Labor Interests: Notes On A Process

light and water, earth and air

2012-01-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

and man
the road goes on
a while yet

2012-01-25T09:45:00.000-08:00

Problem:

My friend needs to carve solid blocks of oak into curved, twisting handrail sections in order to finish a staircase for a client. Ok. Here we go.

After slogging through a sixty year old handbook written by a master Italian rail carver from San Francisco, making extremely accurate measurements of the staircase, studying everything I could on the internet about his system (called the tangent handrail method), brushing up on my plane and solid geometry, and drawing for four days straight, we ended up with this drawing on a full sheet of MDF (4 ft x 8 ft plus a little) which would (theoretically) accurately describe the three dimensional shape of a curved handrail if it were projected onto flat surface, like a block of wood.:

So, ok, next we glued up a big ol hunk of MDF to practice our carving and test our layout on. The THM gives you a big crescent shape, called the face mold, and some accurate angles that will eventually create the twist in the section, which you can see here on our practice block:

We make our first cuts with a big chop saw:

and proceed to laying out our guidelines on the actual block. This picture shows the first position of the face mold, the bevels (the profile of the handrail where it straightens out into a flat rake section instead of the curve), and the outside edge of the block that we will carve the section out of:

This picture shows the face mold slid into a position that describes the inside edge of the block, which is the top of the handrail projected onto the surface of our block. This part was really tricky, as there are different ways these angles can be transferred onto the block to give you steep rise/slow rise and L/R handrail shapes.

We square the edges of the pattern through the block and cut out this shape, called a "blank", with a bandsaw. We had to build tables and get a heavy duty blade to make the cut, the block probably weighed a hundred pounds to start. We realized at this point we were going to put a lot of thought into our tooling if we were going to get this thing to turn out right.

The following pictures shows the method we devised of roughing out the shape. Making it up as we went, we used a chainsaw to cut relief kerfs to our guide lines, working on what will be the sides of the handrail section first:

Then knocked the blocks out with a chisel and hammer:

And finish the shape with a right angle grinder with a very aggressive disc. Now we have a "plumb" section of handrail blank.

Then the same techniques to describe the third surface of the block, which is actually the bottom of the handrail when we put it over the staircase:

The MDF section was basically right but not perfect, so we made several models of the section, each time slightly adjusting our face mold shape and bevel angles, out of styrofoam to get it dialed in:

Once we got a model that sat perfectly over the center of the stringer cap (the curved outside edge of the staircase that we would be eventually using for a bottom rail) it was time to start on the actual oak handrail section. Our starting block needed to be 3.5 x 13 x 48 inches, and so we would have to glue many small boards together to make it. (This would also give us many slightly different grain directions, which would increase the strength and stability of the final piece.) After planing our stock planks of oak, we glued each layer laterally first:

..after the set up we ran the pieces through the planer again so we would have ultra flat boards, meaning no voids and excellent joints, and then did our final lay-up:

(thats sixty clamps and one STRONG oak block)

Final face mold and bevels on beautiful solid oak block:

Rough out "blank" with skill saw and band saw:

Drop pieces, might make fun sculptures someday:

Plumbed final handrail section, after lots and lots of chainsaw and chisel and grinding wheel action, its OAK, after all:

We join sections of the straight rake rail, called shanks, to the blank so we have sight lines to fair our bottom surface to as we carve:

And,

it fits!

and Hal's thinking, ok, now, how do we get it from looking like this:

To looking like this:

(railing we built at the top of the landing)

One day at a time, but we're glad to have made it this far. Stay tuned.

multiples

2011-12-11T00:18:00.000-08:00

I like working in sets. I feel that art should smash together form, content, material, emotional, historical, psychological construction into a pure moment, a cast of consciousness. I like to put myself into that cast, to run a program of parameters, again and again, letting drift happen and leaving markers...and then it is done. The program is no longer viable. Because the parameters of who I am, of my consciousness, have shifted entirely. One, maybe the only, reason I see to stick to a program is because it might make a strange thing more beautiful, when their are sets of them...they look better, more coherent, maybe even turn into a better product. Which is why I force myself to run in sets. But now, to figure out how to run sets of sets...it could take a lifetime...and who is going to care about all the stuff that gets made...and, if that is what all this is about...well, it's a cruel irony that what a desperate individualist needs most is the lustful gaze of the many....

muses on Gerhard Richter...

3 years ago

2011-12-01T21:38:00.001-08:00

I made this drawing. I think I later put a little color on it and Kellie Peach sold it later at the first show I did with her @ Mama Buzz. Just found it rifling through old files.
I like the little poem, says:
the sadness
stuttered
rose
spread its wings
flew....
not away,
so much.
just around
in circles,
really.
life.
out of pencils. 11/23 JQ

LoveNotes 14 detail

2011-11-30T15:51:00.001-08:00

almost there...

