Getting close to unhomelessness

Last night I decided that I wanted to live in the Piazza Santo Spirito.  It is a cool piazza with restaurants and young, hip people.  There is a stage for live music at one end where a jazz band was playing last night and a big screen for movies at the other end.  In between is a fountain and tables for people to enjoy a drink and conversation.  

SO, I went to see an apartment today for a double room.  Not my ideal but I figure its better to share a room and have the experience I want than to have a single and not have fun.  I only met one guy at this apartment, but he seemed mellow and nice and I'm assuming the rest can't be too far from that.  

Tomorrow I will see another apartment in the piazza, again a double.  This one is a bit cheaper so it just depends on the people at this point.  Anyway, hopefully I will be sleeping in a bed I can call mine tomorrow night with one, rather than 4, other person.    Wish me luck!

Italian word for the entry: vivere - to live

I'm in Firenze!

Hi all!  I am finally in Florence.  After two years of planning this thing and waiting I am finally in Italy.  I got here two days ago on the 27th and ran into some trouble with my luggage.  It got stuck in Munich and didn't arrive until yesterday.  But I can't really complain about anything.  My time here has been really cool.  I've been apartment hunting with a few leads and also taking time to enjoy the city.  Heres the Ponte Vecchio at dusk.

Truly amazing.  The sunsets here are out of this world.  There are so many colors!  I wanted to paint it but realized that putting that range of color on canvas would look ridiculous.  Only in real life can it look as beautiful as it should. 

Today was the first day that I got to explore without an agenda.  I spent the morning drawing the Duomo and some sculptures in the Uffizi.  It was really nice to get back in my sketchbook.  The art in the public here is amazing.  It is so easy to just pass it by, but if you take a few minutes to look at the work and realize that it is over five centuries old and you develop a fuller appreciation for it.  

Here is the fake David in the Palazzo Uffizi.  I will for sure see the real one soon!  I think this is where the original one was first placed however.  

And here is the Duomo with a suspicious tourist.  The Duomo is really cool because it was a hugely progressive engineering design at the time that took over 170 years to complete.  Cambio, the one who designed it, and even Giotto, who took over the project later and was well known for his Scrovegni Chapel, didn't get the see the finished Duomo.   I still can't believe that I went from studying this last semester to walking past it every day.  

Italian word of the entry: Affittasi - for rent

Summer Recap

As much as I thought I was going to be diligent about updating this thing, I seem to have failed at regularity.  In any case, here is what I've been up to this summer.  

After finishing my mural at Trader Joe's I did smaller sign paintings.  They threw some pretty interesting projects my way and it turned out to be great experience.  I got to use a whole bunch of mediums including acrylic on plastic, soft pastels, acrylic, and pray paint on foam board, paint pens and the usual pen on paper. 

Here's a sign that I was pretty stoked about.  This one is a plastic insert to the egg case.  Originally it was just white with the words "Fresh Eggs" in a boring font.  We ended up turning the whole top of the egg case into a sign. 

I finished at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago and since then have been painting, packing and moving out of Stockton.

A few weekends ago I was helping Casey move into her new place in San Rafael.  I was in charge of making the book case look cool.  I think I accomplished that with the help of a furry baby animal. 

Here's a painting I did for the June art walk.  This was my first oil on canvas painting since the end of school.  It was really nice getting back into it and I did this one pretty fast.  It didn't sell at the art walk, but I think it was a blessing in disguise.  I'm donating it to my friend Joyce's organization, EducateOne.  It'll be on auction this Friday.  If you're around you should go to the event in Berkeley.  

Oh right...  The Newark house had a BBQ/ reunion.  It was a bunch of fun and they welcomed us with their own hospitality.  Here's a picture that somewhat sums up the dynamic of the house.  We had a giant sleep over and most of us hung out for a bit the next morning. 

The following day was the Download Festival.  Casey and I ended up missing Tapes n' Tapes, but we soon forgot about it when Yeasayer came on.  

