Tag Archives: simplon

The Distance Between Two Points, Geometric Spectrum, No. 69

30 Nov

The Distance Between Two Points

Geometry goes beyond just the mathematics of shapes, but delves into the mathematics of circumstance, time, and connection. Our lives are built on the architecture of non physical, but circumstantial math that begs the question “How did we get here, and how are we connected?” The end piece to the Geometric Spectrum series paints a portrait of metaphysical geometry, closing this chapter as a means to awaken the viewer to the possibilities of our connections.

I started this piece as an accident one afternoon off of St. Marks Place at the Yaffa Cafe in New York City. Having just finished “Susquehanna”, a piece on TransAmerican conversations becoming an integral part of art, I picked up a rolled up blank canvas, and promptly set a coffee cup to flatten out its shape. The coffee cup was wet with its dark brew, and created a stained ring at the top of Mickey’s face. With my head heavy from seeing the multitude of connections created from “Susquehanna”, my view of this coffee stain was more than an accident. This stain existed at this specific time and this location, and therefore would never exist again at this same time and location on this piece. This created a beginning point of geometry where people, time, circumstance, and location formed a shape unknown and unformed until its end creation.

At that time and place, I realized that metaphysical and emotional geometry was a shape I could not see, but I sought to create. I would not know when I was going to complete this, or how it would look, and there was no formula in my life to bring this together.

Here is where it led me, and this is where it was painted:

  1. Yaffa Cafe, NYC, NY (Beginning, 8/25/2013 at 2:00PM)
  2. L Train to Brooklyn, NY
  3. Rented Apartment, Brooklyn, NY (Influence Point)
  4. Flight 2913 NYC to Los Angeles
  5. BRU Cafe, Los Angeles, CA
  6. Edgemont // Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
  7. Flight 783 from Los Angeles to Chicago, IL
  8. Flight 2024 Chicago, IL to Berlin, Germany (Influence Point)
  9. East London Restaurant, Kreuzberg, Berlin
  10. Mehringdamm Flat, Kreuzberg, Berlin (Influence Point)
  11. Flight Schönefeld Airport to ORLY France
  12. Simplon Flat, Northern Paris, France (Influence Point)
  13. Montmarte, Paris
  14. Le Marais, Paris
  15. Flight ORLY France, to Schönefeld, Berlin
  16. East London Restaurant, Kreuzberg, Berlin (Influence Point)
  17. Mehringdamm Flat, Kreuzberg, Berlin 9/26/2013 8:00AM (Influence Point)

The influence points in the location sectors are people who helped me formulate how this piece would form. On the street, in my flat that I was sharing, or just people on the street, I asked “Where should this line go?”, and from there the form of the piece would change. The influence points are pivotal markers in the painting that ultimately changed the direction, and therefore connected the location and the people together.

Geometry is more than just shapes, and it connects us in ways we take for granted. As artists, we are conduits and storytellers that bring images to life by means of other people, time, and places. This painting is a reminder of this geometry that exists in the air within us.

This piece is called “The Distance Between Two Points”, and is the last of the Geometric Spectrum Series. In the top frame you will see two coffee stains. One is the beginning coffee stain, created at Yaffa Cafe, in St. Marks Place in NYC, NY. This stain was created on 8/25/2013. The 2nd coffee stain was created in the Mehringdamm flat in Kreuzberg, Berlin on 9/26/2013 at 8:00AM using the previous days espresso from the East London Restaurant.

This created a time difference of 768 hours (46,080 minutes), and the distance of 3,988.38 miles marking ‘the distance between two points” which is noted in the marriage of these two stains.

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“Mon Cœur Électrique”, Loveless Letters Series, No. 67

14 Nov

Mon Cœur Électrique

 

I arrived to Paris ORLY from Schönefeld in Berlin. I had spent a week in Berlin because I had heard it was the ‘Belle Epoque” for artists. I flew to Berlin to find something hidden in my head, as other artists claimed that if you wanted to expand your visual understanding of things, well.. Berlin was the place….. and while I found much inspiration in that city, I felt the need to reconnect back to Paris to see, … just see if there was something more to this “Belle Epoque” idea. 
 
