Thursday, December 17, 2009

Saturday, November 28, 2009

My gripe with Denver's art scene

Here it goes.

In advance I would like to say that I have recently moved back to Denver, so if I am wrong (which would make me really happy) please feel free to let me know!

WTF Denver. Why the hell do all your art districts have the same opening night!!!!! Are we all too stupid to realize that the average art patron is going to have difficulty visting Santa Fe arts district, River North (RiNo, Stupid name), Navajo and Tennyson in one night.

I understand we are artists and logistics might not be our thing, but seriously, this seems like a monumental oversight. Wouldn't Denver's art community be enriched by having 2 perhaps 3 different days of the month organized to go see art. We could dedicate more time to each gallery, see more art, engage ourselves more closely with galleries and art districts. This seems like planning 101 people.

Here, it's as easy as this. One neighborhood gets first Friday, another maybe first Thursday, or here's and idea, maybe even another neighborhood gets second Friday or fourth Friday. Now I know this all seems crazy, and we would all be really really foolish for thinking that an alternative to a once-per-month art bash is too much planning, but I think this city would benefit greatly!

On another note, I have a show opening this first Friday in the Santa Fe arts district. It is at The Peanut Gallery on 719 W 8th Avenue (One block east of Santa Fe and 8th). The opening Starts at 6pm, There is an open bar with $10 dollar donation and, here's the kicker, December is the last month the gallery is open. I will have work showing through December there and then NO MORE PEANUT GALLERY.


Come see my work and support this gallery's "Fond Farewell" as they seem to have supported local art here in Denver.Even this painting will be there. Come see it and others!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The thing about Latin women

More accurately the thing about all woman who don´t speak english.

I have a dilema, I am irrefutably attracted to sexually attractive woman, but I despise idiots. This creates a problem, many woman who are attractive (and especially ones who have been attractive their whole lives) are idiots. That means that it will only take a very short period of time after meeting them that for me to become fed up and uninterested.

Enter Latin Women.

I certainly do not doubt that there are just as many idiotic women who don´t speak Eglish as ones who do (probably more if you think about how large China is). But I do not speak their native language, this makes them seem infinitley more interesting. Bolivian Barbi may be equally as materialistic and vapid as Heidi from The Hills, however she [Bolivia] remains infinitely more interesting for one primary reason: I have to try really really hard just to ask how her day was and understand the response. This difficulty makes me far more engaged and similarly far less likely to become bored.

Unfortunately, for latin woman I probably seem like a bummbling illeterate 4th grader who keeps nodding and saying, "claro" or "que bueno." This probably just makes me seem like an idiot, or maybe childishly endearing. I will naively choose the second option.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Top 5 things that make living in an apartment in Santiago different than living in Seattle

1. My yogurt and milk come in plastic bags
2. I light the pilot on the water heater everytime I take a shower
3. I make toast on the stove with this little grill thing
4. I have no NFL Sunday ticket (good and bad)
5. Everyone speaks spanish, duh

Sunday, September 27, 2009

EXTRA FUERTE!!!!

This is a sketch i did recently. it is the only one I have right now because I left my thumb drive at the hostel I was staying at last night. Hopefully they still have it and I can go pick it up manaña.  
But this sketch and the others, that will hopefully be posted soon, are all part of a series Ive been toying with dealing with advertisements in magazines. 

More to come hopefully.


Other than the above mentioned sketch, A LOT has happened since I last posted. I am two countries farther south. I spent a week in Lima, Peru. I took a 55 hour bus ride south from there. 
I did not go to Machu Picchu, I am lazy, I know, hate me if you must. BUT, I was on Peruvian television. A Peruvian dating show in fact. Now all keep in mind that my spanish is still very, VERY, basic. I was fed lines, food, and to a certain extent women. But below is the link.

Now however, I am in Santiago, I am actually posting this from my new apartment. I have a roomate who speaks no english, her name is Barbara, she is awesome and a really good artist.

In case some of you didnt know, I have an apprenticeship here in Santiago. I am working for a company called Walka Jewlery. They are pretty awesome and I am more than excited. It is a work exchange, so I will be redesigning this Web site (which right now is really just a blog they made) and in exhcange they are teaching me how to make jewlery. 

Peace out

Monday, September 21, 2009

No no Gitana!

Ohh Ecuador

I write this blog post as I wait to leave for the bus terminal which will be my jump off point for exit from Ecuador. The last post I had was the day I got here, so there is obviously a lot to talk about. But, because I am lazy I will not even try to touch on all of it. Here are a few keypoints.

This is a picture of the Malecon2000 in Guayaquil. Pretty clean, and as you can see from the parts of the sky that are green, my camera is doing strange things.

