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Nov 10, 2021
Dealing with tech issues. Okay. This is what it's like when you're running show on two devices by yourself. Okay. Once again, thank you for joining me for my Life live art show.
I'm doing this solo to Facebook, Instagram, Live and YouTube Live. So if you could bear with me, I love for you to comment, but just give me a little time. I'll come to a couple of breaks during the show and check the comments and get back to you on them. So if you have questions, feel free to comment and I will get back to you. Also, the artworks that I'm showing today are all for sale, all limited quantities and all of them first come first serve.
So the originals, there's just one of them. So if you see something you like, pick it up before someone else gets to it before you. And can you do me a favor? If you have anyone in your community that might be interested in this, please share this live stream or replay with those people in your community. So let's get started with the first piece.
So this first piece is Morning Harbor. It is normally $177 or $178 for this show. It's down to $160. This is 15 inches by eleven inches and printed on metal, and this is matte metal to cut down on glare. So I have spotlights on me right now.
But if there are well, under normal conditions, you won't see too much of the spotlight, so you'll be able to actually enjoy the image. So let you get in close so you can kind of see some of the detail in there.
Now for this first piece, what it reminds me of is pretty much something that has been consistent throughout my life. It's the theme of coming out of darkness. So for me, the morning has always been a special time dating back to when I was a kid and usually, well, if you know me, you know that I grew up in a situation where there was a lot of abuse, physical, mental. And for me, the morning time before anyone else was up in the house was one of the times where I was most grounded, the times where I actually spent time in reality.
So for me, images like this Morning time are really significant.
So this piece is an open edition. There are five of these that are available through the show at this price.
The difference between the digitally signed and the hand signed editions are the hand signed editions were actually exhibited in a Museum or a Gallery or some other public showing, whereas the digitally signed ones are ones like maybe for virtual shows like this or that I have just on hand when I do live art shows in person, different events.
Next up is Gone Fishing, and this one is eleven and a half by eleven and a half. It's printed on Slate Rock. And for me, the aging of this image and the empty boat are most significant because it's reminiscent of what it was like as a child or kind of being too big for my history, the life that I grew up thinking that I was meant to have one where I was essentially just an imposition on everyone's life around me.
This image for me is kind of escaping from that. The fact that there's no one in the image is me disappearing from the idea of what my life was supposed to be and doing that required a lot of resolve. I'd say one of the stories that comes to me relating to this idea is I was probably about 1415 years old when I finally done something right. Normally, my mom would refer to me as being just like my dad, which meant abusive and stupid. And one day I had finally done something right, and she claimed me for the first time that I could ever remember.
She had said that, oh, you're just like me. That was an opportunity that I think most people would have jumped on to finally get that acceptance because it was certainly something I was craving. But that day I decided to take a stand, and instead of keeping track of what it was that I did right, instead, I told her that I'm not like any of you people.
She got upset about that. And my sister was in the room at the time, and my sister insisted that I told my mom that I was not like any of those people. And then I started insisting that I was switched at birth, that I wasn't actually related to them. It was a mistake at the hospital that actually put me with that family. My sister was there, and my sister insisted that I was two, actually her brother.
But I refused to back down, and I told my sister that I'm not her brother, that the hospital made a mistake and that somewhere out there was her brother and my parents, probably both looking at each other and wondering, just like me, what the hell happened? So that was one of those instances where I claimed the independence. I decided how I wanted to be treated and drew a line where my parents did not get to choose when they were going to accept me and when it was convenient for them.
So for me, this image of nobody being in the boat, not being where you're supposed to be or where people would imagine for you to be is reminiscence of that deciding on independence and instead going towards something much bigger.
So the next piece that we have is one of the larger ones on show today. This one is called The Deep Blue Quiet.
This one is normally $2,500. Today. It is on sale for 2125 kwh. It's 20 inches by 30 inches, printed on sustainable wood. It comes with a keyhole ready to hang.
