Theory Magazine Issue Two

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Look for THEORY MAGAZINE / ISSUE THREE December 2012 4

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THEORY MAGAZINE / TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME ONE / ISSUE TWO / SUMMER 2012

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FINE ARTS

NUMBERS

Rollin Beamish Building incredibly detailed and sculptural drawings with geo-political implications.

The Number Five

Francesco Gillia Crafting massive oil paintings of mysteriously cropped nude human forms.

Jade Lowder Exploring the apocalypse and questioning our own perceptions of reality, on canvas.

Jesse Albrecht Sharing the experience of an Iraq war veteran through photography and art.

Napping Artist Bringing you to colorful, fun worlds of elegant beauty and monstrous fear.

Jonathan Raney Reviving traditions of art history and craftsmanship in the modern era.

WRITING The Meadow On The Other Side

by Adam Shwankl Excerpt from Poetry And Other Crimes

by Seamas Navarro Two Poems

by Jeff Hallsten PHOTOGRAPHY Graeme MacPherson Capturing stylistic images of the scenes that humans create through abandonment.

Max Lowe Exhibiting a sliver of life in India through the lense of a western traveller.

WORDS AND PICTURES The Wondrous World of Weed

by Tammi Heneveld theory-magazine.com 5

THEORY MAGAZINE / STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS Staff Editor In Chief Brian Thabault brian@theory-magazine.com

Ben Lardy benlardydesign.com benlardyseven@live.com

Executive Editor Ashley Moon moon@theory-magazine.com

Rollin Beamish rollinbeamish.com rollin.beamish@exchange.montana.edu

Copy Editors / Proofers

Francesco Gillia francescogillia.com info@francescogillia.com

LeAnne Williams Linda Locke Kenneth Johnson Tammi Heneveld Eric Carlson THEORY MAGAZINE 105 N. 10th Ave Bozeman Montana 59715 802-318-1803

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Submissions Theory Magazine is currently accepting submissions of art, photography, cartoons, music, films and writing.

Visit theory-magazine.com/submissions or email submissions@theory-magazine.com

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Jade Lowder jadelowder.tumblr.com jadellowder@gmail.com Adam Shwankl adamschwankl.com adamschwankl@yahoo.com Eleanor Bennet eleanorleonnebennett.zenfolio.com eleanor.ellieonline@gmail.com Jesse Albrecht paintallica.com jesse.albrecht@gmail.com Napping Artist (Mindy Bechtell) etsy.com/people/NappingArtist itscalledart@gmail.com Jonathan Raney jonathanraney.weebly.com jonathanraney@hotmail.com

Theory Magazine has reasonably priced advertising opportunities for print and web.

Graeme MacPherson flickr.com/gmacmt bozemanskier@gmail.com

Visit theory-magazine.com/advertising or email ads@theory-magazine.com for more information.

Max Lowe maxlowemedia.com maxlowemedia@gmail.com

Printed By: Executive Mailing Services 221 East Mendenhall Street Bozeman, Montana 59715 406.586.2600 data@execservmail.com

Special Thanks To: All the artists and contributors, Everyone who pre-ordered this issue and donated money at the fundraiser party. Lindsay Minnich, Benny Barret and the staff at Tonic Hair Salon for hosting the fundraiser party. Katie Wing and the staff at The Loft Spa for hosting our launch party. All of the great local businesses who advertise with Theory. Big thanks to all our friends and family for your unwavering support. Cheers!

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Contributors

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Seamas Navarro thebeatmuseum.com Jeff Hallsten jmh374215@gmail.com Corrine Perry corrineperry.co.uk corinneperry@hotmail.co.uk Tammi Heneveld tammi-heneveld.com tammi.heneveld@gmail.com

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Theory Magazine has grown in the last few months. This second issue has twenty more pages than our first issue. The print volume has also increased from 100 to 250 copies printed.

This increase has come at a financial cost, however due to the support of our advertisers and those who purchase copies, Theory Magazine comes close to breaking even financially.

With issue three in it’s beginning stages, we are already looking ahead to it’s release. We hope to extend the growth of the magazine again, and to do this we will need more support from the community. If you, or your business is interested in advertisement opportunities, or becoming an underwriter, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We have ad rates ranging from $50 to $500 and also accept donations and trades.

It has become clear that there are more than enough talented contemporary artists in the Bozeman area to fill our magazine’s pages.

The support and recognition that the magazine has been receiving in the art communities of Bozeman has been incredible. Our aim is to continue to shine light on these communities, and in turn, bring them closer together.

Bozeman and the surrounding areas are at an artistic tipping point. There has been a steep rise in the last year or so of contemporary art based communities springing up and taking shape. We at Theory Magazine are thrilled to be a part of this movement, and to document it as it unfolds.

The Theory Magazine staff along with our long list of contributors have put an immense amount of time and effort into this issue. We hope you enjoy!

Brian Thabault Editor In Chief

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FIVE is the natural number following 4 and

FIVE-STAR RANK is a widely-used term derived from the United

preceding 6. It is equivalent to the sum of

States military description for a general or admiral whose badge of

two and three; one more than four, or half

rank is designated by five stars. The rank is that of the most senior

of ten.

operational military commanders.

THE PENTAGON is the headquarters of the United States

PENTAMERISM is a variant of radial symmetry that

Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia.

arranges roughly equal parts around a central axis

As a symbol of the U.S. military, “the Pentagon” is often used

at orientations of 72° apart. Members of the phylum

metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than

Echinodermata (such as sea stars, sea urchins, and

the building itself.

sea lilies) have parts arranged around the axis of the mouth in five equal sectors. Flowering plants demonstrate symmetry of five more frequently than any other form. Various fruits also demonstrate pentamerism, a good example of which is seen in the arrangement of the seed carpels in an apple.

FIVE-O is a slang term short for police officers. It originated from the TV show Hawaii 5-0 which was a cop show in the 1970’s. Hawaii is the 50th state, hence the nickname “5-0”.

Hotel rating is defined by using a FIVE-STAR system.

Classifications are: Tourist Standard Comfort First Class Luxury

FIVE is the first good prime. It is an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form. It is also the only number that is part of more than one pair of twin primes. Five is conjectured to be the only odd untouchable number and if this is the case then five will be the only odd prime number that is not the base of an aliquot tree.

5 IS THE FIFTH Fibonacci number, being 2 plus 3. 5 is also a Pell number and a Markov number, appearing in solutions to the Markov Diophantine A FIFTH IS A MUSICAL INTERVAL encompassing five staff positions and the perfect fifth (often abbreviated P5) is a fifth spanning seven semitones, or in meantone, four diatonic semitones and three

equation. Whereas 5 is unique in the Fibonacci sequence, in the Perrin sequence 5 is both the fifth and sixth Perrin numbers.

chromatic semitones.

Modern musical notation uses a musical staff made

While all graphs with 4 or fewer vertices are planar, there exists a

of FIVE HORIZONTAL LINES.

graph with 5 VERTICES which is not planar: K5,

the complete

graph with 5 vertices.

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THE HIGH FIVE is a celebratory

IAMBIC PENTAMETER (Meaning to have five

hand gesture that occurs when two

iambs) is a commonly used metrical line in traditional

people simultaneously raise one

verse and verse drama. The term describes the

hand, about head high, and push,

particular rhythm that the words establish in that line.

slide or slap the flat of their palm and

That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables;

hand against the palm and flat hand

these small groups of syllables are called “feet”.

of their partner. The gesture is often

The word “iambic” describes the type of foot that is

preceded verbally by the phrase

used. The word “pentameter” indicates that a line

“Give me five” or “High five”.

has five of these “feet.”

There are FIVE PLATONIC SOLIDS; their names are derived from their numbers of faces. In Euclidean geometry, a Platonic solid is a regular, convex polyhedron. The faces are congruent, regular polygons, with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex.

The Roman Numeral for FIVE is the Latin letter V

Tetrahedron

Hexahedron

Octahedron

Dodecahedron

Icosahedron

(four faces)

(six faces)

(eight faces)

(twelve faces)

(twenty faces)

THE FIVE MINDFULNESS TRAININGS represent the

Made of FIVE INTERLACED IRREGULAR

Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic. They are

NONAGONS INSIDE A PENTAGON. The

a concrete expression of the Buddha’s teachings on the

knot-theoretic link is found on page 00043 of

Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the path

Principia Discordia.

of right understanding and true love, leading to healing, transformation, and happiness

for ourselves and for the

world.

1. Reverence For Life 2. True Happiness 3. True Love 4. Loving Speech and Deep Listening

MUSLIMS PRAY TO ALLAH FIVE TIMES A

THE LAW OF FIVES

DAY. There are five basic “pillars” of Islam.

“All things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of

1. The Shahada (Islamic creed)

five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5. The

2. Daily Prayers (Salat)

Law of Fives is never wrong.”

3. Fasting during Ramadan (Sawm) 4. Almsgiving (Zakãt) 5. The pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) at Least once in a lifetime.

Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00016 At its basic level, the Law of Fives is a practical demonstration that perception is intent-sensitive; that is, the perceiver’s intentions inform the perception.

