Scene of the Blind man in the desert.

Script:
In the battles of searching the man and his spirit. By moonlite night walking. With brushes in hand; lack of sight for directions. ears only, skin to guide. Feet that long for the drink of water. That still spurn on the will of man into the drifting of the night. Into the nocturne of man. As much so as she. As she would be the unending depth of all sea. Of all sea's?

wonder's blindly:
"Memory."
Enter's the character, speech:
Nocturne of the desert.

"Did you believe you could paint better than I?
Pan away-
From a man speaking to no one there.
"Did you think you would have what is not even mine?"
laughter
laughter.
Man speaks:
"I believe," looking blind eyes for the sky of the moon, "still, I believe".

Character places material before blind man.
says of the character, "Then try. Try with these materials. If you can. Paint better than I." Mockery. The manner of the character as the man fumbles for the shape of things in the sand.
"Your times are over. Never to return. It's useless to even try. You cannot paint better than I. No. Not ever."
The man tries.
Among the cold night of the darkness he begins to draw what he sees. The character kicks dirt at he and his work, disapproving at it's simple beauty, Character snatches up the piece from the trembling hands of the blind man. His eyes fixed with envy, he stares into it.
break to show art:

Time passes-
The blind man again fumbles to bring forth another.
Quickly the character snatches away his utensils. "That's enough! You will never paint better than I! It will not be allowed!"

The character spits, and once again kicks dirt in the face of the kneeling man.
"I'm leaving your dumbass to die out here." - Taking all supplies the character retreats, turning away he leaves the scene, mumbling curses for the man. The trail of feet sound dies slowly into the night. The blind man stumbles up to his feet, his eyes look again for the moon, for the sky. He walks on toward the direction of the moon.

low the music sounds

Cut to the rising sun of the Bofecillos. Man stumbling towards the heat of the sun, hands running across the spine of cactus; falling, getting up, still blinded, stumbling. Falling to hands and knees the man is done. Alone in desolation.
A voice speaks of an ancient tongue:
(Culimnation of many tongues speaking the same thing)
"Be healed, my son."
The man's sight is restored. Blinking into the recognization of the sand. His white grit of pearl teeth crack with joy. His hands grasp the rock and sand, his eyes water like rivers of fresh wells. The voice reminds again, faded, as if continuing about a walkway;
"You are healed my son."
The man lifts his restored eyes from the ground:
His face is focused upon, eyes fathoming their interpretation, disbelief? Wonder! Shear fascination. He stumbles again to his feet. Blind, perhaps, again already his motions resemble those that are without eyes. The man moves forward:

Revelation of standing horse in sun:
He makes his way slowly, for the close proximity of the waiting horse, standing in the place of the sun. The Last Horse. His ride has come for him...
The seal is broken.

to be continued

The Age of the Gentile is Over.
anno Domini.

"Absolutes"

Obsessively I purchase paint and brushes for the time when
They will come around again.
I purchase with money and time.
Time I don't have.
I trade my life to see them grow.
To have them seen.
Hear their statements made.
"We are the end of abstraction.
We are the other extreme of Supreme."
I wait for the combonation.
I can see it working like the gears of the clock.
I wait patiently.
For the combonation of resource and time.
They tell me their history.
Where and Why.
I say, "The statements you make are your own ending."
No reply.
They know that already.
That is fine.
"Abstraction is dead. We are The Last"
A revolution is a rotating point on a wheel.
Each round a revival of time.
Challenges already begun:
Refine definition of real.
Define position in time.



One of the Original Twelve (distributed), acrylic on paper on board, 6"x24", 2006.

Resurrection of the Dead in Christ, acrylic on canvas, 2012.
I think that's probably been enough time for dormancy. There is a lot of back track dialogue that needs to be done on this blog. The last time anything went out here I was moving from Granger to Hondo. Those times are long gone. I'm going to slim it down some, talk about artwork, picture commentary and so forth, studio experience and happenings. I thought for awhile it would be best to try and categorize my work into all the different genres and apply them into different blogs respectively, while also discussing real life situations and their impact on art making; but, I'm realizing that all that effort is too cumbersome. So now, I'm going to put it up here as it goes, and not worry so much about it. 
 