In Guayaquil we went to the largest street/flea market I have ever seen. It never ended, ever, seriously. These birds were one of the millions of items being sold there. Right below them were pigeons for sale, i don´t think the pigeons were being sold as pets though.

Our route:
Arriving in Guayaquilwe left to Cuenca where my friend Claire lives. Cuencas nice, clean, it has a lot of Spanish architecture and really feels more like being in Europe than anywhere else I´ve been in South America.We then went to Quito, the capital, and stayed for 4 days.

View from The top of our hostel in Quito.

Ahh Quito, where you´re greeted with men bleeding from the streets, Mafia Azul gang tags and a Metal Festival titled Quitofest. As some of you may be aware, I had been extremely excited about going to this South American metal festival. It was kind of dissipointing, mostly because there was not alcohol being served which really prohibited our ability to Wile out. Afterward however we had a grand time on the top of our hostel where we drank farr farr farr to much old times whiskey and a little bottle of hell called Norteño (It´s like sambuca, only made from sugarcane).
This is the view from the park where the Metal Festival was,
that Church in the city is pretty large!


Then, There was Montañita.

Think Vegas only you gamble with your life, not money.

This little beach town has every possible vice imaginable crammed into a 1/2 mile square area. There are world class waves that could easily suck you out to sea, at least 4 bars on every block, and some very, very dirty looking women (Of course, I would never make a judment as to what their profession might or might not be). Oh yeah, theres also a rasta in a giant tam running around offering you cocaine if you want it, but I´ve herd he rips you off, so just say no.

There are no pictures from Montañita, if you´ve been there you know why.

We were going to stay there for a week, but after trying to sleep the first night we realized two days would be sufficient (Alex later pinpointed the exact time of the techno turning off around 6am).

And now, we are here, back in Guayaquil, ready for Peru. Apparently the border crossing can be pretty sketchy, so wish us luck.

Oh and if any of you were wondering if ive cut my hair yet, the awnser is: definitley not.

Friday, September 4, 2009

One good sketch, some bad ones and a couple rando´s

Despite my best efforts I have made to Ecuador safely and with ease. My flight was this morning on the 3rd (a day earlier than I originally though). I spent last night in a really really sketchy hotel near the bus station, so that I wouldn´t have to walk far in the morning. To try and define the mood of this place in one statement I have chosen to write a brief non-rhyming poem.

Rubber bed, you are squeaky
but at least I have my toilet paper
that the desk attendant gave to me
this room smells like pee
like that time I was in jail

after my mosquito, and im sure bed-bug infested, evening I walked downstairs to the bus station at 5:45AM only to find out that I was not at the terminal where the bus to the airport leaves, making my sleeping there completely useless. I walk to the other bus station and got to the airport easily enough.

At check in i give the lady my passport and res. number, she does the necessary things and then walks away only to come back and try and tell me that my passport is invalid because it is is too ¨mutilated or altered.¨ She insinuates that I will not be able to leave the country and in response I yell a string of broken spanish at her and ask for her manager. I am then taken to Migracion where the immigration officer says, ¨It´s fine for leaving the country.¨ Needless to say it was fine for entering Ecuador as well. Upon landing in Ecuador I have no reservation at my hostel, but luckly, the name and address scibbled down on a piece of paper. I asked the woman at the information desk which public bus goes to the name of the hostel I looked up on the internet, or rather the Neighborhood in which it resides. Her response to me taking the public bus is one of bewilderment, but despite her better judgement I took the bus to roughly where i thought my hostel might be and started walking. But easily enough found, I am at my hostel: safe, refreshed from a beer, shower and nap, and ready for leg two of my pan american adventure.

In a capstone here are some photos of pictures and photos of things from Costa Rica, they are not necessarily in order because I have not yet mastered this blog-post-thing.

A detail of the bed we had at the hotel/bungalo where we stayed in Puerto Viejo on the Carribean side of Costa Rica.

A view of one of our travel mates at the ¨river camp¨ our first week in C.R.

here is a rather terrible drawing I did by the beach one night. The representation is horrible, but i think it´s kinda funny.

This dog was very sleepy and kinda lived at the hostel in Monteverde. This picture reminds me of a drunk friend passed out in the morning.

Obligitory guitar-river shot from Lake Arenal in Costa Rica.

This was the view from our hostel in La fortuna, That is the Arenal Volcano. La Fortuna sucked, don´t go there unless you want to spend a lot of money on very very touristy things. But the volcano is supposed to be cool looking at night, but it cost like $20 dollars to get to a view point where that mattered.

This is the first drawing I´ve done this trip that I really like. I bought a Costa Rican skate mag the other day so I could do portraits because I was sick of draing bed hammoks and hostels.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

PNW vs. CR round 1

So, My camera has been on the fritz, some of these pictures are mine, some are not. But whats important is that I went on a really awesome hike through a cloud forest!

