Artist Statement

DBL

I am Not a Dancer.... /  by DBL

Some Have Influenced Me Profoundly.


I don't really connect myself to the Dancer lineage. I feel that those artist master their craft beyond what I can do, but I see now that there are and have been influential Dancers in my life. As I get older I am finding a long yet loose thread to some kind of lineage. Maybe my teenage angst is finally receding. Now I can except my elders more respectfully.

Maybe the first Dancer was Michael 'Boogaloo Shrimp' Chambers ,"Turbo" in the movie breaking. His sweep piece still sends chills through my body. Ko Murobushi, which a couple of years before his passing followed me on FB...just a lil possibly meaningless accomplishment. Of course my long time teacher/ sages the Tamano's. I learn something new each time just interacting with Hiroko Tamano. Lessons beyond movement. She is the closest I have experienced to a sage in my life. The closest that has changed it. Thank you profoundly.

Yesterday I saw one of these few influential Dancers in my life perform, Oguri. Oguri is based in Venice, Ca and like the others I mentioned has continued to develop his craft throughout his life. Seemingly ageless, something about his and the Tamano’s form that seem to not fear death but embrace the existence of the body, not to destroy it but be in it, sense in it, exist in it, understanding its fragility, and respecting it. Not to say they wish to be immortal...not at all. They stare at mortality and make it their intimate friend, not their over indulgent co-conspirator. This and their soft view on life and movement I believe slows their existence...a stroll to smell the flower on their chest.

I always have a profound experience watching Oguri. Yesterday was no different. In his form I see humanity, its ugliness, its silliness, its frailness and the way trauma can fracture it; transmuting these pieces into something wholesome, and healing. This piece I saw was about death and how our love ones from our childhood become the lovers of our present. How in dreams and memories these things blur, we embrace, this embrace becomes a holding of what was once before, a hope to remember a warmth from the past. We are just children hoping to be loved. Hoping to hold a familiar warm hand. Hoping to have someone there to tell us, it’s ok. To hold us to their chest and kiss us on our small foreheads.

Yet in life we sometimes are alone. Sometime we are scared. Sometimes we are broken. This is life, without this darkness the washing that is love would not feel so sweet.

I wonder why memory, for me, is so fresh in soreness. This lesson of memory as a warm fire, is a new one for me, it is something I am learning.

Thank you to my elders, thank you to the people I love.

My darkness finds home in your light.

Divinebrick in Collaboration with Mike Meanstreez and Z.Vital @ Human Resources LA May 10, 2016 /  by DBL

May 10, 2016 9:30 pm

Human Resources, Los Angeles, Chinatown

410 Cottage Home St

Los Angeles CA

90012 

in collaboration with Mike Meanstreetz from the LA band Present (drums) and Z. Vital (loop effects) to close this circle.

Bass pushing air, creaking, cracking a wooden device called the Basso, to set the bio and molecular rhythm of the space. A device, part bazooka subwoofer speaker, part drum, and part bellowing feedback loop. Supplier of urban noise this wooden sub-woofer will be the splintered connection to indigenous past.

A past rooted in a vibration.  A slight alteration.

A exploration in movement call

ed Corporeal Reformation will occupy the rest of this space. Inner woven reaction to time, space voice and body, will be aided by the pulse of the sub, riding on witnesses inside a WhiteBox as landscape with their collective voices to activate our collective memory.

Sound, Movement and Voices will, I hope, conjure somewhat of a memory in us all.  A dormant behavior that is of a collective experience and a collective understanding.  If only for a second, a fleeting moment of understanding, may we forget the destructive philosophy that we follow without question.  This “performance” is more of a hot box of possibility.

Free to voice yourself.  We will need you to be the creepy crawlers in a night by the lake.  The many gorgeous songs on a perfect night while we form the body of water and the movement of the sky.  Be the bubbling pot that is the voices at a crowded bar.  The musical conversations on a semi crowded bus.  The silly conversation over heard by reason of proximity.  This WhiteBox will converge to be a primordial soup of abstraction of Growth and collective participation, a dance easily achieved by living.

This is a collaboration, concept by DivineBrick, vocal loops by Z. Vital, and textures and rhythm by Mike Meanstreetz.  At center the Basso.

Trying to reclaim some sort of indigenous or forgotten belief or behavior is close to impossible when these things have been destroyed or co-opted. Where does one turn if their past does not exist to borrow from it? Sometimes the things that the colonizer has stereotyped as “indigenous” become the only symbols on which to connect to, either in act of dissent or in hopes of connection. This will further convolute this already broken system. This semiotics are also the way the colonizers themselves find ways of connecting to more holistic styles of existing. Unearthing resources and the destruction of land not only uproots the indigenous people but also further removes the colonizer from forgotten memories of coexisting, not occupation of this land and its inhabitants (this includes plants and animals). Soon the definition of colonizer and the colonized bleeds into a convoluted One.

*instructions will be give on arrival

.

josie j, Mike Meanstreetz and Z. Vital have collaborated on may projects and events including Parallax Beach (An exploration in primordial development in time).

https://

mikemeanstreetz.bandcamp.co

m/

http://poopdood.bandcamp.com

FB Event- 

https://www.facebook.com/events/986952711382236/

HR website-

http://humanresourcesla.com/calendar-events

Proposal For Human Resources LA Decolonize LA /  by DBL



Proposal for “Raze the WhiteBox”
To raze the WhiteBox will be a symbolic action of a greater deconstruction. Working within models of colonization will only develop concepts consumed by colonizing behaviors. Dismantling of this gallery space would be the only method to decolonizing it.

The WhiteBox (any gallery or museum space that hermetically isolates artwork) in its design and conception will always contain/own an object or thought. Property and borders are red flags of colonization. Dismantling a structure which is designed to contain objects and thoughts within 6 sides would be the action to decolonize it. Cement is not fertile ground, it is dead inactive space. A public space that allows community, inspiration and creativity does not exclusively exist as a collection or claim to ownership as does a museum or gallery. Community, inspiration, and creativity by their very nature will always remain fluid and un-owned. These three concepts only empower when used by the collective mass. The process of decolonizing spaces will involve replacing structures in which people collectively perform these concepts.

