Textures and Patterns of Cádiz

There's no shortage of texture and pattern inspiration in Cádiz. From old and crumbling to new and shiny, beauty is found everywhere here.

Love this scene, but what really gets me are the swirling marks in the white area.

The corrugated roof is perfectly dirty and aged.

There's something about the shades of greens and blues in the window above.

I could have done a whole post on the doors here!

Yes, even the gray brick street caught my eye.

Horse door knockers.

Hand knockers

Inside a historic bull fighter's bar. So much to look at in this place.

The prettiest chainlink fence.

Ah, the pattern of these stones in the plaza near my house are mesmerizing.

Spotty pink bricks on the studio rooftop with moss growing between.

Pattern Inspiration in San Francisco

On Wednesday, I went to see a friend in San Francisco. We didn't have much of a plan, but we were thinking something like lunch and checking out the sunset at Land's End. My friend Gabby is a crazy-inspiring person. She has a lot going on in her life right now and actually kind of always does as a traveling, swimming (she just swam to Alacatraz!), pilot who is starting a company with her man. The day was like a breath of fresh air for the both of us. I won't write too much since the pictures speak for themselves. 

Mile Rock Beach, Land's End

A-maze-ing rock pattern

Gabby walking through the maze.

Mussels

More mussels... and look at that hole pattern in the sand too.

Sand lines with golden hour lighting.

More sand lines. 

A tree-like pattern. 

Fractals, dude. It always amazes me how this pattern exists so commonly in nature. Blood vessels, trees, lightning, snowflakes, this repeating pattern occurs everywhere. 

The view of the Golden Gate from Mile Rock Beach. You can see the mussels on the rocks here. 

Never a bad sunset here. 

The sunset getting more ridiculous.

View of the moon from Top of the Mark

We ended the night at Top of the Mark, the 19th story bar and lounge at the top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. We wanted to sit with a view of the moon and at first we couldn't see it. After a few minutes, we saw it peek out from behind this building.  We drank martinis while a jazz pianist played. Of course, the picture doesn't quite do it justice.

Such a good day and night.

Watching and Listening While Making Art

It's been a fairly transformational few weeks of art making. For the last six months, I have had a huge build up of ideas that I had been wanting to get out and these last few weeks finally allowed for that to happen. When I worked on my last solo show, Lay Low at Seeing Things Gallery, I had similar momentum, insight and revelations about my process. Being prolific is a really important part of being an artist. You get out the good, you get out the bad. You experiment and learn. I'm not sure where this will lead, but I know that I am feeling very good about my art residency in Spain in November. Spending a full month on art making will be incredible. My art show at Chromatic Coffee opens this Thursday, August 7th at 6:30pm and will be up for the month of August.

Focusing on art making so intensely has been long needed for me. I feel these moments of euphoria when I am in my zone working. Prior to working on this show, I had been doing a lot of behind the scenes work, such as editing images, photographing artwork and planning out the rest of this year artistically and financially. I have also been working with some websites to sell my work on like Great.ly and Scoutmob, along with a few others I will announce soon. 

As with the title of this post, I have been "watching and listening." I have been working much more intuitively and paying attention to the process rather than overthinking things. Along with listening to myself, this is what I have been listening to and watching for inspiration. So often, music is my backdrop for making art. Lately, it's been Nick Cave, both his old and new records. Alongside, I've been listening to PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.

Aside from music, I love watching documentaries and movies while working on art. I don't usually do this as much as music, but it does inspire me in a different way and mixes things up. This past week, I watched tons of movies and documentaries, including some Spanish films since I will be going to Spain in November and I want to freshen up my skills. The films were

• También la Lluvia Fantastic film, reminded me of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo
• La Lengua de las Mariposas / Butterfly's Tongue  A good coming-of-age film that takes place around the Spanish Civil War
• Los últimos días I love a good post-apocalyptic outbreak movie

And art documentaries:

• Pablo, a great film about someone I didn't know about: the man behind designing movie titles, intros and trailers to some of my favorite films. I love the creativity in a good film intro. 
• Drew: The Man Behind the Poster You name the classic movie and he made the movie poster for it!
• Just Like Being There Behind the scenes of artists who design band and show posters.
• Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story Tomi has been through way more than I will ever experience. Illustrator of many subjects including children's books, political and erotic. 

With all of these amazing stories of artists and their craft, I felt utterly motivated and had an amazingly creative and prolific weekend. Seeing how they work, how they simplify and how real they are was major motivation for me to work. I'm really looking forward to the outcome of all this.