Youtube Music, New Live Paintings, Eyelid Studies

> Music
Audio recordings from the videos on my Youtube channel are now available for free/pay-what-you-want download at michaelgarfield.net. I'll continue to update this album as new videos come out, making it easy for people to enjoy my performances without having to wait for the video to load.

In related news, I am now sponsored by L.R. Baggs! Which means, among other things (like getting free toys), that they're featuring my video for "You Don't Have To Move" on their Youtube channel. I'll be doing more videos for them soon in order to show my appreciation for their M1 Active Soundhole Pickup, which amplifies all the weird things I like to do to guitars. In the meantime, go see the current video if you haven't already, and join me in praising the stars that it is, after all, possible to get attention from the right people.

> Imagery

Fire Feathers - 2009 12 05
Boulder Theater Mark Vann Foundation Fundraiser: Great American Taxi,
Tim Carbone, Keith Moseley, Euforquestra, Elephant Revival,
Pete Karsounes, & The Black Swan Singers
opaque pens on masonite
20"x30" - original for sale
signed 11"x17" prints available - $20

This was one of the most awesome shows for which I have ever had the good fortune to paint. Banjoist Mark Vann of Leftover Salmon died back in 2002, and ever since then his band has held a yearly fundraiser to support the things he cared about – music education, feeding kids, stuff like that. So the heart at this show was simply incredible. Everyone was there to remember a friend and put music to good use in helping the community. I set up in the back of Boulder Theater in their loungey area across from the bar, unavoidable on the way in or out but safe from the mayhem.

This one hearkens back to some of my earlier work, when I was less concerned with layering and more interested in vibrant fractals. To me it has the flavor of the flower cross-sections I looked at under the microscope in college, but my friend and unofficial namer-of-paintings Leesah Noble of Umba Imports dropped a title on it half an hour into the show. So fire feathers, they are.

Event organizer Jay Rizzi, one of the nicest promoters I have ever met, took this sweet pic of me in action:

Cross Pollination - 2009 12 04 & 12 B Side & Toad Tavern
DJ Rekluse & Michelle And Johnny Cat, Melissa Ivy
opaque pens on masonite
20"x30" - available for sale signed
11"x17" prints available - $20

In my friend Paul Lonely's book Suicide Dictionary, he writes beautifully of a fictional monastery dedicated to integrating all of the world's wisdom traditions. Many of the poems irreverently mix the symbols, prophets, and language of the various religious institutions to point to the ongoing lively nature of divine creativity, which has a way of throwing crazy ideas together apparently just to see if they'll stick. So here is my "Punnet square" describing the marriage of Islam and Christianity - the octagonal regenerative patterns of Islamic tiling with the crucifix and a lattice of coins in the background alluding to symmetrical union and the Trinity. Intersecting patterns meet in the middle, revealing their nonexclusivity. The center, the nexus, is richer than either axis on its own.

And in studio news, here are the first five pieces in Eyelid Studies, a series of small-format paintings (8"x15" each) I'm using to explore variations in pattern and color and to keep my idle hands from causing trouble. Plus, I can make these available to people who want original work but can't cough it up for a full-sized painting. A lot of people have remarked that some of my recent work looks like the patterns they see when they push on their eyelids, so I figured I'd run with it and actually go for a themed series. Here are the first results:

Eyelid Studies #1 - #5 - 2009 12 01 - 08 - studio
opaque pens on masonite
8"x15" - originals for sale individually or together
signed 11"x17" prints available - $20

Here they are hanging up in Dot's Diner On The Hill at University and Broadway in Boulder, where I had an extensive opening last Saturday night. It was a blast, and I'm sorry you missed it (if you did) – but they'll be hanging up there for another few weeks yet, so go get yourself some awesome breakfast and surround yourself with a floor-to-ceiling journey through the last two years of my live art:

Thanks to Loni Jones and Dot's for having my work up in there! It's a real treat for me to see so much on display in one place. Plus, the wine and pizza was awesome.

My Time Has Come (Jeff Buckley Tribute)

> Imagery

My Time Has Come - 2009 11 18 B Side Lounge

Jeff Buckley Tribute Night:
Jeffery Hyde Thompson & Band, Dechen Hawk, Ramaya,
Katy McNeill, Greg Isakov, Kendra Current
18"x24" - opaque pens on masonite
original & signed 11"x17" prints available

Last Tuesday, Jeff Buckley would have been 43 years old. Instead, the legendary singer and songwriter accidentally drowned in Tennessee's Wolf River in 1997, the day his band was convening to record a second album...and now, I like to think, he's up there with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Miles Davis kicking out the jams. So it's left to his adoring fans to carry on the tradition of his music. Last year I played in a Jeff Buckley Tribute on his birthday (17 November) at Lawrence, KS's Jazzhaus, but this year I didn't hear about it until the bill was full. So I do what I always do in that situation, and squeezed in at the last minute as a live painter.