The remaining land, once this WhiteBox is dismantled, should be a network in which Peoples (any groups that have internalized a colonialist ideology) can regain a culture, but also regain what mother nature once offered in its harsh but nurturing way. The colonization of a People resulted at times with a simultaneous colonization of the land as well. Returning the land to its state of natural symbiosis will plant the seed of change that is necessary for this wounded earth to remember its role and for us to see its glory. This demolition is the only holistic therapy/ cathartic ritual that will remember the many forgotten People, forgotten knowledge, and resources that the colonizers either stole or destroyed. A WhiteBox and its confining walls symbolically and literally censor the past and the land onto which it has rooted itself.

The demolition will be followed by the introduction of indigenous plants and animals. This will inhabit the majority of the land and be integrated in whatever else is built. Some land will remain for agriculture and a stage/ gathering area for community and artist use. In the decolonization of this WhiteBox we must not forget about the inheritors of the colonized state of mind, the children. A place in which children could learn how to engage with nature and relearn the art of symbiosis would replace the structures that now exist on 410 Cottage Home St. If any structures will be built, they will remain small, since the land itself should provide a stage or setting for most things. Monetary means are intangible compared to community action and the blood and sweat of artist and activist. The land will be kept by its users.

If life is art how can life exist in a vacuum? Can the only definition of what art is be contained within a closet, which doors are only opened by someone with the means to own this space? Art removed from life, suffocated in a crate... Is this inspiration? Is art an object free from worldly interaction? Is it a phenomenon sheltered by the very thing that causes its chain-reaction? Transporting artwork produces waste, does this ill benefit this earth? Is a space built like a fortress a structure that welcomes the collective mass?

The brick unit is the beginning of growth. The straight lines imprisons the dirt, the self, the ripple of effect. - Raze the WhiteBox: A Think Tank of Change

May 1, 2016

On Art Practice and Corporeal Reformation /  by DBL

The practice that is this work is not about criticizing colonialism, it is a allegorical response. A very personal response that I might sometimes consider a universal response. The hope is to filter down not the philosophy but the intent, to get to that universalism. A simple state of being that is efficient only in its holistics. Free of biases and specialization, my hopes is to find a way to learn and observe, to live and exist, to breath and touch, to forget by remembering. For now I see this universality as growth, be it cancer, population or regeneration. Finding the precise balance to explore the external and the internal self is one of the challenges with this exploration of this growth. Why the self? It is the first sensor that we are given to understand this Growth. I theorize then that this must be the best at understanding this Growth, holistically each part of the self canceling out the inherent biases.

This exploration as it pertains to the physical and movement I have called Corporeal Reformation. Corporeal Reformation is the act of remembering and learning. It seems to me that performance work is the most radical thing I can do with art. It sets no boundaries between active and passive. We all become part of the community once again. My question would be which community is this we are suddenly a part of when experiencing a performance. The performer or the audience? Are we invading or uniting? Depending on approach a public performance can be a continuous state of colonizing. I think the only way to remedy this is by the passive and the active both being in full effect, and transferring between the hosts (the colonized and the settler).

So it seems that the act of decolonizing can be many messy deeds. In a post-colonial system the colonized and the settler becomes muddled and both become agents of each others restrictions. They both share the initiation rituals of the colonized. Both share symbols and stories in which the powers that be, the first settlers have establish. The colonized start to assimilate the settlers approach, find new land, growth credited partly from new places that one has never seen nor understood. The settlers lost in empty promises lose their own heritage in hopes that assimilation and whitism will provide more than what came before, since it has made a few wealthy and untouchable. Little do they know that the settlers are cattle just as the colonized are the human resource that is a staple of an industrialized nation.

The Sun Bear (three legs and a rail) ep4 /  by DBL

Relatives,

I have been seeking a way, a form, a complete practice in which to exercise actions and thoughts that coincide with larger actions and thoughts that would allow behavioral growth.  Understanding the mechanics and behaviors of this growth was also of interest.  I seek a way to understand while I am actively changing the space in a way single to me, but part of a universal whole in which I am trying to understand.  Causing shifts which rearrange enough to comprehend anew, but not losing the string that pulls me to the center.  This is my present lesson. That seems the most human to me or the human I seek to be.  A searcher of unknowable truths.  A believer in forgotten mistakes.

Destruction is just a small aspect of rebuilding.  When rebuilding, my mind thinks, this is when drive must be channeled. Fire does not need direction, everywhere is its path. 

The most literal understanding of what I mean when I say all those vague concepts I chirp all the time, my only straight forward and simple representation and lesson is my work bench.  Beauty do to function and simplicity.  Growth enabled by necessity and a giants fall.

standing in the woodshop of csulb (wood major department)

I needed a bench to work on.  I had the wood.  The know how I fumbled through.  Each mistake reset with the only skill I did have, the only one we all have, to ride the wave on which we travel skirting on the right angle just enough to continue forward, finding aesthetics in falling upward a spiral step.  To move is chaos. To have continuous movement seems to be the harder drive, the more deliberate tendency.

This work bench maybe a certain kind of perpetual.  Either perpetually in my life time or the Sun Bears.

To catch up on the previous post:

post 1

http://dbrp.blogspot.de/2011/07/sun-bear-my-roubo-workbench.html

post 2

http://dbrp.blogspot.de/2012/11/the-sun-bear-jig-and-router_19.html

post 3

http://dbrp.blogspot.ru/2015/06/the-sun-bear-lifes-future.html

 old tenons removed but not smoothed

My Bench is up to working condition but let me show you how I re-arrived there.  The last I spoke of the Sun Bear I was speaking of the maple plug planed and ready for the next lamination.  Since I cut off the old tenons of the third leg I was left with less material for the tail of the sliding dovetail.  The dovetail that would replace the failed fox joint that originally held the third leg in place. The walnut addition allow me to have the material to make the socket and tail of the sliding dovetail and hit my target height.  It's an ad-hoc aesthetic that I found both silly and harshly contrasting.  Which I enjoy.

