Progress/ion

Dec 18, 2008 23:23

i drove around the city today through extreme ice (particularly on sidewalks, where even in hikers it was difficult to stay afoot) and overcasting, with "children of god" by the swans racketing through the car stereo. that's an album i had bought years ago (i was 15, maybe) and was puzzled by. was this an album of devout christianity?, i'd asked myself, being an adolescent atheist unsure of how to confront ANY belief structure with a godhead, much less a notoriously scary industrial band. some albums are meant to be grown up with. passages from this one ("now save your soul/damn you to hell!/now save your soul/damn you to hell!") recall dichotomies from other swans LPs ("i'll believe in myself/i'll believe in a lie"...."body to body/heartache to heartache"). one cathartic power struggle clashes with another, masculine identity alongside love for life spilling into lust for pain. whether the album i was listening to is devout hardly matters; with that ambiguity stated, it's still one of the most honest works i've revisited in ages.

anywhoooooo, that said, FREEZERBURN NUMBER ELEVEN IS OUT, and today, was distributed to a few choice locations. anybody interested in a copy should let me know soon; it's two dollars and numbered out of a hundred. the low cost is due in part to not having cardstock covers this time, but rather this cream-colored resume paper. some light hand-coloring is applied.

i stopped by the still-young CITY ART SUPPLY store, located on cherokee near gravois. it's a place i wish only the best for, being a brick-and-mortar resource for painters, inkers, printmakers and sharpie-ers. i chatted with the owner about doing a show, mentioning i do freezerburn.

"you're that guy?" he said, bug-eyeing me through large glasses.

"yes."

"huh." he said, pondering this fact for a few thick seconds. then he said that this spring, he might be interested in displaying my wares, although something (good, bad, ambiguous) had clicked in his mind. i left him a zine and took flyers for the store.

several hours were also spent touring south city coffee places with a rolled-up poster under one arm and that wonderful "fantastic art" book in tow. (one of the owners of mokabes observed me drawing and invited me to be a part of the south grand art gathering next summer, assuming i have more stuff done. i'd never known of such an event.) the new poster in what has become an indefinite series measures around 20"x30", utilizing whatever ink pens i have on me, and will have the same obsessive detail as the past pieces. the same vision, of sorts, is driving me; i'm drawing odd buildings and contorted figures, but so far the tone is less dark. doing stuff like the "map of the catacombs" last spring was ridiculously draining, with all the dark existential creepery coming from places i'm not fond of revisiting. in some parts, i may as well have opened a vein and splattered that on canvas...the result, for me, is the same. freezerburn is the fun public dialogue i get to have with myself, with nekkid ladies and cuss words. these posters are drastic expressions of theories otherwise hinted at. i ask myself why i do them, but today (with the coffeejitters) remembered that it's so flippin' FUN. my mind feels moreso at ease, with feeling either perverse or melancholy. i'm running with it.

melancholia. i have no idea whatsoever if i'll even see b again, at this point of deterioration; meanwhile, my dad asks me if she'll be visiting the house on christmas eve.
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