Ten X Ten X Ten

Flowers are incredible forms that bring us to witness them in both smell and sight. These beautiful creatures, bearing both of these senses, often create cross sensory effects when one sense is not able to be present. For example, when we smell flowers in a product (soap, candles, etc), our brain creates the architecture of their visual presence in front of us. This also goes for when we see pictures of flowers that we cannot smell. .. our brain creates pathways to imagine the scent in our head, and therefore creates the ultimate battle of the senses.

This piece is entitled “City of Flowers”, and it visualizes Mickey, floating in a world of flowers we are able to witness by sight, but not in scent. These flowers float together, as if the entirety of it was a metropolis of nature, in where each flower was its own building, carrying millions of pollen grains as its residents.

This is the 10th and last of the “Battle of the Senses Series”, and registers as the 80th in the TENxTENxTEN

I found the inspiration for this piece in a basement office underneath a gallery in Oldtown Sacramento. While on a 5 minute break from the 1st day of debuting the TENxTENxTEN collection at Stage 9 Gallery, I found myself stuffing this massive sandwich down my mouth as if I was in an eating competition, and simultaneously drinking coffee to keep myself afloat (as I had been up since 4:30am for ABC and CW’s “Good Morning Sacramento”). In minute regret over my speedy lunch, I sat there in wild confusion while sitting at this conference table. I was so engrossed in my meal that I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings, and then I found myself transfixed with everything that suddenly blossomed in my carb induced vision.

This office was covered from wall to wall with notes, drawings, artist scribblings, and flyers. There were so many things to look at, so many post it notes, so many pinned tiny pieces of paper… that when I focused back to look at the big picture…. it made it seem the walls were wearing fake fur coats of paper.

I knew that I only had 2 minutes left on this break, and yet there was so much to look at… My eyes wandered in wonderment over all the little details that this office contained..

… and then I found it. .. This one piece of paper.

It said “Try to name the colors without saying the word”. Underneath this sentence was the name of colors, and I read them out “PURPLE, BLUE, RED, GREEN, PINK, YELLOW”

I didn’t really understand the concept of the note, so when one of the people from the gallery came down to ask me to come back up, I asked them about the note.

“Oh, yeah, the words have actual colors in them that aren’t representational of the word, so you have to say the color, and not the actual word”

“What?”

They explained it to me again.. and then it all made sense.. because the one color I could see, wasn’t in the word yellow.. it was registering as another color I couldn’t even begin to decipher.. It was then that I realized that this game could play an integral part of the Battle of the Senses series.

I took this painting, and worked on it in Denver, Los Angeles, and Anaheim. In each city, as I worked in restaurants, cafes, parks, planes, and other public places.. people would walk by the portrait… and would begin to tell me automatically “Oh these are all the wrong colors” or “What are you doing?” To which, I would begin to play the game with them and ask them to say the actual colors without slipping up and saying the actual word.

It was fascinating to watch people’s brains work. .. as if the clockwork in their heads began to break over the separation of word .vs. color // definition .vs. object. Their eyes would scrunch and strain, their mouths would cup over a word, but then move slowly to say the actual color.

Furthermore, this brought people to understand how I use color objectively. While each of these pieces are wrong in color coordination to the objective word, this in the right way, is how I am able to determine how I can paint to the rest of the world.

Color, to me, is just a word. And that word connects itself to other colors like grammar. There are colors that do not go together in a pleasant format, and I treat those combinations as if it were an incorrect sentence. There are colors that compliment each other, and I view those colors as words that go politely together in a sentence. AND THEN, there are the colors that POP and CONTRAST, and I view those colors as slang .. as they are words that are not meant to go together, but they do, and when they do, they POP.

This piece is titled “IT IS WHAT IT ISN’T”, which is a opposite play on that popular phrase “IT IS WHAT IT IS”. This is the 9th in the Battle of the Senses Series, And 72nd in the TENxTENxTEN collection.

When you are colorblind, you have to learn color through an objective nature. You do not associate visually with what others see, but you begin to understand how the word of the hue attaches itself to object (IE: The sky is blue, the sun is yellow, the grass is green, etc etc etc). Being an artist, I use color beyond the normal scope of what is seen, and more so communicate it as a 2nd language to you, the chromonormative viewer. Furthermore all these pieces are beyond paintings, but they are letters to the viewer that translate stories of touch, sound, temperature, taste, and feeling to them. This is where the chapters of storytelling through color in my core character series and sequential comic series ended and the “Battle of the Senses” chapter within TENxTENxTEN began.

At first glance, this piece, called “Lemon Blueberry Juxtapose”, would appear to fit naturally within the “Geometric Spectrum Series”, a chapter focused on the basic primary shapes that twitter about Mickey’s silhouette. But upon deeper introspection, this piece moved beyond just shapes, and sought to communicate to the viewer a story of synesthesia in realms of crossing the sense of color into taste. In this piece, the colors of bright yellow speak of tart acidic tastes of bright citrusy sharpness. Next to the yellow is a light blue to approach the tastebuds on a icy cool fruity berry like flavor. In combination, these colors communicate a mouth watering melody of soft summer berries and tangy citrus fruits.

