Monday, June 1, 2015

“New direction; new life; the same guy”.


 "Procyon"

BIG NEWS - in one fell swoop both an office space is built for reviving a most endearing pastime of drawing. And Kamura (the country homestead) is sold!


     The 5 acres in Lake County was a distant ideal that never fulfilled its prophecy. Like Manifest Destiny but without any final manifestation and personally not believing in destiny it eventually fell short of genocide. . . . ultimately, a good thing.
      Nevertheless, my visions for building a Dome-home of earthbags and having a large garden will all find a platform to spring from hopefully in the near future here at the new Cloverdale abode. The dream is the same, just better, bigger, and more entwined with family and these new forms of freedom.


With this resplendent month of May all has shifted quickly: selling the land and moving my personal affects here (into GUS the big fuggin’ bus, a storage shed, and a newly built tool shed). A distinct lifestyle has arisen immediately, including simple ink-and-paper art as a fulltime pursuit. I began small but ended large and completed “The Hand of Chaos” for my dad’s birthday in February. Now i have “Procyon” finished and four more pieces entering final stage production. The Devil’s in the details.


It was a fun process to develop this style over the last few years while sketching at home and abroad during my Scandinavia travels, but with the paradoxical practice of deliberate doodles and a meandering concentration – i have at last defined a style i call Möntique Mandalas. And using the moniker TheoZoic, this fervent course of putting Alex Grey to shame is in motion! It will reach critical mass when my music website is updated with 6 new art pieces this summer. Heretofore, TheoZoic has been a music project. Now it is something more than music. It will be a inner-spectacular multi-sensory experience to share with some far-out yonder-lands of the cosmos.


"the hand of chaos"


It cannot be helped but to point out the incredible importance of having a space to work in that is larger than a coffee table in GUS - so i will give credit to two local carpenters for making my vision for The Vista studio a solid reality. From sketches to the potential Tuff Sheds from large scale dispensaries of mass-quantity-crap, we worked out a scheme to do it from ground up. Here are the stages, in brief, all starting with a nice little nook of the land i claimed with a chair as my reading spot:






And it truly does satisfy all the anticipatory excitement i had (as well as relieving the prior anxiety of seeing my collection of books roasting in a fully exposed metal container in Middletown for the 4th summer in a row). This Vista, while needing proper shelves, is a splendid new home for these dear bindings.
     After the father-son carpenter team finished the basic structure, i had the pleasure to begin to end the Vista studio by cutting up rigid insulation and packing it into the walls and ceiling; selecting a kick-ass patterned ply-wood interior, painting parts, and trimming other parts, and putting many accidental holes in some parts. While still unfinished - i must say, one could live here if need be. As it stands - i could certainly work here till my dying days. “Je T’Aime”, Enigma..... Je T’Aime.


From the corner cabinet that came from Sol (owner of Sol Food), to the wool carpet of India from Ross (and the sliding door he kindly donated), to the panoramic window i found at Urban Ore, to the oddities that adorn my walls - it feels like home every time stepping in here. And naturally, its great to have a cozy spot to lean my guitar for the first time in so many years!

 (office space)

So, keep your ears perked for many new Theozoic Möntiques on the horizon. I see no hurdles to hinder this creative tangent and nothing has ever been as deeply engaging and rewarding as the process of contriving, designing, and drawing such strange shapes and symmetries.



Medium News - a riveting Spring season in which i planted a small orchard.


Phase one of re-homesteading:  12 trees are in the ground and growing taller by the day. Citrus, pomegranates, mulberries, figs, and some personal favorites such as a tea plant for white, green, and black tea, a yerba mate bush, and peruvian nasturtium vine which produces potato-like roots you can eat!


All the while, noticing the changing seasons is an easy task as Springtime has brought out the best of nature: coyotes howling, owls hootin, bob cats stalking squirrels during the day, deer birthing doe incognito, many snakes (one rattler i ate), newts (the cutest quiet-companions the moist mossy forest produces), scorpions underneath your shoes and frogs in them shoes, mycelium pushing mushrooms up, endless birds to hear and learn their calls, and zany amounts of wildflowers to identify.





A steady undercurrent of activity is the kindly method of paying my rent here. And considering the large acreage of the land, well, the jobs are numerous in both task and frequency. From ditch & road maintenance to forest management, i take on rolls such as tall grass and poison oak assassin, bonfire consultant, strongman contestant – and fulfill specialty jobs like mushroom magician (i cook them superbly), grave & urn re-location, and scat identification expert.





Small news: where we take note of “10 First Time Moments”
 Diogenes Lantern and seed-pod
a befriended newt
Dinner?