Figuring the height was a bit forgiving.  If my measurements of this moving bench were off I would simply have to flatten out the top to correct the angle that would be off.  Of course even though this top has moved drastically it at one point started true.  This is still prevalent in the left side of the bench.   The area between the two twin dovetails of the first two legs were pretty square, some movement.  Those were the strongest of the joints in the work bench.  From there it went from bad to worse...but more about that in the next post.  Saving me a noodle ache when flatting the top I made sure my estimates were true. 

first two walnut pieces

I glued it in the same multi-step method as the maple.

must have gotten too excited this is the only picture of this stage. But you get the idea.

dried and flat

When all the smoothing was done the beauty of the walnut really revealed itself.  It has a gorgeous curl in the grain.  Can't remember where this walnut came from.  Possibly arts school.  My feet have a great view of it when I work.  That's if they look up.

smoothed and ready for the table saw

 top of third leg on which the dovetail will be cut

  Most often the table saw is a highly accurate tool, only if your reference for the cut starts from a square point.

The portions of the third leg that were once square were: the foot, the potion of the slab (slab dims 2 x 16 3/8 x 27 1/4h in.) that enters the foot (foot dims 23 x 3.5x 3.5h in.), the portion of the slab that enters the top of the bench.  As I did when I first built the bench I picked a squarish side, made it more square, then made everything in the general proximity of the parts that would be riding on the table saw square.  Square from there, opposite side as well.

  I did a survey of all the planes and angles of the legs and top and figured which way to fudge and how much.  A very intuitive approach.  Once I made sure the sides of the leg were parallel I finished removing the remaining buds that were the failed fox joint tenons.  The narrow side remained with the natural edge.  Setting the saw to an angle I decided...I just went on how much I needed to angle based on the density and brittleness of the wood (to much of an angle I risk failure on the pointy parts of the dovetail), then I went ahead and made the first pair of cuts down the length riding on the narrow side at the top.

first two cuts done on the tail

I honestly don't remember what I used to cut the length of the cut.  I think I chiseled some of it then cut the rest with my hand saw.  You can see it in the picture.

  At certain points in my general making, I still seem to hit mental blockade.  A now too uncomfortably familiar paralyzing unwelcomed friend.  I sometimes think it is a natural instinct to protect the self.  Or maybe it's a crossed wire on a feedback loop. 

  For me, my personal experience, my demise waits patiently behind hesitation.

  The only problem in knowing this is knowing how to temper my willingness to jump.  This willingness has pushed my psyche, my flesh self, my general growth.  I realize this has also cause unwanted effect.  One example is this next step. 

I thoroughly measured this next cut.  The groove for the sliding dovetail.  I decided to use a circular saw to help me make the recess.  My first cut went perfect. down the center.  Stopping short of going through the whole of the newly replaced underside of the bench (I thought it would look neat if the third leg looked like it got shot out and embedded into the top). The second one was just as well, angle true.

The other side of the angled groove, this cut is where I saw myself going out of the marked line.  I had a chance to stop.  I just continued.  I'm not sure if I continued out of impatience or just for the challenge to fix another mistake.  Even though the whole time it felt purposeful, I regretted the cut as soon as I ended it.

This inconvenience left me with a slightly wide groove towards the stop in the cut.  A stopped reverse tapered sliding dovetail.

first cut down the middle

cut stopped short (used one of my winding sticks for the fence)

another view

Guess by this time I was too preoccupied with measuring to take more pictures.

groove cut and cleaned

I chopped the rest of the groove and cleaned it out with the chisel.

the third leg placed (also compensated for the very slight wind in the leg, that's why it looks at an angle)

The fit was good enough to require a couple of shims.

I added dowels to secure the lamination (I put few just to see if the need to expand and contracted could be curved)

maple and ficus shims

added some copper nails

To not forget this mistake I made sure I could see those shims.

third leg and rail secured

Setting these shims was the last step to make the Sun Bear able to stand.

After forcing a few more shims here and there to really lock in the legs (these were tiny compared to the other ones) I was content to start the flatting of the bench.

I remember when I last thought of retrofitting this failed fox joint.  A blue moon ago I started the work.  Because of lack of equipment, interest in other arts, and the influence of corporate work that lots of artist feel must me done to be feed, this project had been in slumber.  In need of making is the catalyst that revived it.

Next post on the Sun Bear will be about it's flatting and clamping additions.

Thoughts on Central Ave. Jazz Festival /  by DBL

I have been tinkering with this idea of source.

When you are striped from your past removed from the source, mechanisms to make the real reasonable are distorted, reality keeps for the Other.  In the past few days I have been thinking about lineage.  at this moment I feel lineage is what helps memory retain the reason and the drive to move in the desired direction.

This weekend I attended the Central Avenue Jazz Festival.  There I witness lineage and connection.  Majority of the attendees were very aware of their lineage.  Locals that have lived through LA’s  segregation/ or separation that still leave noticeable divides in the land. 

I try to comprehend what it feels like to be fenced into a certain sector of the geographical scape?  What kind of thoughts would you have if it was still hard to live in any other place?  What if they told you, you were wrong.  Wrong for thinking there was still such a thing as segregation.  What feelings would you be able to construct when White Reason (I find it twisted to use this faulty binary race code)  still does not explain your present condition.  In the while the Other imposes on your community.  If you can understand what it is to see the affiliated family you adhere to still being seen as alien natives, African Americans, what sentiment would you gain.  Here as long as any other non-native, yet acceptance only for the "positive" end of this two sided spectrum. 

While walking around the festival, when I wasn't stuffing my face, I saw a community holding on to a genius culture but subjugated to self hate, which has attacked other communities as well.  Still I saw so much joy and love.  The music was enjoyable to every last note.  The caliber of musicianship brought to the doorsteps of community was too much for me to contain.  At this time in my age I find perfect joy in seeing others bask in spectrum's I only peek at.  A stare of the two.  Exchanges that only two felt shaping them as old memories and last favorites.  This community is rich with decades and elders, talent and unapologetic genius.  Roots are deep.  Lineage is strong. 

