AFH UPDATE [February 2019]

We live by the mouth of the Columbia River, where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. After nearly a half year in Astoria, I already notice a shift in sensibility, which seems to derive from the dynamic local environment. Saturation infuses the soul, through the near daily rains, the periodic blanketing fog banks, the often towering cloud formations, and the constant presence of water flowing past. Another wrinkle in the consciousness arises from the coming and going of commercial shipping. The big container ships, yes, but also on a different scale, the fishing and crabbing fleets operate on the awareness, calling attention to the processes of survival on the coast and by the river. Those delicious platters of fish and crustacean we devour routinely arrive through the labor of men on small craft facing tremendously dangerous conditions on the along the Oregonian shore, and the Western coastline extending south and north thousands of miles. I’ll stop here, but suffice to say the situational revelations immediately altered my aesthetics profoundly and at depth. Overall, the effects are poetic, technical, disciplinary and philosophical.

Since 2007 or -8 I have occupied storage units in the Inland Empire. I started with one to contain the important contents of Art for Humans Gallery Chinatown, my MFA thesis exhibit and solo show at Yarger|Strauss. Another unit contained mostly studio gear of every kind. Another contained mostly furniture from my student apartment and some from AFHGC. Another served as a catch-all container for all kinds of generally personal stuff, although plenty of artsy goods ended up there too. Altogether, the stash required a 26’ box truck to haul from Cali to Astoria. Over the decade+ I rented the storage units, the cost accumulated, like the dust on every exposed surface inside them: we plowed tens of thousands of dollars into them; enough to put a substantial down-payment on a home, eventually. There was also the constant badgering by the storage facility employees and management. The storage industry, I will testify, is inherently evil and cruel. In my opinion, all storage business should be either re-purposed or razed, along with the owners of said rackets. I’m looking right at you, Moishe.

This painting was first exhibited in "Tobacco Road" (ca. 1998, Nashville) and titled "Cigar Box Girl." I reworked it and re-presented it in "A Prayer for Clean Water" (ca. 2005), Austin) and re-titled it "Lust for Power."

"Lust 4 Power"
15.5" x 15"
Mixed Media on Board (Framed)
$950

There is an ongoing discourse in the globalist art world about the ethics of massive art storage complexes, like the Geneva Freeport, into which many cultural treasures disappear from public view. My narrative intersects the banal corruption of art in general by an international superclass, which is true for nearly every artist. The distortion effect imposed by the art industry’s most gluttonous players, some of whom are noxious, obsessive hoarders, is like the smoggy haze produced by a town’s dirtiest, sprawling factory. The pollution impacts everyone in the town, whether they believe, notice, comprehend why and how, or not. The primary reason I was willing to pay so much for storage for my art and our personal items, is: no one else was; and that is pretty much the bottom line. Above the bottom line, however, is a full accounting of this artist’s 4D method to insist that my aesthetic endeavors not be creatively destroyed by the horrific intellectual neglect, governance failures, commercial malpractice and social retardation afflicting this country and most others like a Biblical plague. It isn’t difficult to trace the trajectories of the world’s winners, since 2006, even if it’s hard to follow their money through all the tax havens, shell corporations, leveraged assets, currency manipulations, etc., that they employ to build enormous wealth at everyone else’s expense. It can be noted here that the Big A Art World is one prominent means by which the ludicrously rich express their power, prestige and reproductive prowess.

STORAGE #2 "Barbed Wire PJM" was first exhibited at Four Crows Gallery in Nashville in 1997. Charlotte Avant and I collaborated on the show, which was titled "COWBOYZ + COWGIRLZ." The production featured digital paintings (made in Painter and Photoshop), printed on canvas using early large format printers (Encad). Additional material was hand-painted on the printed matter. As far as I know, this was the first major artist project showcasing new digital print technology combined with traditional techniques. The 4D method is a core application, which I call "figure on abstraction." In this instance the abstract or immaterial content is all the stuff done or "created" on the computer. COWBOYZ presented layered content in themes: mythic American violence; Western heroes; the killer feminine; branding; neo-decorative elements; good versus bad guy binaries; cinematic reality versus realism; and so on. The framing and presentation was done by Ambiance in Nashville.

