Faded pictures

I started this blog to somehow cope with my empty nest, but despite my attempts, the facts remain: you raise your kids, they go away, their youth stretches out in direct proportion to you getting older, and just as you find solace with your creative life, you're back to facing the same old demons, whatever they may be. Good thing no one tells you this at the beginning. Maybe that's what my mother was trying to say when she said, so forthrightly (and she wasn't always so forthright), if given a choice she might not have had kids.

I thought about this all weekend, just to match the mood of the cold and rainy, gray and overcast days, and then as i was rummaging through the fridge this morning, I noticed them— faded, partially hidden pictures, pinned on the door by magnets, of past trips, of past happinesses, faded and almost gone. But not gone, like a memory lodged inside the brain. So, not empty either, when you get right down to it.

 Joshua Tree

 Mekko and Ben

In London on Abbey Road with the kids

Along the Arroyo

There's a perfect little spot off Via Marisol in Highland Park, called Hermon Park, not more than ten minutes from my house, with lush lawns, a busy dog park, tennis courts and Art in the Park, home of the Lalo Guerrero School of music, run by the formidable Berta Sosa, a Mt. Washington neighbor. But best of all, and something I just discovered, is a way down into the Arroyo Seco, and onto the bike path. 

(You can't access the bike path at the pedestrian bridge, as Wikipedia claims, but further north, adjacent to the dog park. Watch out, sharp curve here!)

The Arroyo Seco is a stream that starts in the Angeles National Forest, makes its way down the mountain into La Canada Flintridge and Altadena, flowing underneath the Foothill Bridge, under the Colorado Bridge, then into a concrete flood control channel along the Pasadena Freeway, flowing southeast of Mt. Washington, past Hermon, Highland Park, Montecito Heights, Cypress Park, and ending at the LA River, near Elysian Park.

Whew. That's a busy stream, for such a meager trickle once it reaches L.A. But because it runs inside this wide, concrete channel, making the stream seem even more meager, there's plenty of room for biking.

The concrete walls are gray and ugly, but the ride itself is not, as you take the graceful curves and experience another world along the Arroyo. The other day, I rode past Montecito Heights, past my own exit, off the 110 freeway, then turned around and headed north for a mile or so, emerging near the San Pascual Stables in South Pasadena. 

Along the way I kept noticing chipped off indentations in the concrete banks, things that I'd otherwise not notice, save for the fact I'd just read cartoonist Lynda Barry's Picture This, a hard-to-describe illustrated book about the creative mind. She finds images in ink spots and stains on paper (Saul Steinberg found them in fingerprints!), augmenting them just a hair to make a monkey or a buffalo or any kind of  demented animal. And here they were in the Arroyo, chips that were life size, gouges formed by wind or water, or, perhaps, weak construction. 
 
I noticed this one in particular:

What does this look like to you?

A few days later, when it was almost dark, I came back with my partner in crime, Molly. We painted in the indentations:

  

Then I went to work stenciling what I had imagined: 

Africa and the island of Tazarat, Land of the Giant Rat!

(click to make larger)

It got darker and darker and I kept adding more rats, until it became a heavy migration. I'll call this one an experiment, not yet done. Of course there's no Tazarat, except in my mind, and on the digital pages titled "Voyage to Tazarat" in my computer. Now it exists on this wall, as well.

•••

For those of you who follow my other blog, Rat's Nest Comics, here's a new one called "Woman Seeking Treatment." Enjoy.

 

Lily

Lily

They call them exotic pets, but there was nothing exotic about Lily. She was blind, she didn't like to be touched, she'd bite our toes under the blankets, she wouldn't come when we called, spending many a night in the oven, but sometimes, when she was on the verge of sleep, we could pet her and she'd relish in the touch. 

The first time I saw her she was on the shoulder of a teenager who sold her (and Blu) to us. We knew the minute we got home, they'd given us a blind, unfriendly rat, but we didn't care. We still loved her. Tom found her dying in the cage this morning at 4 a.m.; I took her into the vets around 9, to have her put to sleep. Her heart was strong, but she was in pain and Tom insisted I take her in. Perhaps it was the best thing, but I don't know, maybe the business of dying for a rat takes a long time.

Here's to you Lily, for being who you were without apology.

Street Art on the eastside....

I've been roaming around Highland Park and Silverlake today, trying to distract myself, bumping into dancing bums and art everywhere. After today I might even say that northeast LA is the street art capital of the world.

Take this first mural, made by Sand One that I saw on the side of a building on York Ave.

 Sand One

in Highland Park

Sand One is one of the most popular street artists around in this part of town. At first I wasn't so keen on her style, but now that I know what it takes, I'm a fan. See more of her work at: www.sandoner.com.

 My favorite mural in Highland Park, Monte Vista and Ave. 52

 Transmission Shop, York Ave. Highland Park

Wheat Paste on Figueroa near Ave 34,

Cypress Park

 Spray paint by Vixz

Ave. 56 and Fig

Utility box at Tropical Icecream

 Silverlake 

(where AA meets)

Today I started to experiment with a stencil and some cans of paint. It was the only thing, besides driving around and bumping into things, I found I could do.

