer with the gravel. This is crucial because it will be very difficult to get your plants to grow well without it. And you absolutely must have live plants in your tank. So find any kind of solid fertilizer for aquarium plants, and mix it well with the gravel. It won't be easy to find because most pet stores would rather sell you a whole assortment of chemicals that are supposed to balance the pH of your water. But the fact is that the best thing you can buy to keep your water pH level balanced is live plants. After you mix the fertilizer with the gravel, position the rocks and driftwood according to your fancy, and then add a layer of clean gravel without fertilizer over the fertilized gravel. This is crucial to prevent the fertilizer from clouding the the water. You must cover the fertilized gravel with clean gravel or you'll get cloudy, dirt-colored water. Next fill the tank half way and plant your live plants on the gravel arranged according to your impeccable taste. When you've planted all your plants, fill up the tank to the top, add the salt, wait a week for the system to stabilize a little, and start adding your fish slowly, a few at a time. You'll need to make a few water changes during the first three months, but after that your tank should have matured and you won't have to ever change the water again. This is the second secret that they'll never tell you. There is no reason to ever change the water in a mature tank. As long as you don't have too many fish, the tank becomes a stable system. Of course, it is understood that there is a water filter, but you won't really have to change the filter either. Why change it when, after a few days, the activated carbon becomes saturated with whatever evil substances it was supposed to absorb, and from that point on it's the bacteria that take care of them? This hands-off philosophy has worked for me for years. I'll be happy to take any questions.

Size: 9" x 14"

Year: 1998

Media: Pencil, color pencil, pen, watercolor, nail polish on paper

Price: $300

Raw reality

2009-07-29T22:23:00.004-04:00

Behold! I'm going to be courageous and more self-centered than ever in my narrative today. Below we have a verbatim transcription from my own secret, private, and personal diary with a date that corresponds to the creation of the drawing presented above. Verbatim except for the name of the one person named, which I've changed for ethical reasons. Know that much has changed since, and much hasn't.

09/16/2003

In the train to see my baby and my chest is hurtin' from a cruel workout a few hours ago. Moving toward the Lower East Side where she lives among the cool, young people and the community gardens. My chest is burning. I have a can of savory clams in my bag, and I suppose I will find out whether she likes clams from a can for a light aperitif. I didn't work today and I won't work tomorrow because there isn't any work to do at the office and I have not been able to find work anywhere else. I would like to believe that my middle class poverty is the result of a lagging economy and part of the price to be paid for all the wars in distant lands and the widening gap between rich and poor. I'd like to think my situation is in great part created by the bottomless greed and blind voracity of a few hundred corporations, and not due to some inherent incompetence in my character. I may like to tell you uplifting stories of people who follow their dreams and find meaning in their lives, but at the moment the raw and cold part of reality seems to be predominating and I don't know anything about the rosy part of the picture. I can't find a job and every new week I sink a little deeper into this mud of deprivation and anxiety. I can't buy any new clothes, I can't buy anything new, and some days I come very close to not being able to even buy food. I have friends who have steady jobs, and I try not to tell them about my problem. I have other friends, artists and writers, who don't generally have steady jobs, and they tell me about their problems. They do not know that my situation is even more desperate than theirs. They do not know that I can't travel, that I have not been able to get out of the United States since 1999. They do not know that all my clothes are at least one year old. And there is Frank at the studios, who lives in perpetual tension, and there is not a single day that he doesn't tell me how much he's hurting for money and how difficult it is for him to find work. Yet, he does find work in the end, and he does get paid, while I'm stuck in the same job I've had for the past three years. Well, if you care to know, and since you asked, I've been living in these same burdensome conditions for the past three years. And although I have managed to make a few sculptures and a good number of drawings during this time, it doesn't look like the fruits of my mind are going to help me live in abundance. I still don't have a gallery. But I know I can't complain. There are thousands of people who live far more dismal lives in countries like Congo, for example, and Sierra Leone. There is always Irak and the poor Palestinians without a Palestine going crazy and killing Israelis for not making sense. There is the vast mass of humanity living at the edge of an abyss of annihilation. I really don't have much room to complain simply because my middle-class poverty doesn't let me become a famous artist.

Size: 9" x 12"

Year: 2003

Media: Watercolor and color pencils

Price: $250

The matter of oppinion

2009-07-25T19:27:00.009-04:00

What are we looking at this time? I made this drawing many years ago. It's not the most fantastic work of art imaginable, but it is honest and it suggests some mystery, it hints at some enigma that, if solved, may answer some important thing. That's what I think about when I make images. I do not seek to mystify the viewer or to fool the beholder, I simply want to show the truths I've found. For example, there is a place where the fear inherent in perplexities and contradictions can be a source of answers if I am able to look at it in the face. Although I am not saying that this is necessarily what we can see above. Self-evident and obvious images that are straightforward and simple to read tell you nothing beyond the limits of what they represent. The technical name in the jargon of artspeak for that is "illustrational". Are you following Joe? I do not want to be an illustrator.

Alright, know this, another one: the only obstacle between you and the clearest form of enlightenment is your fear of death. From this, the others emanate. Fear of failure, fear of loneliness, fear of losing what you have, all fears are manifestations of the fear of death. And all the teachers, gurus, philosophers and artists that complicate existence with parables, theories, signs, diagrams, and fables, and claim to know the path to truth, only confuse, mislead, and scam the many fools in this world who don't have in themselves the passion or the strength to seek a truth of their own. I do not want to be beguiled, so I pursue my own elucidations. The paintings are the questions and the answers.

Click for actual size.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 1998

Media: Color pencils, pencil, watercolor, nail polish

Price: $200

Pensamiento automático

2009-07-23T18:43:00.006-04:00

Let me explain, I am certainly not amazing myself with the images and words that end up here in this here blog of mine that I made for myself all by myself in order to have a place to put the pictures I make with words beneath them, under them or, in a prefix, "sub", but I think it's fair to say the material is assorted and varied, I mean, considering the limited parameters of my finite mind, and it's amusing enough to keep the reader amused to the extent that someone's interest can or may be gratified by virtue of the entertainment value of the prose and, furthermore, I believe that I have so far provided a fair number of insights with regards to this business of being creative in an authentic and genuine way without regard to the business side of things which is not at all my forte, my strongest point, my most pronounced sphere of competence, excuse me, but I can say it with even more words, my greatest and best defined field of expertise, and not, mind you and me, because of any lack of drive or acumen, but rather due to a peculiar absence of what in English is called "interest", however, or perhaps nonetheless, I must clarify that I don't thumb my nose at business, no, no, business is always welcome, even if I don't quite have the skills to roll the red carpet when it shows up.

At any rate, I'm going to interrupt the presentation of paintings from my 102 series for a while because word got out that they can be found in my website and because I think it's time to show some of my lesser accomplishments, which is not to say that I won't keep on pushing my sentences to achieve maximum spaces between the commas and to distend arrival at the period, of course not, a man is free here in this cyberspace medium here to follow his conceit and fancy, provided, of course, that I don't test my readers' patience beyond what they consider cruel and unusual punishment.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 1999

Media: Watercolor, pen, pencil, nail polish

Price: $200

El baile de la buena suerte

2009-07-20T21:54:00.010-04:00

While I won't go into detail, and even though I'm generally averse to offering explanations about the pictures I create, I will make an exception for the above as I believe it lends itself to misinterpretation. And I've learned not to trust the general public when it comes to imagining the most obscene details of my private life.