Me, my name is as generic as josie j.  End trails of clustered culture attached behind me.  Too strange to forget the past, subtly remembering mine, actively constructing its future.  The un-anchoring both forced and sought.  I hope to find some lineage.  I might see how lineage finds its flower at the end of a long system of tendon-roots infinitely connected.

How connected?  Live in LA long enough and the roots will grab you by the leg.  Major Garcetti, old jr. high schoolmate Anthony Wilson (son of Gerald Wilson), played a surprisingly clean small piano solo, a bit shaky at first but pleasant. As I can attest to live a life time in LA and you would see yourself another character in this interconnected landscape. On this same day of July 25 2015, LA dedicated 42nd and Central Ave as Gerald Wilson Square.  Gerard Wilson of Shelby, Mississippi arrived here in 1940 because it was a place that welcomed and allowed him certain access.  The Dunbar hotel located on Central Ave. was the nicest hotel that welcomed black musicians.  Gerald Wilson remained in LA living a few steps from his community, historically rich Leimert park.  A jazz giant.  An artist uniting his community.  He lived with his wife Josefina Wilson, modestly.  Artists construct our reality we owe them for our sanity.  They all should live a bit above their choosing of comfort.  An Artist and a teacher Gerald Wilson was everything an artist aspires to be.  Influential, respected and remembered, a good man. 

I walked along the festival streets and write this as an outsider, welcomed in a beautiful culture that I see myself a part of.  Born on foreign land removed from source. A different character connected to a lineage of colonization.  A crusade victorious in embedding its symbols and drives.  In this binary you can only fall on one side if you are heavy with color and conviction.

The Sun Bear (Roubo Inspired Workbench) ep3 /  by DBL

The Sun Bear

(continuation of the retrofit)

Followers,

It has been quite a while since I have posted about The Sun Bear, a Roubo inspired workbench.   My obsession with it has kept me in the studio more than may be healthy in the last few months. Joking of course. The studio practice is a beautiful yet sometimes isolating, an unsaid reality...sometimes.   A project that started...I actually don't remember the birth of the Sun Bear...this is evidence of my neglect, of a beautiful time in my life, and the realization that I will present with this process of rebuilding.  A realization that becomes more solidified as I work on this beast.

*if you are familiar with the past post on this project please continue on.  if you wish to read these first click on these

post1

http://dbrp.blogspot.de/2011/07/sun-bear-my-roubo-workbench.html

 post 2

http://dbrp.blogspot.de/2012/11/the-sun-bear-jig-and-router_19.html

Looking back on my notes it is hard to pin point the birth to 2007,...possibly 2006 in thought.   I know I had it early in 2008.  A year full of fear, love, and memories that are now intimately connected to my art. Looking back on my notes I found that at times I failed to date my thoughts.  Also failed at writing more than I had wished. ..but that feeling forever never satisfied.    

Flipping through my thoughts I found a picture which explained the obvious haze.  Until now I see, that picture was dated 2002 a thought only to fruit in 2006. A picture of the moment I first saw a dream manifest in an institutional hallway of school.  Of course my attention at this time was divided among my divine idealistic muse (my Art Belief)  and this earthly dark angel in the picture.  While tracing back and reflecting on my work and my notes its hard not to re-examaine myself.  Only now a welcoming feeling.

My Bench reflects time spent adjusting and rebuilding self and ideals, simultaneously.  A map of growth.  A continually living being.  If you recall I last left the Sun Bear bottom flatten ready for the maple glue up. 

ok ok I know the pics I will show look posed but I actually work pretty organized now

I hope to catch the good light that sometimes happens in my shop

Tales from the Notebook

I had a few ideas of how to rebuild this fox joint that went awry.  I thought many over but finally settled on this method that includes a lot of intuition and impatience thrown in.  Experiencing still some immaturity.

Just like my Undergrad professor Fred Rose, I see myself as a wood explore.  I must remember each piece of wood came from a whole.  A living Whole.

trying to get out of  the habit of putting the plane on its side

 I chose to use reclaimed maple from a work table top which I acquired from the science department of CSULB, continuing the legacy of this Long Beach resident that once was this bench.  While I attended Cal State, the university decided to remodel and throw out lots of amazing specimens of the yester years of science.  Microbiology being their new emphasis.

 After ripping sticks 11 1/4  x 1 1/2  x 1 1/2, with my new table saw...*clears throat*...fuckin aye finally... I left some with the original table top varnish,   I dry fitted the pieces.  

Before I glued in the maple I glued in the walnut I decided to use to fill in the grooves I talked about in the previous post.  A quick second to spend sometime talking about which way to glue the maple...with the grain of the iron bark or against.  Since these woods most likely have different moisture content and rate of expansion.  I was torn on what to do.  I am not very versed in wood characteristics,  (doubt much exists on iron bark) I kinda just went with my best judgement.  Since the laminated piece will be spanning past the bench top both the top and lamented piece will expand and contract width wise individually with no real risk of tearing each other apart.  Wood expands longitudinally insignificant amounts so their should be little to no risk...at least fixable risk. 

Presently I have a limited amount of clamps.  Which added to this adhoc method to measure the structure of instability.  With the understand of what is the final failing point one can reel back and find the maximum efficiency.  Sounds a bit militant industrial now speaking it, but it is a method that I have come to used when dealing with unknown answers to hard art problems.  You can never have too many claps.  

My approach hinged on the limit of my clamps.  I think I glued 2-3 sticks at a time.  

I had a lil fun with minimal clamping.  Hopefully within tolerance.  

 You can see the old tenons of the fox joint of the third leg in the back left.

Once dried I leveled out the maple replacement.  Too be clear this is the bottom of the bench where the third leg belongs.   Some of the pieces are just free floating. I need to still reenforce these with dowels.  Nicely accenting it.  If you look closely at the picture above you can see by this time I cut off the old tenons of the fox joint on the leg.  I work on many things at once mostly if the projects require breaks.  The maple is now ready for the next layer of wood I decided to add... more on that later

 I will continue on the next post with the final glue up and problems dealing with an un-square object plus the start of the sliding dovetail I decided to go with for the retrofit of the fox joint.  until next time

deciphering the roots-

DBL

The Búto Flúto: Reflections on Self Derived Relics /  by DBL

I am Media.

