A sly little taste of the St.Paul Art Crawl!
April 2, 2012
This is tasty sample of images to be shown later this month at the St. Paul Art Crawl. I’m excited to finally present images from my past and current wanderings through various foreign countries. This show I’ll be hitting it all with portraits, Lomo, cityscapes and the occasional abandonment-the tasty bits! Take a look, and make sure you pop into the studio April 27, 28, 29th.
Check back here for the official show card and more details on events, parties and opening hours associated with the crawl.
Jax Building
Casa Alacran Studio-Gallery – 407-B
Lower Town St.Paul MN
Derelict and Dirty in: USA and the Ukraine
January 10, 2012
Courtesy of an old Fed3, un-photochopped and raw.
Light at the top of a mill. Somewhere in Minnesota in the middle of a road trip with the Aussie.
When I still thought Broken Glass was fantastic. Rooftop in St.Paul, Minnesota.
Paying my dues to ‘Angsty Lonely Chairs’ and ‘Dramatic White Space’. Factory in Pennsylvania in middle of road trip.
Dramatic Black Space. Car Factory somewhere in between Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Niagara.
Son, follow the path of light. Same Car Factory
But you know? TGC Loves YOU! Same Car Factory.
Make art from Wire + Tags. Same Car Factory.
Faux People pose in Awkward window fashion. On the way to Heavey Khemicals in Ukraine.
Follow crooked shadows nowhere. Wandering in Kiev, Ukraine.
Tipsy, Flipsy in the Bus Graveyard! Kiev, Ukraine.
Office. Pripyat Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Bleak outlook. Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Propaganda got them a musty closet in the middle of a nuclear disaster. Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Weeee feel the radicals in your hair!!! Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Dish up Wip-lash with a taste of Meltdown. Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Nature takes over the Dodge-ems. Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Radiation Cocktail for the taking in 2011! (warning:…
December 15, 2010
LoMoFlo
August 10, 2010
Retro: Kiev
February 6, 2010
No fuss. Back from the Amerikastan, rested, clean, in top fighting form, ready to take on another 9 months of adventures in the AZ-I’ve been writing a bit to ward off the freezing (literally) night. While the present tales of hot showers and holiday and cute boys are being cleaned up; rescued from the depths of my hard drive, a few retro stories from the past year or two.
Kiev Style ’08:
An entire day was devoted to underground goodness of the kind that gets Siolo all hot n bothered, makes me long for the Lab, and causes Qx to suddenly remember (and sing purposely off key) all the bad music from the last 50 years.
We donned ‘Himza’-the steroid pumped bruther of regular hip/thigh rubber, the smallest pair was big enough to engulf most of me up to the chest region and required a sling/beanier to stay up-swiftness/agility was reduced to negative numbers, Ds just laughed at my expense- on loan from the Kiev crew, which consisted of several guys and 2 amazing bad arse ladies, (who over the course of the day and into the night showed how the ladies roll style through the drains )and dropped through a manhole into our first Kiev drain. How fresh: my first time after a year of drain drought, the stank of mold with dead leaves, the echo of cars over grates, the rush of jumping blind into the dark, the odd acoustics of a group of people moving though RCP; being underground, and suddenly realizing that I had missed caving/draining/tunnels and all the good memories associated with it. Funny that a year can make you nostalgic for concrete tunnels and p00 laced water.
The Kiev crew bounded through the drain, leading us to a drop shaft where we signed the guest book, while taking hits of mysterious liquid that tasted of carrots/spices/rum/drain water; my contribution was ‘Bomba’! (One of the first Azeri slang words I learned) Heading towards the exit, Siolo may have taken it upon himself to explain the deep meaning of Sewerfresh, though in-between Qx singing, me falling, and Tatiana talking/laughing while she watched me fall, it was a bit difficult to decipher if he was talking drains or cars or women.
