WORKHORSE VISUALS: January 2007

Logan and Sixten

Just got back from New York. I have been to NY a million times, and each time I had fun, but not like this time. For some reason going to NY this time was like a homecoming. It just felt right. I am originally from Baltimore, so the east coast way of life is nothing new to me. The straight forward, semi-aggressive way of dealing with things seems more comfortable to me than smiling and pretending you like something when you actually hate it. In the end, I just don't have time to bullshit with people I don’t like.

The purpose for the trip was do a K-Swiss shoe release at Atmos. Atmos has two stores - on in Tokyo, and one in Harlem. Odd to have a trend setting store in the middle of Harlem I thought, but I am always game for a trip to NY, so I jumped at the chance to go.

this trip was half vacation, half work. This time my girlfriend, Kristen came with me. For the past year, she has heard the names of people on my trips, but didn’t have a face to go with the name. This time she finally goes to meet the folks I have had the pleasure of knowing throughout the years.

Day 1 - December 13, 2007

JFK
Got into New York, and had a hell of a time getting into the city. I guess I wasn’t paying attention, but we got on the E line instead of the F line. . Maybe it was because I was hungry, maybe it was because I had to get up at 4am in order to catch our flight. who knows. But what I did know is that I got on the wrong line. we made it into Manhattan and transferred to the F train. things were going well - we thought - until we realized that on the weekends, the F line is rerouted. fuck. got on another line, then got off, then transferred back onto the F line. This time, we got on an express line, which zoomed past the stop we wanted. not a good way to start off a weeklong trip. finally we gave up, make it up to the surface, and then took a fucking taxi. when all was said and done, we spent nearly 3 hours trying to get from the airport to our place to stay. almost the same amount of time it took to fly to New York from Los Angeles!!

god bless the taxi's

Taxi dropped us off at Marc and Sara Shillers apartment. We had to pick up keys to the apartment we were staying at from them. Marc and Sara run the Wooster Collective and they were friends with Theme from Theme Magazine. Marc/Sara, John/Jiae, and myself all own (or owned) weimaraners, and oddly enough it is the thing that brought us together in a way

Marc Shiller hiding behind the camera

Sara Shiller

Theme from Theme Magazine were kind enough to let us stay in their place while they were in China and Korea. It was sort of a friend timeshare. a few years prior I had given them keys to my apartment while I was traveling throughout Asia. Seems like each time I am in NY they are not. or vice versa. This time, they left a day earlier than I arrived, and got back a day after I left.

before we went to unpack, we had dinner with Marc and Sara. It is nice to be able to walk out your door and have a hundred restaurants at your doorstep. we ate at this place and got Italian, and it was great. after spending 9 hours in the subway, and on a plane without food, I could have eaten the asshole out of a dead hobo. filled out bellies, went and got coffee at another place, then made our way to the apartment to unpack and relax.

got showered then went out for a drink at Max Fish . After a few beers, I was done for the night. stumbled home, crashed out, and have never been happier to close my eyes.

Max Fish inside

Day 2

Got up around 1pm today. it was one of those days that were hard to get going. the previous days travel took a lot out of us. once we finally got out of the house, we stopped by a crepe place, and checked out ReedSpace and Invisible.

Swoon piece in Lower East Side

Close up of piece

Luna was in Reed Space, but this was taken next door

managed to walk around the city a little, then we were off to Brooklyn to have dinner with Anthony Lister and his wife. I had met Anthony a few months prior in Melbourne, Australia, but he had since moved his family to New York. I really admired Lister's approach to art, and I was looking forward to just sitting down and having sometime to relax. We dined on an amazing Spaghetti Bolognese, wine, and chocolate mousse cake. After dinner, they showed us their apartment. I was jealous. their place was much bigger than my LA apartment, plus had a back yard!

sometimes I am still amazed at how mobile people are these days. here I sat, a Los Angeles based artist, sitting in New York, talking with an Australian artist. it seems like those with an unquenchable desire to live go where their hearts tell them.