The Torah contains FIVE BOOKS, Genesis, Exodus,

THE FIVE-SECOND RULE, a common superstition, states

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy which are

that food dropped on the ground will not be contaminated with

collectively called the Five Books of Moses, the

bacteria if it is picked up within five seconds of being dropped.

Pentateuch (Greek for “five containers”), or Humash (Hebrew for “fifth”).

SATANISTS USE A PENTAGRAM with two points up, often inscribed in a double circle, with the head of a goat inside the pentagram. This is referred to as the Sigil of Baphomet.

They use it much the same way as the Pythagoreans, as Tartaros literally translates from Greek as a “Pit” or “Void” in Christian terminology (the word is used as such in the Bible, referring to the place where the fallen angels are fettered).

The Pythagorean Greek letters are most often replaced by the Hebrew letters that form the name Leviathan.

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ROLLIN BEAMISH How did the idea for this body of work initially come about?

Well, it started with an idea of thinking about people that are not well known, but are somehow interesting. I feel like they need to be portrayed in some way. There is so much dross in the cult of personality where peoples images are circulated everywhere. The people that are just pure celebrity, like Kim Kardashian. They are just an empty signifier. So, this started as this kind of weird interest in portraying people. I started out with Doug Koe, who is the leader of this psuedo-religious political activist group referred to eerily as The Family. Author and investigative reporter Jeff Sharlette wrote a good book on him. Doug Coe has this super capitalist ideology where he takes a Madisonian notion that elites should govern – like the stupid masses don’t know so they must believe – that whole thing. He takes that a step further and adds this pseudo-Christian vibe to it. Madison was coming out of the enlightenment era and felt people should be governed, and that our so-called democracy in the states was constructed with the mindset of keeping the money and land owners in control, since those were the guys who could vote and influence policy. Coe has similar ideas, he believes that the elite should lead, but he adds this twist where the elite have been put in the position of power for a reason. He called it “Jesus Plus Nothing,” I think. It’s the idea that if you are wealthy or successful, then it’s somehow God’s will. You hear the same story over and over again. This is the guy that organized the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, which every president since Nixon has attended. It’s kind of a bi-partisan representation, George W. Bush was a member who participated in the prayer breakfast, as was Al Gore.

So you don’t necessarily agree with all of your subjects political positions?

That’s a very important point actually. I have certain people that I consider heroes, but I select my subjects based on whether or not their perspectives are powerful, interesting or compelling. My subjects aren’t unknown, but it’s important to me that these people don’t exist in the cult of personality. I don’t want a generally a priori identification with their features, because they potentially function as ciphers, or just nobodies. I’m also interested in trying to begin to think about where we are culturally and politically right now. It’s completely overwhelming. We are in an ostensibly free society, but the amount of leg work required to actually find real perspectives is pretty daunting.

So this series has been in some ways an attempt to deal with that shortfall and also to put an element of unsettling intimacy in the pieces.

That’s why I draw them the way that I do.

It is an ambitious project. What is the significance behind the number of works you chose to create?

Well my bare minimum is fifty and I’m thinking

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that 52 could be interesting – a deck of cards.

It could have some interesting allusions, particularly to the pack of 52 terrorists that the U.S. government uses. My intention is to get to at least 50 before I stop or move on to other projects. I have an adjacent series that I refer to as the Post-Human series. They are not part of the 50, but it was definitely an attempt to address ideas that had come about as a result of working on this portrait project.

As an artist, do you feel that you have any social responsibilities in today’s society?

I wouldn’t say a social responsibility in the sense of pure didactic activism. I believe that art is a pretty general term and I would associate theory, philosophy, art and music together. Art always has a risk of being interpreted and tooled by

How do you envision that this series will be displayed once it is completed? Will you integrate the post-human series with the portraits?

I would like to. I think there is a lot of sympatico elements to them. My gallerist in Berlin and I have had a couple of arguments about this, not adversarial, but he’s a little worried that the integration will confuse the issue. I don’t really mind if it makes it more complex. Part of the post-human series is to draw fictional characters from films. That’s interesting to me, to mix fictional characters with the real: the idea of who’s who, what’s the didactic bit of trivia, propaganda or documentation and what’s just a complete construct. Also, part of the post-human material is unidentified dead.

There is this idea of the incommensurability of what we can do as Westerners with these images that come to us. We see this image of a brutalized, torn apart dead body from some conflict somewhere else, and we have this vague notion that our government is somehow involved.

There is this weird disconnect of what you do with it. Along those lines, I’m very interested and influenced by Judith Butler and her more recent work about what constitutes grievable subjects within culture. She asks some really interesting questions about images of death and how we deal with that kind of ethics.

Nuevo Laredo, Post-Human Series Graphite On Paper, 2010

Well I guess I’d be more interested in hearing someone’s opinion regarding if what I’m doing is murder porn. That, to me, is a pretty extreme concept. I feel like I’m definitely walking a fine line there. With language, if somebody is offended by “fuck,” then you are dealing with, if not already a complete idiot, then somebody who is moving in that direction. If that’s the reason my work couldn’t be shown somewhere, then I certainly wouldn’t edit myself to make that possible. The ethics of who I’m depicting, and how I’m using that image is a more interesting question.

So what’s worse? writing “fuck,” or drawing somebody with their brains blown out?

Gorgon Series, Installation, Greusslich Contemporary, Berlin, 2011

To me there is always a level of distortion that happens that isn’t photorealism; I’m not trying to mimic the effects of a lens. people in power for propagandistic purposes.

Philosophical theory, like that of Deleuze, for example, has been used in military and extreme capitalists theorizations which are completely antithetical to his theory. Palestinian houses being bulldozed by Israelites, for example, is somehow an application of Deleuzian military theory. Misapplication is a big danger. I feel like the responsibility for artists is, instead of staging specific sort of policy solutions to problems, our role is more along the lines of framing questions in order to provide an assessment for where we are and where we might go. I think that is the ultimate responsibility. I feel like activism is inherently useless on a level of pure Western pragmatic function, especially capitalist pragmatism. I don’t feel that asking questions in new ways is useless. That is what I see our function as. If we do have a responsibility, it is to try as hard as we can to avoid the misapplication of what we make. For instance, if the work is presented in a way that is problematic for the original intentions of the work, or if it’s being manipulated to support “unethical” stuff, then that’s where we should put our foot down.

On the topic of misapplication of your art or censorship, What are your thoughts on judgements made on your work based on the “inapropriate” language you use?

Yeah, like if it says “Fuck the pigs” in there?

Faith, Post-Human Series, Photo by Chritian Rose Graphite On Paper, 2010

Yeah exactly, in some cases I don’t know who these people are, and in some cases I do know who they are, but I’m still drawing them. I watched a talk with Julian Assange where he was talking about the censorship that was involved with the collateral murder video that he published. It showed a Reuters photographer, his driver, and translator being gunned down by an Apache helicopter while they were unarmed.

Apparently CNN showed part of the video, but not the kill shot in order to “protect the families.” Fox News showed the whole thing un-edited. Then, they proceeded to bring on their pundits who were saying that Assange should be assassinated, or should be tried as a traitor, even though he’s Australian. Fox had actually given people more information than CNN. That sort of censorship was un-spoken in a sense, where they were ostensibly still giving people the story, but not giving people the full picture. It was potentially more useful to watch the Fox broadcast, you just have to have a sense of media literacy in order to parse what they are showing with what they are saying.

By drawing a realistic dead body, do you think you have more a protection from criticism than a blogger who posts the picture on the internet?

Well one of my rules is that I find images on the web. I like the idea that it’s my media gateway.

I refer to the web as the immanent archive, it has this quality of being fully formed. It’s sort of God-like. It’s very difficult to assess where the information comes from, who it serves, and who is ultimately in control of it. It’s got a strange threatening quality along those lines, even though it is still useful. For the one piece that depicts a man killed in a Nuevo Loredo gun cartel battle, I cribbed it from somebody’s blog who was living just over the border on the U.S. side. He posts any evidence he can scrounge up. The slide was from some sort of weird DEA or FBI powerpoint presentation where they were analyzing shell casings in the image, probably trying to trace AK 47 sales. It was a strange image. I’m not really sure how much my re-drawing it protects me as the person that chooses or edits the content within my own work. I do believe that this kind of translation, as I call it, or maybe even embodiment, lends a level of weird intimacy to the work. Even though I use photographs as references, I draw the stuff freehand. To me there is always a level of distortion that happens that isn’t photorealism; I’m not trying to mimic the effects of a lens.

There is an extreme deficit of any surroundings

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Gorgon Series, Installation, Greusslich Contemporary, Berlin, 2011

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and the figures are cropped in weird ways. I do a freehanded drawing process. I don’t use a grid or any kind of projection methodologies to make sure that it’s an exact transposition. I like the level of mutation that happens. The work of Jean Auguste, a romantic french painter, has a level of the “right wrongness” to his paintings.

He seemed to have a similar approach to my own. There is always something strange or manneristic, if not surrealistic in his paintings as a result of his artistic process.

