Corporate Sponsorship

I've been thinking for while about extreme sports, and surfing and volleyball. In part, I've sat in awe of what a 21 year old kid can do with a skateboard or a BMX bike nowadays. Mostly, I've thought about the idea of corporate sponsorship, and if it can play a significant role in art.

Corporations don't bathe athletes in money just for their talent. They do it for the brand exposure. O'Neill doesn't sponsor Timmy Reyes and Corey Lopez just because they're nice guys. They do it because these guys make kids want to learn to surf, and they make adults choose O'Neill over Rip Curl. Nike doesn't give money to (insert random basketball player here) for grins and giggles. They do it because they want to associate their brand with that guy. It's all about the brand exposure. But of course, this is all something we all already know.

What does it take for the artist to become a worthwhile investment for a mega-corporation? Is it simply a matter of exposure? If one does enough guerrilla sculpture installations or enough high profile pieces, can his or her work entice the marketing department of a company to start throwing cash/cameras/welding gear their way? In truth, if could get one major surfer's annual stipend, I could afford to make work that would get on the news in seven states, probably without even breaking any laws.

I imagine part of it is about saleability. Does it just come down to the right amount of charisma? Is it a matter of news exposure? Does one have to generate a million adoring fans first? What does it take?

And what would happen? What could the photographer do that had the freedom to use her eye when, where and how she wanted? I imagine making sculpture that isn't ever meant to be bought and sold, but rather to be experienced. If art basically breaks down to creativity, communication and intelligent aesthetics, what happens when these traits become elevated in popular culture? There has always been power in art. So much so, that it is cannibalized into every aspect of our lives. But what happens if the artist can find the corporate sugar daddy? Can the contemporary artist do more than make trite garbage that only appeals to academics and collectors? Can art still change the world? Is there room for a second Renaissance?

What do you guys think? Really, I'd like to know.

Beyond My Ability

I was driving over to my sister's house to help her move. On my way to the apartment I felt some dire interaction as I was shifting gears. I managed to get the vehicle back home, but third gear seemed to be where first should be. I slid under the truck, mag lite and wrench in hand, prepared to adjust the linkage. I was baffled. The stick was floating free, wrenched from any interaction from the linkage. Both shift rods were thrown forward, suggesting that the transmission should be in both 1st and 3rd gears simultaneously. I was in over my head.

All I felt at that moment was a mild nausea and the need for a hug, yet afterwards I found myself laughing. You see, I like to think that God and I have little inside jokes. I figure, He knows my thoughts, my sense of humour, my history. He knows where my heart is right now better than I do. He knows how much that I want my life back. He knows how much I miss Santa Barbara. He knows how much I miss working with my hands, having friends, being near the water. He knows how much I want to get out of the bay area, and he knows how much money I have in the bank. Really, I know you don't get it, but it's a great joke.

The best part about our little jokes, is that He usually teaches me something. And no this isn't the formal "Please Lord, let me learn something from this situation, like how to make lemonade out of grapefruits...." God really teaches me about my relationship to Himself and my need for Him. There are times when one can fix things themselves, when one can make minor adjustments. There are times when through our own action, our inaction, or by wholly unknown means outside of ourselves, lives, transmissions and the world as we know it are thrown amiss.

There are times when I try to fix these things myself. I will freely muck about in my own automobile/life/relationships, shearing bolts/communication/whatever. There is a lot of stuff that I know how to fix. There is a lot more that I know how to make worse. What's awesome, is that I am getting better at knowing this before I make mess of things. That is to say, I'm being shown more and more, when and where I need ask Christ to work on me and on my life. There are things in my life and in this world that I cannot fix, definitely not by myself. There are certain things that I need to trust to more skilled hands than my own.

It may sound simple and trite, but whatever, if you'd been under my truck with me you'd understand. I think I'll call a mechanic in the morning.

Phranq Watercolor

Phranq Watercolor
Originally uploaded by Ron Davis

A quick watercolor sketch of Phranq.



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Ron Davis

805 451 2228

In The Last 24 Hours

In the last 24 hours I've...

