Piazza del Popolo, Rome

If it weren’t for music I probably couldn’t make art. I know that it’s extremely important to a lot of us here at Invisibleman. So, in the spirit of sharing influences and inspirations, here are my top 19 (+1 EP) albums of 2007, in alphabetical order.

Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass
A Place To Bury Strangers – Self Titled
Deerhunter – Cryptograms / Fluorescent Grey EP
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
Feist – The Reminder
The Go! Team – Proof Of Youth
The Icarus Line – Black Lives At The Golden Coast
Jay-Z – American Gangster
Les Savy Fav – Let’s Stay Friends – Rock
Liars – Liars – Psych Rock
Ted Leo And The Pharmacists – Living With The Living
Menomena – Friend And Foe
MIA – Kala
The New Pornographers – Challengers
No Age – Weirdo Rippers
Pinback – Autumn Of The Seraphs
Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
St. Vincent – Marry Me
Check out my iMix from these albums.

This is another in the series I’ve been working on. It was transparent base, screenprinted on multiple layers of old jewel cases. It’s approximately 17 x 14 inches.

Ever since I was told that the first study was reminiscent of a daguerreotype, I’ve been trying to come as close to a combination of silver film negatives and holograms as I can.

Click here to see what it looks like just standing on my desk.

I’ve been a posting slacker, everyone, I know! I’ve been holed up in my apartment being sick and working on drawings for a group show in Portland. More on that to follow!

The above image is a paper lithograph. Paper lithographs are amazingly simple to execute but the results are tough to predict. Basically you gum up a xerox, ink it and then run the inked xerox through the press. The paper xerox is your plate! Optimistically you can get 3-5 prints per paper/plate. Each print is rather unique and thus paper lithos are something like monoprints. This image was created from a xerox of an old drawing of mine. Also I must disclose that my instructor inked up much of this print AND inking up the paper litho seems to be where the real magic happens. One needs to have a soft touch and a keen eye to what the ink is doing to the paper and to the toner (which is receiving the ink) on the paper. Again: amazing! I am very excited about this process and look forward to experimenting further.

This is another illo for Publisher’s Weekly ‘Soapbox’ column (thanks for the steady work Clive!). The author, Mary Murphy writes about Jessica Seinfeld’s book, “Deceptively Delicious”. Seinfeld’s book gives tips for busy parents on how to sneak pureed veggies into kid-friendly dishes, without them detecting the spinach you’ve surreptitiously included in the brownies. Murphy writes about how the culinary deception wasn’t so successful with her kids.

I am long overdue for a post. This image was inspired by two things which I saw this week.
First, a CRAZY ice storm which occurred last weekend. We were in Harrisburg and everything was covered in ice. Each blade of grass was encapsulated. I took over 200 photos… I think my fiances parents must think I am crazy. I was standing under the berry trees, getting dripped on, but it was so beautiful to see.
Second, my friend Gab just bought a fabulously interesting historic house in PA. The house belonged to Horace Furness, brother of the architect Frank Furness. The house has the original library dated from 1890. I was hanging out on those stairs yesterday!
One of the rooms in the house also had this great patterned (and flocked) wallpaper which I of course had to photograph. And then play with in illustrator.
In an alternate world, I’d play guitar for the band “wallpaper ice storm.” I would rock.

Union Square, intersection at 14th Street—this afternoon, sun’s shadows seemed perfectly aligned and perpendicular with Manhattan’s North-South streets today. I think many New Yorkers sensed this, but just didn’t admit it to themselves.

More snippets from my solo exhibition “Never Been”; a Summer scene with a Pig farmer crossing a river (I don’t know why, but pigs are my favorite thing to draw at the moment, I think it’s because they’re so fat and stodgy with no real structure that you can draw them however you like. As long as it has a snout, it will look like a pig.) and a Summer night’s party scene.

The show got some excellent press in this week’s MEN’s City Life Magazine Supplement, which you can read here.