–Kate Watson, …mightbegood

So the story goes like this. When my father, Jim Brown, who was the first in our family to go to college, took off for school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and during his time in college, gave away all of his childhood toys in an attempt to be an adult. He married my mom, Sara, in 1963, and they gave birth to me in Tulsa in September of 1968.

In 1972, at the age of 32, Dad went to a used book store sale at a local private school. It was there he found a book he had loved as a kid, called “Gene Autry and the Thief River Outlaws,” and he bought it for a dime. He was happy to reconnect with his past, and the idea of getting something so dear to him for so cheap a price was really appealing to him.

It was around this time that the Tulsa County Flea Market started about a mile from our home.

From that point on, my Dad was hooked, and Mom was an active accomplice. They filled our house with furniture, wall hangings, and porcelain product signs, the latter of which my dad was particuarly interested. In what was probably a monumental find for the both of them, they contacted and were given access to their childhood soda fountain, called the Crystal Palace in Muskogee, Oklahoma. I grew up around a lot of memorabilia from the Crystal Palace.

We would normally go back to my father’s hometown of Harrison, Arkansas every summer for at least a little while to visit my Great Grandmother Clara Belle Duckworth, who was still living there. Junk malls would be everywhere along the way, and the normally three and half hour trip would sometimes take eight. Initially, I was miserable waiting in the car while Mom, Dad and sister worked bargains. But then I got it: start collecting, and get out of the car and start looking around for bargains instead of staying in the car and sulking. Baseball Cards were my first love, and then antique dogs, and then stamps, and then Batman memoribilia, then vinyl LPs, then musical instruments, then antique postcards, and all through this time, action figures and figurines.

“Generations” is an antique mall in Tulsa where my father has a booth currently. Yep, I stole the name of the mall for my show, but the owners of the mall didn’t even name it themselves- it’s from the previous business, which was an antique furniture store. They merely covered parts of the outside sign with a banner that has new contact information, and kept the previous name in tact. Like the title, everything in this show is borrowed; the only thing I’ve done is rearrange it.

The Sports Center- My first big dream was to be a pitcher in the big leagues. This was obviously not to be. After a little league game that had me walking in seven runs as the pitcher, I learned that you can’t be anything you want to be in this world. I still had a glorious vicarious season in 1979 as a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who ended up being World Champs that year. Being in Tulsa, I didn’t really feel geographic affinity for any major league club, so I just went with who my older cousin liked.

Dog Sculpture- Like my Dad, I’m a big fan of dogs, especially when I was a kid. In one of those short-lived obsessions, between the ages of ten and twelve I collected completely worthless Dog figurines that I would arrange in type trays in my bedroom. Until recently, I kept them wrapped in yellowed newspapers dating back to the Iran Hostage Crisis. I always wondered why I never got rid of them. I guess it was because I was going to build this.

Action Figure Pyramid-With action figures, as well as a lot of the toys I had, the more beloved they were, the more obliterated they ended up being. Some of my favorite toys were played right out of existence. Here are all that remain.

American Flag- Sewed by a Great Aunt, but I don’t know who. Forty eight stars, so it must be before 1959.

Mad Magazine Paperbacks- These paperbacks were presented en masse by my father to my sister and I before we took a long road trip to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico sometime in the late seventies. I remember my father saying that it was an 800 mile trip, and for my sister and I, this was plenty of time to thoroughly loathe and despise each other. But on this trip, Dad gave us the paperbacks, and instead of the requisite yelling and screaming, we shared laughs. Stroke of genius.

Lunch Boxes- All used in elementary school. On the bottom of each one there are two parallel marks that are rubbed down to the metal. This is from the practice we as kids had of sliding our lunches down the long hall to the cafeteria to see who could get closest to the hand washing we would do before standing in line for lunch.

Cancelled Stamps- My Aunt Mary, who was my Grandmother Cranks’s sister, was a little kookie and even though she was a very dynamic personality in her youth, I only remember her as a perpetually miserable person with clinical hypochondria. I didn’t like to visit her unbelievably messy house in Muskogee, but when I did, she would give me a letter envelope filled with cancelled stamps she collected for me. I never had the heart to tell her that cancelled stamps weren’t worth anything. Here they are collected in a tribute mandala to Mary.