The minute I got off the plane, something in my head and chest began to tingle. It was almost as if there was this tuning fork in my body that someone (or something) hit inside of me. Visions of work started flipping through my brain like an out of control zoetrope. I ran through the airport to the metro and took the train to my friends apartment in Northern Paris. 
 
When I arrived to Txeo and Romain’s flat, I immediately threw down my luggage and rolled out my canvas to paint. It was the strangest sensation. It was one of the first times where I was so overloaded with an idea that I had to get it out as soon as I could. The next day I took the painting all over the city. I painted on the street with my art book as my easel, and sat down on the street corners of Le Marais, Marcedet de Poissonniers, and Barbes Rocheouart. I painted on the steps of Sacre Cœur in Montmartre, as well as the concrete field of the Centre De Pompidou. I painted in cafés, restaurants, but most of all I painted on the street. 
 
This piece is a loveless letters painting that goes over that emotion of being overwhelmed with inspiration. In each corner there is a skull that represents a part of the body and the natural occurrence that attaches to it. 
 
1. NW. Mon Esprit (My Mind)- Speech = La Tempete Électrique (Thunder Storm)
2. NE. Ma Voix (My Voice)- Speech = Ouragan (Hurricane)
3. SW. Mon Cœur (My Heart)- Speech = La Foudre (Lightning)
4. SE.Mon Âme (My Soul)- Speech = Seisme (Earthquake)
 
Here is some additional information on the piece:
 
Left Side Background- These are the directions that I wrote to get to my flat. It says “METRO RER (B) to GARE DU NORD to METRO 4 to SIMPLON.
 
Upper Background- While it rained in Paris, it was not depressing. Rain at times saddens me beyond belief because I was oversaturated with it in Seattle (Seriously.. 18 months in Seattle and it rained  a total of 15 months of that time.. sometimes nonstop for 90 days.. and thats taken the … love of rain away for me 🙂 ). There are clouds that are raining, but they are raining symbols that I’ve taken in. The clouds say “Connect here because wonderment never ceases”
 
Right Background- It says “Inside all of us are these tuning forks and certain places in the world hit us in the most mysterious ways.. to let us know in vibes where we belong”
 
Lower Background- It says “In from the heart and out into the world” as well as “Espoir” which means ‘Hope” in French.
 
Here is the blog inside Mickey’s head.
 
“Arrondissement XVIII, September XXV, 2013
 
You can feel it in the air here in Paris. I can’t explain it. It is like this subtle vibration. You can feel it in your bones. Something exists here but what it is I cannot tell. I arrived from Schönefeld to ORLY and rode the metro to Simplon, and on the train my head began to create visions of work. It is here where I dream best… underneath the thick metropolitan French clouds. There are thousands of pictures rotating in my heart like an overloaded washing machine. I never want to leave here. Some of us I feel were born in the wrong place for a reason, like.. we are falling stars of meteors that just landed in the wrong spots, and we our whole lives we travel to find out where we were supposed to land. Maybe thats the vibration.. its a signal for home.
 
Or maybe I just have the flu”
 
On the outskirt of the painting (which you cannot see here), there is another piece that says:
 
” This painting started on a friday afternoon in the 18th arrondissement in Paris, France. It conspired in a 5th floor residence off of Ornano st, near Simplon Metro. In the history of this project, I have never had such a fire lit underneath me. Every city I have been in, in my life has never affected me as much. I initially came to Berlin to feel something, become one with the Belle Epoque, but I found it here, underneath the floorboards of this Parisian Apartment.”
 
I also drew the front and back of my 5 day metro pass to its exact detail.
 
I left back to Berlin with my heart fully aching. Although I had finished the piece in Paris, I felt that a week wasn’t enough time to get what was in my head out. This piece is an amulet of my experience there, and I can only hope that one day I will have the opportunity to return to incorporate a body of work that this city of Paris inspires. I am truly in love with that city. I cannot tell you enough how much a love it. 

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