Tracking My Movements

Went to Eco Lab & Big Medium last night. 1st art openings of Austin since arrival in town. I had been counting the days since arrival, using a sketch I dated as occasional reference when I forget.

But I've let somebody borrow the sketchbook to collaborate with me. So I'm guessing I'm on day 42. Fun facts. That could be false.

Neighborhood drives. Neighborhood art experience. Texas unstained picket fences around big picnic yards. A barn. With the white walled space inside. I'm suddenly reminded of Houston & Rothko Chapel. The Menil. Set in a neighborhood environment. Eco Lab is, too. Playing new Cold Cave on the way there and not really liking it. Put on long black pants for some reason. Eco Lab is a hot box. I decided I wouldn't write about any of the work in this place.

But I knew I wanted to.

Heard about Big Medium around the corner.

Jamie Panzer

At the end of a long dark driveway, past docks and roll-up garage doors. Entrances to curtained off studio spaces. Another wood fence, half open, comes into a back concrete patio area. Big warm light coming out of a big ol' garage entrance. White walls. Sculptures and wriggling colorful things. Photography. Tiny things on the walls. Various corners to examine. Is a burst of color. Purity and primary in an almost carnivalesque way. Fun things to go and experience.

At my feet are giant replications of what appear to be Jacks, made from bowling balls mounted to vase turned column posts w heavy chrome gold veneer. Sturdy funny things. There are a few of these about. Strange and fun and impossible to play with.

To the left in a corner are more things. Find myself wanting to attach associations with others with regards to meaning and intent and end up floating on a child-like surface.
Sitting on a squat bench plinth-ized thing is another thing. "Mother Hen". A blatantly fake uniform grey tree branch, in the shape of a shambling alien bug. A headless stripped bare rib cage of a creature, almost creepy but too funny to be so. It's various angled branch tips end with grey human fingertips. Perfectly ending. And beginning where it starts to feel. Organic blends with organic, the human kind suggesting supposed controlled logic and expectation, tho. This set of branches appears to coddle and protect little plastic rings beneath it, stacks of colorful toy parts that remind me of avoiding the noid from domino's pizza in the 80's. Silliness that can't be because of some unspecified heavy undertone, but ultimately disarms with it.

Mounted on the wall near Mother Hen is a little device operating a slow turning roll of camera film . Loaded to a mechanism that almost imperceptibly scrolls the negatives of clouds past a little light bulb. The entire gadget, titled "Invention", is awkward stained wooden parts, mounted and held together with nails and thumbtacks. Examination of nature and the clunkiness (uncontrolled/randomness) built into our bodies. Our intentions. With a sense of self being the most important thing in experience and discovery.

Photography, a series behind glass and pixilated grey scale wheat paste. Beautiful images of clouds becoming cubes inna man vs. nature/ logic vs. emotion timeless tumble.Water and fire get the same treatment. In another area, paper prints of atomic mushroom clouds stacked on themselves to heaven, glued to the wall. I am become death and I am become death becomes it's turtles all the way down. or up . to death. without a God. But funny about it.

Panzer enjoys interacting with his audience. A box with paper and pencil asks for donations and suggestions. A fresh tomato sits on the box's corner, maybe an allusion to throwing tomatoes at bad theater performances. Two slots for either type submission lead to the same place - of course. Panzer stalks the opening with a bullhorn, at random blurting thoughts to those hanging around.
I was invited to "use the horn". The piece, titled "Horn" - for what reason I'm not sure, was a horn from some unfortunate animal with a handle added. it sits on a tiny shelf. The artist photographs you interpreting yr consideration of and way of "using it" with a friendly almost hidden smirk.

Meaninglessness is a loaded thing. Reminding one of simple pleasures seemed to be what came from this experience. Odd colored objects twisted from human anatomy mounted high and low. Little tiny ledges jut from the walls in places. On examination, these tiny ledges suggest craggy mountainous plains, aerial jetties like weeds in a gallery. They have little people meandering about on them. Tiny people that require leaning in real close to almost make out. They're just people. I wanted them to be toy soldiers from a distance. But no. They were just people. Looking around.

Erlenmeyer flasks full of what can't be Kool-Aid but sure looks like Kool-Aid. Or maybe the yum juices from freezer pops. Or water with food coloring. But it isn't. It's important studies. Processes are taking place in these flasks, to be certain. Classic fun with contradictions, served up light. We've walked into a scientist's lab. And if he came around the corner he would probably resemble a living cartoon.