"Barbed Wire PJM"
[with Charlotte Avant]
Acrylic on Encad Inkjet on Canvas (Framed)
20" x 21"
1997
$1800

You know, sometimes it appears that the bad guys are winning. Appearances, so it goes, can be deceiving, and words are always fictional. The universal law, however, assures us that the good guys always win, eventually. Which probably is not a great comfort when a villain is about to blow your face off with a Colt .45. Since Y2K or so, I have operated on the notion that a quarter of my artistic efforts need be devoted to archiving my production. The impetus for that idea derives from awful, hard experience. When hard drives die, when art is damaged, destroyed or lost, when you lose track of a collector, the void in the catalog can cause an psychic ache that may or may not be ameliorated by a meditation session, massage, affirmation, etc. The subtext of all Western art is waste, which is the Civilization’s Ur product. Waste is the relentless undercurrent of cultural production and artist mythology. Getting wasted is the non-artistic expression of creative (self-)destruction. That the two forces (art and getting wasted) combine in the romantic, imaginary artist mythos should hardly be surprising to anyone. The awful consequence of the valorization of gross waste in art life is played out generation after generation. The massive current crop of ODs and suicides in significant portions of the population ought to make the gods of the beauteous, artsy West blissful. It also is worth noting that the demographics of early demise suggest an intentional undermining of resistance against the wholesale co-optation of society by the Superclasses.

"Army Joe"
70"h x variable dimensions
Life-sized Figurine
$1200

"Army Joe" initially appeared in my CGU installation "7 Episodes" and later in an AFH Gallery Chinatown (ersatz or untitled) exhibit during the opening weekend of the Murikami show at MoCA. I bought him at an Inland Empire army surplus store. As far as I can tell, this figure is no longer in production. He is made I think using a foam injection mold, is not too heavy and will spook you if you forgot he was hanging out in the corner there.

My career plans have in large measure been hampered by 20 years of America at war, the Crash of 2007, the lack of justice for the bastards behind both disasters, and the ongoing political, economic, military and social cataclysm that is more or less a status quo now. Nonetheless, I have done whatever I can do to keep the faith. I realize that planetary events are nothing to take personally. For crying out loud, at least my species is not extinct! Yet! I could frame this segment differently, through a lens of personal responsibility, which is where the logic becomes complex. A contemporary artist, according to the Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, will need to fund her labor in one of these ways: sales; family support; public support; a day job. Over a lifetime, many artists will rely on any and/or all of those types of art funding, often combining them. If I attack the private patronage art industry for its over-reliance on the wealthiest patrons, obviously I will have damaged my attractiveness as a collectible artist. If I attack the public art system for its poor management and corrupt policies, that will not endear me to the agents in that network. If I alienate my family, how could I rationally expect them to desire my art for their homes? If I am true artist, I am likely unemployable in a great proportion of commercial concerns, whose practical ethics contradict my democratic aesthetics of freedom, of liberty. I’m looking at you, Bill Gates/Microsoft.

"American Artist"
48" x 36"
Mixed media on canvas
1985-6 (Text added 2005)
$4400

I originally exhibited "American Artist" in my undergrad pop-up Isis Gallery senior show at Notre Dame in 1986. The last time I showed it (with added text) was in "A Prayer for Clean Water" in Austin, Texas at St. Edward's University.

During the past eight years of doctoral production, but especially between 2015 and the present, post-Occupy, post-Bernie, post-Standing Rock, in the middle of the Yellow Vest uprising, I have engaged art on a basis that diverges from the arc of the half century or so prior. Sorting through the contents of those four storage units, I can reacquaint myself with the conflicts of my life. The thousands of items in these boxes, tubes, bins and blankets possess meaning, for me if no one else. The struggles of art life are here, but so are the moments of celebration. Anonymity and celebrity present a binary form. Memory is the medium within which all the ideas and experiences circulate, as one gazes from this moment into moments past. It is the challenge of integration to uncover the continuum existing in the objects. An exhibition can serve the community or collective memory by linking the objective to continuity in the instance of sharing. When things are remitted to a hiding place, a kind of cage, a quarantine, whatever the justification, the natural order is disturbed. This is why prisons-for-profit are a heinous, hellish phenomenon. People are not things to be dropped down a hole and sealed off from us, and certainly ought never be commodified in and through imprisonment. The repercussions on society are incalculable and severe.

