Category: Tour

Slept in the back of the truck after the show at A.K.A. Gallery, so waking up and going was pretty easy. Hard wood truck floor + cold = get up and head to Springfield. The drives on this first leg are proving rather long . . . and expensive. How much diesel does a truck really need? The gas station in Joplin is playing Tupac — awww California.

5/16 : Carthage, MO – Precious Moments Chapel. Ladies my grandmother’s age very sneakily creep up behind you to tell you how adorable they think everything is. Damn those orthopedic shoes are quiet!! We did find the creep-tastic version of Jamie Johnson, painting a bunny, haha to the irony. The strange truth is that this audience’s interest in Precious Moments schwag mimics our interest in our gallery and our expected audience. The difference being, we’re not in the middle of MO, on some huge plot of land – we’ll at the moment we are, but we’re MOBILE.

Onward to Springfield = flat, flat, flat. How would we find an art scene if we didn’t already have a contact or have phones with Google maps and search capabilities? Not a clue!!

Nick Tarr. Lemon Drop Gallery. Spacetones, Sincerely Yours with Nick Fury. Unsung Hero. Francois Lariviere.
Spacetones – when a white dude in short shorts, with a big red beard, starts dropping rhymes, and shocks you, you listen. Then you look at the person next to you and mouth, “WTF?” Francois’s multimedia approach dominates all corners of the show with paintings and sculptures throughout the room. I met his mom and she is justifiably proud of him, which is great to see. Unsung Hero showed some awesome work too – really digging his painting style – on canvas and rattle can. Check our facebook for more images, please.

We went through the night and talked to a lot of randomly awesome, new friends who dug our concept and came out to support our midwestern friends. If this is Springfield, what else do we have in store? Ooooweeeee, cannot friggin’ wait.

5/17: ‘Twas a good ol’ party in Springfield. Still worried about gas money though. The Fuel Fiend, now named Eileen because of her proclivity to bear the weight of the added gallery floor, needs a fix. She’s the Keith Richards of diesel-fueled, mobile-art galleries. Also, one of the most difficult things to do is to stay organized. It feels like we are losing a few things with bags all over the place and moving all over the place. What are you going to do? We’re 2 guys, on the road.

Drove through New Mexico, through Alburquerque, through the night into Texas, into Sunday. Napped a bit at the state line and continued on to Amarillo. Happened to be on the 40 and passed right by Cadillac Ranch. Yes, please! Neight may, or may not, have taken a bit of liberty with the half empty spray cans that were lying around.

After having a bit of a break at this art site, I got to thinkin’ . . . there are art sites all over the country . . . send us a list of art sites that we should check out. Do it.

Tore into Oklahoma City — exhausted but glad. The city is being rebuilt from the ground up and there is construction everywhere and the roads are turible!!! Rattling roads + rattling art = rattling Neight and Sean. We found the A.K.A. Gallery in the Paseo Arts District and discovered that the Okies, they love their basketball – so we charged to Kinkos and waited for the basketball game to get out to hand out flyers. Gotta’ hustle I guess.

The A.K.A. Gallery is a great spot. Oklahoma City is a suprising city. A.K.A. had the work of Sarah Atlee,  who does phenomenally rad collage work. Each piece is heavily textured and rich with imagination.

We were nervous about the first show. Just a  bit. But it went well. Sarah’s work was great. Ashley and Andrea were very welcoming and supportive. The truck unfolded as planned. And I, yes your’s truly, added a big FIND logo to the front of the truck.

After the show, or during – I really can’t recall – I went next door to Picasso’s, a bar. It was loud, so I went. You can’t blame me after the drive from OC to OKC. We were unaware that the Paseo Arts district was the hangout for creative types but we met the members from Saturday Sirens, self-proclaimed desert rock artists; and a local arts and culture blogger, Ashley, who asked us to check out Ali Harter and Lindsey Oleck, also musicians – I think. Ashley feels the Oklahoma scene is undervalued. How many scenes are there just like this all over the country that feel they need representation? I say we should recognize regional talents but not all talents need national recognition, except by those who truly wish to classify American art. That’s why there are critics, right?