This last one I call Triple Ratz, or Rat Dance

(Thanks, Melanie!!)

••••

And one last one: original art made in the street, with Louise Steinman, for a performance piece called, Dog's Head Route, performed in Portland, OR, 1980.

This is not a Rat  

Frogtown Rat Rider, Part Two

Dear Readers;

I had to do a little redo on this post. Some viewers were unsure as to what exactly they were looking at, that is, what was the original street mural, and what was my part. So I've added some photos to clarify. Also, my first post on the Rat Rider might help explain as well. 

Here was original Mayan mural found in Frogtown:

(Notice a ladder on the ground, 

perhaps they were trying to do a little touch up?)

And here was my first addition:

Frogtown Rat Rider

(click to make bigger)

And here is where I left off, adding the Mayan warrior boxer (or, at least, half of him):

Warrior Boxer and Frogtown Rat Rider,

Mayan mural on Blake Street

My friend Molly and I put this up last night right before it began to drizzle, then rain, and then pour, and I should have listened to her about the weather forecast, but I had a need to complete this incomplete mural, and so we went: step ladder in hand, two brushes, a bucket full of paste and our cameras that we couldn't use because our hands were too sticky.

Today Molly called after the rain and told me the boxer was still up (we had our doubts) but her mother, who she took along to see it, asked her why I hadn't finished the mural— those people with only one arm and leg, she couldn't understand it. She must've thought me lazy, leaving it so raw.

After we'd done the deed we went back to my house and played with rats, or the one that would play, Blu. Here's Molly and Blu, who couldn't stay away from each other, esp Blu, who had a thing for Molly's fake fur hoody. I had to make sure she didn't "accidentally" take my fat rat home with her.

Just hanging

•••

endnote: Like most natives of Louisville, KY, I'm a big fan of Muhammad Ali, who was born Cassius Clay in Louisville when it was still a fiercely segregated city. The book, Muhammad Ali: in Perspective, by Thomas Hauser (Collins Publishers San Francisco, 1996) was my inspiration for the warrior boxer, with a few tears thrown in for how much I love/loved the great Ali.

 

 

One for the Road...

 Mekko on rat rock

1988

We're getting ready to head out to Joshua Tree today; it's my b'day tomorrow and the only place I want to be is in that spiritual force field. If you've been there, you know what I mean. We've been going to JT since the kids were literally babies. Tom and I taught them how to climb the rocks, scramble up impossible crevices, jump across 3 ft wide and 20 ft straight down gaps, trek into no man's land where no man, or woman for that matter, could save us if we fell. We climbed until our fingers were stripped raw and our knees beat up and bloody, until we could barely walk back to the car. God those were the beautiful, good old days. 

 Maya at sunset

When we go there now, the kids leave us in the dust. We struggle to keep up to their jackrabbit ways, as they hop and leap and glide over the boulders, looking back at us as we limp along. It's a whole change of guard: they lead us now. 
I don't know why I'm getting so nostalgic just because it's my birthday, but I am. I wish those kids were here right now to climb with us tomorrow.

 On the rocks with Maya and Mekko 
Wonderland of Rocks

(photo credit: Tom Harjo)

•••

A friend— I call her that although we met online and I've never met her in person— posed a question on her blog, asking: what is it you do, what is your project, that allows you to possess your past? I realize I have an answer, but I've been too embarrassed to put it on her blog, so here's my response: Project Fun, Project Happiness. That's what makes it possible to posses my rotten past. I've given up being serious, political, consequential. Maybe that's a product of getting older; I'm giving up on making a mark. As impractical as it may be, I want to be happy.

Okay enough already! Some announcements: 

Please check out the Occidental and NELA Bicycle Art Show at Occidental College, opening this Thursday, Feb 28, and running through March 15, at the Weingart Center gallery. Margaret Gallagher, whose concept it was, told me the gallery hasn't been used since the last curator left. I think this show will be lots of fun (oh dear, there's that word again) and if you come, you'll see a piece by Smiley Barnacle, the name alone is worth the free price of admission. I also have 2 photos in the show.

And a new comic!

This one is about my hairdresser, an ex-drug addict, a sweetheart and someone who drives me crazy with her stories. Here's one of them:

 http://ratsnestcomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/my-hairdressermy-sniper.html

Now to get on the road....




 

Frogtown Rider

Last year, not so long ago, my teacher at Art Center said to go big, so I did: after trying a wall outside, I drew on my built-in cabinets. 

Then, one day, after my class had ended, biking along the LA River into Frogtown, I saw this decaying Mayan mural, with holes in the wall, along Blake Street:

Ah! Doesn't that Mayan Princess need a rat? Yes, I think she does! 

Let me see what I can do...

 

Melding rat and rider with mural. My first wheat paste, done under the protection of night.

Frogtown Rat Rider

The Mayan warrior was much bigger than I thought! But come to think of it, doesn't that man need a ...? More to come.

•••

Thanks goes out to Ivonne Adel-Bureos, artist-in-residence at Nomad Studios;  Ivonne is a prolific printmaker and street artist, working in Mexico City, and so much fun! She's having a show at Nomad, with founder Damon Robinson, on Feb. 22, running through the weekend. Check it out!