"Love's Gotta Gun"
Mixed Media (Painted Frame with Silver Tape and Adhesive Prints)
15.5" x 11.5"
1997-2006
$950

One of the original COWBOYZ + COWGIRLZ "Love's Gotta Gun" series first exhibited at Four Crows Gallery, later at Dreamworks SKG (Nashville). Additional layers and materials added for "A Prayer for Clean Water" cycle of exhibits in Austin. This piece was installed at Pump Project for "Overflow Show."

No one likes to lose all the time. It should not happen in fair game play. Why not blow the whistle on cheaters? Why not call out the ones who are sucking the fun out of the contest? A citizen can risk everything in the current scheme, by contradicting a pundit like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, or taking a position against the surveillance state, or pointing out the very real harm caused by unaccountable entities like the Federal Reserve, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Economic Forum. When the monopoly media push fiction at the masses, a mass response is logical. The problem with that logic is simplicity. Causation in a 4D reality does not conform to 3D or 2D logic. There is no point there. The finality of punishment is subverted by the complexity of integrated virtual and actual platforms. The materializing reaction will not meet the immaterial cause. There will be no satisfaction of the desire for restoration of harmony. We must recognize that those who are winning currently are effectively adapting to 4D circumstances and suppressing the capacity of others to do likewise. It is rocket science.

"DEATH [Fragment]"
Charcoal, Quin. Red/Gold, Stencil on Redwood Block
13.5" x 10.5" x 2"
2004
$1400

Created during Morris Graves Studio Residency and exhibited in "Bar Codes + Rituals + Subliminal Tapes. Ballerina figure (Molly) was drawn from photo data session hosted by Beckley Dance Theatre School (2003).

The metaphysical nature of perception does not prevent mortality. A concept is not a workaround for the end of awareness, as a function of embodiment. Art is a festival for the body. To sustain the child’s pose into an adult state permits expressive humanity in a context of holistic responsibility. The heft of our inter-generational commitment is mighty, but art releases our collective and one’s individual spirit to the task of sustaining vision over time. As an American citizen, I wish to participate in the programmatic orientation to a national vision for the future, one that fosters harmonious relationships among our internal and external kinfolk. President Trump won the 2016 election by falsely promising to undertake that enterprise. President Obama twice betrayed that cause, in actions and failures to act great and small. The course of this nation, in our emergent 4D universe, is being erased as the planet spins in space and time. Everything matters, and I, for One, refused to allow my creative life to be auctioned away for pennies on the Dollar, or tossed into a landfill. My world is not garbage.

"Glow-in-the-Dark 01 Monitor"
Vinyl Sticker, Acrylic, Apple Monitor, Lead-wrapped Wood Base
12" x 15" x 14"
2000
$2100

Originally exhibited in "Heartless01" exhibit cycle in Nashville at J&J's Market & Cafe, an alternative art space at that time.

Can vision be toxic or radioactive? Attaching these terms to interpersonal relations is a tactic that must be critiqued. Vision assists our social sensation, as it assists our physical senses. The world you see is mediated by the body first. Now we must contend with an external media that would usurp our trust in what optics assure us is factual. The media runs scripts that are highly processed, like Cheese Whiz, that produce channel-clogging gunk for the mind and spirit, as Hegel conceived them. The stupidity we encounter is a product of intent, as bad design. Malfunction is a utility whose output is waste. Obsolescence is the poetic misconception of the professional wastrel. No sound and sane human arrives at the new day with the dream of wasting time, creating wasteful things, laboring in the service of waste. Nor does the sound and sane human arrive at the new day with dream of excess everything or anything. Sane and sound people desire enough, that is all. Toxicity and radioactivity exist in dimensions of human awareness that long ago forgot the meaning of enough.