This painting was done in an open air pole barn back in Granger, Texas, and sold to a man in Minnesota on eBay during a Friday the 13th art challenge. It wound up being a complete give away, as the money made from the sell was LESS THAN  the amount it took to ship the thing... it is about 36"x42" inches if I remember correctly... somewhere in that size range. I wonder about this picture and where it is, how it is doing. Wether it sees darkness or daylight... It is one of those tie together statements you make concerning times of human condition, past and present aesthetics, content and so on that mark directional shifts in an artists work. 

Familia

Well... that's a deep subject...

There is so much to report here I don't have a good idea about where to begin. The last I was posting to this site with any regularity I was living life as an artist on a West Texas ranch working for little pay and trying to upgrade a blown up computer. What since? I took another job with my fiance, got married, had a baby, spent weeks converting an old barn into a studio space out northeast of Austin, TX, worked there until realizing that it was an Agri-Capitalist-Elite-Slavery job that completely sucked 110% of energy to do this and other creative work right out of me, rendering the new space useless! I held on the best I could, but in the end it was my newly wedded wife who brought me to the realization. Where to now? Back out West. But not so far this time. I'm relocated to the region where it all began, just West of San Antonio, baby, wife, and all. Working on another shop to house my endeavors and looking for a job. Maybe the tornado will leave me alone for awhile. This moving around all the time is killing me, makes my eyes really tired... Nomad.

Re Establishing Contact

"ohhHH, The Times They Are A - Changin'"

Dogs outside my window
Cold winter day
Rain drizzes down
Hard,
From time to time.
But, still,
They frolic and play.
Cold Winter Day.

poetry by Justin Warren Graham

Hello, "cookies", in French this means, "Fucker's" with an emphasis on the "er's", and what that means, a reference to you, the reader, it addresses you! Hello, Fucker! How are you!
Memories of a Frenchman I once knew,
And,
Still do
To my friend, Benjamin Marchal;
Eah, fuckeir, how are you?
FROM: Justin in TEXAS.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Children, Friends;
Welcome back. Indeed, the splashing of cold water will shock the body and therefore the mind to places unseen by the imagination. And such things will do by the echoing of life and age. Experience.
I'm wracking up the XP now! The Golden Book of Life declares;
"He who finds a wife, has found a great thing, And obtains favor from the LORD.", (Proverbs 18:22).
And so, I say to you fuckeirs reading this now,
I am married, life has changed muy rapido,
que paso, le bambino?

Blogger's Drought

Well, still no new site for transition. This is still the only place for me on web where writing like this is taking place. I think I would like to have a place to publish all the original pages for my volume's of sketch books from over the years. That is around ten and counting, writing, drawing, free mind rambling. This site is going to be extremely shy on posts this year, my how it has flown by! The last for months, since the July 30 Mongo show, have consisted of a complete life makeover which have frozen all efforts in art. The 2011 ice age. No video's to list either, except this one about some art from the last show...

Anyhow, I got a lot of good responses from this vid, and I'd like to make more, more of everything. I'm just not certain where this road is going as it concerns my art. I know where the art was heading, know exactly what the objectives there are about, subjects, compositions, asthetics. But, the life road is the one I'm fighting against, the world.... hmm, for some reason they have rarely worked together in my case, art making and the path of life. It seems like if you want to be a real artist you have to go live under a bridge and do dope all day, or go 100k into debt to the government and be an art professor, or be filthy rich with nothing in life to worry about. None of these apply to me, at least not right now... but I summarize that any could apply tomorrow. I think the greatest weight I have, is the lack of productivity in the art world does not keep up with the extreme sense of urgency that I carry in my gullet. It creeps up into the bottom of my heart all the time...

Old Static from a Disconnected Television

Power On

Firing up here again. Life? Well, I often refer to the analogy of the whirlwind for good reason. It is the symbolic parody of how my life goes, and lately, the wind has swirled heavily and thrown things far into the air, but not in a terrible fashion. Sometimes, destruction, and chaos are the Almighty's way of correcting things, placing things where they should be in order that they, or them, as in, "His children", may once again be blessed.
My applications in West Texas, Big Bend region, (I always have to clearify because the Texas Panhandle is also West Texas), have been placed in the refridgerator for awhile. Redford was great, and my plans to return there are still high on the futures market of my ambitions, and I had fun in Brewster County, La Frontera (Slaughter) Ranch but it was hard to get paid for work out there. And during the last two years I have been desparate for money, not only to survive and continue making pictures, but to upgrade things needed to continue with computer communications. Those who have followed these writings know this.
Last July I hosted a successful art show in San Marcos called The Sons of Mongo with George Zupp http://www.chickendeadchicken.com/ . It was a boost in confidence and in badly needed sales and public relations. Visit George's website, he has been talking about it a little there...

