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My friend Ole Brodersen is living  On A Boat. For reals though (minus T Payne). He and a crew of his Norwegian comrades set sail from their native land last August in a wooden sailboat, with a history of over a hundred years. Ole is an amazing photographer and shot the below shots throughout their trip. I was able to catch up with the crew for a few days as our time overlapped in New York. A large group of jealous friends wished the Norwegians farewell one evening on the Hudson river, as we sang songs with gusto, shared stories with fervor, and wished the night would last forever. Ole and cronies are currently sailing home across the Atlantic, which they estimate will take them roughly 2 months in their vessel. I will update and have Ole share some more photos and a story or two of their travels. But for now, here is a snapshot to wet your pallet, and cultivate some wanderlust.

I just got back from two amazing and inspiring weeks in New york.

I went to interview a cadre of creatives that are shaping the culture of today, modern day heretics if you will, paving their own way in the modern world.

David Ellis , Oliver Vernon, Nicola Lopez, Jacob Feige, Gaia, Ira Lippke, Jimmy Fontaine, Nini Ordoubadi, David Graves

These photos are an amalgamation of some of the things that went down during the trip.

Includes but not limited to: Bagels. Art. Interviews. Beer. Sailboats. Street Art. Honeybees. Coffee. Bike Polo. Whiskey. Tea. Norwegians.

Shot from the new High Line Park.

David Ellis creative den.

Oliver Vernon’s work space. Below is a piece his father made years ago.

Traffic Jam.

Had some tea time with Nini Ordoubadi in here resplendent home.

Nini’s gallimaufry of selected teas.

Gaia had some fresh pieces he was finishing for a show in DC.

Nicola Lopez’s fabulous studio space tucked somewhere very tricky to find in BRKLYN.

Bike Polo Sundays at the park in L.E.S.

David Graves is a beekeeper who uses space on top of buildings throughout the city to cultivate his honey harvest. 50,000 bees in this one location!

The next generation of bike polo enthusiasts.

Haha really?

A great piece my bud Connor Harrington did in Meatpacking District.

Ole and Jrob.

Some friends from Norway are sailing around the world and they were in NY the same time as I, and we had a farewell shindig to wish them a safe journey back home.

Priceless.

Just posted a couple of new posters in the Newport Beach area. Enjoy, and stay thirsty my friends.

INSPIRE.

Words of wisdom for the week:

“Hard times should not encourage conservatism and retrenchment, but greater experimentation.”

Below is a series of appropriated posters that I painted over and reinstalled into bus stops. These are the first posters to hit the streets in an ongoing experimental campaign to raise cognitive awareness and more importantly to inspire benevolent action that we often forget, oversee, or might be in opposition to our often hedonistic culture. These first batch of posters can be found in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. More to come. Many more.

PATIENCE. On 17th St. at Orange Ave intersection in Costa Mesa.

Andy Warhol once said ” I dropped something today and it broke, and it made me want to drop something once a week to remind me how fragile life is.” Last week I laid on the beach thinking about this quote amongst many other things, during the 20 minutes that I lay in excruciating pain on the beach staring at the overcast sky. I injured my back while surfing, landing on my board upside down on the lower part of my back, and could barely walk for a couple days thereafter. Subsequent to this I have been so thankful that I can walk, ride a bike, play tennis, paint, etc. It always fascinates me that it takes something bad to happen, in order to realize the good things in life that I often take for granted. Anyway, it has been a while, here is a bit of what I have been up to.

I finished this piece of Three 3 foot triangles, each representing a country that I visited in Asia, Thailand, Viet Nam and Indonesia.

A couple weeks ago I interviewed the very talented art duo Connor Harrington and Chloe Early the day before their fist solo show in the US, at Kinsey Desforges gallery in Culver City. Connor and Chloe are of Irish descent, and both now residing in London are at the forefront of the British cadre of artists.  We sat in the hot sun on the roof as Connor frantically worked on a wall mural. Both interviews are for the coffee table book I am working on, but here are some photos below to show their talent.

Chloe’s somnambulant yet lucid landscapes.

Connor’s visual battlegrounds of masculinity in the modern world.

Thanks to all of you who were able to make it out to the opening reception of my solo show in Laguna Beach on Saturday evening.

The turnout was great to say the least, and the night was filled with martinis, laughter, art, music, and lots of friends. Here are some photos of the evening.

If you were unable to make it, feel free to drop by Skylab Gallery M-F between 10Am-5PM. There will be a closing reception held on May 7th, during the monthly art walk in Laguna, so feel free to come and celebrate that night as well.

Words for the week: The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take direction as it wishes, undirected and unencumbered.