In an attempt to render ineffective a potent malediction laid upon me by a Turkish gypsy sourceress, I combined advice received from a Mapuche woman shaman I met in the South of Chile, with the instructions from an Iroquois medicine man I met by chance in a bar in Ontario, plus certain elements from another practice which I can't reveal. I am dancing for good luck up on a high plateau in Patagonia and the music is all in my head. I am thoroughly sunburnt (a prerequisite), and I am butt naked under a mask designed to shoo away tribulation and adversity. I am holding in one hand a bundle of hair from the tail of a donkey which has been soaked in vegetable oils, and what looks like a medieval ball mace without the spikes in the other, although I can assure you it is entirely something else. I have around me nine pouches made by packing herbs and various amulets in purple silk (one of them is outside of the picture frame). Two trusted friends serve as witnesses at a preordained distance of about fifty yards. I've taken shrooms, peyote and ayahuasca in a perfectly measured combination which produces no vomiting and allows for only two hours of very lucid visions. In addition to dancing, I later adopted a series of positions which pushed my lower limbs to the natural limits of their elasticity and caused me to expel an inordinate number of farts. I am sad to report that this was all to no avail. The curse lives.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Native life forms

2009-07-18T23:40:00.008-04:00

Human thinking is encased within an oblong case outfitted with a cluster of sensory organs and connected through a tube to a larger structure containing many vital organs. Four limbs protrude from this in pairs. The upper limbs perform handling operations of objects by means of grappling appendages located at the ends. The lower ones perform functions of locomotion and end in peculiar structures without parallel in the entire world of Earthly life-forms. This bizarre bodily design causes humans to make numerous distinctions and separations, in any of their numerous languages, when referring to actions performed by one set of extremities or the other. Only a few of our most imaginative minds have attained a strong intuitive grasp of this aspect of their understanding. The complexity of their anatomy creates a need for very many words simply to describe and comprehend themselves as organisms. It has been argued that this may be one of the reasons why humans tend to be very self-centered.

But the most enigmatic aspect of their mind-frame is without a doubt the impressions they gather with their sensory organs. They are endowed with two senses for apprehending the chemical signature of molecules, while we have only one. And while we can easily understand what humans mean by "touch", we can only conjecture what sort of perceptions their "sight" might reveal. We've so far understood that it refers to a vast array of differentiations with respect to the properties of light quite apart from any aspect in any way related to the digestive process. In fact, perhaps even more incomprehensible to us is the fact that humans do not require any light to digest.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.

Lunacy rampant

2009-07-15T21:36:00.004-04:00

But for clarification purposes, it can be said that with regards to the erratic thinking organ I possess, and in order to dispel any doubts that may still linger after questioning the paragraph below (not what I must explain today, however, but in any event), I had a cornucopia in the left side for infinite relay of inspiration (although lacking in filters and refining devices), and I lost it sometime after the end of youth and the beginning of my mature age. Now sawdust permeates the air, the water has turned orange, and bands of rowdy lemurs run the place. How can I be expected to make sense of that? I'm never sure how to configure syntax or how to straighten out the bends and dents of intransitive verbs, especially compound ones. Although I must point out that, in my case, it is safe to attribute this problem to the inward curvature of my sternum and the pectoral concavity that this creates. In other words, I can be thankful at my age that I don't suffer from gallstones, sciatica, or damage to the peroneal nerve (not to mention anal fissures because that would be bad taste).

Size: 2.75" x 3.5" (Shown in actual size)
Year: 2007
Media: Watercolor
Price: Not sold separately. Part of a larger piece.

La causa de la guerra

2009-07-12T21:18:00.005-04:00

It's rooted in identity, in our idea of who we think we are. I mean myself, and you, and everyone. The mind of man needs something to identify with, something to be a part of, otherwise it gets lost. And the mind of woman is the same. The mind of woman grows attached to the country she was born in, the religion of her people, the customs, the traditions, the language around her, and she says "I am this". The mind becomes programmed by its surroundings, it is conditioned by the circumstantial particulars around it. We live inside our own programming, so we don't think we're programmed, we think we are original and clever. Some people see this and try to surpass the limits of their conditioning. They go live in another country, learn another language, dance to another rhythm, find another religion, they make an effort to broaden themselves. But a new program is still a program, so their mind is now conditioned by a larger program. What to do? Drop everything that makes you who you are, that's what. Leave yourself by the side of the road and walk away. Then humankind becomes my people, Earth is my country, and I am free from religion and from the ideas of other people. Then I hear violence in "I am American", destruction in "I'm Spanish", cruelty in "I'm Jewish". I hear confusion in "I'm Catholic", disorder in "I am a Buddhist", hostility in "I am a Secular Humanist". Violence I hear in "I believe in God", yes, insane brutality in that, and in "there is no God". But while I still have my precious self, while I am still defining who I am in ways that separate me from other human beings, I am deaf. You hear me?

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"
Year: 2006
Media: Watercolor

Pablito

2009-07-09T21:57:00.002-04:00

He's listed in the Book of True Souls under Pixies and Pucks, and in the Index of the Fair and Frank, on page 19. You wouldn't think, just from looking at him, how skilled and nimble he can be at sports and manual tasks. Some say five fingers and a thumb on each hand make up for four toes on each foot. He's renowned for his kindness (large heart), and well known for his jokes (an askance wit, and not lacking in charm), although he's no pushover, and he's well focused when at work. In early youth, he wrote forthright, trustworthy poems with daily life in them, and hope. Each day, he lives the truth he's found by living on the lookout for lies, deceit, and imitation. He won't take part in error or wrongdoing, which is to say, he makes the world a better place. He has his quirks, of course, like anybody. For example, he asked me to avoid words descended from Latin when I wrote about him. "But that's nearly impossible" I said. "Do what you can", he said "do what you can". So tell me now, with traits like these, in your opinion, and speak freely, should he, for any reason, cut his hair?

