Faucet Repair

20 December 2024

Exhibition text from No Smiling, a show of my mother's photography curated by me and my sister Tessa at West End in Los Angeles December 20-22, 2024:

Growing up in front of my mom’s camera, I was trained early to obey her lone photographic directive: “no smiling.”

I have more than a few memories of watching first-time subjects react with visible discomfort to this rule. But after a lifetime of confronting her lens, I’ve come to understand its function as a mnemonic portal to an ethos grounded in uncompromising empathy.

What it really holds is a desire to portray unfiltered truths in and of individual people. To lift whatever veil stands between her subjects and their ability to let their insides out. Look at enough of my mom’s images and you’ll start to notice how often she shoots from their perspectives; she’s on the ground with infants learning to crawl, meeting animal gazes on all fours, or crouching into a child’s eyes.

It’s this merging instinct that allows her to dissolve walls (and conjure the kinds of smiles she authorizes, which are the ones that can’t be helped). In her pictures we witness first kisses and changing bodies in bathroom mirrors. Bare pregnant bellies and secrets in playground crannies. Private naps and baby butts. The distinction between domestic and public blurs—she inspires intimacy naturally.

Like any kid blindly craving autonomy, I went through a period of time where I reacted to this impulse with embarrassment. I think my siblings felt similarly. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t leave us or anyone else alone. Why an awkward Halloween costume or mid-shift cigarette or good light on a face just had to be captured.

That our family became a small army of artists is proof enough that we all eventually understood. But what struck me after spending time with the totality of her work, (thanks to my sister Tessa, who led the charge through decades of negatives when we decided to produce this show together), was the way it reflected her selfless approach to motherhood.

Because a mother knows that it’s messy business when we’re launched into a world of endless choices and find ourselves fumbling around in the dark for our identities. How clothes and haircuts and hobbies don’t fit. How lovers and friends come and go. A mother recognizes that lives are sculpted from these sputtering moments and, very often at her own expense, teaches us that we are not alone in them. That they are not only worth remembering, but celebrating. How radically this empowers a young mind to see life as a gift is immeasurable. That is love.

So No Smiling, then, is a product of love. It’s a gesture of gratitude for our mom’s unifying vision and total sacrifice. For her fierce devotion to creating and forever preserving space for us to learn; to be ourselves, to be of service, to be together.

2 November 2024

The other day I was walking in my neighborhood and came upon a Mastiff panting in a parked convertible. When I stopped to say hi, his face drooped into a pretty goofy limp-tongued stare. We held eye contact long enough for him to drool a nice long glob, and with the laugh that gave me I continued on my way.

I started what would become “Copilot Blues” to extend the levity of that moment—the studio had been heavy in the preceding days and I needed it. Working out its composition did feel playful as shapes stacked up on that wheel like limbs on a unicycle, but a different door opened when it began to turn blue.

As this happened I was looping Autechre’s Quaristice, an album that sounds (and literally is) blue, so I think that had something to do with it. But as the palette cohered, I realized with unmistakable clarity that it was also facilitating a communion with Dani and Tina, two canine members of my family that we said goodbye to within months of each other this year (Dani just weeks ago).

It seems obvious now; the dog is alone in the vehicle, physically stagnant but still heading somewhere else. His expression is a little frightened, maybe confused, but also relaxed in the way it can only become over a lifetime. And he’s looking right at us with the unwavering eyes of a loyal copilot.

21 March 2024

A good bruise goes a long way because it remembers a Hereditary outburst. And straining for a low pass knob. And a fart first impression. And legal action by association. And pouring nuclear hot sauce all over its food with a broom to its head. And hearing gunshots at the door so hiding in its bedroom only to step in dog shit in the dark. And when laundry was too expensive, getting on its hands and knees to wring it in a bathtub. And a cop’s flashlight like a tunnel to the passenger seat. And losing some scalp getting out of the car under barbed wire. And fighting the Anima under the spell of dark matter. And the rush of illegal dumping within legshot of a ranger. And a shadow downing beer after beer because it was the only cold thing. And mini escapes to the coffee shop shackle, the cotton mouth walk, an army of tiny knives carving into its ribs to laughing detonations outside its bedroom window with Marvin Gaye no curtains for demons crawling out of its night stomach holding inability to keep time or track of permanent ongoing renovations like shaving a circle down to a single molecular point.