The night was great...everyone sang their hearts out (you have to, in order to even approach Jeff's passionate virtuosity), and Jeffery Hyde Thompson's newly-formed tribute group played Buckley's entire album Grace and passed the Turing Test with flying colors. Jeff's 13-year old guitar student Aaron Kirschner kicked off the night with Jeff's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and blew everyone away. Dechen and Ramaya did a stellar version of "Everybody Here Wants You," my favorite from the album that never was. The B Side was packed, people were cheering, the whole thing was a blast. My only regret is that I should have talked with the band about setting up on the side of the stage, because there were so many people that nobody could get to me...might as well have made myself more visible to the audience.

As for this unusual painting, the first in my third year of live art, it's a little more rigid and formal than I'm used to because I wanted to put something together to honor this specific man and his work. The microphone is the one he's holding on the cover photograph to Grace. The text is a past-tense paraphrase from the title track, his uncanny song about intuiting his own demise, which also mentions waiting in the fire (hence the ring of fire). And the wings are the "black feather wings" that unfurl from the "dark angel...watching over them" in "Dream Brother," Grace's closing track and my personal favorite.

The red ribbon was supposed to allude to the red thread of life and give the whole image a bit more dynamism (red is a color Jeff used frequently in his imagery, being a Scorpio and all). But I think it ended up making it look kind of like a Christmas ornament. Which is okay. One thing I know that wasn't lost on Jeff was how it doesn't always come out the way you expect.

More about the concert itself, including photos, in my write-up at Colorado Music Board.

New Video: "Spokes" (Live At The B Side)

> Music
Here's my solo acoustic tapping piece "Spokes" from last week's show at The B Side Lounge in Boulder, the encore from my opening set in support of The Floozies & Fresh2Death. There's a short exposition about Bicycle Day and Albert Hofmann, to which this song is dedicated (after all, his discovery of LSD most likely saved the human species from nuclear annihilation).

Then I shred.

Spokes - 2009 11 07, The B Side Lounge, Boulder CO

(This song was originally featured on my 2008 EP Double-Edged Sword, which you can find for free or pay-what-you-want at Bandcamp.com)

New Paintings From Kelli Rudick & Bonobo

> Imagery

2009 10 07 & 23 The B-Side Lounge (Kelli Rudick, Gloam & Jungle Bums)
18"x24" - opaque pens on canvas panel
11"x17" signed prints - $15

Certain events are major obstacles to my intended painting. Kelli Rudick is a badass neoclassical-experimental live looper who plays percussive guitar and several unique instruments like the array mbira and nail violin. Gloam put on a surprisingly epic show – one of Boulder's sweetest prog rock ensembles, solid beyond their years. And the Jungle Bums are a hard-hitting drum & bass collective with some pretty impressive rappers. Which meant that at both of these shows, I didn't get a lot of work done...I was too busy watching, dancing, or just hanging out. So I took this out to the Boulder Farmer's Market last weekend and set my easel in the grass next to other rogue vendors with lovely feather earrings and a massage chair. It was a beautiful and strangely warm fall day, and everyone was in a good mood. You can't tell too well from this picture, but the yellow orbs in the background have a lot of gold in them and they gleam like medallions in the sunshine.

2009 10 22 Cervantes (Bonobo, Mike Slot, Juno What, Jantsen)

20"x30" - opaque pens on masonite
11"x17" signed prints - $15

I spent the first hour+ on this one with a fat-tipped green marker just making the trees, one sweeping feathery stroke after another in a state of hypnotic flow. My friend, fellow painter Tye-Dye Paul, who falls far more on the "energy painting" side of the spectrum than I do, was very supportive of this expressive and gestural work, and came over to shoot me significant looks and cast spells of blessing on the painting while I was at work. It was really intense, but he is a considerate guy and always asks before getting all up in my space. Apparently not every painter is into his extreme acts of professional friendliness. At any rate, expect more trees like these. It was a liberating new approach, and took me deep into memories of old trips out at Clinton Lake in Lawrence, Kansas, glowing kaleidoscopic jewelry breathing out of the bare winter woods...

