interiors (japan)

when i discovered this series of interiors

(paintings of a version of the space i live in here in japan, including my dog and a few household objects)

it felt like i finally found a clearing in my creative life.

for a long time, my creative life was almost stuck in survival mode.

art-making has been a real source of healing—
a way of making sense of myself
and how i move through the world.

before this

• ferocious moments

• despair

• total chaos & confusion

• headiness

• deconstruction

• altered states

• dream states

• self-doubt

• overcorrection

• people-pleasing (or thinking i was)

• abstract loose ends

• extra beauty

• some personal narrative

but this series is something else

it’s quiet
in a way i never fully explored
or was ready to expose.

it looks sparse
but how and when this work has come to me
feels monumental—
paradigm shifting.

what’s changing

there’s an allowance now
for the work to be what it will be

not overworking
not overcompensating
based on what another person might think

(not 100% pure, of course)
but the foundation feels rooted here

what they might be about

maybe perspective

many perspectives existing at the same time
in one space

visual skewing
awkward in their existence
but also like they’ve always been there

skewed delineations
marking big shapes

a wall worked over and over
building physical time
into a minimal form

constantly reinforcing
the inaccurate line
with unforgiving imperfections.

a note

learning more
with less

right now the work feels stable, consistent, slightly evolving, clean, a little naive.

impulsive urge for chaos.

tricky balance.

a kind of lull i haven’t felt before.

no doubt.

not boredom.

a stability that is quiet.

not a problem, just a condition.

really, this is a breakthrough and i need to continue to work it all out.

awareness of perceiving structure as boring or lacking.

this makes me feel vulnerable.

reminding myself to stop trying to squirm out of a vehicle

that i built to carry me into something new.

a new face, new language.

the winding fiery journey to get here has found a clearing.

attempting to grab this moment and live in this moment

before it changes. because it will. without my control.

realizations that i’m in less control than i think i am

even though this work is perceived as controlled.

protecting this little soft zone for a while.

taking my time.

painting once a week.

watching the series unfold in its own time.

paintings in progress:

• a hallway that turned into a memory

• a staircase that leads nowhere obvious

• light bouncing off walls i didn’t plan for

• scenes that feel lived in but not yet explained

  

slow thoughts:

i’ve been wanting to work like this for a while.
without urgency.
without translating every mark into language.

the paintings are speaking with warped familiarity,
or at least in their own way that i don’t control.

letting the material be the voice.
letting people enter the image and come to their own conclusions.
letting it breathe.

a thing i keep thinking:

this series is a reflection of my own search for serenity.
working with what’s close.

responding to the shape of my own days.

aware, always, of the turmoil outside the studio door.

not ignoring it but not forcing it into the work either.

art reflects the time we live in
even when it whispers.

today the studio is holding something close but not naming it.

soft resolve and ambient doubt hang in the air .

edges of clarity and blurry embrace.

no announcements. just presence.

Share

what am i trying to control ?

mostly seeking to make a by-product that surprises me.

less conscious “me” the better but the urge

to make a correct picture looms over me.

who is this manipulative stalker trying to

install priorities of control in the studio?

distortions and leaks .

meeting surrender and letting the image say it all.

when the recognizables don’t quite line up

and the tensions of their created existence

tell a story of imperfect marks and how that is the

real human story captured.

starting with sketches for this series .

these are loose memories of the space i live in .

i don’t do observational drawing or use photo reference.

i like the distortion of memory and the break it provides.

working title - “Interiors”.

the dog as a symbol for:

• companionship

• guide

• patience

• protection

• purpose

• sensitivity

• vulnerability

• spiritual medicine

• loyalty

today the studio is active.

there’s balance, consistency and flow .

finding reward in following through:

not trying and just keep making marks.

getting almost too close.

reproducing the external version of myself to face it, really though.

manipulating to find what the self is or can do.

fear is here and glad to meet you (with a wobbly handshake).

the dog is The Cheech and takes many forms.

he exists as a protagonist-guide-disrupter-alter-ego.

a new portal is opening and i’m slowly stepping into it.

The Cheech is by my side in this journey, no longer alone.

drifting between forms.

ultra sense ride.

building a world with no resolution.

only constant transitional states of building, editing and turning.

feel like i’m always trying to jump over a wall, but

maybe all of this only exists in the moment of an infinite jump.

7 day sitting pilgrimage- did a meditation each day for 5min and then journaled 5min:

• scanned energy body

• attempted to stay open for images

• searched for tensions and blocks

• observed the circle of stuff in the mind

• drawing with the body without direction

• felt failure but learned that’s a part of it

• opened up new approaches

• drawings surprised me

today the studio is opened up and alive.

accepting challenges and achieved some small wins.

lot’s of work to do and excited to keep digging,

make pleasurable moves and stop fixing.

there are various ways to push through.

didn’t plan for this.

it shifted and don’t know why.

maybe when the door was opened with me looking.

maybe i’m building a mirror that i didn’t know i needed or asked for.

a confused sincerity.

scattered introspection.

why reflection now- in these times?

now the work feels like it’s working on me.

these periods of reflection help the jump through the next threshold

the other direction is holding things together.

grateful for the Interior series (working title).

they are structured in a loving way.

building a home.

today the studio is thick with new challenges.

subtle excitement.

maybe this is what it means to be seen.

to paint through something you don’t understand yet.

what’s left is just me looking and not looking away.

playfully grotesque.

however it arrives.

swerving. adding. confusion. love.

sit and stare.

what kind of picture is this.

why this?

why this way?

faced with ambiguity and sitting with it.

waves of feeling redundant, blessed, confused and integrated.

the interior works are feeling mature.

side quest self portraits are also kind of interiors but chaotic.

interior/exterior- bouncing back & forth.

prepped up new canvas:

today the studio has empty surfaces and tangents to consider.

i put some paintings away to let them stew so i can come back with a fresher eye.

learning that i impose more pressure on myself than anything outside does.

will be furthering examining this rather than pushing it aside:

use the pressure.

more questions than answers.

arriving to places accidentally.

letting every move inform the next.

holding the tensions of the opposites.

index the marks and strategize.

resistance——release,

breathing cycle in process.

candid. not posed. mark before thinking.

surrender / control

creating a structure while skewing and bending it—

to see if it breaks.

interior paintings:

• feel like building a home

• meditative rather than cathartic

• layers of being

• emotional space

• open ended storytelling

• subtle dislocation

• flatness and possibility

side quest self portraits:

• self arrivals not self portraits

• less ego more instinct

• sliced up self and glitched

• plaaaayful

• about checking in

• painterly

  

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today the studio is active.

two paintings started that will go down different paths.

the unfinished sit patient.

doing it for the work. giving it the best shot.

it’s here, so give it a life.

not a statement.

not a launch.

just the first mark.

i’ve been circling a space like this for a while

something slower, softer, not optimized.

a place where ideas can stay unfinished,

where meaning glitches and doesn’t need to land.

a space where the creative process can be itself unpolished.

social media always felt like shouting into a wind tunnel.

this is more like taping a note to the wall and doing the next thing.

if you see it, you see it.

this studio report is where i’ll drop fragments:

• paintings in progress

• digital scraps

• sentences from the ether

• soft questions

• materials with moods

• intuitive logic, but in layers

• scribbled inner dialogue

today the studio is quiet and waiting.

i haven’t activated it in a while.

i get nervous during these down times that it’ll all disappear.

but then i remind myself:

let yourself go through it. just make the next mark.