Renegade Craft Fair

Renegade Craft Fair Los Angeles 2011

The Things They Carried

"but his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin, all at once. He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone- riding her bike across campus or sitting off by herself in the cafeteria- even dancing, she danced alone- and it was the aloneness that filled him with love."

excerpt from "The Things They Carried"- Tim O'Brien

Little Big Hands

1993

the first season of power rangers
not aware of the dangers of soda yet
had my first crush, but denied liking girls cause it was gross to like a girl
taking unknown pills from the teacher everyday because it was for our teeth?
pretending to take a nap so that the teacher would award me with a treat
started walking home from school at this time, and trying not to step on the cracks just because
used to watch movies and not understand anything the whole movie except the end (my vocabulary just didnt allow me to understand what the actors were talking about)
fell in love with super mario world
also wished i owned yoshi so i could hop around pomona and make yoshi lick people
already disliked cigarettes
my mom picked out my outfits everyday, i soon rebeled towards the end of kindergarten
pretty happy kid in 1993

Geography

fire compels
fire consumes
you are a cheater, you are fireproof
You are fireproof
i am a smoking plume, i am
up a ladder to your bedroom

 -Thao Nguyen

Oliver the German Shepherd

february twenty-fourth

The Antlers- Two/Epilogue - A Take Away Show

    
The Antlers - Two / Epilogue - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.


There’s two people living in one small room, from your two half-families tearing at you, two ways to tell the story (no one worries), two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry, two people talking inside your brain, two people believing that I’m the one to blame, two different voices coming out of your mouth, while I’m too cold to care and too sick to shout.

Wonder

Flickers in the dark
Happiness, joy, I see you
We sit down at the same table
We don't say any words
Sitting

Back and Forth

Constant

Light everywhere
A constant stream of noise
Skin is peeled off
There's no grip, I cant cling onto you

Fill, fill, refilled
Longing for what
Expanding thoughts
Exit lights direct us
The packets are empty

Fleeting

twenty-four

My friends threw me a surprise birthday dinner on Sunday. It has to be the coolest surprise I've ever received. I've never had a surprise birthday party and I never really do anything big on my birthday so when my day started I didn't expect to do anything out of the ordinary. So to say the least, I was completely surprised. I'm so happy to have such loving and thoughtful friends, what a lucky son of a gun I am.

First Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated my baby cousins first birthday (lunar birthday). It's so nuts to think she is practically a year old already! Babies grow way too fast, something must be done about this. I have officially turned into one of those adults that say "you're bigger every time I see you". So we had a bbq at my grandparents house for little Audrey, and one of my aunts bit into a pearl while eating oyster. How strange/lucky is that? Now it has me thinking about the countless times people have swallowed pearls while eating oysters. n00bs.

Dia Frampton- Skinny Love (Bon Iver Cover)

I told you to be patient

I told you to be fine

I told you to be balanced

I told you to be kind

In the morning I'll be with you

But it will be a different kind

I'll be holding all the tickets

And you'll be owning all the fines

Reaching

I'm shouting, shouting, screaming, yelling.
My voice is shrieking, but you don't hear a single word.

Talk along these fragments.
I'm trying to make sense.
Roll me onto these walls.
Evening can't seep through.
Dense, dense, dense.

I'm quiet, quiet, silent, mute.
My voice is shaking, and you don't have a single clue.

Try it once, or twice.
Inches and seams.
Reaching for your hands.
Everything's so close.
Dream, dream, dream.

Self Portrait November 2009

Breathing

I've been feeling so grateful, so in love with life. 

Joy is such an amazing feeling when I have an idea of how to embrace it and sit with it.

I've been in such a limbo state with my thoughts/emotions for the past month now and just recently I've broken out of that middle ground. Not to say the middle ground isn't a good place to be, but I'm not built for it. I've been so confused and it was very exhausting to just be in the middle.

Not knowing why.
Not knowing why.

Maybe I got to the point where I started to feel numb.
Maybe I became tired of all this suffering, all this hate.
Maybe I came to a point where I realized that no matter what, I can't stop this pain.

I have to remember that my emotions are just passengers, they come and go, and they will sit with me as long as I let them steer. I always have a say. And I have a say in this suffering, I feel enlightened every single day when I just look around me. I feel alive, and that suffering is less painful.

Breathing in, I come back.
Breathing out, I realize that I can help.
Breathing in, I realize that by living a peaceful life, I can ease the suffering of others around me.
Breathing out, I am full of joy.

upupup

2010. Hayward Ca, Japanese Tea Garden

tea circle

2010- Hayward Ca, field trip day

Remind Me

My eyes closed shut, heat from my stomach reminds me I'm awake.
I count down as if I don't want the sun to rise, pulling my limbs out and out.
With a quick shake, she tells me it's time.
These routines we have tells me the time.

