lately

itches urge on when obsession hits

when caffeine fuels you nothing else will do

mantras soldier on a day

breathy pop

candied erotica

haunting girl ethereal to the touch

we'll find what to like

weave a world for you

photo by Christopher Mckenny

the arrested fuck-all mindset grooved to and belied, it's like, yes you hate me but as tina fey says bitches get stuff done: it's a knife ready to enter the eyes for a longer than 9 second stare, it's laws that make us feel touched when we aren't and prevent murder in the long run, these are aspects we worry about. every day feels long but the years appear short, I forget to chronicle what it is I, a minute dust particle go through, the courses I avoid and subsequently the lives I neglect as each second passes. living is constantly not choosing something else. pain of the body is a short memory unless you are scarred then it's a story you can't forget. you add details to make it better, more like a dream narrative. if you were valued you'd be blue with gospel-blossom and a faithful smile with interruptions perhaps of your anger. but you float in between and refuse to see futures and you have episodes memorized that most people don't ever see. hear, let me listen to this, watch this, just in case: a human connection based on reference skill, not interaction, the farther apart the humans from your space the safer you are, you can't forget. you shouldn't forget. every one is an exploding drum.

Milwaukee Art Exclusive: Brian Hibbard

              Milwaukee Art Exclusive: Brian Hibbard

I got a chance to catch up with the artist Brian Hibbard. We met up at Prospect Colectivo to talk art. We started off with where he hailed from and what the art scene held for him in his hometown of De Pere, Wisconsin. He talked about his first studio space that he acquired at age 24. The Art Garage was its name and experimentation was the game, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before the studio, this studious artist attended UW Whitewater. There he pursued an Art minor making it his mission to diversify his knowledge of art techniques and mediums. He was not dissatisfied saying:

“The teachers are really good there. I think they have a good art program.”

After, he returned home to begin his experimentation with his expression through painting at The Art Garage. By this time he was a big fan of New York City 70’s and 80’s artists, like Basquiat and Andy Warhol, who inspired him when creating his first exhibition at The Art Garage. Brian associates his style with these two artists the most, declaring Basquiat his favorite:

“He’s probably my favorite of all time. He just pumped out so much stuff in a short period of time. He started out with the graffiti. He did the word short poems, and then he moved into gallery stuff. He was just…he was like a mad scientist.”

He named the exhibition Big City Living where he displayed his work that had accumulated from 3 years in the studio. After this show it was time for him to move on to the next stage in his artistic career. Hibbard moved to Milwaukee where many opportunities awaited him. He told me about his shows in Bay View and Riverwest. 

“Me and my friend used to do live painting at bars. We had a friend, one bar owner, one night a week she would let us do live painting. Sometimes there was even live music to go along with it. It was called White Dog Black Cat.”

Brian spoke about his showings at the Cocoon Room when it first became a clothing shop here in Milwaukee. He also told me about Lu Lu’s Cafe, another space that he had exhibited in. 

“When I had my art work up at Lu Lu’s I sold like 7 or 8 pairings off the wall, shortly after I moved to Milwaukee. I thought oh wow. this is great. This is why I moved here.”

Hibbard has been very busy since he moved to Milwaukee and continues to be an active member of the art society here. After we spoke about all the places that he had exhibited we began to explore his work. He explained methods and compositions:

“Usually I start with no idea what so ever and then I spit out what is floating around in my brain, like whatever t.v shows I’m watching at the time, or whatever I’m doing, or whatever I last read about.”

We began to talk about individual pieces of works and one in particular really stuck out. Hibbard talked about how he grew up in a house full of male siblings and how self expression through art came to be his way of getting out what was on his mind at the time. His parents were fans.

“My parents always encouraged me to do art.” 

One painting in particular was the topic of discussion. There was a vomiting pig that he had painted using texture to emphasize the projection of the vomit by applying the pink paint very thickly where the vomit was first exiting the mouth. Hibbard saw this as a literal visualization of how he uses art as an outlet to express. Brian goes on to say:

“ That’s a literal translation of me getting my art out. Encouraging thoughts and emotions. It’s very therapeutic. it’s the best way I found to express my emotions. I’m not very food at verbalizing sometimes but I can get it out through my art work. It just feels good. I just like to do it.”