I am the Media.

We are the brick wall woven into a circle.  A flat sphere with no borders.

El centro es el ojo.  Aqui los encontramos.

El Central, donde se cerra el ojo.

Si se manifica se repete.  

*      *     *     *     *     *

The Búto Flúto

A Self Derived Ceremonial headpiece.

Made of mahogany reclaimed from an old Baptist church/ Pentecostal Church in South LA.  The Búto Flúto also consists of poplar wood, steam bent ash from the city of Long Beach, purple heart wood, a hacked Gakken Anolog Synth (SX-150), a custom pre-amp with circuit bending copper contact points, wires, a mic and speaker which is the wooden conical shape. 

It has been with me since 2008.  It has broken many times and can be fussy. 

The sound... it does some interesting things that I am still figuring.  Do to the mic and speaker in close proximity it does a feed back loop similar to most of my wooden speaker box art sculptures.  Because it is a noisy circuit (not very well insulated) It is sensitive to magnetic fields and radio waves, which add interesting behaviors coupled with its SX-150 sound. The circuit bended pre-amp has a flutey sound to it and can rise and lower in pitch when finger are slid along the copper.

There is a track playing in the back ground but most of the sound is the Búto Flúto (on a loop pedal) since it was recorded through its built in mic and speaker. The recorder was held to the speakers funnel.

It has developed it own meaning which I am still understanding.  Steeming from punk anarcho angst, indigenous stirrings, reflecting respect for the ancestral trees, experiments with electricity, now turning into a critique of transhumanistic ironical twist which requires me to add metal hardware (on a piece once only made of wood joinery) for speedy assembly and transportation, but mostly do to damage from performances or general use. A work in flux. 

I hope you get to hear it sometime.  I will be with me on tour.

Photo by Vishal Goklani

f

resh and new

2008

no syth, wings were once longer

Photos by  Jeremy Eichenbaum

2014

Photo by Brenn Lowe Graphics by josie j

Winter West Coast Tour 2014: Into the Forest of the NorthWest /  by DBL

DivineBrick @ WHEREAS Warehouse photo by Amy Darling

Excited to share the Corporeal Reformation this winter.  I will be traveling the west coast with a sonic wave bending into light:

XOVER

(Danilo Casti) : Electro-power-noise audiovisual performance

The project Xover is an electronic sound and visual performance that

runs around glitches, drone noises, field recordings played by digital and analogue

electronics instruments, a mixture between digital and analogue sounds, programming and

circuit bending, idiomatic shapes, abstract sound objects and absurd musical architecture.

PRESENT

is a Los Angeles based quartet performing femininly heavy-experimental music since 2012.Their compositional process is shared between members with most passages crediting all four. As PRESENT is the seminal group for half of its members, their writing and style is idiosyncratically colored as outsider. The tone of their music invokes influences of 20th Century Classical, Black Metal, Japanese underground, Anarcho Punk, art and free jazz. Live shows have been regularly accompanied by performance art, live video, and improvised noise artists also performed with in non-PRESENT iterations.

Saxophonist Erin Worra is trained in classical brass, and singer Angela Gleich has studied and performed flamenco singing. Since 1997 drummer/sequencer Mike Meanstreetz has performed/shown/installed on both coasts of the US (including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles) and extensively recorded and worked in such varied forms as musical free improvisation, experimental music, installation, video, painting, costume, performance art, noise, dance, punk and metal.

PRESENT's recordings have been released on a split LP and various compilations by meta and

micro labels based in France, the Czech Republic, Oakland and Los Angeles.

Their atonal compositions abandon guitars and lyrical form in favor the angular dissonances of female saxophone, synthesizer, and vocals seated atop a hectic percussive intensity. Non-traditional linear song gives way to free form passages, often in collaboration with other artists. On this tour, Mike Glover supports performing noise.

Video

Ian Hawk (of Tecumseh)

soundscape and drones set to film

Tecumseh

Keep up on tour dates here

Tour Dates

Winter tour kick-off show December 20th in LA at the WHEREAS warehouse!!

featuring:

Bad Acid Trip / Bandito Overlord / Xover (Danilo Casti, Sardinia) / DivineBrick / PRESENT 

DivineBrick will be performing  "Tale of a Toad".  On this tour.  The ritual was first performed in Long Beach.  Time will only tell its growth by the end.

Teaser

DivineBrick

Research Projects traces the steps that connect all practices.  The goal is to manifest a practice that informs and awakes performer and witness.  An exploration in sound and movement this project continues the exploration of Corporeal Reformation.  Self accompanied (drum machine, the Buto' Fluto' {a wooden head piece decked out out with circuit bends and an analog synth}, and loop pedal)  josie j structures a landscape to present "Tail of a Toad" a non-linear long lost story of transformation and corruption. The product is not a performance but a ritual cleansing.  An intense exchange in which something is always gained as some thing is burned.

Tuesday Update /  by DBL

Travelers About,

On the road to Montana. A lovely place that has captured my Heart. Nice folks and accepting enough for me to ignore the lack of diversity but open my eyes to the natural beauty of this great nation.  Enjoying this year with many friends, many fruits that have ripened, and oh so much potential. 

WHEREAS HOWEVER :BONANZA 2

Oh what a ride. To soon to share with you, the non-witness, the many fotos that should arise. From the reaction of the good group of Witnesses that were there I think it was a great success. 

It is great having Brenna back in the troupe. With visiting performer Grace Smith the ritual unravelled to reveal a scene common in this hedonistic culture we are breeding. For better or worse.  A scene where every thing is consumed even the excrements. 

CT Assaults did a wonderful job creating a space where one stepped into and was transported to an altered mindset, an open mindset.  Brenna with a keen eye presented a most pleasant light to engage in. PRESENT you always rock.Much  love to all.  

It was an enjoyable evening of sound and  ritual. Always a pleasure to see Joey Molinaro and Nagual Sun. S&Ndc&stl& and Ar'k I had never heard until then but were quite enjoyable, thats an under statement. 

Until the next one. 