And a broken axle road trip. And a looking glass living room. And waves of dried sweat marking hat circumference. And garaging detritus. And a clean mirror in a familiar bathroom feet on pink purpose. And sleep in the shape of a fetus.

And the sun on a pulley in the morning.

15 March 2024

Enuresis / Using A Dating App

As I slip underneath my sheets, I remember being told in a doctor’s office that it would stop happening if I stopped thinking about it. “Take a date night, for example. A case of how your brain benefits from distraction.

You’re cuddled up on a couch in the living room of a foreign flat. A depleted candle has thickened the air with cinnamon. Earlier you went to a bar for watery cocktails, which you’ve since chased with two barely refrigerated beers. A shaky internet connection brings a romantic comedy in and out of focus at irregular intervals. During quiet scenes, you can hear your nostrils.

As the end credits roll, you zombie through a hallway into a low-ceilinged bedroom with a mirrored wardrobe facing the bed. You’re pulled into pillows and remember taking a salsa class years ago where you were told to lead on the first day. You flip over and catch a glimpse of your idiot silhouette contorting in the mirror. An air conditioning unit sputters and pops into gear, coating the room with a loud, deep-throated exhale. Two dogs trade barks and snarls somewhere down the street, sparking hysteria in another one next door. Upstairs a toilet flushes and sends water scattering through plumbing in the walls like blood pumping through a vast capillary network, followed by thuds and thuds and thuds and thuds of iron soles above a booming string arrangement swelling from the living room as a white light shoots into the hallway, an algorithm starting another film you might like.

You wake up first. You stretch your legs and clock the sweetest friction. You deflate into a new day.”

10 February 2024

After three years of espousing the virtues of an absolute indifference to thematic cohesion, I’ve found myself working in a series for the first time.

Oddly, the planet that has exploded into thousands of smaller islands is the world of rock climbing. Specifically, indoor rock climbing gyms. Even more precisely, Sender One in Los Angeles, where Grey climbs. It only took one visit—I went with him and Tessa for a couple hours last month and the floodgates opened.

Firstly, the visuals. If big rock candy mountains shooting towards the sky with tons of planar changes along the way weren’t dramatic enough, they’re pocked with hundreds of multicolored holds ranging from tiny pink gumdrops to suitcase-sized black monoliths. Marked with tags identifying the difficulty of color-coordinated routes, they’re a chromatic choose-your-own-adventure-to-the-summit display. The fact that everyone can see your choice as you stand under these rainbow proposals lays a core question bare: will you choose the comfortable path or risk public failure (perhaps even humiliation) on the more challenging one?

These limb ledges are also fascinating for their truly psychedelic geometry. There’s such a diversity of designs, from oblong red hourglasses to giant lemon wedges to lime green knolls. And their shapes shift as bodies interact with them—one image since imprinted is of a focused climber’s downcast profile next to an amoeba-like splotch of blue with a protrusion that echoed his nose. Like a taxidermied Blue Meanie.

Then there’s the element of body language. Never have I been somewhere with so many people voluntarily contorting at once. Watching strangers pretzel themselves onto tiny perches, I daydreamed about their walks of life. Was the guy mountain-goating a microscopic dot in a crucified pose an OB-GYN in bloody scrubs an hour before? Was the woman peering down between her split legs an accountant who just finished crunching her client’s numbers? These were the city’s bipedal sidewalk stoics brought onto all fours and inverted.

What this leads to is an environment that feels like a Ministry of Silly Walks on the y-axis, but there’s also the palpable texture of desire in the air. What I mean by this has less to do with spandex-accentuated bodies and more with constant reaching and reaching and reaching. I’m fixated on this part of it, of arms and then hands and then fingers like spiders straining and grasping for those last few centimeters. Like a defibrillator to my heart are the moments where the next move is just beyond the wingspan, so the only choice left is to jump.

But to do so, climbers are legally required to be strapped into a harness connected to a trained someone on the ground who is responsible for their safety. A fascinating dynamic where one person’s ascension is literally bound to another’s humble support. In my case it was Grey who knotted me up and gave me the green light. On the highest climb I did that day, I remember his voice offering tips and reminders as I pulled myself up onto the first set of pegs. These turned to affirmations as I found my rhythm, then faint mutters as I climbed higher still.

In the final push to the top, I remember the sounds below falling away entirely. Being left with my own heaving breaths and a deep focus on one choice at a time was utterly meditative (not unlike pitching, actually), and for a few flowy minutes I took great pleasure in meeting myself where I was. Then it was time to come down.

