three days on the road and i can't even remember what time zone it is

meteor crater arizona



so we crossed into another time zone sometime today. It is still not quite sinking in that we actually left and won't be going back. oh we laid over in santa rosa new mexico in a hotel that has wireless internet and laundry, 2 things we need tonight. Tomorrow we are hoping to camp out somewhere in oklahoma, we are just going to try and spend as little time as possible in texas. This morning when we left the grand canyon, we stopped at meteor crater arizona. It was a pretty cool deluxe tourist trap, and we loved it. We spent the rest of the day driving, only stopping for pee breaks and gas. I am enjoying the time driving as it gives me time to think. While driving across the mostly desolate waste land that is I-40, I keep thinking about the great depression and what it must have been like. by great depression I mean the time after the stock market crash, not my time in san jose as a graduate student.

on the road, update number one

some of the lovely scenery as we left california
here is the truck parked in the mojave desert


Monday may 28th
The trip home. On the first day we covered roughly 500 miles, which put us in the Mojave desert for a pleasant nights sleep. As brooke keeps saying it hasn’t really sunk in that we actually left san jose and are not going back. The driving has been nice, the extra weight of the trailer makes it so that the only safe speed for the truck to drive is 60, so we go sixty, and up hills we go 40 in 3rd gear. I am enjoying my time driving because it affords me time to think. It occurred to me that for so long I have viewed the world as a dichotomy between youth or rebellious culture and adult or complacent culture, I realized while driving through the desolate landscape that is i-40, this is false. I know today that the world is run by adult children still acting out childish ideas about the world. I once read in james michner’s novel the drifters that “youth is truth”, still seems accurate. On Monday our second day on the road we went to the grand canyon. I’ve realized that teddy Roosevelt must have been a very un creative guy to name a big canyon “the grand canyon”, I’ve got an idea let’s call it big fuckin rock formation, that should bring in some more tourists. Tomorrow it is on to Albuquerque.

today begins a new chapter, and officially ends graduate school

pre graduation, notice the shade provided by my fedora

this is kind of like those cutout photos you can pose with when you are on vacation, only this if for when you pretend like you are dressed up.


so I have many thoughts after suffering through my second graduation from college. First, in order to keep some consistency with my college graduation, I wore a shady straw hat. Not so much out of a deliberate attempt to keep the sets of graduations photos consistent, but more out of necesity since schools seem to insist on staging graduations in direct sun light. I admit overall attending graduation provides a sense of closure and completes the whole grad school/ san jose experience. In many ways it is just like getting a second bachelors. To celebrate graduation we went and saw pirates of the Caribbean three, which was definitely rated rrrrrrrr, for pirate goodness. Tomorrow we hit the road and i will be blogging less, but trying to twitter more. here is a shot of the truck with our life in tow

I should also let you know that on thursday we sold the saturn to krist mills

at the djerassi artist residency, and when we delivered the car he took us on a walk around the property. i posted those photos to my flickr page but here are a few for enjoyment



look over there, a couple of david nashes

the view from the djerassi artists ranch

4 or so more days

so this a video from my last moments in my graduate studio, the song pretty much describes graduate school




this crate is officially the last thing made in my garduate studio.







we are scrambling to get our stuff packed, i managed to give away the last sculpture i have left from grad school on craigslist. I moved out of my studio, and i finished my job and, tomorrow we sell our car. Not bad, we still have tons of repairs to make on the apartment and it is looking like we will have to pawn our tv, since no one has come through on craigslist. the last thing i made in my grad studio was a crate for the piece i gave to david kimball anderson, which is actually the piece that will be in the ica show later in june. as is typical i really love the crate, maybe i should go into the crating business, i am getting pretty good at it.

5 or 6 days until we leave, but it depends who you ask, and zero is ready for her trip

so zero the cat flies out tomorrow morning, and then i will be going to my graduate studio for the last time. I have to finish up the packaging for the pieces for the show at the ica in june, and finish packing and cleaning my studio. Zero is so excited about her new pet carrier that she is already sleeping and eating in it. i don't think she will be so excited once she gets on the plane. oh well back to packing, oh and i bought a cool hat for graduation.