Tour

Yes possibly in December we are gearing up  for a  West Coast tour. More details later in the year. 

:

There are more and more things to consider as I age. More reasons to organize and more critical events occurring in our world. As I find the strength and the drive to see this project delivered I thank you for your good vibrations that you send me. 

Tuesday Night Post # 3.5 /  by DBL

Workers,

Work is a way to live for death.

-DBL





I misalign go home on my back I realign.
This vehicle of growth even in death does it find a way to dine on misfortune.

This is the irrational growth that I fine myself wanting to explore
This is where phenomenon we still don’t fully understand relate. From this comes seemly chaotic growth. Cancerous on one end, self healing on the other.

a genetic pattern, a fractal existence, a war unending.

A bread crumb deliciously place at the end of surrender. Allowing Wealth to unwind. Towers that tall they fall with vengeance, adding numbers to the body count. Punishing as it loses stature.

A glitch in your terms. numbers deconstruct as they reconstruct adding distant to the equation. They do not fully explain a multi-dimensional phenomenon.

A larger arch that I don’t see but sense its there. That is my hopes to find and explore. A bit vague this descriptions are. My hopes is to leave the space that is need for ideas to Growth.

Tuesday Night Post #3.6 /  by DBL

Dear Visitors,

Options are there, third party System.

Creation

Evolution

Ancient Astro-not


-DBL








Musings on DivineBrick


Any good start begins with a solid under-structure. What keeps the pieces together is the frequency the negative thoughts trigger the self replicating behaviors. As before,... the Ouroboros, the irrational numbers, the wheel of life, the cycle of abuse. Positive feed back methods to induce the basic structure, decomposed.

DivineBrick methodology (at this state in time) is to deconstruct the self, which represents the collective self, in doing so belief should be expelled. Attacking the collective self, ripping it wide open, exposing faults and control mechanisms.

Building brick by brick encasing the blue gem. This is not a wall nor a pyramid. It is a path way flat and endless. No hierarchy can represent life energy manifested.

Bricks are square but bricks are made of bare earth. Human hands forcing shape, earth obliges. Human children played with mud, shaping, wishing, playing. Playing and Ritual, that is what we do. Breakthroughs or Beautiful representations. This is what we do. Pretend. We role play the Maker, the Grower, we replicate what we do not understand, our external world. External forces wakes us, teaches us, shaping us. This transformation no matter the method is a privilege and some how a birth right we have.

This Belief methodology is an alternative choice that I choose to choose, a cozen gift to not take lightly. My re-search lead me to the simple building block.

the brick
the cell
the room
the space
the net
the fabric
the self
the unit
the piece

This is the DivineBrick Methodology. Searching from the roots pulling on vines.



Tuesday Night Post #3.1 /  by DBL

Fanatics,

#c0z3n

Man has taken from a womb.  Destroying as he creates.  

Stealing as he rapes.

A newer thought of a feed back loop that spreads thin

evenly across a surface

Of a man given a gift which he sees it as that

the structured thought was the first to notice

Repetition makes the group

Consumption closes the loop

In this act in his behavior he climbs

only to end up face down

People seed in their weight

end for them left in a gram of ash

T and Light /  by DBL

I only started to under-stand what she said that early morning. Now that I have legs. Strange as she was she painted long strokes of inconsistencies that assure only the wealthy in doubt. I could feel my throat sing in the waters we stood. She answered the question who she wished she was.



“Describing a self which is unlinked from the flesh I will attempt to do. Any concepts obscure or actively trending I find myself attractive to. Finding answers in odd places, when found became quite normal. A maker, a builder, my hands must be occupied. My body is my medium knowing every medium is an extension of the body. Survival of the old world I have kept my teachings. Seeker of new land, I recognize the direction. Always seeking, deciphering the roots.”


I am no fool simple mind still sees light in contaminated waters.

Tuesday Night Post # 2-21 /  by DBL

Viewers,

Posting on my mobile since my ancient artifact of a computer is crunching numbers trying to get vidz for this weekends performance.

Speaking of, come out. It will be two new performances. Happy to be collaborating with long time comrade Mike Meanstreetz. Should be real.

-DBL

*****

Thoughts on Belief

As it is presently there seems to be no grounds for truth.

Belief is a dirty word.

We are more willing to denounce a belief.

Criticize others before we set time to
explore anything ourselves.

This has made many lost and the search has begun.

Although this symptom is party to do to the fact that the veil has been lifted part ways.

Now we see the many ways we have been bamboozled by many institutions.

We resist but the smart opponent weaponizes everything... Even your resistance.

A belief that belief plays no role in rational arts in one of these bamboozles.

The thought that the old fashioned roles play no useful part and must be thrown away with out personal soul searching about these matters is another.

I am a skeptic but one many forget about.

If you resist a doctrine so much why must you follow your evolutionary beliefs to the better end of institutionalization?

This skeptic wants more answers.

Can we dismiss a third party?

Why can't I factor in my ancient astronaut ancestor?

I will soon build my facts on what ever we are allowed to see from Curiosity.

I get that facts are fact...

But really are they?

We take the programing like doctrine.

Have you ever seen a miracle?

Have you ever dug for dinosaurs?

Have you ever read ancient scriptures in their native tongue?

Belief is something I structure myself.

From the ruins of a broken telephone I filter my answers.

Bits and pieces are assembled as far as I can tell as they fit.

In the end I might believe that I have assembled a finely crafted ceramic bowl of fossilized shards.

It might just be a wealthy kings toilet bowl.




