Because I'm An Asshole

This past Saturday night some of my friends had an art show. "Big whoop," you're probably thinking to yourself, "my friends had an art show on Saturday night, too." And you see, that's the difference between you and me. I'm happy that your friends had an art show, and you're just all mad or something about my friends doing their stuff or whatever. But back to the art show. If you follow this column then you're probably already familiar with Common House. If you're not familiar with it then just go back and read all my previous posts and get yourself caught up with what's happening. I'd do it for you. So like I was saying, my friends had an art show. Yeah, again.

The show was titled "Band of Loners," and it included work by Kevin Trahan, Ryan Rhodes, Aaron Michalovic, and friends.

This was one of my favorite pieces in the show. If I'm not mistaken, they asked numerous artists to decorate swatches of fabric and then the pieces were cut up and quilted together into the piece your face is looking at right now.

Sort of a nice metaphor for Common House in general.

Combining various approaches and aesthetics into one cohesive functioning unit.

Dude, that's deep.

Making art with guns is tricky because the object is already so loaded with… I don't really want to finish this sentence. I just wanted to make a pun with the word "loaded." Did it work?

This particular piece of gun art had little doodles and scribbles all over it which detracted from the natural beauty of the wood. My buddy Will Gaynor was the artist who doodled all over this wood. Sort of like how a baby would scribble on the wall with a crayon. Just kidding, Will. I'm guessing that these glyphs are meant to resemble some sort of invented personal hobo code or something along those lines.

I thought these hand drawn bandana graphics that were screen printed onto shop rags were pretty interesting.

I've always felt like there are way too few jellyfish incorporated into traditional bandana designs. Actually I've never really thought that. I was just trying to write something about those jellyfish. I'm tired.

Small paintings by Conor O'Leary.

And two little wall pieces by Maseman. The one on the bottom sort of reminds me of a penis. In a good way.

My buddy Kevin Trahan and Aaron Michalovic constructed a dwelling in the backyard of the art space.

As Kevin put it, "If I ever become a hobo this is what my house will look like." My response was, "Well, you're probably not too far away from that." Because I'm an asshole.

The house had a shelf on each side that housed a variety of personal artifacts.

Such as a melancholy little acorn man lying on a clam shell.

A gross little voodoo foot.

A taxidermy bird. How do you say that? A bird that has gone through the process of taxidermy? Anyway, it was kind of cool because it was made to look like a dead bird vs. being posed to look like it was still alive.

There was this jar of bones that totally reminded me of a Pushead drawing.

And this cool flask that totally reminded me of a Barry McGee drawing.

At the back of the house there was a television-shaped fireplace.

Here's Kevin turning on the TV.

Is there a reality TV show about fireplaces yet? If not, it won't be long.

Good job, Kevin. Somebody smarter than me will probably eventually come up with a name for this type of work (or maybe they already have), which seems to be so prevalent right now. It seems like a lot of artists and craftsmen are creating pieces out of discarded or salvaged materials as an intentional rejection of consumerism or commercialism. Maybe people are just fed up with the empty promise of technology being a savior and are reverting to a simpler mode of operations? Or maybe it's just that all of my friends are broke and so they have to make stuff out of trash… hard to say.

Movie Review: Heathers

Absolutely zero 80s boobs in the shower scene. Bummer.

Previously – Puppy at the Ditch