Before we got to his hopes and dreams for his art career we talked about what this artist liked to do for fun and where his favorite hang out spots in Milwaukee were. He listed off so many it was insane! Hibbard told me about the Carolina Jazz Club, Sugar Maple, Lu Lu’s Cafe, Seven Bridges trail, and Wendell’s Park. He also mentioned some of his favorite galleries like the Cocoon Room, the Hot Pot down at MIAD, the Intercontinental galleries, as well as the Pfister hotel residency. After telling me all this he added:

“ I’ve been getting into photography lately. I’ve done painting exhibitions, but I would like to do a photo photography exhibition some time.”

He then divulged his dream of being an interior design consultant. When I asked him what his dream project was he answered:

“Working with someone developing a new division who wanted art consultation for stylizing rooms or floors (office buildings).”

Lastly we talked about what was next on Brian Hibbard’s plate, in the near future. He told me about a show coming up, here in Milwaukee that focuses on artists who are often on the forefront of political issues, shining a light on certain aspects that newspapers don’t talk about. Hibbard talks about his two paintings in the show:

“ I have two paintings coming up in an show called Raise Your Voice in Jazz Gallery, in Riverwest. On April 22nd.”

He told me that his two paintings will be anti-war pieces and that one would be a drone painting.

“I think that’s something people don’t really talk about… We’re fighting wars with flying robots now. It’s like a video game. It’s bizarre.” 

Finishing off the interview I asked if he felt as if there was any hint of Milwaukee in his work. He grinned and replied:

“ Since I’ve moved to Milwaukee I’ve done at least one or two Milwaukee themed paintings with like a Pabst can, the Milwaukee art museum Calatrava…I’ve taken tons of Milwaukee photos!”

Finally he says:

“ I’m influenced by everything around me so it just happens(Milwaukee influence). I really like Milwaukee. They have MIAD, The Art Institute, UWM, a lot of colleges… if Milwaukee had the same weather as San Diego has, I’d be done looking.” 

You can check out Brian Hibbard’s work at his website hibbardart.com as well as in the upcoming show called Raise Your Voice, located at the Jazz gallery in Riverwest, on April 22nd.

I am in Portland until the 10th

i will never reek -- i am just one with her foot caught on the yarn on the ground
i spill nowhere over -- i have just that simple smile, the daily breadbody, the cottonmouth

today i tied that orange yarn to the kitchen chair for the cat to play with
while tidying in the first room, i heard a dolloping sound and the cat nearly tipped the chair over

it is lightening in milwaukee tonight, i know this because jon facebook'd me from his phone
and said so.  it started to rain during my nap today after i finished "On the Road"

I am listening to Parker's spotify playlist that is labeled "for me," it is not for me
but when I am not sure if I want to listen to the movie soundtracks like usual, it is for me

i gave my job 6 months notice and although i will always feel like i am abandoning,
i am weary.  i am weary of starting over but i feel just as if i will wake up from a 12 hour nap

benjamin is at work.  i hope he meets another woman -- or circle of women -- with a foreign name
i hope she explains to him when she uses words that may not mean a thing to him

how could neal cassady have been so remarkable?  can a man have the how-now power,
to be written about by so many?  was it a joke?  or, was it simply a recording out of love?

one time my dad was explaining to me the Eagles are the greatest band or whatever ever
(not nec. his opinion) and I said, "fuck the Eagles."  Now I always say fuck the Eagles.

I don't mean it.

