Maui, I am a compositionalist.

I have lived on Maui for a full year now.

Moving my family here was one of the best choices I have ever made.  I needed to get away from the city, the ratrace, the bullshit, the traffic...

...so we sold everything and moved to one of the most remote places on the planet.

We live in a fairly remote part of the island, and I have become a Napili hermit simply because where I live is beautiful, calm, quite, and I have no need to go anywhere else.

I am still a compositionalist, but I have been expanding my vocabulary.

I have been exploring water color painting as a study for oils.  I have also been tattooing on Maui.  The last year has been a great year of research for my new series of paintings, exploring artistic mediums that I have seldom used, and slowing down my life in general as I enjoy my family and our life here on the island.  

Moving here was a risk, but not that much of a risk.  I had a good job lined up tattooing with Trevor and the promise that the shop will be mine when I am ready.  I am not ready yet, my game is not enough yet, but as soon as I build a reputation here I will be ready.  Thats just going to take time, and I will take it one client at a time.

I am not ready to begin the mental work for my "Peloponnesian War" painting.  I am just going to tattoo and watercolor until my mind is clear for it.  Now, after a full year of living on the island I feel that I am reenergized enough to start my next series of oil paintings.  I will continue to post here on this blog as it relates to oil painting.

Even Caravaggio loves living as artists on Maui.

Eagle

This was fun.

Mahalo.

Dusting off Tattoo Machines

I took these bad boys out of the box today.

I will need to tune and clean them.

Two new Aaron Cain tattoo machines

I just received two new tattoo machines from Aaron Cain, and they are pretty good.

http://www.aaroncain.com 

I got a rino liner and shadder.

Both of these hit pretty hard, and I can see them piercing the skin like butter at the right speed.  I am going to have to play with them a bit to get used to them and to adjust them to my needs.  I like it when my machine hits like it wants to break cement at low speed.  If my machine can punch through with ease at a low speed then they keep up with me and I don't have to keep up with the machine.

I like it when I can just go over a line one time, slowly pulling the entire line.  I normally run my machines pretty slow; 7.5 volts on a critical to 8.5 volts.  

Now its time to have some fun with these, and if I like them I will buy more.

Memorial

I Like this tattoo.

Mahalo.

Adding Tattooing to this blog

I have been a professional artist since 1996.  So far my career has been mostly about painting.  I have worked on many different forms of painting before I decide to solely focus on compositional abstraction as expression.  I have sculpted wood, stone, metal, ceramic, and all or them were rewarding toward my career.  I have worked as a tattooer off and on for money my entire career, and now I have decided to focus solely on tattoo for a few years while I clean my mind and prepare for my next large painting "The Peloponnesian War."  

My series of works "BitTorrent" took everything out of me.  I need to clear my mind in order to be fully prepared for the stress of the The Peloponnesian War painting.  So Athena and I decided to move to Maui Hawaii to do just that.  I am going to tattoo and watercolor classically until I am ready for the coming oil painting.  It is going to be a few years, and more then likely it will be 5 or more years before I am ready.  

I know that 5 years is the longest time I have gone without touching my oil brushes in my entire life.  However, I am completely drained from my last series and the planned works will take everything out of me again.  To become what I need to become to make that painting is going to be difficult on every part of my life.  So Athena and I are gong to simply live and enjoy our work, each other, and see what happens.

We chose Maui simply because it is beautiful.  And I mean it is stunningly beautiful.  Perfect for us to prepare for the coming storm of my new work.

As to tattooing, well I am rusty as hell.  It is going to take some work to get back into the game.  We are at Sweet Trade Tattoo where my friend Trevor Kennedy has supported our move and our decisions.  Trevor opened this shop in 2009, and he has promised to sell the shop to me when I am ready.  I am not ready at the moment, and really it will be 2 years before I am.  

So now I am going to be adding tattooing to this blog.  This is going to be fun, and ridiculous, and the perfect way to clean my mind of the last personality I took on (personalities really, the last series was multi individual focused) and once again find the self or at the very least recreate the construct that I think is me.

Aloha, and here we go...

Nekita Loves Maui

She is here and loves the ocean.  Nekita made the long trip over the ocean last night.  I picked her up at the airport and then went to the camp ground to sleep.  We are camping on the beach until our apartment is finished.  

Mahalo.

Minneapolis, I am a Compositionalist - Goodby and thanks for the dreams.

Today I am leaving my adopted home town of Minneapolis, MN.  My beautiful wife Athena ( of Such Good Dogs :)  ) and I have decided to try and live our dreams.  Athena wanted to become a professional dog trainer, and I wanted to become a professional artist.  We are now the people we have always wanted to be, and knowing that, we understand how much more we can become.      


Both of us have had the pleasure of truly knowing some of the coolest people in this city.  We both would not be the people we are without the true friendships we have built here in Minneapolis.  We love you all, and we are very sad to leave you.  Albeit, we are family, and we will never simply leave you behind.  Our home is yours.

I moved to Minneapolis in the fall of 1996 to become an artist.
This is my last oil painting I will complete in Minneapolis.  It is meaningful to me if only for that reason.  During the last 17 years I taught myself how to oil paint anything I want, anything my mind can see.  I have total control of my medium, and with that I am able to truly use my philosophy to communicate through the aesthetics of composition.  Now I am going to speak my mind.

 My current paint pallet.

A portion of my current subject matter.

BitTorrent #13  "Penitent Magdelene"

Thanks Minneapolis, I have been able to live the life of interesting dreams.  For everything you have given me, I am continually grateful.  I should be arriving in Maui, Hawaii in a few hours.  Athena and I are going to build a beautiful life together...a life of happiness and productivity in our chosen fields.  

Minneapolis, I am a Compositionalist - Goodby and thanks for the dreams...

...Maui, Hawaii here we come, welcoming the challenge.

Pictures from a collector

I was sent these pics of two recent paintings from the new owner.  It always makes me happy when a client is excited about my paintings.   When I get an email with pictures of my work hanging in someone's home I feel proud, and thankful.

These two paintings are two of my newer works, both completed in 2011.

Thanks for the pics...

...they look great on your walls.  

Proteus Mag

Dustin parker at Proteus Mag was kind enough to feature me as on of his artist of the day.  I was featured in one of his earlier publications, Issue 2 of the magazine (summer of 2007).  Proteus Mag has evolved into a full-on blog daily featuring artists from around the world.  

There are an amazing amount of talented artists on Proteus Mag's blog.  It's definitely worth subscribing to his RSS feed.

After surfing through a few hundred artist of the day posts at Proteus Mag, I see even more that the pure abstract artist is few and far between.  There are so few artists today that work from a traditional abstraction, and I welcome that.  It gives me the social freedom to create whatever I desire without the fear of fitting into a groove of "ism."

After all, I am a Compositionalist with few contemporaries.

Check out Proteus Mag...

...Dustin features new artists daily.