Faucet Repair

11 April 2025

A little reflection on making music with Calvin now that a few days have passed. Have been thinking about how the afternoon we spent in sound felt like such a literal flow; a drift down a river together, taking turns gently suggesting ways to shape the wind. What I so enjoyed about that process was the freedom we both felt to follow intuitive impulses towards contrasts: humble and giant, human error and programmed machine. And if one of our offerings became a rock in the current, we would only get stuck on it for a moment before eventually floating around it. That relaxed neutrality elevated the whole experience—friction lost any negative connotation. Instead it was just a color to observe and move through, or maybe mix with another to see what would happen. When I showed what we made to Yena, she said it reminded her of a recurring dream she used to have as a child where she fell down a black hole.


9 April 2025

About to start a new painting that arose from my recent trip to see Toby in Brighton just before I boarded the Thameslink from Blackfriars—saw another person's silhouette heading towards mine in the window of the arriving train in strobe-like movements. Felt almost like stop motion, little lines struggling to outline its form as it moved. A similar effect filled the rest of the mirrored surface as the glinting river (윤슬) and the buildings on the horizon (they reminded me of an ECG graph) all glitched and strayed from their optical anchors until the train squeaked to a stop. Maybe a painting that circles a similar sensation.


7 April 2025

In my studio looking at a possibly resolved painting that I'm calling Bag for now. Started from seeing a plastic bag on the street in Camberwell as an inviting void. I like how Yena described the piece's core contrast as “filling in versus filling out”—that feels true. Think it is also about solidity coexisting with thinness and transparency and warm against cool; the little asteroid shape is darting into the cold dark space from the angle that the sun fell on the bag. Like Lying in bed, there's something about concealment and enclosure too, the expansive view of the optically small. And its composition feels like it wiggles within the container of the canvas without being overly aware of its edges. Kind of looks like a uvula too.


5 April 2025

Start. An ongoing list...

Teachers

Joe Brainard, Jasper Johns, Aubrey Levinthal, Seth Becker, Co Westerik, Merlin James, Piero, Catherine Murphy is in the house, Morris Graves, Lois Dodd, Wilhelm Sasnal, Raymond Saunders, Hannah Höch, Frank Moore, Chronis Botsoglou, Sibylle Ruppert, Henry Taylor, Carroll Dunham, Ruba Nadar, Daumier, Carol Rhodes, Serge Charchoune, Jack Whitten, James Castle, Samuel Hindolo, Toby Rainbird, Rosemarie Trockel, Degas is in the house, Munch, Rita Fernández, R. B. Kitaj, Scarlett Budden, Tristan Unrau, Dominick Di Meo, Eric Fischl, Luchita Hurtado, Olivia van Kuiken, Noah Davis, Nicholas Bierk, Todd Bienvenu, Katherine Bradford, Sigmar Polke, Georgia O’Keeffe, Forrest Bess, Gabe Duarte, Goya, Ray Johnson, Ivan Seal, Kerry James Marshall, Gareth Cadwallader, Ana Mendieta, Jared Buckhiester, Dash Snow, Anya Rosen, Martin Wong, Wayne Thiebaud, Jane Dickson, Andrew Cranston, Raina Seung Eun Jung, Neo Rauch, Ida Applebroog, Paul Landacre, Danny Leyland, Clarence Holbrook Carter, David Hammons, Mamma Andersson, Gavin Gleeson, Betye Saar, David Byrd, Shannon Cartier Lucy, Adrian Morris, Robert Pollard, Charles Blackman, Ken Price, Peter Doig, Vija Celmins, Matthew Gilbert, Josef Albers, Eric Timothy Carlson is in the house yeah, Ken Kiff, Duchamp, Graham Sutherland, Hockney, Velázquez, Jonathan Tignor, Antoni Tàpies, Leroy Winter, Shel Silverstein, Max Ernst, Clara Nulty, Lee Lozano, Jack Hilton, Philip Guston, Marisol, Enrico David, Gregory Gillespie, Cézanne, Samantha Jackson, Kent O’Connor, Joel Seow, Ben Shahn, Brett Bigbee, Félix Vallotton…