Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
I’m planning my summer trips right about now. I’m going to have a nomadic season this year. I can’t wait, I love travel, I love the open road, and I love everything about moving around for a while.
I even have some out-of-country plans for the first time in my life. Along with several long road trips here I think I may be doing a trip to the far east…if all goes according to plan.
.
.
.
There’s something about driving though, that appeals more to me than any other form of travel. I mean I guess it will be nice to see other cultures- I would just prefer if I could get there of my own volition; at the wheel, on the pavement. I love to drive and far and fast.
I’ve learned more about the US by driving all over it alone in crappy cars than I ever could have learned any other way. The sense of occasional danger that comes at a truck stop at 4 am when a sketchy dude walks by my car is not much sacrifice to make in order to wake up under a sand cave in the middle of the desert the next night. Or to stop just because a handmade sign says “pecan pies $1″. Or to see the spires of industry coming up in the distance as a city draws near.
.
.
.
The deer scare me though. Elks and such. But I am going to do something about that, I hope. Put my mind to work on the problem? It’s the best I can do. And the fact that I will get to do what I love, drive around, in order to find out more about that…is exciting as hell.
(side note: for obvious reasons these are pictures taken on road trips that I had company on. I don’t have many self-portraits from solo trips, hahaha)
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, hobo, learning, love, travel | Tagged: road trips | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
I bet he would hold the smoke in. But that doesn’t look as nice in a drawing of him.
(portrait only halfway finished)
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, clients, deep thoughts, graywash, joke tattoos | Tagged: unfinished tattoo, what would willie do, willie nelson tattoo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
I once came to the conclusion that I usually have dated younger men because men my age are bitter old farts who just want to complain or make babies. I don’t think this is true in all cases but …
I do enjoy being around someone my own age and when I go out with guys my age or close to it I get really happy because the weird stuff I think about they just…get it right away. There’s no explaining why “piano wire and a block of ice” is a funny reference when I see an emo kid, or why singing a certain riff from xray spex is awesome, why long duck dong said fast makes me giggle, why I think jocks suck, or or or…
I was born in the early 70s. I remember watching the monkees on tv. I remember brown and orange and avocado green rugs. I remember not worrying about accepting candy from strangers (much). I remember a lot of stuff that just…doesn’t exist after about 1981.
And I was just old enough during the 80s to finally take part in the culture. Like during the 70s I listened to the music my parents played, but once I was 12 or 13 I started getting my own records and watching my own movies that I liked. I started being able to create and participate in my cultural environment, and ever since certain things have had a very warm place in my heart.
I was a geeky, dirty, awkward kid. I didn’t have a lot of friends. Then I went to a punk rock show and people talked to me! Nobody really cared what I looked like, because I could write and draw and add and was smart. They made me tapes, took me in when stuff was rough at home, and showed me how to spike my hair. I found people that cared about the same stuff I cared about…I tried many ways of living. I experimented with my own life in ways I never would have thought were possible without their influences.
I tried everything.
I still do.
I wonder how it is for people younger than me- if the roles we cut out for ourselves then broke in that scene ever carried over? If they feel stuffed into boxes, if any of them escape how we did? In groups or alone? I see very few younger people that are really different from the majority … I see few leading the way to the future, really thinking about it. I like it a lot when I DO see it, though.
I hope I haven’t lost all my vanity, enthusiasm, all my drive to change the world. I’m doing it in different ways of course but I still have hope that it can be done…and that I think is what I miss in men my own age or older. I love extremism, idealism…I want more of that. No matter someone’s age.
This is really just more rambling. Glad you guys keep reading it all…I don’t know how you manage.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, deep thoughts, journal, learning, old school, personal | Tagged: 1980s | 1 Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
Had a great time at the Unfine Art’s 8th anniversary. I reprint here the Unfine Artist’s Manifesto in its entirety, hereby psychically-like sign it with my brain, and bring it to your undivided attention:
Unfine artists represent the majority of people producing “art” on our planet today (this wasn’t always the case).
