Thanks Tiger

I went to my parents home for which i spent just under half of my current tally of years in life. When I entered the old homestead I found Laying before me, on a shelf in a display case, a recently unearthed masterpiece from my fledgling years in artistry. I had in kindergatten I believe been ordered  as per usual to separately from the class (my kindergarten teacher made me do all assignments opposite the rest of the class alone or with the assistant) go & make the craft for the day that was assinged us. We were made to make a frame out of some form of clay that appears like dough. then we showcase a photo of ourselves like a nice jelly filling inside of it.
Before you here is this work now modernized by my own mother for the new generation to understand via Iphone technology. each touch up option & titling was done completely by herself with her own artistic instincts.

Medium:
Mixed media
Photo on Kodack paper glossy circa 1985
Clay dough?
Glue

iphone re-photograped & digitaly touched up & titled by Linda Christensen 2012















This was a wonderful start to my thanksgiving yesterday! Overall it was a magic event. I witnessed more further developments in technology with the family. I saw the new Ang Lee movie Life of PI, where Ang took film to new heights by showing a full on male tiger genitalia spray piss in your (the viewer in 3d glasses) face in 3D via computer animated urine stream technology. I had previously only known this to be used in modern pornography. The movie itself is full of piss jokes in fact. It seemed like a recurring theme. It came up so frequently, not including the title characters name. I definitely felt as though I was being unwantedly pissed on by the stories transparent motivations.
Afterward Via Skype technology I spoke to my brother who lives 13 hours in the Phuture from me, & descibed to him the marvels of the piss technology.

The Phuture is Bright
Never give up
Like our own bodies take in & flush out unwanted toxins liquefied,
 so too does the world.

Gouache!

I made this yesterday as a test for myself & Andrice's Gouache demo she is doing for the IPRC comics program. I have an aversion to using a brush as I am a little like a cavelord with tools. Which is why I use color pencils predominantly. I can grip em & push em in the paper real hard like! But I also love the way Gouache & water color look & function so much! So thanks to Andrice I had the opportunity to learn from a real master how to use it. Now I just need years of practice to make nice brush lines, learn more fluid control & experiment with blending techniques. Gosh! Overall I was totally pleased with this image. She told me to draw something simple that I could apply flat non modeled color to. When giving me an example off the internet of what she felt would work best she scrolled through several other artist painting examples, of which featured one unintentionally new agey humorous image of a female nude with a huge leaf she held over her head. I found it to be strangely beautiful & unfortunate at the same time as it seemed to say so many more things then its artist was aware of. It was the sort of thing that unfortunately represented so many sad contexts in contrast to what its intended meaning was. An image fighting itself. I wanted to make something based on it but I had to be quick & was thinking a lot about my recent play I did for Gridlords & this mask making African tradition that my friend Cameron Hawkeye was pumping me up about. So I made this woman who is meant to look like she is performing a theatrical piece with a leaf mask instead to a leaf wall that removes us from a feeling of soul through the eyes or expression as apposed to the original inspiration which drew most attention to the void & the naked female form with its oppressed tired posture. 

It was a lot of fun despite how I may have whined along as I got scared of the brush:) Its super fun how easy it is to make light forms on top of dark! That is something I am always wishing was easier with color pencil. Its difficult to get light forms crisp on top of dark forms outside of a limited colors palette. Also it is so easy to fix mistakes in gouache whereas you cannot in color pencil for the most part. total magic! Andrice is a great teacher!

SHORT RUN MEMORIES RUNNETH OVER!

