Last year, at the beginning of the Pandemic, I started to make a movie with my son as a way to channel his insane energy and my boredom.
This year, still bound at home from the same Pandemic, we decided to make a second movie. Here are the results.
And here’s the first movie:
Back in 2013, having just been laid off from my corporate job, I started drawing portraits of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. Why? I really still don't know. But somehow, it turned into a thing. I got written up in some very fancy outlets like Boingboing and The New York Times. Just before the 2016 election, I funded a Kickstarter campaign to get all the portraits published as a book.
So now with a new, historic vice president Kamala Harris, I drew a portrait of another cephalopod-bedecked veep. And I am including it as a free insert with the purchase of the Veeptopus book.
Drawing her presented some challenges that weren't problems drawing, say, Hubert Humphrey. Hair, for instance. Most vice presidents within living memory looked a bit like a potato. Hair wasn't an issue because many didn't have hair. Kamala, however, is the most glamourous veep we've had since Al Gore. And unlike Gore, she has luxurious flowing locks. Getting her hair and the tentacles to work together was a pain.
Another issue was skin tone. Harris is, of course, the first woman of color in the executive branch. I couldn't, as I did with every other veep, just use the tube of "flesh" color paint. There were some trial and error. Paint makers really need to get with the times.
Since then, I've evolved away from being the octopus guy but I am still very proud of the book. So now with a new, historic vice president Kamala Harris, I am including a free insert of a cephalopod bedecked Kamala Harris with the purchase of the Veeptopus book.
And if you want an updated Veeptopus poster with all the veeps including Kamala Harris, put your name on this list.
Here’s my last painting of 2020. I supposed I’m going through what my wife calls my Pepto Bismo period. The mixture of King’s blue and Mars Red makes for an unsettling combo that I keep coming back to for some reason. Also, in the waning days of the Trump administration I feel that fog and mist resonates. Maybe in 2021 I’ll do some brighter, happier paintings, but I probably won’t.
It’s been a hell of year. And it can now fuck right off. Take COVID and Trump too.
Between all the prep required for the film history class I was teaching this past quarter and general anxiety about the election, I haven’t had a lot of time to paint. I started this in early October and I knew that I wanted to take it slow and let the work speak to me.
It’s been a busy month here wrapping up the film history course I teach but I want to catch up on some more art developments.
My painting Routine Traffic Stop is currently in two shows at the same time. Fortunately, one is virtual. I was included in O'Hanlon Center for the Arts latest show PANIC curated by the great Chester Arnold. You can see the whole show here. It’s filled with some pretty great art.
If you want to see Routine Traffic Stop in person, you can see it at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art as a part of the Justice exhibition curated by Karen Jenkins-Johnson. This looks like a very strong show and I’m pleased to be a part of it. You can see a gallery walk through here. The show runs through to the end of the year.
By the way, that same painting won first prize at the 202? show at Shockboxx in Hermosa Beach.
Two of my painting are going to be exhibited down in Hermosa Beach this month. Shockboxx Gallery’s latest juried show 2021? One is Benton St., which is literally a view from my bedroom window (plus the corpse). The second is Routine Traffic Stop.
If you’re in SoCal and have a hankering for art, check it out. The show runs from the 10th to the 24th with a virtual opening on Facebook. Info in the graphic below.
Yesterday, I went to an advance showing of the de Young Open to see two of my paintings hung alongside some really amazing work. (That’s me at 839 and 840.) The show is simply crammed full of art. Nine room with work hung salon-style. There is some amazing works of art in the show and some stuff that wasn’t cup of tea (a lot of abstract art, for whatever reason, rarely does it for me.) but all of it was clearly high quality work. The curators did a fantastic job of grouping them thematically – one room was political art, another portraits, another nature landscapes.
This showing was reserved for artists. I heard a lot of people having the same “Hey look! It’s my painting” conversation. There were some name brand artists there too. I heard from a staff member that the great Bay Area figurative painter Wayne Thiebaud, a huge influence, was there too. I had a quiet fanboy freakout at that news. I probably walked right past him but it's hard to tell who's who with everyone wearing masks.
The de Young Open opens to the pubic October 10 and runs through to the end of the year.