Making a good exit we had a few moments break before executing several ninja moves (dodging cars) across a busy highway,(with Qx and I providing the comic relief of running while holding up Himza and looking as though we were on audition for the Miss US Bottom Heavy Competition) and found ourselves in Stalin’s Tunnels. Wading through 3 km of tunnels (which seemed longer due to the hauling of 10 lbs of rubber around my arse) the boys managed to leave T in tears of laughter at their silly/dirty goofiness. Discovering what has been aptly named the ‘Loleller Coaster’ we indulged our immaturity and took turns careening wildly down the tunnel on a rickety wooden platform-which was surprisingly resilient given that it could hold 2 Ukrainians an Aussie and an American (all Himza’d up) with out breaking. Reaching the end of the tunnel, we were presented with a climber’s underground Holy Grail-a several story high ventilation shaft of rusty honeycomb walls, dripping water, haphazard platforms and moldy smell. The small beam of light at the top beckoned. We heeded its call; challenge intoxicating adrenalin pumping, and head torches beaming. Reaching the top we scrambled through a window and fell out the rabbit hole of a Soviet wonder into the late afternoon sun-this exit also ripped the seat of my pants, rendering a gleefully scandalizing perma-moon. Besides the endless jokes and a few pats from the Aussies, the perma-moon was unremarkable on the metro, where we wisely stood next to a man who was sporting leopard print hot pants-the idea being that his spandex nod to caveman couture would out-horrify any observers.
look, look, pretty colors, sparkles, oooh!
January 9, 2009
snaps! photos! fresh!
October 17, 2008
Soviet Era Heavy Khemikles:2
October 3, 2008
For your first time:
Over a breakfast of Siolo munching Snickers, me spazing out over bananas, Qx/Ds eating a strange meat combo, and the nuclear physicists laughing at us all, we collectively decided several things: Ds/Qx would die cuddling in the Gobi, (Siolo wants the pictures, I want the cams), our hostel beds were stolen from an orphanage, tight red shorts must only be worn by attractive females, and the drinking of tap water straight from the faucet was not a good life choice that would most likely result in the Big D. With these stunning revelations taken care of and thoroughly discussed we chose, as a nice warm up for the day, the abandoned structure across the street. Meeting up with the Kiev Crew we gave it an hour in the abandoned hotel/apartment/office building, which was mostly unremarkable, except that it had a small bit of everything: pealing paint (for the noobs), graffiti (for the artistically angst), fully furnished studio (for the 5 finger discount) and overflowing toilets (for those who need to feel hard core). Concluding that this place was just too good to keep for ourselves, Qx/Ds were kind enough to share the goodness with the sexually/fashion confused proprietor of out hostel convincing him that chicks really dig hobo squats and dead pigeons. Whatever they said worked and within 24 hours the confused youngster was clambering around in piles/puddles of stale crap/urine with a girl he’d only just recently met; laughing gleefully at the corrupting of yet another innocent, Ds/Qx, felt their evil deed for the week had been done and retreated, for the moment, into arguing with Siolo about the finer points of things NSFW.
Soviet Era Heavy Khemikle Plants
With the promise of all sorts of drainage/outfall wetness/RCP/Diggers shenanigans once night fell, Siolo agreed to decaying topside fun and after several dodgy street crossings, a trip though the lovely Kiev metro and walking though a sadly decrepit bazaar of faucet products, faux Armani jeans and mysterious belt buckles, we arrived at a vast expanse of awfully gray, awfully ugly structures. This was acres of industrial at its apocalyptic best, served raw, and bleak with a side of scruffy, crusty scrappers, and roaming dogs the size of small horses. Dodging cussing men, thugs in tinted window cars, and downtrodden workers (who lounged outside gypsies wagons in Speedo style boxers) we made it through five or six factories, breathing in the leftovers of abandoned labs, khemikle mixers and experiments gone bad. We saw it all, labs for producing a mutant form of humans, hulking machines for ripping, turbines to brew all sorts of nasssty soviet substances; it was the debris of a clash between humans, khemikles, money and ideals; debris that was beautiful in its mostly washed out hues of blue, grey, yellow and red. (If you ignored the smell, there was nothing beautiful about the smell) Mid way through our posh VIP tour, we stumbled into a warehouse containing an entire armies worth of gas masks bursting out of stacked crates sitting in the middle of a powdery blue/green mess. Tossing out any concern of death by powdery blue/green mystery substance, we did our best to stir up clouds of colorful dust while posing for pictures in equally dusty gas masks. When the dust settled, everyone was 10 points more elite, and could now brag they’d run with the big dawgs and infiltrated the gas mask breading ground; somehow one of these masks jumped into my possession. (Soviet Era Gas Masks: a bold way to yell IM F@*KING HARDCORE UBERELITE! Pick yours up now before the posers swipe em out from under your blue stained khemikle fingers.)