Their set was brilliant.  The amazing band with a new and different sound created another new sound while keeping their sweet vibe.  They had us bobbing out heads and dancing the whole time.  I can't wait for their next album.  

So, I just left Stockton last weekend.  I was all ready for the move when my car realized I was leaving her and decided to throw the towel in, 6 days before my departure.  It was a pretty big blow to my moral and pocket, but I decided the only practical option was to donate her.  

This is one of the saddest pictures I have taken.  Goodbye Sharona, I had fun.  At least my carbon footprint has decreased by 80%.

My good friend Lexi commissioned me to do a couple paintings for her and Bobby for their new pad.  They wanted a feeling of Hawaii.  Here's the two...

This one reminds me of my childhood, having grown up on the east side of Oahu.  Its Chinaman's hat (I can fill you in on the tall tale if you need some background for the name) with Rabbit Island in the distance.  It's a 30 x 40 in. oil on canvas.  

Here is the second one.  This is the largest oil painting I've done - 36 x 48 in.  At first I wasn't sure about this one, but after spending some time with it I now love it.  I think it was just not my usual subject matter, but I really like the way it turned out.

Now I am in San Rafael with Casey.  I just finished a painting for my buddy Richmond, but that picture won't be posted until he gets it this weekend.   This past weekend we went on a little outdoor adventure in Roy's Redwoods. 

Flash!

L&L Mural

This past weekend the kind folks at the Stockton L&L let me paint on their walls. It was a great experience and I learned a lot . . . mainly how to paint on a ladder and not fall down.

This is what the wall looked like before I started. I'm told it is a 4x30 ft wall. Oh, and sorry about the poor quality photos. The incoming light kind of messed things up. Anyway, it looks orange in this picture, the wall color is actually a rich a yellow, yellow-orange.

Here's the painting. I think it suits the vibe and feel of an L&L. Good thing I ate at L&L everyday when I worked at Cold Stone in high school. I worked on it for 8 hours last night and about 4.5 hours today.

Here is a little better shot of the flowers. It was a cool experienced painting it, especially during the open hours of the restaurant. I got a number of compliments by surprisingly all Pacific Islanders. There were some dudes from Samoa, a couple from Fiji and a lady from Hawaii.

So, not that they read this, but cheers to Terry and his wife for letting me do my first on-the-wall painting and for feeding me some ono grinds.

Trader Joe's Mural

So, for the past few weeks I've been working on a large mural of my beloved Stockton for Traders Joe's.  After hours in the basement, which I lovingly nicknamed "The Dungeon," I finished and it is up!  Here's a few pics of it.

This is left panel.  It is 4x6 ft and shows Burns Tower on the Pacific campus and part of the downtown.  

Here's the middle panel.  It is 4x4 ft and shows the downtown theater dome.  

And finally the last and largest panel.  It is 4x8 ft and shows the Haggin Museum and the Stockton Hotel.  All of these are acrylic on wood panel.

Up in the store for hopefully a long time!  I am so stoked that I finished it and am really happy with the end piece.  I wasn't in town when they put it up, but the crew says that its been getting a lot of attention this past weekend.  If you're in the area you should check it out!

The Best Way to Go Out

Well, the end of the school year has come and gone and now its time to catch all of you diligent JonJonBlog readers up.

For my painting class, our final project was very open and allowed us to do a series of whatever we wanted. I chose to do portraits of my friends.
Here they are. Casey, Richmond and Kristen. It was really great painting them and I now feel even more connected to them (or at least their faces). I was trying to get more painterly with brushstrokes and stylize their portraits a bit through color and lighting. Im super happy with they way they all turned out and Kristens mom, Maureen, bought hers! (hopefully if you click on it you'll get a larger image)

My final project for my 2-D Design and Color Theroy course was themed "The Tree of Life." This was also a pretty open assignment and we could do whatever that meant to us.