Dealing with images from the web must force you to work with some low resolution images. How

do you manage to recreate the images so much larger without a projector or grid?

Part of it is embodiment. I try to find the best quality images that I can, obviously it’s very difficult to work with something that is small.

I try to find images in the 500 pixel to 2000 pixel range, but a lot of it is extrapolation. In my work, I’ve always had some component of representation, if that’s what you want to call it. However, I’ve always felt that it was very abstract, despite being an image of something.

A lot of my work has a magic, surreal bend to it.

I’ve had a lot of practice in making up details

Robert Hilary King (Detail), Gorgon Series Graphite on Muslin, 2012

from nowhere. Whenever I come across images where I have to adapt a shitty JPEG into a fully realized rendering, I have to make extrapolations, and sometimes that’s the really hard part. I do believe that it lends a certain level of eerie solidity to the drawings that they wouldn’t otherwise have. If I had just used a photographic slide or simple kind of grid transfer and I tried to transpose the information rather than having it grow out of process, the result would look a lot more stiff and static.

What is your process to create the canvases you work on?

It’s a labor intensive process. I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment. The frames have no kind of bearing on the socio-political implications of the pieces. I can’t speak to how the frames operate for every viewer. I build a wooden frame and stretch muslin over it. The portrait series have two rounded edges. I then proceed to meticulously layer the surface. I use a high velocity low pressure paint sprayer to apply the gesso and I put between 15-30 layers down.

Then I sand it so it’s super smooth. My general interest with using this belabored production is to give the images a level of sculptural weight, and to reinforce the idea that they are objects, not simply images. I have a deep suspicion of what you could consider the comfort zone of receiving images within our culture – the idea of an interface. That is how traditional perspective originated. The painting’s frame becomes a window through which the viewer gazes into some other world. We take the frame for granted. We do it all the time. When we’re watching television, there is a movie screen. You look past the apparatus that is delivering the information and just deal with the information as a pure experience. I’ve always been interested in the idea of reifying the object in a painting.

It adds an extra level of tension in how someone is supposed to deal with these figures. There is a level of surrealism where they almost seem to be wearing the canvas. That is where the composition comes in. The very tip-top of their head or hairline has been cropped in each image.

That is very important, because I want the viewer on the one hand to be absorbed into the surface, but at the same time I want them to be dancing out of the frame slightly. My hope is to lend that much more pictorial tension, where no one could be 100% comfortable looking at these pieces from a realistic level. It’s paid off in a way: I’ll have someone looking at them in a show or in the studio, and the more and more they look at it, the more and more they are creeped out, which makes me extremely happy. I don’t give a shit if the viewer knows who the subject is or not, as long as there is a destabilization of the viewer’s mood. It gets at the core of why I make these things in the first place.

You teach art classes at MSU. What is the hardest part about being an instructor?

There are two things that I really hate, the first is really unmotivated students. That is a really difficult thing to deal with because you have to be trying to sell an extreme excitement about what you are teaching, presenting it in a way that is cool and dynamic. If a student really doesn’t give a shit, that becomes really difficult

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to do. Beyond that, it’s also challenging as an instructor to navigate within the structure of an American university as they are organized now.

I think there is a serious problem that has been going on since the late 70s. There has been a vicious attack on higher education where tuition is constantly hiked, and general support for students falls down. I’d say the most difficult thing is that oftentimes our students don’t have enough space to work because of under-funding in the University. Also, because the students are heavily in debt, they have to work jobs, so they don’t have enough time to devote to their work.

At the lowest level, most of my students aren’t able to fulfill what should be basic requirements for the amount of time spent trying to develop their work and ideas.

Students are simply over-stressed and immersed in debt. That makes things very difficult, because then you get into stupid banalities where students have a scholarship, for example, and all they care about is their grade. They are not interested in any kind of intellectual pursuit or finding what motivates them. They are more interested in, “Oh, I really have to get at least a B+ in this class or otherwise I’m fucked.” It’s absurd. It’s a very rigorous process, investigating art. You just can’t do it with that kind of framework or roadblocks surrounding it. It takes the process of questioning almost to a level of absurdity, and that to me is the biggest, most difficult thing to navigate.

I have my own debts, so I understand what it’s like. I have students who are working full-time jobs, while at the same time going to school, only to land in excess of forty thousand dollars in debt by the time they are done. I don’t understand how anybody expects any student to really apply themselves under those conditions. I’m sick to death of the stupid American “bootstrap” mentality where “you gotta pay your dues, you gotta pull yourself out of the muck, it’s the American way.” It’s the cut-throat, capitalist way.

It certainly doesn’t benefit the arts in any way, other than that the students who do manage to excel under those conditions are pretty fucking dedicated. You also have a lot of people who are just bludgeoned to the wayside by this sort of system.

What advice do you have for aspiring artists?

Honestly, I don’t have very encouraging advice for aspiring artists. Ultimately, you really don’t need school to become an artist. I definitely have some serious concerns about “success” within the construct of the art world as it exists now.

Particularly during the whole depression situation that we are in. What we have is this bizarre situation where the top tier of the art world is doing better than ever, because the wealthiest of the wealthy have more money than ever. But the middle and lower tier galleries, collectors, etcetera are getting a severe bludgeoning. Also, state-run art foundations that are non-profit and more about public outreach, those places are getting cut and screwed big time. My biggest advice for people is to follow their interests as closely as possible and stay dedicated, regardless of what discipline that brings them to study.

Even if it indicates that they shouldn’t be attending University in the first place.

Leviathan, Gorgon Series Graphite on Muslin, 2012

What are your plans for the next year or so?

I’m not entirely sure. I have a show coming up in January in Berlin, Germany. It’s a very small gallery, kind of a quasi-underground outfit that a good friend of mine started. I really like the fact that it is as underground as it is – I’m looking forward to that. I have a couple of residencies coming up.

That is another bit of advice for artists: apply, apply, apply. I’ve been applying to lots of residencies and visiting-artist types of programs.

My general assessment is that if you have a 90% rejection rate with the applications, you are

doing really good. So, it is extremely important to try to find resources to get your work out there.

Try to apply to curated exhibitions, residencies, etcetera. Especially if you choose to live in an area where it is harder to network. Montana is a great example of that. I think there are a lot of talented people that live and work here, but it’s difficult to network with anybody that will actually be able to see and promote your work within a non-western art context. Your work might not be suitable for that. It’s very difficult to navigate that, so it’s important to get yourself out there. Have a thick skin, it’s important to get rejections.

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FRANCESCO GILLIA How did growing up in Italy influence you becoming an artist?

I've always been doing art. I graduated from the Academy of Fine Art in Rome in 1999. I then came to the States to be an artist. I ended up doing product design and designing sneakers for the lifestyle market. It was cutting-edge projects for skateboarding, surf and lifestyle brands.

It was fun. I was a Sneaker-head. Back in the 80s when people started collecting Jordans, I was THE Sneaker-head. I worked doing product design for three years, then started a company called Bottega Montana with my brother. We designed and manufactured wooden furniture and longboards. Now I'm back to art, but when I look back, my entire process of change was pretty obvious. It's like, if you look at a color spectrum, the beginning and the end are very different. It's black and white; there is no connection. But if you look at every step along the way, then it makes sense.

I first got enamored with painting in church. In Italy, you are a Catholic. That's pretty much how it is. You go to church. The thing I remember most is looking up and seeing these fantastic paintings of martyrs and saints. In the few years that I stuck with going to Church, it was pretty much because I was looking at the paintings and sculptures. I remember I would see nude bodies painted in oil. There was something that was mesmerizing about it to me, something so incredible. They were all monumental, all so very important, especially when you are a kid. In a church, everything is so quiet. You have this change in temperature. It is always cooler in there. I remember these hot summer days where you go in the church, and it is so cool. You have traffic outside and scooters and people making noises, then you go in the church, and it is quiet.

The interior is huge and there is the smell of the incense and candles burning. It's a completely different reality. You go into this bubble. The paintings were framed really well. It made them more monumental and important. When you look at my work, I try to get that same sense of awe from the viewer. I want to recreate that same feeling I had when I was a small kid in front of those paintings.

Were there any Italian artists that you looked up to, or were inspired by?

Inspired to do this work? No, but some elements did inspire me. If I had to take one piece that gave me a sense of what I wanted to do, it is the torso of Belvedere. The first time I saw it, I was in middle school, and I didn't know much about art. I saw it in a small picture in a book, and I was struck by it, but didn't pay it much attention. Later on, at the Academy of Fine Art, we were studying anatomy and sculpture. We would learn by drawing from the real objects, so I went to the Vatican and saw the real sculpture. By that time I was paying attention, I was like, "Of course!" All the masters drew this piece, starting with Michelangelo, also Rubens, Gericault, Turner and Picasso. If you look at Michelangelo’s body of work, a lot Pronaos #13, Oil On Canvas

of it was inspired by Belvedere: the gestures, the massiveness of it. They did their poses in a similar way. I became obsessed with the torso of Belvedere, but then I started to wonder why. Why was I in love with it? I did my artistic anatomy thesis on that piece. A book came out the same year that was a reconstruction study by a team from Germany. This book gave me a hint. What they did was get a Greek model with the same body mass and got him to try to match the pose of what was left of the sculpture. They tried to figure out what the correct position of his arms and legs were. From there, they tried to figure out what myth it portrayed. They did a very good job. When you read the study, it all makes sense, and I think they decrypted what the statue would have looked like through their recreation.