7 days until we leave, 2 days until zero leaves and 6 days until graduation

so it goes without saying, the day after we get the truck washed, a bird nails it dead center on the hood
this is krist with his van, soon he will own our car.
if you can't read my writing this box has, simpsons, thimbles, bob's, and bones
this one has charcoal drawings and digital prints, which is actually a show i want to do in the future.


so if you look down on the right below the archive list you should see a badge, for my twitter account, if not go to twitter.com/brilliant
twitter allows me to send text updates of where we are through my cell phone. This will be cool for when we are on the road next week and our families need to know where we are. I can send messages like, now we are at the grand canyon, wish you were here. Well krist mills finally came by yesterday and it was fun hanging out with him, we went to the camille rose garcia opening at the museum. She is one of those pop surrealists from LA, and her work is of the juxtapoz magazine variety. a really cool opening with tons of awesome food, they had warm brie and cranberries, an awesome cheeseplate, a cheese ball that was like pimento cheese log, they had pasta, and mini quiches and all kinds of crazy good eats. I have been really busy at work and with packing trying to get ready to leave. We pick up our trailer on friday, and saturday is graduation. It is strange as we get closer to graduation i feel no sense of relief or accomplishment, i just feel anxious and depressed, and disappointed and ashamed, it does not seem like an occasion to celebrate. maybe once i put some distance between me and this experience i will be able to move on to the next chapter and do something new.

13 days until we leave, only 6 days until zero the cat leaves

zero has really been enjoying the topsy turvy environment caused by packing
believe it or not brooke packed this box
so we started moving the packed boxes down to the garage, so we can start to organize them and get them ready to be put on palettes

Yesterday was yet another hectic day, and today was no better. Monday started off with what will be one of my last office hours at school, thank god. Today I literally got sick just being around the art building. Anyways, Monday during the final crit for shannon's class, the one i have been posing as the ta in, probably had one of the best pieces, and moments of grad school. The crit proved what i know to be consistently true, that under grads can make better work than grads.For example this random glass blower guy named rudy, made an amazing kinetic piece. In the piece the viewer pushes a set of buttons, which elevate a set of viewing lenses to eye level. What was great was that the "motor" driving the piece was actually another glass blower inside the piece. It was great and fooled the entire class, hands down one of the best pieces i have seen around here, it was like the work of a very young shannon wright. After that crit i had to meet with susan o'malley from the san jose ica, to figure out what she wanted for the lift off show in june, then i had to come home and do some more packing. Brooke and I did manage to go out for dinner monday nght, and we slipped out to trader joes tonight. Tomorrow, i have to keep cleaning up the galleries. On thursday we are supposed to go look at a dude's camper shell we want to buy, and on saturday i think krist is buying our saturn, but right now i am watching da ali g show season 2 on dvd.

17 days left, and still we are packing

so one of my favorite pieces of art in our collection is a mini sheep by loren schwerd
i drew this graphic of the sheep so we wouldn't forget what was in the box
when i was packing up the sheep i realized it fit perfectly into the ibook box.

i figure this product can't be too far away from being made
brooke posing with the freshly cleaned saturn


today was a non-stop packing and cleaning affair. For Brooke's first day off her job we worked really hard. We cleaned and prepped the saturn for it's big sale. We hand wiped every inch of the saturn and put armor all inside and out, she is really shining and ready for her big market debut. After we cleaned the saturn we came back home and began sorting through our personal papers and packing more of our stuff. We are going to great pains to only pack our books, artwork, and keepsakes, and yet we still have almost 20 boxes so far. I had thought we might ship a palette of our stuff back, and just put the rest in the back of the truck but now it is looking like it might be two palettes and a truck load. In the evening we met brooke's former co-workers for a meal at denny's, then came back home for more packing. I finally got all my slides organized in a nice file boxes. Tomorrow we are going to do more packing and cleaning, and brooke has agreed to so a lip dubbing video with me, that should be funny.

18 days and pack and pack and pack

so this is just the books, and artwork so far, it looks like we may have two palletes worh of stuff after all.
believe it or not this box is just for my simpsons toys, brookes mini nome collection, and her thimble collection

this is how one the rolls of bubble wrap arrived at the house

when i took this painting off the wall, zero immediately recognized that it was the one surface she had not sat on in the house

so we have been through two rolls of bubble wrap, 14 giant tupperware containers and 3 large poster tubes, and that's just the books and the artwork. We have a lot of crap that falls in the category of art and collectibles,and that is what i have been packing. soon we will move onto the kitchen goods, and then i will finish up the studio. Today i have to start the last of my chores at work, which include cleaning and painting the six small student galleries, next week i have to finish up the show in the big gallery. The last couple of days the hotwater had been out in the apartment, but today it is back and i really appreciate it. My hope is that by next week we will have everthing packed, so we can start selling the stuff we are not taking with us. We still haven't found a camper top for the truck yet but i am confident we will soon. In the midst of all this i am still trying to finish two more application packets for residencies. I will probably have to wait until i get settled in charleston to really pump out some applications.