after dinner, we made our way back into the city. Since jet lag was still in our systems, we didn’t feel like going to sleep. we did the only thing that we could - drink like a fish. a Max Fish to be precise! pounded some drinks, had a good time chatting, then back to the apartment again.

inside of Max Fish bathroom

Day 3

Our hotel was around the corner from here

this was across street from us

Today was time to relocate. The previous two nights we had stayed at Theme 's apartment because K-Swiss only paid for 4 night’s accommodations. Today our digs courtesy of K-Swiss kicked in, so we made tracks north towards Times Square to check into the Night Hotel. The Night Hotel was an ultra chic boutique hotel. At first glance, it looks like you are in the Madonna Erotica video. Pictures of semi-nude models adorn the walls, and aspiring models staff the hotel. I thought to myself, this place has to have amazing rooms. Visions of beds large enough to accommodate a drug fueled orgies filled my head. Those visions were corrected as soon as I entered the room. words like 'cozy' and 'cute' are the nice way of describing the room. regardless, it looked nice.

Hotel Lobby

hotel room

Jimmy blending into the hotel decor

There was no bath in the room. only a shower without a door. guess they figured it would have more of a modern look to have an open shower, but truth is that the open shower just watered the bathroom. nothing like moist towels, and a wet toilet seat.

Kristen wearing hotel cammo

The other downfall of the room was the bed. Having a 6 ft bed, when you are 6'1" is difficult. the entire week, I would have to sleep at an angle in order to fit my clown feet onto the bed.

enough bitching about the hotel room. regardless of what I thought about the hotel, I would rather stay there than not.

met up with the crew. once again I was reunited with Daisy, Jimmy, and Sixten. All three of these people have grown to feel like family. we are a motley crew.

Subway style

Quickly, we were off to pick up supplies at home depot, then over to Brooklyn to visit with Haze. Haze has grown to be a good friend the past few years, so I was anxious to check him out for a bit. Its odd to think about him being in LA for 6 years. Seeing him in NY it was obvious he was in his environment. New York through and through. I introduced him to Sixten, Jimmy and Daisy, and we checked out the final renovations on his studio and house. The house if friggin beautiful. I am officially jealous.

Sixten and I in Haze's studio

Round table discussion

the boys

After the visit with Haze, rendezvoused with Kristen, and my good friend Miya and then headed off to dinner at Landmark. Landmark is a really great restaurant that is owned by the brother of Chris from K-Swiss. Chris was the guy that accompanied us to South Africa, and he kept telling me about how great the food was at Landmark. He wasn’t lying. We ended up devouring our meals and plenty of wine as well. Then into the taxi and back to the hotel.

inside of the restaurant

Dinner at landmark

Dinner is served

Pumpkin Risotto

Miya doing it up for the camera

don’t fuck with me

I'd kill for a glass of water. no, really, I'd kill for a glass of water

the gang at dinner

As if drinking a few bottles of wine wasn’t enough, we headed to the Irish bar across the street from the hotel. this would prove to be a mistake. Kristen, myself and Sixten would work our way though 18 beers, and a few shots of whiskey. Luckily the hotel was only 20 feet away, so we retired for the evening.

Inside of the bar

this was the guy who owned the Irish bar we went too. he was a nice guy. the girl to the left is his daughter

His daughter took this picture which was on the bar wall

Day 4

Checking out the remnants of 11 Spring Street

The morning didn’t greet us with the enthusiasm I had hoped for. perhaps it was because for the copious amounts of alcohol consumed the previous night, or perhaps it was because of the fucking dwarf sized bed the hotel has. who knows. what I do know is that all of us felt like my tongue were wearing a sweater, and somebody threw a rabid dog into my head.

I don’t feel so pretty

we got up late, went to the W for breakfast. I looked like death warmed over. We managed to drink smoothies, juices, and coffee to nurse our hangovers. well, mostly my hangover but that’s beside the point. we headed back to the hotel and I took a nap.

Liquid Breakfast

Back in Black

yes, I felt as good as I look

Daisy felt better than I did

Jimmy felt better than I did too

Sixten didn’t feel as good though

say what?