Love Notes notes

2011-11-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

The separation of of form from it's environment is a unique function of the human mind. We can take the fish out of water, so to speak, and hold it in our minds, turn it round and round, examine it, understand it's parts, how they relate to each other, what their functions may be, how they arose, then put it back into the environment and have a deeper understanding of our observations of it's behavior because of our understanding of it's form.

The canopy structure of trees, under my observation, seems the most egalitarian system in nature, strikes a strange consonance with the Communist maxim "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". (This never really seemed that different than free-market ideological slogan "self regulating market", except that, ironically, the rhetorical emphasis is on the individual in the commie saying, and on the super-structure in the 'merican one.) So, the growth pattern of branches is this incredible display of co-operation and balance, each shoot moves into it's light, avoids other's shadows, and contributes to the strength of the organism, and if they are injured and die, they fall off and rot and feed the roots...the perfect economics of nature...love that...

In a way, the entire project of civilization, and the evolution of the human species into a super-social organism, is an attempt to create a complete system out of a collection of individual consciousness'...this is what I meant when I wrote "Man is a monkey, trying to be a tree."

And the fundamental unit of human society is that ubiquitous miracle, the holy defilement, that swirling vortex of phenomena that is the romantically involved couple...what comedian, what actor, what painter, what politician, what human's material ever strays far from thoughts of this? Their sex, their love, their crucible of identity, their longing for absorption, it is the organisms Ur impulse...unique, to become undone by love's desire and sacrifice the self for the cycle, the questioning for the thing in itself-this may be, indeed, the center of consciousness.

Norcal Swing, 11/11

2011-11-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

drawings, carpet, a small amount of sunlight

2011-11-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Possibly the best day I've ever seen at Pismo

2011-11-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

And it's not actually even that great. But compared to what it's like most days here...blessed morning...feelin' alright

The Ache

2011-10-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

of a world in which everything is always falling apart

and growing back together again
the wince
hydrogen peroxide on a cut
thinking things
having no one to say them to
already knowing how it will end
knowing already that it will end,
love

works in progress and unfinished poem...notes on a process

thinking drawing feelings

2011-10-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

timshel

2011-10-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

"Neither do I," said Lee "But I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders. And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing--maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent towards gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed--because 'Thou mayest'".
for DQ

mishapen

2011-10-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

fall feels like monsters...the dying season recalls the dead...and the dead recall the passage..is the ride pleasant and soothing, a cruise..? or tortuous, tossed, sickening...

Still Standing

2011-10-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

walking about

reaching,
I wonder at the theology that labels pride a sin.
And a bathos opposing Nature, and Grace.
( There are many paths to awe. )
All of them begin with a fundamental assertion, a movement out. And then,
at the end, they break. And we are fragmented.
Hemingway's old man, "destroyed, but not beaten" or, is it the other way around? The Cartesian consolation, cogito, ergo sum: a weakness.
let me be salt, I cannot help but turn and look
god love a woman
god love the earth
we are almost there

Studio Show, dialed in

2011-08-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

Art+lights, check

Good tools that need good owners, check

Art lovers, check

Yes!, check

Frames I can sell for mad cheap and help fellow artists put the finishing touch on their masterpiece with, check

Thank you to all the good people who came by today! Such awesome folks :) If you couldn't make it, wont you please come through tomorrow? It's the last day tomorrow, noon-8pm, 2934 Ford St, Studio 8, Oakland, Ca 94601

All Peoples Temple, documentation

2011-08-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

finally got around to documenting this beast

in studio yesterday, for scale:

tree backdrop:

half temple:

whole temple:

detail 1:

detail 2:

in performance @ temple nightclub, SF, Nov 2009:

Breaking it down

2011-08-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

Le sigh
all good things must come to an end
before I paint my painting wall, I note the remnants of two years of process,
shadows of color and movement, accident and thought, feelings of memories..
grace notes of the process...

and this little ditty collab w/luke holden:

and now, back to work...have a studio show to hang...

Drawings

2011-08-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

STUDIO SHOW AUGUST 20th AND 21st, 2934 Ford St #8 Oakland Ca 94601
PLEASE COME!

Eurydices process

2011-08-04T19:35:00.001-07:00

This is some Bob Ross sh*t right here, in case you were wondering how to "paint" a "painting"

drawings, lots

transfer a drawing, start painting on big panel, four ft square

paint it...

paint it! put more paint on it!

more....

use more paint!

yeah, put some more color on it...

more...!

etc....

Eurydice was hauled back to the underworld just as she was about to have escaped it with her lover Orpheus, who, after persuading the king and queen of the underworld with his song, lovely above all sounds, to release her from the realm of Death, had turned to look too soon upon her beauty, breaking the condition of Hades' and Persephone's mercy that he (Orpheus) wait to look upon her (Eurydice) until both of them had emerged from the underworld...this tree-form reminds me of someone being sucked into the earth...it's kind of a stretch, I guess, but I can not not see it in the form, it's contortions, it has haunted me for months...had to paint it.....about 18 hours in and it's not done, getting there, though...man, Bob Ross is a G.

