On August 16th, 1997 my wife lisa and I got married.  We walked outside the church and noticed a bunch of Elvis impersonators. We heard Elvis on the radio all day, but didn’t pay much attention to it. We later found out that we were married on the 20th anniversary of Elvis’ death. Both being moderate Elvis fans and a true lover of kitsch, we said that someday we would take a trip to Graceland for our anniversary.

Here we are, Elvis week. It was the 35th anniversary of his death. We planned a musical trip down south and tried to hit everything we could while we were there. I couldn’t have asked for a better trip. Here is an edited version of photos from about 1200. I am sure some good artwork is soon to come from all of this.

I am not much of a stalker, but this time I thought there was a legitimate chance that I might actually get to see the “secret show”. I paid attention to what was going on but I have to admit that I lost interest after a while. I didn’t think it was going to happen. Maybe it was all part of his plan, to make everyone run around and chase someone that wasn’t there.  I was working on a project at the studio, decided to take a quick break from what I was doing and sat down at my computer. There it was, an official post from Third man records giving the where about’s of the show. I am surprised I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed my camera, only taking my zoom since I thought  I would be too late to get close and ran out the door. Ten minutes later I was there and surrounded by about 50 people. How was I one of the first people there?  Promptly at 3:30 a silver Mercedes van pulled up, out jumped the band and they immediately started melting everyone’s faces with a 20 minute rock show.  So glad I was able to be there and witness it all. Sorry Jack about all the photos, I know you want people to experience the show and not watch it through a lens or tiny screen. I swear I didn’t take one photo at Red Rocks, and my ears are still ringing if that makes up for it.

This year started off crazy as do most years. A big studio move, lots of photo shoots, art projects, kids growing up fast, the end of the school year. I guess that’s just life. I am very grateful for all of things going on in my life. I thought I would put together a few snapshots of what’s been going on. Good things are coming up. A new website for all of the handmade art. My wife’s new art business. I can’t wait to share it all. Until then….

Since I have already said how important it was to spend time with the family, we all got out for a quick road trip down south.  It was a great trip and I will have many fond memories.  We started out with a stop in Mesa Verde, on to 4 corners, Monument valley, then a quick stop in Moab.

I am always working on something. I think for most creatives, especially if  you run your own business, you always seem to be working. If it is not a job, you have paperwork to do. If it’s not paper work, you have promos to do. It goes on and on. I learned pretty quickly that it’s really hard to keep a consistent schedule.  That doesn’t always work when you have a family. I had to make something work, otherwise I would never see them. I try really hard to keep my freelance schedule a 9-5 job.  I get up in the morning, make breakfast for my ladies, pack lunches, and walk them to school. I look forward to it.  I know that the time is coming when they may not want to be around me. I dare to say it, but I know the day will come when they will be embarrassed to be around me.

This last year was hard on all of us.  It was hard to keep all of the feelings I had locked up so that my girls wouldn’t notice just how frightened I was. I started doing a lot of thinking. What are some of the best times we had as a family? One was sitting down and having dinner together. It sounds easy, but unless you make it a habit you find yourself easily working right through that special time. The other highlights are the times we have traveling together. Now I am not talking about a big expensive trip somewhere. I am talking about family time. Together.   Road trips are the best.  My family did a lot of them growing up.  As I got into my teens, they didn’t seem as fun. Now that I am getting older I realize just how important that time was.  This last November we took a family trip to San Francisco.  It was celebration trip. It had been a year since Lisa’s surgery. It was a trip where there were no complaints, no worries, and no real plans. Our only plan was to enjoy each other. You need to make time with your family. It’s simple to do. Just turn off the phone for a few days and do it.

I have been working outside as much as I can lately.  Even though the rain slows me down, there is always something good that comes of it.

I have just finished work on a project for the State of Wyoming. It was something called Just Let It Out! Over 1000 teens tried to commit suicide last year in the state and they are trying to do something about it. The idea was to take over a high school and replace things that the kids see everyday with a message. The message being everything can be replaced except you. We had 6 pieces to build and move into the school. One of the pieces was to go into one of their trophy cases. The other larger scale piece was a message to be moved into the spot of one of the existing soda machines.  It took about  3000 nails, 2500 staples, 3 tubes of construction adhesive, a case or two of beer, and too many cans to count. The other piece shown was to be used on the library book shelves. We were supposed to have about a month to work on it all, but of course with approvals and all the other stuff that gets in the way I ended up having a week to get it all together.  Luckily my wife, my daughters, and some friends lent a hand to get it all done. It was down to the wire to get it all done so I didn’t get  to photograph everything before it left. I did manage to take some process photos and a few completed pieces before we loaded them on the truck.  I will be sure to update with the installation photos once the  art directors get back in town.

When I was a kid we use to go to the Orange County Swap meet.  I remember bringing all the money I had for a new superman t-shirt, an Intellivision game, or maybe just some cool junk.  I think growing up going planted the seed of collecting things for my art. When I moved to Colorado  I was excited to see they had a swap meet as well but instead they called it the Flea Market. Now for some reason they are trying to change their image, be a little more hip and call themselves the Mile High Market Place.  No matter how much updating these places do, it is still one of the strangest places to go. I love it  more now than ever.  Its not about all the junk that’s out there, but more for the people watching and experience of it.

Here is how the final ad is supposed to work. Lets hope lots of people folded it up.

One of the latest ads I did for New Belgium was the first of two called the ” Joy Ride”.  As always, a super fun piece of artwork to make. We started to concept the ad and making a laundry list of things that needed to be in there. We had to tell more of a story this time, but we also needed to show beer. Throughout the concept process I remembered as a kid how much I loved reading Mad Magazines. The best part of it , which I always went to first, was the last page. It was a fold up illustration by the artist Al Jaffee. They would take what seemed to be a normal illustration, then by folding it a couple of times the illustration would turn into something else. I threw it out there to see if anyone would be into trying something like this. After a few quick sketches we made the decision to give it a go.