After a quick nap, I was off to the airport. When I was in Brussels, I had the pleasure of meeting Adeline from Streetplayer. Adeline is a curator from Paris who was in the US to visit with artists. Today she was flying back to Paris but had a stop over in New York for 7 hours, so we agreed to meet for dinner. Unfortunately after traveling an hour to the airport to meet, she wasn’t were I expected. she was going to be in terminal 8, but that changed to terminal 1. she called, but the phone she called from was broke. seemed like somebody didn’t want us to meet up that day. oh well. I hung around, took more photos of the subway, and then made it back to the city.

rendezvoused with the gang and we headed to dinner at Joe's Shanghai for dumplings and Chinese doughnuts. Was one of the best dumplings I have had. After another exceptional meal, we headed back to the hotel to retire the day. Best thing about the hotel is that they had cable. since I don’t have cable at home, it was nice to watch all the cable TV shows.

Joes Shanghai Dinner

best dinners ever

religious Sixten?? I don’t think so

After Dinner treats

Jimmy and Kristen laughing it up for the camera

Day 5

outside the studio

Checking out the Paint supplies

Today we started painting the pieces for the exhibit. Because Atmos is too small to paint inside we decided to paint our pieces at a separate location, then project the time lapsed film during the event. It sounded like a good idea, but the location they got for us was small, and it had no heat. New York in January is not a tropical oasis. we could see our breath, and couldn't feel our fingers. on top of that they fumes from the spraypaint was enough to make Steven hawking stupid.

see that fog? that is the spray paint fumes

Jimmy making the frames we painted on

This is what was in Sixten's portfolio. yes, that is a beer

tools of the trade

Paint of choice

Sixten begins his painting

me starting my piece

close up of stencils

Close up of Sixten piece

completed pieces

We worked most of the day spraying out the pieces, but unfortunately the paint wasn’t drying quick enough because of the temperature. Around 5 we decided to call it a day and head to Atmos.

Atmos

One of the additional elements of the party was that Sixten and I work on a collaborative piece in the store. This was sprayed out after they had closed, and was put behind the cash register. We decided that I would do my pattern in a red on red color scheme, and Sixten would put his masked figure on top of it. It was going well, but we had to leave the piece half finished because some film crew wanted to film us the next day.

At Atmos

Close up of Sixten's Stencil

collab style

painting the final stencil

We headed off to dinner. The owner of Atmos had recommended a place called Basta Pasta. At first I didn’t know what to make of it. The food was a mixture of Japanese and Italian. Not two cuisines you would expect go together, but they did. Pasta with Sea Urchin was good. So was the cheese wheel pasta. hard to explain, but they take pasta and dump it into this huge wheel of Parmesan that has been hollowed out. It is mixed around, then served on a plate. I highly recommend it.

you gotta check this place out

that is the cheese wheel he is scooping the pasta out of

inside of the cheese wheel

After dinner the gang headed home, but Kristen and I headed over to Max Fish (again) to meet up with two friends - Gabriele and Jay. Gabriele I met in Rome a few years ago when I showed at Studio 14. Gabriele's wife’s, sister owned the gallery and the entire group of them became like my second family. This past September Gabriele and his wife moved to New York and this was the first time I have had to see them in a year. Gabriele is studying at the ICP, and is working on a series of photographs about slumlords that are trying to evict tenants from rent controlled apartments in NY. The other friend - jay - went to college with me. We have remained in touch, seeing each other about once a year for the past decade. Jay and I went to New Orleans years ago and got arrested. That story is too long to tell, but if any of you see me in person, remind me to tell you. it as eventful to say the least.