It's been moments like this one...

2011-07-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

When I have been able to sit in my studio with my work and just be...totally present...and it is beautiful...they have made all the bs worth it, really
...I will miss them...

Transitions

2011-07-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

"Nest", graphite on paper, 10 x 10 inches, July, 2011

"Ents", wax pencil on paper, 9 x 12inches, July, 2011

I'm going for a bit more figurative, illustrative, narrative style these days, but trying to keep it lyrical...

In progress

2011-07-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

Project: Man is a monkey, trying to be a tree

2011-07-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

What: paintings and drawings of things transforming into other things: Figure into memory, character into myth, image into statement, city into sky, human into tree

When: now, the past, the future

Who: the people and their myths in my life

Where: CA

Why: to create a "coherent" body of work that deals with what matters to me. What matters to me is the mystery of origination, the Ur question of what we are and where we came from, and, maybe, where we are going. Not sure if there is any other why in art, but that doesn't really matter to me.

Pyhrra and Deucalion: Back into the garden they dreamt of consummation

photo essay of the studio

2011-06-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

shot the day
I decided:
I am leaving

Live/Work

2011-06-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

I curated Anastasia's. By curated, I mean climbed up and down ladders and almost died hanging up her tapestry. Look:

For scale:

A woman from the internet called my work too "dark and clunky" for her taste.

Cool.

You, internet, should come to the 'hood this weekend...see it in person...nothing lasts forever.
Art block party Sat night. Stay tuned for details.

names of artworks poem

2011-05-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

about radiation
art for youth worshiping rituals
native american person part three (neo tribal bullshit)
gender neutral
youth and beauty and that which truly matters part three
sentinels
castles in the sky
text me jesus
breaking apart
coming together
the courage to stop
come see me,
no, really,
come by the studio anytime. I've got some things I'd like to show you.
it is lonely, hiding from the world
and it makes the world hard to find...
my version of the american dream..
inventing (re) the dream of the new dream
jq
mad love
baby

Also about radiation

2011-05-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

but about lots of other things, too

works in progress, oil, graphite on canvas, dimensions variable

About Radiation

2011-05-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

About Radiation, mixed media on paper, 12 x 12 inches, 2011

Which way it's gonna go....

2011-05-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Paint me a future
24 x 25 inches, oil on panel, 2011

Gamesgamesgames

2011-05-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

oil on panel, 2 ft square,
2005, 2011, its a reworked painting I did @ UCSC

We are all still a work in progress

2011-05-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

Show Coming Up!

2011-05-02T18:12:00.001-07:00

Quiet Cataclysm In White, mixed media on six panels,
12 inches x 72 inches, 2011

Showing brand new work this month @ Jellyfish Gallery SF!
Storyteller group show
Opening May 14th, 8-11 pm
see FB invite with all relevant info.

Jedi Paintings

2011-04-24T10:42:00.001-07:00

I have tried to create a world
(a world is hard to create when the pen keeps running out of ink)
a world where the surface and the interior of things are both visible
(a world like our world, much, but)
where memories last forever
where love means love
I strive (I strive to not strive)
to allow this world creation to occur
by being guided by pure intuition.
the subconscious, God,
the Force....
jedi paintings
birds connect the earth with the sky.
women are more than the objects of the male gaze.
The unfolding of life is my subject.
And I, hers.

Thinking in greys and blues

2011-04-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

Good day in the studio. The marine layer came in...norcal salt air, you have been good to me...been thinking about how important stories are, and what that has to do with pictures, and what that has to do with me...

Mural Finished

2011-04-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Mexican Deity Huitzilopochtli (weetz ee lo poke lee) or Oakland is totes multicultural

Acrylic mural,
10' x 10', 2010/11

Also, check out the official art wall unveiling this Saturday and help clean up Jingletown from 9am-12pm, followed by BBQ and live tunes all afternoon!

if i can make music in shapes and colors

2011-04-14T20:08:00.001-07:00

i will

It's A Bird

2011-04-13T16:20:00.001-07:00

In Progress
"Hawk" (working title)
acryllic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
2011
collaborative "live" painting by
Jordan Quintero
Kat Hoban
Sky
Nate Valensky
Begun at Trickster Art Salon, SF, Ca, Jan 27th, 2011
continued at Sonoma International Film Festival, Sonoma, Ca, April 9th, 2011

Law Pt Bird

2011-03-16T21:39:00.001-07:00

Stand Tall Pt II

2011-03-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

The struggle to live in two values like freedom like misery loves company
mixed media installation, 3 x 9 ft

On display at Old Crow Tattoo and Gallery 362 Grand Ave Oakland CA through April 30th

One thing becomes another

2011-03-12T01:35:00.000-08:00

and we are the same thing, I and thou...
everybody say

Good day in the studio

2011-03-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

sexy
sexy, pt 2

The Becoming Myth

2011-02-27T16:38:00.001-08:00

"The Becoming Myth", 2004
oil line etch, aquatint, hard ground
edition of 10 (4 left)
10 x 12 inches

