Day Eleven: My Just Deserts

I did not wake up early this morning; however, I did go running with my dog at the ripe hour of 9 am. It is a hilarious thing to witness. For those who don't know, I have an Australian Cattle Dog. I got Bonsai a little over a year ago after reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" (highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Shakespeare's Hamlet) and decided that having a ridiculously intelligent and obedient animal companion was on the top of my priority list. In truth, I am just as often surprised by his lack of intelligence as I am by his intelligence. He is smart, playful, and strangely affectionate. He follows me from room to room, talks to me and to several plaster sculptures in the house (not exaggerating, he has this swamp creature voice that is simultaneously amusing and disturbing) and is constantly trying to lick everything that he comes in contact with.
Anyway, he is a herding dog, and he herds anything he can...small children, stuffed animals, bones, you name it. When I run, I am a troublesome cow, and he herds me. I always forget that between trying to pee on EVERYTHING and herding, he is incapable of running, unless its in circles around me while pouncing on my feet.

Why am I talking about my dog? Because I don't want to talk about art. Here is the pic of the progress I'm making. I'm mortified, but I promised a pic, so there you go. I'm listening to an audiobook while I paint this, "The Brothers Karamazov" which is one of my favorites (I'm a huge fan of Russian melodrama) and so I'm trying to imagine that the woman I'm painting is the model of Russian beauty as Dostoevsky would describe, which is to say that she might make a good water polo player.


Anyway, I had band practice today with my band, The Art Stars (presumptuous and pretentious name, I know). Tom made me record vocals for the newest song on our set "Wait for You". It sounds pretty rad. I'm excited to go into the studio to do a good recording of it. We're about to start a 10 week recording session and at the conclusion, we'll have a full length album.

Also, I dropped off three paintings to The Box Gallery for a show that will be opening this Saturday from 7pm to 10pm. Stop by and check out the art if you get a chance.

But if you are in the LA area, and don't want to drive far, please try to make it to Kim Ye's show at the Deborah Martin Gallery in downtown LA this Saturday. It is her first solo show, entitled Synapses and I am expecting it to be totally awesome. "Ye’s brutally delicate chimeras somehow comfort as much as they disturb – they are totems of our shared human vulnerability and dislocation. Her organisms’ unlikely eroticism transcend repellence and beauty, offering a peculiar familiarity and invoking a surprising sense of tenderness and affinity."