Unfine artists set the pace. We, the artists, influence the aesthetics of our era more potently than any sanctioned institution, museum, collector, or otherwise endowed art movement/clique.
We are not fine with the status quo, history, academics, or politics….
Instinctively, and without premeditation unfine artists produce work that challenges the 21st century’s corporate multimedia spectacle merely by filtering and reframing cultural matter into a highly personal and complex assemblage of material entwined with subjectivity, ever creating new strands of cultural dna. The elite understands this power, and to keep it at bay they have developed methods of making it invisible, thereby maintaining their market share of an ever-tried culture economy, overstressed by a society’s rampant anti-intellectualism and addiction to football.
Unfine artists are not restricted to canonized materials, substrates, and paints that have been marketed as “archival”. All materials, are archival and all materials, including mass marketed art making products degrade rapidly. Down with canvas and matte board fetishism, and the hegemony of compositional standards that are beaten into the minds and hands of innocent art students around the world!
Unfine Artists aren’t concerned with immortality. We make art out of a need to communicate and interact with the world, express the unspeakable, survive in a world that seeks to eliminate our shaman-like power, and make the world a more beautiful place.
Unfine artists are not fulfilled, satisfied, fine, or ok.
We’re ecstatic, broke, self-taught, focused, homeless, loved, inspired, unrepresented, dying, stable, exploited, wild, lost, disciplined, exhausted, packaged, junked-out, ripped-off, ignored, hated, feared, appreciated, devalued, and accomplished. But one thing we all have in common is an undying need to make things that return cultural mojo to ourselves and our fellow humans. The mass media will melt in impotence and despair.
Behold a world of excellence and enlightenment,
without elitism.
-shawn mediaclast Jan. 19, 2010
I had a piece hanging in the show—
I enjoyed Honey Vizer’s reading of the manifesto to Shawn’s awesome sax madness—
The Ninkasi and some of the food was delicious—
And I even had an attractive date to bring with me, who was willing to help re-build a bucky ball, and discuss the PNW-china connection with some strangers.
All in all a successful evening.
(Honey Vizer has an opening there on Friday- awesome, awesome stuff you might want to take a peek at.)
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, art, artwork, events, geek, learning, motivation, oregon living, other media, painting, politics, reviews | Tagged: art, eugene oregon, eugene scene, feinsteins, funk, honey vizer, local artists, manifesto, music, paintings, shawn mediaclast, unfine art | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
at the new house
How do you come back from being a hoarder, packrat, filthy slob, pig, messie, messmaker, disorganizer, whirlwind, crusty, squatter, punkrock junkyard maven???
THROW ALMOST EVERYTHING AWAY.
Also moving into a nicer house which is not in so much disrepair is a good idea. My last house I rented was dismally undermaintained before I arrived- carpets coated in cat urine, walls in grease. Holes in the walls, cracks running top to bottom, water heaters that hardly worked, leaks, cracks, windows that never closed, no baseboards, and more…
The new place is not the hilton but DAMN is it a ton nicer in comparison. The owner is a nice guy- who takes care of the place. The floors are clean. The walls are bright and happy. I have hot running water at all times. And the rent? NOT ALL THAT MUCH HIGHER.
Also. I got rid of a bunch of things, moving in. So I now have more space. I have less piles. I am not all the way unpacked but I am really close to it and it feels GREAT. My house is so much calmer, this place is so much better. I’m content.
last spring at the old house with a friend
I used to really have a major problem with hoarding. I lived in very squalorous conditions again and again. Part of it was, yeah, slumlords and poverty- but the rest was ME. I struggle with maintaining my little bit of new order every day. It’s really difficult sometimes but I know that the minute I let up on it I will be back to level 3 mayhem and chaos very quickly. It added a lot to my depression, it made life harder for me than it needed to be, but getting out from under is really not as easy as just getting rid of stuff. There’s a lot of mental squalor to deal with too and that is way more difficult.
