Machines Can't Wake Me

Step Right Up

2012-01-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

A prop used in the film.

Coming Soon

2012-01-17T21:07:00.001-08:00

The editing and animating process is underway!

M m

2011-12-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

Watercolor & Ink

G g

2011-12-21T17:16:00.001-08:00

Watercolor & Ink

❍ ●

2011-12-18T16:11:00.000-08:00

Watercolor & Ink

D d

2011-12-11T14:50:00.001-08:00

Ink

C c

2011-08-27T09:14:00.001-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

A Song Stuck in Your Head

2011-08-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

A short promo animation for the upcoming film.

T t

2011-07-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

P p

2011-07-10T10:04:00.001-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

▲

2011-07-05T19:11:00.001-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

Sh

2011-06-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

3

2011-06-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

R r

2011-06-20T21:35:00.001-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

Peter and the Paper Wolves: A Cautionary Tale

2011-06-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

W w

2011-06-06T21:54:00.001-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

O o

2011-05-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

Z z

2011-05-28T17:47:00.001-07:00

Watercolor & Ink

White Window, Crow Crown

2011-05-24T17:02:00.001-07:00

Needle on acrylic over polaroid.

White Window, Wide Open

2011-05-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

Needle on acrylic over polaroid.

White Window

2011-05-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Needle on acrylic over polaroid.

Adolpho

2011-05-13T09:55:00.001-07:00

Pencil, Ink, Cut Paper

The third martyr climbs the seasons to ring the sad sleeper's bell.

2011-05-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Watercolor, Ink

Paper Bird

2011-02-17T15:26:00.001-08:00

16mm film and Paper

Night Eyes - The Attic

2011-01-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

A music video for Night Eyes I edited together from found footage of old cartoons.

The second martyr, victorious in mulberry stains.

2010-08-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

Watercolor, Ink

Box of Oblivion

2010-08-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

Watercolor, Ink

Braiding into the Fabric Beneath Your Shore

2010-07-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

Watercolor, Ink

Waving the Flags of War

2010-07-20T19:34:00.001-07:00

Watercolor, Ink

Encircling the Light Outside Your Door

2010-07-19T22:49:00.001-07:00

Watercolor, Ink

The first martyr prayed with his mouth full.

2010-07-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

Watercolor, Pen & Ink

"And when me and the boys were out
We killed a thousand butterflies
I put their wings into my mouth
And said a prayer for our safe arrival"
-Spencer Krug

Erlik Trusts What He Can Hold

2010-06-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Watercolor, Pen & Ink, Cut Paper

Erlik Sinks Into the Mud

2010-06-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Watercolor, Pen & Ink, Cut Paper

Erlik Shits Out a Spider

2010-06-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Pen & Ink

Memory Exercise: Beast Learns His New Name

2010-05-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

Writing Exercise: Beast Learns to Hide His Bones

2010-05-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Swarming III: "I Am Your Father."

2010-05-19T23:13:00.001-07:00

Swarming II: He Felt All Alone.

2010-05-19T21:11:00.001-07:00

Swarming I: "This Is a Haunted Spot."

2010-05-19T20:29:00.001-07:00

Musicians' Helping Hands

2010-04-25T11:57:00.001-07:00

Please support the Kenyan orphanage Lewa's Children's Home and aid in the construction of a relief center for the hungry by downloading the benefit album Musicians' Helping Hands. Pay what you want; 100% of the proceeds will go to helping Kenyans of all ages in the Kalemng’orok and Eldoret regions.

Cover Art: "To instead stand eye-level with the flowers."

Reading Exercise: Beast Learns to Hold His Tongue

2010-04-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Evening All Afternoon

2010-04-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

"Whoever you are--with sun's honeyed head--do you know your gold shines to me at night?"

Sssen - If Your Head is Empty

2010-03-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

A live video I shot and edited for a Sssen performance at Wesleyan University on March 27, 2010.

Homemade Static

2010-03-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Frank's a Model (2009)

2010-03-26T10:01:00.001-07:00

Red conte on paper, 24" x 18"

"'Enough toiling on dead planets,' said the Lioness. And with that, they marched out like lambs into the sun."

