2008-03-29 Springsteen Seattle 1091

Originally uploaded by albabe

“Nils just played my pants off!” she said as the band launched into “She’s the One”. I could see why, as Nils’ scorching guitar work on “Because the Night” lived up to the hype its been getting during this tour. As a Springsteen fan since ‘84, and a longtime tour veteran, I was proud of my friend’s newfound love for the band. “I just fell in love with Nils,” she said, and I knew I had a new convert. Her first tour, Abby drove with me 8 hours to Seattle from Missoula for her Bruce baptism. She was not originally a fan, and I tried to prime her on the drive over with as many of my Bruce CDs as I could grab on the way out the door. She did me proud, rocking out, singingalong with some of the songs she recognized, and even calling out “Waiting on a Sunny Day” before I recognized it.

When we arrived at the venue, ticketless and soaked from the rainy walk over from the hotel, I was skeptical she would have a good time, though. I had bought tickets in the parkinglot before,paying well below face value for them. (The last time I saw The Boss, in Jersey, back in 2002, I paid $15). She, however, had never arrived at a show without tickets before, and was getting nervous after we had turned down three different scalpers asking $100 a pop. On our second pass around the complex, she was nearing her last nerve, so when the scalper walked towards us I was ready to deal.

“Got tickets? Need tickets?” he said.

“What do they cost?” I asked.

“Don’t waste my time. What’s your budget,” he said.

“$60,” I said. He countered, I countered. We ended up paying $140 for a pair in section 211.Nosebleeds, I know, but factoring in the “convenience charge” Ticketmaster charges, we still paid below retail.We made it into the venue, and she waited for another friend from Missoula who had been to the Portland show while I went to check out the seats. When I returned to them, we eventually balked at the $7 beers that we couldn’t take to our seats, and headed up towards our seats around 8. The show, slated to begin at 7.30, was finally underway just a little after 8.30.And what a show.

I had been warned that it was different from any E Street show I had ever seen, and those reports were right. Absent was Dany Federici, recovering from melanoma treatment. In his stead was Charles Giordano, the Sessions Band keyboardist and accordionist. Patty was also thankfully absent as well, back in Jersey dealing with the teenagers who had “kegs of beer rolling up the driveway, and 100 pizzas were delivered. Pot cookies were coming out of the oven. Patty’ll take care of that. She’s got that shit down.” At least she’s got something down. Lord knows she hasn’t figured out how to be a part of the E Street Band.

From the flubbed opening strains of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped”, of which Bruce said, “A little panic, good for the band,” Bruce Springsteen helped us celebrate “the final curtain on eight years of magic tricks” for a little over two hours. It was a politically charged show, with a heavy focus on the new stuff. The favorites, some coming from scrawled request signs in the crowd, (”Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”), some coming as audibles,others, as evidenced by the handwritten setlist posted on brucespringsteen.net, were planned out. But “Point Blank”? Amazing. Sandwiched between “Your Own Worst Enemy” and “Devil’s Arcade”, this gem hasn’t been played with the E Streeters since June 14, 2003 in Denmark. The re-working of”Reason to Believe”, for me, was the favorite. Bruce re-invented it as a driving, foot-stomping rollick, haunted by his opening imploration to “SSSSHHHHHHHHH” before the harmonica intro, and punctuated by the haunting treatment of his voice through some sort of effects pedal. Incredible.

I talked to ‘ole Abby today, and she confessed that she couldn’t stop singing Bruce all day.”When are you going to let me borrow some CDs?” she wanted to know. Wait until I give her,thanks to the power of the Internet, the entire show at 203 kbps.

Thanks Bruce, and thanks E Street Band.

The only CD I ever checked out of a library that I never returned was “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”, the David Byrne/Brian Eno collaboration. (After many overdue notices arriving in the mail, I went down to the library, told them I’d lost the item, and paid for it. they now have another copy in their stacks). I loved MLITBOG for a lot of reasons, the layered sounds, the samples, the beats, the moods that it created. At the time, I was already familiar with David Byrne’s solo work as well as his work with The Talking Heads, but I had only heard about Eno. Since then, I’ve come to love Eno and his work with a variety of other musicians, including his production work with Devo, Talking Heads, Jane Sieberry (now Issa, who, like Reznor, gives her music away for free) and especially James and the “Laid” and “Wah-Wah” albums. Eno, the “non-musician”, is most known for his prolific catalogue of ambient music, including the fantastic “Music for Airports”, as well as being an amazing record producer and contributor to such movies as David Lynch’s “Dune”.