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

The crossing

2009-07-06T21:33:00.006-04:00

What happened was we looked around us and everything was pragmatic, deadpan and matter-of-fact. Progress was being made, things moved along, and there was no question that the system was efficient and the procedures in place were very productive. But everything that we considered part of the stuff of life was entirely excluded from this order. There was no place in it for myth, the study of the natural world, crystalized minerals, the various levels of the human mind, the Tarot, infinite ancient stories, the magic of the forest people, Philosophy, the findings of the archeologists, the colors of the Fauves... nothing. Not to mention that there was very little playing being done with the English language. We looked at ourselves and decided that none of the three of us looked like we belonged in that place. We said "we're just different. We're made of some other material. We'll atrophy and desiccate if we stay here." No, no, we left. We traveled North, over the prairies, across the dead lands, through the forests, up and down mountains, crossing rivers, and navigating a number of large lakes. We're going somewhere else, that's all we know, and everyday we loose our way. Don't try come with us, we think we won't get there.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Research institute

2009-07-03T21:53:00.005-04:00

In a final, desperate attempt to avoid it's own extinction in the face of of global warming, environmental degradation, wars, terrorism, failing markets, rampant fraud, pandemics, and other self-inflicted miseries, the human race, acting in unison for once through the United Nations, created the International Center for the Study of the Exact Cranial Thickness of the Skull (InCSECTS) in December of 2009. An elite of scientists and scholars from all over the world spent ten years in fervent study and debate, which resulted in the publication of a 3,526 page volume in 2019 titled simply The InCSECTS Report. The final conclusion of this work was that although the shell of the average brainbox is only a few millimeters thick, there exists around it a powerful field of indeterminate energy that impedes the penetration of ideas not related to a person's direct and immediate self-interest. This field of energy, named the brutodium, varies greatly in thickness from person to person, but in average, it extends several inches around the head. The Report included a series of images —obtained with the help of sophisticated techniques, computers, and complex machinery— of the brutodiums of prominent world leaders who volunteered for the project. Apart from a few notable exceptions, the pictures showed huge, bulging auras surrounding their discrete coiffures.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

La Maravilla

2009-06-30T23:24:00.006-04:00

One night, in the fall of 2006, I was visited in a dream by a blue gnome from an ancient Celtic fable, which was lost forever in the middle ages when the only person who had memorized it, a Polish troubadour called Ambrozy Sawicki, drowned in the Dujanec river in a manner that to this date remains unclear. Apparently, the Grand Council of the Gnomes had granted me a grant to be used for the development of my artistic career, and this award came in a little wooden box without any adornment or any lock to it. I told the gnome "well, this is quite a surprise for me since I do not recall at all applying for this boon." He said "you did, last year, in a summer dream." "I did?" I said, "alright, I guess I did. What's in the box?" He said "La Maravilla, the primal Spanish source of benefaction, relief, and recompense. It will grant you one wish and only one, so squander it well." I said "is this because I'm Spanish? You know, I don't want to be given any special privileges on account of my national origin. I want to earn my place in the constellations through hard work and persistence in my vision." "No", said the gnome, "it's just a coincidence that a Spaniard is getting it this year. We have boxes like these from many lands. They're rarely from the same country as the artists who get them." I said "alright, then thank you very much. My regards and my deference to the Grand Council of the Gnomes. I'm truly grateful and I feel most obliged." What I did with my wish, I wish I could remember.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2006

Media: Watercolor

Dry season

2009-06-27T22:05:00.005-04:00

In the event of a dry spell characterized by a mighty difficulty in producing new ideas and/or a desperate feeling in the face of the impossibility to configure matter in any fashion that won't constitute some sort of repetition of a previous accomplishment, follow the following directions:

1. Any time between midnight and sunrise, feed a male spider monkey a blend of two lychees, one mangosteen, a spoonful of gyn, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Tie up the primate, wrap his body with banana leaves, and burry him up to his neck. Trace a circle around him and place four candles on the perimeter oriented in the cardinal directions. Chant a pleading imploration to the source of all things magical in Yagua, Arawakan or Marubo. The monkey should speak a one sentence answer to your blockage in your mother tongue.

2. Steal from the nearest mental health clinic fresh in-patient statistics with regards to the disorder of your choice and translate the data into an XY graph. Print the graph on transparent paper and superimpose it on a map of your city of residence by aligning the edges of the upper right-hand corners of both documents. Walk the trajectory defined by the data line as faithfully as possible, going around, over or under large obstacles such as buildings or freeways. Do not just take a taxi or any other sort of transportation to the final point, this won't work. At the end of the line, there should be an old cookie tin containing the answer to your clog written in Cantonese.

3. Rent any independent film from 1996 and pause it at exactly 1 hour and 17 minutes. Paint the dominant color inside the one square inch at the center of your screen onto a piece of wood measuring 6" x 6" —use acrylics and match the color to the best of your ability. Take the painting to a copy center and obtain a color copy of it. Peg the copy to the wall, draw an X in the center and throw darts at it from three steps away until you hit it in the middle. Connect the dots created by your darts and fill in the shape with a black marker, cut out this shape with scissors. Find a book with a cover dominated by a color as close as conceivable to that of your copy of the painting of the color of the screen. Have a friend insert the black shape at random in the book. Open the book to that page. Your answer is the third sentence on the second paragraph.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Foreboding suspition

2009-06-24T22:23:00.003-04:00

While you have two eyes under your forehead in reasonably good working order and you can see what appears above, and otherwise you can put on your fashionable lenses and be able to discern it as well as anyone with 20/20, I'm going to assume, just for argument's sake, that the picture is registering in your mind with accuracy. Yet, in your silence or, in the absence of your commentary, you are giving me grounds for believing that, for the most part, my work is largely invisible. I remain lost in my endeavor to understand my self by means of the responses that my representations elicit in other human beings. Which leads me to suspect, not very strongly yet, but certainly with a well defined cumulative effect, that what I'm showing bears no relation to anything that is important to anyone —or nearly anyone. And yet, this is not all, it could be worse. For example, it could be that the artwork isn't very strong. It could be that I have a long, long way to go, miles and miles, a whole continent to transverse, before what I do speaks to people. I don't know. I move in darkness day by day. I palpate my way along the damp walls of the caverns of the mind. But I'll persist, who knows? It could just be the way I write.

This is one of a series of 102 little paintings, which together comprise a large piece titled "102 Tiny American Paintings", therefore, they are not sold separately, so I won't list a price. Shown in actual size. No need to click.

Size: 2.75" x 3.5"

Year: 2007

Media: Watercolor

Hermetic origin

2009-06-21T21:50:00.004-04:00

Since it is very variable in form, and most erratic in behavior, I can never count on recognizing it or knowing what it will do next. It's transient, by virtue of it's wandering nature, and it moves on quite promptly, going who knows where, the moment that it senses I'm not fully engaged. It has no place of residence, no known abode, though it has been observed to spend long stretches in the company of a lucky few. Some persons are born with the skill to summon it quite rapidly. However, the presence of this gift often implies a strong deficiency in some other regard. Myself, I normally have to work hard to court it. It can be very shy sometimes, more than most mice. And, as it's always fluid and indefinite, I must invent new rituals of seduction every time. Old tricks can work, but they have to be shuffled in new orders or given a deft twist. I have to keep a sharp eye out to discern its new shape, and listen carefully, in case it comes though sound this time. I have to be there all, entirely, with everything... and plead. Yes, it's like begging. It's always a petition, a question, a request, most considerately addressed from a most humble position, but, and this is key, with a smile in my eyes. As serious as it is, it comes to play. It wants to know what I've been thinking, it wants to make things with my mind. We can do anything together, anything absolutely. Given the time, of course, given the time. But first, I must be empty, I must not be there, step aside. This is the paradox in this intrepid game, the catch, only when I am empty can I have everything. It gives.

