Michael Garfield's Love Without End Tour Newsletter: Wakarusa Festival = Art Explosion!

15 June 2010

Wakarusa Festival = Art Explosion!

First the "bad" news: Editing this next timelapse video from my Whole Earth Festival painting is taking longer than I thought. I have abhorrently high standards and want it to be at least as good as the last multimedia blitzkrieg, so thanks for your patience as I work to make it (and my new live album of cyberballadry from the spring Love Without End Tour) as awesome as possible. Can't rush the kiln...

Now, the "good" news: My second year as Wakarusa Festival's resident live painter was a spectacle of awesomeness and here's the proof: one new concert poster; three new live paintings; and my sweetest gallery of body art so far (including some pics of my first foray into live body painting on stage with the Nadis Warriors)...


Click the images for a better view...

Interstellar Meltdown 2010 Poster
2010 05 21, 22 & 06 01 Art Party!, Evolution Party, & Studio
(Stardust Output & many other Arkansas sound wizards)
16"x20" - paint markers on canvas panel
series of 100 - some poster prints still available

It only seemed appropriate that this painting, which started live at some deliciously underground Arkansas art parties, end up rep'ing the now-in-Arkansas Wakarusa Festival and its quasi-guerrilla party-within-a-party, Interstellar Meltdown. I dedicate it to Johnny Gallup and Jason Sterling, who are responsible for the still-burning flame of electronic music in Lawrence KS and Fayetteville AR, respectively – and without whom I would probably still be sending unrequited emails to Wakarusa's mainstage production team.

Time Spiral
2010 06 03 Wakarusa Festival
(Somasphere, The Heavy Pets, Earl Greyhound,
Resident Anti-Hero, Lotus, Kraak & Smaak, Mimosa)
24"x36" - paint markers on masonite
original painting, poster prints, and full-size giclees available

Don't tell anyone who thinks I'm cool that I named this painting after a Magic: The Gathering card. One of my friends remarked that he sees several of my previous paintings in this one – that it "transcends and includes" my prior work, enveloping it into a new and higher order. Well, alright! Subsuming the old by putting it to work in richer and more intricate structures is "what I'm all about."

Other people pointed out it looks like a top-down view of everyone's favorite medicinal angiosperm. What can I say? Good ideas like the logarithmic spiral show up everywhere.

This painting is dedicated to Richard J. Bird, ex-president of The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & The Life Sciences, and author of one of my favorite books.

Reverence
2010 06 04, 05, 06 Wakarusa Festival
(Spoonfed Tribe, Big Gigantic, Future Rock, EOTO, Sub Swara,
Nadis Warriors, BoomBox, Two Fresh DJ set)
24"x36" - paint markers on stretched canvas
original painting, poster prints, and full-size giclees available

I found an old canvas at Goodwill last year, painted with a crude mountainscape that its original owner clearly didn't care much for. This is the best way to pick up cheap canvases that I've found so far – FYI to all you other thrifty artists. Not quite painting on driftwood, but equally attentive to reclamation and re-use. The canvas sat in a closet until I had a gig epic enough to warrant something of this size, so here we are.

SOOOOO much gold on this one – perhaps due to the intense shininess of working inside the Outpost Stage's ludicrous lightshow of a tent. The last night of the festival, working at the unofficial stage set up on the vending avenue, the waning crescent rose behind the painting and begged for inclusion. This one is dedicated to Polly Babcock, whose finger pointed to that moon, and who gave me the most awesome little piece of hematite (which has been riding around in my pocket ever since).

That's What's Up
2010 06 05 Wakarusa Festival
(BoomBox, James Zabiela, Dub Tribe Soundsystem,
Ott, Mark Farina, Bluetech)
16"x20" - paint markers on canvas panel
poster prints and full-size giclees available

A tiny custom piece for a friend of mine...it oscillates between wings, hands, and whales, in that order (a personal perception confirmed by strangers, which is always equal parts cool and weird). Named by a random fellow near dawn; when it comes to nomenclature, I frequently go with fun suggestions. This one's dedicated to Nikita Kern, whom I suspect is an alien from the same planet I am.

Wakarusa 2010 Body Art Gallery @ Facebook

• Upcoming (full calendar here)

Click event titles for more info...

I'm reprising my live art residency at Colorado's premier electronic music festival, presented by unified-field-theory-preachin', hammer-dulcimer-shreddin' mad genius Jamie Janover. This year, I'll be painting alongside visionary art legends Robert Venosa & Martina Hoffmann, who on their own are worth the price of the ticket.

I'll be playing an afternoon set of my unique cyberacoustic balladry before painting for a full day and night of amazing music from the likes of Whitewater Ramble, Holden Young Trio, and many other Colorado legends including members of The Motet and the Kyle Hollingsworth Band...fifty cents of every ticket sold go to support the Larimer County Food Bank.

Another guaranteed rage-a-thon with my homies in Denver's Mile High Sound Movement, at which I'll be dropping improvised cyberacoustic setbreaks and rocking easel in rapid succession all night. Come on out if you want a taste of some of the finest emerging electronic music and hip-hop in the Denver scene...

An amazing ongoing exhibit from both locally- and nationally-renowned performance painters, organized by movement leader Scramble Campbell – to my knowledge, the first of its kind in the United States. This exhibit is paired with a retrospective on the late great Denny Dent, who with multiple brushes in each hand showed us all what it means to paint as a performance. If you're in Colorado at all this summer, don't miss this free exhibit!

I'm headed down to New Mexico this weekend to play, paint, and sermonize at a summer solstice party at one of the most beautiful, sacred places I've ever seen, so plenty more soon. In the meantime...love you all, stay in touch, and have a beautiful day!