Eno has always been fascinated by technology and how to twist and bend it for his own purposes. He’s experimented with generative music, music that composes itself, and has branched out into visual art as well, creating a computer game that generates a possible 77 million paintings, chosen by Eno himself. He is currently working on the soundtrack for the multi-player game Spore, “that allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a multi cellular organism, through development as a sapient and social land-walking creature, to levels of interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture.” [Wikipedia].

I’m here to make the case that Trent Reznor is the new Brian Eno.

Reznor got his start in Cleveland creating what would become Pretty Hate Machine by himself after-hours at the Right Track Studio where he worked as an assistant engineer and janitor. He became proficient at manipulating sounds and bending technology to his own purposes as well, just as Eno learned to do. He’s produced many record albums, including a handful for Marilyn Manson, as well as the phenomenal “Natural Born Killers” soundtrack and the “Lost Highway” soundtrack. His subtle contribution to Tori Amos’ “Past the Mission” on her “Under the Pink” album showed how quiet he could be when he needed to be. It was also the first time I can remember hearing him sing quietly while someone else took the spotlight.

Reznor’s original music from id Software’s video game “Quake” was long one of my favorite ambient pieces of music to load into iTunes when I needed to get some work done and didn’t want to be disturbed. He expanded his fascination with technology and its possibilities with the release of “Year Zero” and its companion alternate reality websites/reality game and subsequent user-submitted art in 2007.

Eno once predicted that music would one day become user-modifiable constructs, and imagined a day when future generations would look at past generations in wonder, asking in wonder, “you mean you listened to the same music over and over?”. Reznor took that idea and ran with it, releasing “The Hand that Feeds” from his dismal “With Teeth” 2005 release as a multi-track Garage Band download that fans could get for free and remix as they pleased. His newest release “Ghosts I-IV”, was released in a variety of formats, including a free torrent seeded by NIN itself. “Ghosts” was released as with a Creative Commons license (no copyright), and Reznor announced yesterday that the tracks can be used to participate in a NIN sponsored film festival on You Tube.

Talk about user generated content.

The album itself is supurb. I’d love to hear Eno’s thoughts on it. Those of you who haven’t hear it, go grab it at NIN’s official site and give it a listen for yourself. Grab the torrent if you’re familiar with the technology.

“Ghosts” ranges from smooth and quiet piano to the heavy muddy guitar and keyboard laden layers we’ve come to expect from Reznor. I’m looking forward to what people come up with, and might even make a contribution myself if I can find some time along with everything else I have going on.

NIN Ghosts Film Festival on YouTube

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Finding Normal

Listening to the Q+A session after the film, it was good to hear that some of those depicted in the film have seen the film and liked it. They were present at screenings of the film in Portland and were able to interact with audience members, validating their process and strengthen them at the same time. Lindstrom said that he made the film because he believes in the program’s strength, and that it deserves to be replicated in other communities. He admitted that there were ethical concerns of following individuals on such a fragile journey, and, to his credit, said that their recovery was the most important thing. He said that if he thought at any time that their recovery was in jeopardy, he would have backed off. This responsible approach validates the folks in the program, giving them strength, and, by the director’s own accord, telling them that they are important and valuable human beings.
The director Brian Lindstrom took great care in patiently setting up the story of each character involved. The film follows three of the people involved in the running the mentoring program, David, Jill, and to a lesser extent, Randy. Their stories are told through their interactions with the people entering treatment. The film focuses upon three key individuals, a 36 year old white kid (who I thought would surely drop out of the program by the end of the film — he didn’t), Peni, a recovering drug addict (Peni eventually drops out), and a black ex-con who was to me the most ready to change from the very beginning of his introduction into the program.

David, the main councilor, is amazing as he non-judgmentally walks new inductees through what they can expect as they enter into the program, telling them in a no bullshit way what they’re up against. At the same time, David validates their addiction and fear of overcoming it through personal stories. David, like Jill and Randy, believe that people can change, and believe that the change is so profound and so worth it that they are willing to do everything in their power to help those who want help.

