Upcomming group show

It's been awhile. mainly cause i've been busy. i bought a video camera. shit's about to get weird. either way all of that art work is starting to pay off...

December 5th, at 7pm, I will be in a group show at Gold Star Bar in Chicago (1755 W Division St, Chicago IL). I'm not really sure what the show is gonna be like, or what exactly i will show thanks to my work being HUGE, and this being a group show with limited room. Either way, I'm excited to be showing at home with some new artists, and showing some of the ridiculous amounts of crap i've been making. If you are in Chicago you should come. It is gonna be fun.

After the show, i'll be jumping across the Pond for a few weeks full of romantic adventure comedy. for good measure, we might throw some suspense in there. who knows.

Now i need to go sew some things. and turn off this new john mayer... what a let down.

new work! it's huge!

I cleaned up my studio the other day, and realized i had finished something like 11 paintings in the last few months. I'm pretty happy with almost all of them, which feels pretty good. Alot of these are moving into kind of a crazy direction that i'm still trying to figure out exactly, but i'm excited about where ever that is going. here is a handful of the things i've finished. I've your remotely interested in helping any of these find a home, let me know...


"I remember it being colder" 12"x20" (apx). acrylic, charcoal, and ink on canvas


"Fantastic" 30"x12". Acrylic, ink, on canvas


(Untitled) 55"x40". Acrylic, ink, oil stick, charcoal on canvas


"Castle and Cannons" 24"x24". ink on panel


"Have You Ever Had Screaming Children Chase You Down the Street Simply for the Fun of It?" 4'x6'. ink, enamel, and charcoal on panel


"Mark me Down as Whatever" 4.5'x4'. ink, collage on panel


"Why am I Not the Brave Bird" 5'x4'. ink, collage on panel.


Bird print. 12"x12". 3 color print, set of 15. White layer done by hand, so all 15 are completely different.

times of transition

Dear chicago by ryan adams will be a good song forever.

It's the end of september. the air is getting crisper. I've started home improvements again.


i thought i had more to say then that.

i'm gonna go put my headphones on now.

turning over new leaves. fall in chicago.

it's that time of year that the best season in chicago is upon us. you can ride your bike without getting disgusting, your don't need a heating blanket, and back yard fires are at the height of their practicality. It's a great time to be back in chicago and will most likely be the times i miss most once I leave.

Being that i'm back in chicago, I've been working like a mad man. Being able to work larger again has been like a drug. These all currently look like a fucking mess of non sense... and most likely some of them will stay there... but currently heres some works in progress.

I tend to work from the literature i've been reading, but failed foreign aid to africa isn't the most inspiring of topics. That being said, ive started to work more about myself, back in the days or touring, my weird dreams and obsessions of rats... i'm not sure exactly.

Either way, here they are with size info. Tell me what you think. I'm serious. unless you're just gonna tell me it looks "carolesque".. in that scenario just keep your god damn trap shut.

oh and.. Listen to owen, read a moveable feat, and stay away from hamms. i promise all of these things are in your best interest.

2.5'x1.5'


2'x'2


2.5'x1.5' apx


two canvases, each 5'x1'


5'x4'

summer cleaning

it's that time of year...

cleaning out my hard drive, and my folders, and soon my servers. whipping things clean. getting rid of all the crap designs i have lying around no one has bought. maybe i'll just start giving them away? who needs some shitty merch designs?

anywho.. this is tough work that honestly numbs the brain. thank God i've got the west wing to get me thru this. That and lots of costa rican coffee.


In other notes, i'm bringing the dream journal back. I've been having hands down the weirdest twisted dreams probably of my life the last week or so, and i need to get them out of my head. I think i might actually make a better/bigger dream zine when soon with all this stuff... look out david lynch, i'm coming for you.

it's been awhile....

made it back from foreign and domestic travels abroad. Time to get to serious work...

look here for some pictures and potentially hilarious anticdotes about costa rica.

Look at www.thegreatestescapist.com for a new website soon with alot more content, a much more attractive design, and maybe even a site navgation system that isn't a giant piece of shit. we can only hope...


check ya later

print days....

silkscreening is seriously one of the most physically and emotionally draining activities i partake in. i swear to god it's 90% magic. how else can you explain 3 screens being exposed for the same time giving three different results.

needless to say, finishing my "traditional" pieces for denver first friday (june 5th!), has just opened up all my time to focus on my print series edition melissa and i came up with to finish around the show. the fact the blackhawks were a complete embarasment today doesn't help matters much either.

exhaustion.

I was computerless for a week. I've also been working like a total mad man. i as of now have finished 2 large paintings, a nice small canvas, and 8 12x12 panels. Left on the docket it my series of prints, which is becoming a much bigger bitch of a project then i originally intended.... oh well.

i'll try and put some pictures up later.

now i need to get back to work...

bloody neighbor.

i spent all day yesterday in a tattoo shop seeing my friend jon get a giant boat tattoo from our friend kyle. while there i hammered out the last sketches for my denver stuff...

so today, i'm finally getting to work. feels pretty great. lots of gesso everywhere... i'm about to experiment with coloring my gesso for this hideous painting i'm painting over. not even documenting it's existence first. but i'm stoaked about denver now. got some big pieces coming, and some small extremely affordable pieces that i might put up on my etsy or even build a shop on my website if they don't sell. they are gonna be hot!

so back to work. enjoy today. drink some beer. listen to as cities burn. call your grandma incase you forgot to on mothers day. cause i did. then she called to yell at me this morning.

shit's getting ridiculous

Yeah. Thats a ladder i have to use to draw the last piece in the "mononivore" series. It's 8 feet tall. shits ridiculous. oh, and you can see the salmon in the background.

Either way, it's almost done and i'm really excited. I also got the go ahead today that i will be hanging the ENTIRE series at once at the University of Illinois Chicago the last week of april (27-1). It's EASILY the most ambitious effort i have ever under taken, and i hope some people will come by to check it out. I'll post more info when i get it. for now, i need to put some fancy cheese on some fancy meat.

paper buildings

worked all day on finishing my corn installation. turns out fishing line is capable of slicing thru your skin... or i was pulling it that tight. either way, i have several cuts on my hands, which hurts. either way hopefully it goes well enough that i can hang it on location.

i bought almost 80 square feet of canvas today, and it is supposed to only be for 2 pieces. that's ridiculous. otherwise worked on a bunch of smaller ideas tonight that i'm pretty happy about... hopefully all of this experimenting is gonna cause for some great stuff for denver. i really need to start working on that....

new mexico

"Two weeks ago to the day i swore i would never move to albuquerque, yet tonight i find myself waking up in new mexico with a large rat problem"


I started working on some sketches for the Denver show last night. i'm not exactly sure how it's going to shape up yet, but i'm going with a decomposing/abandoned/dark view of the city, almost to critique the theme i came up with for out show.

back to home

Back in chicago. Back to work...

i'm pretty exhausted from denver/phoenix, but there are a lot of big things coming up, so i'm excited to get working