"Vision Channel Device 1 + 2"
Vinyl on Pigmented Acrylic
Lead-wrapped Wood Base
48" x 48" x2 (Adjustable Angle)
2000
$4000

These panels were originally exhibited in the DddD Collective exhibition "Inside><Outside" at the Parthenon in Nashville. They have been re-applied in AFH scenarios, projects and expos ever since. Most recently the red VCD was installed at AFH Gallery Chinatown as a kind of signage.

[View 1]

No contraption, no widget will be adequate to encourage a person to reformat the drive upon which her existence is rigged. It is not a proposition for machinery. No great cure, no wonder pill will fulfill the human prospect of freedom. Looking at you, Sacklers! Art is an agent for radical transformation, but its potential is rarely met. The miraculous is a media target. The intellectual bias and prejudice against the manifestation of vision is a known quantity. Yet the rebellion against such blatant disregard for normal humanity fails. Why? Because the mass production of ignorance and poor perception is patently successful. Because the winners will stop at nothing to win. Because whatever enemy they perceive, they will cruelly assault, and they are elite in the art of unspeakable behavior. They are fantastic at mediocrity. They are amazingly proficient at banality. The excel at anarchy, when democracy threatens their power, money or sexual gratification. No crime is beyond them. The mock the Apocalypse, in the interest of their own advantage.

[View 2]

Not long ago, they conducted their affairs in secret chambers, with strange rituals and enforced codes of conduct. Now, the Other is a boilerplate, and the world’s most powerful and richest people seem to have lost their tremors at the mob. The status quo will not last. Appetites for conquest, demands for conversion and obeisance will continue to swell among the global oligarchy. Art will reflect this development. The patterns of the image will achieve congruence with the time, and space will mold itself to that form. Personhood will be visible as an impression of the urgency of irrepressible excess. No patina will be too lavish. No expenditure will be enough. No art will restrict the necessity of domination. No territory will be immune to the demand for supply. The market must abound. The return on investment must grow. The accounts must burgeon. The collection must expand. The security must be impeccable. The style will underwrite the establishment of order. No deviation will be permitted. No dissent will be tolerated.

"John K's Buckets & Mop"
Tar, Buckets, Mop, Lead-wrapped Wood Base
75" x 15" x 30"
2006
$2500

First deployed in Art for Humans Gallery Chinatown experimental 4D installation series that included "MFA Project (Installation Array 1)," "Super Lucky Masters of War," "You Can't Buy Any of This," "You Just Gotta Believe!!!" "Everyone Is Not an Artist," "Ideas Aren't Art," "LULA #2: Super Lucky Moons," "RE-FUSED" and more.

In the extremity of polarization, the hunger for a measure of humility will abide among the poor. The mode of healing for the grossly intolerant super-wealthy and -powerful will prove ostentatious but empty. Little care will be taken to ensure the safety of the young and old, unless the factory construct adheres. This is the neo-Darwinian dystopia of the unresolved future. The predictions of violent upheaval and menace by doom will fade into the burdens of mundane chores. Every step will become heavier than the last one. Each breath fainter than the previous one. Hands will reach for comfort and receive addiction. Buttery lust will be drained of potency, until all that remains of seduction is its tension. The repulsive will advance from there. We can already see the notations. Being famous is no longer a temporary fix. Fame is the mirage we all thought it would be, when our friends began to drown in it. The oasis hid a graveyard of needy youth, disguised as businessmen in suits. Only the sludge in the pits of their infinite despair drew the fat vultures’ attention.

"REFUGEE"
Charcoal, Acrylic (Quin. Red/Gold) on Board
17" x 13.5"
2002
$1200

One of the "Century of War" paintings, only exhibited at Elena Graves' Brentwood Manse in a private home show in (I think) 2002.

