Injection

I found this picture of a man being given a drug in a clinical trial so I wanted to explore what might be outside the window hes looking through. Is it a psychadelic thats enhancing his life with color, or a lethal injection? Can we trust the doctor who seems to have it all figured out?

The Sinking Sound

I had a dream about a week ago that I could see sound. It rose in colorful bubbles from a guitar amp in my garage. Later in the dream color exploded out of my car radio, forcing me to pull over to the side of the highway. I was trying to capture that sensation in this piece titled "The Sinking Sound".

California

With all my finals and the stress of school over I wanted to do something a little different, so I decided to try making a collage in the style of my friend Matt Sell. It was actually a quite therapeutic exercise since making a collage is primarily a decision making project. You don't have to worry about creating the individual elements, you only have to decide how they fit together. This piece is titled "California" and I feel it captures that california feeling without the hollywood/postcard angle (I've never been to California though, I may be completely wrong). Hopefully they'll be more to come soon.

Severed Heads on the Dance Floor

The 'Musica de la Muerta' series includes two pieces. "Narcocoriddo" featured in my last post, and this piece "Severed Heads on the Dance Floor". I wanted to put this piece up as well so they could be viewed together, but I also felt I should give a little of the backstory, since many people might take this as imagination alone and not realize its based on actual events. On September 6, 2006 Gunmen entered a bar in Uruapan, which is located in the Mexican Province of Michoacán. They tossed five decapitated heads on the dance floor with a note that read...

"The family doesn't kill for money. It doesn't kill women. It doesn't kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Everyone knows that. This is divine justice."

The article in Vibe went into detail about the event, but I also found this article which provides more details for those interested.

What originally captivated me about the Vibe article and these events was the strange clash of cultures they displayed. On one side you have the ruthless cartels operating with no regard to human life and remorse, and on the other you have the Mexican entertainment industry with its flashy display of silk shirts and polka beats. I played up the drama in the final piece by portraying the dance floor in full disco flair and having the mysterious gunman wear his finest boots, he is going out on the town after all.

Narcocoriddo

While I've fiddled with Blogs before, this is my latest attempt to make an organized shot at it. On this blog you'll find posts for new artwork and music I've created as well as more in depth musings and more explanation as to why I do what I do. Sometimes my art can be very eccentric and I feel its time I start detailing more of my thought process for everyone. This Blog can be considered an extension of the blog I was running though my website here, but I wanted to move it somewhere where I could hopefully generate more traffic.

Because of my insistence that all posts have content I'll include my final image from the Illustration: Series Class I just finished. Its titled "Narcocoriddo" and is an image inspired by the article "Musica De La Muerte" From the April 2009 Issue of Vibe magazine. The article describes how Mexican musicians are becoming the target of cartel violence in the drug fueled civil war south of the border. This violence also played a part in inspiring musicians to write narcocorrido's, ballads about the drug sumgglers and the cartel life. Similar to Gangster Rap, these songs are often used to detail real life events or boast about ones prowess. Although the article is not available online, heres an article about the article. .

Before I started this project I felt the need to get in the right frame of mind. To do this I spent a few hours recording a sphaghetti western influenced song titled "Mexican Lullaby". There are no lyrics or even lead instruments in the song, but it does capture the slow galloping feel of an old western. The song also translates well in its sense of impending conflict. The calm before the storm.