Bas Jan was lost at sea filming one of his movies. The boat was found, but no body.
The picture must radiate light, the bodies have their own light which they consume to live; they burn, they are not lit from outside.
Egon Schiele
I don’t know why this particular painting is so ingrained in my memory. It is almost as if my first memory was of seeing this painting in a museum. So much of my early life was spent in a museum with my mom. I lived inside this desert and the gypsy was related to me and the lion lurked around in the night like the omnipresent darkness and danger of my imagination; its yellow eyes pierced mine in a primordial familiar gaze. I heard the sounds of her mandolin and I could feel the warm desert night air stirring in my fists full of warm sand. I don’t know if it was my imagination on fire or that somehow Henri Rousseau simply painted a perfect snapshot of my past life.


Thank you Matt for the wonderful painting – now hanging above my desk.

A selection from tattoo/graph artist Mike Giant’s “Las Chicas de Burque” series. I walked into his new studio in San Francisco a few months back and handed him a link to this blog after having a very small conversation. Maybe he’ll find this post. I asked him if he still tattoos and he told me told me no way – only finishing up what he’s done on friends.