As my Tarahumara friend Rudy, the White Buffalo, used to say, “We’re all refugees, now.” The storage industrial complex is a sign of the times. Media like Storage Wars glamorize the predatory and consumptive in our society. Abandonment is a facet of the schism of property and place for the uprooted. The pretense that looting is a worthy vocation or fun and rewarding hobby is horrid. The debasement of the social contract is almost total. After all, once torture and assassination are acceptable, what is unacceptable? The bond between a person and her worldly goods is shadowy at best, because no respect is reserved for the synthesis of things and people. The cyborg is the cliche, the superhero is the icon and the fellow in front of you at the grocery store is less real than the date you’re trying to make in Tinder on your mobile device. Sex robots are evidently here to stay, for those who can afford them. Meanwhile, the extension of the virtual has unfettered HOME from its own causation. The domestic is a casualty of endless war and growth.

"New X Pattern 1 (Vertical)"
Acrylic on Wood
86" x 2"
1995
$1250

My original concept for these had to do with dissolving the hard 90 degree corners in white cube rooms. Also the color sequences inferred combinations with other interior art and design elements. I built these and the others of the series from scraps of framing materials at Goldleaf Framemakers of Santa Fe, where I worked at the time.

We must reconsider the idea of the infinite vertical. The fantasy of unlimited growth is as stricken as the fantasy that government, art, romance or anything worthwhile should run more like business. POTUS Trump ought to by example have abolished the fakery of almighty markets once and for all. We can see that our basic network of systems is rigged against anyone who is not outlandishly wealthy, connected and powerful. Reproduction is connectivity power. The human/technological mesh of layered communications means that total democracy is possible. That five monopoly corporations dominate web traffic, is an intolerable affront to free society. Technological reproduction is as much a human right as sexual reproduction. Free reproduction is equal in value to free speech and a free press to liberated society. Assigning governance roles via policy (see FCC, net neutrality) assures the immolation of democratic concourse. The world is not only vertical. It is, as we have known for hundreds of years at least, spherical, and therefore fundamentally all-directional, and infinite by measure. Business never made this world or our life in it. Business is another word for leech.

"Red 01 Bar Code"
Die Cut Foil Print on Metallum
20" x 20" (Framed)
2004
$2400

Originally exhibited in "Bar Codes + Rituals + Subliminal Tapes" in Eureka, CA. The Metallum substrate was made available to me by its manufacturer, Riverwind, LLC, where I did an artist residency and tested the unique pressed-metal paper-like material for artist applications. Times printing, owned by the Strope family for four generations and serving the Humboldt community since 1854, produced the die cut foil print and affixed it to the Metallum. "Red 01 Bar Code" is an artist proof.

In Elephant Man, the Joseph Merrick character played by John Hurt poignantly says, “I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!” The crux of the human condition now is the presumption of inhumanity. Business insists man is a commodity, an extension of the slave-based model of colonial society. I can shout “I am not a bar code,” but the cashier will understand the resonance of this manifesto statement as much as she would understand if I shouted, “I am not an elephant.” Because the business depends upon my conformity to its complex, ubiquitous, pervasive system, networks of systems and syndicates. I must be compelled to synthesize with the worknet, or… the glitch could cause a system crash. At least that is the anxiety resistance produces in those for whom co-optation is the daily rigor. To observe a fully integrated system operative glitch in the face of confrontation, conflict or rebellion is to begin to assess the damage from hive mind on a normal person. The tragedy of the age is the extent to which people have been converted to mechanisms for their own dehumanization, a process rooted in compliance protocols.

"Desert Waterfall"
Frame Fragments, Sand, Column Base, Lead-wrapped Wood
24" x 24" x 16"
1995
$2650

This construction is composed of elements that come from several phases. The acrylic-painted wood "waterfall" is created from goldleaf art framer scraps, assembled with white glue and nail gun. I can't recall where I found the column base, but I've been using it in studio practice and installations since at least the late '90s. I scored the lead-wrapped wood platforms in Austin in 2005. They had been used for industrial glass and ceramic production. The sand we gathered in Cannon Beach today.