Joe Sixpack doesn't know what I'm talking about, he's lost. But you, my brother alchemist, my sister witch, you're with me. You know the secrets of the craft. Hit for magnification.

Size: 19" x 24"
Year: 2005
Media: Pencil on paper
Price: $800

Recondite inception

2009-06-19T23:43:00.009-04:00

Where before there was nothing, something takes form, initially sprouted from the absence of even the most minute germ of a distant concept in the furthermost back room at the terminal basement of the mind. You've been there so stay with me, I will not make you waste your time. In order to emerge, this thing must now take precedence, become ascendant, and prevail. However, it is nothing yet, so how to do this? How does a hollow nonexistence materialize?

It is often possible to notice, when you stand in front of a blank canvas, that your mind is equally vacant with respect to the image you intend to represent upon it. The nothingness confronts the emptiness and a void appears as a result. Fear emerges because, in this vacuum, you realize that without the perceptual instrument that your own existence constitutes, that is to say, in the event of your disappearance from the world of the living, the universe will continue manifesting in its entire immensity with the same indifferent inertia that it’s always been expressing toward the things it contains. This is not easy to face with a serene countenance, but the effort must be made, and the sensation must be endured since this dreadful nullity is the source of all ideas, notions, and mental objects. It is important to see that, at bottom, this is your point of departure, the ground you stand on, just before you make the first mark on the terrible whiteness. And your work will gain in power and meaning if instead of moving away from it in terror you are able to steady yourself and keep it present throughout your entire process.

Size: 19" x 24"

Year: 2004

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $800

Arcane provenance

2009-06-17T21:23:00.003-04:00

Caution. Do not attempt to interpret this image. It's been carefully crafted to reflect the deep programming of your unconscious mind. You will only reveal something about yourself that you didn't know that you didn't know. What you are contemplating is not what you think it is, and it isn't either what you think it's not. Sit down, suspend judgement, and abide in your perplexity. Get comfortable in your puzzlement. This is the beginning of understanding the inexplicability of everything that's cloaked from common vision. Repeat after me "I don't understand. I don't know". Please, try very hard not to say "it looks like...". Please! It's not what it looks like. Thank you.

Although I have been generous in providing particulars as to the subject matter or the motivation for creating the sculptures below, I'm afraid I can't do the same for the series of three drawings that I'm introducing today. I'm getting a feeling that my explanations may be limiting the possibilities of interpretation for some individuals. Of course the artist always has some source of inspiration, some specific thing in mind as the subject matter of the work. But we all try to make things that can be apprehended in other ways also. We are actually trying to make work that will not require any knowledge of the artist's intentions in order to be engaging.

It's like talking to a wall, this blogging business sometimes, I tell you. Hit it for enlargement.

Size: 19" x 24"

Year: 2004

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $800

The queer boys

2009-06-14T21:34:00.008-04:00

A boy of 15 is hit by the hormonal development of his reproductive apparatus and soon the thought of sex, sex, sex, acquires a strong dominance through no fault of his own. Now, he likes girls, that much he knows for certain, but on the other hand, it's not like he sees something wrong with boys. And since he goes to an all-boys Catholic school and his only sister is a baby, he doesn't have much access to girls. Not to mention that he's shy in front of girls because he lives in darkness as to their mental landscape. But boys are plentiful, boys... there is a whole school full of them, and he knows how they think. So without thinking much about it, and never really knowing how things get started, he starts messing with boys. These experiences are not very many: a few times with a few boys who are also exploring the possibilities of genital stimulation. And they happen unthinkingly, just a careless following of a sudden impetus, then a blur of fondling and fantasizing, ending in a quick climax that is never mentioned again in daily talk. Nothing too advanced, mind you, just mutual manual procedures that turn oral on occasion —there are no penetrations into orifices designed for the disposal of feces. Another thing: no kisses.

Meanwhile, the world of girls is slowly becoming comprehensible and he's learning how to converse with them and hold their interest. Then he discovers kissing them with tongue and corkscrew motions. One day, the boy is now 16, he falls in love with a sensible girl and she falls too, with him. It's their first love and it's terribly potent so, as a natural consequence, he discovers with her a great part of the spectrum of sexual experiences possible with the other sex (not gender). This is the end of boys for him, they have become far less interesting than girls. Let's get it straight, never again.

But many years later, as a man, he wishes to pay homage in his artwork to the boys who like boys. Just a little wall sculpture made with affection. Because, let there be no doubt, this artist knows where he stands in this regard, and he stands with them. You have a problem with that?

Size: 13" Long

Year: 2000

Media: Assemblage of various objects

Price: $300

The ellegible bachelor

2009-06-12T21:27:00.004-04:00

It was that a young artist of quite the unknown category had a space of time all to himself consisting of three years. This was between two wives he didn't marry by court or temple, but very much by heart. Not that he was alone and lonesome for the entire duration of that interval, oh no, he did know womankind in three different colors, four nationalities and six physical forms, all of them lovely. But they didn't stick as a result of complex reasons of incompatibility in significant respects not entirely apparent at the outset. In the spaces between women, and sometimes in the spaces with one, he practiced the art and science of critical self-analysis with the aim of clarifying and resolving psychological issues by means of contemplations, purges, ablutions, eradications, absolutions and catharsis, amongst other proven methods for attaining an unequivocal and forthright notion of exactly who delves within the cranial walls. As a consequence, he was a remarkably well-centered individual when, one good day of summer, he lost his independence on independence day to the splendid woman, rare beauty, discerning mind, entrepreneurial spirit and awesome force of nature whom, to this day, reigns in his heart. This inner condition turned out to be a very auspicious point of departure for the reciprocal interchange of romantic alliance and attachment that ensued. And although he's lost it on numerous occasions, this mental mode, having found it once, he has the advantage of recognizing when it goes away. He knows what to aim for when it has to be accomplished yet again. He makes a constant effort every time. It's the least she deserves.

Size: 18" Long

Year: 2000

Media: Assemblage of various objects

Price: $300

Domestic alien

2009-06-09T22:39:00.003-04:00

I've lived 22 years in this great land of ours. Except that it's not mine, much as I'd like it to be. I'm not a citizen of this colorful nation, my friends. I'm what the government prefers to call an alien. Why? Well, it's not that I don't love these states that stand united. It's not that I don't feel at home in this country of hard-working individuals, every single one of them so clearly distinct in their independent peculiarities —particularly in New York City, where I live. No, it's not that. Admittedly, I didn't always feel the impulse to become nationalized. I didn't come to this country running away from poverty or an oppressive regime. I didn't come following a dream either, thinking that the United States was the land where they come true. No friends, I came by force of circumstance, the greater part of it beyond my control at the time, and rather reluctantly, as I was in love with a native of the country where I had been living and didn't want to part ways. At first, if I may be sincere here, I thought that half the people were half-crazy in this land. I thought I'd never get accustomed to their ways and customs. But the years went by and I kept staying, and the native-born citizens, upon learning of my status would always ask me how did I like it here? So I had to stop and consider, how did I? The answer was never short and simple. Still isn't. But came the day when I realized that I did like it here plenty to become a citizen. I mean, at least that much, at the very least. And for years now it's been a matter of about 700 dollars, the price of the whole process. Because if you think I'm scared of their little civics test, let me tell you, you don't know me. You don't know what I can do with their little civics test.