From years of having nothing I learned to hoard. I learned that if I had something that meant something to me it might go away…
My parents had me really young. My mom tried her best but I think that taking my things away when I misbehaved was a bad choice; I don’t think that she had malice in doing this but man did it ever have repercussions for me in my adult life. I’ve had to re-learn to cherish and maintain my belongings, to think of them as MINE and not as temporary…to take care of the things I own instead of viewing that as pointless because anything could be taken away, be gone, at any time.
a friend poses in front of part of my junk collection
My mom didn’t grow up rich herself so I do not blame her or think that she knew any better. Man I am a decade or more older than she was when she was raising me and I still wouldn’t do half as well as she did…but this one thing, above all, changed the way I live, and I still fight with it, still try to stay conscious of it, still am learning that objects and tools and belongings can have meaning and can be kept under control.
For me that is the root of my squalor and hoarding.
Years after that I was broke all the time- I needed many things and didn’t have them. So I got into the habit of taking what I could when I could get it and saving things for later. not always the best habit, when it gets out of hand. Thrift is fine but there are limits.
I’m a member at squalorsurvivors and I found some of the ways they support each other to be really helpful to me when I was trying to start changing this. Taking pictures of a messy area showed me a lot; there’s a tendency to just stop seeing a mess that you see every day, the way a pair of tinted sunglasses soon loses its color effect…it becomes something that you are inured to and can no longer see with your own eyes. So photographs helped me a lot.
Also techniques like starting with ONE thing. Just one. Not cleaning a room but cleaning off a small area in a room. The notion that I should let others into my environment to see it as motivation. Asking others for help…just even talking about it.
buying more junk for the junk collection
All of it helped.
I’ve talked about this a tiny bit here but not in so much depth I don’t think. I mean now they have like “hoarders” on tv…and I see a lot on the internet about it…but really it’s hard to admit to and hard to come out of. I find people that allow the cameras in really brave, regardless of the result. There’s an underlying terror to living in squalor- that someone will knock at the door. I still have the startle reaction to a knock on my door but I am trying to overcome that, more and more all the time.
Anyway just rambling. Having a sick day, so I thought it was a good time to write some more.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, !!!~posts with links in them~!!!, deep thoughts, health and safety, hobo, how-to, journal, learning, motivation, oregon living, personal, politics | Tagged: cleanup, hoarding, personal, squalor | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
I’ve had my face tattooed for a long time. Seven years now?
I had these smudgy dots over my eyebrows forever.
I have repeatedly said I’m about to get them darkened, fixed up. Then I forget to, or get wrapped up in something else.
When I first got them I thought about it for weeks. I thought it would be such a big deal, like leaping off some cliff, into some new world. FACE tattoos! I mean when I got my NECK done…shit I was the only woman I knew of who had heavy tattooing work in that area (at that time) and it was very life-altering. So of course I thought, my FACE! Wow it will be so important and change everything.
I was very very wrong. See, my neck tattoo is huge, intricate, and very visible. My facial tattoo? Small, subtle. When I looked in the mirror after I knew instantly, that it was not, simply was NOT enough.
I mean even I barely could see them. I vowed to darken them as soon as they healed…
In the years since I have made it pretty damn clear that I LOVE visible tattoos, on me or anyone. First tattoo on a hand/face/neck??? GOOD ON YOU! I love tattoos. I love seeing them on anyone and I love people with the balls to go showy at the start. I know for some this is against their personal ethics but for me…I find that since my personal ethics do NOT agree with conservatism in appearance, visible tattoos are a big fat hell yes. And here I was- walking around with grey bits you could barely see. Always saying I was just about to get em fixed next week sometime.
But for years I just kept forgetting to actually DO it.I ended up with a million other things done, but never thought about my face until like the next day maybe.