And for me, this image is really about venturing out into the world, unprotected going off into the horizon and whatever that means, or for whatever it is that's actually out there waiting for you. And this one is reminiscent for me of the most important question that I asked myself when I was a teenager. At some point I really sat down and considered who would I have been if I had actually grown up in a supportive environment? The answer to that question became the well code that I started to live by.
It grounded me in ways that allowed me to work through and past all the abuse and break the cycles of abuse that I had endured well all the way up to that point and even beyond it.
So I'll take a quick break right now and check if there any questions in the chat.
Hey, Aoki 350. Good to see you here.
Coming up next is fine art fiction book that I created, and instead of this being a regular art book, this one instead is takes my artwork, puts it in book form, but also includes a narrative to go along with it. So for those that know me, I am an award winning fiction author as well as an artist, and this book kind of combines the two.
This book is normally $30 the price for the show. This one is now 25. And to give you a sense, the book was written in the tone written in character for the story world that I've created called The Wilderness Saga, and this book, A Child of Fox and Phantom, is the prequel for the book that I'm working on right now or doing the rewrite for called The Gospel of Wolves.
So to give you a sense of the tone of the book, I'll read just a quick passage or two.
This is again in the voice of Lindsay Falcon, the character. It became a cycle Shay making up with her on again, off again abusive boyfriend and him hanging around the house the first time. Susan, Lindsay's sister and I saw him punch Shay in the stomach. Susan immediately grabbed my arm, put me in the car and drove us off. As we drove, she told me that there was nothing that we could do to get Shay's boyfriend out of the house and keep him out.
So I was supposed to pray to God to keep me safe, just like how we did in Church. I accepted what she said in spite of my fear, but shot her a questioning look. Once we got to our destination. It was a Taekwondo studio not far from our home because God helps those who help themselves, she told me and enrolled me that very day, along with telling the master of the dojang what our situation was at home. After that, the master would often use me as his assistant during classes so that I could practice what I learned on a man much bigger than me.
Some saw my painting of bars on a window bearing across that right there as a means of keeping people out. But I meant it as a reference to the many ways God kept me from harm, even though I never lost all my fear. At least my sister in Master Alonso made sure that I could put up a good fight if I needed to. God made sure I never did.
But like all children, well, she hit those teenage years and you get a different flavor for her personality. You won't get far with that attitude, young lady, my neighbor said to me after I told him Hello by way of a single finger sprouting out from each of my fists. The truth was, I didn't need my attitude to take me places. I had boys with cars to do that for me. My 14 year old self drove Susan nuts, but like I said, puberty is no joke, and I had my messed up little heart to protect.
Besides, no amount of talk therapy can take you from point A to point B without real world activities to fill the gap. Susan tried to warn me that I was just a notch in those boys bed posts, but I told her I don't care. Their cars are paintings on my canvases, see how much money their counting system makes versus mine. One boy had his car painted twice. He claimed I was too immature.
The first time we were together and broke up with me, I stole him from his next girlfriend. We got back together long enough for me to convince him he was right the first time some people take longer to learn than others. That's how my therapist describes me. Anyways. I had the means, but not the mindset to move past my dad's death and subsequent haunting of my mom.
So the reference in the second part of the reading is because this book begins with a trauma that Lindsay Falco suffered at the age of eight, where her father dies from cancer but keeps returning back to speak to their mother and convince their mother to join him in death. This book is Lindsay Falco's coming of age while dealing with that idea of what love is and art curated by her character as if painted by her.
And the artwork tells part of the story along with passages written as pros and other parts written as poetry.
So again, this book is $25 for today.
Moving on to the next one. Next piece is com.
This piece was from my very first art exhibition, and the exhibition was like a raging success for me. It was not just my first time out as an artist. I had managed to sell about a third of all the art that I had put on show, and I was really just feeling great about life all the way up until probably about five days after the reception, and I got a call that my brother had committed suicide or one of my brothers had committed suicide.