Jerky camera work and editing throughout the movie seemingly paralleled the confusion of someone entering and participating in a recovery program. Cutting back and forth between letting those in recovery tell their story, and letting those running the mentoring program tell their story, the film does a good job of depicting the difficulty of overcoming addiction. Around about the half-hour mark in the 77 minute film, I began to get fidgety. Lindstrom’s choice to attempt to tell two distinct stories is the film’s largest fault. Attempting to blend both the stories of the people in recovery as well as the stories of the people running the program proved to be too big a task and weakened what could have been a stronger film. Had he chosen to focus on one or the other of the stories, the secondary story would have told itself, and with more grace. The stronger of the two stories in the film as it stands is that of David, Jill and Randy.

The three mentors have been through so much in their lives, and have beaten their addictions in order to create new lives for themselves. The power of this accomplishment leads them to want to reach out and provide that opportunity for others, and that, to me, was the story the film was telling most eloquently. During the question and answer session after the screening, Lindstrom’s comment about “..what David, Jill and Randy had to deal with…” as they provided help to those in the program spoke to this idea that the film really should have been more focused upon the program itself, and those who created and run it.

Butte, America

Growing up in a union household in a workingman’s town, I felt a strong bond with Butte, MT the first time I visited it. My father was the union president for the Fraternal Order of Police in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and he did his time working a union job in the rubber shops of Akron at Goodyear and then at Firestone, just as his father had. I remember listening to him tell stories of the difficult conditions when he was building tires, conditions that the union always fought to improve. And I remember him telling me, as union power in America began to decline, that it is because of unions that American workers have many things that we take for granted, like eight hour days and five day work weeks.

Remembering this, I very much looked forward to seeing Pam Roberts’ rough cut of her work-in-progress, “Butte America”. Roberts, a Montanan, but not a Buttian, sought to tell a Montana story that had national significance, and she found her story in the dusty hills of Butte. She knew the challenge ahead of her and recruited Edwin Dobb, a Buttian who wrote the 1996 Harpers article Pennies From Hell: In Montana, the bill for America’s copper comes due. Dobb, who returned to Butte after a 25 year hiatus, was dragged “kicking and screaming” into the project, wary of “entering into such an extreme collaborative process”, being used to working alone as a writer. The time away gave Dobb perspective with which to help craft a compelling film.

The duo formed a good team, creating a movie that spans 120 years of history — the rise and fall of the labor unions in Butte, and, by extension, in America. They capture the “feel” of Butte well, illustrating the ambivalence of a town’s dependency on “The Company” via footage with former miners, old timers who worked underground before they were “turned into truck drivers”, or just quit mining altogether when the pit mines opened, because their spirit was broken, their livelihood and stolen from them. They were proud men who did hard work in the mines underground, and they helped to build America.

But the story is more than just a story of workers and a boomtown gone bust. The story is a human one about the bonds that hard work can forge within a community, how hard work can actually become the defining element of a community. Those bonds and that sense of identity can be destroyed when work dries up. In the case of Butte, the work dried up as a result of corporate greed, when finally, mining left the town forever.

Roberts acknowledged, in the Q+A session after the showing, that one difficulty she faced in making the movie was the lack of first-hand accounts available. Many of the people who were alive during Butte’s heyday are dead. Killed in the mines, or by miner’s consumption. half of the characters in the film, Roberts told us, have died since the film was made. Roberts gracefully used the live resources available to her to create a beautiful film that blends archive film footage and photographs, donated home movies, and recreations, telling an important story in American history. Though the film is technically unfinished, (the movie still had many editor’s marks like running times and other video notations), the screening was a gripping one.

Roberts intends to put the finishing touches on the film, including more voice-over narration and more original scoring, in time for a spring 2008 release. I’m looking forward to seeing the final version.