Since then, I have relocated to Granger, Texas, for a new employment opportunity on a grass fed beef opporation. Yet another barn to convert into a studio.

I'm analyzing the prospects of a new blog site more worthy of paintings, a final output position. I anticipate that I will keep this one alive for writing purposes. Then there is always youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Judadiah?feature=mhee which I find great for documenting and hinting toward the under story of Who.

I've also been tinkering with this possibility: http://www.justin.tv/judadiah It's a streaming site I've been practicing with, however, I'm not happy with the playback quality nor the lack of info provided in order to upgrade... but the idea is kinda there... we will see.

hmm, this site puts me off, it doesn't apply links in the words I write. I might be through here...

Slowly Returning to the Blog

New computer, ladies and gents, therefore I'm relearning everything. Mostly, video production. But, also, I've been producing a bunch of paintings for an art show coming up in San Marcos, Texas on the 30th of July, 2011. It will be a two man show with George Zupp. Also, life is still moving along, still working way out west at La Frontera Ranch, Slaughter ranches inc, in Texas. Happy to be alive, things are going well. Keep reading and subscribe to my video/youtube channel, it's my preferred choice of discussion forums, I hope to branch out into streaming at some point. See you later... click the title for more...

Clear!!!

Well, I took a little vacation from this site. Finally, I acquired the resources to change computer platforms and that has consumed a lot of time. Also, I've been evaluating the progress of this blog as well as others I energize, like facebook and youtube, to determine the future directions of each and how they might one day become integrated.
I'm working on a few projects for other entities I'm involved with, such as La Frontera and the Slaughter Ranch, a Hunting outfit, and of course, A new body of paintings, with a show up and coming in San Marcos July 30th, 2011. There will be more as everything settles and computer files become converted and organized, and new video software learned, but the last three months have been focused on the brush in the paint.

Tell Stories

I'm adding this post on the 31st of March, 011 to try and keep up with a weekly write in here at the Operation. The purpose really is because this has become a live diary of sorts where I talk about my problems and tell my heart to the air, talk about my life and what's happening, anyhow.
Life truly is a roller coaster ride for some, and there is no roller coaster like the one that has no worldly security. Ye-Haw! You never know which way that bull is going to buck, till he's got you on the ground giving you the gore through a kidney.
For the last several years my goals have been to acquire enough stability to keep a studio and make paintings. However, life today makes that really strenuous, there's alomost no real security to be found! Truth is, it has never existed on this earth, short of Adam's fifteen minutes in the Garden of Eden. But, you've got to keep swinging the bat. Tomorrow's the first of April and by then I'll discover weather or not this ranch deal will stick. Meantime, I'm working on some pictures that are about my last few years of experiences, a time when I lept into the void to chase after my goals and dreams, a body of work that reminds me of the art of my youth. It's a lot of fun. I'm doing my best to get some money together for a new computer, a mac! But for now it is only paintings, and I no longer feel comfortable talking about them until the entire body has ran it's course and done. That said, here's a teaser:

Some Kind of Pep Talk

Well, I'm going to run along with this post while I think of a title for it, I'm not exactly sure where to begin with it. I guess it's been about eight or ten days since I've posted to the Operation, lets just say that it has not been my intent to neglect, but the "real-life" situations that I have been experiencing have been a little more than discouraging. And, I know that people of todays time do not care anything about hearing of one's hardships, or struggles, about no matter how much good they want to do or how hard they work and position themselves they just can not seem to get some traction in the world. Hell, I don't even like writing about it; but, my loyalty to persistence demands it, someone out there is listening...

For as much as I try to do right, it seems that I am rewarded with wrong, and my forward progress slides down a slope that takes me further away from my objectives. I often imagine an angel, just swooping down, picking me up and setting me directly on top of my goal. How great would that be? I'll bet that's the refreshment of a winning lottery ticket for those few who are blessed in such a way, or a family trying to have children for years and years then finally she or he is there.
When I rediscovered art at Texas State University in the year 2000, in a basic drawing class, I was in a social pit of despair. I was younger, my mid 20's, and things were comfortable enough to attend a four year college but I was far out of place socially. I didn't fit in with anyone, really, except a few rural folks that I knew who were attending the same school, from the same hometown as me, but a full load of college courses, to keep my financial aid, and 40 hrs a week working, so I could survive, left me with little time at all for them. So, more or less, I was alone. I did a lot of soul searching in this time, I had done a lot of soul searching before my descision to go to college, so when I was at my spiritual low God answered my cries for help with charcoal and graphite, and a semester later, with tubes of paint and some brushes, as were required for the course of color theory.