    On these yawning evenings I think about how we fuck up when we try to live other lives, narratives that don't belong to us. When we try to grab the threads we were not born with, we are miserable. I am slowly learning big lessons. I create mottos to plant them in my brain. I talk to my dad about religious differences over a very nice and pricey meal, I watch him and his girlfriend silently disagree, I watch them become awkward, and then come back to their normalcy. I think of my  soul friend in Portland who is taking pictures and feeling out the streets, probably smoking, I am sure she says something shining and layered to at least 5 people a day. I am thinking about my best friend, who is at a wedding, and whether the wedding party will see the way he illuminates spaces around him or whether they will just see how handsome he is. I am thinking about my guilt. How it grows in a myriad of small seeds throughout the day. I try to avoid hurting my knees to sew them but my body knows patterns I wasn't aware of developing. I am thinking about my sister. Her very esoteric and burning hands and all the materials they've morphed: duct tape, yarn, paper, paint, ukelele strings, the ears of strangers. I am thinking of my little brother and his incredible history that weighs heavy and wise and I wonder what his shoulders feel like sometimes. I am thinking about my nieces who have the most interesting syntax. I am thinking about my oldest brother who clicks with me at the most unforeseeable times and it feels like an entrance to a wall most people don't see. I think about my ears, obsessive. I think about my eyes that scan and take everything in. I consider a decision to be kinder to myself, to allow these sponge-like phases to come and go. I consider opening my mail as soon as I get it but that's less likely to occur. I am thinking about love. And the spirit. And how much of my self itches for an answer and how some days it feels so simple as to feel silly I keep asking. But I inquire in the form of books, strangers on the bus, and opening my fear and pride, perusing them like old texts that should be respected. I think about love.

Milwaukee Art Exclusive: Cara Hutchison

             Milwaukee Art Exclusive: Cara Hutchison

I had a chance to sit down with a local Milwaukee artist by the name of Cara Hutchison. She was very excited to get into the interview, and so at this Starbucks coffee shop on the east side of Milwaukee we decided to jump right in. I asked her about where she was originally from and she smiled excitedly and began to express her feelings on her hometown New London, Wisconsin.

“ What I like most about where I came from is what I took for granted when I was there. It’s that small town feel. You can go out into the country and hangout in the woods. That’s something I really miss. I was kind of the odd ball kid, in New London, that liked art.”

 The conversation then turned its focus to the art opportunities available in Milwaukee. She goes on to say:

“ The things I like most about Milwaukee is the art scene and that I have all these art opportunities here. You get to be around these people who have the same interests.” 

We talked about how she comes to find this Riverwest art scene through the connections she made with other artists and professors while attending UW-Milwaukee. Cara expresses that networking in Milwaukee provided more opportunities for her than she would have found at home.

There were many things that inspired and sparked Cara’s interest in art. She first goes on to answer that exposing question: Why art?

 “It was always my gateway for expression. Some people write in journals and some people do poetry and what not, or they get into sports, and that’s like their therapy. Art was my therapy.”  

Passionately she addresses her adoration for art in saying: 

“You can always reinvent yourself in art. I can change it up, I can do whatever, I can experiment with things and if I don’t like it I can paint over it, or something. I can fix it somehow”

I got a chance to talk to her about her academic experience on the road to becoming an artist.

 “I studied at the lovely UW-Milwaukee. At that point my whole plan was going into graphic design. I took a graphic design course and I hated it. It wasn’t art for me. It wasn’t tangible enough. It wasn’t something I could get my hands dirty with.” 

Cara explains further why she had to turn her focus to a different subject on expression. 

“I’m not having the actual experience of making it (the art piece). When you make the mistake you have to figure out how to fix it. It’s not like a click, or undo…when you make mistakes it evolves (your work).” 

Lastly she adds:

 “I really liked UWM because I was exposed to almost every different medium.” 

As you see when we look at her pieces she is very adept at expressing her self through whatever medium she chooses to use.

Cara turns our attention to the connections that she had with the Door County art scene, and how tourists just love to go to Door County for the wholesome art experience. She says: 

“You’ve got all of the tourist that go up there so it’s a good market for sale. My real connection up there was the glass blowers. My roommate at the time (while attending UWM) was blowing glass and she was working with these two practicing artists.” 

Cara goes on to talk about how this leads her to Door County to live for a summer, and the new medium she experienced. 

“Through living in Door County briefly for a summer I got to work with them, so I got to blow glass with them.” 

When she described Door County’s location in Wisconsin she became really excited, with a big smile on her face she shouts:

“It’s up in the thumb!”

We then talked about who her favorite artists were right now she had a few favorites in mind. 

“ Stain glass windows with Frank Lloyd Wright, I have an interest in that right now. I’m teaching a lesson on that right now, so it is always in my brain.” 