Sorting Letters and Prototype

Originally uploaded by love not fear

Last time you wrote you said that you thought collage was a nostalgic impulse. I think you’re wrong. Can we argue about this? Kurt Schwitters would laugh up his sleeve at you for saying that. His collages are like writing letters. Letters are collages. Educations are collages, too. –Jolene Iolas to Martin Sloane; Martin Sloane, Michael Redhill

So often, when I’m working on a project, layers of that project reveal themselves to me in other aspects of my life. Recently, I was introduced to the writer Michael Redhill as a result of an interview with him that I’d heard on The Kacey Kowars Show [disclosure, Kacey Kowars is my uncle]. In the interview, Redhill mentioned his fascination with Joseph Cornell, the artist who makes intricate boxes of objects. He said that he drew inspiration from Cornell in his book Martin Sloane, which I have just begun reading and am enjoying very much.

It’s making me think a little more cerebrally about the Leaving and the Left project I’ve undertaken recently. I posted some early sketches and notes about the project previously here, but I never flushed out the idea. I guess the idea won’t be fully flushed out until the project is completed, but I’ll explain a little more about the concept before tracing the process thus far and then sharing what I’m learning as I go.

My progress on the project has been slower than I’d hoped. Part of the reason for that is that I unintentionally made excuses as to why I could not move the project forward, namely that I didn’t want to be cutting up glass in my kitchen and risk having glass shards in my food, or on my floor for me to step on like some sort of modern Bukowski, going weekly to the doctor to have them removed from the bottoms of my feet.

Excuses are always barriers to progress, and I have begun eliminating them and will have a prototype completed by the end of the weekend. I already have one laid out. A quick todo list:

1. Create prototype
2. get wood scraps at Home Resource
3. cut wood for pieces : 20 pieces at 12″x12″ (allow extra pieces in case of screw-ups)
4. paint cut wood, allow to dry
5. get more glass from the frame shop
6. cut glass for each piece. Work on each piece individually, or no more than 2 pieces at one time

Each piece will likely have its own todo, but that’s a good start for now.

As far as the actual idea for the series, let’s backup a minute and I’ll share some insights that the process is teaching me. My own little art education.

Love relationships, and I’m speaking here about relationships comprised of romantic and/or sexual love, break down for a variety of causes for their crumbling. Granted, sometimes they don’t break down at all, which is good, but when they do break down, there can be a variety of reasons for their demise: a wrongdoing to one or another in the relationship, new information that informs the feelings of the relationship’s participants, lack of communication between partners, new honesty in the reasons for entering a relationship in the first place, clarity as to the goal of the relationship and realizing that one or both parties are on different paths, geographical distance that cannot be overcome. I’m simplifying a huge thing here, and am not trying to create an all-encompassing list, but you get the idea.

When a relationship ends, there are associated with its ending a variety of feelings: hurt, anger, resentment, relief, regret (again, not an all-encompassing list). But my thought as I have been thinking about the series is that the love shared between the two individuals does not just disappear. That which has been given cannot be taken back. Amidst the pain and heartache we often forget the good and valuable things that drew us together in the first place.

Where does that love go? How does it manifest itself in our lives moving forward? How can we grow from the love we shared, honor the hurt and pain of parting yet allow the love to become a part of us, enriching us and renewing us? How can we grow from both the love and the heartache? These are some of the questions that the series intends to explore. I cannot pretend that the completed pieces will answer all or any of the questions, but the discussions are important ones to have, and hopefully the viewer will be challenged to have these kinds of discussion with himself and others close to him.

Initially, I had intended to use snippets of old love letters, juxtaposed with after-the-breakup letters to illustrate that love and sadness can exist in the same space, although maybe in different time continuums. Acknowledging and honoring both disparate feelings is important. Attempting to replace love with hate isn’t truly possible or healthy. The concept may not be fully articulated here, and I’m still spinning it in my head, but it’s stuck around long enough that it’s worth exploring.

Some unexpected things are coming up as new themes while I continue working on this series. The big surprise was that I had almost all of the love letters, but none of the breakup letters. No “You hurt me, I hate you” letters. Nothing.

Then I started going through some old email archives. (I save everything. I’m going to be one of those old men with goat trails in his house, I swear). I noticed that I had some love letters sent electronically, but what surprised me was that there were quite a few residual after-the-breakup letters in the emails I was reading. This realization raises a question about technology and the coldness of words displayed as intangible pixels on a screen. Sure, they can be printed, but the former love/lover had not physically touched the printout. Her essence is not present. This creates distance between the leaving and the left. Is this intentional? Does it matter if it is or isn’t?