This is a ten state copper plate etching that I made in 2004 in the UC Santa Cruz printmaking studio while earning my bachelors degree in fine art. The line based, abstracted, over-lapping reality fields established in this piece have been a recurring motif in my work over the last six years. I felt that I should share this piece now, to establish the relationship between the automatic drawings that I have been making in the studio and at the "Live Art Wednesday" events, work that deals with the communication that occurs between self and other, memory and experience, intuition and reason, symbol and sign, becoming and being...the art of drawing mimeographs movement of information between these abstract loci...and, emerging from this process, worlds...
Please contact jq@jordanquintero.comfor purchase inquiries.

Live Art Drawing 4

2011-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

Sold
Drawed on 2/2/11
plus finished up the ones before got em crispy and sold um I like this one cause it's one pass, almost all lines the same line....and Tuffy let me use her little blender thingy to make pretty subtle shading with the graphite.

Live Art Drawings 3

2011-02-04T10:48:00.001-08:00

Drawed on 1/26/11 (was so sad)

Live Art Wednesday Drawings 2

2011-02-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

Drawed on 1/19/11

Sold

Live Art Wednesday Drawings

2011-02-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

Drawed on 1/12/11

Sold

New Prints for Sale

2011-02-03T09:52:00.001-08:00

"Lion" 12 x 36 inches
$65

"Quietly" 12 x 12 inches
$22.50

"Moving Right Along" 12 x 12 inches
$22.50

"Drawing Drawings" 12 x 12 inches
$22.50

Paypal jordan.quintero@gmail.com and drop an email with which ones you want.
Allow 2-4 weeks for delivery. Printed on archival watercolor paper with Epson archival pigment inks.
Cheers!
Show Friday in Oakland! The Uptown, 19th and Telegraph

New Pictures of Pictures

2011-02-02T10:03:00.001-08:00

And, I'm thinking of flying. Trying to get the f out...but there is nothing to even get out...no thing, empty. Recognize tao, recognize the game...the picture tile game. Layers of layers....
Show Friday @ The Uptown Nightclub 6-9 pm, 19th and Telegraph, Oakland.

Rockstars

2011-01-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

In Progress

2011-01-28T16:17:00.000-08:00

Lion of Judah. Rasta piece for my brother.

Pictures

2011-01-26T10:49:00.001-08:00

Street Art in the Studio

2011-01-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

What a silly...anyway, recent studio collab with Kat Hoban...not very ironic, and "street" only because the things they are made of were found on the street, oil paint on tar paper with re-claimed window frame frames, they change colors...

New Work

2011-01-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

Dreaming again
Shows coming up...
Everything for sale, end of the world blowout
run run

What I am doing: Pt X

2011-01-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

Art is a question of audience, i've learned.
Anything is art in the context of an artist doing it. The professional artist survives on goodwill alone. And on it's art.

So, I am applying to gradute school. I want to speak to the fabled word where things survive on beauty alone.

Because, after all, this is abut beauty/

and what it takes to create that. when does inert material become beautiful? Is that our question?

Well, to make a painting, this specific type of beautiful object i:e:, it is necessary to put quite a bit of physical labor into it.

I like that.

And, like all human endeavors, there is the constant flux between what is intended and perceived. These gaps, these failures, are what my art is about.

And the successes. ;)

It is important to use the internet to speak these days. There is much more to life than making paintings. Pictures are the important things.

An music (music coming soon)

Open Studio, Dec '10

2010-12-05T10:47:00.000-08:00

Blaack Friday Listen to pandora Tom Waits station. Love the ones you love. Send it as a text poem on the internet. Walk the doog.

2010-11-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving Text Poem:

(so then you can go be with the one's you love, again.)

Jordan Quintero
circles in circles,
by them they make a line
studio capture/blog post
Nov, 2010

2010-11-22T17:54:00.000-08:00

2010-11-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

Pictures

2010-11-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

listen while you look

Animus

2010-11-17T18:30:00.000-08:00

Animus: that which moves matter. Will.

This work is about origination. About movement, and beginning to move, and how it continues. There is anxiety, living in a late age,
a feeling as if it may stop.

Do we think or feel our way away from the doom,

reason and act? React? Or submit?

Painting for me is an action against the doom.

Much like that can go into madness. It is a vain and brutal thing to do, actually, paint. In some respects.

I happen to work across a variety of media, following a trail of accidents waiting to happen, I like their smell. I like failure. It is beautiful and triumphant to me.

These works fail, and are about failure.
)But that is the beautiful thing.(

These works triumph, and are about compassion.

Femininity Install

2010-11-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

Opens Tomorrow 8pm
The day i was born 29 years later.
Good times.