4 February 2024

Incision Inventory:

Most recent is a tiny crater carved out of my left ring finger. Last night I had Punch Drunk Love blaring from my computer on the kitchen counter while making dinner, and as I was peeling potatoes for a mash, a loud noise in the film yanked my glance away from the spuds and punctuated a sharp sting. Of note: blood pooling on the cutting board while Jeremy Blake’s abstractions floated in and out of focus.

Next is a slightly smaller poke, almost perfectly round, situated smack in the webbing between my left index and middle fingers. It was a few days ago while sitting in the front seat of the upstairs section on the 295 bus. Someone had left an empty energy drink can on the ground, and between stops it was rolling back and forth in front of my toes. So I reached into my backpack to grab a pencil; I keep all of them in a tightly-packed internal pocket and make sure they’re oriented points-down for these situations, but somehow one of them had flipped in transit and decided to bite when I plunged my digits into its nest.

Third-freshest was a tick-sized blister on my right middle finger that stealthily popped while I was vigorously jamming power chords in my room one night last week. The song was MJ Lenderman’s “SUV,” (I prefer the version from his November ‘23 live album), a banger that has enchanted my millions of imaginary fans regularly over the past couple of weeks.

Flip my right hand over and we meet number four, another skin balloon that burst on a toes-to-bar skill training day at Crossfit. I purchased some Amazon-recommended grips to prevent this very thing from happening, but alas, the gear/chalk powder/correct technique precautions still did not prevent my moisturized epidermis from surrendering to the weight of my body.

Same goes for one in the exact same spot on the other hand that happened just days earlier.

Rounding out this handsome group of red reminders is a shooting scar arcing across the dorsal plane of my left wrist. It happened last month on a wet afternoon: I had just hopped off the bus in Shepherd’s Bush to receive treatment for an ear infection at my GP’s office, my backpack’s handle clenched in one claw like a briefcase, when I approached the clinic’s entryway and attempted to hoist the bag onto my shoulders. In doing so, I grated my wrist against the building’s stucco wall. Checking in with the receptionist, I told her I was there for an ear appointment but also wanted to request treatment for the open wound that was dripping on the linoleum.

2 December 2023

Scott Walker’s “The Girls From The Streets” has flooded my daily course through wintering London in a radioactive blacklight this month. Alchemizing with the finger-freezing temperatures to illuminate steaming beacons of human collision around the city: buses, pubs, tube trains, Tescos. Pheromonal mirages to dissolve in.

My addiction to the palpable tension between empathy and self-preserving survival instincts in these spaces is nothing new, but as I soak in it longer and longer each day, I’m discovering how malleable it is. How much softer its edges can become. I think it’s the orchestral chorus that has been coloring it with blues and reds, purples and pinks. Cold and warm coexisting.

There’s a dull but prickly guilt that accompanies such an intense sonderlust, which the song’s impish edge amplified in me at first. But it slowly revealed an obvious freedom in stomping where I had been tiptoeing. It wasn’t hiding the fangs in its smile or encrypting its urges. It just ripped down the road with a big mirror on its back and called me to follow.

Walls began to dissolve when I did. My sketchbook replaced my camera and my pencil became a magnet. For flattered excitement or mild discomfort and all walks of laughter. For oblivious engines or double-eye daggers. Or in the case of a fishbowled conversation that screeched into my view from the Lillie Road curb, for a glance that pierced the glass and recognized itself before gliding back into the mortal current.

20 November 2023

A bag of marshmallows, Benton clouds, Tooker's Repose (embossing on heavy cream paper, 1975), glowing white linen curtains in my room (acid memory), leaping off of a giant sugary dune at White Sands, sun searing my glasses lying supine on Santa Monica Beach, Meunier boat humming high speed (mixed with Chaos in the CBD), the special trick sound effect in the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, a Q-tip swirled around the ear canal, a tongue swirled around the ear canal, a bar of dove soap, soft-close toilet seats, h hunt's Playing Piano For Dad, rocking Tessa to sleep as a newborn, gesso, Titanium White, the first snowfall of the year on Loftus Road last December (muffled evening), Smartfood white cheddar popcorn, the smell of a Major League baseball, Wes's first BMW, Wes’s second BMW, “To send a little money home / From here to the moon,” Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out, North light, honeysuckle vines, a box of hot Krispy Kreme glazed donuts fresh off the belt, Spanky, someone’s idea of Rick Rubin, a long hug, The White Album, Dad's Strat, Mom playing “Für Elise” on the Steinway in the living room while I'm in bed as a kid, Dad's pastel drawing of a Calla lily, staring at the stars with Graceland’s “Homeless” from a jacuzzi in Joshua Tree (mushroom memory), getting a hot stone massage (weed memory), meeting the white wizard after a great workout, asking myself for help, a fat stack of 8x11 printer paper.