I took Casey's longstanding idea of the interconnectedness of us and nature and created this. I wish I had a better image to post, but you should be able to open a large image by clicking on it. This was my first time using oil pastels and boy are they tough. In the end though I'm really glad I used that medium. It came out exactly how I imagined it.

Sometime between the last day of classes and my last day of finals Casey and I showed our art in the Stockton Art Walk downtown. It was a pretty cool event with music and art and a bunch of people. This is me in front of my pieces. It was humble showing, but it was really cool to have the actual public and not just my friends and peers see my work. I am glad to say that people actaully stopped and looked at it.

After this show we went to Valley Brew, a local eater, for celebratory drinks for everyone finishing classes. The group was the usual 15 or so and soon grew into 30. We ended up taking over this banquet room. Plus, a DJ that was scheduled for a party that was late came and started playing us some jams. So this cool hang out turned into a sweet dance party with $5 pitchers. Here is a shot of some of the funness. It was seriously so crazy and spontaneous. After this we headed over to a friend of a friends place for some French electronica dance music. It was one of the best nights every created.

So after all the studying, final projects and evaluations it finally happened. I graduated. May 17, 2008 I walled across the stage, shook a bunch of hands, received an empty diploma holder and switched my tassel to the other side. It was the hottest day of the year and miserable, but it was still amazing to be done with my degree.

This is me and my friend Basha. He a nerdy mechanical engineer and a great guy. This is before we walked.

Ah, and my fellow MEs. There were 11 that graduated and 10 that walked. I've spent a lot of time with these kids. Lots of coffee, batteries for our calculators, giant cookies, engineering pads along with lots of laughs and good times.

After the graduation ceremonies, we cooled off and got ready for our grad party. We had a huge get together at Richmond and my place. It was a chill night of drinking, conversing and saying our "until next times. " A lot of people actually came and it was a great way to wrap things up. Towards the end of the night when I wanted to get richmond, Kristen and Casey to take pictures with their portraits.

After taking their photos I hopped in there (with a bit of encouragement) with my self portrait. This photo shoot was pretty fun.

A few days after graduation, I went over to Casey's place and as I was entering the apartment gates we heard a little "meow." We looked and saw a tiny kitten peering over the curb. Of course we had to play with it, so we approached it slowly and just as we were about to pet it, it leaped up into Casey's car engine.

Here's the little booger on her alternator. We spent the next hour trying to get it out of there. We tempted it with our cat calls and fresh canned tune. We tries scaring it out with hissing and banging. Finally I just reached in and yanked it out. Originally we were just going to feed it and clean it up, but she's do damn cute we had to keep her. We named her Piston for obvious reasons and she now serves as my 6:30 AM alarm clock.

About a week ago I was in the city to celebrate my friend Chirstina's 21st.

Heres a picture of me, Christina and Casey. It was a great night and I got to see a number of my college friends. Weird to call them that! Anyway we had dinner, drinks and dancing and I got to see Christina before she left for study abroad in Madrid.

Newness

A lot of new things have happened in the last month, more than usual. I don't think I so many fun and amazing things have happened in such a short time. Here is my sad attempt to catch up on things...

Sometimes I have a good idea. So, earlier in February I realized that my friends and I are all graduating and we will not see each other in the fall. It bummed me out to think of all the fun things that we are going to miss out on in the fall, so I though we should just do it this semester. And since its leap year and we had a free day, what better time?


So the original plan was to have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all on April 29, but ended up only have Halloween. Thanks to Casey for organizing and hosting it all, we all got together, dressed up and has Halloween in February. Here is Richie and Margot Tenenbaum and Rocker Roberto. A week later it was break time.

Spring Break 2008 - the last spring break ever! (at least officially) I went down to Rosarito, Mexico with 17 amazing kids. We rented two villas for the week that was right on the beach. We seriously felt like we were in the Real World if it was filmed in the 70s. I don't think we could have gotten a better place. We all enjoyed life for a solid week and it was incredible.