...watched 2 episodes of Dora the Explorer and 1 episode of Blues Clues

...been outsmarted by a 1 1/2 year old

...been inside a projection room for the first time

...discussed tight pants with a girl from New York

...had my speech compared to that of a drunken Scot--by a girl from Edinburough

...planned a comic at 1 in the morning

...taken a detour due to a melted freeway

...realized that while I'm 30 and my nephew is 5, we still dress the same

...looked out the window in May, an hour from the coast, and have seen rain

Linguistic Excavation

My achilles heel has always been communication. When I was younger, I used to stutter when was frustrated or excited, and mumble horribly when I wasn't. Nowadays I just have a tendency to skip over words, pause in the middle of my sentences, or to just simply fire out analogies and metaphors in a manner not dissimilar to the use of mortars on a well fortified military bunker.

I'm often accused of not thinking my thoughts through. Rather, I find, myself thinking carefully, refining concepts and relationships and logical proofs. My brain processes the world in little shapes of thought. Unfortunately, my words never seem to fit right over them. In fact, it's much like reaching into a child's closet, for a shirt that is supposed to fit, and after an agony of struggling, and pulling sleeves around bony little elbows, finding that the shirt is sewn wrong, or mis-labeled, or that it belongs in his sister's closet.

Language can be hard for me. Their meanings can be much more fluid than I desire, and they usually get in the way. They are a shovel. A useful tool, with which I always manage to dig myself into a whole.

A State of Thankfulness

Right now, I have the sense of epiphany sans the manic energy. I am just, plain old thankful.

I am still homesick and longing to return. The days are still rewarding yet tiring. I still don't have a workshop or studio set up. I am miles and miles away from the ocean. I am still unsure of various aspects of the future. I still struggle with getting enough sleep, and finding enough energy for the day. Yet, right now, I am able to be in a state of genuine and peaceful thankfulness. I have been blessed this last week with some good conversations with old friends and current friends. I have been able to watch my niece start to take the first moves towards crawling. I have napped in the sun, like a cat, with my sister's children dog-piled on top of me. It's the closest thing I've felt to being a dad. I am thankful, yet it's not just these experiences that cause my thankfulness. I believe that God is growing my capacity for thankfulness. I would say that I am learning to be thankful, but that would over emphasize my own participation in what I am being taught. Simply put, I feel that part of my mind/heart/soul that I has secretly numbed, has since awoken with feeling and recognition.

Tonight, I am thankful for the small blessings of this last week, as well as the big ones. I am thankful that I am able to recognize some of them right now. I am thankful for the lessons I'm being taught by the struggles of the last year. I am thankful for the knowledge that I can pray to the God that created the universe and that He listens. One of the amazing things about faith, is that one can be taught the same lesson over and over again, with increasing levels of understanding and growth. And it feels good to be able to see a part of your heart that is being worked on. It is like watching the artistry of a surgeon, while you are the patient, or like a piece of pottery being able to recognize its maker's hands as it is formed. No rush of emotional energy, no disappointment. A simple place of peace and thankfulness. What it would be like to be here for a whole day.

Domestication and the Nomadic Heart

Suburbs. Suburbs with a posh/country flair.

I was raised in the country. I was raised on a five acre farm just outside the city limits of the town in which I currently reside. As a child, I had enough land in my "possession" that I was effectively king of the world. Catapults, BB guns, firecrackers, and death defying leaps abounded in my domain.

At some point after I left for college, the world shrank. In California, land is much less abundant than it had seemed in my youth. The vast spaces surrounding towns, entreating adventure and exploration, have yielded to condominiums and high end gated communities. The ranch house in which I grew up, has since become the property of strangers. (Mind you, I still claim the rights to the untold treasures and Time capsules left my my 10 year old self.) In c, I have been unaffected by these changes. Land means little to a college student; one who sleeps in the college foundry in order to maximize his opportunity to weld, and to generally explore the concept of global domination as an art form.

In, the last few years, I've been equally free from the burden of the encroaching picket fences. As I've been exploring vocations, and building up a bank of skills in a move towards self sufficiency, I've had the luxury of living in Santa Barbara. Claustrophobia is seldom able to exert its wrath when one is always no less than 5 minutes from an ocean or 15 minutes from a network of serpentine trails. I have lived in houses ready for demolition, and in a van, yet I have continuously had the luxury of freedom and space. Seriously, for the last year, I've been blessed by being able to wake up in the morning and look out over the ocean, before even pulling myself out of bed. It has been good.