3 January 2023

Rounding out a shapeshifting year. New flavor of inner spaciousness from daily conversations with the vibrant souls in my beehive of a shared studio. People from my planet! Couldn't believe it at first. Sensitivity and curiosity and motors running on love.

A few phosphenes: hovering through the streets in bubbles on wheels, our cast shadows merging in dewy grass, hands cupped for snacks, eyes locking in the dream library. Learning to say it out loud for each other feels important. Tons of hugs too.

Got Covid during term-end assessment! Pretty cool. Deadline night fighting upright against the tug of the undertow from my bed. Finding words in the fog, clicking submit and succumbing.

Waking from the ensuing fever to wander through slow motion snowfall. Neighbor and her dog watching it gently tumble through the beam of a slouching streetlight on the corner. I remember looping “Ess Gee” by Underworld.

Break starting, my appetite respawning. A McDonalds manager calling out “number nine.” The pastel glow of S Mart at the mouth of Queensway station. Also those Tesco scones (can’t hold a candle to Dad’s).

Then a morning train through the countryside to Edinburgh. A man in a window seat drenched in orange sunrise scratching fresh stitches across the bridge of his nose. He was clutching a steaming mug on which “do not put in dishwasher” was written in faded Sharpie.

Following Iain’s lead to learn Scottish topography. Snaking through Dean Village with the Water of Leith by the smell of barley. Passing golden-warm windows in that soft pink evening was a fucking razor pang of desire, my god. Felt paper receipts crumpling in my chest.

Now something about the growing void between the boy my brain sees and the mirror. I hear James Murphy singing “one step forward...” and cut it off there.

No date—this is an ongoing list...

Teachers

Noah Davis, Piero, George Tooker, Nicole Eisenman, Brett Whiteley, Catherine Murphy is in the house, Paula Rego, Sargent, Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, Joe Brainard, Wilhelm Sasnal, Paul Cadmus, Raymond Saunders, Thomas Hart Benton, Inka Essenhigh, Philip Pearlstein, Frank Moore, Frida Kahlo, Chronis Botsoglou, Sibylle Ruppert, Henry Taylor, Sophie Calle, Carroll Dunham, Daumier, Robin F. Williams, Jack Whitten, Jessie Homer French, Jasper Johns, Nyoman Masriadi, Anna Weyant, Justin Liam O’Brien, Rosemarie Trockel, Degas, Aubrey Levinthal, Ingres is in the house, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Jesse Mockrin, Munch, Grant Wood, Leonor Fini, Tristan Unrau, Justin John Greene, Seth Becker, Eric Fischl, Luchita Hurtado, Emile Meunier, Jennifer Packer, John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage, Nicholas Bierk, Freud, Todd Bienvenu, Sigmar Polke, Georgia O’Keeffe, Forrest Bess, Goya, Ray Johnson, Ivan Seal, Kyle Dunn, Kerry James Marshall, Gareth Cadwallader, Georg Scholz, Ana Mendieta, Christian Rex van Minnen, Issy Wood, Matthew Wong, Austin Harris, Wayne Thiebaud, Jane Dickson, Richter, Raina Seung Eun Jung, Co Westerik, Neo Rauch, Paul Landacre, Alice Neel, Matt Bollinger, Shannon Cartier Lucy, Peter Blume, Maud Madsen, Peter Doig, Vija Celmins, Eric Timothy Carlson, Jay DeFeo, Dylan Vandenhoeck, Judith Leyster is in the house yeah, Duchamp, Ruba Nadar, Graham Sutherland, Hockney, Velázquez, Jonathan Tignor, Tschabalala Self, Hopper, Lee Lozano, Martin Wong, Guston, Leonardo, Marisol, Enrico David, Gregory Gillespie, Cézanne, James Castle, Pyke Koch, Peeter Allik, Kent O’Connor, Heide Fasnacht, Brett Bigbee, Haley Josephs, Félix Vallotton…