There's more things hiding about in Jamie Panzer's show, "you see...thing is..." Even though I spent time, wandering in and out and around and back in, doing the re-approach, I bet I still missed some things.

..open, ended.

suck you chasm. cold and wet. I went for a walk the other day. beside a book i didn't end up giving. writhing- but not too much - branches. mostly happy. can't be anything other here. leaves that sometimes drop little bits of water for no reason. two points for the half price, in the back, unguarded and lost. hard back down a manner, reminded of spring. reminded of my uncle. space opens up, a metal canister made to house a robot, filled with soap and dead skin cells. flesh wrapped around cold gravy, wanting to sell you something. covered in mosquitoes.

nose sit able. around rockin what the fuck mall wart bar stucks sprint soar. past yr eyes sing the blues. abominable blue snowless women. tilda swinton meets ziggy stardust at tea seas with weezy on the tailgate. blew me. softened up and down with the dog. rilke nipples and pink triceps fear no new possibilities. coffee hypereality wizz by blur of elle angels pretense and laptop coffin, for the creamless conversation.

god in a web -or vile intersections designed for the generation of blind. dreaming through a sea of deaf communication. literally. makin' the big bucks. strobe weight of paper rolls and light weird dreams from about 530 to 8 o'clock. icons n recordings -that start off with good intentions. they distort their mirror or reaction or map anyways. the big cover up happens next. (commerical break)
What had happened there that they was cleaning had not even happened yet 10 minutes ago. like they were fighting. Horror bull.

Read reverse comb all yr quads and loops to ate back that way. Plankton tummy signs the sun, 3 dollars for goggles out of an opal goblet rotten in 80's dirty sock options. burn a good bloody mary. level an old standard with lebanon or illinois green salsa, engineered by some kid later in his life. a flying shark. hairless. not a mammal. never even saw milk.

Moved into the Mountains

Upper plateau of another's dream, with ladders made of veins. It's his dream. Not one in which he invented white-out or scotch tape. He's walking across the classic wind-blown grassy field, but it is somehow different. He realizes the grass is fake. Long plastic blades making rustling sounds. Convenience store black plastic bags are the foliage on squat trees. Their grey branches are slimy and refract weird colors in the sun light.

Higher up now. One significant level up; he keeps climbing. The earth's surface is now made of books. They're torn fat hardback books, coating the scene at odd angles. Pages fanned open to the horizon, wrinkled and puffy from rain and powerful drying heated gusts. Sand mixes in the pages and crevices. It's now in his eyes. He itches. His bare feet crunch across the books. Paper cuts in the webbing of his toes accumulate rapidly, each cut a surprise. They begin to itch. And sting. His eyes squint and he shambles in a pulsing burning darkness. The sand feels heavier and stings. Blood pumping in the darkness of his eyelids radiates and spells letters.

Down below, just a couple levels, there was a sense of comfort and familiarity. Boredom. He wasn't really doing this. He painted pictures from places he had not been. A scene in a many- times-told story from a friend: Adolescent angels sitting on a beach, talking to everything. Hitting on the seagulls as well as the seashells. Couch-potato angels in one cove. Television wires lead out into the ocean and tangle, forming webs that catch a sample of everything. The angels cackle and some of them energetic and beautiful, decide to surf, opening their veins in the water for the fun of drawing sharks. Winging out of reach as the gaping mouths breech.
An angel, a particularly cruel and spiteful one, cocky and talented at all the convenient things, uses a burning sword on one of the sharks. Puncturing the center of its head with a thrust and quickly removing, the shark sinks into the ocean, its body on fire inside, glowing as it descends.

Time sits around. Tree house walkie-talkie style communication across mountain tops. He's up there, with...a bunch of automotive mechanics arguing in front of an overhead projector. "No." That's all they can say. Pulling on half-baked theory, one of the auto mechanics tires and tries to break the din. He tries to explain why brake pads begin to squeal. And why they stop.
Silence grinds into his rotors up here. His means and intents worn thin. Barebones. Who he really is. Who he really is loses interest in the automotive scene and turns himself 180 degrees.
A thorough intricate path lined with careful angles, sharpened and jutting dirty needles and black scary fragments. Everything is black & white. Patience and breathing, as he exhales and walks the sharp objects recede. Colors blend in, and suddenly there it all is. Relaxed and lush living things. He feels a nice silence fill everything.