Im in Monteverde right now which is in the mountains kind of in the center of the country. Its a pretty temperate climate, and actually reminds me a lot of the Northwest, so incase you were wondering, yes, i did break out my plaid button down shirt.


Impressively I have had a string of luck on my way to and in Monteverde. I was sitting in the dirty dirty puntarenas (The Poont as reffered two by two guys I met who studied there) waiting for my bus and two guys in a cab come by and try to hustle me into a cheap, but not cheaper than the bus, taxi to Monteverde.

I declinded and they dove away, only come back 5 minutes later and offer the same ride for FREE! needless to say I was very happy and accepted their invitation.


When I got to Santa Elena, which is the town in Monteverde, They took me to the hostel that one of them owned and I got a $5 private room with my own bathroom and free breakfast.


Anyway,

without much else here are a few pictures from my hike yesterday


Monteverde is a cloud forset in Costa Rica. If it isn´t all at 100% humidity it is damn close. The hike we did was long-ish, like 2.5 miles or something. The view above is supposed to have a volcano in it, but as we were in a cloud forest you could not see it.

We climbed this awesome tower and it was really cool, but once again very very cloudy, so the picture really doesn´t do the scene justice. but you do get a glimpse of my barba development (thats beard incase you were wondering).


The only non insect animal we saw was this quaddle (i really dont think that is the proper spelling) circling around the trash back by the information tent. pretty feral right!



Monday, August 24, 2009

Half way through a quarter of the way through the beginning

First a disclaimer:

I am a horrible speller, I will not spell things correctly, and I may not have the conviction to spell check every time i post somewhat infrequently.

I just recently read a note from my friend (and for some of you, your friend as well) Max. In it he talked very explicitly about writing while traveling. Its funny that no less than ten minutes after reading that I switch browsers to do exactly what he detailed in his note. Max was, in a far to complex way, talking about how as artists, writers and people we share our experiences of travel with those who are back home. This seemed especially relevant due to the fact that My very reason for starting this blog was so that I could have an easy way to keep any of you back home updated on my goings and doings while traveling. It's a funny feeling knowing that going somewhere so far away leads you to desire intimate (though in this case only one-way) communication with those you left.

Alright enough of my philosophical bullshit.

Costa Rica has been a blast so far, I was with my mom for the first two weeks (up until yesterday) and now I am on my own, in a surf town called Santa Teresa on the Northern Peninsula. Our "Week of Adventure with" Costa Rica Rios was amazing. We stayed in a river camp in the Jungle for two nights, we biked across volcanos in the pissing rain then after me and my mom went to Manuel Antonio for a week of solid vaction. I surfed all last week, and it was fun, I swallowed at least a gallon of Salt water, and then after that i felt like I was ok. So today we went to Santa Teresa to surf where there are legit waves and i found out that i am still very very very very much a beginner, meaning, I couldn't even paddle out to where the real breaks were.

So that's it for the most part. I have no pictures because I am kind of lazy, but also haven't taken that many. I would say something along the lines of, promise some are coming, but then if I didn't deliver that would be even lamer.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

T-minus 48 hours

I'm not very good at packing, I often pack too heavily and almost always forget something important despite overpacking.

Hopefully this will help:

Checklist:
bag
day bag
3 pairs shorts
1 pair pants
3 v neck t shirts
2 tanktops
1 athletic shirt
1 collared shirt
1 hoodie
1 water resistant jacket
1 beenie
5 pairs socks
3 pair underwear (might be buying some more, then again maybe ill just abandon wearing any underwear)
Running shoes
flip flops
Enough deet to stip my skin off
sun screen
medkit including: cyprol, painkillers(perscription and over the counter), other various creams and ointments, lots of bandages, MOLESKIN, a pair of little scissors, some over-the-counter stomach chewys and other random things that seemed like a good idea.
1 travel book
1 other book
sketch book
watercolor set
bag of pens and pencils
Camera
and other stuff

I am not taking a computer or an Ipod with me. The computer was pretty obvious, I just don't want to worry about it, The Ipod was a bit more of a decision. I think it'll be benificial to not have any destractions. Similarly i'll be unable to retreat to my safe little music bubble which might force me to do more things such as: draw, drink, people watch, read(which i do way to little of), meet new friends and go on small or sometimes not so small adventures.
My next post is going to be after I go to the jungle in Costa Rica, hopefully I'll have some rad pictures.

On a different note, here is the first page of my new sketchbook. Since the name of my blog is "sketchdout" I figured it would be pretty weak not to have a sketch in my first post. I wanted to finish my old sketch book and get a new one before my trip, and here it is, pertty, red and shiny, well, not shiny.