One of those things where the worst that I had it as a child was during a time where that brother and his stepbrother and two step sisters and I live together, and we survived that time by banding together. The nearest description I've heard for the relationship that we all had together were soldiers that have been in combat. We had stuck by each other through a time that none of us would have probably made it through individually. And I didn't realize it until he had killed himself, that I still looked up to him.
It felt like if he couldn't make it, I couldn't understand how I was supposed to make it.
And so I started actually having suicidal thoughts, and I wound up in therapy over that to figure out how to deal with it. One of the things that she made clear to me was where he turned to drugs and alcohol. During times of distress, I had turned to creativity, so not always just art, like the pieces that I create. But even as a child, even before that, before I created anything, I spent all my time just about inside my head. I looked at the entire world through this lens of imagination that allowed me this buffer between my existence and what was really going on, and that's part of the process that I still honor to this day.
So this one looks like a photograph. But even the pieces that don't look like photographs, everything begins as a photograph, and my process is to take that photograph and not so much turn it into to take that photograph and then process it based on my emotional reaction to that image. So in this case, in Come, I kept it as a photograph, mostly because it is representative of one of the things that I always gravitated to as a child, things of beauty, times of calm. And for me, calm is that it's this promise of being able to have a moment so carefree in just a moment didn't necessarily even have to be a whole day.
But just to have a single moment where I had no larger care in the world.
But to just look up past the sales into a clear blue sky.
For me. Com is a reminder of that. It's a reminder of the power of single moments.
Next up is Follow The Leader.
This is part of a larger set. This piece, in particular is ten X 18, printed on metal, normally $194 on sale for $175. And the collection all the pieces that were part of this collection are all of jellyfish, and they are all representative of siblings. To me, the family of Play of Fun. One of the things that didn't become clear to me until probably my thirties was when you grow up, and this goes for everybody when you grow up in an abusive situation.
One of the things that's not really talked about is we aren't taught how to be loved, and when you think about that, to not know how to receive help, to receive care, to receive compassion. It's a huge thing, and it's something that has stood between myself and some of my familial relationships for just about my entire life. Still something I struggle with, but it's something I'm still working on and for me, follow the Leader and the other pieces from this jellyfish collection are reminders of me or reminders to me of that thing that I wasn't taught how to be loved and makes me conscious of what I still need to do, things to work on, to keep healthy relationships in my life, to keep the meaningful ones take care of them.
And the very last one for today is Dream and Journey.
This one is printed on canvas, hand signed normally $2,200 for today, it is $18.70. It is 20 inches by 24 inches. And this one I saved for last because this is the epitome of everything that I was hoping for as a child from the age of eight. I imagine myself as an adult and somehow figuring out how to be in a space where I'm surrounded by people who accept me who care about me and, well, people that feel like I'm a blessing in their lives, which was a significant thing.
Growing up as a child, where I always felt like I was in imposition like the whole world would have been better off if I had never been born.
And to go from that to being able to experience a moment like this. This is originally a photograph I took while my wife and I crossed in the Newport Beach Harbor towards Newport Beach from Balboa Island, and to experience moments like this where I can feel the gratitude of knowing that I took all those fractures that I suffered growing up and transformed those things into facets to things of value.
That's what Dream and journey reminds me of. It's taking those dreams going on that journey and the gratitude for moments where I realized that I took the path, the harder path to put myself where I wanted to be.
I want to thank you for joining me. All the pieces that I have shown today all come ready to hang.
I didn't mention it, but the more expensive pieces are all hand. Shipping is free for everybody, but if you live close to me, if you live anywhere between Santa Monica and Fontana after purchase, we can arrange for me to deliver this, deliver the art to you. And if you feel like we could do selfies and the whole nine and all that and make a time of it, thank you for your attention. I appreciate it greatly and feel free to share this life's dream with anyone you think might benefit from it or anyone you think might be interested in any of the art that's been shown.
All right.
Thank you. And have a good night, bye.
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