And now, for the time being, I find myself in the town of my youth. I'm helping family to get life organized and get back on their feet. I currently provide daycare for my younger sisters four children. This can be great. Kids are fun. And by definition, uncles are the greatest force on earth. In their eyes, by my very nature, I am able to undertake any herculean task set before me. And, though they remain steadfast in the conception that I am as bullet proof as Superman, they assert that even Kryptonite is useless against me. I am the bronze visage of grand uncle-ness, strewing about snack packs and juice laden sippy-cups. I am, as they say in France, "The Man".

But alas, I know this is not a life that will long satisfy. I love these children, and I love my family, but I don't think that I'll be able to stay as long as they'd hope. The average suburban life kills a man like me. Though I still believe I am where I'm supposed to be right now, there is little adventure in the routine journeys to elementary and preschools. There is little space in a house filled with stuffed animals and admittedly cool Tonka toys. I've been finding that I end up with neither the time nor space to build and create in the way that has always brought me satisfaction.

These last few months have confirmed in me something that I have always known about myself; That I can't lead what has become the archetype of the standard American life. In the very least I need to live a life that is radically different from what has become the social norm. At the most, I need to shake what's me to its foundations. I am meant to make stuff. In what I believe to be the biblical understanding that each person is designed with purpose and intent, I want to be who I was designed to be. I know that I think differently than most around me. I am meant to imagine and do things that others can't or won't. I am meant to give sacrificially of my time monies and energy, as a gift to God, and as a testimony to what He has done in my life and my heart. I am meant to live a life that few others would be willing to lead.

I don't know if this would ever include a family. Admittedly, it would be amazing to find a wife and partner that's equally unwilling to settle. It would be great to have someone to share adventure with. It would be awesome to have someone who echoed my maniacal mindset, where we spurred each other on. There seems to be a lot more that can be done by two then by one. Maybe I'm meant for singleness, and an array of like-minded friends that can share and partner in various parts of my life and adventures. Maybe I just need to trust my own innate abilities, and have faith God's power to accomplish things in/through me that seem far outside of what I can accomplish. It would be awesome to have kids someday; to see the generational sin and dysfunction that has plagued my family end with me. Maybe it's enough to support my brother and sister as they raise their children; to pray for and encourage them and their kids as much as I can. Maybe it's as much as I can handle.

It's amazing how so much of life can be clear and unclear at the same time. It's easy to know the type of man I am supposed to be and the kind of life that I am meant to lead. Yet the details of this life are little more than conjecture and desire. I have a vision and a dream for the rest of my life, yet it seems so far from where I am right now. And so, I have to face each day with faith. I have to ask God where I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to be doing, what dreams to plan for, and which ones to leave by the wayside or to faithfully give up to Him. Every day I need to faithfully move toward who I believe I was designed to be, while having the patience to live a life that I hadn't expected to be living.

I don't know what my life will look like in a few months or a year. Plane tickets beckon me towards other continents. I daydream of desert hideaways and building robots and sculpture from junked cars and aircraft. I imagine living out of a boat or truck, leading an untethered life, and selling my skills in the trades, or numbering among the few nomadic web designers. My heart longs for a workshop, where I can make and sell sculpture, and custom designed lighting, and whatever creations will pay the bills; a place where I can potentially teach others my skills and desire for adventure; where I can offer a few kids an alternative to smoking pot, and loitering, and a bleak future of retail or food service jobs that will never really pay the bills.

And every day, I have to pray for the patience to wait, and for the strength to do what I'm doing to the best of my ability, and for the wisdom to know when to take the next step, whatever it is. Life is hard, but it is good. Even in the suburbs. But I will never, never drive a minivan.

Just so you alll understand....

Just so everyone understands where I am currently living....

On my way home from driving my nephew to school, I turned on the radio, only to hear a 60 second advertisement for a bull riding competition. (Yes, it is in a stadium. Yes, they did use the monster truck voice.)