Here is Lundy, Andrew, Megan and Casey (and I) walking on the beach trying to find sand dollars. Lundy, the one with the towel, is a sand dollar finding genius and found one whole one a few broken ones. This particular day started off cloudy and gray and in the course of walking on the beach transformed into one of the hottest days we were down there.

Of course there was beer . . . man I miss that bowl. The nice part about this spring break was that it wasn't the usual drunken, lame, college spring break that you think of in Mexico. It was a chill, relaxed, fun spring break full of daily salsa, guacamole, beer, surf, sun, and friends.

Here are my amazing friends, old and new and no, that isn't a shadow on my face, I just got super dark! It was kind of rediculous. Anyway, this was THE best group of friends anyone could have. We all got so close and were having with draws from each other the moment we left Mexico.

Well, the Monday after spring break was St. Patricks Day and since we all missed each other so much already, we had a gathering. So much fun and so much green.

About a month ago, Casey and I went to San Francisco to walk the Golden Gate Bridge and to see Bon Iver. If you haven't heard of Bon Iver, you should check them out. Anyway, March 23rd turned out to be an awesome day.

Here is Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, playing. One cool thing that happened during this concert, that we found out later, is that a number of the songs were video recorded and posted on La Blogotheque, a sweet site with indie artists and their take-a-way shows. The coolest part is that during the song Wolves, the camera pans into the audience and zooms into Casey's face! Frickin awesome.

The following weekend was one of the best. I spent practically all day Saturday painting in the studio. I was working on a piece for a student art show. Later that night there was a crazy interactive performance in the gallery. Lets just say there were paint canons that turn out to be a flame thrower, naked women with marshmallow peeps on them and . . .

... a woman with chocolate pudding and whipped cream over her for the audience to enjoy. Here is the art department chairperson having a go. This event alone made our school twice as cool. After the performance I headed over to Kristen and Megan's place for a Mexico crew reunion/my birthday party. So much fun! (at least what I can remember).

Lexi came down to visit too! This is such an appropriate picture because I have one just like it when we were freshmen, which was taken in March at a birthday party as well.

So as you've seen in the last post, I've been busy painting this semester. Here is a portrait of Lana, our in-class model for two class periods. This is my first in two ways: my first portrait painting from life and my first official sold piece that I get to use to money! Lana liked it and bought it!

And here is my self portrait. It is pretty weird looking at yourself for more than a few seconds. The funny part is that I painted this right after I got back from Mexico, so my skin tone while painting it was nothing like what it was from the photo I used.

As I mentioned before, I was in a student art show. It was called "Act" and was organized for the Social Justice Community on campus by my good friends Kristen and Megan. The reception turned out to be so good and it was a great experience for everyone.

This is titled "The Man" (with a strike through) and is acyclic on cardboard. Casey and I painted this. We have been planning on painting on this piece of cardboard all year (literally) and finally got to use it for this piece. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It even got its own wall!

This on is "MLK", graphite on paper. I hug this one all my by myself and wanted to document it. Haha, looking at it now, I think its a bit crooked. Must be the angle I took the photo from :)

This one is "Twenty Three Percent" oil on canvas. This one is the one I was painting before that crazy performance and is pretty important to me. The title is the percentage of homeless people who are war verterans, and I bet that statistic is climbing. Look closely for a few hidden meanings...

Anyway, this one is technically my first sold piece and the money went to the Center for Community Involvement, where I have worked throughout college. I was super stoked to find out that it sold. It even went higher than the base price I set for the silent auction. Hopefully there is more to come.

So, that has been my life in the past month. Well, that and work. I got hired as a sign artist at Trader Joes and just finished my third week of work. Its pretty cool. I get to paint huge panels (most are bigger than 4 X 6 ft) that go up in the store for everyone to see. A little intimidating, but the pressure is a good thing. So, if you are in the Stockton Trader Joe's, look for my stuff!