Collaboration Nation Numero quatro

Collaboration number 4 from Jesse Albrecht, Dan Attoe, and me (Bill Donovan).

Dan Attoe

Dan Attoe makes another great painting! I am psyched to post a new Dan Attoe painting here.

Have you ever seen the totem poles in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? I am not well versed in their art historical signifigance, but I know they freak me out.

Everyone feels the need to connect to something greater than themselves.

Number 3 from Jesse Albrecht, Dan Attoe, and Bill Donovan.

Dan Attoe sent me his thesis from grad school

Dan Attoe sent me his thesis from grad school, and now I am thinking about anthropology and Carl Jung.

I found a blog that is a gold mine for someone looking for contemporary images of off-beat popular culture, which reminded me of anthropology. I have never actually taken a course on anthropology, and I dont even have a very clear idea of what it is except that it involves the study of a culture through the objects they produced.

If this blog is a record of the objects we produce, I think we will leave a cryptic legacy.

Dan Attoe, New Painting

Dan Attoe sent this new painting along of an Astronaut on a Lunar surface discovering the limits of our knowledge.




Side note: I will be away for the weekend on the last National Guard drill in my contract. 6 years. I have met a lot of great people in the guard, but I am glad to be finished. I feel like a weight is going to be lifted from my chest when I am done. I know that stress from being in the Army and being in Afghanistan has compromised my ability to enjoy life for 6 years.

I am not saying there were not some good times, there were. Or that I did not learn about the world, and human nature, I did. It was like living a little of Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness.

I have a lot of empathy for people in the military, and contrary to what many people think there are a lot of smart, curious, interesting, and articulate people in the army. I met several lifelong friends while serving in Afghanistan. If you are out there reading this I wish you all the best.

Collaboration # 2, from Jesse, Dan, and I

Here is the second drawing I have drawn on from Jesse and Dan.

Thinking about Figure Painting

I have been thinking about figure painting, and representational painting in general.

I think the key to making good painting does not have that much to do with producing a likeness, facile likenesses are the straightest route to boring painting.

I think that the point when representational painting becomes interesting is when the image is a reconstruction of the parts that make up the image, with signs of intelligence running along within the decisions of how the parts are represented. For instance when someone who has been drawing for 5 years learns to draw a very good likeness it is really exciting to them, but in 5 more years it has become tedious and a new solution is necessary. That is when things tend to get really engaging, the pulling apart and putting back together, and being able to "say something" with an image. The evidence of thoughtfulness, and the wizardry behind making an image force things on someone else's perception becomes exciting again.

I have been drawing a lot, and have found interesting things to read lately. The Believer has a phenomenally good article about Aby Warburg that really got my mind working overtime. I am also reading a few other books.

Working in Brooklyn is very interesting and I like going into the corner stores, last Friday I found one where I can get a buttered roll and a tea with sugar for $1.50, that's my kind of price - I can carry that in quarters, and my pocket won't even be heavy.

Dan Attoe emailed me a painting of bikers around a campfire that is completely amazing. Here it is:

Jesse Albrecht sent me some drawings that he and Dan Attoe had worked on.

So this is the first drawing I have worked on too.

I drew the old man with the multiple color face and the stripped shirt.

I like working with my friends. The three of us know each other from the University of Iowa, where we all went to grad school together.

I was excited to draw on this because both Dan and Jesse really made a nice drawing.

John Prine

I was sitting in Texas on a rainy Sunday afternoon, waiting for training to start up again on Monday. We were getting deployed to Afghanistan, a place I did not know too much about at the time, and I was feeling alone, tired, and dejected. I had just had to dropout from graduate school during my final semester, and I was feeling frustrated for the first time in an otherwise charmed life.

