The times and life

Since the Internet seems to index everything under the sun, I’m going to put this post out there to see if someone may have found a necklace I made, and lost in the surf, in Huntington Beach California, somewhere between 1972 and 1975.

It was a gold bird design (very crudely formed by beating on a lump of gold with a hammer until it sort of looked like a bird in flight), epoxied onto a piece of Obsidian (black volcanic glass), which was in turn epoxied onto the tag from our family dog that had died years earlier. As I recall, it was a round brass tag, and it may have had Cypress Veterinary Clinic or similar embossed on it.

I used to wear it on a leather thong around my neck, and while surfing one day, it was lost in the surf. The chances someone may have found it a long time ago is good, but if someone actually hits the net to see if they could find the owner, and you found this post, that would rock.

It’s a long shot, but I thought it’d be worth posting to see if it turns up all these years later.

Singer Songwriter Chris Castle asked me to create artwork for his upcoming CD release, and it’s finished. I discovered Chris Castle and the band he was touring with, the Womack Family Band, through signer/songwriter Jeff Black. I met them last fall when they came through town, and again this spring as they came through again on the Drenched Earth Tour. Head over to Chris’s website for information on how to order a copy for yourself.

The Womack Family Band is touring with him, working as his band, a great combination. You can find their offerings on their website, found here.

Now I can scratch off wanting to create artwork for a musician’s cd release.

Tilt Shift photos of Van Gogh’s paintings. This is such a brilliant idea, and it’s amazing what a completely different image it makes doing this process. Link

I had the windows open tonight, and I could swear I heard a coyote howling in the woods across the way, somewhere down in the holler. I did a quick recording with my digital camera, not too good sounding, but you can hear it. The noise in the background is a train off in the distance. Download coyote howl April 14 2011o

YES! The long awaited Knoxville leg of The Drenched Earth Tour is FINALLY ONLINE!

I wrote about this group of musicians back in the fall, and they came through here again a few weeks ago. Singer songwriter Chris Castle was on tour with The Womack Family Band, and they were coming through town again. After knowing Chris online for a while, I headed downtown to WDVX to catch his live show, and met them band that was touring with him. It was an instant connection with them all. So, when we said goodbye, I left a standing invite to hang out and stay over at our place and save some money on hotel bills. And they did just that. After eating peanut butter and jelly sammiches and trail mix for a while, a big pot of  home made spaghetti, a couple of loaves of Italian bread, and some red wine hit the spot when they showed up on Sunday afternoon.

This is an amazing group of people, I love each and every one of them, like family. Actually, they’re all new members of our chosen family. Lots of great conversation, lots of laughs, lots of great music.  It was funny on Monday morning waving as they headed down our driveway, then an hour later appearing live on Knoxivi streaming internet TV, then a few minutes later, they ran across Market Square to the WDVX radio studios and did a short gig live on the radio. When that finished, they ran back across Market Square and set up their gear for a show that night, in advance.

They came back here after getting their gear set up at The Preservation Pub, and I  whipped up a chicken and veggie stir fry for 8, no small feat that, and more great conversation and laughs. We all  headed downtown early Monday evening, and we met up with them at the venue. And that’s where I finally had a chance to see a full set of their music, and I’m telling you, it was THE best live show I have ever witnessed. The tall bearded guy, Tony, I swear, is a younger version of me. He plays anything and everything. And during the last set, they tore out all the stops and rocked the place. I mean, they ROCKED the house. Great times.

They’ve got a standing invite to stay over at our place, whether on tour or on the road on vacation or whatever, they’re great additions to our family. But next time, we hope to have a few days together, to break out the instruments and jam on the back deck, eat some BBQ, and savor the company of some very cool people.

Without further adieu, here’s the segment of the trip when they came down Sunday from Kentucky to our place. I met them along the road, and jumped in front and had them follow me home. It was funny, I was waiting at a light, where one light ahead, I saw the black van drive past, followed by the trailer. I hung a hard right and raced to the next intersection so I wouldn’t lose them.  As I was racing through downtown Clinton, I could see them on the next street over, catching glimpses of them between buildings. And just as I pulled up at the red light, they were right there. I laughed my ass off at the comedic timing, if only I had a camera running so show how funny it was from my vantage point.