After sleeping in the truck that night and waking and walking to go get coffee, we realize we are officially in the land of accents, water towers, and overalls. MOCA may have Art in the Streets but we have Art on the Road. Game on!

FIND Art Across America national tour. 57 cities? 14,000 miles? What are we thinking?

The preparation has us running around like The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. We’re late and we haven’t even started. With so many elements, attempting to get it all in order was a labour of luck, effort, and magic. A national tour? Sure — get a truck, call some artists, day is done, right? At this exact point I don’t even know if we’re prepared and we crossed into New Mexico 50 miles ago.

We have to thank all those that helped get us on the road. Much thanks to Alex and Giovanni from So Cal Weld for the awesome build of the pop out wall that becomes our gallery floor. Thank you Bud and the OC Diesel Shop for getting the truck whipped into fighting shape. Thank you Ernie for the rubbery tires from Amato Tire. Thank you Geoffrey Doolittle for the marathon of help with wiring and final prep.
 
A special thank you to Lacey and The Living Room Salon & Art Gallery for hosting our send off party, Thursday the 12th, in Costa Mesa. The party was supposed to start at 1:00pm and the Dos Chinos taco truck was there with some amazing tacos – try the pork. But where was FIND? Where were we? Still building. Custom jobs never seem to be ready on schedule. We all got problems, you know?

A few hours late, the truck arrived, with a working door. Jamie Johnson hopped on the roll up door to finish his piece. TEWSR quickly got down on finishing his massive wall. FIND opened up boxes and laid out all the work from artists all over the country and began installing. And, 2 pallets of magazines were dropped off just as the sun went down. Could this be a plan coming together? You friggin’ know it.

As we closed up at The Living Room, we realized we still had a lot to do. So, instead of leaving Friday morning for Phoenix, we finished the final details and made plans to drive straight to Sante Fe – 850 miles – on Saturday.

Day one – Redux: trying to make Santa Fe, NM. Saturday morning, 5 AM departure, CA, AZ, NM. Grab the list, check it twice, and GO Go GO. Neight hasn’t slept but the truck is done. I expected a flood of thoughts on the first moments of such a grand trip but there are none – only thinking about getting to Sante Fe on time. There will be plenty of time and empty road for us to think.

After a fill up in Barstow, then a fill up in Needles, then a fill up in Kingman, then a fill up in Flagstaff, we calculated that we were getting 5 miles/gallon of diesel, at $4.90/gallon! This may be over before it has a chance to begin. This could indicate a large problem that can handicap the entire trip since we are budgeted so tightly. We made some calls, checked the air filter, checked the e-brake, checked the overdrive, changed the fuel filter, checked for leaks, and cursed the Mojave Desert and Arizona heat. We are burning cash and hemorrhaging diesel.

During our pit stop in Kingman, AZ, we dropped in on Mink Ink Tattoo where owner, Michelle, showed us the work of Francis Mann and her own zombie baby creations. This was officially our first stop to talk about the magazine and Michelle, her husband, and staff were all very welcoming and encouraging.

We also quickly stopped in Flagstaff, AZ and found ourselves amidst a pretty rad downtown scene full of shops, galleries, graduating seniors, and walls covered with stencils, posters, and murals. We tried to park the beast that demands 2 spots – such an ego – but couldn’t find a suitable place to open up the gallery. Instead, we canvassed the town and handed out some mags. We asked around about the local scene and those we talked to were well-versed in the artists’ work around town.  I think it should definitely be a planned stop for a future tour.

Back on the road, after our minor repairs, we are screeching across the Arizona, New Mexico highway like a possessed amalgamation of Hunter S. Thompson – at the hellish speed of 60 mph. With all the delays because of fuel economy, we are unable to make it to Sante Fe and decide to push as far as we can toward Oklahoma City. Just around midnight, we caught up on that hunger thing at a cafe in Albuquerque and listened to some local dirt-track racers recount their evening of malfunctioning cars, lap times, and near misses.

After a bit of food and plenty of coffee, we drove into Texas until Neight and I couldn’t drive anymore, indicated by the hallucinations of lights and figures in the roadway. We stopped at a rest stop just over the state border and slept for a little while in the single cab box truck / mobile art gallery that is our home.