Stations / Black Licorice / Some Engagements / Graphics
also a reminder/invitation; my books have some openings!
A quotidian post about studio summertime, my preferred sweet (and salty) treat at the moment, and a few reminders / announcements about shows and engagements coming up.
Also, an important subline: my books are open for freelance, commission, graphic design, etc…
Email me if you are looking for solid work at professional standards with affordable rates and often quick turnarounds. I love having a part in making your records or CDs or cassettes look really nice. I also love making graphics.
HMU and let’s make something together!
STATIONS
I am very deep in a productive studio summer here. I think the heat makes it worse/better.
I didn’t really get a deep long stretch of studio time from January until May or so. I have/had a lot of creative flow backed up, and it is now coming out kind of aggressively and intensely across all my channels. I also was bestowed with some great experiences in hard and also soft ways during surgery → recovery → Iceland trip with the family… and in my experience, I can’t make good work without having experiences to infuse it with. In some ways my world as an artist is broken up into stations, and one of those stations is far away from my artwork, out in the world having human experiences. Good ones, bad ones, hard ones, confusing ones, profound ones, dumb ones… they are all an important part of making work.
Being able to spend a few devoted hours a day working on 1 or 12 of the 75 things I am juggling lately feels really good. Bouncing between stations. I am trying to build structure by balancing freelance and commission work with my own sound/music/fine arts projects too, oh but also working in the garden pruning and planting and composting, oh and doing programming with Onestraw (check out our new website!), oh and getting groceries for and cooking for my family, oh and the chickens and the pumpkins and the bird netting on the raspberries and its a drought, oh and physical therapy….and all the things living my weird specific life with my family on a slice of landscape in the middle of this part of Earth we call Colorado entails.
“What are you working on?” the imaginary voice I weirdly ascribe to you in these writings asks. I have something smaller (but potent!) and new/old coming out later this summer that is requiring me to wear my video art goggles… or goggle I guess. I’ve been working on some really fun in-camera/practical cinematography tricks. This has recently resulted in me putting a dot of black paper on my telephoto camera lens lately. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The main big thing I am thinking about and working on is a new solo album. Its been a really interesting process; both really intentional and considered and also really surprising and intuitive. Sloppy in places and then also very detail oriented. Whimsical and also technical… I am kind of demanding myself to make something faster than I usually do, which has also been a fun/hard challenge. I’ve grown accustomed to working on a solo album for 2-3 years, and this time I am trying to get it done in less than 1 year. Just to try it. Not rushing it, but also not overthinking it.
Most of all, this has led to me having a ton of fun making this new material and I think it comes across in how it sounds… I also think keeping it close to the chest for now is part of the joy of it… so you will learn more about it all when the time is right.
BLACK LICORICE
I have recently, in the last few years, discovered just how much I love black licorice. Especially salty black licorice, though my love for the salty stuff has a threshold. It can’t be too salty. Anyway…
Being diabetic, I don’t eat a ton of candy recreationally, but I need candy around when my blood sugar dips. In that way, candy is kind of both an indulgence and a utility object that helps me with a disability. Nothing beats some orange juice and peanut butter and crackers when it comes to battling low blood sugar, but having a bag of gummies or quick acting sugary stuff around has been a habit my whole life.
Anyway, I have had black licorice around in the studio a lot lately, and I have some opinions. So, here are micro reviews of a few of my recent black licorice favs.
APPOLO LAKKRÍS REIMAR — We were at a grocery store in semi-rural Iceland and I asked a worker there what the best black licorice was in Iceland. She said it was this stuff. It is rope licorice, and has a great chew. A good balance with lots of great deep spicy notes. Not salty at all, but also not overly sweet either. Not like exciting but I think the most delicious classic black licorice I’ve had.
APPOLO PIPARFYLLTUR HJÚP — She also recommended this. It is chocolate covered black licorice with pepper filling. I think pepper as in black pepper, peppercorn. This wasn’t my favorite, if only because it just felt like it was doing too much at once. Almost like pineapple on pizza. I liked having one, but didn’t really ever feel super compelled to go back for more. For better or worse.
This one I discovered on a trip to New York City last year. Bon Bon has shops all over NYC; you can do mix and match bags at the shops, like the scoop and weigh system. My move was to do this salty black licorice with all the different sour fish they do too. The licorice stands on its own though. I think it is my favorite ever right now…
IKEA food is very hit or miss, but their black licorice (both sweet and salty) is good. Not incredible, but far from bad. I have a licorice jar on my desk and right now it is a bag of each variety from IKEA shaken together.
SOME ENGAGEMENTS / GRAPHICS
I have two engagements lined up for July and August. I will be playing in a duo with Carl Ritger at the Clyfford Still Museum for one of their Summer Concerts. We are opening for Matt Robidoux who is doing a staging of their opera “The Spiral Worker.”
It is free, in downtown Denver on a Friday afternoon/evening, and will be a good time.
I am also trekking out to Salt Lake to do a Prymek & Sage set opening for Frances Chang, whose new album on RVNG is really hitting just right here in the middle of summer weirdo smoke sky blues.
Oh yeah, btw I made both of those graphics. And I love making show graphics. I like calling them graphics. Fliers works too, sure. Posters? But they are small. Posters are big in my head. “Handbill” is a nice word. Anyway… I put some new/old graphics on my portfolio website ;)
Thanks for reading.
For now, from the Tall Grass.
-Matt