The First Of A Busy Summer's Fruit

2009 05 30 & 31 Sail Inn & Rhythm Room (Endoplasmic & Black Moth Super Rainbow)

16x24 - masonite - available

My last painting from Phoenix...a poignant few nights. Endoplasmic is a band of national-level talent mysteriously stuck playing local gigs...going out alone to paint for them at the Sail Inn for probably the last time was a strange, quiet affair amidst all of the jamming. Black Moth Super Rainbow the next night co-headlined a show with School of Seven Bells. The latter made me turn off my lamp during their set (a first-ever for that one...but then again, they'd just come off a European tour, if you know what I mean). But the former were more pleased than anyone ever has been to have me...an adorably nerdy ensemble, very friendly and very real, the frontman sitting cross-legged onstage below crowd eye level and the girl drummer anonymized and androgynized behind a ninja costume. They said they were happy to have something else for people to pay attention to. This painting is the sequel to the painting from Zilla and Glitch Mob's NYE 2008 run at The Fox Theatre in Boulder...another tentacled alien god shimmering into the foreground from some oceanic mindscape.

2009 06 11 & 13 Crosstown Station & Jardine's (The New Mastersounds & Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey)
20x20 - canvas - available

After checking out both The New Mastersounds and JFJO at Wakarusa, to paint for them both again in Kansas City the week after was a summer-synchronous treat. Jardine's - the Odyssey's favorite KC jazz club haunt, tucked away over the green shoulders of the Country Club Plaza - is the classiest spot I've seen in this town...although I'm sure they're playing had something to do with how much I reveled in the find. This is the last in a trilogy of twenty-inch circular canvases...it falls somewhere between the first's crystal structure and the second's leafiness. An integration.

2009 06 17 & 23 501 Club & Quixotes (Brad Senne, Luke Redfield & Zuvuya)
16x24 - masonite - available

After extensive preparatory background work, I started this one on my first night touring my music through Minneapolis. I'd just set up the easel to paint during the other two acts (my friend Luke, a fine folk musician, had hooked up the gig) when I realized I'd locked my keys in the car. Luckily one of the friendly locals let me use her AAA membership to call a locksmith...but only after I'd broken off a cocktail stirrer in the door trying to break in with the power of sheer dumb chance. Until I was able to dig the plastic piece out later that week, I had to walk around the car to unlock it every time. Mildly tragicomic. Minneapolis is BEAUTIFUL. A garden city, lakes and trees and footpaths and bohemia and strange elegant sweeping architecture. Most of this painting, however, was completed in Denver at Quixotes', where I was granted the honor of opening for Zuvuya (Michael Travis and Jamie Janover's acoustic dance jam band with Xander Greene on nylon string guitar and guest Garrett Sayers of The Motet on delicious bass). There were five painters crowding the venue's entire south wall that night...I'll have much more to say about that show in the next entry when I'll finally have finished mixing the recordings of my show that night. For now, suffice it to say that I'm not sure if that jellyfish has more to do with my friend and fellow live painter Kayla Andreano's jellyfish obsession (I'd been staying with her that week, talking jellyfish A LOT) or that these beautiful stinging beasts are the unofficial mascot of Michael Travis' home team, The String Cheese Incident (who were playing a private rehearsal for their forthcoming reunion at Rothbury Festival the next night, and cheesy anticipation was in the air).

2009 06 25 B Side Lounge (Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey feat Fareed Haque) - collab with Todd Shepherd and Kayla Andreano
30x30 - canvas - available
I loved the look on the faces of JFJO when they saw me show up to paint for them for the third time in three weeks in three different states. :) Half the show I spent preparing the painting below for further work at Sonic Bloom Festival the next day, but the other half of the show I spent in pure artistic bliss on my first live collaboration with Kayla and "Tourmaline" Todd Shepherd. We were all so stupified by what emerged from between the three of us that we stared at this painting for over an hour after the show, mumbling dumbfounded partial sentences. Also, this is the only painting I've ever stepped on. We (mostly Todd and Kayla) spent a good chunk of the afternoon preparing the canvas with layer after layer of paint, and at one point Kayla and I painted our feet and walked a few circles around it...unfortunately all that remains visible of that are a few stray toeprints.

2009 06 25 & 26 B Side Lounge & Sonic Bloom Festival (Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey feat. Fareed Haque & Lynx and Janover, Anasia, EOTO + Kang + Kyle)
20x30 - canvas panel - available

Fareed Haque's guitars and equipment were put on the wrong plane and ended up in Wichita the night of this Boulder gig, so he had the audience clap along instead of laying down live loops. Of course they were all a bunch of musical laypeople with a few drinks down, so the rhythm was dubious...I took the initiative and clapped and danced as cheerleader to help everyone keep the beat. Later Fareed let me know how much he appreciated the energy I helped bring to the evening (both as cheerleader and painter) and ok'ed me to paint for his band Garaj Mahal at 10,000 Lakes Festival in a few weeks. Yay! As for the night I completed this painting, what can I say about this year's (and my first) Sonic Bloom Festival except that Mishawaka Amphitheatre is one of my favorite venues in the world, and you should go there. I'm sure the canyon river right behind the stage and the beautiful blue skies had a direct influence on the "vibration" of my paintings. And of course I feel I produce better work when painting for world-class musicians.

