Skuzblog began as a search for the free website. Not just any free website, though, I wanded a site that would host a blank slate for interactive media. Most of the sites I had seen would give you a template to fill in, or require you to sport their banner.
In my search, I was introduced to Blogger, a company that Google had just purchased.
I found a lot of other services, and learned a lot about php, css and xml, as well as honed my flash skills a bit more.
Because I had the site, I began using it to post my work, stories and activities. I have posted everything from songs I created to political commentaries, animated drawings and movies to photographs of live painting performances.
Skuzblog is in its third year now, and its been incorporated under the broader wing of Gabe's Imagination. It continues to be my regular report of what's going on here.
A Little Bit About Skuzblog
Live Painting with a Wacom Tablet
Thanks to Robert Genn for publishing my question about digital mediums on his site, The Painters Key.
I just started using a Wacom tablet, after watching artist Andrew Jones at Emerg-n-See, The Bass Nectar Underground Communication Tour, and most recently at Diversion, working with a Wacom Tablet and Corel Painter to do live painting on a projection screen.
Tonight I did a show With Randolf Mctools, Sleep, Chicharones and Animal Farm at Berbati's Pan in downtown Portland. 
Moon City Live Drawing Video
I made this video using Ambrosia's Snapz screen recording program while I worked on my Wacom Tablet in Adobe Photoshop. I spent one hour working on this drawing, then exported the movie and sped it up in iMovie to a 12 minute clip. I split the clip into two parts to fit it on YouTube, so You can watch it here. Enjoy!
Part One:
The Animation Continues here, with part Two:
House Res 799 to Impeach Dick Cheney
In case you missed it, last week Congressman and Presidential Canidate Dennis Kucinich was able to get his bill, HR 799, making the case for impeachment of Dick Cheney, through the house, at which point it was sent to the House Judiciary Committee.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a criminal, and the democratic party's failure to bring impeachment charges against him is a travesty and a true threat to the security of this nation. If Cheney is allowed to continue his criminal practices while maintaining the office of vice president of the United States, the entire nation is implicated in his crimes.
If you have not heard about this on TV, or read it in your newspaper, do not be surprised. All you have to do is google HR 799, or visit youTube to watch the charges being brought against Dick Cheney. YOu will see that Kucinich is not bringing this up to pick a fight or bicker about the illegal war in Iraq, but more importantly, Kucinich is making his best effort to keep us out of WAR IN IRAN.
That's right, the impeachment of Dick Cheney is intended to prevent the Vice President from bringing us into another war, which he has been publicly pushing for by lying on national media, before his term is over next year.
I'm not going to site any news sources in this clearly biased statement, if you want to know the facts, please google it and read for yourself. I'm just trying to raise awareness, and making an effort to support Kucinich in his politically unpopular move.
What really gets me is the way national media are writing off the Republican votes to impeach as "political maneuvering". The media is unwilling to admit that Cheney is a criminal and the republicans realize it. They aren't voting to dissuade the democrats or tarnish their reputation, they voting to get that criminal out of office before he drives us all into a global conflict of unprecedented scale.
If you think its possible that Dennis Kucinich is doing that right thing, that Cheney needs to be held accountable, or that impeachment is one of our last remaining tools in the pursuit of peace, than please email Dennis Kucinich and let him know. He is collecting emails from around the country to present to the House Judiciary Committee, where HR 799 currently rests.
Email this address with your feelings on the issue:
impeachment (at) kucinich.us
Gabe's Image(nation) Slims up
I've been working a bit on the audio for my Image(nation) site in order to shrink the over all file size and decrease loading time. While doing so, I mixed the sound up a bit and got a new theme in there. Check it out, and let me know if it loads noticably faster on your computer (it should, I've gotten the file down to half its origional size).
Visit the Image(nation)
Another Feynman Audio Exploit
Give it a listen
still a work in progress, check back to hear it updated
Our Pre-Burn Adventure last year
Clif, Jack and I rolled out to the playa early last year to set up Camp I Am and help with the wireless network. During this first part, you can watch as the city gets built, art projects go up, and Jack climbs a 60' antennae to adjust the microwave dish during a windstorm.
On ladies night we visited the man, who was undergoing an illumination test while lying down. We also visited the Belgian Waffle in construction and met Nick, Bamboo Barry's son who hung out with us until the burn.