The fact that this was called The Drenched Earth Tour isn’t lost on anyone. There were serious storms coming through, and when they were on the air at WDVX radio, a tornado was bearing down on downtown. Record rainfall and record flooding made the trip one they won’t soon forget.

Chris Castle is the first guy in the video, he opens the show, does a couple of solo songs, then one member from the band joins in, then another on the next song, until they’re all on stage together. It’s a show in three acts. Oh, and none of The Womack Family Band is named Womack. They just thought it’d be cool to have an old timey sounding band name.

So here they are, Chris Castle and the Womack Family Band.

It was the visit from these guys that re-ignited the musician fires in me and made me break out my guitar again. It was SO hard to sit in the audience with my hands folded in my lap, and not grabbing one of a dozen not being played at the moment instruments on stage and join in.

You can catch more of their tour here.

I’ve launched a brand new website, one that I’ve been kicking around for quite a few years, and decided it was time to do it.
Artsy Mondays will have a brand new piece of artwork offered every Monday morning, and now you can buy a print, online, with more options on  canvas and paper types, mats, frames, and glazing than I could ever offer.  I’ve got a FREE desktop wallpaper for you in the first posting, so go grab it, then bookmark the site and check back every week, or add the RSS feed to your feed reader to keep up with the new releases.

Here’s the link- ArtsyMondays.com

A tour came through town, the Drenched Earth Tour, comprised of singer songwriter Chris Castle along with The Womack Family Band. See an earlier post for Chris Castle for more on the tour. Read more

I “met” Chris Castle online through singer/songwriter Jeff Black, and I had the chance to meet Chris this past Tuesday when he came through town on the Drenched Earth tour. He stopped in to WDVX radio, and performed a few songs for the daily noon live broadcast, The Blue Plate Special.

During the Drenched Earth Tour, he’s got a band touring with him, the Womack Family  Band, a four piece group.  But they’re so good they’ll get their own post. Read more

I did a phone interview with the Daily Beacon newspaper here in Knoxville, about the monthly First Friday art openings. You can read it here.

You ever find something, or someone, that’s comfortable right away, like you’ve known them, or been around them, for as long as you remember? Aimee Mann fits that bill. Read more

Meet artist Philip Straub. I literally stumbled across his web site tonight, and I’m sitting here an hour later with my jaw still on the desktop, his work is just… damn, it’s just amazing, you need to go see for yourself. Website

Kristen Stein fine art- an artist with a great eye for beautiful color and texture. Go take a look through her shop, there’s some beautiful stuff there. Link

Shelly Peacock- an artist combining fractals with digital painting. I love her textures, they’re so rich looking.  Link

It’s not often that digital collage work does much for me.  However,  I just found an artist that’s doing some incredibly cool stuff, most of it artwork I’d love to have hanging on my walls. Like this one for instance.
Link

Patricia Piccinini is a well known Australian contemporary artists, her work is nothing short of amazing. Link

Hyper Realistic human sculptures by Sam Jinks. It’s amazing what you can do with silicon, paint & human hair.  Link

I figure it’d be cool to list things I like, so this is the first entry. With spring coming this weekend, it’ll be time to do more outdoor cooking, so what a perfect place to start. I’m becoming a fan of good BBQ. Grilled food has always been something I love, but I’m slowly learning the art of how to do a proper BBQ.

I stumbled across a web site a couple of years ago that is a bible for all things BBQ related- Amazing Ribs run by Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn. It goes beyond the typical recipes and instructions on how to do things.  You’ll learn the science behind proper BBQ. What temps work best and why, how different smokers work, what happens to meat when it’s cooked low and slow. He’s also got THE best recipes for dry rub, one I’ve done and will never abandon is his version of the Memphis Rendezvous style dry rub. I’ve mixed it up numerous times and have used it on about a dozen slab of ribs, but have also used it on chicken and grilled pork chops. It is truly delicious.