The sensation of falling down is medicine for the lie of the endless vertical. The non-scientific idea of gravity, conjoined with the scientific definition, synthesize to humble form in practice. The convolution of natural material elements with our most humble perceptions (e.g., of light and shadow) produce without obvious effort substantial innovation. The fear of falling is valuable to the sentient locomotive, because it heightens consciousness of curved paths. One of my favorite highway sign graphics is the truck tipping over. The implication is the driver enters the curve too fast and the truck rolls. Planting a structure in the earth is facilitated by the engineer. I once knew a man who repaired radio towers, sometimes on the top of skyscrapers. He had nightmares that he would drop a wrench, which by the time it reached the ground, might as well have been a missile shot from a cannon.

"01 Monitor (NASA)"
Monitor, Adhesive Vinyl, Lead-wrapped Wood
30" x 18" x 19"
2000
$2100

The NASA monitor was a gift from my friend and original DddD collective artist and scientist Chip Cox. For the "Heartless01" sequence of exhibits and projects, I added the 01 sticker. I've always loved how that black 01 works on the green-gray screen of that monitor.

On the drive north through the I-5 corridor of California and Oregon, I witnessed a ghastly tragedy. One of the most fertile landscapes on the planet has gone fallow. A reader interested in the history of the region, specifically the chronicling of water rights battles, might start with a book like Cadillac Desert, by Mark Reisner. My emotions at the scale of the debacle ranged from fury to stupefaction. Whether one knows about the situation, or the unfolding revolution in France, or the LIBOR scandal, or the Panama Papers, or…is a function of media working for the sustainably reproductive rich and powerful as it was designed to do, and failing everyone else. Or rather…is a function of media converting mass populations into resources for extraction and exploitation schemes to serve the wealthiest individuals and families in the world. The immaterial industry correlates to the material industry dimensionally. The war between Amazon and Wal*Mart is a key point of convergence or intersection in the duel. The analog of brick and mortar-based production, including manufacture and delivery networks, corresponds, is a flip side to the new media topology for data, an immaterial goldmine for a host of extractors and exploiters, in the private, government and military sectors. While new Dust Bowls evolve, the forever “New” Economy emerges, continuously.

"MacLean Warrior"
Acrylic on Wood
24" x 7"
1995
$850

One of the Headstone Series, inspired by the carved capstones of clan burial sites in Scotland on Iona and elsewhere in the Highlands and Islands. This piece initially was exhibited in "Where My Feet Stick to the Ground" in Nashville at the Peanut Gallery.

I am not a meteorologist, but that doesn’t prevent me from entertaining crackpot conceptions about the climate. I am not unequipped to analyze chaotic phenomena in large and small systems. I am accomplished at spotting the source of turmoil in a complex organization for production. If the dysfunction is intentional, then the agent of dysfunction will often camouflage their contribution to the disruption, for myriad purposes, one of the primary ones being accountability avoidance. When one drives 19 hours in any direction on American Highways, one is presented a window into the state of the Union, which is regional. America is a 50-state republic, divided further into smaller territories, in order to enable bottom-to-top democracy, local to federal. The current global climate narrative displaces a national discourse needed immediately on the viability of our form of government. We must ask ourselves whether our country is still a functional free federation of states and smaller provisional governments, reducing to the size of dispersed villages. After the 2016 election, and the role of the Democratic Party in rigging the primaries, the question is no longer moot. Bernie just announced he will run again, presumably as a Democrat. Speaking for myself, after the truth of 2016 came out, I concluded I can never in good conscience as a free man vote Democrat again, unless the party makes amends and fixes its fixes.

"Half-moon Form Pile"
Ink on Museum Board
40" x 30"
2006
$1200

This ink painting was created with digital animation in mind. The form is inspired by Joshua Tree "rock piles." The half-moon shape is applied in the spirit of Ab-Ex, but subverts that reference as a paint-pattern. The museum board was a gift of the Sam Francis Estate.