Tuesday Night Post #2-16 /  by DBL



Aspiring Artists,
Let it rain let it pour, is that gorgeous girl on the corner a whore? Will it wash the stain away? Doubt it can cleanse what permeates from Laurel Canyon to Ed Ruscha.  My lovely town what a hound, now downtown smells like canine drown.   Much better than the human waste that once could levitate.  Just some hometown lovin.
-DBL

*     *     *     *     *
Disconnecting

I have recently have had this want to disconnect.  It’s not really a new feeling but a feeling that I have been actively acting on.  Let me be more specific, disconnection from the art world, the “fine art “ world.  Granted one main reason is the hollowness that is the LA art world.  I am not being harsh or bias, I have come to terms with this.  Hollywood permeates though out LA.  I call this permeation “Hollywood” for lack of a better description.  Some might call it LA or superficial but to me, the LA I grew up with was not superficial.  It was not even Hollywood.  Only until I was old enough to get around on my own did I start to go to the “Hollywood” scene, you know punk rock, Hollywood blvd, clubs, Goth what ever you want to call that dope show.  That was a different world.  I am from LA not Pasadena, Santa Monica or any of the out skirts that we call LA county or sub division.  Born and raised and seen the many sides of LA and recently have started to fall in love with it again, but that’s another story.
Let me get back to the art world I speak of.  There is another reason for this want and action.  Like in every scene I have witness or been part of, it only satisfies one facet of my interest at a time.  The art scene is way to “Scene”, and way to pretentious and full of isms that by its own accord disconnects itself from the viewer (specifically the viewer but the artist to, but I know most artist are fluent in isms, at least enough to get by).  I am interested more in the viewer.  When I go to a show and the only creative phenomenon I see is the artist finding new ways to stroke themselves, their peers or worse their predecessors. I find no transcendence of concept into light. 
In the last few years I have been around a lot of performers (and in the past have always surrounded myself with more musicians than artist) I have noticed a comfort there for myself.  Not to say I feel at home, far from that.  Being backstage at an event has been something I have taken with a casual stride, but if I stop and think about it, its terribly artificial and would make me incredibly anxious…so I don’t.  I’m just there for the snacks.
 I think it’s the value the performer gives the audience that I find honorable.  Without them there could not exist any dialogue or reason.  An audience is just an extension of an experience.  They will laugh, cry, set the energy levels of the event or just tell you something after the experience.  They are not just going to show up for the wine and cheese or show up just to been seen (hey I am guilty of that too, been going to art openings since I was in Jr. high), and if they do it’s a big price to pay, sitting or experiencing something they have absolutely no interest in. 
Let me clarify what I mean when I say audience, an audience is not a static sitting mass.  For example I know of a Butoh performance in a cave in which only dancers were at attendance, but no “audience”.  There was no need for audience, but the dialogue that must have occurred between performers must have been intensely profound.  Each dancer was part of the “audience” essential part of the experience.  We can have an argument about if any audience is needed to make art, but that argument is none sense unless we are talking about self-exploration.   Have at it if it is, does not include anyone else so why even argue that with someone if you don’t care who knows.  Why would anyone engage in a discussion like that for any other reason than a thought exercise is something I am not sure I really understand, with my reasoning Self. 
Yes you can argue that in a very arty dogmatic sort of way, but I am losing interest in that forum.  Its like having a argument with a significant other and forgetting why you even started that argument but for what ever reason neither side wants to subside…maybe just for the simple reason to have a reason to have a reason.  It’s sorta a hollow profound venture.  Feels like something epic is being conjured, but is it really? Again I am not opposed to pushing the limit or opposed to the Avant-Garde.  What I speak of is masturbatory incest that CAN be institutional investigation in art.  Its like if every one sat around bored because every one of life’s questions had been resolved and some one just needed something to do (and from experience few higher level art is really like this.  It just seems like that when you peel the first layer of the onion, it validates it as a intellectual investigation, the true meaning is much more coded and far removed from the uninitiated… but again that’s a different story).  Don’t think we are quite there just yet.
The Nor Cal art scene is the only scene that I have seen, as of now, that was more focused on the artist to artist to audience dialogue.    Everyone was really about the making.  Every one for the most part was willing to get down and dirty and collaborate or experiment.  And it was good art!  Who would of thought?  Of course this required you as an artist to step up to the plate.  Make! 
I think a lot of LA artist talk about making or wish they were making.  Hey its not a put down its hard to make in LA or anywhere.  After all there is a nightlife for every one of you out here.  God knows how hard it would be to make in NYC.  Not really interested in knowing really.  And again I am talking in broad terms I know folks that are making in NYC and folks that are not making much in Nor Cal and folks that are making for themselves and no body else. Everything is what you bring to it.  Plus or minus what you have at your disposal. 
Even when we disconnect we hopefully connect with something else.  I think that is what I am trying to say.  Mostly now I am connecting with corporal transformation and the many ways that can manifest.  The art scene at times is not cerebral enough for me.  I get that in science, spirituality, yes religion, tech and in people that are being creative and are profoundly investigating truly fascinating things but are not part of the art world.  I know there are groups and artist that do not fall into the pit that I am describing, but those artists might have some similar thoughts or they might be dead or extremely stoned. Unplug to re-plug.
This is not really a put down to LA.  Mostly to the established art world.  As of this moment LA is one of the centers of it…
Oh, lets not forget there is…A SHIT LOAD of moneys in this establishment (I’m not even going to touch on how this discolors it all). 
And yes performers in LA are a horrible breed they should all be made to wait on us, bring us delicious food, drinks…oh yeah, right…

Honestly sarcastic and profoundly foolish,
-Ass-piraling Farce-rest

Tuesday Night Post #2-15 /  by DBL


Viewers,
Some refections on this past performance.