Twenty percent chance means it will not happen.
Twenty percent chance means I take my chances.

I'll go where my legs permit, the smiles remind me I'm awake.
Hellos and goodbyes come and go, the small gestures I won't forget.
Setting these plans in my head, I'll wait for the rain to stop.
Setting these plans in my head, knowing I can't stop.

I'm out again, the beating from your chest reminds me I'm awake.
You say you'll be right there so I can wait, I wait, I wait.
We greet these old strangers, our eyes filled with their unfamiliar reflections.
I see you again, we talk about our past distractions.

I tell you that she isn't worth it.
I tell you that she was never perfect.

I stand where my legs will agree to, the vibrations remind me I'm awake.
Making sure I don't step in the wrong spots, thinking about if I've said the wrong words.
These sounds muffle our aching.
Your voice is crowded and your hands shaking.

We exchange our farewells, the sounds of the wheels remind me I'm awake.
I can't stop, I can't help it, but I don't even recognize it, I don't even understand it.
I'm shedding.
I'm shedding.

The glow of the screen is one of few, I position myself internally.
I feel her chest rising and falling and she reminds me that the day is over.
With a slow breath, she tells me it's time.
These routines we have tells me the time.

Taming Time

Time is scary.
I used to freak out about time when I was a kid. I realized at an early age that if I went to sleep, that would be a big chunk of time wasted on sleeping. For that reason, I would hate the fact that sleep was programed into being human. I also remember wanting to grow up already, in age. I remember vividly that I felt really strongly about that when I was in the 4th grade. I remember telling my friend Bobby that I wanted to be an adult already so I could do adult things.

If I only I knew back then how lucky I was to be the age I was.

Now as an adult, I just want time to slow down. Just take a break sometimes, maybe just forget that you have to keep going, getting older and older. I look at my niece and nephew and freak out. I remember the times in my life when adults would tell me that I should "enjoy it while it last" or try to tell me "adult things" that my kid self wouldn't even understand like how candy and soda were actually not so great, and that sunscreen is pretty important, and brushing your teeth really well is pretty important.

I'll catch myself from time to time telling my niece or nephew or baby cousins the same things and I have to realize that they probably don't believe me, because what's better than candy and soda? And as a kid, I felt invincible, and I think a lot of children think that.

The other day I called my nephew to tell him happy birthday for his 6th birthday. He was at the aquarium with his parents and sister, and I told him, "can you believe you are 6 years old now". Time moves too fast, too fast for me. But in those rare instances, there are those days that go by so slow and I cherish those days as if it's the last time it will ever be like that.

Time isn't so scary, I just need to tame it.

Affairs

"for the hairs"

circa 2008 

I didn't care. 

I didn't care. 

So what if I had real long hair 

I just ignored every single stare.

As of late

We've been staying in as of late. 

It's a nice feeling.

Sketchbook World Tour 2012

 This year I had the opportunity to be involved in the Arthouse Co-op Sketchbook World Tour 2012. The idea is, you pay twenty dollars, these nice folks send you a blank sketchbook and you can draw whatever you want, do practically whatever you want to it as long as it doesn't exceed the dimensions given and you send it back. The book then goes on a world tour to major cities- Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Vancouver, Austin, Atlanta, Portland, Melbourne, London, and a few more awesome cities. Then after the tour, it goes and lives in the Brooklyn Art Library forever, maybe not forever but for as long as the Brooklyn Art Library stays alive.

 So I do this thing sometimes (almost always) when I have a deadline, I tend to procrastinate until the very last moment and this sketchbook project was the epitome of that. It was cool because some of my best work comes out when I'm pressured but it was also really bad beause my social life turned into "oh hey Tony, you want to hang out" oh no, I can't, I have to work on my sketchbook".

 What was a really nice feature of this project is that you can bind any amount of pages/the type of paper you want in your book so that gives you a lot of freedom to do what you want. I figured binding it with a needle for each end would be easier.

I received the book back in June of 2011. I didn't even touch it until about The first week of January 2012 and the last day to postmark it was January 31st, 2012. I pulled two all nighters and finished it and  brought it to the post office to be postmarked at 4 pm, with an hour to spare. I have problems, but I got it done, I'm really happy with it and I'm so excited for the tour to start so I can see all of my friends and other talented artist's work.

Heres to a great year.