My friend Dan Attoe (a pretty famous painter in his own right) sent me a mixed CD of music he thought I would like, he named it MRE 1, after the Meals Ready to Eat in the Army. I was sitting there on my bunk, miserable, and I put the CD in my player, and I heard this song by John Prine. Man I started crying so fucking hard, I was beyond being embarrassed, and I cried so hard my throat got sore and swelled so I could barely swallow. Afterwards I felt better.

John Prine has a myspace page. If you search his name on YouTube there are a bunch of great videos, especially some duets with Iris Dement who has a phenomenal voice. The guy is pretty old. I already said what I had to say about his music.

Update: Click Here for John Prine singing and talking at the Library of Congress, John comes on stage at 10:40, there is a lengthy introduction

Cinders Gallery, and some Unstructured Thoughts

I found a gallery online, it is physically located in Brooklyn (Williamsburg), I am going to go and check it out. Here is the website. The name of the place is Cinders Gallery.



I found them through Kevin Hooyman's website.



They have a lot of drawing and self-published books on their website, and that's the two things I like best! They also have a links section with links to other galleries, artists, bands, and random NYC stuff the people who run the gallery like and want to tell you about.



My new work:

Unstructured thoughts:
I have two more new, new drawings (newer then the one above), but they are waiting on some finishing touches. I made them with red acrylic on gray/blue paper, and I painted a second middle tone and some highlights into them with a pale gray blue and a whitish gray blue. The drawings are going to continue to play with the idea of living dead. In the sense that when Freud wrote about the uncanny, and said that something uncanny is something that you can't tell if it's dead or alive, that's why I like zombies. I like zombies because they are somewhere between living and dead, there is a strong zombie cultural context from movies and Halloween, and that context allows me to be as playful as I want when constructing the identity of my femme fatales (Zombie girls). A lot of room to be creative, and easy to find source material, mixed with an interesting contemporary context, and the ability to play with identity, all lead to an exciting mix for me when I am drawing these. I am also interested in Zen buddhism, and the lyrics from Tom Waits songs, and they enter into the mix somehow. I have been immersing myself in self-published books lately, and that is also entering into my aesthetic, and I think I am going to end up being a pretty major source for either publishing or distribution of small edition art books.

You can see more of my art on www.diamondinyourmind.com and www.lesoiseauparle.com

Dan Attoe is a Man You Can Trust! Sublime Women, Easy Storms, and Cold Neon (or in the words of a poet: the good stuff)

I found something and I was not looking for anything

I started reading a pretty famous book about Zen, The Beginners Mind, that I made fun of when my father gave it to me as a birthday present. It is really interesting, and has a lot of genuinely profound insight.

I think this book could hurt no one, and help most people.

Click here to see the book, and 2 others

especially click it if your life is crazy, or if you feel like your brain is a chaotic swirl of mashed potatoes, pasta sauce, and a show from the adult swim programming on cartoon network.

Dan Attoe, New Paintings

Dan Attoe is a Genius

Link to Dan Attoe at Peres Projects

When I think of Dan I always remember this poem by Charles Bukowski called the Best, and I dont know if I legally can post it here, but CB wouldnt care cause hes dead anyways:


Worst And Best


in the hospitals and jails
it's the worst
in madhouses
it's the worst
in penthouses
it's the worst
in skid row flophouses
it's the worst
at poetry readings
at rock concerts
at benefits for the disabled
it's the worst
at funerals
at weddings
it's the worst
at parades
at skating rinks
at sexual orgies
it's the worst
at midnight
at 3 a.m.
at 5:45 p.m.
it's the worst
falling through the sky
firing squads
that's the best
thinking of India
looking at popcorn stands
watching the bull get the matador
that's the best
boxed lightbulbs
an old dog scratching
peanuts in a celluloid bag
that's the best
spraying roaches
a clean pair of stockings
natural guts defeating natural talent
that's the best
in front of firing squads
throwing crusts to seagulls
slicing tomatoes
that's the best
rugs with cigarette burns
cracks in sidewalks
waitresses still sane
that's the best

my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that's the best
for me.