In a 4D system, the composition armature can be constructed utilizing a single form. The pattern is not defined by identical attributes. It is described by modification of the impression, and achieved through spatial displacement. The inspiration for the practice is time itself. A single, consistent entity can be many things within the context of duration. The meaning of this statement derives from an openness to the artifacts of existence, which include trails, scratches, indentations, weathering, blur, scuffs, and a host of interesting accidents. Variation is the signature of the hand-made shape. The ineptly titled Artificial Intelligence imaginary can only simulate the truth of real making. It is the Achilles Heel of AI, that machine intelligence is still coupled to mathematical perfection, to the balanced equation, to harmonized final outcomes. The recent seriously ugly AI art is a testimony to the mismatch of expectations written into the code of virtual humanity. If the reader is motivated to study computer-enabled art practice, peek at the projects of Joseph Nechvatal. If I have an issue with the language of my friend Joseph’s virtuosity, it is in his own reassignment of analog terminology to paint a portrait of his (Nechvatal’s) creation. It is to my mind an unnecessary move. Joseph’s work stands on its singular merits, and the progressive accomplishment throughout is remarkable in its own terms.

"Pixel Painting"
Acrylic on Cut Canvas
10" x 8"
2007
$950

The Pixel Painting series is my answer to the technical question the so-called Minimal artists proposed regarding an interstices between 2D and 3D artist practice, and object specificity. I worked on the Pixel Paintings during my MFA program at CGU, but the real solution for the proposition above I found in the Topos series of 4D VyNIL. The Pixel Paintings are the substrates for the Topos Paintings. The raised paint effect is created using heavy body Golden acrylics, pressed between similar surfaces, then carefully separated. My CGU MFA peer Quinton Bemiller has done a lot with this technique.

The 4D artist, at least for now, must manage the archive of her own production. The archival project is an intervention, a preventative technique that subverts the command and control mechanisms that undermine artistic freedom. The code, narrative or language of definition is the means by which the artist is enslaved. The numerical for valuation is the means by which the art is relegated to the overarching property regime. The cost-benefit analysis is the nemesis of aesthetics. A 4D archive for art begins with the inventory of objects and continues infinitely with the immaterial content and context those archived objects generate. The educational prospectus for each 4D artist archive coincides simultaneously with all others. The conceptual image of the program for a 4D catalog of created things necessitates the reconsidering of scarcity as the baseline model for art. Art no longer is limited by the perception of physicality attaching to property. Neither is art merely idea, or reducible to code.

"Regional Standard Arts Project (RSAP) Door Sign"
Acrylic, Ink, Rub-on Text on Board
19" x 17"
1993
$1800

When I founded RSAP, it was the only artist cooperative gallery in Santa Fe, in a field of over 200 retail art spaces. The door sign was (obviously) handmade, and not crafty, really. The high professional standards of the Santa Fe art market were a foil for our project. The artists named on the sign were the finalists, after 18 months of refining our mission and vision. RSAP was located in the beautiful Pueblo Deco depot in the Santa Fe Railyard. Some of these artists, like Robert Ash and Melinda Morrison, had their pro experiences showing at RSAP. It was a remarkable undertaking.

The self-evident aspect in art is fiction. To empty art-filled storage units into a truck and haul the load cross-country and unload it into a home is to confront the volumetric quality of art, in the class Things. The 1%er artist today hires a factory to enlist production crews to manifest concept-to-object, Hegelian art. The Everyone-Is-an-Artist fiction has become a business model for talentless, craftless, clever con artists. The philosophy of objectivity justifies the excesses of Hirst, Koons, Ai Wei Wei, Koons and the rest of the roster of A-List art pros. The art fairs obliterate the model of artistic self-sufficiency that is half of the core of American democracy. The other half is the capacity for vertical integration of the collective, and the process by which self and collective are harmonized in the medium of balanced interest. The success of the American model can be compared to a major league batting average in baseball, right? For those who get the reference, our assessments jigger on the fly a relative, metaphorical approximation of success as ratio to failure in the shadow system of history: to wit, America’s founder aspirations; and our contemporary ones. The idiotic “more like a business” doctrine must be replaced by “more like a baseball game.” See Bull Durham or even Slap Shot, by God, for amplification.

"Leslie"
Ink, Acrylic on Paper
48" x 24"
2004
$2800 "Leslie" was created during my Morris Graves studio residency (Loleta, CA). The image was derived from a photo of the model by Trey Mitchell, during the pre-production phase of "INSIDE><OUTSIDE" in Nashville. Leslie was pregnant at the time of the shoot. The painting is composed on paper provide from Graves' own stash, and the colorful Dr. Ph. Martin inks I used were also Graves'. "Leslie" was first exhibited in "Barcodes + Rituals + Subliminal Tapes," and later in "Overflow Show" at Pump Project in Austin.

