The constant.

The only constant in my life is change.  Change will come and I've managed to deal with it well. Even times when it doesn't come, I force it to happen.  I get antsy with the comfortable life but maybe I'm just scared of being normal.  My greatest fear growing up was dying alone, but these days, I seek solitude and fear being like everyone else.  In Princeton, we all drive to the same place; Target or Trader Joe's.  Anytime of the day, its like an apocalypse is about to happen.  Families frantically stocking up on their produce and dry products.  We've been having bi-weekly trips to New York and even with the congestion and traffic, its a bit of fresh air.  The only city that I feel comfortable calling home.  Even with all those changes to Flatbush avenue, Brooklyn is still the borough I spent 10 of my past 35 years in.  35 going on 36.  It's odd because I feel 50 plus and I realize I'm only in my mid thirties.

I spent the early half of my 30's in South Korea.  Within the small country, we've managed to move 3 times.  Seoul is a city I can't remember entirely.  Everything that's happened within the past 5 and a half years seem like it all took place within a vacuum.  Nightly drinking binges, afternoon rice wine binges, the chain smoking, karaoke rooms and chicken delivery.  You can have just about anything delivered in Korea and just about anything is open till the early morning.  Cost of going out is moderately cheap.

Moving back to the states, so much and so little has changed.  Maybe I was never the savvy business man, or the serious artist but navigating the world of entrepreneurship and self-promotion has become harder than when I had left.  When I left back in 2010, these are some of the things I did not own:

1. iphone
2. instagram account
3. linkedin account
4. etsy account
5. pinterest account
6. chairish account

I think I'm forgetting a couple of accounts but yeah, never have I had so many accounts before.  And quite frankly, none are making me any richer or more famous.

Yesterday I opened up a GIPHY account and started uploading some videos and turning them into GIFs.








With so many outlets, the biggest challenge will be editing the ways we approach business or self-promotion.  The other challenge will be to carefully curate the way we utilize this new way of living.
Some days I feel as if I'm trapped within my instagram feed.  Other days I want to drift to sleep and dream.  But the world is not the way I left it, and it will never be that way again.

decade of what has become.

The decade of my twenties was filled with art school, marriage, work and kids.  The ten years that make up my twenties where each year drastically differs from the next was one big mashup of all things that I have become.  I always thought I'd be in my twenties forever, but we all know that it only lasts 10 years.

During that time, I had quit my job twice at the same company.  I never saw myself permanently fixed to one place and found it quite boring.  The first time I had quit was in 2006.  My mother had become a little sick, but now I think of it, it wasn't big enough to really impact my decision.  Maybe it was just an excuse but I left my first real world job and decided to become a full-time writer slash artist.


My days were spent like so:

I would wake up as my girlfriend went to her job.  I sat in front of the typewriter and begin brainstorming and doing writing exercises.  

Later I would sit in front of the computer and work on some videos.  

I would leave for Kim's Video on St. Mark's Street and rent 3 dvds.  I would come home and watch one of the three films and burn a copy of the other two to watch at a later day.  

After watching the movie, I would sit behind the typewriter again and try to finish 10 pages of a screenplay that I was working on.  I figured that writing 10 pages a day, I would eventually have a solid script in about one month.  



Days were a lot longer then.  I wasn't confined to a set schedule nor did I have to accommodate anyone else's time.  It was just me and my writing.

I ended up writing 3 screenplays but nothing ever materialized from it.  I had made some videos that would get played somewhere but nowhere big.  I started my website www.botheman.com which I still keep updated but by the end of that year, I was back at the job I had left.  I was married and needed a steady form of income.

I've never enjoyed that much solitude since and once in a while, I think back at that year.  Its something that I would unlikely see anytime soon; time just for me and no one else.  No obligations but the ones that I made for myself.  A bit selfish but I think we all need to be at one point or another.

The culmination of the 10 years rolled straight into my 30's.  I sit here a bit puzzled at where the time went but I can only smile at the results.  Just today I pretended to be a girl named Lisa, playing make believe with my six year old daughter.  I would never trade that in for anything, not even a years worth of watching movies, chain smoking and typing stories on my typewriter.

The last year of my youth.

I had just graduated art school and living at my girlfriend's place in Brooklyn Heights.  I was sending out resumes to every company I could find and figured I should just get a part-time job at Banana Republic to help pay the bills.  Our relationship was a bit scattered.  Living together brought out the worst in us.  I spent half of the day stuffing envelopes with resumes and the other half playing street fighter on my xbox.

I had an interview at Artisan for an intern position that would lead to a script reading gig which failed to materialize.  I also interviewed at a tape house where I would spend the day making dubs and digitizing footage.  Luckily, I had failed that interview as well.  I eventually got an apprentice job at a post-production house where I would work for the next five years and where I would eventually start my career as a video editor.

While at work, I would post videos online of films I had done in school.  For the entirety of my life thus far, I wanted to be a film director.  I wanted to make movies.  Movies that mass amounts of people would want to go watch.  I wanted to show at Sundance and thought Miramax was going to buy the film.  I would then go on to direct Gwyneth Paltrow and make a boat load of cash.

I always considered myself a storyteller.  I even wrote a script after graduating school but now that I think about it, it seems too lynchian even for David's taste.  I never had the discipline to hone my craft.  A little too passive to be the passionate director who sells his own blood to finance his films.  Never really had the guts to just put everything out there and give it all I had.  I always felt a little restraint.