Doing a dry rub is new to me, I never tasted it before, and never used it, until I saw this web site and mixed up my first batch of Rendezvous rub. It makes a delicious crust on the outside that is unbelievably tasty. It’s candy, pure and simple. It’s so good you don’t need to do anything in the way of sauce, but if you like a bit of sauce, I found one that has become a favorite. I can never go back to KC Masterpiece again. It’s a sauce made by Blues Hog BBQ Company.  The one I use is their Original Blues Hog Barbecue Sauce. It’s an excellent blend of sweet and spicy. It’s a perfect finishing sauce. I’ve tried their Tennessee Red Sauce, but I’ve never been much of a fan of vinegary mopping sauces. I’ve used their dry rub, it’s different tasting, so give it a try. If you’re local, you might find it at Food City, they had it, they discontinued it, and a few months ago, I saw it there again, and I grabbed what they had on hand. You can also order it on Amazon, or direct from the manufacturer. You owe it to yourself to try this sauce if you’re a fan of thick, sweet and spicy sauce.

Next thing I’m going to try is smoking a brisket. These are tricky, it either comes out great or it sucks, there’s no middle ground when it comes to brisket, as it’s one of the hardest meats to get right. But I’m up for the challenge.

This has happened so often it’s almost routine. Someone comes into my life in an unexpected way, something cool start up, we start collaborating on ideas, and just when things are about to take off, it falls apart. If you only knew how often this has happened, how close I’ve come to getting something great going, only to have the wheels fall off right at the starting line.  It’s laughable, it has to be laughed at, because it’s so absurd, and I’m tired of crying over what could have been, what might have been.

The latest Thing that came along was exciting,  it was about to be a life changing gig. I can’t talk about any of it due to a non disclosure agreement that was signed. The upside- I sold a piece of artwork outright, with all reproduction rights forever. In return, I was able to buy a computer I’ve only dreamed of for many, many years. I have a shiny new quad core machine that can grind out artwork so fast it’s scary. It’s allowing me to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, so now I’m hand rolling high resolution 1080P fractal animations.  The previous computer would take around 2-6 hours per frame to render. This machine can render those same frames in around 20 minutes a frame. And cooler- I can run 3 instances of the software needed to render, so I can render THREE animation frame sets at the same time. And I can still open and work with other programs at the same time, 8 gigs of ram is a glorious thing.

The person I’d teamed up with has vanished without a trace. I haven’t heard back since the first of the year, and there was a mention in the last email that they were going to the doctor to get a heart valve issue checked out. Since then, all emails have gone unanswered. I’m quite concerned about their health, I’m surprised no one’s dropped me an email to tell me what’s going on. I hope it’s just a temporary thing and they’ll be back in touch soon.

But- if nothing further happens, well, I can deal with it. I’m looking at it as a wonderful thing, that a patron of the arts came along, and was able to provide me with the tools I’ve sorely needed for a long, long time, and for that, I’m grateful. It’s allowed me to take my art to a new level, to finally be able to create things I’ve only dreamed of all these years. But I am sad to have lost track of my partner like this, as what was being planned was going to be mighty spectacular and cool.

People come into your life for a reason, and they leave when whatever it was they were there to do is finished. I need to figure out how to accept this without questioning it.

Tell me something

that will make me happy

I’m tired of hearing things

that make me sad.

Tell me a story that will turn me to loving

’cause I’m hating this world

and it’s getting bad.

I’m looking over

the edge of the world

And all that I see is sorrow.

I don’t know what the next day will bring

but I’m deathly afraid

of tomorrow.

© Steven Lareau

these darkened halls

are my refuge in the night

as I look for a hiding place

from this demon pain.