The malaise short-term ROI-influenced ideation crushes the alignment of production and value over time. Both production and value are time-based (4D). Art is too. These three elements (production, value, art) combine to establish what we loosely call contemporary art. The schism for art promoted in this flawed, insufficient configuration appears when the product and its evaluation conflated with art, in the medium of the fungible. Money is imagined to be fungible. Art is not money (looking at you, dead Andy Warhol). If fungibility links to the deadline and the third dynamic in the triangulation is coercion, for the objective (art included), then you have a thoroughly unethical economics of artificially induced desperation. The storage industry operates on this basis, as does the US Government over the past decade and under the current administration. The human coast of this anti-democratic method of governance is practically immeasurable. It is the recipe for addiction, particularly when set in an environment of ludicrous waste and excess for the “winners” or “owners.” The despicable use of language by the super-rich and their minions to devalue the demos (“takers,” “deplorables,” “have-nots,” etc.) is evokes the exclamations of tyrants throughout human history.

"Barcode 01 Funkshunart T"
Silkscreen on Hanes 2XL White Tee Shirt
Variable Dimensions
2004
$240

During the "Eureka!" Ink People Center for the Arts-hosted residency, Shane Kennedy and I undertook a number of small or single-run art multiple projects. One of those yielded a set of Funkshunart (wearable art) tee shirts. I don't recall who our printer collaborators were on this. The finished clothing was included in the exhibit "Bar Codes + Rituals + Subliminal Tapes." NOTE: The shirt will be dry cleaned and pressed before it is shipped to a purchaser.

Upon review, my art since the 1980s is uncompromising in the things that matter to me most. I am confident that it can “hold its ground” with any artist’s production over the same timeline. The body of work is technically diverse, embodies a breadth of aesthetic prospects, aptly embodies the dynamism of the age (analog + virtual), progresses logically, and more. I am proud of my art. An artist who is critic of his own material may or may not be like the lawyer representing himself. The feeling to which I refer has nothing to do with representation in a court of law. The pride I feel is a survivalist pride, which is predictably bittersweet. Surviving as an artist frequently has nothing at all to do with the art itself. The conflation of artistry and art as a profession is fictional. Art makes love and business fucks for money. It’s as simple and dumb as that. When economy catapults into a 4th dimension for art then we will learn what is possible for art (and humanity) over the next millennia. Keeping in mind that mankind has some key problems to resolve within the same bundle.

"...Custody Evaluation"
Acrylic and Ink on Masonite
18" x 24"
1995

$2700 "...Custody Evaluation" was originally exhibited in Eidolon Gallery in Santa Fe in a show titled "The Divorce Industry." Every time I see the few remaining pieces of the series is like peeling a scab, re-opening a wound. "Divorce Industry" was my first professional solo exhibit in a retail gallery.

The fracture of the universe into building blocks for human knowledge is an obsolete, less than 4D precept. That concept of accumulation is suffocated by the virtual. The Fordist economy is on the verge of extinction, as Elon Musk is discovering. One-size (dimension) will not fit all. No amount of smashing the square peg makes it round, which is the lesson of Afghanistan. The manufacture of failure is the secret to diet industry success. It is the secret of modern Capitalism, when the ledger balances in favor of the tiny fraction of those who win and against those losing majorities. Capitalism is not an ideology, or a science, or an art. It is a design fiction, a misrepresentation sustained as a project with a specific goal. No amount of philanthropy restores the good in Capitalism, which is amoral or evil in itself. I’m looking at you, Eli and Edythe Broad! A new art world is possible, to paraphrase the Illuminator, and it must be devoid of Broad and his ilk. The marriage of art and science in 4D cannot succeed without the bringing to heel of the financial sector. Technology is ultimately worthless, if its primary function is to make Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Schmidt and the rest of the geek-i-garchs unimaginably rich and powerful.

[END PART ONE]