no ruz

my brother's friend had a microscope when i was growing up. we would peel onion skins and whatever we could gather from the kitchen + garden and take turns looking at each slice on a slide. i still think about those images from time to time.

i was gifted a book of botanical wall charts recently. the microscopic illustrations in it are reopening the same awe i felt looking through that microscope ages ago. funny how life makes these circles for us, especially if we're paying attention. i sense a big body of work around the corner, inspired by the link formed between this book and that tiny detail in my childhood. 

i made my first said inspired piece this morning as the sun was rising, leading up to the spring equinox. silent hours staring closely at fertility, renewal, hope...a No Ruz "new day", as called in persian celebrations of the new year. 

collage :: double fertilization of lilium martagon

View fullsize

^ digital collage of the original mossbüch page

productivity tricks = entertainment

study to death what tools + tactics highly functioning creators use. what life hacks + daily rituals they practice. read about optimum ways to design your work space: standing desk vs treadmill desk vs under-water-on-the-back-of-a-whale desk...

if you've noticed, there's a huge industry that's been brewing on high heat for the past few years all about productivity tricks, what things you can buy and what habits you can inhabit just to get you to sit down and make something. hours + hours of your week go into eagerly learning about how your favorite people come to make the things they do. pumped with hope you set up plans to utilize these new tactics into your day tomorrow. on + on, you pile tricks on top of each other.

i've only started to really see the negative effects of my participation in this industry recently and i'm horrified to discover that it's just entertainment masked as education + self-improvement. another elaborate way to put off actual work that our hands + mind are already capable of. another way to hide and not make. it's definitely a shiny light to run to when you want to escape work that you fear might end up in failure. we trick ourselves to procrastinate in such sneaky ways.

the time we dedicate to learning what other people's practices look like, is time we're not building a practice of our own. the trust we're putting in other people's way of producing work we admire, is trust we're not putting in ourselves to draw a path of our own.

sum :: post death

i was lucky to get to read some great books last year. this was/is one of my favorites. i'm a slow reader, but read this in one day. the rhythm + language is so ultra awesome that i was pacing around, reading most of it out loud...i think my body wanted to soak it up with more senses. couldn't eat it up fast enough. time very well spent. 

extremely creative book. 40 think pieces: each one a very short fictional fable about humans, post death. the structure of this book alone makes me want to write. take one concept and keep turning it. 

talisman

i like ceremonies. especially home-made ones that are my own and not handed down by some club.

this year i wanted to have a new years eve ceremony. i thought it would be nice to build a small talisman to carry around that represents something i want to remember throughout the year. 

what i want to remember: as much as there is noise + resistance against good work everywhere around us, there is as much open space to walk through and engage with something true + exciting in 5...4...3...2...1 seconds. to remember and catch those moments when someone is gossiping at me and walk away into clean + open space. not endure people bombarding me with their dirty habits, out of politeness. clean air to flourish. 

original sketch before building

i got to build clay talismans on new years eve with the dearest people in my life. i don't know anyone else's meaning for their talismans. beautiful art objects nevertheless. i broke mine a few weeks ago. broke it 3 times in one day in fact. what's up with that? so i made a new one today. this time with black clay. it will go places in my wallet. pocket. around my neck. and i'll breathe clean air. 

wealth of objekts

magic markers cost over $100 when they were first introduced in the 1900s! i would have to be a rich-on-paper person to be making the art i make now if this were the 50s. but today i can throw my markers around + not know where half of them are. 

life lesson: seemingly basic objects we're granted daily contact with came from a lineage of devotion + invention and have gone through decades of refinement to take shape in their modern state. objects that make us far richer than the people who came before us. something to wonder about...i have access i am rich. i have access i am rich. what am i making with it of it from it?

history lesson:

• 1944 - walter j de groft patented a 'marking pen' that held ink in liquid form in its handle + used a felt tip
• 1953 - sidney rosenthal invented the first modern + usable 'magic marker' and started selling it
• 1964 - this patent became a 'sharpie' pen