The process is a fascinating one for me, and I’m learning much about myself in the process.

A steady stream of foot traffic made its way past my art on Friday. Many of the women who were in attendance also were enticed into buying a trinket or two from the boutique, as i noticed the cash register’s buttons wearing out, which is good. Alas, no one purchased any artwork. On Friday, anyway. The work will be on display on available for purchase through the end of the month, so if you’re around downtown Missoula, stop in and see it.

The Miss Zula’s show marks the first time I’ve exhibited anywhere that requires a cut of the art sales. In this case, I believe it to be a fair trade, as they took care of the advertising in the weekly and daily newspapers here in town, as well as refreshments. Being on a shoestring budget right now, that’s good for me.

The next show I have scheduled isn’t until the holiday season, and it’s a group show. More on that as time progresses.

Animoto is a new service that allows users to create music videos from their photo slideshows. There are full length vids available at a cost, and there are free 30 second vids available as well. I decided to give it a whirl and let you know how my experience was. The service seems like it could be useful for folks wishing to quickly display a sampling of their artwork or photos in an entertaining fashion at a low cost utilizing an easy-to-use user interface.

The sign-up process was relatively painless. They included humor in the process as well, which is always good, incorporating positive words into the annoying anti-bot detection requirement, as well as making the button read “I’M A HUMAN”.

For the actual uploading of images, Animoto supports uploading from your local machine, or accessing some of the popular photo sharing sites online including Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, Photobucket and Picassa. I chose to grab some images from my Flickr site. After giving Animoto permission to access my Flickr account, I chose an album. This process from within Animoto was less than perfect because, for a 30 second clip, one is limited to around 15 photos. Animoto does not display photo counts for the albums in Flickr, at least. I had to login to Flickr to check album sizes. A minor annoyance.

The next step is to choose music. You have an opportunity to upload music from your machine (with a warning that it had better be legit), or choose from selections offered on Animoto. I tried to upload from my machine, but the Animoto service did not seem to have this feature completely bug-free yet, so I had to go with their selections, which included three genres: Indy, electronic or hip-hop. It seemed all of the selections in each category were lame, so I went with what looked to be the least lame. There was no way for me to tell, as the “play” button intended to preview the music before selection did not work.

Okay, so I have the photos loaded, the music selected. Lastly, I need to tell it to create the video. I do this and wait a short amount of time before I receive an email letting me know that the vid is ready for online viewing.

It seems to be a fun little tool, but not very useful in the end because of the lack of control the end user has as to which images are displayed in which way. I think the display order is based upon the way the photos are ordered in the album, but I think it’s more of a throwaway “Oh, neat” thing than anything. We’ll see how it goes, as with all 2.0 startups.

View the video below.

Update: The embedding feature seems to spit out bad code, so you’ll have to follow the link to view the vid they made for me. View the vid for reals.

As an unknown artist, I’ve tried to utilize a number of the free online tools available to me to get my name out there. Plenty of pay-per-use services are also available, but here I’ll highlight the free services with which I’ve had experience.