 Two rare fungi and one Chantalle

 skink

a "birds eye" stone (bought not caught)

 a rattler. . . .most certainly WAS dinner!

 splendid wildflower collection

the smallest frog in the world!

 Lastly, it's a first for me to be living in a city founded by DRUIDS and with neighbors who are demographically more bo-vine than human-kind (can you spot the little calve in the cool shade of trees?)


In between the work and wayward ways of the woods, i find further joy in calculating how great the distance is one can walk or jogs here without interruption; "zenning out" with books; perfecting pate from heart, liver, and kidney (Chöney have come a ways as well); making broths and jams to fill the freezer; but most commonly i deliberate with the diaspora of forest deities using small-town chit-chaw which flabergasts the best of em’ – and enjoy blazing new trails with my mom while collecting old bottles, random garbage, and all that jazz.



Now to wrap this baby up like Moses in a wicker basket!
A new album titled Etymologically Spoken is in the works, but probably not done till 2016. Should be a fanciful genre of quirky investigations into the origin of words visa-vi the styles of Flight of the Conchords.

(inside Gus)

More fruits trees to be installed here and a garden next spring.

And future international travel will potentially be Egypt with my dad. but hard to say when because the land here has my soul in a Star Wars like tractor beam. . . i'm magnetically hooked and aligned towards the giant Life-Star’s core. Can’t get away. . . and if i try, its only for a day or two at a time.

Ultimately, the only complaints i have are the chiggers (“berry bugs”), tics, and hicks (our neighbours have a few faulty neuron synapses so they obliviously offset it by often getting caught up meticulous re-arranging their huge junk piles in a Buddhist fashion – but not getting rid of any of it. There’s also the ever entertaining practice of challenging old telephone poles to death duels. so far the pole still stands despite all the shots they take at it with rifles and guns. (i am grateful they don't challenge living trees).

My Pad, 6 months ago and today:


And now the old Kamura homestead is sold let me preemptively say, “i’m not going to Disneyland”. i have no plans other than to live the simple, deliberate, and expansive life. its a ongoing policy of pursuing a small-scale life so the experiences that fill it are large-scale in value.

Life is like a box of chocolates, or, like building a shed from scraps, salvaged bits, and donated parts: you never know how it will turn out in the end!



Nothing has provided more satisfaction in these last two seasons than living here. To compare to the best memories recollectable (the group dynamic of working at Cloverleaf, the constant thrill of living outdoors in the incredibly revitalizing camping spot Milsap, and traveling the world to discover the many known riches of culture....and unknown fatty foods!) i can confidently say this place. . .  is the place. If there ever were a deal, it has been struck. If there were gold in them hills, the pic-axe has hit it as well. Never a strike out. Only diamonds and oil here, in a very proverbial way.




Such simplicity is alluring and satiating at the same time, blending together in an winter-soup-way to form a new sensation that can only be described as "resplendiferous". And i sense a delightful distance from the droll desires of such degenerative digressive tendencies derived from the consumer based cult-ure. It's become more obvious that i am not productive enough to support such a world. So i gladly resign from it and seek a different life as John Rapport might have put it: reality is a painting most often sold to you under the guise of a legitimate reality. Kids grow up with parental stories instilled in them for guidance purposes. Then graduating to the all new and all familiar parental paradigms of social media, mega-corps, big brother-government, new faiths or religions fulfilling the void of personal meaning, or any so called "normalcy" of modern life all conspiring to convince you that the picture presented and paint for you is the one worthwhile. The one you need. The one to believe in, to buy in to, to benefit from physically, mentally and emotionally.


But with a minor moments of clarity a glimpse can be stolen of the raw nature of things, and thereafter the predetermined course of an already blazed road is less enticing. One can see it for what it is – scorched of any value, cut down of all substance – any remaining joy or nutrients auctioned-off and homogenized for consensus comforts and such benign benefits of safety.

Yes – i am hopeless in the eyes of society. And happily so. There is much confidence in my insecurity; solidarity in such wandering ways; in this age of anxiety i am carefree. that i know.

this i feel.
truly real,
and art i will pursue on the land,
stalking wild asparagus, hot damn!
And while some might say i sound loony....
what can i say,
i’m just a Goonie.


Righto!!!
The bird is the word,
and the word is heard.
Jolly jello my friends,
see you in the Far Side,
sincerely and most definitely,

Gullactic, the Pear-Tree Dweller





1 comment:

  1. Just wanted to let you know I'm resonating with you all the way over here in society-land. Glad you're part of my dream, Gully! -J. London

    ReplyDelete