So for the love of kitsch and obvious metaphors, I made this sculpture in April of 2000. There are two others in the series, which will follow.

Size: 14" Long

Year: 2000

Media: Assemblage of various objects

Price: $300

Knot

2009-06-06T23:39:00.006-04:00

Some say it was assembled in the 18th century by a master Belgian watchmaker and inventor of steam-powered devices who remains anonymous to this day, although he's known to have supplemented his income by tuning pianos and to have been well versed in German philosophy. According to this view, it was used for the distillation of lucidity from any quagmire input of imbroglios, dilemmas or quandaries, which could be fed directly into the appliance by means of a copper helmet outfitted with a fiendish intricacy of gauges and wires, as well as a unique set of goggles capable of registering the dilations and contractions of the human retina.

It's also been estimated to be the common means of aerial transport of the Klizwitii, the only tripedal race known in our galaxy, and also one of the first to evolve self- awareness. Their mental faculties being so developed that they are able to propel the craft by feeding forward thinking and active imagining into plasma receptors attached to the back of the head of each passenger. Sits 32.

A different opinion has it that it's a simplified diagram of the renowned Opuwo amulet, fashioned in 1979, and in strict accordance with the particulars he received in a vision, by a Namibian conjurer for the future protection of his yet-to-be-born great-great grandson against the foulest curses and death wishes.

Yet another analysis... Well, I would appreciate your analysis. Instead of you just reading this blog so silently and writing nothing in the comments so often. I'm not doing this for my own health, you know. I'm working hard here to expand the horizons of Richard Roe, John Q. Public, Jane Doe and Joe Sixpack. Not you, of course, not you, don't take it personally.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 1998

Media: Watercolor and ink on paper

Price: SOLD

A brooding temperament

2009-06-04T00:30:00.007-04:00

Above we have an example of the direction that the work below can take when a little color is added to the method, except for the reservation, and the strict provision, that this is the only one I ever executed toward that path and, as a consequence, it is possible to conclude that the possibilities for such trajectory remain, for the time being, closed and discontinued for further development. Which is not to say that the whole idea has run its natural course and, therefore, it should be considered as cancelled and terminated. I wouldn't go that far. Although with regards to the likelihood of undertaking this project again with renewed enthusiasm I can say that it's not very great, since I have become involved with a new set of concerns in the area of content and subject matter, the objects of my current study encompass and embrace the preoccupations depicted in this image, among an assorted variety of other motifs, issues, notions and focuses of attention. So if today's picture resonates with your aesthetic sensitivities, you may find it comforting to know that it's basic gist continues to evolve, after all, in the work of present company, albeit in a more ample context.

Thank you very much for your efforts to continue understanding my succinct and pithy prose. I have in mind only the man in the street and his cohort of novice laypersons when I write. Click on the picture for natural size.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 2004

Media: Watercolor on cardboard

Price: $200

The inert inferential

2009-05-28T20:54:00.004-04:00

Allow me to use you as an example of a peculiar phenomenon that is common to all humankind. Whatever your preferred practice for perfecting yourself to the full and most distended extent of your innate promise, there is always a gap between your ability to understand something intellectually and your capacity to put it into practice in everyday life. This is true in every field of human attainment, whether it be Christian ethics, Zen meditation, scientific experimentation, or the application of pigments onto flat surfaces with aesthetic objectives in mind: you understand far more about it than you can actually embody and actualize. It is an endless source of frustration and a constant reminder of the sour fact that your are not where you know you could be. There is still a lot of ground that you have to cover, many ends that remain loose, and a few ducks that refuse to align in your row. If you are aware of this, and you acknowledge and admit it as true in your conscious image of yourself as you are, then you are honestly humble, whatever your level of realization. If, on the other hand, you don't know, you forget, you dismiss, you disregard this gap, then you could be that pedant all full of yourself whom nobody can stomach and never can leave it at that. Mind the gap.

Behold the third drawing of the triptitch on the lives and struggles of simpler beings. If you've had enough of little bacteria by now, don't worry, there are more to come.

Size: 19" x 24"

Year: 2004

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $600

The intrinsic potential

2009-05-24T13:36:00.003-04:00

If I told you to think of a dark, shadowy bird that retains a few reptilian aspects in its physical shape as vestiges of ancestral features from a past when the Earth was sub-tropical throughout most of its latitudes, and I told you to envision this thing as the most archetypical power of the human machinery for cerebration, you would probably think that I'm wrong. If I said that a black, feathered creature with a sizable bulk, a long beak with small teeth, and a bad-tempered stare like an eagle's is what moves in your head when you delve at the bottom of things, you would probably think that I'm crazy. If I said that it's flighty, in the sense of inconstant and whimsical, in the sense of erratic, and wayward, and wild, you would think that maybe, somewhere, with some luck, I may know what I'm talking about. And it flies in irregular patterns, and it eats all the things left behind, and it sings with the voice of past eons and of future millennia. It is graceful and sprightly, but strong, and determined to get what it wants every time. Are you following me? That's the animal. That exactly, or something like that, very closely related to that. Otherwise we are back to the street and the cars, and the pigeons that paint with their feces statues in the parks. That's a bird we all know, right? Is that what you want? Very well, then. Paint pigeons.

Number two of the triptitch. Pencil, paper, patience, skill and resolution. Hit it.

Size: 19" x 24"

Year: 2004

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $600

The inherent inoperative

2009-05-24T13:19:00.008-04:00

In order to keep a creative mind in good working order, with an adequate amount of functional fluidity and operational readiness, it is necessary to ponder, every now and again, the conundrum of being. This is the most confounding, the most tortuously serpentine and perplexingly irregular question of all. Nevertheless, it must be contemplated. Why is there everything and not nothing? Scientists will tell you, if they are truthful about being honest, factual, and reliable, that at the end of all their mathematical models, game theory, and statistical analysis, lies the simple fact that it is far more likely for nothing to be there instead of everything. Yet, when we look, we don't find nothing. Why is this? The mind skids and the body makes a little jump when, in your consideration, you manage to touch it. If you behold this question in your mind without trying to answer it, but simply look at it in the face and allow it to grow until it envelops you completely, there is a moment when all that your head contains falls through a little hole and comes right out. It is an extraordinary experience, quite worth repeating with nuances and variations. You reflect on the ultimate question, and you fall into it and come right out. Amazing! Try it sometime. I believe this answers everything.

Above, number one of a triptitch completed in the fall of 2004. Simple pencil on paper and an abundance of the kind of detail known in the vernacular as "painstaking".