2010-03-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Collage, 13" x 18.5"

"To instead stand eye-level with the flowers."

2010-03-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

"And so they left winter, like the dandelion promised."

2010-03-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

Taken

2010-02-13T11:45:00.001-08:00

Inspired by running through an empty parking garage at night with Sssen.

Will-o'-the-wisp

2010-01-31T15:21:00.000-08:00

She must have used a slim delicate hand
To twist her gold onto this branching tree;
She tied it just so--that suspended strand--
That no winds will ever whisper it free.

"Introducing Shadows:"
Reads winter's cold marquee.
Its drone makes all the colors invisible to me.

But it will grow, that single beaming thread,
While its curling ends smile with the light;
Whoever you are--with sun's honeyed head--
Do you know your gold shines to me at night?

I Lied Where I Lay

2010-01-22T08:26:00.001-08:00

Wonderland Kid

2010-01-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

This will be used as the cover of Day Sleeper's forthcoming EP of the same title. Order your copies be clicking here. Or check them out on iTunes.

Polaris

2010-01-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the music of Sssen.

Prosper Ménière Blinks Nine Times

2010-01-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Eyelid IV: Circadia

2010-01-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

Duchampion Poster

2009-11-30T17:54:00.001-08:00

Check out their wondrous hot sonic magma here.

Masquerade

2009-11-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the music of Sssen.

Eyelid III: Waves

2009-11-17T02:01:00.001-08:00

Eyelid II: Maidenhead Fruit

2009-11-13T23:12:00.000-08:00

Eyelid: Ablution

2009-11-11T17:25:00.001-08:00

He Folds Paper into Birds

2009-11-02T14:40:00.001-08:00

He keeps his hands safe and sound
By folding endless paper cranes,
And in his silent flight of hands he has found
That practiced motions plant gentle kisses on the brain.

He puts together puzzles and then puts them back in their box,
Keeping them intact—their jigsaws locked.
How else will he know what the picture looked like?
Leaving remainders as reminders and knowing are alike.

And he dreams in dreamwhite paper worlds
Made up of pure white paper creased;
Then marked and smeared and dirtied by
His own head’s leak and his fingertips' grease.
And his lines are the lines
On the face of the land
That he has scarred with
All the wanderings of his left hand.

And then waking from his pillow’s soft soft haze,
He tries to forget that for a brief moment—
In his world—
There was no difference between a map and a maze.

He folds paper into birds
That I
Unfolded
One-by-one
One White Night;
And even though all their creases were right,
Their order was lost—
A doomed migration flight.

Fat Man (2007)

2009-10-13T19:34:00.001-07:00

Hark! The Bells of Sleep

2009-10-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Rainbow Blitzkrieg

2009-09-29T19:35:00.001-07:00

* W A R N I N G !*

THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE TAKEN FROM SCENES CONTAINING EXTREMELY EXPLICIT VIOLENCE AND SEXUALITY.

I Can See the Sky From Here

2009-08-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

You'll Get Your Udjat-Eyes Back (Don't Cry Horus)

2009-07-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

Simulated Dream III (This, Too, Will Ossify)

2009-07-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

They weren’t always there, you know. There used to be nothing. Even after all this time they still seem out of place, amidst the cradles of sticks and sun-bleached bones. But they’ve made a perch and a home out of their mouths and there they sit, one at mourning and the other trying to be everything and simultaneously being nothing. At first their home was shiny and new but then it rusted and grew into twisted sinews where the birds play rock paper scissors, but this isn’t a game of a chance, it’s a game of consequence. No matter how many clouds or moons gather around its head, the dove is still echoed in a selfish whisper (“I won’t share your eyes”). Well I guess that proves it—the gods on that branch are mortal after all.