View fullsize

omniflux playlist 001

i don't listen to much music outside my own work. oddly i usually prefer silence, but here's a selection i'm living with right now.

there's always scott walker + nina simone in rotation.

enjoy!

read read read read read

i don't know how many werner herzog interviews i've consumed...but at some point in each interview he serves up this platter of advice that goes like this: "read read read read read..."

and of course, someone thought to cut these bits all into one 3 minute video

current schools are expensive, filled up with cheap curriculum + noise that keep you occupied and in your seat throughout your day for whatever reason. education, however, can be cheap + even free. you can read read read read read, and who your parents are, where you grow up, all your disadvantages become irrelevant - because despite everything, you've given yourself access to the spirits of the greatest.

i can come up with a whole list of 'disadvantages' in my life that could've shaped me to be a total dummy, but at some point i became a reader, and look at me now. uh...yeah. sometimes i went through cornflake best sellers. sometimes i happened upon brilliant reads. random path that gets curated more + more to my taste. i wish someone::something nudged me in this direction when i was a single digit person, or even a teen. but whatever...that's more hunger + longing i can throw at the thing now. i'm into it.

click on the jellyfish below to receive my newsletter with mossbüch pages + notes like this. 

curiosity conversations

all the foreign dots that have found each other, formed new shapes and become trusted homes in my miiiind palace...these dots + lines were initially sparked by curiosity, not attached to goals and not really invested in rewards. just wandering points. i'm finding it a fun + fruitful practice to allow these seemingly unrelated ventures to have their space in my life, to form and play with each other and occupy my attention :: leafing through knitting, physics, botany books - whatever :: now i trust these dots will find each other and make a little organic thing, with very little interference. 

while paying attention to the subject of curiosity, i came across this great and funny interview with brian grazer. his practice of "curiosity conversations" is ultra cool. he meets with interesting people from all walks of life and just...talks to them - out of mere curiosity, not to get anything from them: a job or movie deal. he's been doing this for decades. here's the link to that interview.

click on the jellyfish below to receive my newsletter with more mossbüch pages + notes like this. 

analogue desk digital desk

if you feel like you're repeating yourself and your work is starting to imitate itself, have a go at something like this:

i plopped a secondary desk in the middle of my living room and it is an exclusively analogue desk - color pencils, glue, tape, paper, stencils, etc. having electronic tools stripped away, i'm working strictly with my hands. and hands, i suppose, don't hesitate as much as they would on a laptop keyboard as when you're holding scissors and glue. they just take the wheel away from you and go go. next thing you know, you made something totally fresh that you can't even take credit for, because you don't know who just jumped inside your koNtRoLfReAk body and splish splashed a bunch of color + feel. 

been a nice time at the flux haus + my work looks like nothing i've made before. the living room looks a little messier but i'll find a remedy for that too. 

click on the jellyfish below to receive my newsletter with more mossbüch pages + notes like this. 

under one enveloping umbrella

this is a tiny corner of a projekt i've been working on for the past 30 days.

today marks the last day of my 30 day projekt and for once I did something consistently for 30 days. fuckin' a, the number of 30 day challenges i've started with hope, and abandoned with shame. i did miss a few days here + there...but i made up for it the next day each time. soooo, it counts.

View fullsize

this projekt was a little different. it was just for fun. i gave myself permission to spend an hour +/- of my free time everyday to play around on something that's not directly related to my music career, for no other objective than to enjoy my time at my desk. i get down on myself for lacking discipline, work ethic, and you name it, all the time. but thankfully i journal a lot and sometimes get a rare flash of a nice idea to try. so i suppose 31 days ago i had a flash of a thought in my morning writing that if i'm gonna teach myself discipline, positive habits and learn to keep my own appointments, i need to practice and maybe this time start from a place of fun. all my 30 day challenges in the past were just hard. not the kind of stuff that made me launch out of bed with obsessive itches + craving.