Size: 19" x 24"

Year: 2004

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $600

Sobrevolante

2009-05-16T23:40:00.007-04:00

To qualify for this profession of artistic interpreter of the perceivable chunk of palpable matter known in the common parlance as "the world", it is indispensable to possess certain uncommon faculties of intuition, perspicacity and penetration. An artist must be able to note the most hidden details of the outlines of things as revealed by the light of the sun, the moon, the campfire, the oil lamp, or the fluorescent lightbulb. And it is not sufficient to merely look at things, one must observe, examine, contemplate, and study every object of interest. For example, if I say that the ears of cats are every bit as convoluted and elaborate as the ears of bats in all their inner folds and undulations, only those who have taken the time to inspect the ears of bats understand what I'm talking about. But let us not forget that ultimately, and at the fundamental pith of the question, the true organ of perception is the mind. Although as artists we spend a lifetime training the eye to see the secret features of the visible, we paint the world as we think it, not as we see it. Something as vaporous and intangible as an idea, a mental projection, must go through the body of the artist in order to take form. Therefore the need to develop as well a good amount of mind-to-hand coordination. But don't be deceived by mere virtuosity in this area alone, the problem is not about being awkward or precise in your rendering, that is only a technical question. A painting is engaging when there exists a congruous relationship between the the idea that's captured upon it and its "style" as evidenced by the "hand" of the artist. This is the crux, the nitty-gritty, and the meat and potatoes of great art. That's why it's rare.

Hit it.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 1999

Media: Watercolor, pen, pencil, color pencil

Price: SOLD

Defense mechanism

2009-05-14T14:47:00.014-04:00

Allow me to remind you that we seem to be moving toward calamity at this very crucial time in human history. Although it is uncertain yet what shape the final cataclysm will take, it is becoming more and more difficult to ignore, day by day, the signs and indications. The facts are there, stubborn and fat, empirical as a good slap on the face, and what they point to can be envisioned without resort to crystal balls, prophecy or divination. It's gonna happen, friends, it's gonna happen. I don't want to depress you, I don't intend to scare you, and I don't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, but you know what we're doing, and you know that our collective denial is enormously deep and extensive. You know that humans are experts at distortion, fantasy, intellectualization, repression, and rationalization. To mention just a few examples. Because there are millions amongst us who don't even know that something is developing, and millions more who simply don't believe it. Besides, we don't know what to do, those of us with awareness and acquaintance with the experimental data. We have ideas, but we don't know how to materialize them. It's not just an engineering problem, politics are involved, religion, economics. Too many things to change, too little time. I say it's gonna happen, friends, but look, I'm open minded. I want to be persuaded otherwise. Please try.

Hit on the artwork.

Size: 8 3/8" x 10 1/2"

Year: 2004

Media: Watercolor on cardboard

Price: $200

Germs of the idea

2009-05-09T23:00:00.006-04:00

I don't want to give any names because, if I do, you'll want to call me some, but I think there are some artists out there who are considered amazingly sensational and just about the greatest of their generation and yet, they don't do anything for me. They don't excite me, they don't even talk to me.

And I know this happens to you too, don't think I don't know what happens to you in this regard, I am aware. You don't understand how a certain artist can sell work faster than firearms in Chihuahua and be the valentine of critics and high-end galleries. You think the work is obvious, boring, gimmicky. You know who I'm talking about, that one. Or that other one who does the other thing that's just as inane and vapid, ridiculously sappy, insipid or simply frivolous. Where is the merit in that? Where is the talent?

But you're afraid to dismiss this personage in public because you think that maybe there is something magnificent about the work that, for some abstruse reason, you fail to perceive. And when you ponder this enigma, sometimes you wonder if you may not be missing some perceptual organ altogether. Perhaps you're simply lacking a certain receptive mechanism in the mind that other people have and you're a mutant. A freakin' freak! I know you, my friend. Believe me, I know you inside and out with respect to this particular. I feel you.

They'll come and tell you that you should look at this, or listen to that, and at least suffer through it before you abolish the piece and evict it to the land of not worth MY time. Some of them will come with arguments and expostulations, and some of them will call you things like "stubborn", "arrogant", "pretentious", "narrow minded" because you won't even bother to look at something that someone put a lot of time and effort into. Oh yes, they'll come, so be prepared.

Here's the elucidation, pay attention. As you know, any sample human being is an infernally complicated piece of work. Not only do we have our personal genetic tendencies and predispositions —each one of us as individuals in our singular and specific particularity— but we also each go through unique experiences in life. Combine your very exclusive DNA with the very special collection of events in your life and you get yourself, but no one else will to the same extent, not even your mother. Are you following me? With this unequaled self, you can't possibly hope to comprehend everyone else's. Some people will always be beyond the scope of your cognizance in one way or another. There will always be people communicating with great eagerness something that they see as revelation, but to you appears self-evident. There will always be paintings that don't resonate with your emotional constitution, or with the issues that interest you most fervently. This happens with music too, with dance, even with comedy. So you have every right to remain indifferent in the face of what others call great art. It's only natural, it happens in the best families and you're not a weirdo. This also means that you don't have to look at artwork, or listen to music that wasn't made for you. You don't have to give it a chance, you can dismiss it, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Size: 30" diameter

Year: 2004

Media: Watercolor paintings glued onto wood with plastic grass and transparent plastic domes

Price: $1,000

Longarden

2009-05-06T23:56:00.019-04:00

The article above is representative of a practice that I have largely abandoned due to the physical constraints and compressions I am experiencing at present in the 70 square feet of floor surface at my studio, namely: sculpturating. Add to this the restrictions in the time spectrum imposed upon me by the maintenance and attention required by a little individual who walks only somewhat better than a drunken sailor, and speaks no more than 20 odd random words including "mango", pájaro", and "caca". There is also the matter of my slightly unfinished house, which my mind won't consider a place for tranquility and renewal until I paint the fence, repair the water damage in the baby room, and install a light fixture in the downstairs shower, among other similar problems of the same variety and inherent properties. Considering all this, it doesn't take a lot of visualizing to perceive the wisdom of limiting my creative output to flat works in two dimensions and devoid of a third one.

A creative person must be able to adapt continuously to new confinements and limitations without succumbing to despair or giving up. The important thing is to keep working, to continue extracting ideas from the empty vacuum of the nonexistent blank space that contains them all. Like every normal person, I aspire to make my mark in the world and accomplish something distinctive and memorable that will be treasured by the human race until our ballooning sun turns the Earth to lava in his old age. I always find encouragement in a poem by Charles Bukowski that I read about ten years ago called air and light and time and space. I won't paste it below because I don't want this post to become exceedingly longitudinal, but it can be found by following the following line: http://airlighttimespace.com/. Your thoughts?

