Jordan Swartz-The Rad Times #7

I’ve been thinking about art and specifically its practice lately. I’ve written many artist/ project statements over the years and the older I get the more it solidifies that it’s rarely if ever about the final product. The process of making, no matter the medium is more often than not the driving force. With this, I’ve thinking about the band Self Defense Family; they are more often concerned with the process of creation, to the point that they even have some songs about this, butting up against the boundaries of their own art, more than a band they have become a de facto art project in and of themselves. They have a rotating cast of musicians of whoever is available at the time for touring or recording- to the extent that in one instance, supposedly one line-up was playing a show in Connecticut while another line-up was in Jamaica recording for their island single series (they have multiple releases recorded on islands.) I heard some previous members on a podcast recently and they said they were members of the “good enough club,” with something like 57ish releases in 20 years, this tracks. Not every song is a going to be a hit but this process allowed them to dip in and out of various genres and formats and to exist on a plane of production over product. More and more this is how I look at my practice, I make the things that interest me and put them into the world. Keep making, keep moving.

Thanks for hanging!
Be good to each other.

As a lover of travel and food, the writing of A. A. Gill settled into my bookshelves with a certain sense of belonging, like they’d been there all along. Only learning about him upon his death, his writing immediately grabbed me for it’s curiosity and uniqueness; he made everything seem fun, serious, approachable, and surreal all at once. Here is an article that was one of his last published pieces, but do yourself a favor and go buy a used copy of one of his collections, my first was AA Gill is Away and it’s a good place to start.

I remember going to a client’s warehouse with my dad when I was a kid, where there was a massive model train diorama. I never cared about the trains, I was always more interested in the model buildings, even at a young age the construction and detail fascinated me. As I’ve gotten older my respect for miniatures has only grown as I’ve delved deeper into watching movies and learning the behind the scenes of prop makers and set builders. The works of Christopher Robin Nordstrom feel so cinematic, they could easily be the background of a street scene in a film.

I had a conversation with a good friend the other day about how these days we have to remind ourselves to do the fun things. When we were young it was easy, it’s all we knew. That’s all this video is; a road trip with friends, surfing, camping, skating, motorcycles. Go do the thing, in the words of Ben Franklin- “Many young men die at age 25, but are not buried until they're 75”

(Lightly NSFW, nothing wild but if you’re boss sucks just look later.)

Photography, aside from music, was maybe my first love and work like M.H. Frøslevs reminds me why. Atmospheric, tightly claustrophobic, and alluringly sensitive, these photographs are a street map of a life and a mind. Shot after dark in the cities of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, they offer a a balance of intimacy and alienation.
As well the publisher Disko Bay has a number of other great titles and is one of my favorite publishers of the last few years.

Wood panel pieces from new collage series “Cemetery Talk” will be available in my store shortly. As well some new works from a painting series “Debts To Pay” will be coming in the next few weeks.