1. Deviant Art - Pros: ability to make prints of submitted art, ability to comment on other artists’ images, Creative Commons license possible, social networking, tagging possible, Cons: Does not support RSS, Batch uploads not possible, upload process takes too long: uploading one image required 6 clicks, Title limited to 30 characters, checkboxes behave as radio buttons in the Fullview Size section, if dropdown menu option is changed in Fullview Size section, checkbox becomes unchecked/cannot add watermark to fullview/original size, ads present on free accounts (not sure about paid accounts), did not use other features enough to make a judgement
2. Flickr - Pros: supports RSS feeds, 3rd party application/add-ons supported, ability to print supported, Creative Commons license possible, social networking, ability to link photos externally without repercussion if done properly, ability to easily add notes to photos, ability to moderate comments, ability to comment on others’ photos, social networking, batch editing, flagging photos as safe, moderate or restricted, ability to flag photos as photo, screenshot, or art/illustration, ability to hide photos from public searches, ability to add HTML descriptions to photos, ability to geotag and tag photos Cons: tied to Yahoo! account, unlimited uploads require a paid Pro account
3. MySpace - Pros: supports RSS feeds, bulletins, social networking, ability to comment on others’ sites, ability to moderate comments Cons: No nudity in the photos section. No batch editing/deletion of photos. UI not at first intuitive to move photos between albums
4. Montana-Artists.com - Possibly the least friendly of all sites reviewed here, which is a shame, as it has the potential to be something great.
   • Cons: submitting artwork is completely un-intuitive, the first step being to “submit artwork”, but there is no option to upload an image until after submitting details about the image being considered. The message that displays after the first step in submitting a piece of artwork for inclusion on the website is: Your new artwork has been submitted, and will be reviewed by one of our Quality Control Specialists to verify that the information entered is appropriate and acceptable. If their [sic] is a problem with the information, you will be contacted by our staff to provide a more suitable substitute. You must also upload at least 1 digital image file to the web site manually. Please send us the highest quality material that you can. The web site will resize the artwork. If you are sending a photo, slide, negative, diskette or CD please send them to: (no address is listed) Once this has been completed, one must upload an image, and even when the image has been uploaded, it does not display on the site, but must be approved by an admin.
5. Picasa - Never used, not enough information to make a judgement, though it seems somewhat useful. Support for direct export from Mac’s iPhoto seems to be a benefit.
6. Missoula Cultural Council Artist Directory - Pros: free directory listing, easy interface to post listing, anyone can suggest an artist Cons: One admin responsible for approving all submissions, submissions are not immediate
7. Digg - Used infrequently, not enough information to make a judgement. Supports RSS.
8. Facebook - Used infrequently, not enough information to make a judgement
9. Blogger - Pros: friendly and intuitive interface Cons: yourname.blogspot.com instead of yourname.com

Have others of you had similar or different experiences with any of the above sites? Can you warn us against sites not listed here? Can you recommend sites not listed here? Give reasons, rants and raves in the comments.

Lucas stopped by the other night and told me about an article in Missoula.com Magazine that dubbed Missoula “The Paris of the West”. The article featured several well known visual artists and writers and profiled their lives and their art. Did the feature tell the whole story? The writing was good, as was the story. The photographs were incredible, featuring, for example, Missoula writer Jeff Hull sitting at The Oxford Bar. The Ox is the oldest bar in Missoula, though it was not always known as The Oxford. It pre-dates prohibition, and has since become a pretty seedy place. It’s open 24 hours, and after 2AM, it is a haven for drunks looking for a cup of coffee and some sustenance to sober them up enough to drive home. Meanwhile, regulars sit and play cards for money up in front. It’s a dirty bar that welcomes all sorts of riff-raff, and I’ve spent more than one early morning there. But. The writer does not seem like the type to frequent a place like this. Yet the photo implies that it is his stomping grounds. Maybe it is, I don’t know him. But I’ve never seen him in there, and the photo is pretty glitzy. Seems pretty staged to me.

Regardless. Missoula, the Paris of the West?

Condos have been popping up relentlessly here in town. Last year, I attended an open house at one of the condos that opened near Le Petit Outre. It’s a beautiful space, office buildings on the first floor with contemporarily designed two bedroom condos above. Apparently I looked like a potential buyer, as the realtor mentioned that “this neighborhood is full of artists, and is close to downtown. It’s a great location.” It is a great location, close to downtown, and, like he said, is a neighborhood full of artists. I looked at him and said, “The things you say are true. Don’t you think that by building a $350,000 per unit set of condos that you are pricing the artists right out of this neighborhood?” He had no response for me.

Last year, I was lucky enough to have been able to pay my rent four months running by selling artwork. This year, I have not even had enough cash to buy materials to mat and frame artwork, much less spend cash on marketing (posters, ads, postcards, postage) for exhibitions. My former day-job laid me off in October, saying that they were going to call me back to work in March. March rolls around, and they still can’t afford payroll, so they can’t call me back, but could I come back in June? By June, they would definitely have their act together enough to cover payroll and call me back to work. I said, Sure, see you in June. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, believed them, and did not look for other work. Meantime, I experimented with different things, including trying to build this site from scratch as a means to earn a little extra cash. I experimented with different art styles, I made a bunch of art, I lived frugally, I was looking forward to returning to work, but I wasn’t looking for another job.