She lists off some more qualifiers enthusiastically, such as Kehinde Wiley and Trenton Doyle Hancock. I asked her about her favorite galleries to visit in Milwaukee. Cara had one, specifically in mind. She mentions Art Bar with a big smile on her face, as being one of her favorite galleries in Milwaukee. 

“I like the Art Bar because they have a little theme (art exhibits) and they’re always switching it out.”

As the interview begins to come to a close we begin to talk about the things she likes to do when she’s not creating art. Cara goes on to say:

“I do like to take myself to brunch at Stonefly on Sundays. They’ve got art up all the time. So it’s nice to see art there. My favorite hangout spots when it’s nice out? I like to walk by the river, the river walk, and the lake. I like to go over by the Holton Bridge, over by the lakefront building.”

 She expresses her love of the scenery in these areas. Then she says: 

“The Bremen has become some kind of hangout spot for me in recent time because it’s close to my home.” 

She giggles as she hints at the fact that it is in short walking distance. Cara then throws in one more of her favorite spots. 

“I really like the Horny Goat too, because of the whole atmosphere of being outside, and they have a fire place.”

I then went on to ask Cara about a memorable reaction to her work. This brought up a beautiful story of artistic expression. She tells me the story of an assignment that she had in class where she was asked to read an article and then create a piece of work that expresses the conflict. 

“ The word in the article I highlighted was sandwiched. It was sandwiched in between.” 

Cara was addressing the issue of drug trafficking from countries like Venezuela and Columbia, through Mexico, to America. The article talked about how Mexico was sandwiched in between these distributing countries and America. Cara then creates this image of a sandwich spread apart with an American flag on the top bun. On the bottom bun was Venezuela and Columbia, these coke producing countries. She then illustrates money coming down from the American end and guns as well as bullets coming down from the South American end. Lastly, there is a tomato in the middle of all of this with the Mexican flag on it. She goes on to tell her the response of her professor.

“ I remember that one comment that I got from my professor. It was like never in the many years that he had been assigning this article had he ever had such a creative interpretation of that (subject) for a design. So I felt like I was really…flattered. That was definitely the most memorable one where I felt really good about what I had done ”.

Another memorable moment of Cara’s had to do with one of her art exhibiting experiences. We talked about her exhibiting at Inova Studio in 2011. She had all good things to say across the board about her interaction with this gallery. 

“ I thought it was a really nice show and I thought it was displayed well. Also, they kept the show going longer then expected so it did really well. It was very easy. I didn't have to worry about much. It was all handled, you drop it off, they put it up, and it was fine.”

To wrap up our interview I asked Cara about her dream project. She says to me: 

“ I think it would be really interesting to do something large scale, maybe something outside, like a mural. I would like to do a mural on the ground. I would love to do something having to do with fibers and having to do with outside, and somehow making that an interactive piece that people will interact with every day.” 

I finally asked her about traces of Milwaukee in her art and if she wants to ever have her work shown in any other cities. She chuckles and then calmly, confidentially says:

“Of course. That’s the whole goal right you want to get your art out there. You want people to be able to see it. You want to have them be effected by it no matter where they are.” 

She then goes on to disclose her feelings on expressing Milwaukee through her art.

“Everybody sees the art museum, everybody sees the U.S Bank building, everybody sees the Miller Park Studios, but I kind of want to get into those places that are gems in the local eye. You know, maybe something that not everybody sees every day. I want to highlight those places or those things that I see everyday.”

Cara Hutchison is a very talented artist who intends to continue creating art through her interpretation of the world she interacts with everyday. She’s a brilliant artist to look for in the future. When Cara is not creating art she is teaching forensic art to students in the Milwaukee Public School system. The Art Shore Salutes you and looks forward to our next interview with this magnificent artist.

howeverly,

i fear voting

will you help me get over my fear of voting

we can vote on what color this flower is

and every one will be okay

no one will get upset!

because purple is purple is purple

you define my jitters

and i stop jittering

you coalesce my questions

and i am mambaing

we are mambaing

or maybe salsaing

i, too, laugh a special laugh when around you

like close encounters of a hilarious kind!

your awareness is just enough stated

and we get along