2009 06 27 Sonic Bloom Festival (Boombox, Big Gigantic, Sasha Rose, Zilla)
20x30 - canvas panel - available

Krystle Smith and I were responsible for assembling a visionary art gallery at this year's Sonic Bloom, which we put together (with lots of help) on the indoor stage at Mishawaka. We moved all of the lounge's couches up onto the stage and made it a sweet elevated chill spot with art sprouting from every direction – including the diagonal ceiling, where I had a row of my own paintings attached with velcro (making the gallery kind of a danger zone...a few times they fell off and nearly beaned somebody...but because of weak adhesive, not the velcro itself). Anyway, this painting is about the closest I've ever come to making a "Krystle Smith" painting. Lots of layers, lots of blue, lots of simple floating elements and hexagonal geometry. At one point I accidentally smeared the green paint on one of those fronds, but ended up smearing the other fronds as well and it acquired a very painterly effect that was previously impossible for me to attain with markers. I'll probably do more "destructive" smearing like this in the future. And DEFINITELY more painting on gradients.

2009 06 27 Sonic Bloom Festival (Random Rab, Bassnectar, Mochipet)
20x30 - canvas panel - available

Each of these bubbles was painted in advance with Wildfire brand UV ultra-white paint, the kind they use for film backdrops (apparently). When you hit this one with a blacklight everything inverts and the bubbles all glow a profound luminous blue. It's totally sweet...I picked up a 9 UV LED flashlight while living in Arizona (at the Walgreens, billed as a "scorpion finder" because the chitin in their shells is UV-reactive) and would occasionally dip out of "normal light mode" and into "UV light mode" while working on this one as an additional layer of strangeness for the audience. I hope whomever ends up with this painting puts it in the same room as a lava lamp.

2009 06 28 Sonic Bloom Festival (Tipper, David Starfire, Beats Antique, Heyoka)
20x30 - canvas panel - available

Harkening back to simpler days, this one. It kind of reminds me of a logging mill, eating away at the fabric of spacetime itself. By this point in the weekend I'd worked myself pretty raw, so I consider this painting an example of what happens when I'm "frame-dragging" (the computing term...although had this been framed at the time, I'd probably have been so tired I'd have been dragging it around).

2009 07 02 Rothbury Festival (Toubab Krewe, Keller Williams, Lotus)
18x24 - canvas panel - available

Rothbury was a very different live painting experience from my residencies at Wakarusa and Sonic Bloom. I was working from the crowd the entire weekend – and even then, only out of a sense of artistic duty, because I was first and foremost there to spend time with a rarely-assembled group of friends. But I still managed to squeeze in some learning, especially as regards preparing panels with various paints and sprays (thanks to Tourmaline Todd for suggesting I use silver spray paint for stars). I'm not normally a big Keller Williams fan (he's too glib for my tastes) but he put on a killer trance party that day. And Toubab Krewe jammed out on "Billie Jean." All was well in the world.

2009 07 03 Rothbury Festival (String Cheese Incident)
18x24 - canvas panel

This one was painted from the hill above The Odeum, Rothbury's main stage (capacity somewhere around 50,000 people?), where my friends and I squatted for the headliners each night right in front of the giant wicker-and-Christmas-lights Rothbury sign (each letter in the word was about eight feet tall...an excellent landmark, and right next to the water refill station). I can't express how difficult it was for me to make this...the first String Cheese Incident show I'd ever legitimately attended (if you don't count the time my girlfriend and I scaled the mountain behind Red Rocks to catch their last show in 2007 for free), and all I wanted to do was dance, my feet were dancing out from underneath me, I wanted to throw myself down the hill and into the heaving costumed flesh festival but I'd pre-sold this painting to some friends weeks before the festival and had to be responsible in the most inopportune moment. Somehow I think the tension helped with a graceful execution, and in person the silver spraypaint gives the whole piece a luminous quality, as if looking up through the waves to the rippling sunlight above. I'm happy with the results, but finally had to admit that calling my live art blog "Painting While Dancing" is a bit of a misnomer, because it was impossible for me to really get down and work on this at the same time. It was an evening of five minute breaks and intense yearning.