2010-11-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Why I do it:

Femininity opens Saturday @ Old Crow

its love, baby,
all love

2010-11-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

Labor Interests: Words: 1st draft

2010-10-21T19:32:00.001-07:00

This is a project.

Painting. Drawing. Same thing.

Painting (which shall indicate making pices of stuff with stuff on then to sell to people to put in their houses. I know. Crazy. Right?)

ANYWAY.

State.

So. The profound thing to say is

Painting is like like the dao. In that it is a thing that has no beginning and know end. That is formless, yet contains all forms.

It is a metaphor for being and existence (to paraphrase some french guy to impress a girl ;)

sigh

It takes so much time and money. Well, I am spending so much time and money. But I feel that it is necessary and completely within the bounds of reason to meet the demands of the things with stuff on them that tec t that I want to make demand of me) to demand of me

(R.D. Lang

Anyway/

pictures are like money. completely imaginary, but there they are.

learned.

so.

I make pictures. The things with no beginning etc. Lately, I've been using a lot of lines. But what I really want for there to be is olor. Lines are cheaper.

Do what you can with what you got. I learned that from women.

I do it for the ladies. They have raised me, nurtured me, held me. I give thanks to all the women in my life. A lot of my pictures look like you. You are on my mind a lot. You give form to the formless ness. Etc.

and so.

These pictures are about being things with stuff (we'll call them marks) on them, that are a reocrding of the thing with no beginning and no end. Happening. Good picture objects don't be, they exist. In that, they are happening.

So, the pictures are happening to be, and they begin to resemble, and then you choose that hich they resemble. And you work towards that. The whole time remembering that they are not, they are happening to be. But you strive and you struggle, and the movement happens. And it is colorful.

So. That is how I make art. Like that.

So much for the process.

Good show

2010-10-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came out. Big ups to MW, the beer guy, internet porn, love junkies, bay mamas, and mamas mamas.

All my folks in the Atl, we gotcha.

To Cali sunshine,

All love

all one love,

Dr Bronners,

hippie shit

paint til my hands fall off

Make my life a mess and a messy poem.

Because I like the way it looks so nice together.

I like the way it looks.

That's it

Because I like the way it looks.

Will put more pics on FB later. Damn you FB.
And cigarettes. Damn you cigarettes, so tired and it's all your fault.

;)

PS Nessi I painted six of the same paintings. Remember how I said I wanted to do that?

Solo Show @ Mission Workshop

2010-10-05T20:21:00.001-07:00

Artist Statement:

My most recent body of work consists of multiple series, both figurative and abstract, united by a limited use of color as a means to investigate certain metaphysical properties inherent, to my mind, to the process of creating artwork.

The paintings in the recent “Stop/Motion” series are the result of an intensive time-based studio project in which I prepared eight identical 30” x 30” panels and executed them in sequence with charcoal, graphite and gesso, giving each two intensive two-hour sessions documented by stop-motion photography. Seeking to involve the recent “live painting” phenomenon into my process, I approached each piece as a meditation exercise, in which I was “seeking the center.” I think of them in a sense as mandalas: collections of movements and patterns that move in orbit around their center. The use of a limited, or binary, palette serves my intention to metaphorically synthesize Eastern traditions, primarily Zen Buddhism, with the Western tradition’s dialectical philosophic approach to metaphysical investigation.

The figurative series in this show also employ a limited palette and, while distinguished by representational elements, they express the same sense of a dialectical process occurring. Exploring the passage between feeling and reason, subjective and objective spaces, memory and forgetting, their process deals primarily with the translation of images from photograph to painting. The “Muse” series is based on photographs I took of a friend, while the “Electric Muses” series is based on photographs culled from internet porn sites. The former focuses on dialogue, abstraction, and memory, while the latter explores the tension between aesthetic stylization and the agency of their subjects.

I make artwork with the intention of finding moments of personal truth and thus creating beautiful image/objects. For me, the process is paramount and time dedicated in the studio becomes a sort of sacrificial rite whereby the whorl and flux and chaos of life can be distilled, purified and transformed into utterances that may, hopefully, shed light into the world. That’s not to say that all my work is serene and contemplative – passion and energy often overpower – but always there is a searching for the mean, the middle path, balance, and harmony. Often, failing is a sort of truth. These are the husks, the traces of a flame, only. But, there they are.

Stop Motion Project

2010-10-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

co produced with martin films

Jordan Quintero - new work at MISSION WORKSHOP from martinfilms on Vimeo.

kinda cool.\

about the show, about the show, hmmmmm

helloooooooo!

Collab Session

2010-09-28T22:59:00.001-07:00

With the Scots-American neighbors, Greg and Alexa. Good show

2010-09-23T23:10:00.001-07:00

And, cut. 16 paintings. Drawings. Whatever.
20 gigs. . .

Labor Interests: Stop Motion Project One words

2010-09-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

"When you start working, everybody is in your studio-the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas-all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you're lucky, even you leave."-
John Cage

This blog is called "labor interests" because it's goal is to highlight the amount of energy that the creative process, in both a macro and a personal context, requires.

