Traveling to Michigan today for a week to do school visits for the books and to visit family and friends over Easter.

Last weekend we went to Mondo Exotica, the Visionary Art Museum‘s annual fundraising party in Baltimore. Great music by Squonk Opera and Brave Combo, along with everyone being in costume, made for a quite a bash. The theme was King Neptune’s Aquarama (which corresponds with AVAM’s current show), and we went as Team Zissou from The Life Aquatic with Kate and Jared.

I hope DC can get something like this going. This was just one night and everyone had a great time and went home. I hear Artomatic is having an Artist’s Prom this June and I’m looking forward to that. Big party events like this are a great way to build the arts community and take advantage of the current spike in the DC art scene.

I met Jackie from Squonk Opera last year at Gallery Neptune’s showing of her talented BF David Wallace’s work. They are from Pittsburgh so I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to see Squonk perform. We were planning on going to Mondo anyway and seeing them play was an added bonus.

My website has been getting a high volume of hits from Russia. I did some digging and found my work and links on about a dozen Russian blogs. My Russian being a bit rusty I turned to Alta Vista’s Babel Fish Translation application. It worked like a charm and now I have a rough translation of what’s being said.

Most of it was very complimentary – though there were a few remarks about my parents and something about a werewolf. Here are a few very rough translations.

“Dyadechkiny figures were pleased very (apparently because we with it eksperimentim in one river bed) But here is zhivopiss’ already too of frankenshteynopodobna. Even for me too)”

“the widely arranged eyes – this is stylish. manner pleases itself.”

“To Brooks, probably customers all brains of proyebali by the requirements to correspond to the expectations of the degenerate parents of those degenerate children, coma it illustrates degenerate books. Here and it stretched on real art”

“child with the deviations gorged the rabbit, a good illustrator for the children’s books”

“this is the mortal sin, this is the sick fantasy of the artist yes, it is unpleasant”

These are from Tiphareth and the homicidal maniac’s Journal.

Back from LA and getting settled in. I spent yesterday catching up and worked on St. Sebastian painting and today heading to the NGA to hear Robert Liberace talk about the Rembrandt show. I’ll be taking his painting and drawing class this April.

LA was great – public reception was packed for “Everything But the Kitschen Sync“. It was quite an interesting crowd – lots of fun outlandish outfits – heavy goth leaning.

The Lowbrow/Surreal Pop/underground arts “movement” seems obscure in DC, but in LA and NYC it is off and running. Small galleries that were once tucked in toy stores are branching out and starting Galleries with a capital “G”, and one of the first Surreal Pop artists has his first museum show. We drove up to Pasadena and saw Mark Ryden’s show “Wondertoonel” at the Pasadena Museum of Art. I’ve been a fan for several years, and many people have commented on similarities in our work.

The Lowbrow movement is also known as Pop Surrealism, and at other times Carnivalesque. Here is a great list of links.

Slumming around in LA for the weekend.

In town for the “EVERYTHING BUT THE KITSCHEN SYNC GROUP SHOW” at La Luz de Jesus Gallery. A private artists reception was held last night and the big public reception is tonight from 8-11. I was glad to see that “Anger had been bought earlier in the day. There is really great work there. I see it online or in magazines but nothing like the real thing. Images from the show are online here.