The fragment we have today embodies so much power and suffering, so much time has gone by. To me, it is the human condition in it's essence. The recreation is not that powerful.

It is Ajax committing suicide after he realized he had slaughtered a herd of sheep instead of his enemies. So looking at a cropped statue, Pronaos #3, Oil On Canvas

When I made my paintings, I was looking for a sense of monumentality, the human condition, and human possibilities.

I realized that it was the missing pieces that intrigued me. I then asked myself, "What was so interesting about the missing pieces? Was it the absence of the limbs or the missing of the limbs?" I looked at photographs of people with missing arms and limbs that were surgically removed after accidents. I also thought about my grandfather who had a missing arm since an accident when he was 14. His arm was missing from the shoulder, so I would see the scapula joint move, but it was a clean scar. Those thoughts helped me realize that amputation was not what interested me about the missing limbs.

It was the absence of the limb that interested me, the mystery of it.

The German team tried to guess what the torso of Belvedere looked like, but they could have been wrong. It could have had six arms. Maybe he is in movement, like a futurist painting. We will never know. The idea of absence is full of potential ideas for me. When I made my paintings, I was looking for a sense of monumentality, the human condition, and human possibilities. The absence of the upper body creates a mystery. What is she doing? Is she about to strike you? Is she looking at you? Is she shying away from you? Is she about to hug you or about to crush you? Or maybe it is your mother leaning down to listen to you ask her a silly question. It is up for the viewer to interpret.

When you showed your work at the Exit Gallery, there were only female nudes. This was because Montana State University viewed the male nudes as more sexually explicit. Why do you think this is?

It's a cultural construct. It must be, right? The funny thing with the United States is that you are Puritans by accident. You cannot show breasts on TV, but you can show a guy slaughtering somebody to bits, including all the blood and gore. The University was saying I couldn't put two penises in the Exit Gallery, but the United States has the biggest porn industry in the universe.

They won't let you look at penises, so then you go and buy porn. People become more fascinated with things that are censored or hidden. I wish I could show the Italian commercials that I grew up with in the 70s and 80s. There was one that was a brilliant ad for silicone shower sealer. In it, there was a beautiful brunette woman completely naked from the waist up sealing a shower. It was brilliant with super fantastic music. It was just naked forms for an advertisement. We grew up with that, so it is funny to see how strict things are here.

There is also a difference between the male models and the females. With the females, I got a whole range of people. Older women, larger women with bodies that you would not deem beautiful by mass media standards. With the males, it's not like that. The first one was a football player. Then they were all skinny and fit. So I think the males are more self-conscious about their own bodies. There were some funny comments like, "If your studio is heated I will show up..." or "If you give me a couple of inches then I will pose for you." It's hilarious.

In some ways, I didn't make it easier for them to show paintings by placing the genitals at eye level. The way I hung the paintings was to

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Pronaos Waller-Yoblanski Gallery, 2012

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and all the muscly ones here, or the dark ones here, and the light ones there. It doesn't happen that way in real life.

The space they hang in is important too. I want to get back to that sense of awe. One of my favorite modern painters to look at is Mark Rothko. What is so fascinating to me about his work is that you have these monumental fields of color, so enormous that they just make you stop and think. When I imagine looking at one of his paintings, I don't picture a crowded gallery with people around chatting and talking on cell phones. I picture the viewer alone in front of the painting, and everything is quiet. It is one on one. To me, art is a one on one experience.

It's not communal, it goes down to the roots of understanding humanity. Maybe it is clichĂŠ and outdated, but it's like the meaning of life. Why we are here? What is it about? Why am I in a human body?

What was amazing about my show at The Exit Gallery was how many "Thank you's" I got in the comment book. There was a woman who wrote that she saw herself in the paintings, and she felt OK with it. The first painting I did, when the model saw the images that I took, she said she looked like her mother. She was shocked.

The photo was taken in harsh light, you never see yourself naked in a photograph, only in the mirror. The only naked pictures we see are in things like Vogue and Playboy. But then at the show, the model was crying, because she was so happy. Next to all the other bodies, she saw that she was not that different.

Do you feel like you provide a service to your models?

Not directly, but people tell me that it does happen. The first model that I had, she was nervous and shy, and then to compensate for that, she was very aggressive. There was an energy in the session coming from every direction, and I feed from that. When I have a model I ask them tons of questions. When somebody is naked, there are barriers that get dropped. It's the same feeling people get when they are shocked by the image of a penis when viewing the painting. I feel like I get more honest answers from the models, and that helps me find the pose that they should make. Every painting reminds me of the models personality. It's more than just a body style. It's about the interaction too. Was she shy? Was she aggressive? Was she proud of herself? All of that shows through in the paintings. That element of change is helpful to me to keep painting, because without it, it would be the same concept repeated. Each portrait is different. They have to be. It's what keeps me going, otherwise it would be like making the barstool that you are sitting on. After a while they become repetitive. I could make tons of money making them, but they become boring.

Pronaos #5, Oil On Canvas, 2012

How do you pick your models?

Leaning Nude, Oil On Canvas, 2012

make you feel like the feet of a giant are on the same floor as your feet. So in some ways, it's not them being a giant, but you being little, and looking back to memories of your mother or father coming out of the shower. But there is also a shock in it, because before people feel that, all they feel is, "Oh, there is a vagina in my face, now there is a penis in my face." So, that is a trick to make people stop and look.

Then quite soon after they stop, they will see that they are all just bodies, and that they are all beautiful. It plays to my advantage that people get uncomfortable at first, because then they can relax a second and start looking at the paint, and it's not just a penis or a vagina anymore. I would love to see these paintings in churches, not so much for the religious part, just the way they are framed. Bodies are incredible machines, but often we don't pay too much attention to them.

We take them for granted. You get up in the morning and you're like, "Oh God I have to rush!"

You're not like, "Oh God, I got up!".

Now that you have a larger body of work, will you be showing both the males and the females together exclusively in the future?

Yes. One thing I am concerned about is that somebody asked me if I was going to put all the males on one side and the females on the other side. It would become a sexual confrontation, rather than about human bodies coexisting. Or if somebody wanted to put all the fat ones here, 20

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I don't. They just show up. I think that was a blessing for me, because if I had to pick them, I probably would have gone a more classical route.

I would have gone with forms that I had seen in classical paintings, and maybe there would have been some mixed with the Playboy pin-up kind of thing that we are bombarded with. The fact that I didn't have that luxury, I was forced to understand humans as a whole. My only problem was when people were covered in tattoos, it was very distracting to me. I couldn't see their anatomy, and if I paint that, then all of a sudden it becomes like a painting with a baseball cap or T-shirt on. It becomes about the object. It's more of an article or a construct. So I chose not to paint some models.

Do you photograph the models yourself?

Yes, I photograph them in my studio under lights. Eighty percent of my models have never posed before. So there is an energy sometimes, like if I said to you, "Get naked and pose for the next painting," it's uncomfortable, even if you are there for some personal reason. I read a comment on Facebook, a model who wrote, "I'm strange. I don't want to go out and meet new people because I don't want to expose myself to more hurt and emotional entaglement. So, instead, tomorrow morning I'm going to model naked. Again. And the end result of this session will be another painting by Francesco Gillia – he says it will be huge, maybe 9' tall. I'm excited and a bit scared. Again, I'm strange. I accept this about myself. Do you?" It was mind-blowing to me. It was pretty awesome.

Pronaos #16, Oil On Canvas, 2012

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JADE LOWDER Let’s start with your background in art. How did you begin to paint.

I always drew from a really early age. My mom always brags about how she has this picture that I drew when I was four. It’s of Godzilla crushing telephone poles. I don’t know if she even has it anymore, but she’s always like, “That’s the first drawing he ever did.” I started out drawing cartoons and comic books. I mimicked Alex Ross, who is this really great comic artist. I got into him when I was in middle school. Then I started drawing comic books and making up my own, seeing images and manipulating them.

Similar to how the Renaissance painters always copied the masters, I would copy comic book art.

Comic books were huge for me when I was a kid, even into high school and starting college, I drew a lot of comics. I still read a lot of comics. I’ve got them lying all around here: BPRD, Hellboy. A lot of Mike Mignola. I’m obsessed with it.

Did you go straight into art when you went to college?

I was actually in film for a year. In high school I did all the art classes I could. I went through AP Art and all that good stuff. Once I got to college, I thought, “Maybe I want to do something else for a little while.” So I tried film, and I learned that a film degree doesn’t really prepare you for anything. You can either be a film bitch, like you’re a production assistant, or a director. For a director, as a rookie, you’re never going to get a good project. Everything else you might want to do in film you have to have a specialized degree.