SO finally, since I got my lip done the other day, I laid it down, had a piercer friend re-mark the (very crooked) dots, and had one of my best friends re-do the smudges for me. I am much more pleased now, I like the way they draw attention in to my eyes (the whole point to begin with!) and I am glad they’re more visible now. (lip by mz d, eye dots by smartianna…hpp corvallis)
People still ask more about my neck but at least they look right to my satisfaction now! And I feel more at ease with my face. I was never big on makeup, so for me this feels very vain and girly. At the same time, I feel lik eI get to recliam a little (tiny) bit of the red flag that my tattoos used to represent to the world…back in the old days.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, deep thoughts, ethics, female tattoo artist, hobo, learning, personal, tat zap wizard, tattooing | Tagged: facial tattoos | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
I just have to insert, at this date, a brief rant about eggs.
If you have never eaten fresh eggs from a chicken that you have personally met, I would highly recommend that you immediately scrap all your plans for the bar and go try to make the acquaintance of a local chicken or two instead.
Fresh eggs from a chicken that eats as well as people do … these eggs taste nothing like the watery yellow beans you can buy from the store. FROM ANY STORE. Even the hippy co-op vegan-fed freerange cagefree ones cannot compare to the deep orange deliciousness of a fresh egg straight from a good friend’s cloaca.
.
.
I have two or three or four friends who keep chickens. All of them feed them like people, like pets. They talk to them, the chickens roam around and get into mischief, and have names.
I’ve met some of these chickens. And when the eggs start at the beginning of spring I am very glad to have met them.
I mean, grocer’s eggs are yellow. The yolks are watery and yellow. These are orange, like an orange. thick. viscous. Standing up in the sea of frothy whites. They’re little miracles. Now, in the winter they make less eggs. So I buy the ones from the hippy store (cagefree veganfed etc etc) and they are like eating water compared to the fresh eggs my friends poop out. I feel the lack of them the way I feel the want of sunshine.
.
I’m not much of a cook (you could have guessed) but even I can make delicious breakfast with these things. My god you could just pour them from the shell onto a piece of bread and it’d be like gourmet food.
I had a tummyache all day, and a few of these were the only thing I could keep down. They’re medicine in a shell.
My chicken friends, thanks. I’m ever so grateful.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, deep thoughts, personal, politics | Tagged: cloaca, eggs, oregon, poultry | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on February 2, 2010
resonance; A phenomenon that happens two or a few people.
When a particular feeling gets more intense as the parties involved
realize how intense the feelings of others is.
Posted in Tattoo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 26, 2010
bison. halfway done. I had a great day.
mostly done freehand- I stenciled from a sketch for his face and some of the plants in the foreground.
I plan to do more detail and finish the background in a couple weeks.
so fun!!!
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, Tattoo, female tattoo artist, tat zap wizard, tattooing | Tagged: buffalo bison leg tattoo brown | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 21, 2010
After going on a mild archive binge I realize that for several months last year I was not all right. This started and ended with a relationship I was in. I didn’t feel or act like myself for most of last year! I even stopped posting here for a bit. OUT of CHARACTER.
I just want to let you guys know I am back, I am fine, this year will be awesome, and I promise not to get involved with anyone who would restrict my self-expression, ever, EVER again. I’m being more careful this time.
I’m so serious about this promise I went ahead and got a tattoo about it. Thanks Denise!
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, complaints, deep thoughts, dos and donts, ethics, female tattoo artist, hobo, journal, learning, love, motivation, personal, travel | Tagged: bad relationship recovery, freedom of expression, lip tattoo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 21, 2010
not much to say except that I love a good windstorm.
also I like cool visible tattoos, hands faces necks…
and this one was nice, pretty, and sweet.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, Tattoo, clients, female tattoo artist, surviving your first tattoo, tat zap wizard, tattooing | Tagged: hand lettering tattoo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 16, 2010
still think I wanna add a little background to this one.