June rolls around, and they can’t call me back to work. It takes me a while, but I am lucky enough to find a job. It’s a great job, great boss. Hard work, mowing lawns and landscaping in, sometimes, 100º+ temperatures, with, recently, heavy smoke from wildland fires. In the meantime, I fell behind on some of my bills and, though I make enough to make it, when you are behind, it’s difficult to catch up, much less make ends meet.

So I’ve been working 9, 10, 11 hour days mowing lawns, digging ditches and hauling huge rocks around. (”That boulder is too large, I could lift a smaller one.”) It doesn’t leave me with much time to create art, sell it, or do much else in that arena. Meanwhile, the summer is coming to a close pretty quickly, and the landscaping will end soon. Soon after that, the lawn mowing will cease, and I’ll need to find another job. This paycheck to paycheck shit sucks, let me tell you.

Yeah, Missoula’s been called “The Paris of the West” before, apparently by John Updike, but I’ve been unable to corroborate this claim. Yet, there have been other “Paris of the West” towns, most notably, San Francisco. The Missoula artists that are recognizable are the same ones over and over. Dudly Dana, Monte Dolack, Jonathan Qualben, David James Duncan and William Kittredge. That there is name recognition for these artists does not diminish their work by any means. I’m suggesting that if indeed Missoula is “the Paris of the West”, the whole story has not been presented.

Artists who are struggling to produce original work, struggling to say something with their art, struggling to make it as artists who have’t sold out to marketing and tourism, who haven’t sold themselves short, and I say that because I think many of the well-known artists have great talent, but have chosen to make the art that they make because it is marketable. The executive who comes to Missoula from Chicago, pays beau-coup bucks to stay at Paws Up, pays and exorbitant amount of money for Orvis gear he will never use again, pays a fishing guide a ridiculous sum, then, as a memento of his Montana trip, makes a stop at Monte Dolack’s place has no real idea about the artists in Missoula who are struggling to make a difference. And he doesn’t care. Why should he?

What about the unknown artists? The ones who haven’t “made it”? The performance artists about whom I have written before, the singers who quit their jobs to focus on their singing careers or quit school to pursue a living as a musician? The unknown visual artists who are struggling against obscurity and managing to make a go of it? Why were people like these omitted from the over-hyped article in Missoula.com Magazine? Like Paris, Missoula has its share of street kids, its share of bohemians and starving artists. But that segment of the arts community allegedly doesn’t bring dollars into the local economy. We know that isn’t true, so why are they ignored in a feature story such as this one?

So why do we stay here, us artists who sometimes can’t afford to make our art, or, other times, rely on the kindness of friends in order to have a meal and share a beer or two? We stay here because we love Missoula, Montana. We love the country, the community, and we want to make a difference right here right now, in a town that is being torn in many different directions by many different factions, be they builders, Californicators, tourists, with whom we have a love-hate relationship, or a variety of other factors. We care, we have something to say, we want to create and share beauty while pointing out the truths we see among us. Which are sometimes beautiful, but sometimes are painful to look at, examine and admit.

Some of us, though, can’t stay. About a month ago, I managed to drag myself out of bed fairly early before work and make it to The Good Food Store for a breakfast burrito and some coffee before heading to load up the truck with mowers and gasoline. While I sat eating my breakfast, a friend, a dancer, sat down with me for a few minutes. She had just returned from a stint away from town before, she informed me, preparing to move to Helena.

If it is the Paris of the West, Missoula is, lacking the amazing architecture, the history and the world renowned art, an amazing place to visit, a great place to live. Yes, it’s difficult to eek out a living here for many, and because of that, some of us find ourselves working two, three jobs, rarely finding time to get out and explore the beauty for which we moved here, or, for those who are natives, the beauty for which they stayed. Still, Missoula’s a great town, and I am proud to be a part of it. I wish, though, that the marketing folks would acknowledge the unknown, no-name artists once in a while. Or that we unknowns could figure out a better way to make ourselves known. And that the arts community in this town was more supportive of each other, that the well-knowns did more to help the underdogs become more exposed, more appreciated, more MORE.

Everything I’m saying, of course, isn’t related to Missoula being the Paris of the West. Nawp. The article was merely a jumping off point for me to ramble about some of the things that have been trampling my brain recently and relentlessly.

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So I completed my todo list for the August art opening and everything went well. Here are some photos of the exhibition as it was hung.