tour over

saturday morning... sitting at the franklins house for breakfast. jason walks into the room with puffy wet eyes. "my father-in-law died this morning.... i need to get back to georgia... today."

we changed tickets for him and he got a flight out of san francisco intstead of LA. we drove from fresno all the while jason took calls from family and friends either making plans or talking through the mornings scenario.

we spent the day in frisco doing touristy things. we went to in n out burger. drove across the golden gate bridge. drove down lombard street. went to china town. all this to just pass the time until we took him to the airport. they were fun events. it's just hard when you want to go somewhere, but you can't get there immediately... it's hard to just wait and do nothing.

jonathan is coming with me to seattle... to help with the long drive.
we've been debriefing each other and trying to work out all of our feelings about the tour ending.

this, for us, isn't just some thing we decided to do because we didn't have anything else going on. it was a planned artistic performance we have been dreaming up for awhile. it's been a rocky start as well. small audiences. learning to work together. fine tuning our set. not a lot of money. these first four shows were like the lame shows of the set. and we were stoked for the last five. good audiences. set payment. close proximity to one another...

and now that's all ended. just like that. jason goes home to grief and loss, and we drive back to seattle maybe breaking even.

it's hard to not feel like we failed. not that we did. events that are bigger than any of our artistic endeavors came around and changed our plans. so we have to roll with it.

i'm not sure what to make of it. i need to shower and get driving. maybe in another blog i'll make sense of it all.

worst show ever

www.lessismoretour.com | Fresno, CA


we walked into the "venue" yesterday and immediately began laughing. we were skeptical of the place already, since we found out it was in room 101 of the industrial technology building on the campus of fresno state university. the room was an older lecture hall... off white walls, stadium seating, flourescent lighting.....
all the no no's of creating an intimate concert/conversational setting.

we don't know a lot of people in fresno anyway, so we were relying on the social contacts of the people who were hosting us. it turns out that this friday night was the worst possible night to do a show in fresno... for three artist who don't have very much draw and aren't famous at all. there was a huge high school football game, college sports, college groups retreats for the few people we know... etc etc.

you get the picture.

but we did the show anyway. with ten people scattered throughout the lecture hall. with a mike taped to a metal pole we found in the closet. with flourescent lighting in all it's glory. we did it.

we decided in albany (also a weakly attended show) that no matter how many people came, no matter what the circumstances, we would put on the best show we could. this is a hard thing to do mind you. it's a very vulnerable thing to perform. jason put it this way: it's like growing up in front of an audience. it can be awkward and very personal... but you still have to put it out there. it helps when the venue is fantastic, there is a large crowd with a lot of buzz... these things add to the overall concert experience and being vulnerable on stage is not so bad then. but to be in bad lighting, no audience, horrible sound and setting.... it's just plain old awkward.

this sounds so cliche.... but integrity is not what you do in front of everyone, but what you do in front of no one. integrity is who you are in front of yourself, and how well you live in those circumstances. in this situation, i think anyone would be empathetic to our situation and would not be down on us if we just wanted to bag the whole thing and go hang out with our fresno friends. seriously, it was a poorly planned event. but we decided to do it. and there is something to that.

i know that i will fight feelings of entitlement my whole life. i am a product of my culture. i expect things to be a way and when they are not i am pissed about it and just want to give up and go be comfortable. and i'll admit while performing in a lecture hall, with hardly an audience, and a doubtful monetary payoff for the whole thing, i wanted to just walk off stage and vent to someone about the whole thing.

but i shut my mouth and just did it.

mind you, this action doesn't deserve any recognition or pat on the back. for me it was just another way to keep my ego in check. to keep me humble and realize that what i have isn't the greatest thing in the world. to position me in a stance that says to serve is better than to be served. and that if no one sees this inward struggle, and if there is no pay off... my Lord sees this, and in fact, takes delight in the response to these situations. when it really comes down to it, living the artist life really matters to an audience of One. i could try to judge it against the eyes of men... but his opinions fluctuate constantly to the next big thing and that rat race seems like a dead end street. for me, i believe who i am as an artist and what i do really matter in the eyes of one who never changes.

he gave me this gift. and it's not hard to imagine that at the end of my life, he might want to know how i used it for the good of others. i think these little instances of character matter in the greater scheme of my life. if i can't be responsible in small things, how could i be responsible in the big things i hope to experience and accomplish in my life?

ok... i'll stop be so philosophical.

we had a good laugh at the whole thing.

you can probably see a video on www.lessismoretour.com

so that's that...

how do you make new work?

I went to my friend kristen's art opening last night. it was a multi artist show just up the street at the phinney neighborhood center. She had three paintings up, which i really liked... but i always like her stuff. she was getting ready to leave when i arrived, and i had only 10 minutes to look around, so we walked out chatting together.

kristen is an artist i really respect. she moved from figurtive work to abstract about four years and has made some fantastic paintings. she's thinking about grad school as well... but deliberating over the 60 G fee.

as soon as we walked outside kristen exclaimed, "Scott, what are we doing with our lives!" this is mostly in reference to being painters. i said i felt like i was just on auto pilot getting work done for shows. she said she might have to punch me to wake me up. (fight club moment? maybe...) i asked her what she meant.

she said she felt like she wanted to make new work, but she didn't even know what that looked like and she didn't know how to do it. she said she could still just make abstract work and she would definitely make new stuff... but she wanted to evolve, to do something new....

i told her that i wanted the exact same thing.

i felt like the work i have been creating for months is exactly the same... and it bores me. i need to evolve, to go to the next plateau.... but how? how do you make new work? maybe this is wierd for some of you who are not artists. so let me explain it a bit. every artist has their style... some people call in your "significance." this is basically what makes your work recognizable. when you see a van gogh, you know it's him. or a warhol. or a rothko.... they all have a look. they have all found their significance. even though you can see growth in their work, they have found their thing.

kristen and i don't really feel like we have found our significance. i definately think we are on that road, but no where near the end. so how does one get their significance? here's the funny thing... you can't consciously choose it. it comes with just creating all the time for years. you basically stumble upon it more than decide what you want it to be. so the only way to get to it is to keep creating all the time. then one day, you have it.

this is a frustrating journey... yet grand at the same time. i think kristen and i are in one of the many obstacles to being great artists.... the obstactle of not giving up.

i want to evolve. i want to grow. i want to make new work that i think is great.
but where do i start? so many options.

kristen and i vowed to keep going. so we will. and it's good to have a friend to keep journeying with. i feel like i have many artists to do that with. and that makes me blessed.