On the Table:

Navaho Blanket- bought by my parents while they were teaching on the Navaho Reservation North of Gallup, New Mexico, sometime between 1963-1967. I’d like to believe I was conceived on the reservation, but my Dad doesn’t agree with that assertion- more than likely, it happened in their small apartment in Gallup. The moved back to Oklahoma soon after my mom learned of her pregnancy.

Dictionary- owned by my Grandmother, Ruth Crank, a public school teacher who kept it in every classroom she taught, Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Candy Dish with Assorted Buttons, Safety Pins, and Sewing Needles- owned by my mother, Sara Brown when she died in 1999, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Electric Lantern- Used by my grandfather, James Alexander Brown, when he was a Conductor for the Midland Valley Railroad, 1970s, Muskogee, OK.

So far, there’s been a few local articles written about it:

Austin American-Statesman

and

…might be good

and, finally my friends Zach McDonald and Matthew Rodriguez did this awesomely hilarious coverage on their art blog Circus Gold.

The show will be running for a couple of more weeks, so please come see it before it comes down. I’m happy to open up the gallery if you cannot make it there during regular hours, so please contact me at unotito (at) gmail.com

April 18th, 2009- May 23rd, 2009
Opening reception Saturday, April 18th, 7-10pm
Regular Gallery Hours: Wednesday 7-9pm, Saturday 12-5pm

Okay Mountain
1312 E. Cesar Chavez Ste B (entrance on Navasota Street)
Austin Tx 78702

Artists featured:

Poklong Anading
Bea Camacho
Mariano Ching
Lena Cobangbang
Louie Cordero
Romeo Lee
Kaloy Olavides
Gary-Ross Pastrana
MM Yu

Bayanihan, the fourth installment of our international “No American Talent” series, is a new show of artists from the Philippines curated by Mountaineer Tim Brown. The title refers to a term with many meanings- Bayanihan can be a place, like a town, state or nation, but it can also be a spirit of community shared between people that literally means “being a hero to one another.” In this show, we present a varied group of 9 emerging artists who address this complex word and the relationship they share with their families, their city, their country, and each other.

The show involved a three-cubicle installation, one large painting of 200 portraits, a grid of sixteen log book sketches I had drawn as I spoke to Houstonians on the phone, and recordings of some of the phone calls I had taken over the two month period.

Here’s the show statement:

As with everything, this show started small. There I sat , in Austin, summer of 2003, hunched over a cubicle at a dead-end call center job, drawing pictures of tombstones on Post-it Notes while I talked with people about cancer. I was miserable.

Then I took a call from a woman in Dallas. A Talker. A gum-smacking Talker who would not shut up. I’m a extremely patient listener, but this woman was driving me up the wall. I picked up a pen and drew a woman with a big mouth, then I drew another woman with a bigger mouth, then a bigger mouth. The more she talked, the more I drew, and the bigger her damn mouth became. It made me happy, like I was controlling the exchange somehow. We ended the call, and I had a drawing.

My next day off, I bought a sketchbook and a couple of black felt tip pens. I drew a grid of eight rectangles on the page, and whenever I had a chance during one of the 35 or more calls I took a day, I drew what I thought the caller looked like on the other side of the line and noted the city from which they called. When I finally quit my job six months later, I had two hundred and fifty portraits. The large painting here is the culmination of that sketchbook series.

At some point, I realized that talking to strangers wasn’t the reason I was miserable at my call center job. I was miserable because my job dictated what I had to talk about, and that meant not being myself. What if I removed all of the “jobbiness” of taking calls from the public and just interacted with strangers with my own rules? Nothing to sell, nothing to say, no agenda, no answers, no questions, no needs, and no rules. What would that feel like?