This painting was a royal pain in the ass to finish. All those straight lines vanishing into the distance caused me headaches.
I was inspired in part by the horrible smokey air that my corner of the Bay Area has been experiencing off and on for the better part of a month. The original photo was taken on a day with clear skies. Getting that foggy, uncanny look took some time to get right. I’m not really sure if I got it right, but I tried my best.
My 6 year old son, Jasper, came up with the title of the painting.
I started this painting at the beginning of August. I discovered an old black and white photo of an oil field fire in Richmond CA in 1963. It was nicely composed and resonated with the general mood of 2020.
As I was painting this, exploring different colors and tonalities for the earth and the smoke, a series of massive fires swept through California. My immediate area was not threatened but the air quality was pretty toxic for many days from all the smoke. I felt that in some obscure way I summoned the fires from my painting. Maybe for the next work, I’ll paint a picture of the current Commander and Chief getting devoured by a bear.
Anyway, I was sort of stumped to come up with a title for this – Richmond, 1963 seemed a bit too dry for these days – so I just punted and went with Metaphor.
One of my paintings, Golden State Dr., has been accepted at the Celebration of Art 2020 at the Marin Society for Artists. Since this is still COVID times, the show is virtual (meaning, essentially, a website). You can see it here.
The Marin Society for Artists is, of course, the first place to show my work back in May.
You can see a video of the show below.
Solano Ct (2020)
I learned last week that one of my painting, Solano Ct., will be a part of the California Open exhibit at TAG Gallery in Los Angeles. The show will run from September 9 – October 1 and, if you’re planning on going, you will need to call ahead because COVID. This is the first time one of my paintings has shown in LA.
Solano Ct. has previously won 1st prize at the Expressions exhibit at the Marin Society for Artists.
TAG Gallery is located at 5458 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Get a load of this! I contributed to the Autumn 2020 issue of Content Magazine. The issue is about making art during the time of COVID. Some amazing artists featured in here. Check out the full issue.
I’m pretty pleased with the write up, which was written by Taran Escobar-Ausman. Since this is a site designed to publicize my work, I’ll drop a few quotes from the article.
Self-taught artist and parent Jonathan Crow discovered that quarantine actually resulted in less time in the art studio. Crow experienced a shift in priorities, mainly preoccupied by the insurmountable task of keeping his six-year-old educated and entertained. Like many of us during this time, Jonathan checks social media – especially Twitter – and finds it hard to cope with the frustration of a world that appears “maddening and sickening.” The reality of COVID-19 and the BLM protests, however, have inadvertently bolstered Jonathan’s conceptual focus in his artwork.
This last bit hadn’t occurred to me but it’s probably true.
Another passage:
Jonathan Crow’s stylistic theme fits into the context of current events, but our quarantine and global pandemic increase the emotional potency for viewers. His art may reveal hard truths while also offering a catharsis that brings you back from the void. “Art can bring intellectual and emotional clarity to all the chaos and toxicity. Art can also tune into the the subconscious currents of the zeitgeist and articulate them in a way that is beyond words or really even rational thought.”
I am delighted to announce that two of my paintings were selected for the de Young Open Exhibit. It’s a community art show for Bay Area Artists at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. I am delirious with joy.
One painting (seen above) is Indoor Door. It took me forever to paint. This is currently hanging in my stairwell. I see it every day and I find that I like it more and more. This isn’t always the case with my work.
The other (seen below) is Cul-de-sac, which I completed last year. It’s the painting that started by ‘Corpse in Cul-de-sac’ series and has even been used for a record cover.
A recent San Francisco Chronicle article described exhibit and the vetting process.
Some 6,190 artists from the nine Bay Area counties applied to be part of the exhibition and sent images of 11,518 artworks spanning painting, drawing, print-making, digital art, photography, sculpture, fiber art and video. After being evaluated by curators and artist judges Hung Liu, Mildred Howard and Enrique Chagoya, 881 works created by 763 artists were selected.
At this point, because of COVID, I’m not exactly sure when the exhibit will take place, but I’ll keep you posted.
