this dude to pop the question. In quite a Brent way, no less.
It’s sort of strange, when I left Portland, out of my three closest friends, Mac had a semi-serious relationship and the rest of us were dead alone in the water. Now Mac’s married, Brent’s engaged and Jerry has a semi-serious relationship. Funny what five years does.
I’m just glad that all their better halves at least tolerate, if not enjoy, my company, as I certainly won’t be joining the club of semi-serious relationships anytime soon. Too much is going on in life right now to worry about romance, and I actually prefer it that way. I used to get pretty jealous of people in relationships and now I can be happy for them but realize it’s just not something I’m that in to anymore. Maybe it’s just a passing thing with the move and so much change.
Today is May 13th and today you graduate and the rules are about to change, and one of them is this: Decisions are made by those who show up. Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world.
Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character. You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance—and since you’re walking into the middle of a presidential election, it’s worth mentioning that you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy. Unless they went to Georgetown, in which case, they can go to hell. (Laughter)
Don’t ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. It’s the only thing that ever has.
In his intimate journals Vollard tells us that Degas feigned deafness to escape disputations and harangues concerning things he considered false and distasteful. If the speaker or subject changed, his hearing immediately improved. We must marvel at his wisdom since he must have only surmised what we know definitely today: that the constant repetition of falsehood is more convincing than the demonstration of truth. It is understandable, then, how the artist might actually cultivate this moronic appearance, this deafness, this inarticulateness, in an effort to evade the million irrelevancies which daily accumulate concerning his work. For, while the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.
– Mark Rothko, one of my favorites, who is being honored with a massive retrospective at The Portland Art Museum, which I’ll be checking out this week.
Things have been slow around here, but that’s because they’ve been fast everywhere else.
My mom has been in town, so between seeing her, working, fighting with Comcast (those motherfuckers are the worst), buying furniture and going out with friends, it’s all I can do to just take pictures and upload them on a daily basis.
But mom left today, most of the furniture is bought and en route, work is starting to get into a routine and the internet is set up. I sat down and wrote four letters this afternoon, as it’s my most preferred method of correspondence. I’ve been biking at least once a day, now that I have my good old Colnago back. I’ve been drinking a lot of white wine, chilled because it’s hot as fuck in Portland. I bought a first edition of The Informers, because Powell’s just has shit like that on their shelves, and that’s why I love that store.
I’ve also been working, a lot. I’m still doing my old job about five hours a day. I’m working with Mac on the complete identity for his new restaurant, Tabarnak. I’m working with Brent on The New Fiend zine, Drugs and Old Money Scotch Club. (The latter, for the now, is just us sitting around drinking scotch and talking about it. But it’ll be something, someday.) I’m doing the cover for the new ANNE 7″, Power Exchange, and Brent and I are talking about shooting the music video for the album together, which would put me in a whole new part of aesthetics.
Things are good, and they are happening. I’m planning to keep this site pretty simple, as just this blog, for awhile here. I expect I’ll have a massive amount of work by summer’s end, at which point I am expecting to relaunch this site with a F/W 2012 collection of work.
For now, I’m going to go bike to the house of Salo for a night of scotch drinking and Mad Men watching. Be good to one another, and please be well.
I like to make things: drawings, photographs, books, paintings, designs. I work as a senior designer at Zinio, but I never like it when people ask, "What do you do?" as if that's the sum of who you are. I do recognize, however, that I'm very lucky to be able to do something that's pretty close to what I actually am.
I like questioning the way things are and a good glass of scotch. This tends to spill over into my various hobbies and habits. I was born in Alaska but have never seen Russia, though I would really like to go sometime. I live in Portland, Oregon, which I like to call Portland Fucking Oregon, because it's that awesome here. I think we could all be better people.
I can be contacted via e-mail here or here. I'm also on AIM and G-Chat with the username bring no bombs (also my Instagram handle). I also have a Tumblr, if that's your sort of thing.
None of us have as much time as we'd like, and most of us get less than we'd expect, so I appreciate any and all time people spend checking out what I do. Thank you; be good to one another, and please be well.