but this worked. i got up at 6am, at 4am, and whenever...with excitement! playtime waiting for me. yes yes. and like i was hoping i strengthened my discipline muscle a little. i can just feel it. 

through this objective-free/for-fun-only projekt i happened upon a way to tie my various creative endeavors together under one enveloping umbrella. for years i took creative time away from one discipline to nurture another, in guilt-ridden circles, round + around, without one discipline ever advancing fast enough for my liking. and now i think i can make all this work together with gravity towards each other and a leg up for all of them little ladies. my creative purpose doesn't feel so scattered anymore. what? are you kidding me? i'm throwing a big parade in my head from how thrilling this is. 

all right...so what am i trying to communicate to you that's worth your reading time? 

start something for fun. let that thing breathe and drive you where it wants to take you. if you drive, you're more likely than not going to drive down the same old familiar paths you know and never end up anywhere new. and one day is not enough. let the thing drive you around everyday for a while. ooh, i'm excited for where you're gonna go. send a postcard. 

as for my postcards, i'll be sending them through my newsletter. click on the jellyfish below to receive my notes. or here

hose down thy boredom // level thy mood

it’s dinner time. am I eating because I’m hungry?

resistance creeps up into my workflow and everything starts to itch. i stop. open instagram. sometimes it’s one of those days where i’ve deleted all my black hole apps. so i eat something instead. if this lines up with the ‘appropriate’ time for supper, i don’t see what it is i’m really doing.

these socially normal mood leveling behaviors // drugs prevent me from feeling anything all the way. bliss. boredom. though i'm aware that it’s going through these extremes where the genuine feeling of being alive lies. maybe a thorough observance through an episode of boredom will light up how utterly BORING it is to be bored, so snapping back out will be sweet. enthusiastic. maybe sit with the void. move on. repeat if i have to.

everything should be beautiful

i typically don't go to niche museums but i was at the tiny old village of gräfrath in germany for a day + came across deutsches klingenmuseum (german blade museum). for some reason i went in. 

what i learned in my 2 hours there:

trivial tools that are basic commodities in our daily lives were once intricate ornate pieces of art that took loads of time to make. before there was social media and a constant flow of entertainment + stimulants in people's lives, they made things into art that didn't need to be art.

everything is a design object. everything should aesthetically please us, be beautiful.

form + funktion. together. 

omniflux + steve carell

omniflux to perform live at the angie tribeca binge-a-thon, which will broadcast live on tbs + times square on sunday jan 17, 6pm-2am pst. 

angie tribeca is a new comedy series created by steve carell + nancy carell, starring rashida jones.

nouveau

happy new year! frequent dinner parties + dance parties is about the extent of my resolutions this year.

new years' eve show. 

homecoming

back from a two month north american tour, to the warm welcome of a hometown crowd. thank you los angeles for the continued good vibes. 

beginners

since i like you and you like me too, i thought i'd share a movie i recently discovered that touched my heart and is charming to the moon. beginners. it's filled with great art too, drawn be the director, mike mills. 

christopher plummer, my first man crush as captain von trapp, gave a devastating performance in this role for which he won an oscar. melanie laurent + ewan mcgregor are magic. 

 

tracker magazine playlist 09 fevereiro

'dance in your blood' is featured in Tracker Magazine's playlist 09 fevereiro on spotify also featuring alt-j, chromatics, and sia.

http://ow.ly/IQP7M

Entertainment Weekly premieres 'Dance In Your Blood' video

i loved making this video with director eli berg and kind of can't believe Entertainment Weekly premiered it and wrote such nice things about it. http://ow.ly/IvhGD 

you can download the song here https://omniflux.bandcamp.com/ 

enjoy!

winter trees, coats + dreams

new painting + new playlist. enjoy your winter. 

confucius

today is confucius day. he just kills it with this quote:

"self-confidence comes from a practical and steady sense of inner calm, an easy unhurried bearing."