Things picked up from there. I knew after a year or so that what I was onto was more powerful than anything imaginable. That, in fact, I was involved in the true final frontier, that place as a boy I considered exploring on excursions into the wild countryside, on missions to find new places to go fishing, which amassed mostly to nearby rivers and distant stock tanks on my uncle's Uvalde County farm. Art had been around my whole life. I consider it one of the most consistent things in my life, less God and regular food and water, with the exception of my late teens, when after high school I swore it off, even at the request of many who urged me to continue, declaring, "All I'll ever do with art is struggle at life, and will never have any money or comfort". I remember saying it, and I was right (so far), one of the reasons why I often consider it as a curse. But, in my young adolescence, I could not foresee the nature and importance of it.

Since my studies at the University I have thought rarely about anything but art and it's massive expanse, it's possibilties, the imagination. Over the last ten years I've discovered, taken apart, and reassembled the whys and how to's of why it is that I must find a way to do this, to keep my head up, keep my hands busy, keep my feet and nose on the trail, render this into the realm of reality. At this point I am having such a terribe time at just keeping up with getting myself in the game. I have spent six of the last nine months working to upgrade my conditions, only to face a situation where the rural work I've been doing, and the man I've been doing it for refuses to treat me with any dignity and pay for my wages worked... I can't even get paid! And my last two hundred dollars will leave my bank and go to direct student loans for the time I spent there. At this time my heart is heavey, I feel oppressed, and I'm losing the will to keep up with this, even though the marrow of my bones shutters at the thought, the last reminencse of my existence on this earth says, "You are too great at this to quit, what you have to deliver will stand forever!"
My bones are right. This is my heart and my happiness at stake. This is what I was placed into the earth to accomplish. All of this said in the face of a lifetime of rural poverty, with no visible way out, except through the paint and brushes that is all that I have, that, and these words.

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

"In this day and age, if you are any kind of a self-thinker, then you are a conspiracy theorist..." J.W.G.

I often find myself pondering the obvious while at labor with work. It is during these moments when solutions are realized and become concrete; most often, they occur while tilling in the earth or handling the pigments and soils of which my physical being is comprised. It is much like coming to the most extensive understanding of the complexity of the universe only to realize it's only scribbled notes on a flat, rigid piece of paper.
I think of art and the world of art from top to bottom, about pictures and the people who involve themselves in these matters. By comparison, in a conversation with Andy the day before yesterday, he mentioned to me some of his business competitors and how they would call you up to take you out to lunch and discuss things real friendly like, then twenty minutes after parting, they're on the phone to cut your throat and take your business away. After five o'clock rolls around, they're calling you to meet up for happy hour drinks, all so they can cut your throat at eight o'clock the next morning.

When you gear yourself up as a young man to take on the responsibility of cultivating art into a legacy and fertilize the realm of humanity you had best understand that the floor under your feet is primarily swamp, and flooded with venomous snakes and hungry crocodiles, reptiles that spew forth the same type of shallow behavior and treachery, mouths full of bacteria. Fortunately, and to the Glory of the LORD of Hosts, this is just the fight I seek. I'm looking for the ultimate place to puke God's own hellfire justice upon the most crude of areas infected by loathsome slothful debauchery. Like hydrogen peroxide on an infected wound, herbicide, pesticide, the ring out shots of warfare against the wicked leaderships. I seek to take the entire grounds of the places of all art and it's people that are not already solidified into history and drive across it with a chariot machine, a craftsman tiller, and turn it's place of soil over and upside
down. Right it, rid it of the weeds and parasites that mean to destroy the beauty and lavish life giving prosperity of the garden itself, calling the action, "ART", a movement I refer to as Negetism, or a period when the wicked constitutions of the world prosper over the good. An inversion of proper subconcious into the dominion of the abyssal.
My intent: Invite and reintroduce an establishment of art cultivation that will ultimately clash with the dominant, "wicked rules" mentality that sickens and hinders, beckons The Pale Horse.
Shoot, what am I talking about? That's me...



I've got to go get my cookies out of the oven. No irrigation gets done without some fresh cookies.