Berbati's Live Painting, June 7th
Photo by Arian Stevens
Photo by Arian Stevens
Thanks to everyone who came down to the 1st Thursday show at Berbati's Pan in Portland last night, it was a great time. Special thanks to Cool Hand Luke for spinning and providing inspiration for the painting, and Arian Stevens for taking some killer photos.
Art Opening at Berbati's First Thursday in June
Live paintings from the last few months done during Hip-Hop Anonymous and Portland Underground shows, also from the ASR Tradeshow in San Diego last fall, and the rest paintings from my studio. Twenty paintings in all fill the walls of the restaurant.
The show opens June 7 with a reception from 5 to 9pm, where I'll be working on a new live painting.
Mostly paintings of Portland, acrylic on wood, but also some other subject matter thrown in there. Come on down and check it out.
Upcoming Live Painting at EMRG-N-SEE 2007
I'll be setting up a live painting at the Oracle Stage for Emrg-n-see, June 15th-17th, outside Salem, OR.
I'll be collaborating on the painting with Arun, who will be screenprinting on the same canvas.
The Freemont Bridge
Portland's Freemont Bridge has been a fascination of mine since well before I moved to the city. I'm amazed by the architecture, the cathedral-like underbelly and its gracefully intertwined layers.
The bridge was completed in 1973, and holds several distictions: The arched portion of the bridge was assembled on nearby Swan Island, then floated downstream and lifted into place. At the time, this was the world record for the heaviest lift.
In addition, the Freemont Bridge is the world's second largest tiered arch bridge, coming in just behind a Chinese bridge over the Yangtzi River. Unfortunately, they do not allow pedestrian traffic on the bridge, denying Portlanders the opportunity to appreciate its' spectacular view at their own pace.
Finally, the Freemont Bridge was an expensive bridge, costing over six times what its downstream neighbor, the Marquam Bridge, cost less than ten years prior. The Marquam bridge was considered a blight on the river by many, so the Freemont Bridge was designed in large part aesthetically, and at a substantially increased cost.
Whole Earth Festival Live Painting
Photo by Matt Lambert.
This was a live painting at the 2007 Whole Earth Festival in Davis, CA the city where my brother lives and goes to school.
I painted this saturday night at the DJ stage, where DJ Omni, Kozee, and Brother played. Brother's set was a great topper to the night, and it wasn't until I finished the painting, gave it to my brother, left town on the train, checked my email, and looked at the photos from Matt that I realized how it all fit together. Look real closely and you can see the two robot pilots sitting side-by-side in the cockpit.
Big thanks to Tao for helping me put this together.
Laptops for Peace
One Laptop Per Child is pushing for a $100 laptop in the hands of every child in the world.
That's a $200 billion dollar bill.
Current US expenditures on the Iraq war amount to $420 billion dollars.
Which, do you suppose, is a more effective peace-keeping method, laptops or military occupation?
A Sensible Approach to Graffiti
Conventional graffiti abatement programs advocate immediate and utter removal of all graffiti, arguing that one tag invites others. A clean wall, on the other hand, makes graffiti artists and taggers forget what they were doing and they usually go home.
Portland takes a straight-up, hard-line approach to graffiti. Here is a link to the city of Portland's graffiti policy.
You'll notice its a violation to leave unsolicited markings on your public building, in public view, for more than ten days.
The basic policy is remove all graffiti as soon as it happens so it won't result in 'social deterioration'. Anyone who has tried to wash paint off a wall, especially enamel paints, knows that it can be extremely difficult and takes a lot of elbow grease and some powerful solvents. On the other hand, anyone who has tried to tag a wall knows that it is extremely easy and merely requires a can of spray paint or a paint marker and a few flicks of the wrist.
That said, Portland, and many other cities that employ a similar graffiti abatement program, are fighting a loosing battle. As quickly as they can paint over or scrub off the tags, along comes another eager artist, excited by the prospect of a blank canvas.
Banksy may actually be on to something here. More than just a tongue in cheek invitation to tag the holy hell out of a wall, this image hints at the most likely sustainable solution to graffiti problems.
If we want to find a more effective graffiti abatement program, we need only turn to our northern neighbors, specifically the city of Vancouver, BC.
Rather than focus exclusively on Graffiti removal, Vancouver employs graffiti artists to paint murals, providing the walls, the paints, and a small stipend for the organizers. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, paying the criminals to do there thing, but in fact, it seems to have a profound effect: walls that were once plagued by tagging and graffiti are now decorated with murals.
