Blue Planet
collage feat. illustrations by Gervasio Gallardo
One Million Year Love Song
While listening to Tekno Love Song by CocoRosie on repeat I made this drawing. There is a tenderness to this song, a nakedness. It's a song about feeling like you're in love with the wrong person. I wanted to counter that and show an unbreakable bond between lovers, past, present and future. Time and love being nonlinear. They can only see who's hands they are holding right now, the individuals do not realize they are part of something bigger. People are looking out in different directions, only aware of the people beside them. If they look inwards they would see they are eternally together, connected through the circle. They form a wormhole to a moment where they forever stay in love, with every person they have ever loved and will love.
By and Bye
Somebody gave me a collection of Sam Cooke singing traditional gospel songs. In particular I really liked "By and By" and it was my inspiration for this painting. I wanted to show the union between the earth and spirit world, and the relativity of different guides through the winding paths of our lives. I see myself as the young boy facing opposite the path of his destiny, with his guardian mother behind him and a shaman woman to his left. Roots from the Tree of Life reach out to grab one foot while the serpent of Death and Rebirth have a hold of the other foot. He is choosing to sit and remember his life some more, and as soon as he is ready he will continue down the path to face his destiny. Nothing bounds him but his own idea of life and death. Meanwhile he sits and bides his time in a timeless moment.
By and By
Well children by and by when the morning comes
All the saints of God together at home
We will tell the story of how we overcome
And we'll understand it better by and by
Trials dark on every hand and we cannot understand
All the ways God will lead us
To the blessed promised land
He will guide us with his eye
And we'll follow till we die
And we'll understand it better by and by
Well children by and by when the morning comes
All the saints of God together at home
We will tell the story of how we overcome
And we'll understand it better by and by
Temptation's hidden snares often take us unaware
And our hearts are made to bleed
For some thoughtless word or deed
And we wonder why the test when we try to do our best
But we'll understand it better by and by
Well children by and by when the morning comes
All the saints of God together at home
We will tell the story of how we overcome
And we'll understand it better by and by
And we'll understand it better by and by
All the saints of God together at home
We will tell the story of how we overcome
And we'll understand it better by and by
Trials dark on every hand and we cannot understand
All the ways God will lead us
To the blessed promised land
He will guide us with his eye
And we'll follow till we die
And we'll understand it better by and by
Well children by and by when the morning comes
All the saints of God together at home
We will tell the story of how we overcome
And we'll understand it better by and by
Temptation's hidden snares often take us unaware
And our hearts are made to bleed
For some thoughtless word or deed
And we wonder why the test when we try to do our best
But we'll understand it better by and by
Well children by and by when the morning comes
All the saints of God together at home
We will tell the story of how we overcome
And we'll understand it better by and by
And we'll understand it better by and by
I created a series of 48 portraits and stories of my friends and family. Each person was numbered and as some of these people are connected through me or someone else, you can follow the number to correlating portraits and stories. Most of the stories describe either how I met the person or a memory I had with them. You Can't Have My Soul But Everything Else Is Free, has been shown in New York and San Francisco. I didn't post them all, but here are a few starting with Colleen...
This is Earth. Earth has eyes like bluegreen glass, dark blue glass sometimes. The first time we met was on the U.C. Davis Campus for the Whole Earth Festival. I traded her special chocolates for a raw spring roll. Now she lives in New York. The other night she wanted to go Lily snipping. This isn’t code for anything. She wanted to go snip lilies for her house. Earth is a teacher and she works with autistic children. She made a t-shirt that says I HEART SWEATY DANCERS.
Kensho is this Japanese emcee I met at Rockin’ Java in SF. It was this coffee spot at the end of Haight St. and on Monday nights they had the Hip Hop open mic bringing in shouting rappers from miles around. Kensho has a sick style, it’s like a machine gun shooting blanks in your face. He would rap full blast and then as soon as he was done, he’d apologize saying, “Sorry. I messed that up”. Big sad Japanese face. He told me once his fantasy was a Korean girl with a black ass.
"Asian kids can’t relate to cinema, videotapes, searching for identity within these mediascapes" --Kensho Kuma
I can’t figure out what motivates Phillip yet… Great things are always happening to him but then he just kind of shrugs like, ‘What are ya gonna do?’ Like it’s a burden to be rich and talented, shoulders heavy shrug. He’s one huge mystery behind 1950’s Christian Dior frames. My roommates say he’s fay like most of my guy friiends. I introduced Phillip to takoyaki balls and he eats them up to three times a day since he lives near Otafuku. He once wrote the owner of Otafuku because they wouldn’t give him tap water to take his medicine. They wanted their customers to buy bottled water instead. Otafuku has since raised the ban on tap water.
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