Size: 8 feet long
Year: 2004
Media: Plastic plants on 2x4 wood and toy truck wheels.
Price: $1,200

The same question again

2009-05-04T23:16:00.007-04:00

Keep in mind that the job of being an artist is not real at all, but a sort of perpetual vacation in which the mind is always lost in reverie, recollection and daydreaming. While others toil excavating tunnels, fixing airplanes or preparing tax returns, the artists goof around in their studios smudging canvases with colored pastes while some evocative music plays out of their old and dirty stereo audio systems with CD/Cassette player and AM/FM radio. While others struggle with problems of computer code, marketing strategy, and legal minutia, the artists' only problem is to imagine entirely fictitious and fanciful pictures concerned only with their personal interests and life experience. While the bulk of humanity is engaged in jobs that, by reason of their nature and essential exigencies, require them to interact with other people and explain, coordinate and schedule a myriad things on a daily basis, the artists work only with themselves in solitude and strict isolation, contemplating their inner world with such intensity that some of them have been known to implode through their navels —only to emerge, with all of their ideas in reverse order, from a very small orifice at the base of the cerebellum. And principally, but no less importantly, while the work of people with real jobs like plumbers, doctors, and real estate brokers produces the sort of tangible effects that keep civilization standing and advancing inexorably toward greater perfection and polish, the work of visual artists produces only drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other objects of indeterminate condition that serve no useful purpose, except perhaps to stimulate our emotions and stir our thoughts in profound but annoyingly elusive ways.

Click on the drawing.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 2003

Media: Watercolor and color pencil on paper

Price: $200

Memory refreshed

2009-05-02T22:13:00.007-04:00

Peruse this unnamed creature for a while and speculate freely about its existence until you're satisfied with your understanding of its habits and life cycles. Please do devote some time to this exercise and make an effort to see in your mind how it may behave from day to day. It's a perplexing organism and this image is the only one known to science or fiction, so your contribution is valued as it will undoubtedly expand human knowledge to new frontiers. Others have tried before you, and I've been taking notes. The following is what I have compiled so far from the cogitations of a small number of individuals: They live in places where water is scarce and open space plentiful. They're covered by a translucent and tough non-porous membrane that protects them from desiccation. They're not tiny animals, but they're small, perhaps the size of a mouse. Although another theory has it that they're large as donkeys. If they're small, then they secrete a glue that allows the females to carry their eggs on their backs, or allows both sexes to carry a small package of food. They've been used in traditional medicine since times immemorial to restore lost memories and retrieve ideas. For this, a few of them have to be boiled for an hour together with a few herbs and salts from a dried lake. They're also useful for healing small wounds and relieve insect bites if cut open with a knife and applied directly to the affected area. If they're large... What if they're large? Did you conceive them large? Go ahead and expostulate your deliberations in the comments. Many questions remain. What is the geometrical object that floats in the sky? What is the large, luminous object in the background? A sun, a shelter, another life-form? What do you know?

Size: 8 3/8" x 10 1/2"

Year: 2004

Media: Watercolor on cardboard

Price: SOLD

Classical dilemma

2009-05-01T21:16:00.007-04:00

While legend has it that artists live in such dire misery that they often confront the difficulty of having to choose between buying a new tube of paint or a can of Progresso soup with the few dollars they have at their disposal, the reality is that Vincent Van Gogh remains to this day the only artist of note who sold only one painting in his lifetime. Furthermore, he's the only one known to have cut his earlobe, (and not the whole ear, as gossip has it). Since Vincent already lived that life, and nature never repeats itself, nowadays artists can't count on not selling anything or on coming close to madness. Yet, it is not unusual amongst those of us who seek to create images of subtle and profound meanings to go for years without selling much, or to suffer a fabulous variety of feelings of despair, dejection and hopelessness. Many of us develop skills in other areas and work regular jobs. Then we work at our occult craft after the job or on the weekends. It's not unusual either to fluctuate between part-time jobs, which allow for more time to spend at the studio, but provide less income, and full-time jobs that leave little time for the studio, but provide better earnings. If we could spend all day at the studio perfecting our abilities, then it wouldn't take too long to reach a level of artistic maturity that would guarantee fame or, at least, that would allow us to make a living from our work. But for that an artist needs to be willing to live on a small allowance sent at irregular intervals by a kind brother, like Vincent did. Most of us are not willing to live so close to poverty, or simply do not have that blessed brother.

Behold above the third drawing of the series started below. Click on it to see au naturel.

Size: 5 3/8" x 7 1/2"

Year: 2005

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $50

Mystic mysteries

2009-04-30T23:31:00.007-04:00

As the everyman in the street and his coterie of laic neophytes know only too well, the visual arts comprise an esoteric and arcane field of human endeavor that utilizes a highly specialized array of symbols, metaphors and pictorial devices, which require years of study and investigation in order to be comprehended correctly and without equivocation. Art is obfuscated by impenetrable mysteries and well guarded secrets that remain forever inaccessible to the uninitiated. Many are the confident men and women who are quick to offer their opinions on the most challenging subjects, and yet appear shy and indecisive in the face of a painting. This is only natural since it is quite easy to sound ignorant and uncultured when speaking of something as sophisticated and complex as a work of art. There exist a few wealthy personages living amongst us who are able to afford the services of experts when it comes to purchasing art, but the rest of humanity must resort to the unreliable advice of their inner intuition and personal tastes. This phenomenon is not observable in other areas of artistic expression, such as film or music. It's not necessary to learn entire volumes of specialized terminology in order to be able to explain the reasons why one likes certain songs or movies and not others.

Above is the second drawing of the series introduced below. Click on it to see it actual size.

Size: 5 3/8" x 7 1/2"

Year: 2005

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $50

Moral edifice

2009-04-29T22:40:00.005-04:00

While we're on the subject of drawing, let me make public the announcement that we won't touch, consider, or enter into the subject of painting for still quite some time, plus an extension into the future to come, due principally and foremost to the inevitable absence of available periods of clock time in which to pursue the aforementioned activity —involving brushes and turpentine— when a person of my height and strength is occupied with the care and upbringing of a toddler. While I consider myself first and foremost an artist, imbued by the forces of nature with a true and pure passion for giving form to the nonexistent and verbalizing the unmentionable, my obligations and duties as a father must always override, supersede and supplant my appetite for creation. It is only when the angel goes to sleep, after a long day of playing, banging, walking erratically, making faces, and babbling the most exquisite combinations impeccably nonsensical syllables, that I can have a few moments in which to immerse myself in artistic undertakings. At this time, I am drawing ideas in a couple of sketchbooks at a rate of roughly one every couple of days. This is all I feel capable of completing while my present circumstances endure. But the child is growing up and, at some point, will not require constant supervision. Then I'll paint.

For today, I want to introduce to society the first of three related drawings completed in the summer of 2005. If you click on it, you will be able to contemplate it at exactly its original size. I would appreciate an explanation.

Size: 5 3/8" x 7 1/2"

Year: 2005

Media: Pencil on paper

Price: $50

Issues and secretions

2009-04-27T23:40:00.010-04:00

The traumas inflicted upon you by your parents, who doubtless did the best they could, but nevertheless managed to make you go through some very difficult times. Unnecessarily, of course. That's if they didn't die on you. The pimples of early youth, always five or seven in different stages of emergence, ripeness and healing crust, some of them returning again and again to the same exact spot. The girl or the boy you desired so fervently but saw you only "as a very good friend" after you had been sharing your most intimate thoughts for months. The lover who was rubbing genitals with someone else for a couple of weeks before you found out. The lover who secretly worked on getting over you for a whole year before you received notification that the relationship had come to an end. The time when that stupid boss fired you from a very stupid job that you didn't even want, but it still knocked your self-confidence to the ground. The months you spent unemployed and looking for work everywhere and nowhere, the desperation mounting till you felt willing to mine asbestos for food. The bones you broke, the joints you dislocated. The dream that you could not pursue because certain obstacles are simply not surmountable, and especially the dream that you pursued for years but didn't happen. For example.