All photos by Sir Braedon Flynn (thanks Brady!)

I currently have paint all over me and smell like resin, and probably will till this weekend.

I have a solo art show in Laguna Beach this Saturday night.

Come one come all! Hope to see you there.

Rarely do I put things like this up, but this is indeed a necessity. This post is more of a journal entry, than a blog, but nonetheless I hope you enjoy it . I have been so inspired and deeply moved by the short but very intense life of Dan Eldon that I wanted to share a bit about his life with you.

Dan was a shooting star in the sky, there for a moment for all to see then quickly fading away, left everyone breath taken. Growing up in Kenya, Dan was the son of an American mother and a English father, wildly exploring and getting lost in Africa. With studies and traveling taking him to countless foreign lands, Dan quickly crafted a philosophy of curiosity, creativity, adventure, and compassion. At the young age of 19 he led a group of 14 of his peers through sub-Saharan Africa to deliver money they had raised to a refugee camp. Dan’s mantra for life was “The journey is the destination” and “Safari as a way of life.” Just shy of his 23rd birthday Dan had traveled to more than 40 countries, and been recognized as the youngest Routers photographer ever, helping to alert the world of the tragic famine in Somalia. Dan was a chaotic mix of talents, moods and destinations, which is obvious by looking at images of any of his journals. At a young age Dan began to take a journal with him everywhere. The sudden end of Dans light came as a brutal reminder to those who knew and loved him-that life is precious, and sometimes, far too short.

Dan was stoned to death while working in Somalia during the civil war in 93. He was making his way through the streets of Mogadishu to the suspected headquarters of a Somali warlord where scores of people had just been killed in a bombing by United Nations forces. There, amid the rubble, he and three other journalists were set upon by an enraged mob and stoned to death.

Dan’s family and friends found solace in his thousands of photographs and especially in his journals. In 17 scrapbooks Mr. Eldon had created meticulous collages of the adventures and passions of his teenage and young adult years growing into a man who saw his camera work as a quest for justice.

That same year Dan’s sister, Amy, filmed a documentary, “Dying to Tell the Story,” in which she traveled to the scene of her brother’s death in Mogadishu and interviewed journalists who had worked with him. “I needed to stare down the darkness I was facing,” she said.

A year later Kathy and Amy Eldon founded the Creative Visions Foundation to provide support to activists “who use media, the arts and technology to inform, inspire and empower others.” They donated the journals to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but when the museum said it intended to p

lace the works in its archives, Kathy asked for them back.

“I didn’t want the journals to be hidden and preserved for a hundred years at the cost of people being inspired and energized,” she said. In December 2005 she agreed to let Lisa Candela, a photographer who had been struck by Mr. Eldon’s work, organize a small show of the pages in New York.

Ms. Candela said, “Dan’s story was what I was searching for in myself — the journey, the humanitarian, the living life fearlessly.” She received 350 rolls of Mr. Eldon’s film from his father, Mike, who is divorced from Kathy Eldon and lives in Kenya, and spent the next few months scanning each journal and photograph.

She set aside his edited proof sheets and made new ones from his negatives. “I wanted to test myself,” Ms. Candela said. “I wanted to see if I was the eye to be selecting his images.”

“To laugh and love much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to leave the world a better place, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
That is to have succeeded.”

I wrote this in my journal a couple of years ago after reading Dans story in the book ” Dan Eldon: The art of Life”, in one sitting.

So moved by a man i have never met…

So intoxicating are the stories yet so sobering is the truth. He would have wanted it to end no other way; to go out like a shining star with everyone gazing in perplexity and utter fascination. Leaving those behind with self examination, questioning their purpose and life, in a life lived so commonplace. He would have wanted them to think, realize and compromise no more with the beauracracies of living the normal modern life. I cried as if I was with him when he was killed, imagining the blood shed, the chaos, the misunderstanding, the barbaricness of mankind. So motivating is his story, known only by a few, that of which are left with clearer minds of their hopes, passions, and deepest desires brought to the surface and never to sink again, but to live like he did. So I hope I can also live out my dreams like he did, and when I pass, my story to carry on and inspire others, to do as their hearts desire. No holds bar. Live like you mean it. After all the journey is the destination.

Lots of good stuff coming up for the month of April. The first event is a group art show to benefit an amazing non profit called Global Colors. This benevolent art show is put on by 2 of my closest cronies on April 4th from 8-11pm in downtown LA. I am greatly obliged to be one of the 5 artist’s featured in this show, and will have some new works up, so come check it out and learn about guerrilla aid is all about.

But tickets at www.wearesewcreative.com.