The title of this piece is where the communication lies. Without the words, you and I both are left with what you see and what color codes I read.. .. but through the power of speech lies the translation of senses to each other. This is where you and I are hearing the same language through the power of color in its objective sense.

This is the 8th in the “Battle of the Senses” series, and 70th in the TENxTENxTEN collection.

As the 10x10x10 project carried on, the two series that caused the biggest challenges were the Disney History series and the Odds and Ends series. The Disney History Series became a challenge specifically because of the dimension restrictions. Pushing Disney within Disney is a challenge when your workable space is 14 x14 inches. .. The Odds and Ends series became a challenge mainly because elements beyond pen and paint were… and ARE for the most part, very foreign to me. Now at this point in the project, there was (AND IS) little time for experimentation.. and coming to terms with the idea of something crafted beyond paint, became much of a task.

While staying in San Francisco for 5 months, I met up with an old friend and extremely talented metal worker named Jennifer Swistak. She was working out of a metal studio out in the Bayshore/Hunters Point district. I consulted with her on how to effectively make a Mickey Mouse out of metal. The idea was beyond my scope or reach, and I asked for her for guidance on creating this.

What you see is a Mickey Mouse etched in metal. This was crafted by creating a resist in the frame using sharpie marker and pnp paper (which adhered to the surface via blow torch) . Once the resist was created, the piece was submerged into a copper sulfate bath, which ate at the metal wherever the resist did not exist. Once the depth was achieved, the metal was neutralized, and the resist was removed. We used a black magic patina and went over it with a random orbit sander with a 120 grit sand paper to bring out the highlights. The final part was waxing the piece.

This measures 14 x 14 and fits in the exact dimensions/size of the 10x10x10 collection. This is number 3 in the Odds and Ends Series, and number 64 in the collection. Working on this piece has brought my desire to work with metal so much more closer, that post project I am working on an entire metal series, and possibly moving into public works.

The last piece “Together We Are Separate” (No. 33), was about the dichotomy of feeling both disconnected and together at once. This was more or less resulted personally from what I can’t see chromatically, and what I could paint formulaically. In doing so, I decided to further the direction (No. 34), and create Mickey in reverse colors (White Mickey, Black Background), and create an opposite to the previous achromatic rainbow, into actual ribbon strips of multiple colors.

Explanation:

As I learned to swim with my peers in the pool of art, I began to regain a sense of clarity and balance. I emerged as a new artist at Disney Fine Art with an arsenal of work, as I had created this multiple piece collection as an initial pitch to be accepted and represented. Being that I had nothing to build on but up, you’d think that I’d have a sense of balance, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. For the most part, I hadn’t been in a collective group whatsoever, and in fact I primarily always worked as a party of one even for my group shows previous to Disney. My work had been kind of the… not necessarily SORE thumb, but a bright eye searing neon thumb in the shows that I had been previously showcased in. I wasn’t an ODD DUCK, per se, just a … FLUORESCENT DUCK. Being that said, I never had much to compare myself to, and I suppose thats where I didn’t grow from my work. When you niche your style, and don’t… really compare or look to compare your work to, you tend to remain stagnant in your craft.

Now that I had this group that I was a part of, and we all painted the somewhat same body of work, I had nothing but to compare and grow from. Initially I was a little intimidated by my color deficiency, but what I had come to realize, was that through my understanding fundamentally and formulaically of color, that I may have had a fighting chance to remain at Disney Fine Art through the ‘storytelling’ of color. This is where I thrived.

This is what this piece is about. No. 34 is titled “Divided We Are Polychromatic”, which is a part of the “Battle of the Senses” series. This piece also reflects the separation of the self, much like N0.33 “Together We Are Separate”. It however is different in that ‘color’, the one thing I struggle with, is the VERY connecting force that keeps my body of work and myself together. So while I may be a fluorescent duck, I’ve come to know that it is perfectly okay to be one. And MOST importantly, that my strongest handicap is not my weakness, but my strength in the heart of all things.

For the most part in this collection, the structure of Mickey’s head has not been altered in any sense. Except for the Mavrides piece in where I changed the eyes. I did however want to experiment with the separating of Mickey and connecting him at his ears, and furthermore RECONNECT him through a monochromatic rainbow.

This piece is about color deficiency.

Despite having severe cases of photophobic responses to light and hemeralopia as a child, which is a direct result from my faulty cone receptors, color deficiency NEVER was an issue until people made it an issue. I had it primarily from my teachers in art school, however… my biggest critic was myself. Especially when it came to my initial launch with Disney a few years ago. Immersing myself with the school of professional artists whose names echoed in the fine art halls of “The Mouse” was quite intimidating, mainly because they could utilize color far easier than I could and has a renowned style . I felt separated by them on my own insecure accord, but quickly attempted to rely on my own body of work to prove myself within the division.

This piece is about that. The dichotomy of the self. The act of being separate while remaining together.. The pulling and pushing of ones inner struggle, and the ultimate battle for peace of mind.