And yet, oh miracle, there you are now: new again. Still trying, doing things, believing, loving, moving ahead. You got over all your issues. They are all behind you now. How did you do it?

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 2002

Media: Watercolor, pencil, pen and nail polish.
Price: $200

Quiet

2009-04-26T00:02:00.002-04:00

The problem I have with art is that I have to make it. There is an urge in me to create that won't relent. I have a need to conceive, invent, discover, and then shape and bring into being original and stimulating ideas. For some reason unknown to me, when I don't make art for some time I start feeling lost, empty and bland somewhere within. There was a time when I could not find peace unless I was at work in my studio. I also had myself convinced that I would not find happiness until I was able to make art everyday and make a living from my work. But life teaches to those who listen and now, in my mature age, I am able to find my peace and happiness in many other things. Yet, the itch is still here and it has to be scratched.

And the problem with having to make art is that I don't know where it is in me. That place where ideas come from, that ability to distinguish the clever ones from the obvious ones, I have to go and find it every time. And I have to go find my skill to draw or paint again because it can go down a hole from one day to the next. But I jump on the tight rope and I do my thing as best I can with faith and enthusiasm, all the while feeling like I'm watching the best channel on the television. And then, when I see the finished work, I'm never really convinced, I'm never quite persuaded. I see some things that work, and some that don't. I think I'll have to try again, I guess, I'm not there yet.

In this I am not unusual. Any artist will tell you that my thinking is typical. I just want to make it clear that I'm not a special case, a mad genius, a tortured mind or a rambling idiot. I'm working to find THE THING as honestly as I know how to. There is promise here. I think we can say that much with confidence.

Do click on the drawing above to see it big. It's one of those that don't condense very well. Yours for $500.

Title: Quiet

Size: 29" x 23"

Year: 2004

Media: Watercolor on paper

Other important things

2009-04-25T00:33:00.023-04:00

If you need to dispel the uncertainty and anxiety that so many of us are feeling during these times of crisis, when the shadow of impending cataclysm by means of global warming, wars, terrorism, failing markets, rampant fraud, and piracy at sea looms upon the world like a desert vulture waiting for a lost donkey to finish dyeing of thirst, consider a timid one-eyed Amblozoan larva who rarely ventures outside of his flexible, self-secreted, crystalline membrane with a triple lipid glycoprotein core, conversing for a moment with a fully mature specimen of the same species, while he tries to get his pyruvate appendage in position for recharge. It should help.

I would love to read your interpretation. Click on the drawing to see it big. Available through Pierogi gallery.

Size: 8 1/2" x 11"

Year: 2003

Media: Watercolor, pen, pencil

Sentient being

2009-04-23T20:57:00.007-04:00

The human race, at present, has a huge mental problem, a sad case of denial and rationalization: we think that nature is outside of us. We live in a primitive age when a large portion of our species swaggers around the planet with unmatched conceit and arrogance, believing we have a right to absolutely everything and showing no respect for other living things. Many people go to great lengths to avoid facing the simple fact that we are animals. We are creatures with hair and nails that eat other creatures and plants and then defecate, like any other animal. We are a species of unusual apes, born of our mothers and, like any other mammal, we drink from their breasts when we are infants. These are obvious facts that allow us to see ourselves as we are, without myths or vanity. We are one more living thing on Earth, and we are not superior to horses, frogs or beetles. We are not superior to bacteria either. The average person has over 500 species of bacteria living happily inside in massive numbers and causing no harm. Sit for a moment and try to consider your internal microflora as equals. There lies a fast path to enlightenment, friends. Can we ever be humble enough to know this in our knowing?

The drawing is 8 1/2" x 11". Graphite, gouache and marker. Click on it to see it big. Yours for $200.

Tres

2009-04-22T21:40:00.005-04:00

Let's continue the theme below with one more drawing from the same series on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Several people have asked me what this image "means". The truth is, I don't know, and I hope it will never be found out. I believe good art should remain forever enigmatic. But to clarify the piece a little, let me share my approach from a technical angle. I've always been interested in combining several different types of markings in my works. Here we have yellow curves made with color pencil on top, and intricate cell-like activity rendered with watercolor inside, and with hard pencil outside of the three life-forms on the bottom. The white membranes is gouache. The floating oval organism was also made with a few different media. Also, I remember that my intention was to create a serene composition. My hope is that someone out there will like it well enough to put it in that special corner in the house. Go ahead and click on it to see it big. Yours for $200. SOLD

Fuerza de voluntad

2009-04-21T23:15:00.002-04:00

Another drawing on 8 1/2" x 11" paper from the same series and the same year (2003) as the one below. The title means "Will Power" in English, but don't let that lead you by the nose. I could have called it anything. I choose my titles for personal reasons known only to me at the moment of naming and forgotten afterwards. There was a time when I did not title anything I made, but then I found myself having to refer to my pieces by long descriptions. This one would have needed something like "the drawing on purple paper with a green shape on the bottom, a white one in the middle and a pink one on the top". That's clearly inefficient, disorganized and complicated. It's better to give them a title. And since they will be named, I try to give them titles that won't reduce their possible interpretations. Go ahead and click on it to see it big. Yours for $200.

Fertile field

2009-04-21T00:51:00.003-04:00

Let me begin with this drawing on standard 8 1/2" x 11" paper. The title and the image fit perfectly with the theme of this inauguration. I do not offer verbal explanations for my visual creations because I believe they create a predisposition on the viewer to follow my interpretation of the work. I am much more interested in learning what other people see in it. The plants on the bottom were painted with watercolor, and the organism that floats above them was made with graphite 3H pencil, color pencils, nail polish and enamel paint. Go ahead and click on it if you want to see it big. Available through Pierogi gallery in Brooklyn.

Inauguration

2009-04-21T00:17:00.000-04:00

Behind my ample forehead lives a brain with two halves and a thick mass of tissue in the middle for connectivity and internal dialogue purposes. It is my good fortune to have been able to develop skills from both hemispheres of gray matter to some extent, mostly for creative, imaginary and similarly stimulating activities. After years of fervent artistic work, I have produced a substantial collection of artifacts, writings, and considerations on the state of things. But with the passing of time, and the effects that accrue from the Earth's rotation around the Sun, much of what I've made has slowly accumulated in shelves and drawers, where it sits doing nothing day after day. The time has come to create a space for the presentation and display of the various and assorted products of my fertile mind. The time has come to invite commentary, criticism and exegesis in a public arena. Therefore, and without further verbosity, I hereby inaugurate this blog to show my artistic productions to the whole world and any extraterrestrial beings that may have found access to our beloved Internet.