Alright boys, let’s shoot this day for night. We’ve an important job to do, that puppet won’t light up by itself. Nimble fingers can pull at the strings, but the body they’re attached to kicks in too much dust. My boy, my boy, what can I say? I tried my best to make you young, but all my artistic skills failed—you came out as a man. In fact, you were me. I don’t know if they were fingers or fists that followed, but the faces in the smoke I knew all too well. It’s not my fault I painted all the closet doors the wrong color, please don’t make me do them again. Oh no, not fair! That’s not a traumatic scene from my childhood, that’s just a cuff link! It still presses down on me a bit too hard for my taste, though.

I hope nothing sharp cuts the power lines, they have a long journey ahead of them up that pale expanse of mahagony. I know the male anatomy isn’t quite accurate on a crucifix, but that’s how I learned it anyway. I wrapped it in fields of golden cloth but it all fell off when you pulled it and—Please stop! Not yet! Keep him swaddled a bit longer! It’s bad enough you took away all of his defining features and characteristics. Tug at it all you want, you’ll still let trees spill in over his arms. And not just any trees—the kind that can seem part of an endless forest if you frame them the right way, the kind that look better without leaves and that make promises they can’t keep. Please don’t shed your memory by night. I put this jar of fireflies here for you to remember everything by. You can see things better with your hands over your eyes (birds' wings refract light, didn’t you know?)

Waves lick at everything on a map, even if it’s not Spain of France or an Iberian peninsula.

Even the ice falling and clumping into shapes on the car window after a snow fall.

My favorite show, outdone and threatened by sharp tail feathers, as always. How’d you just do that? All these imperfect shapes lying around and you pull that out of the ocean? I can’t compete with something on an invisible perch, I just can’t. I know why you do it, though. It’s all mapped out. And it’s not an island, believe me, I checked. My scream is just part of the landscape (and there is no more white space on the map).

Why’s he smiling so much? He’s so old, with his feet of clay that kicked up so much dust (I’m sorry I kicked up so much dust). He won’t smile once they all have fallen out.

You know what, on second thought, I won’t share your eyes. There’s only one thing left to do in these mountains now.

Moonchild Plays with the Cat (Dream Fast I)

2009-06-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

"Before becoming a fully-functioning member of adult Ojibwa society, the Ojibwa adolescent male undertakes a dream fast and undergoes prolonged social isolation and food deprivation. During these dreams, the young man gets powers from a supernatural guardian spirit in exchange for promises to do or not to do certain acts in the future. He must avoid contact with the earth during the fast, and so he climbs into a tree and perches in a nest specifically built for this purpose. The dreams that occur during this ordeal are the most important experiences of the young man's life and are said to determine the course of the rest of his life."

- Sharon Packer

The moonchild—

She dreams in quiet silence
Until cracked craters and cosmos in reverse
Give way to water and gathering dust (of God knows what)
Over solitary islands fenced off in the void
Where the maw of a black hole slowly chews and grinds a tree root.
And above the canopies just over the stream
Stalks the GREAT B—But shhh
Don’t ask him where he keeps his claw
(Between you and me,
It’s right up in the sky,
Right next to the moonchild’s eye

The Siamese cat—

The one with the Siamese brain
That wells up in its eyes
And leaks out of its nose
As if someone pulled the plug out of a bathtub
(You know, the cat that casts his shadows
over the endless shifting dunes?)
He dreams in waterbirths and ancient temperatures
And dead branches with pretend hands
That grope through constellations cut out of the static
Grabbing at claws or clawing out eyes
Either way, they are staying away from that
(oh no, anything but that)

Bird Brain

2009-06-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

Simulated Dream II (From the Folds)

2009-06-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

Every bird's wing can avoid decaying when mummified in humble Kosher salt. It can be purified by a machine placed in parallel to your ear--"I don't know why exactly birds sing either, but I can hear them loud and clear with this thing! But if you push this contraption any deeper it'll burst into a flower that will bloom into either the one gesture you choose for the fingers of Baby Jesus, or a gun. It's impossible to tell which."