HOLEY MOLEY!!! OK! So I totally went to the Short Run small press fest again as I previously stated to be true! It was absolutely excellent!!! I felt like royalty all weekend! I found my visage in print as part of the Short Run exhibitors & events booklet among a series of loved ones & other fine artists I respect, all drawn by Kelly Froh herself:) Then I found the same images printed as a bookmark! YES!!! MY FACE IS ON A BOOKMARK WITH BUDDIES DAVID LASKY, TIM GOODYEAR, STEFAN GRUBER, TIM MILLER, & ANDRICE ARP!!! AHHHH! HOW AM I SO LUCKY?!!!! CRAZY! OKAY! yes!
Okay so I rode into town on the newish Bolt Bus with Andrice, Theo, Jason, Suzette, & Julia. I read some collected Sally Forth all the way up, practically. Julia & Suzette did a celebratory impromptu theatrical reading aloud in full of the new 66-page portion of my series 2005 on the bus. I found a new Gardetto product I’d never eaten at the rest stop! The snack of champions!
Upon arrival in Seattle we 6 friends split in half to hook up with our corresponding housing friends. Andrice, Theo & I got to stay at the beautiful home of Short Run organizer Eroyn Franklin. She greeted us with mad excitement & the desire to get awesome ASAP! She was ready to party!!! We met the 2 wonderful cats of the house, Eroyn’s gorgeous & friendly mewser Pillow, and her roommates cat PP DOODOO. Mrs PP DOODOO was so silly & wanted to break out the window all the time so she could be let back in through the sliding glass door! I fully understand this game! IT’S SO FUN!!! it’s like you exit & then pretend like time has passed and when you return that TV applause plays upon your entrance! AWESOME!!! I love it!
OK so we set up camp in the house & raced forth to dinner at a weird restaurant themed after old men with crotch rockets that was around the corner from the Fantagraphics boostore. We ate some Nachos, guzzled some Horse’s Necks & were in full party & book shopping mode!!! We went to the gallery upstairs to see the release & art show for the new issue of Intruder. It’s a psychedelic new thunderstorm of madness! The show introduced me to the work of a new dooder, who happened to be the guy I tabled next to the next day, named Darin Shuler! Mountains of Portland buddies were trickling in & we all got awesome keg style between that upstairs gallery & Fantagraphics where Lasky, his writing partner Frank Young & Abe Lincoln were presenting their new books & art. Later that night Andrice, Theo & I had an intimate drinkypoo with Eroyn & Tim Miller before calling the night a complete party success! We got a good night’s sleep. Theo said that Pillow failed to live up to her name but PP DOODOO slept next to his face all night.
With the coming of the morning we raced to the Vera Project to get tabling! Bright eyed & bushy tailed we were greeted by mountains of friends & puffy-eyed smiles! Some who drove in that morning & many who partied with us all night long! We got set up, Andrice with her new & 1st ever zine and me with my new 66-page section of 2005. Within minutes people were crawling all over us! IT WAS AMAZING!!! TIME JUST SHOT BY!!! I talked to so many lovely people & friends, & before I knew it I was racing back’n’forth for performance in the animation & performance room run by Stefan Gruber. I did a 20-minute set of live music while doing a theatrical reading of 3 of my Church of Awesome Thought comics accompanied by my band Magic Caves (Julia Gfrörer & Suzette Smith). Later I caught the shadow puppet theater of mega buddy Erin Tanner. I was truly moved & also introduced to the music of Ray Lynch. All of a sudden I was back & performing with Magic Caves for my 3rd time a live music set to Stefan Gruber’s Brilliant Both Worlds. This was, in my opinion, our best perfomance of it yet! The addition of Julia on Theremin was epic! Peter Frampton, Jean-Michel Jarre, Autechre, & Ivan Maximov would be proud!
All of a sudden the show was over! WHAT!? Yep! It was as a whirlwind of fun that felt like it lasted 30min! Then I got to make faces at Theo who I miss so much! I got to hi-five millions! I also sold a bajillion books which feels so good as this doesn't happen in portland! I met so many nice new faces namely Darin, Elaine, Erin Birgy in person, Sean Ford, & Finn Colando.
With the feeling of instant nostalgia dividing me from the present, we went to party more. We went to party our ourselves clean, we went to party ourselves into a friendsy (yes a friend-sy), we went to get nuts but just before nuts we hat to eat dicks. Andrice, Suzette, Julia & I went off & ate at Dick’s. We had special Dick burgers & I had a vanilla Dick shake. It was filling. We got some whiskey & poured into the empty Black Lodge where in a short while we were all dancing into a sweaty cluster to the delicious house sounds of Airport! It was magic!
By morning I felt like a plastic doll all dry with a sweat gloss & Eroyn & Tim gave Andrice, Julia, Suzette & me a personal tour of the Soil Gallery art show which so many friends had work in. It was so well put together & such an amazing show! A true testament to how comics are an Art.
With heavy hearts, tired eyes, dehydrated shells, big smiles, & bags full of new books to pore over, we banded together for a very confusing mess that Bolt Bus & the Seattle Seahawks created for us & 50 other human beings.
The ride home was lovely. I missed Theo, PP DOODOO, & all of our out-of-town friends already & regretted a few macho party fouls I needed to apologize for, but I had such an amazing weekend with Short Run that I wished it never ended.
BUT WAIT! IT’S NOT OVER!!!! IT’S NEVER REALLY OVER!!!! IT LIVES ON IN OUR HEARTS & MINDS & BLOGS & IT WILL BE THERE FOR US NEXT YEAR!!!! WITH EVEN MORE FRIENDS & MORE FUN & MORE ART & BOOKS!!!!
LONG LIVE SHORT RUN!!!!

THANKS EROYN & KELLY FOR SETTING US IN THE RAD ZONE!