Read more

my mind flips

it’s dead on this other side

created out of the darkness

that churns within

burying me alive

Read more

Wow. It just turned 2010. It was just ten short years ago that our good friends Rick and Julie were here celebrating the new year with us. 2010. That sounds so far into the future, but it’s here right now, right now is 2010. Amazing. Time is flying. 2009 was a nightmare for numerous friends. It was a year filled with pain and suffering and illness and stress and death and financial ruin. I don’t know how this happened, but a lot of it evaded my wife and I, knock on wood.

This new year has a lot of promise in store. An incredibly cool project has presented itself to me, and I’m jumping in without hesitation. I’m going to rock this new project, I’m primed and ready to roll. I can’t talk about anything yet, but it involves me and my artwork. I’m going to be making my artwork for one of a kind items. If it goes as well as it appears it will, I’ll be spending my days and nights making artwork. Read more

People scare me anymore, they really do. They can see stains on an iron and claim it’s Jesus. They actually believe Jesus is giving the a sign of some sort. Yet these same people don’t believe in fossils, nor global warming is taking place. How on earth can someone put their faith into something so absurd, yet they can’t believe things that are scientific? Honestly..

Mary Jo Coady walked into her daughter’s bedroom Sunday afternoon and noticed a familiar image on the bottom of an iron sitting on the floor.

“I see his eyes, his nose, his whole face and I was like, ‘That’s Jesus looking at us,’” Coady said.

Read more

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this subject, even more with Thanksgiving approaching. It’s an annual feast, where people eat and eat and eat until they’re ready to pass out at the table. And there are so many people in this country, and around the world, that would give anything to be able to eat a full meal, much less an opportunity to eat your fill. And that’s what this is about, a simple enough idea for people to help someone else with very, very little cost and effort. All it takes is a bit of compassion for someone hungry and the time it takes to pick a few vegetables and drop them off at a neighbor’s house.

Read more

Joan, a friend of mine, posted she’d just run into some cool geometric 3D goodies that are printed on a 3D printer, a rapid prototype machine. There’s a woman, Bathsheba Grossman, who’s been doing math model artwork for many years, someone I’ve run across a few times over the years. Go feast your eyes on her work, it’s amazing.  Bathsheba Grossman

Some of you who are new to reading me missed this, but years ago, I had made available some 3d geometric meshes I’d created for3D artists to download and play with in their 3D software.

HEAVY IMAGE POST BEHIND THE CUT, but one you might be interested in seeing.

Read more

Bipolar Disorder can really, really, really suck the fun out of life. A few days ago, I cycled from middle of the road world to a bad, hard core manic wall slam, and back, within about a 5 hour span. I’m still wiped out from it. I rarely get manic, I usually get highly agitated and irritable, but I don’t get the typical manic thing. It’s usually internalized and it doesn’t manifest itself for others to see. But this last bout, man.. my hands were shaking, I was doing crazy hard body rushes from it, waves of manic spazzitude washing over me.

I cycle way too fast. I do in hours what most manic depressives do over the course of months, or weeks. By the time I figure out what’s happening to me, I’m flying towards the other direction. It’s exhausting. But it makes me who I am, there’s not much I can do besides taking my happy little pills and riding it out. But there are days it’s hard to convince myself that this is just lies my brain is telling me, it’s not real, none of it is real, it’s all the result of bad chemical balances, it’s bad, shorted out wiring in my head that makes me feel this lousy. But that doesn’t diminish the impact it makes on your life, and those around me, when a bad day hits.

It’s a really stupid thing to have to deal with. And in the last hour, I started to feel manic waves starting to wash over me again.  I’m going to try to crawl into bed now, before it roars to full volume, and sleep through it. Hopefully I’ll wake up without it hanging over my head. What a life..

Science rocks. This is an Xray photo of a gaseous nebula nicknamed The Hand Of God. Spectacular. Click the image for the larger version.

I own one of these very things seen below, a Lichtenberg figure, created by irradiating a block of clear acrylic with a beam of electrons from a 5 million volt particle accelerator. Mine is a small flat cube of acrylic, and the pattern is nowhere as complex as this one, but it’s still cool to own what is essentially a fossil of lightning.