To understand how this works, consider why taggers are throwing their names up on private property in the first place. They want recognition, and they have a disrespect for the property they are marking. Now, imagine that same wall is covered in a mural done by some of the city's most respected graffiti artists.
Suddenly, the lone tagger in the night is inclined to respect the hard work of their peers (the graffiti artists who painted the mural)and would certainly no longer desire recognition if they were to paint their own initials over the mural. In fact, many would-be taggers would be more persuaded by the threat of expulsion from the graffiti communities than by the legal repercussions should they be caught..jpg)
The City of Vancouver, BC graffiti abatement program encourages graffiti artists to organize into registered groups that contract with the city to paint murals in areas with tagging problems.
City of Vancouver Graffiti Abatement Site.jpg)
And He's Off
Heard word from a little bird that Mr. Jack Morley Crocifisso is on his way towards the desert, on bicycle, in a tux (minus the fancy pants).
Sydney Rogosin
Congratulations to Aaron and Amber on their new baby girl. Aaron has some great photos that show a little window into his experience. I loved looking through them and seeing how his keen eye picked out the details he was feeling:
You can check out Aaron's photos here.
Interview with The Noyse
I was recently interviewed by an on-line magazine called The Noyse. They did a short feature on my work and asked me some questions about it. You can read it here.
You Don't Know Jack
Photo by Aaron Rogosin
Even if you think you know Jack, you don't know Jack.
I thought Jack was riding his bike through the California Desert, wearing a Tuxedo, on his way to Albequerque.
That's because the last time I saw Jack, the only clothing he had with him was a tuxedo, and he was traveling by bicycle through the southern bay area. He had lots of art supplies, some bike tools, some camping gear, and his tuxedo, and he said he was on his way to Albequerque.
Well, just as I was starting to think I knew Jack, well, at least what he was doing (I've been telling people he's on his way to Albequerque wearing a tuxedo on a bicycle), just when I was getting comfortable with the idea, Jack had to go and drop me a line and tell me something new.
Turns out Jack lost his pants, so know he is riding his bike to Albequerque with a tuxedo top, but he doesn't have any tuxedo pants anymore. can't really call it a tuxedo without pants.
I'm betting he'll find some new pants soon, some really sweet ones.
Here's a link to Jack's photostream.
Live Painting Sat Mar 31st at Berbati's For Greyskul Show
Come to Berbati's Pan (sw 3rd and Burnside, $8) for the Greyskul show and check out some live painting while you're there. If you haven't heard Unified Theory yet, you should come just to check them out.
New work at Bridging Boro
I've got some paintings hanging at Bridging Boro on the corner of Interstate and Alberta in North Portland. If you want to check out some art, either paintings or boro-silicate glass, be sure to stop by. They just opened up their glass shop this month and they haven't posted regular business hours yet, but if you show up and nobody is out front, ring the bell and they'll come out from the studio to let you in.
Who the heck is that?
thanks to Arian Stevens for taking photos of my live painting collab with the Legal Bees. If you haven't checked out his work yet, be sure to visit his blog:
Greenwood Images
here's a couple more from that night:
Live Painting at Berbati's
Been doing a lot of live paintings at Berbati's Pan on Southwest 3rd and Burnside in Portland. Aaron Rogosin came down last Thursday and took some photos:
This on I did for Anthony's birthday party. It's a view of Mt Tabor Erupting:
these paintings were done for shows by Hip Hop Anonymous and Runaway Productions. The next show I plan to do for them is a Greyskul show March 31st at Berbati's Pan.
here's a look at the uv paint I use:
Putting the Studio to Use
Its good to be in a studio, and have this facility to use for different projects. Right now I'm working with a group to develop their ideas about a website, I'm doing concept illustration for a 3D animation, I'm working on two websites, doing some random illustration jobs, painting a lot, and recently just opened my studio up to an outside project.
Kupfer Working on Green Map
Originally uploaded by skuz.
Martin Luther King Jr Day
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted"
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
I've thought a lot about the importance of creativity to Dr. Martin Luther King's teachings. If you have any doubt of its prominence in his philosophy, reread his I have a dream speech and count the number of times he calls on creativity.
Creativity is not just making new things and abandoning the old, it is often looking at what we already have and finding a new life in it.
For this reason it is not enough to stand around waiting for some hand in the sky to push the reset button and cast you in a different lot, its time to look at what you have and a create a Jubilee in your life today.