So I was like, “Well, I’ll just go back to art.”

Once you started art school, where did you draw inspiration from to get to where you are now?

When I started back into the art program, I looked at Chris Turbuck’s stuff a lot. I think he was doing his thesis for his MFA right as I was starting art school. Just the idea that you could take comics and turn it into a fine art medium versus where it’s usually just percieved as a narrative or book. The fact that it could transpose, that was really interesting. Then I got into artists that professors recommended to me. And they recommended that I do my own research into other artists. I found a painter Esau Andrews, I started following him really heavily, and he introduced me to this art style called “Dark Pop.” I started following that, and it brought me to this other artist named Jeremy Geddes. His stuff is really desolate. He always features this cosmonaut floating in this photo-realistic background. It’s fantastical, dark, and gritty. I was drawn to that style. I started developing my own ideas mixed in with music.

Music was always right there along with it. Bands like Interpol and their album covers always inspired me.

What are some of your other musical influences?

Right now I’m really into Post-Rock, so like Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, This Will Destroy You, Russian Circles, also a lot of instrumental stuff. Lately I’ve been getting into Amon Tobin. I love Amon Tobin.

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#16, 2009, Acrylic on Wood Panel

Can you talk a bit about the theme of apocalypse that is present your work?

Yeah, I can tell my apocalypse story. When I was a kid, I grew up really strict Catholic, Latin Catholic, like when you go to church, there is no English. It’s all in Latin. It’s as hardcore as you can get. Right before the year 2000, my parents, as well as my entire church started freaking out.

They were doomsaying and prepping us for the apocalypse. Being the kid that was always asking questions like, “What’s death like?” and all this morbid stuff, I asked, “What’s the end of the world going to be like?” My mom flat out told me that it was going to be perpetual darkness.

You wouldn’t be able to see outside. That you wouldn’t be able to breathe the air, and that we would have to stay inside the whole time and pray. My grandmother was going to come to the door as a demon. She only ever used this example, but I understood what she was saying.

There will be demons, but they will be disguised as people that you know and trust, but you can’t let them in the house. She only ever used the example of my grandmother. So for a long time I just never trusted my grandmother. I was like, “I think you might be a demon.” So they told me all this, and the worst part was like, “Man, I just don’t want to be that bored. It seems like I’m just going to be doing an awful lot of praying, and praying is really boring.” That was the main thing. I just don’t want to be bored in

the apocalypse. That sucks. I had these really horrible anxiety attacks every time the new year came around. When 2000 came around, my parents seemed totally fine, not phased by it at all. But I’m having these hardcore panic attacks the week before. I can’t breathe, I’m up all night, I can’t sleep. I’m pacing the house the entire night and I’m like eleven or twelve. I couldn’t take it. It was way too much for my brain to comprehend. They were constantly telling me the world was going to end, and that I need to be prepared.

When Harold Camping started all his bullshit two years ago, I all of a sudden got these panic attacks again, and I couldn’t rationalize why I was so afraid of it, because I knew it was bullshit. But the more I thought about it, the more I’d be panicking. The day came. It was May 21st, 2010. I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up all night. I walked around Bozeman all day and night, then the sun came up, and I saw a delivery truck making it’s rounds. I was just like, “Oh my god, what a load of shit. That’s why I was stressed out?” Then I started making work about the apocalypse.

Do you think the world is going to end this year, in 2012?

(Laughs) Actually, the more I make work about the apocalypse, the more I understand about the apocalypse. The word “apocalypse” doesn’t

Untitled, 2011, Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

Eucharist, 2012, Oil on Canvas

The word “apocalypse” doesn’t actually mean the end of the world, what it means is “To reveal what was hidden.” actually mean the end of the world, what it means is “To reveal what was hidden.” That is the literal translation. In The Revelation it never actually says that the world will cease to exist. It simply talks about how the world might change, or derive something new, or there might be an enlightenment and a secret will be told.

What is now interesting to me about the apocalypse is different than end-of-the-world ideas like Mad Max, and all that kind of shit.

Those movies, the great THX 1138 and A Boy And His Dog initially drew me to the subject.

Now it’s more of a conceptual idea about the fact that we are living in an apocalypse, but we are two dumb to admit it. To say, “Yeah, there is a revelation going on, and there is a need to start conceptualizing what that means.” We just don’t want to say it, because we all assume that the apocalypse means the end of the world versus that it could just be time to wake up.

So is that the idea behind the blurred censorship aspect of your work, that we are blind to the apocalypse happening in front of us?

Yeah, the blurred imagery came as an idea of how to break the syntax. Which is what I perceived the apocalypse, or the end of the world, to be. It’s a way of taking all the ideologies behind buildings or behind telephone poles or anything, and destroying what they mean. So for an overpass, which is one of my paintings,

it’s seen as this tube, just shooting Americans across this thing into the asshole of the world.

As soon as you take away the neccesity of that, the end of the world being that break in reading it, what does it mean?

At first, I didn’t have any sort of pixelation or any sort of blurring. It was just that object. I would just say, “This is the apocalypse,” or “This is the end of the world” as the break in syntax. Now I’m using the pixelation as a way of visually representing that break. It can mean the apocalypse. It can mean censorship of something you’re not supposed to see. It can mean a low-res image. It can be a lot of things.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be one way or another. It is just a way of stopping you thinking about a landscape or object, and making you think about something else.

If you were to predict an apocalypse, where everything ends, and everyone was blown to bits, how would you envision that happening?

Oh man, my younger brother is always talking about this, and is really serious about it. He thinks there is going to be a zombie apocalypse.

When all that crazy stuff that happened in Miami this year, with the face-eating and the bath salts, he was freaking out. He was like, “Man, I’m heading to Havre. I’m going to fortify a home.” I was like, “Dude, you’re not going to do any of those things.”

Bloom, 2012, Oil on Canvas

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Russian, 2012, Oil on Canvas

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I’m not sure. The most poetic way that it would happen is something like in THX 1138 where we work ourselves to death, or we capitalize ourselves to death. Everything that we hold to be true in our society becomes our eventual downfall. I feel like that would be the most poetic, but I’m not sure that would be the most logistical. In the end, I think it’s pretty close to what Slavoj Zizek says. He agrees that the apocalypse is more a conceptual re-imagining of the world, in that it will just be a ceasing of how we perceive the world. He has said that viewing the world is like natural disasters. You can’t ever really plan, because the world has ended and rebirthed itself already – like with the dinosaurs – It’s already done that. So nature is, in essence, chaos. You can’t plan for chaos. That anybody would ever try to is pointless. Just knowing that, I think nature would be the one to do it, like Yellowstone blows up and takes us all out. It’s the chaos of it all.

If somebody wrote a biography about you, what would the title be?

Just the Tip. What’s going on with Others: The Bozeman Contemporary Arts Coalition?

We started it, myself, Stacey Ray, Will Curtis, Jaclyn Guenthner, Aaron Murphy, and Rollin Beamish. We currently have a great studio space in Four Corners where some of us work and we meet out there every other week. Our main goal is to have it evolve without us, because we are all doing this as a way to keep the conversation going after school. That’s what we want it to be. Another option for people graduating or staying in town to have. Along with meeting and encouraging each other to continue to make work and critiquing the work, we have started a series of art shows that we call “A Quiet Evening at Home.” The general idea being, a chance to showcase two artists’ works in a very intimate setting. It’s our way of testing the waters, to see what kind of a reception we can generate.

Thus far, the shows have all been awesome, we got a great turnout to all of the shows we have put together so far. It has shown us that there is definitely an audience for what we want to do versus what is already out there, the “Bozeman scene,” or the “Art Walk” scene.

I went to the Art Walk and it was so bad. It was just pure commodity, everything was catered towards touristy, cowboy crap. No real conversations were even hinted at between artist and viewer – it was just a bunch of ego stroking all around. I couldn’t even take it. I can’t do it.

I tried. I gave it my best shot.

Just the Tip, 2012 Acrylic and Pen & Ink on Wood Panel

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The Meadow On The Other Side A Short Story by Adam Schwankl

The meadow on the other side of the ranch was placid and calm.

The sun was shining bright which made the deck on the side of the large log house too hot for bare feet. The white haired man, and the other man were sweating in their suits. Their jackets were most likely inside. They were sitting under an umbrella at a small table which provided just enough shade for the two men, the table, and their icy, but burnt, mixed drinks. A dog named Ella May, who was biting at flies, sat panting in the heat.

“Must be miserably hot out there in that sunshine.” Said the white haired man as he dabbed the sweat off of his brow with a napkin.

“Nah, it must be used to it.” The other man responded before waving his hand in the direction of Ella May, and slurping another sip of his icy beverage.

“Yes. I suppose you’re right. She’s just a dog and must be used to it.”

Ella seemed to look pleadingly at the other man, and barked.

“See she’s just fine.” Said the other man.

Then with a whimper Ella lied down on her side and gave up on getting inside the cool log house. Both men looked at the dog with fleeting disconcerted looks, and turned toward one another so as to no longer look at the thirsty animal.