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Posted by resonanteye on January 15, 2010
I love my people. Full photoset here- you must be 18/flickrmember to view. Because it is nsfw. I posted a few worksafe images in this set, too.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, !!!~posts with links in them~!!!, clients, events, love, photography | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 11, 2010
a guy in a good marriage
I was writing a bit for an e-friend about tattoos and their effect on love lifes…and as I was writing I realized that while writing about general tattoo stuff and about clients is one thing, writing about tattoo artists is … difficult to say the least.
I know an older artist who says getting us to agree on something is like herding cats- I would say it’s more like herding oiled ping-pong balls with oven mitts on. Tattooers are by and large a grumpy, weird, strange type, and although some may try to deny it, it really can’t be hidden for long. We’re fucking weird.
Most of the people I know who do this for a living have some kind of oddity in their mental states. If they started out sane they end up bonkers just from the work. And relationships can be tough to maintain with them. I’d never in hell date a tattooer…well ok maybe I would but at least I would be walking in with my eyes open.
You see, it’s work but, it’s all-consuming work. Most tattooers will go to the shop on their day off, stay late, go in early, and make the excuse that they have to draw or do something…but really it’s just BEING AT THE SHOP that we need. If you work in a good place the cameraderie and the good energy is addictive. Also being at work means maybe getting to do some little walk-in thing, talk to someone about a backpiece…most tattooers like what they do to the point of total exclusion of all else in their lives, during the time they’re at work.
It’s a great job, I don’t deny it.
yes, we get sore
But if you date a tattoo artist be prepared to be a “tattoo widow/er” (as a friend of mine put it) and spend a lot of time dropping in at the shop- time waiting around while they noodle around with allen keys. If you find yourself jealous at the thought of your significant other joking around with, and touching, attractive strangers…don’t date a tattooer. If you want to be the most important thing in someone’s life, more important than their work- don’t date a tattooer. If you want to be with someone who doesn’t go on an hour-long rant about the poor-quality work on some porn actress in the heat of the moment- don’t date a tattooer. If you can’t stand someone being late, working late, or having stains on their clothes- don’t date a tattooer. If you don’t want to have alone time while someone in the next room breaks pencils and curses…don’t date a tattooer. If you don’t love tattoos, don’t date a tattooer.
Of course the benefit of dating us is that we tend to be forgiving, hilarious, weird, interesting, and that you get tattoos from us. Also, a lot of tattooers are easy to wrangle. You can pretty much take over the home front and make life how YOU like it, as long as there’s a drawing table involved most of us will be ok with that. You might also get to come along on road trips, conventions, or fly to exotic places like tahiti, china, or hell city.
I see a lot of my friends dating folks who get jealous, who restrict them from doing things which would foster growth in their art. That makes me really sad. I think if you love someone you should be more like Gala was to Dali- a supportive presence, bringing snacks to the elbow of your hard-working love. Artists in general are married to their work, so this makes you the mistress. A mistress that demands too much doesn’t last…
work is fun
At any rate I have had my own issues with guys I’ve been with- jealousy about the fun I have at work, misunderstanding my demeanour about work-related stuff, and general tomfoolery…I’ve dated guys that refused a back rub because “you had fun all day, why would you be sore” (HELLO, stretching skin for 8 hours HURTS the shoulders, really…) not understanding that even though I love what I do it is still WORK, and that while I may get by pretty easily it’s not all luck that brought it to me.
If you have no passion in life you can’t understand this- but if you do then you know…and I love it when my friends/coworkers have someone in their life that gets it, that supports their creative work, and that is a good solid partner for them, I like seeing my crazy friends find their rock and cling to it.
So for all the partners of my friends- I love you guys. I hope I find one just like you.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, complaints, deep thoughts, female tattoo artist, love, motivation, personal | 2 Comments »
Posted by resonanteye on January 11, 2010
one of those awesome days!
I love it when my clients like good art. And once in a while someone comes in who has just a great collection of stuff, good tattoos, and it’s obvious that they have really good taste…I love working on people who have a good collection, I like seeing other artist’s work…it makes me smile!