21 days until we move, it's kinda hot, and the house is a mess

i just love finding street sculpture

so it has been getting up to around 80 some odd degrees here, which will probably ease us into the climate back in south carolina. the apartment is totally a wreck, but instead of cleaning, we are packing. It is nice stuff falls into two categories, the throw it out pile or the pack it up pile. Tomorrow I have to do one more office hour, then brooke is going to pick me up and we are going to sell some of our excess clothes at crossroads trading company, which buys clothes and shoes or gives you store credit for the stuff. I continue to disperse the art from my studio and have been throwing out or giving away excess materials. so that is my mantra for the next 3 weeks when in doubt throw it out. and now for a non-sequiter, owen opened up one of the fortune cookies in the office tonight and his fortune said "the best art conceals art."

22 more days, hearty breakfast, lip dub, and spider man the musical

so this video is what is called lip dubbing it is something i have been looking at on vimeo
a bit.

One of the best lip dubs, and the one that inspired me do to my own is the flagpole sitta lip dub, which can be seen here http://www.vimeo.com/clip:173714
you can watch that one first or just enjoy mine either way lip dubbing can be summed up as the ultimate karaoke experience except instead of your voice remaining in the final product you dub in the original track for that music video feel

this is what is called breakfast lasagna, except instead of pasta it is layers of eggs with spinach cheese and other ingredients, it is kind of like a frittata om steroids( i didn't order one i just thought the concept was insane)

i made the video yesterday while working on some new rust prints. I figured i should be overly efficient while i am in the studio and that i should maximize every moment by making more videos while i am working on other stuff since i only have a couple weeks in this studio before i move into my new studio. I also got to go see spider man last night and i am still in shock at how much this one movie ruined what could have been the best super hero franchise. It is true that the movie contains three musical numbers, and the opening title sequence is like an intro for a second run tv super hero show, but the venom sequences makeup for some of this. today i have to start cleaning and packing stuff in the house, we figure if we start now and work on it a little bit at a time we won't get so stressed out about the move. Oh and i almost forgot the brunch at the garage was delicious, and we got there early enough so it wasn't too crowded and the chef chatted it up with us, here are a shot of the food.

I had poached eggs over hash with fruit and a cup of coffee, yum yum.

about 23 more days or so until the big road trip, and another fun opening

it was really dark in there and i hate to use a flash so you will just have to squint, but this sign had all our names on it kind of cool


this was the cheese plate after it had been ravaged, but it had some the best cheeses, brie, goats milk, some sort of sweet cream, a stilton, Parmesan regiano, dried fruit and nuts, and along side it was some toasted multi grain bread

an overhead shot of the crowd, on the left is the table with the oysters and roatsed vegetables, and in the back is the table with the cheese plateDavid anderson engrossed in a conversation
what is this? this is julia and ben with their arms crossed. is this julia and ben with their arms crossed? yes, yes, this is juli and ben with their arms crossed





this is ben and the back of his wife's head

unfortunately i missed it but moments early this guy was looking into my sculpture, it was kind of funny but you will have to imagine what it looked like

on the left is Lisa coscino the gallerist and curator of the show, talking with ben, her best comment " I tried to explain to people that this work is not just for decoration, but that it is for sale"


on the left is Gregg Mettler and his wife chatting it up with david anderson, in the foreground is brooke's hair in the background you can see ben hunt's artwork

julia+julia,

bradshaw and jacobson made the drive to enjoy oysters and artwork
this was one of the best mochas i have had in awhile, it came in this funky glass within a glass so that it was not too hot to touch

so the opening last night was really cool. in addition to myself, david, and ben, Julia bradshaw, and julia jacobson came out for the opening. The food was very nice, they had oysters, roasted vegetables, an awesome cheese plate, and more vegetables. the coolest part was that the restaurant has an espresso bar in it and we were able to get a really great mocha part way through the opening. People really seemed to like the work. after the opening brooke and i went down to the ocean and watched the waves roll in, i made a video of the waves and should have that up on vimeo at some point in the next 24 hours. Today I am meeting Shannon and her man for breakfast at the garage(a neighborhood joint that is supposed to have french toast to die for),and then i have got to go to the studio and continue cleaning up and maybe work on a few last minute things. But tonight I am pretty sure i will definitely see spider man. and tomorrow we are starting to tackle the closets and throwing things away.