As an artist I am in a continual flux between being very proud and honored by my work and being frustrated and even despondent over my shortcomings. To me, the dedication and sacrifice required for creative expression are an important locus for generating content and meaning in the work. Specifically, the movement and manipulation of material, the intense, focused hours of actually working in the studio, and the struggle against ever present doubt whether or not it (art) is actually a valid form of living are what I feel give my work much of it's weight, character, and meaning.

In this project, I began by carefully preparing nine identical square panels, 30 x 30 x 4.5 inches, in itself no small amount of labor. After investing so much energy into just the preparatory stage of the project, and feeling the importance and power of rhythmic, concise and focused movement, I decided to follow a somewhat esoteric course for the production of images on these panels, referencing the pseudo-mystical idea of self-less-ness according to the above quote by John Cage.

The pieces have been created sequentially, in sessions documented in part by stop motion photography. In an intense struggle to be both meditative and performative, I begin with graphite and charcoal and move in with white acrylic gesso, then back to charcoal, back and forth, focusing on the rhythmic gestures and resisting the impulse to intentionally develop illusions, figures, or didactic imagery in any way. If they emerge, it must be the result of the internal necessity of the picture, it's composition and surface and balance, and nothing can become precious or sacred: I must be willing to continually sacrifice the picture to the process, the image to the object, the self to the ideal.

I begin with two specific prompts: "forget your self" and "find the center". I like to listen to music, and am usually trying to stop thinking about girls, when I paint.

I am finished when I forget myself and have found the center--at that point it feels as if the image/object's rhythm and logic is established and there is an organic vitality to it, and I must step out of it's way.

The work will be on exhibition at Mission Workshop 40 Rondel St.
San Francisco, CA 94103 next month. Opening reception Thursday, Oct 7th, 6-10pm.

Dont think

2010-09-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

And forget about the camera
And find the center

stop motion project pt 2

Charcoal, graphite, gesso on panel

30 x 30 x 4.5 inches 2010

Solo Show Oct 7th at Mission Workshop

In the studio today

2010-08-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

I painted with whites and greys. I painted pictures of lovely young ladies, and thought of the myth of them. And I felt that this myth was true. That there is a synthesis in them of beauty and truth and purity with the wretched bullshit that seems to actually make up this mad game of birthing and eating and dying, in the day to day, many days. That for sparkling moments (goddamn it I feel those moments, goddammit I feel those moments right now) the clutter and debris of our moments of our lives can shake into a perfect snowflake and be. And, as an artist I want to control that, but, in honor. I want to preserve that. To stretch it into a material, to build a forever for it. And I just mess it all up. Invariably. But, that can be a beautiful thing too. Messing up. Failing. Doing our best.

So much , so much so much.

At the end of the day, the bastards wont be able to say I didn't try.

Dammit

Painting

2010-08-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Muse One
graphite and gesso on canvas
24 x 36 inches
for sale
jq@jordanquintero.com

So fing arty i cant fing stand it

2010-08-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Stolen from Sarah Kay.

Stencils are the new black

"It's nice, but it needs a sliver of light."

"This painting is nice but it needs a sliver of light and a bluish gray, kinda slightly metallic glare"

So f*ing tragic I cant f*ing stand it.
Elle will take care of Beckman if he outlasts me. She knows he is a commodity.
My favorite painting
a lightpost memory, wall palimpsest
etc
The community art wall

Huitzilopochtli, Aztec warrior/hummingbird God. After 2nd day of work.
Thanks to everyone who partied in J town this weekend, so much fun, on the reallly real.

you know, the urban farming, the neighbors and their malamutes, it's a nice place...

2010-08-14T12:32:00.001-07:00

ahhh, jtown is nice when there is sun.

djing tonight @ the tsistas afta pahtay
gonna be fun :)

2010-08-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Walking down the stairs into my studio and looking around

ready to make some many paintings

City Art Show Friday: SF Theme Show

2010-08-05T18:45:00.001-07:00

City Study One: Blue City
oil on panel
11.75 x 9 inches
$200

City Study Two: Late Rains
oil on panel
27.75 x 9.875 inches
$450

@ City Art Gallery
Opening Friday, August 6th 7-10 pm
828 Valencia St, SF city, in da mission
cheers

Getting Going 'Gain

2010-07-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

collaboration with Kat Hoban
keep rocking

Going to get freshy fresh, stay tuned.
Studio cleaned, shows booked, fun been done had, gettin' to work.
Redemption from creation. Yes yai.

Drawings

2010-07-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

There are lots of things to cry about

2010-07-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

It's true.
I've felt the coming on of the end of the world since as long as I can remember.
Yet(it might be only the end of the ego, mine, but, then,
it might not)And.
The only thing that seems to make sense to do
is make pictures.
Funny.
That

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2010-06-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

drawing the world again.
starting to.