I felt comfortable at work, with my career and with my life.  I had met someone who I wanted to eventually marry, settle down with.  My weekends were filled with booze and drugs and I was just happy to be in New York, enjoying the moment.

My girlfriend and I would hole up in my room smoking and drinking coffee, watching Jim Jarmusch films.  Along with my roommate, we would go on excursions through the outer reaches of Brooklyn to return our cablevision convertor box and take extra long detours to Boston.

We walked along the Brooklyn Heights promenade, snapping 120 film with her seagull, and I using a holga to capture our life moments.

The thought of becoming this star director just sort of left me but I always wanted to make movies and that will never change.

When I was 22, I thought I had everything figured out.  If I could travel back in time, there would be so many things I would tell myself, but I would have done it all the same.  I didn't listen to anybody and sure as hell wouldn't have listened to my future self.

The little moments are what we live for.  It instantaneously hits all of your senses and your emotions are overwhelmed.  I think about my life thus far and I think about when I was 22.

Activism in Art

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

-Niemöller

Art has a profound impact on culture.  Most can agree with that.  Its been used as propaganda and also a way to spark hope.

Its been used to critique social wrongs and make a message.  Pussy Riot comes to mind.  

Considering the role of the artist as an activist, it was never clear to me, what duties if any, should an artist have to take on.  Are they obligated to tackle current issues dealing with social inequality and injustice?  Seeing that most artists enjoy staying out of current affairs, my feelings toward activism never strayed far from just being thoughts.  But today I was reminded of a quote I first read inside a Sepultura cd by Niemöller.

Its our duty as citizens to do what we can.  To voice our opinions and fight for what we believe in.  As artists, our tool is the paintbrush, the camera; our voice may be small but a small voice is better than having none.

courtesy of botheman.com

How I learned to stop worrying and love the paint.

I had started painting around this time two years ago.  I did it because it got dark really early, and I was going bored out of my mind.  I had picked up sewing couple weeks prior but after 2 misshapen pillows, I withdrew my plans of being the next Betsy Ross.  

I've been a video artist since 2005.  I say 2005 because that's when I had my first show.  It was in a gallery in Helsinki called 00130gallery, a group show with many other artists and a show I couldn't attend because of the distance; but regardless my first show and the start of my video art career.  

I had never painted before other than my freshman year at Pratt.  I vaguely remember telling one of my professors that I didn't need to paint or draw because I was a filmmaker, and in filmmaking, we use cameras. 

I painted and painted and soon I had about 10 paintings that I was somewhat satisfied with.  My friend owned a coffee shop so I asked him if I can have a show and with 50 dollars or so, printed a poster and made some DIY pamphlets.  I invited some people from the neighborhood and some friends and we had ourselves an opening.

I knew I wasn't an established painter and I knew the quality of my work wasn't the best so I had priced each work relatively affordably.  The total of 10 paintings would equal $1000 and by the end of the night, the show had sold out.  

I had become a proud artist with a sold out show.  Knowing that it was mostly people that I knew who bought my work because it was cheap, I didn't take my painting career too seriously, but maybe that was the point.  Maybe because I didn't take it seriously, I was able to show it without feeling shy or worried that someone would criticize too badly.  

Maybe that was the issue with my career as a video artist, because I had cared for it too much, and walled myself from criticism and comment; I didn't fully put myself out there.  

After ten years, I had finally learned how to approach my video work.  Its just ironic that it was because I started painting.  

 photos from ilovevideo.tumblr.com

Hong Kong : Art Basel 2016

It was my first trip to Hong Kong, a city I've wanted to visit since falling in love with Faye Wong in Chungking Express.  This year, Art Basel popped up on my radar and I used it as an excuse to visit the city.

First the fair:  

I've never enjoyed fairs.  During my time in New York City, I've had the chance to see numerous Armory shows and the near-by smaller ones like Scope.  It had been nearly 6 years since I last attended a larger fair like Art Basel but I was soon reminded how much it resembles a meat market or in Asia's case, a fish market.

Its hard to make your work stand out when its crammed inside booths upon booths and hundreds of galleries are vying for attention.  It might make for a decent calling card to get your gallery's name out there and make some sales but for viewer experience, its the worst it can get. 

For for about 300HK$, you are able to experience 3 hours of walking through-out the 2 levels of exhibition, seeing similar artists being sold at different galleries.  

I was disappointed to see that there wasn't much activity outside the ART BASEL show.  Smaller and more independent shows that make the whole festivities more human and experimental was absent, or maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.  

The Rest of HONG KONG:

The city itself is awesome.  Easy to navigate by public transportation.  (The trolley was the easiest way to travel.)  The night scene was what you'd imagine it to be.  For someone from the states, I was glad I could get around speaking just English.  The cost of food seemed reasonable and hailing a cab was easy and cheap.  There were many high-end shopping districts but not being much of a shopper, shopping wasn't really on my to-do list.  

Hanging out in bars in SOHO and taking the escalators up the hill was probably the highlight of my trip which was way too short but which allows reason for a second trip back. 

I've always been interested in the studio spaces of other artists.  Its where ideas are brought to life and lately, I've been wanting to develop my own studio.  I've for the most part of my artistic life, made video art work that dealt with collaging of found footage.  But more recently, I've been shooting a lot more and because of my developing painting and drawing work, I'm feeling quite cramped in my current situation.