-DBL
*     *     *     *    *

Reflections on Performance Art as Self-Transformation

            I want to keep this thought brief because of other deadlines and because any further thought will require the need for isms and ists, which I at times don’t have the stomach for.  Yes these things are required to be properly descriptive, but like I hope to express, sometimes definitions restrict thought, which restricts understanding and action. 
            I do hope to be clear as much as I hope to release these thoughts that I have been experiencing at this moment.
            If I would allow my definition of what I do be said with my own thoughts I would say I don’t consider myself a Performer or a Dancer.  I may perform and I may dance but titles such as these, in my minds eye, present a certain definition and restrict understanding. We all dance and to some extent we all perform, this I do believe.
            My approach to my performance work is much like the approach one might take with a ritual to cause change, i.e. an Initiation Ritual, or moving slightly away from the sacred, a traumatic episode in ones life that enables a change of course.  I see now that this is one of the reasons I try to stay away from a fully choreographed movement piece.  Within every performance work I have done there have always been variables that are known and variables that will be known once the work has been completed.  These problems could only be solved within the piece.  These variables are technical variables and also personal restructuring variables.  I have been criticized before for not having all my answers ready at will, but this is my art, myself, my growth.  That is not to say I am not structured in my approach.  If the viewer sees the beauty in the answers I am delight.  My hope is that they find beauty in my voyage.   I mustn’t ask for much from my viewer though.  We all have our bias and our limits.  I say this in human terms not in fabricated IQ terms.  You cant see what I am thinking just as I cant feel what you are feeling, but that is where the delight lies, in the quest to understand. 
            Some of these concepts I am speaking of ironically are hard to speak of.  I feel that there are something’s in this world that are unspeakable.  Just like we can try to describe a flavor but the only real way to know is to taste it.  This I think occurs with understanding and creating.  At times I feel things can only occur with in a piece with the right variables that can not be explain, but do have a profound effect on me and my understanding. 
            This last performance piece, “a Sentient Approach, a Cybernetic Reproach” I do feel changed me profoundly.  It is strange to see a concept develop a tangent to reemerge years later thinking it had long been forgotten seeing that it was still developing subdermally.  This is one of those things I have trouble explaining.  I think the human mind has the capacity to process information in ways that are not as linear as we wish it would be, that’s not to say it can’t be as helpful in the same regards. 
            There seems to be a checklist somewhere stored in my mind.  Periodically I realize something that I have just accomplished has been on that checklist and has now been fulfilled.  Sometimes without knowing I had put it there long ago.  This is how I feel about this piece. 
            One thing I would like to note.  For a few years now I have started to factor in a variable in the performances that would physically linger after.  I have chosen henna.  I enjoy the aesthetical addition to the bodywork and the lasting reminder of the transformation, be it permanently or a temporary transformation.  It is for me only but depending on where it is located it becomes something I have to deal with outside of myself, which further propels the transformation. 
            There is one more thing I would like to divulge; the performance high I get after the piece is completed and the coming down I have after.  The high is very interesting, I feel more present but at the same time apart.  The following day I feel very irritable and moody.  It’s a strange occurrence that I know I have to be ready for.  Especially now that the work becomes more charged emotionally and conceptually. 
            Well I should leave it at that. 

We all use belief to stand on, be careful what you might be standing on.

The Sun Bear (Jig and Router) ep2 /  by DBL



previous post: /dbrp/2011/07/sun-bear-my-roubo-workbench.html

My Fellow Americans and Terrestrials,

     Yes, last Tuesday I did not post a Tuesday post.  I have no excuse except fatigue.  I got home and just could not resist the warm soft nest in my room.  I owe you twice the words this Tuesday.  Until then I present to you the second stage of a long and over do project.  My Roubo inspired Workbench (The Sun Bear).

 -DBL
Jig and Router

     Originally I had intended to level out the area where the faulty fox joint mortises currently exist using only my able body and bench planes.  Well for sake of speed and a newer experience I decided to finally purchase my first Porter Cable 1 ½ hp router. 

     I had started to level the area using hand tools and left it at a good place for the router to do the rest of the dirty work, but still not be bog down by too much material removal.  Iron bark is dense and splintery and can wear down tools, but can also be machined pretty nicely.  Almost as nicely as its cousin the lemon scented eucalyptus. 
     One of the troubles I am dealing with in this project is the wind (pronounced whined) that exists in the top of the bench.  The pair of legs on the left side are pretty leveled.  The problem is at the other end.   A wind in a board is a twist in which each end of the board is at different axis. 
  
Full view of jig

New unused Porter Cable router

Battens
Anchored at the base of the legs

In retrospect this area should of had more battens

Hand worked unroutered

After the jig was built what was left to resolve was how to routering the middle of the area that was being removed.  Since the base of the router has a radius of 2 5/8 in.  I had to add a movable supporting sled in the middle of the jig.  As I worked closer to the center I readjusted the sled.

Support sled





When I had the majority of the area routed I decided to remove the jig and do the rest of the finesse work using hand tools.  Hopefully I have a good flat reference to finish flattening it with out too much grief.  




*A side note.  The grooves I have left on each side of the flatten area will help my squaring of the top.  To do this I will use my Jointer plane.  Some bench plane blade's do not extend to the edge of the body.  This groove will correct for the area that the edge of the jointer plane can not reach.  I will later fill this area with a contrasting wood or an exotic wood for a nice adhoc detail.
Scrub plane for the rest of the hogging out


After using the scrub plane
Rounded corners

Cleaned up area where the router missed
     That is the stage the Sun Bear remains.  Until the next time be safe and love what you do.  Oh speaking of.  When woodworking, using heavy equipment, power tools, sharp tools or when you just want to do something right listen to your body and mind and the spirit will follow.  When one of them is ready to quit, take a break.  Remember this is fun, not work.  I forget this often and this time I got a gentle reminder.  Just when I was about to quit, just when I felt myself rushing, I told myself "ok time to quit".  My mind did but my body followed through… sliced my hand with my recently 1000 grit sharpened paring chisel.  Luckily I was doing very light work, but the tool had a very keen edge. 
Mental/ Physical Fatigue + Sharp Tools = Two Stitches
            
*Here are some Tales from the NoteBook for your musing.

















Tuesday Night Post # 46 /  by DBL




This is my working method.  For these drawings I have either started to destroy a resolution or started to solve a problem that is being created as I resolve.  A very much organic method, I fluctuate from solving to un-resolving the composition and symbolism.  Each pencil mark is left as an expression of a decision executed.  Sometimes erased to be re-experienced.  As I work I try to hold the belief that with each new stroke emerges a new drawing, forgetting any preconceptions.  There are times in which I remove myself from the drawing.  Allowing my mind to forget it and solve other ones in the set of problems I have developed.  These three are of a set I am working through.
As said before the method is of highs and lows.  Aesthetics and concepts, as I work through each, I struggle to unite the loose and emerging threads. 
Here are the puzzlers:




 



It’s hard to see each piece in some sort of disarray.   I can see some are unbalance in concept or design.   It’s also hard to remember certain stages I liked more that existed before the current version of the third one.