Cliches are

2010-06-24T14:40:00.001-07:00

It has been a long month already. Lot of work and and time and energy went into open studios and opening Branches Gallery and working for the man to pay for these endeavors, and trying to squeeze in a bit of art making or at least thinking of art making.
The other night, after spending a few hours in the studio breaking it down to get it ready to start working in again, tidying up my books, and finishing the last piece in the commissioned "Looking" series that I began working on in the winter, I gave myself a good half hour of just sitting and looking at myself via what I have done. What I have made. I am proud of my work. It is not easy to stay dedicated to it, day in, day out, pouring money and time and energy into it, and for what...? To have some pretty pictures? To prove something to somebody, to myself? Or, to "deal with my issues", give myself play therapy because mommy and daddy invariably disappoint? Maybe to avoid dealing with my issues? Or, perhaps, I'm chasing the Freudian strip, chasing 'fame, money, beautiful lovers'? All these things are true, are motives, I suppose. But,
it is the quiet,
the quiet moments of looking; when it breaks through to seeing and when words become irrelevant and there is a wholeness to the wholeness. The is-ness of the thing, the whole thing, right there, right here, right now, happening. I felt that, then. The other night. Recorded a looking movement moment:

I am what I am. I do what I do. I am an artist.
Tah daaaa!
emoticon
Silly, life.

"Translating Spaces" Opening Tomorrow Sunday, June 13th, 5pm-8pm

2010-06-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Madeline Tonzi

"This body of work is an investigation into the significance of memory and place in relation to a newly invented term, solastalgia. This term was created in order to describe the lost sense of place that people experience in the wake of environmental changes. It is a feeling of displacement without having been displaced.

Each work of art is based on a story I collected from various individuals. I asked each person to reflect on a place that has transformed thus reshaping his or her physical, spiritual, emotional, or cultural relationship to that place.

From each response, I began to extract the most vivid imagery in order to reconstruct their memories. I implicated the use of vibrant colors in order to reflect the life experiences that are the essence of memory and place."

Jenn Collins

Jenn Collins relocated about a year and a half ago to Oakland from New London, CT by way of a horse-wrangling stint in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming. She is a mixed media assemblage artist working in various materials ranging from animal bone to clay, wood, antique objects and toys. Her work is best described as symbolic narrative through three-dimensional collage. Often spending a large amount of time researching the subjects she is inspired by, the resulting work is a translation of historical and personal symbolism, which gives the viewer space to interpret a story.

After graduating with two majors from Connecticut College's Art and Art History departments, with a minor degree in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from Keble College, Oxford University, England, Jenn was the artist in residence at the Garde Arts Center in New London, Connecticut during the theater restoration process from 1998-2001. She was one of the original artists in residence chosen to live at the Hygienic Arts Coop in New London from 2000-2008. She worked as a restoration carpenter for 10 years before following her passion for horses out west to become a horse wrangler. Now in California, she maintains a thriving studio and continues to explore the mysteries that lie in the tremulous relationship between memory, movement, and object: waiting, elusive, beautiful, her work speaks of the truths of the imagination and the beauty of the forgotten, the discarded, the hidden.

Interative Art Project @ Open Studios Last Weekend Is Phenomenalogical Success!

2010-06-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

I make art because it is a nice, roundly solipsistic answer to that nagging and eternal rhetorical question (think Charlie Brown) "Oh, what is the point"
Self Portrait Poject @ Open Studios last weekend:

Everybody (a gaggle of my artist neighbors, well wishers and passers-by) draw their reflection, exactly and only, with a sharpie, on the reflection on the chintzy (is that a bad word (?)) plexi-glass window of my studio, during open studios. Then, out comes the paint...you aint artsier than me, swear.
Palimpsest project 1, go

Open Studio

2010-06-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend
Sat 11am-6pm & Sunday 11 am-5pm
2934 Ford St, # 8
Oakland, CA
94601

Special Engagement: Translating Spaces @ Branches Gallery

2010-06-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

Jordan Quintero

Madeline Tonzi

Jenn Collins

Sunday, June 13th
5pm-8pm
2900 Glascock
Oakland, Ca
94601

Art History

2010-05-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Before, there was no deliberation. The pharaoh told you.
Then, it was about how to paint.
More recently, it became about what to paint.
And, then, why to paint.
Currently, it seems to be more about how to sell the paint.
Eventually, they will be on my level, and they just wont give a f*ck
Going back, way back, before the pharaoh, to the time of the caveman
*I'll be out later, before then, come in for a visit and see

So long, and thanks for all the water

2010-05-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

The best painting ever

2010-05-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

Comes from a place that feels like dancing with your eyes closed
sad and ecstatic and true.
It is like music.
The best painting I do
at least

painting is irrelevant, listen to Bab Marley

One Love (Cordovan Remix)

Gettin Ready

2010-05-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

Open Studios
June 5,6,12(maybe),13
2934 Ford, Numba 8
Oakland

Thinking and Feeling

2010-05-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

and making all these damn pictures,

and

running and running round my head it says: Just one more, just ten more, just keep going....

just make the mark, just go, just keep going....

make it all mean...

