Dream House and The View, RV Living, Art

Like I said before, we are needing a studio/storage space to work on more and bigger pieces. Well, we went to check out some shipping containers at a nearby place that rents and sells them. We went in only looking for answers and fell in love with this beautiful blue one up in the sky.

Then we need to find a place out here on the ranch to set it up to start thinking about the future. We have been looking at this view for a few weeks now. We have had a few lunches up here and more than a few glasses of wine. From here we aren't to far from everyone else, mostly Grandma's food and Hannah’s dad’s ice chest. It’s far enough away where we would have to ride a bike up but a morning bike commute is a good thing. Things are gonna be changing and changing for the better, we hope.

Well if you RV or have ever known anything about RVing you find out fast that it’s all about poop. When, where, how, what and why - period. If you don’t know anything about what I’m saying, consider yourself lucky. But if you know what I am talking about then you know what this is, well it’s a new one of those and I am very excited about it. Can’t wait to use it.

Got the commissioned Frida done in record time. We really cranked on this piece. We didn't have to replace many of the pieces to get it right. We used our new hole puncher and the can pieces we nailed down look smooth. I gotta tell you folks, after about a year of making these, we are getting good. Now to work on the John, make 20 buck blocks and to do a new landscape piece in cans.

Oh and of course we are still kicking out these smaller hearts. I really love these hearts, it’s a real test of what an aluminum can can give you in the ways of color combinations and it's a real challenge to make.

I have been working on a cow and tree piece I am calling “I can’t remember if this was a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon”. Since you know cows don’t really have clocks to tell them when to do anything. These cows were all near the camping sites out here on the ranch and I would sneak up on them on a bike hunched over taking pictures left and right till they noticed I was a person and would get up and run off.

And new for the Summer 2013 Tour, can pieces with mirrors. We were reading about how a few mirrors in the booth can attract people. Us being the kinds of people who will try anything once, we whipped these bad boys with no hesitation. Plus, its never a bad thing to have a mirror in the booth to check your teeth or hair, or beard in my case.

Chin-Stache, Deep Tent Cleaning, Art By Bjorn and Work

I didn’t get a picture of when I was wearing my beard in an Abe Lincoln (chin curtain) but I just had to share this picture with you good folks out in the online world, I know you really do care.

After getting rained on at the end of the last show we had a wet mess to deal with when the weather shaped up, “rode hard and put up wet” as it were. We set up our tent out here on the ranch and scrubbed the crap outta it, re-patched the big hole in the roof we got a few years back when we flipped over and since we had out all the art, we took inventory. Hannah pulled some numbers of pieces we have sold in the past few months and got an average of what we sell a day then multiplied it by the days we are showing this summer, turns out we need to make a ton of art.

We went back into San Antonio to have dinner with Bjorn and a good looking couple who lives across the street from him and to celebrate one of his friends visiting America. We ate great food, drank good beers and chatted the night away about what it is we are doing wrong in what we do.

See, when we artists have 2 or 3 bad shows in a row we start to doubt what we are doing and how we are doing it. We talk about giving up, switching what we are doing and even talk about getting a real job. We were having one of those nights - talking about the successes and failures of the past shows we both have been having. However the neighbor gave a great non-artist perspective about selling, websites and life in general.

A bit hung over we still got up the next morning and cut up a sheet of plywood and four 2x6’s to make art for the summer. We took inventory and have a long list of art we need to make to last the 7 to 10 shows we are going to be doing in Kansas, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. So expect tons of art coming real soon. Starting off with a Frida commission we got a few weeks back.

Another favorite is John Lennon, and this time we are working on a little bit smaller piece using our favorite La Croix water for the background. We are hoping to get these two piece done before the week kicks in. 

This weekend was one of our first weekends off and reading Facebook posts about our friends doing shows put me in one of those “we should have been there” moods. We have been getting lots of work done and I know if we had been showing we would just have had to make that much more art and 3 to 4 days would have been eaten away from our weeks. No, down time to work is exactly what we needed.

Triple Shot in San Antonio, Hybrid Piece and Some Other Stuff



Best Of Show 2 Years In A Row


With the end of King William Fair and San Antonio in our rear view mirrors I feel I need to say a little something about our time spent there. First of all I’m Southside San Antonio born and raised, lived and worked Downtown where we both walked to work everyday and never ventured far from the shadows of the tall buildings and then we owned a house just east of downtown. We have been doing shows every year there for the past 11 or 12 years, we've been in or on the cover of every magazine and newspaper there and still show art in a gallery in La Villita and sometimes work with one in Monte Vista. I chat online with an insane amount of people in and around SA. I love being in San Antonio, love the people and the culture, I love walking the Riverwalk and driving around the Missions; don’t get me started on how many times I've been to the Alamo. Then to be in SA at Fiesta time is the best time to be there, next to a championship winning Spurs year. Everyone is so happy and pleased with one another and love is in the air.

King William Fair was great this year, parking was way better, load in and load out is always great, all the staff, volunteers, everything was great. We came prepared to move $20 items and $20 thru $100 pieces is what was selling. People were giving us their extra food tickets left and right so we just had to enjoy the tastes of Fiesta. We won Best In Show, which was the second time in a row, so we proudly displayed our ribbons. Next year I am going to submit a piece for the Fiesta Poster cuz I hear the city is really good to you if you win.

I got a chance to show one hybrid piece that I made awhile back that combines both Hannah’s style and mine and adds in some abstract work I used to do back when I started painting. It seemed like the people who were familiar with us and what we do liked what I was going for. People who were new to our works were drawn in by the moon. I felt like there was something there we could build from, only time and a lot more art making will tell.

A lot of stuff has been jumping around in my head, sometimes way too many things. Let me just go down my list of things I am doing or want to be doing, in no particular order that is. First of all my big letter a week every other week project, well I’m falling behind there. I started off strong but haven’t found time to get at it and like I have said before when I do find time the humidity is to high to work on clayboard. I did get the E done and I’ll share that with you folks.

Second I have also been messing around with more paint and more animals and just seeing what else I could do with them. I don’t have anything finished but I have a few pieces started that I would love to share with you all. This piece has cows and trees, two of the things I love the most about staying out here on this ranch, you know besides the biking and the goats. The ground is going to get more green as I work my way down and behind the trees might get a sunrise or sunset. I have more ideas about what to do with these paintings and I’ll blog about that later as things come into light.


That's A Lot Of Cans

Third, more can stuff than you can ever imagine. I have been cutting cans for a few days now and I still have more to cut. Forget thinking about punching them. We start preparing this May to hit the road for a long summer tour and I don’t want to have all these cans in the van with us so I need to chop em up before we leave. Next blog I’ll show you folks a tool we had made to help punch faster too.


Cleaning Out Van

Last up for this blog, we need to clean and organize our van before hitting the road too. We have been bringing a lot of stuff into it but havent been getting rid of anything and everything is starting to pile up on top of us. Life living in a 96 square foot van, huh. We also have plans on getting a studio space which would so help.