I have an exhibit this month at Kaleid Gallery this month. For legal reasons, I can’t call it an opening because of COVID-19 guidelines. Yet for this month, I have 18 paintings of mine on display at this specific space in scenic downtown San Jose.
Before everything fell apart, I was slated to have an exhibit there this month but I assumed that it was canceled. A couple weeks ago, I learned that, in fact, the show was still on though in a truncated COVID sort of way. I’m happy how it turned out. If you find yourself in SJ, for whatever reason, come down to Kaleid Gallery and check it out.
From the Facebook page:
KALEID is open for viewing this exhibit Fridays & Saturdays from August 7th to August 29th, 5pm–9pm.
Free admission.We will have strict safety protocols including low capacity, social distancing and masks required at all times in the gallery.
KALEID gallery
320 S. 1st St. San Jose 95112
This painting was a departure for a couple reasons. First, this is a bit more overtly political than some of the other works. Generally I think that art remains current longer if it taps into the psyche of a culture rather that relating to actual events. Yet art also needs to bear witness to injustice and general shitty behavior to those who have power. And let’s face it, there is a lot of shitty behavior from the shits in power these days. I have been doing a lot of quick gouache studies of police abuse lately, but this is the first time I pursued this subject with oil on canvas.
This work was inspired from a video I found online. While the nameless videographer was just recording the actions of the police, I noticed that composition was beautiful and eerie. So I screengrabbed it and started painting.
The other departure was more technical. I started the painting was a full canvas wash of yellow oche. This dimmed the natural radiance of the white canvas and gave the whole painting that dusky vibe that I was after.
I finished another in my ‘corpses in cul de sacs” series. This is the biggest one of the bunch at 40x30 inches. As is always the case, the painting took on a life of its own and dictated where it wanted to go. It wanted a lot of Mars red apparently.
Many of these pictures were from snapshots I commissioned from a friend of mine living in Santa Clarita, where I went to art school. It is the ultimate suburban sprawl town. Of the photos he took, this one with the towers in the back were my favorite. But I avoided painting the photo because I worried that the towers would be a bitch to paint. And oh boy they were. But I’m glad I got this out.
Though I spend much of my time on this site talking about my paintings, I actually went to film school. I worked in Hollywood for a few years and then worked as a film journalist for a few more. In the days before COVID, I would split my time between painting and teaching classes on film history and film making at Stanford Continuing Education.
So this summer, I’m teaching an online course on filmmaking, which guides students through the process of making a two-minute movie. I spent much of the spring trying to get my very energetic six-year-old son to do something aside from watch TV and jump on the couch. So I decided to make a movie with the kid for my class. He wrote the story (though I helped shape it into something that could be done on less than a $100 million budget) and shot and edited it. I intentionally tried to make the movie as low-tech as possible. I shot it on an iPad and just used props that we found around the house.
I’m pretty pleased how it turned out. I like it better than a lot of the movies I made while at film school.
A couple weeks ago, I, like a lot of people, watched with horror and disgust as police departments around the country rioted out of control against people protesting police violence. I am heartened that Americans have risen up across the country and that maybe, perhaps, something might change.
I am in a high-risk category for COVID and I’m a father of a young child, so though my sympathy (along my donations) went out to the protestors, I am reluctant to go to the marches. So I process my anger through art. I did a series of quick oil on paper paintings of some of the more striking and unusual news photos of the protests I’ve seen. Usually these are completed not in days or weeks as my canvas paintings are but hours.
Protest Elmo is the best Elmo.
This was the first one I did. I would have liked it even better if it were a Chase bank burning down.
As I wrote about in a few previous blog entries, I have been having a string of luck in Marin county.
My painting Solano Ct. won first prize at the Expressions Juried show at Marin Society for Artists. Since we are all under quarantine here in California, the exhibition has been turned into a "virtual exhibition" (aka a website) which you can see here.
I also learned that Chuck and Cindy was invited to show at the “Left Coast” juried art show at Marin MOCA. You can see a virtual preview of the exhibit here. Unlike Marin Society for the Artists, Marin MOCA actually staged the exhibit even though art galleries aren’t permitted to open under current Shelter in Place rules. Hopefully, that will change before the show closes on July 19. The curator of the Marin MOCA did this video walk through of the show which you can see here.