after catching up for a few hours, it was back to the hotel

Gabriele and Jay

Back to hotel

subway transit

Day 6

At breakfast before we got going

Today we had to get up early to do a TV interview at Atmos. I forget the station that was doing the interview. It was either channel 11, or channel 1. Doesn’t really matter since I doubt they will ever run the interview. It started out easy enough. The lady interviewing me asked the typical questions like how long have you done this, where have you been, blah blah blah. I finished my part, then they went to interview Sixten. This is the beginning of the end. I guess she used up all the 'good' questions on me because the questions she asked Sixten were shit. The one that I remember the most is 'when people meet you and they find out you do stencils, what do they say". The other good one was "is it true that stenciling started in Asia?". Although the questions sucked Sixten finished up. next up was the filming portion. They asked us to finish the collab piece we had started the night before. Since I had to lay down the base of the piece, I sprayed out the pattern. They filmed me then it was on to Sixten. For some reason the reporter decided it would be critical to the interview to participate in the process. She insisted in spraying part of the stencil. Sixten and I both found this a bit insulting, but it was Sixten that managed to set things straight. Somehow I don’t think that when reporters interviewed Basquiat, they insisted on putting a few brush stroked on his paintings. When they interview Barry McGee, I don’t think the reporters insist on going out on the street and tagging his name.

This was the interviewer that Sixten told to screw off.

me being interviewed

gassing the interviewer

interview

filming the filmer

the completed piece

completed piece w the Atmos crew

completed piece with owner of Atmos

Sixten taped up his stencil and started spraying. About half way through, the reporter said 'I want to spray the face', to which Sixten quickly replied 'then cut your own stencil'. The room got silent, and the US K-Swiss people seemed to get a little nervous. Sixten continued to spray and then sprayed the exact area that she has asked to spray. It was at that point she exclaimed 'so I cant paint any of it??'. No sooner than she finished her sentence did Sixten sternly say "NO", followed by an obligatory 'sorry'. I have video of it, so I will post it as soon as I can. She got her panties in a bunch and quickly stormed out of the store, and never came back. Her cameraman sort of lurked around for a bit before sulking out too. At first I was wondering if we had been too harsh on the reporter, but after hearing Sixten's thought, I knew he did the right thing by standing his ground. There are times when I wish I could speak my mind as freely as he did.

we cut out of Atmos, and went back to the icebox studio to paint the pieces. Today was a bit warmer, so that was good. Took us an hour or two to finish up the pieces, but we got everything done, and I was very happy with my piece.

Completed piece

us in front of the completed piece

Rolling deep to the Atmos party.

Lunch before going to Atmos

After that we grabbed lunch, and then headed back to the hotel to get ready. a quick shave, shower, and rest and I was ready to go. Decided to rock a suit tonight. Usually I am doing a live painting thing during these shoe launches, so I decided to dress up since I actually had the option to do so. for my tie, I had sprayed my pattern on it to match the shoe pattern I had used. Surprisingly it came out well.

fresh to death

Kristen looking good for the show

Arrived at Atmos and wrapped up last minute details like hanging artwork, and organizing the display of shoes and spray cans. Once 7 o'clock arrived the people filtered in steadily. Within an hour it was shoulder to shoulder with shoe connoisseurs.

Sixten holding his work

hanging work

I didn’t know what Harlem would be like. Unfortunately when you hear of Harlem in the media, it isn’t flattering. So this was the extent of my Harlem knowledge, aside from various Harlem trivia learned from Hip Hop songs. to my surprise every person I met in Atmos was friendly, warm, welcoming, and a pleasure to party with. The staff of Atmos was particularly friendly. Usually people who work at stores are nice to you because they have to be. At Atmos, everybody went out of their way to introduce themselves, talk, chat, and hang out. I can’t say enough good things about the place.

The Grand High boys

Grand High kicks

The DJ for the night was D-Nice. At first I didn’t know if it was the same Dnice from Boogie Down Productions, but sure enough, it was. The second music came on people started to dance, and it stayed that way until the very end. Any song that I liked was played. hip hop classics, soul, 80's R&B, you name it. it was played. I don’t know if I don’t get out enough, or if I have become accustomed to the LA way of life, but it has been a long time since I have seen people get out on the dance floor and dance for the fun of it. Usually it seems like people dance to be seen, or to show off, or something like that. This night people were making asses of themselves, and didn’t give a shit who was looking, talking, or dancing next to them. it was a refreshing change from things.