And, what of love?
Well,
Bring it to me,
my life,
I will eat it,
and because it is bitter,
and
because it is my love
i will stay awake and draw you a picture
of what I think
and
what I feel
and
that I love
why I love

I made a stencil

2010-05-23T15:48:00.000-07:00

see?

art is easy, sheesh

Paint the wall

2010-05-17T23:57:00.001-07:00

Then draw a picture

Then, paint on a drawing

Now,
paint a picture....

Dont Ever Give Up

2010-05-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Just dont.

Ever.

Ok?

back out into

2010-05-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Have been really disconnected from the internet from a while, so I made some pictures...new pieces, about the world. I long for it again, to move out and capture. And, to be captured.
Because,
Never Forget
the End is Nigh.

Be Brave

The End is Always Nigh

Show Tomorrow

2010-04-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

I Dream With My Hands + The Broken Line:
A Drawing Show

The mark; the scratch; the wound is the fundamental experience. Is what pushes outward and inward, is incredible impetus towards realizing consciousness. In drawing, the initial mark is the wound through which only an honest, concerted effort may make sense of, may justify, may heal. Rupturing the purity of a blank canvas is easy as drawing breath, producing a finished drawing can be like running a marathon. What is essential is the faith in the power of pushing on, in continuance, in hope.

It is strange, though, because

Most things remind me of the apocalypse...we live in interesting times, as the Chinese are said to say;)...what to do, what to do. This is my counting. This is my reckoning up, the tallies of the games of the day, back and forth, back and forth...too much information layered upon too many ideas, and forever searching for just that one idea, that one image, that perfect picture...

I'm getting closer...

and I fall away.

These are a record.

Cala

2010-04-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

it breaks apart. it comes together. sometimes at the same time.
Show Friday!@Tweekin Records Gallery
Haight and Steiner, SF
6-9
Check it out!

Detail

2010-04-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Self Portrait as Dr. Manhattan detail

I Dream With My Hands + The Broken Line: A Drawing Show

Opening Friday, April 5th, 2010

6pm-10pm

@ Tweekin' Records Gallery

593 Haight Street San Francisco,

CA 94117-3406

Broken Lines+I Dream With My Hands

2010-04-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

from I Dream With My Hands series

from Broken Lines series

Show Opens @ Tweekin' Records Gallery this Friday, 4-5-10, from 6-9pm
Brand new drawings show.
Haight and Steiner, SF

People make life good on nice mornings on the stoop

2010-03-30T11:34:00.001-07:00

good people, good stoop, good morning

Labor Interests: Notes On A Process

light and water, earth and air

multiples

3 years ago

LoveNotes 14 detail

Love Notes notes

Norcal Swing, 11/11

drawings, carpet, a small amount of sunlight

Possibly the best day I've ever seen at Pismo

The Ache

thinking drawing feelings

timshel

mishapen

Still Standing

Studio Show, dialed in

All Peoples Temple, documentation

Breaking it down

Drawings

Eurydices process

It's been moments like this one...

Transitions

In progress

Project: Man is a monkey, trying to be a tree

photo essay of the studio

Live/Work

names of artworks poem

Also about radiation

About Radiation

Which way it's gonna go....

Gamesgamesgames

We are all still a work in progress

Show Coming Up!

Jedi Paintings

Thinking in greys and blues

Mural Finished

if i can make music in shapes and colors

It's A Bird

Law Pt Bird

Stand Tall Pt II

One thing becomes another

Good day in the studio

The Becoming Myth

Live Art Drawing 4

Live Art Drawings 3

Live Art Wednesday Drawings 2

Live Art Wednesday Drawings

New Prints for Sale

New Pictures of Pictures

Rockstars

In Progress

Pictures

Street Art in the Studio

New Work

What I am doing: Pt X

Open Studio, Dec '10

Blaack Friday Listen to pandora Tom Waits station. Love the ones you love. Send it as a text poem on the internet. Walk the doog.

Pictures

Animus

Femininity Install

Labor Interests: Words: 1st draft

Good show

Solo Show @ Mission Workshop

Stop Motion Project

Collab Session

Labor Interests: Stop Motion Project One words

Dont think

In the studio today

Painting

So f*ing arty i cant f*ing stand it

you know, the urban farming, the neighbors and their malamutes, it's a nice place...

City Art Show Friday: SF Theme Show

Getting Going 'Gain

Drawings

There are lots of things to cry about

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Cliches are

"Translating Spaces" Opening Tomorrow Sunday, June 13th, 5pm-8pm

Interative Art Project @ Open Studios Last Weekend Is Phenomenalogical Success!

Open Studio

Special Engagement: Translating Spaces @ Branches Gallery

So fing arty i cant fing stand it