“Know Where”, Sketchwave Series, No. 82

Out in San Diego for Comic-Con 2015 I sat for hours in my artist booth with Choice Collectibles Gallery grazing over the blank silhouette of Mickey Mouse. I had but a few paints left in my satchel, and strangely enough (but quite common really) I had left all my markers at my sublet off of Easy Street in Normaltown Athens, Georgia.

At this point in the series, Noka and I realized that the “Disney Series” was not going to fly due to their rules from Corporate Brand Management about  non core characters like Sleeping Beauty and Alice being a part of Mickey’s world. It was here where we would rely on that monumental phase started by “Wake Up and Smell the Sound of Coffee” to create a chapter called “SketchWave”

In Sketchwave, the sky was the limit of what I could do, but at this point no structure meant that I’d be left to circle around a canvas for hours. I splattered paint here and there while fans, and passers by came by to see what I was doing. Still unsure, I walked off with Tim Rogerson, a fellow artist with Disney Fine Art, to a supplies booth in the NorthWestern corner of the convention center. I found this brilliant marker, came back to the booth, and went to town.

This piece, called “Colors United” is about my time out in San Diego with Comic-Con and the various reps of Choice Collectibles and hanging out with Tim Rogerson. In this painting I’ve chronicled in real time what was happening. From leaving Comic-Con, hanging out in the airport at 10pm while fireworks burst above the sky, back out to Atlanta, GA, where I’d grab my car and drive 80 miles north to Athens at sunrise and morning fog. I finished this piece in the hot summer on the porch of my place out in Easy street… and created dichotomous profiles of the west coast versus the South in Georgia.

In the face of “Know Where” is the various places I lived all over the world, and in the outskirts of Mickey lays the story of traveling from San Diego to Athens, GA. Here it says:

“Comics convention, San Diego with Rogerson. Hotel is in Mission Valley. I went to sleep at 3:30 am. At 6:45 am I woke up to paint in the morning light. I’m near the end of this project. I walk with Tim downtown through galleries and exit b/c of SCI-FI legends (William Shatner). We exit thru the back and head to 4th ave and 6th st for dinner. I have to leave and a hummer taxi picks me up. At the airport, fireworks explode beyond the plane. I’m sad to go. Flight 850 to Atlanta 10:30 pm to 530 am. I arrive groggy and get into my car and drive up 85N thru the sunrise over ATL, 2 85 east to 316. There is morning fog on the highway. I go to 78 to 10 loop and get on Prince Avenue exit. Park at 130 Easy St. Drop bags and paint on the porch in Normaltown hot weather and all.”

Outer loop says:

” The cicadas are humming @ night from my dusty old porch. Normaltown Athens GA, and I’m waiting for thunder and rain mixed with light bulbs of paparazzi lightning, but alas I fall asleep and its 7/18/15. Morning and its early light. Its 102 degrees outside. I work in the heat for 8 hours and I almost pass out. The summer is brutal but it’s worth it after the sun goes down b/c the air cools down and everything comes alive in my back yard. Fireflies sparkle like fireworks exploding across an ocean of grass. My neighbor (x) plays these warm guitar riffs in the distance and I think I am in heaven. Mr. Walker tells me that even utopia has its hardships. ”