The Listening Post was born. For the last two months, I’ve advertised a toll free number with a variety of messages in the Houston Press and on Craigslist. I’ve gotten quite a few calls, and have drawn portraits of the callers and taken notes during our interactions. For about a month now, I have recorded our conversations (with their consent) and I’ve realized that The Listening Post isn’t just an intake process- it’s also a performance.

People like to think that they need an expert to figure things out for them. I do- that’s why I listen to Fresh Air and watch Judge Judy and pay for someone to do my taxes. But after having talked through a lot of problems with people these last two months, I think all we really need is to have someone listening.

If you need to talk, I want to listen. 1-877-EARS KNOW.

Well, I’ve staying pretty busy like, with little shows here and there, and larger ones looming in the not so distant future. Currently, I just did a little project for Pump Project in Austin, a show called “Little Things,” and I also have a few works available like Mr.Sleepy God over there to your left at Arthouse’s “5×7″show here in Austin. Check it out soon – I think it goes down on June 3rd.

The most exciting thing that’s happened is that the Okay Mountain collaborative project that we’ve been rocking since November of last year is going international, with two shows happening in Mexico City this year, one currently at the Galería Enrique Guerrero and another in November 2007. This show was made possible by a connection from our wayward Egyptian buddy Basim Magdy, who was the last show at the Mountain. For proof of our artwork’s frequent flyer miles and further proof of a burgeoning international hipster monoculture, mira and click on the link that says pics

June should bring the months-in-the making new show at l_m_n_l gallery in downtown Austin that features a collaboration between myself, Lance McMahan, Bill Ivey, Dennis Hodges (he’s currently in the “Ketchup Loves Hotdog” show, and Enoch Rios, so keep your eyes peeled and your ears pricked up for that one. Did I just say that?

Chris Cogburn, my friend and percussionist/ organizer of the “No Idea Festival,” a four-night festival of Creative Improvisational Music that happened a couple of weeks ago in Austin and San Antonio, has sent me this link to his personal coverage of the event, including a few choice flix of my work in Okay Mountain, the host gallery for one night of performances. To check out the entire photoset go here to Chris’ Flickr account.

Just wanted to show the piece I sold for Get Loose for a Toof, Adam Green’s grill benefit held yesterday at Terrible One– it’s done on the top of a washboard owned by my GreatGrandmother Duckworth who lived in Harrison, Arkansas. I had been looking at that piece for a long time, but it took Adam coming over to really light the fire for me to actually do it. I’m glad it finally got done, and hopefully Adam made a scad of money with the benefit– Here’s to your shiny new chompers, braza!

Being ever the synergistic marketer, Jenny proposed a how-to article for the inaugural issue of Craft Magazine, a cousin to Make Magazine. If you go to this link and click on the part of the cover in the upper right hand corner that says “Embroider Your Skateboard,” you’ll catch a glimpse of one of my beamin’ clouds on the deck.

My friends at l_m_n_l in downtown Austin are puttin’ on what looks to be a great show this Sunday.

check out this incredible space if you haven’t already, and check back for updates on their upcoming shows.

Tim

Hey magic campers,

Here’s an announcement for a one-night show that I will be in with some friends,– the Silent Auction will be a chance to get great art at a reasonable price, and the artists will pick up all the cash– God Bless Mike Parsons, who curated the whole thing.

I will be selling three of my portrait pieces (see Strong Senders) in a larger format. I’m really excited about showing them, so I hope you can make it.

If you are not familiar with the Silent Auction format, basically you will be able to make a bid higher than the starting price on any piece in the show. At the end of the night, the person with the highest bid wins and takes it home with them. Exciting instant gratification!

Featured Artists:
Sandy Carson, Tom Sutherland, Jim Keating, Josh Rios, Tim Brown, Brandon Ziskind, Paul Fucik, Matt Rodriguez, Rachel Koper, Cory Hohnstoon, Gilbert Pena, Mike Parsons, Chrissy Paszalek, Paul Adam, Ryan Weibust, Michael Sieben.

The Auction will be hosted by Tom Sutherland.

Where: 2109 E.M. Frankling in Austin

When: Saturday, June 17th, 7-12 pm