"But if I concentrate hard enough, I know I can hold them both at bay. Just furrow the folds of your brow into the pages of a book entitled SHHH: A Novel. Too bad its pages are filled with angry hands. All they want to do is fight and they feel most comfortable in a fist, their thumbs are a mystery to them. I hope that one day they get the courage to climb out of the sentences, run across my spine, and hurtle through the air--shedding their dirty, dirty skin and the marrow in their bones before diving into a Tupperware container doing its best to saturate the potential of all the ancient skies."

(But their aim must be precise, because the icy water wants them right back where they belong.)

Simulated Dream I (Build Your Own Coffin)

2009-06-14T18:08:00.001-07:00

I know, I know—you’re happier without a head.

I remember how you told me that magpies can’t fly that high, but I once saw a flock of them overtake a giant, generic severed hand in the sky that was plunging a spoon into the primordial soup whose beach was bordered by a parade of half-cracked eggs making their fragile pilgrimage to the exact spot on the slim back of a young boy where his body fused with that of a deer.

A seventeen year-old cicada mistakes the deer’s nose for the trunk of a tree, crawls up it, sinks it’s claws in, and sheds his first skin to transform into a tidal wave that crashes down upon the deer’s brow where it is crested by the prow of a sacred ship made from locust wings.

The Head of the Hunted sprouts berries in a thorny bramble and in its mouth it chews the bones of a marionette whose sad blood drips into distilling prisms that create a field, a field forever sailed by 9 lost members of the Spanish Armada forgotten by Time. They endlessly sail away from the horizon as it folds away behind them into a million replicated profiles from which sprouts a tree of laminated pine. There you must go to pick and peel your coffin.

I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.

The Door in the Attic

2009-06-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

The whole sequence of images can be seen on my facebook.

Bastille - Révolution

2009-05-28T13:53:00.001-07:00

Here's some album art I did for the boys of Bastille. Do yourself a huge favor and download the whole EP for free at their website as soon as humanly possible.

The Sunset Collectors

2009-03-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

Voila!

2009-03-20T22:46:00.001-07:00

How Ghost Ships Work (To Astrid)

2009-03-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

The Science of Attraction

2009-03-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Brain Contortionist

2009-03-20T22:36:00.001-07:00

Prosopagnosia

2009-03-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

Main Entry: pros·op·ag·no·sia
Pronunciation: \ˌpräs-əp-ag-ˈnō-zhə\
Function:
noun

: a form of visual agnosia characterized by an inability to recognize faces

Make the Birds Land

2009-03-20T22:32:00.001-07:00

Oops

2009-03-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

Eat the Crumbs From Her Morning Halo

2009-03-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

But it's Warm in Here

2009-03-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Dark Continent

2009-03-20T21:58:00.001-07:00

Consent to Dream

2009-03-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

The Greatest Show on Earth

2009-03-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

A tribe of Genuine Savages Puts on the Greatest Show on Earth

The Marvelous Acts of Ferocious Jungle Animals

Food For Young Lions

The World's Grandest, Largest, Amusement Institution

Casual Friday

2009-03-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Curse These X-Ray Eyes

2009-03-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

Cough It Up

2009-03-20T21:30:00.001-07:00

Bring the Egg Unbroken (Adder's Push)

2009-03-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

Lost in Heaven (The Difference Between Maps and Mazes)

2009-03-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Debt to My Father

2009-03-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

That Awful, Awful Rumbling Sound

2009-03-20T19:03:00.001-07:00

Pocketfuls of Animal Eyes

2009-03-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

pocketfuls
of animal eyes:
Owls and tigers,
Apes and wolves,
The glass of them rolls softly about,
Tracing circles on the floor all around me.

Even so,
She insists on coming up to me, bending down,
touching my shoulder, and whispering (in my ear):

‘Go kill that man in the moon.
Knock clowns from their stilts.
Shield your eyes from the white rabbit’s path at noon,
And burn paper boats as soon as they're built.’

Her fingers flick at the glass (as if it were a marble),
And stiffly await my reply.

But I,
I riddle a yawn her way
And rub my eyelids
until I am made dizzy
with uncharted
stars

To Keep Your Head (A Cautionary Tale)

2009-03-20T18:31:00.000-07:00