Posted in Tattoo | Tagged: tree stump tattoo | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 7, 2010
this was very fun to draw. swirly and all…limited palette too, which was interesting.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, Tattoo, female tattoo artist, tat zap wizard, tattooing | Tagged: mermaid, Tattoo, thigh | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on January 5, 2010
first session, we only had an hour and a half to get it started. probably another two hours and we can finish up!
right now it’s just a sketched line and a small area with color…
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, Tattoo, female tattoo artist, tat zap wizard, tattooing | Tagged: anomalous motion, calf tattoo, color, optical illusion tattoo, tesselation, tile pattern | 2 Comments »
Posted by resonanteye on December 31, 2009
New year’s post:
This year I want:
Dear Santa, I know it’s a little late but:
1.steadier hands
2.better time management
3.lots of time with my friends
4.plenty of money
5.a torrid and lasting love affair
6.a snuggly coat for my dog
(picture of me in old-face makeup unrelated)
Posted in holidays, journal, personal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on December 30, 2009
I’d like to do a lot more of these this coming year.
Hit me up via email (resonanteye at gmail) and let me know if you’re interested. I have a couple people on the line now for some more anomalous motion stuff.
Join in!
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Posted by resonanteye on December 30, 2009
I made this for my friend Jared a while back, and just came across this picture of it.
I used some quotations, things crazy horse actually said (while he was in custody) as backdrop.
I have no idea about the authenticity or whatever of the headdress. I just made what I thought looked cool.
I’d like to draw more like this- portraits of dead heros, I guess. Skully type portraits.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, art, artwork, painting | Tagged: crazy horse, headdress, jared, native american, painting, quotation, skull | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on December 28, 2009
I tend to hang out with people’s pets a lot. Even more than I hang out with people.
When I’m at a friend’s house the pets, cats, dogs, hedgehogs, ferrets, are usually who I talk with first.
I really feel comfortable with animals.
Sometimes, even with good friends, I get a little socially anxious, even though I am not shy the way I once was, and I can be kind of blustery and obnoxious, I still get those feelings. So if someone has a pet it’s a good way to de-fuse that, when those thoughts or feelings come up, I can pat the dog, laugh at the cat, or make silly noises at the parrot.
And then I feel ok again. Just about all animals like me, dogs especially. That’s a good feeling.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, personal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by resonanteye on December 28, 2009
I love optical illusions, opart, and abstract tattoos. I don’t get to do enough of them, and usually people want some kind of tribal style interpretation of things like that but I like color, I like playing with depth and perspective and forms with color, and I like the idea that abstract work can be emotional, meaningful, without appropriating someone else’s culture. It can be very very personal and not have to follow customs or insult any rules or traditions from someone else’ s society.
Also it looks freakin awesome.
There are a lot of different ways to approach abstract work- you can play with flow and motion, you can go monochrome, you can use weird opart techniques…contours, shapes, and patterns.
I’m inspired by a lot of the newer artists I see working in this way. It’s great stuff to look at. I wish I was better at doing this kind of thing on canvas- I can hit the mark with my photographs sometimes, in abstract, but painting this way is a major challenge for me.
Posted in !!!~pictures~!!!, Tattoo, clients, deep thoughts, ethics, female tattoo artist, learning, politics, tat zap wizard, tattooing, tech, travel | Tagged: abstract, spirals, tattoos | Leave a Comment »
I’m planning my summer trips right about now. I’m going to have a nomadic season this year. I can’t wait, I love travel, I love the open road, and I love everything about moving around for a while.
There’s something about driving though, that appeals more to me than any other form of travel. I mean I guess it will be nice to see other cultures- I would just prefer if I could get there of my own volition; at the wheel, on the pavement. I love to drive and far and fast.
The deer scare me though. Elks and such. But I am going to do something about that, I hope. Put my mind to work on the problem? It’s the best I can do. And the fact that I will get to do what I love, drive around, in order to find out more about that…is exciting as hell.