DNice

Nat from A Silent Flute and Dave Gensler from The KDU

Pax and myself

Anthony Lister getting laced with some Sabotaz paint

I forget her name, but she was a choreographer from Far Rockaway. She was really nice

one of my favorite pictures from the night

jimmy and sang (owner of Atmos)

As the night ended, we were wondering what to do. The crowd had filtered out most of the way and our host from K-Swiss had asked if we wanted to get on the party bus. I had no idea of what the Party Bus was, but we said sure. So, us, with about 20 other people stepped onto the bus. The bus was a mixture between a strip club on wheels and a limo. neon lights, stripper pole, and loud music was inside, but from the outside it looked like any typical greyhound bus. we made a stop at a liquor store and got a few bottles of Congac, whiskey, Vodka and other liters of hangover medicine. Within 30 minutes we killed the bottle of Henny. I drank some, jimmy drank little, daisy drank little, and Kristen drank some. Sixten on the other hand chugged about a quarter of the bottle in less than minute. After about 40 minutes, we were all drunk and decided to ditch the bus and head back to the hotel. Sixten blacked out at this point and his nose started to bleed. In the middle of the hotel lobby it looked like scene out of *Frank Millers Sin City. The hotel was all back and white, we were mostly wearing black and white, and Sixten's nose was the sole point of color, with red trickling out of his nose. We decided to grab a late night bite at the bar across the street, while Sixten retired for the night. The morning would prove to be Sixtens enemy after this night

Sixten and Daisy on the party bus

jimmy - the late night enforcer

yes, this is the reason

artist Rambo having issues with another

Day 7

Kristen and I got up surprisingly early and decided to head over to Brooklyn to catch the Ron Mueck sculpture show.

in the subway outside of Brooklyn Museum

When you enter the 5th floor to see the show, you are first greeted by a piece by Swoon. I knew Swoon was doing well, but I didn’t know she was doing THAT well. So fucking happy to see one of our own getting proper recognition. The piece happens to be the same piece that is on the newest issue of Juxtapoz.

No cameras were allowed, but I did manage to snap a few pictures. Ron's work is hard to explain. To say that they are hyper realistic figures that is larger or smaller than real life does not do them justice. The figures seem to follow you with their eyes from across the room. A few months ago a friend who was I my apartment complex died. Kristen and me stayed with her as she died, and after she had expired, we continued to look as though she was going to spring up from the bed at any moment. She never did and the hospice worker showed up to take her away. When you are looking at Ron's sculptures, you get the feeling that somebody just died. you wait for them to spring off of the bed, or for the hospice worker to show up. You enter into this eerie time vacuum.

After checking out Ron's show we went to the Walton Ford watercolor exhibit. Marc Shiller from Wooster Collective had insisted that we see the show. After seeing the first painting I understood why. Normally if you said there is a watercolor show, I would tune you out. If you said there was a watercolor exhibit of animals, I would walk away, but somehow Walton Ford managed to inject life into a medium and subject that is otherwise mundane for me. Unfortunately we got into the exhibit a bit late, and the museum was closing up. we saw all the paintings, but didn’t manage to read all the writing that accompanied the paintings. I took a few pics of the exhibit too, but they don’t do it justice.

Made it back to catch up with the gang. Tonight I suggested a restaurant to go too, but it was Friday night and reservations full. So, we went with the 3rd choice which was a place called WD-50. It came highly recommended to me, but after looking at the menu I wondered why. You know those places that seem to make things fancy just to make them fancy? yeah, that was this place. On top of that the portions were slightly larger than a crumb. I felt like an ass for recommending the place and having it turn out to be a dud, but not much I could do about it. We ended up walking around St Marks place and getting a slice of pizza and desert, then headed back to the hotel

At WD-50

look at that. where's the beef? that's not a mans meal

how do you get full on that?

Day 8

Today we went back to Theme 's apartment to stay for the night and just walked around SoHo and Lower East Side. Even though we walked for miles, it was relaxing to do absolutely nothing other than look at people on the street.

Day 9

Home again. Got up, walked around a bit more, then hopped the subway to JFK. I needed a vacation from my vacation. I was worn out.