Photo from http://capturedlightning.com/

You can see how these are made here, spend some time digging around the web site, there’s videos of these being made, once the initial discharge, bolts of lightning keep flashing and etching paths inside the block for minutes afterward. It’s very cool. Captured Lightning.

The image above is an example of the path of lightning captured in a block, and now researchers are using it to create a template upon which an artificial organ can grow.Researchers create a template upon which an artificial organ could grow. They can grow blood vessels close to the natural patterns of blood vessels, which are fractal patterns to begin with. Link

Tonight I looked up an old Brycer friend’s web site to see what she’s been up to lately, as it’s been a couple of years since I lost popped in to see what she’s been creating.

I just learned that my friend Jo, aka Skydancers, passed away August of 2007.  I knew it had been a few years since we last tagged bases, but I’m shocked and saddened that she’s no longer with us. She was an amazing, amazing artist.  She never headed down this way, so we never did get a chance to meet after all the years of mutual admiration and fun email exchanges. Her daughter has kept her web site up as a memorial, go take a look at the work of a brilliant friend.  http://www.ashenwings.com/skydancer/

A local artist friend, Zophia, is creating some cool metal sculptures, the proceeds going towards a friend’s medical costs for chemo treatment for stage 3 breast cancer.  Each one is unique, made to order. Go take a look, they’re very cool. Link

Opie, the 3 legged wonderdog, was listening as I was playing a video clip of coyotes howling. Ain’t he just adorable?

During the winter, I grind to a halt. My body goes into a bad state, arthritis and stuff just gets nasty this time of year. My online life does the same, it slows down, the holidays are usually hectic and I get lost for a while. It was a very low key Christmas this year, but as the years go by, that suits me just fine.

We have a brand new president, and the guy, his wife, and his kids are cool. What a refreshing change of pace, a guy I feel comfortable, a guy I feel I can trust, a guy that’s walking the walk, a guy that’s breaking down the barriers of business as usual in DC. I love it, I’m glad he’s in charge, I can’t bear to think of McCain and Palin muddling and bluffing their way through what this country is facing. Barack must be nuts to take on the job he’s tackling. That’s a hell of a man that is willing to face such insane obstacles.

It’s been a bad week, my sister has been hospitalized and is fighting for her life, and it’s not looking good. What makes this more difficult is that what’s left of my family are all in California, and I’m in East Tennessee. I can’t travel via airplane due to medical stuff, riding in a car that long is out of the question, and a hospital is filled with sick people and diseases, which is the last thing I should expose myself to.  So I’m trying to get through all of this via random phone calls day and night, at all hours. We’re all trying to get through this as best we can, but it’s been rough, to say the least.  Being the oldest of 4 kids, it’s sort of my job to be there during a crisis, especially one like this. But it’s just not possible to be there, and that’s hard to swallow.

I’m working on some art projects, a new set of animated fractal videos to be marketed as relaxation or meditation videos, as I’m going to record a music track for them with the midi keyboard I bought a few months ago. I’m going to send a couple out to The Square Room on Market Square in Knoxville, so they can use them to project onto the big screens and backdrop behind the stage of this new music venue.

I’m also working on releasing a CD of my artwork to be used for computer screen wallpaper, or in digital picture frames. They’re being rendered in a wide format, so they’ll fit nicely onto laptop screens or the big monster monitors some people have. I’ve been rendering thousands of pieces of artwork for over a year now, Frankenputer in the corner has been rendering day and night rendering large artwork.

I need to do another show for 2009, so I’m taking stock of where I might be able to do a show without paying a lot of money to hang on the gallery walls. Last show left me $100.00 poorer to hang for a month, and I had zero sales. It’s not good business when things don’t pan out like this.  I’m going to make a pitch to a gallery that I enjoy, and seeing if I can do a solo show. I’ve got more than enough framed and finished artwork to do a solo show, and it’d be cool to see it all in one place.