“So, please tell me you have finally found your reason and will join us. I know you have been thinking about it.” Said the other man.

“I have indeed been thinking about it very much.” He set down his drink, and then immediately picked it up, was about to take a drink, hesitated, and then said, “Don’t you think there is something seriously unethical about it?”

“Heavens no!” the other man replied, “What is unethical is us not moving ahead with it. Ugh, the laziness! The longer we wait the more regulations we’ll have to deal with, and you know you don’t have to worry about the public finding out. We can make sure it never makes it past the conspiracy nut’s opinion column.

I know you hate filling out paper work as much as I do.”

“Sure, sure, but what about the people?”

He rolls his eyes. “What about them?”

“Well, I just don’t know how it’s going to affect them.” Said the white haired man. “If I could be assured that they wont be hurt by it I would be much more inclined to get the boat on the road.”

“I can assure you.” Replied the other man. “I was there for a day a few months ago. We’re all ready to go but we need you on board. You’ve got to think about what really matters.” He said while pouring himself another drink.

There was another pause. The man with the white hair sat back, finally took a drink, and looked out at the mountains to the East.

There was a sudden, but subtle breeze that moved the leaves on the cottonwood trees that were in a long row extending from the side of the house, past the deck, and out towards a small pond.

There was an old weeping willow tree casting a shadow over the edge of the water.

“That feels nice.” Said the other man.

The white haired man looked at him, and smiled. “My family.”

“What?” Asked the other man.

“My family.” Repeated the white haired man. “That’s what really matters.”

“Yes,” Agreed the other man, “and you wont be just helping them. There are a lot of people who depend on this kind of thing, even people over there. We’re really doing them a favor you know.”

The white haired man began to respond saying, “Well, I don’t know about…”

“Out of sight out of mind.” Interrupted the other man. “There’s no need to worry. It’s a completely different world over there.

They haven’t kept up with the times. They’re savages really.

Just think about your kids, or how happy your wife will be when you surprise her with another trip to the opera house in Paris. La Samnambula is playing for the next couple months, you know.”

“Oh, that’s her favorite!” said the white haired man.

The other man continued, “And besides, we were down more than we can afford last quarter. We need to make adjustments now, so we can afford to expand next year. This is big, real big.”

“Yes I suppose. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?” Added the white haired man. They both laughed.

“That’s right! It’s good to know you’re on board. I was afraid I was going to have to tell you to shape up or plane out.” Chuckled the other man.

“Ship.” Corrected the white haired man.

“What’s wrong?”

“Show”

“Nothing. You said plane. It’s ‘shape up or ship out.’”

“Show what?”

“Ah, you know what I mean.” The other man laughed, reached over, patted the white haired man on the shoulder, and said, “C’mon lets go inside. You can pour me another drink.”

“On the road… It’s ‘show on the road.’ You said boat.”

They paused for a moment. The white haired man took a breath, and said, “This is just a game to you isn’t it?”

Branch, Digital Photograph

by Eleanor Bennet

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JESSE ALBRECHT “I don’t know why I left, but I left on my own, and it won’t be long till-I, till-I, till-I get on back home…blood, guts, sex and danger I wanna be an airborne ranger…hi ho didlley bob, wish I was back on the block, with that bottle in my handI’m gonna be a drinking man, I’m gonna drink all I can, for Uncle Sam--re-up you’re crazy, re-up you’re outta your mind...”

This weekend I spent chain-smoking cigarettes and drinking, talking with a friend I served with in Iraq – he just returned from Afghanistan. The point kept resurfacing of feeling great worth in a worthless endeavor, and then feeling worthless upon returning home after a deployment. When I returned from Iraq I felt like an alien here, Iraq was my home, I had a purpose there, and all the continually fucked-up situations felt normal.

Here the violence, aggression, and fear which made me successful in Iraq continue to cause struggle and pain.

It is important to hear directly from the participants and the arts provide form where the experience and its results can be remade into

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Blood, Guts, Sex & Danger, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake + Roses + Bronze, 2007 ESSAY

something tangible. Something that allows the outsider (non-combatants) a chance to feel a sliver of our emotions their tax dollars paid for. It is vital to remove the spin from the combatants’ experiences.

The change started to register for me when the Abu Ghraib pictures surfaced. While I was disgusted like everyone else, I also thought – well, shit, I would much prefer a naked pyramid any day of the week over my head getting cut off and the video being posted on the internet for the family to see. But there are videos of American soldiers killing on the internet. The cycle starts and everything else falls away. Ideas of right and wrong are already conditioned out of soldiers. Learning how to kill, wanting to kill, being rewarded for it, having it be an honorable thing, is part of the training to become a soldier.

Seeing dead and blown-apart Americans as a medic wore me down quickly. When we went out on security missions I hoped I could kill who was trying to kill me. My thoughts, hopes, and dreams of killing weren’t like the John Wayne myth, but an up-close and personal event, where

I could watch someone’s head explode, either from my bullets or buttstroke from my rifle caving their face in, or maybe disemboweling them with my fighting knife I wore on my body armor (without the ceramic plates that would stop bullets).

It is not the others that commits the atrocities that are part of the war experience. It is people like me, an eagle scout, member of the national honor society, my mother’s youngest son. It didn’t take me very long to get to the place where I wanted to join the ranks of atrocity, because it is the energy and essence of war. The most beautiful and most horrible, intertwined in a never-ending knot. I thank God I didn’t act on my thoughts, and now my thoughts can act on me, and I act on those around me.

“Oh Mamma Mamma can’t you see, what this war has done to me… and it won’t be long, till-I, till-I, till-I get on back home.”

INTERVIEW

Were you active in photography or art before your military service?

I was halfway through my MFA at the University of Iowa when I got deployed to Iraq with the Iowa National Guard. At the time I wasn’t thinking about taking any pictures. I just had this really shitty camera that was just this cheap plastic thing. That’s where a lot of those photos were from. Some people also sent me disposable cameras. I wasn’t really thinking about it at the time. I would just snap a picture here or there.

It was kind of an afterthought. Looking back, I figured out I should have taken more. It was February of 2003 when I got activated, and digital cameras were just starting to be available, but I didn’t think I would have to take any pictures of anything.

So what made you decide to take the photos that you did?

There are a handful of images in the collection that I didn’t take. There were some guys with digital cameras that gave me discs of images. I put some of them in there. They were all guys I worked closely with. I took the photos I did when I saw something was different than what I was used to. I would see something that was different, or fucked up, or beautiful or just crazy and think, “I should take a picture of this.”

Looking back on all the photos now, do you see them differently than you did when you took them?

I didn’t look at them for years really. Going back and looking at them, I was surprised that some of the images standing alone were actually pretty good. I think that was aided by my shitty camera, just the quality of the images. Having not seen actual photographs for a while since everything is digital now, they were something different.

Looking back at something that happened eight or nine nears ago, it takes you back to that time and place, but also allows you to see the distance between that time and now. I can still remember and see the memories. For me, I don’t need to look at the images because those experiences will always be with me.

The honesty with which our country commits it’s military, that’s the biggest issue. time. Some of that stuff was really tough to look at. What I often tell people is that when you are going through something like war, and your loved ones are waiting for you to come back, it’s easier for you to deal with, because you know if you’re in danger or not, but your friends and family have no way of knowing if you’re safe. It was tough to read the things my family and friends wrote that expressed their struggle in dealing with my situation. They are constantly worrying the whole time whether you are in a safe place or not.

Are you a habitual collector of ephemera?

Yeah, I’ve definitely have a pack-rat mentality, just holding on to things that I think are neat or interesting. You think, “Maybe someday I’ll do something with this.” Sometimes that thing happens and sometimes it doesn’t. There was a lot of stuff looking back on my deployment that I wish I had collected or brought back.

I would imagine that being a soldier you don’t have as much freedom to do that sort of thing as you would being a civilian.

Yeah, but you do have free time to walk around, and there was some weird stuff. Early on, right after the stuff was bombed out, you could just go in and dig through shit. I had all these weird papers and photos of Sadaam. One thing I wish I had was this huge portait of Sadaam Hussein, but I ended up having to leave it in storage. It was crazy. The portraits were everywhere over there. Every single corner you turned there was just some huge portrait of Sadaam’s face. In a pretty short time they all got painted over, shot out, or torn down.

When was the last time that you were deployed?

For me, it was 2003-2004. I got out of the National Guard in August of 2006. I was in the guard for 10 years.

So the idea behind arranging these images wasn’t to bring back the memories for yourself, it was more that the memories were always there, and you wanted to share them with other people?

So now that you are out of the service, but still doing these projects that are relevant to the military, how have your viewpoints on it changed since then?

Yeah, It was more about how I could collect them and make a statement to people who I knew were going to be at the show. It was a way to share the experience, but also make a statement about it.

I made a lot of decisions about what images to show and where they were placed.

With distance and time, things change. Initially, it’s so fresh, and you’re so invested in it that it’s hard to have any original perspective on it. Then the more you read about current events and the more you talk to friends that have returned from multiple tours, you get a different perspective.