Learn the meaning of ‘Collector’ grasshopper; it’ll get you far in life:
Tired from rotting our lungs the best we could on khimkiles, we took a few hours rest in the fire hazard hostel, carefully trying to not fall through rickety wooden bed slats that apparently were made to only hold130lbs and were approximately 5 inches too short for Siolo who had to assume the fetal position every night as he climbed…into the top bunk. (This is an elite maneuver that really only Siolo can execute with precision)
Fueled up on a few nasty energy drinks, and maybe a hit (or several) of vodka, we found ourselves in the outfall of one of the most popular drains in Kiev (at least according to the Diggers) with a dozen or so of drain/RCP/outfall/drop shaft/overflow/rickety ladder loving individuals, AKA ‘Diggers’. Siolo took one look at the crowd of slightly damp, slightly scruffy and mostly stylish Diggers and knew he was home; with mad abandon he talked ‘drains/cars/b00bies ‘in rapid succession, drawing, along with more vodka hits, a crowd of cheering/laughing friends who taught him that the proper word for Drain is ‘Collector!’ and Sewer is ‘Fecal Collector!” At some point in the night, sitting on the outfall, Ds/Qx and I gave up, Siolo, bourn on the wings of fire water, outtalked, out BS’ed and out sang us by a good 2 hours and made more friends than any Aussie ever has (or ever will) in one night in the Ukraine. Eventually we left, to cries of ‘COLLECTOR!’ (which had become, due to libations, the unifying cry for drain lovers across the world…or something like that), and wearily made our way back to the fire hazard hostel, where we appropriately pissed off the owner by our late 12 am arrival.
Soviet Era Heavey Khimikals:1
September 27, 2008
(summary of the places we saw)
Train Yard:
Old trollycar graveyard, though it had lots of broken glass goodness was a short visit. We were chased out by an obese yelling man in camo pants, his dog (which was the better looking of the two, even though both had the same amount of hair) and several mothers who felt obligated to add their reproches, (something about corrupting the kiddies, I’m sure) just for the hell of it.
Soviet Warehouse? Storage?
An amazing night, that started well with a trip to a grocery store in which everything imaginable was stocked in the produce section in abundant heaps of various colors, shapes, and textures that involved broccoli, spinach, and pineapple; 3 delicacies that rarely make their way to my village. There was also an entire cooler stocked with beer which caused a moment of confusion, when upon being asked to choose a beverage I didn’t see 33’s and was at a total loss on which brand to consume. The bus ride to location was surprisingly more crowded then any Azeri bus I’ve been on (though not hotter, doubt that any bus, crowded or not can be hotter than a Symquat bus in Aug) but was redeemed by two things: I was not the smelliest person riding and was smashed up next to the hawt Aussie(s). (The plural is for Qx’s embarrassment/benefit) Hauling bags of tasty loot we made our way to the top, while the Kiev group, in a mixture of Ukrainian/Russian/English/Hand gestures gave us the history of the building, which I may or may not have correct. The summary is that in the midst of building a place to house or make computers either the money ran out, they got board, someone died, the soviet era ended, or possibly all four. In any event the hulking remains were basically a brick and concrete playground of interconnecting stairs, massive rooms, ladders, and multilevel rooftops, one of which served as the perfect host for a bonfire, roasted food, and good conversation.