It’s still relevant to talk about, because it’s less and less in the news now. To me, it’s funny, and sad that it took five or six years for people to start realizing things weren’t right with the war.

The V.A. was critically understaffed for mental health, totally unprepared for us coming back.

To be part of the first rotation coming back from Iraq and living the problem out. To me, it’s still important to talk about it and to give information about it. I think it is important to be able to talk to somebody who has experienced it personally.

What made you decide to put some of your personal effects, like postcards and medals in the show?

That was from going through all my stuff that I had in my footlocker. Before, I had no reason to go through that stuff. Once I did, I scanned them all by hand and went through all of it. Seeing the postcards, and what people had written on them was more powerful than anything. It’s seeing their thoughts about where you were at at that

Just like with anything, it’s good to read about it, but it’s also good to talk to people that have been there. The idea that you have about something is going to be informed more and probably change with each additional person that you talk to.

Do you feel that Vets returning and dealing with problems like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and suicides is the most important issue to publicly discuss at this point in time?

Yeah, that’s a big one, but the honesty with which our country commits it’s military, that’s the biggest issue. The mental and physical healthcare is also huge. Say you’re a veteran having a hard time with something, and you go the V.A. to get an appointment. It’s going to be like 6 weeks before you can talk with anyone. That’s a lot of time. It takes a lot to say you’re going to go in there and actually talk to somebody in the first place. Then to have them be like, “Great, come back in a month and a half.” Who the fuck knows where you’re going to be by then?

Coming back from that experience is really hard.

I have a lot of good family and friends, but I can see where if I didn’t have them, and still have them, supporting me, who knows? You can get out there pretty quick, and if you don’t have a friend with a futon to crash on when you can’t find a job and don’t have a place to live, it can go bad quick. There are a lot of people who support veterans, for sure, but there are also just as many, if not more, who are afraid of us. They would rather not learn about the experience of a veteran, or just choose to ignore it. Part of my goal is to reach those people and allow them to understand the situation veterans face coming home. It’s a calculated decision to have it not talked about in the media, because if people don’t know about the problems associated with the wars, then it’s easier for them to keep the wars going.

(Death) Camp New York, Pre-war, Ink and Oil Stick, 2003 Next Page: Digital Recreation of Photo Collage Installation at The Cottonwood Club, 2012 (Mulitple Artists)

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Wolves Come Out, Colored Pencil on Paper, 2012

Napping Artist Describe your background story in three sentences.

I was that weird kid with a stutter and lisp. I just sat around drawing all day and didn’t really have a life. Then all of a sudden, I was the weird ugly duckling who became obsessed with art.

How has art changed you? Has it taught you anything about yourself?

I think my art has made me realize how important I am. I’ve had a lot of people in the last year call me an inspiration and tell me that they are doing things because of something I have done. Before, I never thought lowly of myself, but I never really thought much of myself. Now I know that I actually matter.

What are some things that people have praised you for or what’s their favorite aspect of your art?

I usually get compliments on colors, creativity, and the story that goes behind it, or just the fact that I’m doing it and showing it. I like to share my story. A lot of people say that it takes a lot of courage and inner-strength.

What role do women have in art?

I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it. I feel like we all have our own spot in art.

But there’s really no steps or hierarchies. Every different style of art, whether it’s a boy or a girl who made it, is important in a different way, like abstract, realism and surrealism. I can’t really place myself.

I think just being a woman and telling your story takes a lot of strength.

It’s fun! I’ll be talking to girls and they’ll tell me something thats going on in their life or how they’re frustrated. I’m like “Oh! that’s this piece” and they’re like “Oh! I get it now. That really describes what’s going on.” It helps me to be able to talk to girls a little bit better. I would definitely say my art is pretty feminine if you think about it.

How do you think your art differs from those who have a more formal art education?

I gave school a shot and didn’t like it; I found my way by talking to other artists. There’s one woman in my life who’s an artist. She’s out there with art in real museums. She really knows what she’s doing. So I’ll just go to other artists and ask for help or ask the public’s opinion, “What would you do if you were doing this?”

I just run into it blindly. I’ve definitely had a few awesome teachers growing up here and there.

They gave me some pointers, but I definitely feel I run into it blindly whereas students have some structure. It’s that difference of “structure” and “I’m just going for it.”

Some student artists don’t market and promote themselves as strongly as you do, so props to you for that. You take a whole different approach to it, which is awesome.

Napping Artist, Colored Pencil On Paper, 2012

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Next Page: Tits And Unicorns, Colored Pencil on Paper, 2012

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Oh, thank you. I’m curious why other people don’t promote themselves because I know there’s a lot of other people doing the same thing I am.

When you take it to a school level, creating art goes beyond being a hobby. I’ve talked to friends that are in school that will call me and say “I’ve spent 20 hours on this project, I’m so happy its over!” I tell them that most of my pieces take 4 to 24 hours. When it comes to graphic artists versus traditional artists, you can tell the difference. Who loves it and who gets sick of it?

Where do you get your inspiration? If you’re having a brain fart, what is your go-to?

It usually depends on how I’m feeling. If I’m feeling apathetic, I’m incapable of doing art, so it’s all about how I’m feeling. Sometimes I use references for how bodies are put together, like a model’s picture or a personal picture. But it’s exactly how I’m feeling at that moment. If I’m not feeling enough, I can’t create art.

Do you have any favorite artists or places you go to get inspired?

I like to wander around and go to rivers. I love Frida Kahlo, and I watch Disney movies. Lately I’ve been one of those nerdy Tumblr girls looking at quotes and finding stuff to fit. Kind of like when you’re in high school and your teacher asks you to explain confusion, and you draw a sketch of it.

How do your pets influence you?

My cockatiel, Doobie, has definitely shown up in my art a lot; I’ve had him since I was twelve. He likes to run around on the floor, I have to watch him with my pencils. I’ll be drawing and he’ll come over and try to steal a pencil. My dog Rupa likes to snore underneath me while I work. She keeps my feet warm and makes me happy. I’ve done some pit-bull art and would like do more.

There’s a big controversy about pit-bulls being awful or violent dogs, what do you have to say to pit-bull haters?

That stereotype and all those issues drive me nuts because I’ve had pit-bulls my whole life.

Humans create the problem. Humans create monsters. We create them in stories. We create them out of ourselves. We turn animals into humans. Dogs don’t even naturally bark, we bred that into them. We breed in fighting. Any dog can be vicious. It’s up to the owner and how they take care of their dog. Pit-bulls are so sweet and loving. They will do anything to please their owner, and that’s the problem. That’s why people create monsters. Dogs are animals like us, we just have the ability to control and destroy.

You have a bright, happy monster theme in your artwork. What role do your characters play in your pieces?

The characters you see in my pieces are light and dark. You have to have both to create something.

They are the inner things you deal with. They show that life is okay. You are great, but there are always going to be inner demons or little monsters. It’s up to you who you let win. I like this quote by Jordyn Berner, “We stop looking for monsters under our bed, the day we realize they’re inside of us.”

Escape The End, 2012

It’s Going To Hurt, 2012

I like to wander around and go to rivers.

I love Frida Kahlo, and I watch Disney movies.

I’ll openly admit that I do battle with myself.

I know a lot of other people do too. Some people don’t like knowing. Once you’re honest with yourself, you can then admit to having self-battles here and there. Some people look down at you for it, or think you’re incapable of something. I’ll openly admit that I have my good days, I have my bad days, and I have them all at the same time. But it’s something I’m working on, and I feel like this is the case for everyone.

If life gets too hard, instead of being quiet about it and being worried about someone’s judgment, you should talk to someone, or go find a way to help yourself. There might be monsters, but it’s going to be okay. It’s up to you to decide.

I read today on your Facebook page that you developed a logo?

I’m working on it. You know how you see the Thousand Arms Priestess, and they have all those flyers around town? I’m going to put my own flyers up. I want to get my name out there more.

Not everyone has Facebook, and not everyone spends as much time on the computer as I do.

You’re going to have to look at it while walking downtown. It’s my self portrait.

Have you ever considered doing graffiti?

I’ve definitely sat around and daydreamed about it, I’m not going to lie. I’ve definitely thought I’d do more of a Miss Van acrylic style. I love that. I feel like I’d be able to create an acrylic piece a lot quicker.

What do you envision, or hope for, in your future as an artist?

Stars and Darkness, 2012

I’m hoping to expand a little more. I would like to start going beyond pen and paper and make stickers and t-shirts. I would like to keep art as a hobby and obsession, instead of looking at it as a job. I would like to get more involved, and begin not only making money for myself, but be able to help others with it too.

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JONATHON RANEY What was the first piece of art that you remember making?

When I was young, I would take my favorite comic books like X-Men, and redraw them, so it was probably a Ninja Turtles drawing.

I love building frames and anything to do with wood.

If I wasn’t a painter, I would be a woodworker.

Who are your artistic influences?

It started off with Michelangelo and DaVinci.

I learned about all the well known artists first.

From there it was just reading books and learning about more minor artists from the same time period, Renaissance artists. At first I was really against modern stuff, then I slowly started to read about the Impressionists, and finding out what I could about them. From there it has kept going, so it’s all the old artists, but also newer artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Dali and Goya. The list goes on.

Explain your ideal working environment.

My ideal working environment is where all my tools are close, so whatever I need, I can reach for it. I like for it to be quiet, I usually put my headphones on and listen to music. It has to be a calm place.

What other pursuits do you have in your life besides painting?

I work at Gibson Guitars. I’m constantly learning how to build guitars, and I really enjoy that. That is my second focus, also woodworking. I love building frames and anything to do with wood. If I wasn’t a painter, I would be a woodworker.

Do you build your own frames?

Yeah, I build everything. I am building one frame right now that involves steaming wood and bending it. I also build my own stretcher bars for canvas, but I usually try to work on wood surfaces. Canvas is very tempermental, it can easily warp or rip. When you travel with art, wood is the best way to go because you can easily stack your pieces.

Since you build your own frames, is the format and shape a part of your creative process?

Most definitely. I use Sacred Geometry, the golden ratio and the root connections. What that does is creates harmony throughout the piece before there is even any paint on it. It’s another way to connect myself with the history of art.

Artists throughout history including the Greeks and Romans, have used Sacred Geometry to create two and three dimensional art.

Where does the subject matter of your paintings come from?

When I was reading books about the old masters, you start to notice that all the paintings have certain themes. Everything in the painting, even down the smallest items are referenced from old books like The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Bible.

They are very accurate paintings. It started from there. If I’m reading through The Aeneid, every page is a painting. I never go to a blank canvas and start painting. I always have two or three books that I am referencing, as well as sketches that I have done beforehand.

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Athena Seated With Owls, Acrylic, 2010

Escape The End, 2012

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Of All The Ills There Are Rumours Of The Swiftest!

Acrylic On Wood Panel

Maythotius, The Leveler - Modified Print

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You make digital prints of your work. Do you feel that the quality of your brush strokes is translated well into digital? Also, do you think it is valid to sell digital prints?

I do. Not everybody has thousands of dollars to buy an original. It’s still a good amount of work to make a digital print. I have the same amount of passion and focus that I do when I’m painting when I’m making a print. It’s a good way to get art out to people. Personally, I like the work that I do. So if I make a print of a piece, and sell the original, then I can still keep it in a way. It is a part of the future, because people want things now, now, now. Digital prints are just another tool to get my art out there.

You also do digital art. How do you tie that in?

A lot of artists don’t like digital work, but I know that if Leonardo DaVinci were alive today he would have a Facebook page and the Adobe Creative Suite. I want to absorb digital work into my classical painting, not to make it stand out as “all digital” art, but to use it as another tool, like a paintbrush. Sometimes I will paint on top of a digital print to make it an original. I call them modified prints. It gives me a chance to go back and explore. If there is a different direction that I wanted to go with the original, I can try it out and on a print, and still have the original.

What are the social responsibilities of an artist today, if any?

My responsibility is to use methods and techniques, and always try to get better. Also to incorporate art history in to my work. It’s an unbroken lineage all the way back to cave paintings, and you are responsible for carrying it on. The only responsibility that I expect other artists should have is to know their art history.

You wouldn’t walk up to an engine without knowing anything about it and take it apart, then try to put it back together again. Knowing about art history is a way of becoming part of art history.

What does “Free Art School” mean to you?

It means a closeness with artists in the community. It means relationships that build over time and add strength to base of artists here in Bozeman, or wherever the Free Art School is. Through those connections, people get more confidence to go further.

The actual Free Art School here in town is just a great way to meet artists, do work together, be each other’s backbones and help each other get through the bullshit.

What are your plans for the next year?

In October, I have a show in New Orleans, so I’m going to go down there and try to make some contacts. As far as showing art in town, I’ll be showing at the Cottonwood Club, showing prints and originals in galleries around town, then doing exclusively prints at coffee shops, spas, and breweries. I’m also trying to line up more shows for next year. I usually try to have at least a year before a show so I have time to prepare and get work done.

Bernini’s Lady, Acrylic 2011

Look, for I shall tear away the film that veils your mortal eyes, Acrylic, 2009

GRAEME MACPHERSON Scenes of Abandonment Editors Note: Graeme was featured on our website earlier this year. When Theory approached him about putting his work in this issue, he gave us permission to raid his Flickr account and take what we wanted. The end result is a series centered around the theme of “abandonment.” This is what Graeme had to say about the series.

When I started taking photos, I emphasized journalism and street work. Artists like Boogie, Matt Eich and Matt Slaby were my biggest inspirations. I enjoy documentary photography, but as I started to make my way into that field, I became enamored with scenes that people make on their environments. I found that if I

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tried to shoot scenes like I saw in particular journalists’ portfolios, my pictures were always a cheap replica of someone else’s style.

Once I started shooting my own environments – things I see every day – my work became my own. This set includes a range of work, from the beginning of my photography pursuits to my most recent frames. This series is held together by the fact that there are no natural scenes. Every image has a human element, but generally the compositions are free of people. I like to take pictures of scenes how I found them. These frames, and the lack of information, can tell a story. I will let you fill in the gaps.

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MAX LOWE

Travel Photography in India As I stepped out of the airport into Mumbai, India overwhelmed my senses with thick, perfumed waves of ocean air, flowers, people, and incense from the hundreds of bazaars. I was engulfed by the constant race that surges to nowhere and everywhere.

My adventures in the far east were a shocking revelation into what the world holds for each of us if we let ourselves be carried far enough. Riding tides to the far flung corners of the world will not make you special, but it will most certainly give you insight into the differences and similarities that exist between other cultures and your own. Across the globe, laughter, food, music and merriment are appreciated by all and shared between friends and strangers alike. There is no better way to learn this than experiencing the sudden convergence of yourself into the lives of people on the other side of the world.

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Scanned pages from Poetry And Other Crimes, A self-published book by travelling Beat Poet

SEAMUS NAVARO

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Two poems by local Bozeman writer

JEFF HALLSTEN A Reflecting Afterthought

ONE RED DOT

My life goes by slowly, but I’m getting by.

Time moves in mysterious ways.

The hand of Bog turns the hour.

Bog damn, Bog damn, Bog damn…

Bog damn it all.

None of it is really real.

He was drunk, very drunk. Nobody knew who he was. Nobody wanted to talk to him. He looked greasy. He stank like rot. He circled the bar staring at the girls. He wanted one. No girl wanted him. That didn’t matter though.

He saw one at the end of the bar. He chuckled and spilled his drink. She would do. He wiped his lip and stumbled towards her. Slowly and clumsily he reached for her. His creeping creeper fingers did the work. Up her skirt he groped her thigh. She spun around and knocked him down. Her shocked eyes shot daggers in his chest. Everybody looked at him. A large hand grabbed his hair and pulled him up. The large hand belonged to her lover. The lover’s other large hand made a fist. He cocked it back. The bartender stopped him. “Take it outside…” said the bartender. “You’ve got five minutes.” The lover drug the stranger out. All the men followed.

The women went to the window to watch. The lover beat the stranger to a bloody pulp. When he had finished the other men kicked him. They spat in his face. It had been five minutes. The bartender called the cops. The lover and his love left. Everybody went back to drinking. I paid my bill and left the bar. When I was outside I saw a pool of blood in the snow. Small trails of it lead towards the ally. I unchained my bike and noticed one red dot on the fender. It must be blood I thought. I wiped it off and rode home. I slept well that night. I didn’t really care. It was just another red dot.

My heart is soaring, Choking on a pinion bone.

I see a pretty face That won’t leave me alone.

Hey girl, hey girl, hey girl…

Hey girl, what do you see in me?

What do you see in my eyes?

Is it as dark as people tell me?

Did my momma give birth…

To a Greek tragedy?

I’m sorry it’s so scary.

Just run away.

Run, run, run…

Run away from me.

My star is in the third house, Just beneath the sunrise.

Disappearing into obscurity, And taking my mind.

An instrument of torture, With a love so divine.

But, I’ll keep walking.

I’ll walk alone.

Leaving the chances behind.

Delirum, A Photo Series by Corrine Perry

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOT YOU DOWN? FEEL LIKE YOUR VOTE DOESN’T COUNT? ARE YOU APATHETIC ABOUT THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS?

WAKE UP. EDUCATE YOURSELF. VOTE! The elections are more than just choosing our president. There are local races and initiatives that really matter. If you vote and actively create awareness, you can create change on a local level that directly impacts your life. Referendums on this years Montana State ballot initiatives address issues regarding abortion, illegal aliens, health insurance, medical marijuana, and campaign finance laws.

Research Candidates. Learn about the ballot measures. Talk to your friends and family and cast your votes on Tuesday, November 6th.

To register to vote in Montana, go to your local courthouse.

For information regarding local candidates and ballot initiatives, visit these websites.

sos.mt.gov - votesmart.org - isidewith.com