world tour Part 1: brooklyn, NY & Morning passages

I’m on a one-month trip around the world that began yesterday when I landed in NY.

Self portrait. Brooklyn, NY. Teo’s apartment.

Next up is the Catskills mountians for a wedding, then straight to Fiji for another wedding. London after that for my Artist Workshop. And then off to Turin, Italy to see my old pal Patrick who I haven’t seen since I was 15 when we did some bad acid together in South Africa… Pappin (Son Of Shark Pig) is coming along to London and Italy to shoot our workshop and whatever else he gets his camera on. Remember the epic behind-the-scenes video he shot for my feature in Rue Magazine? Stuart is meeting us out in Italy (yay!) and then we’re going to try and go over to the French Riviera for a couple of days before coming back home. I am SUPER excited!

My absolute hands-down favorite inspiration/design/fashion/art blog is Morning Passages. Jessie and I have been “online lovers” (as she puts it) for 3 years now since we discovered each other and she posted this feature on my work a while back. So, of course, coming to Brooklyn, I knew I had to try to meet her in person. We met for a drink last night- she is even more rad and beautiful in person. Jessie also works for Lomogoraphy and we have some very cool stuff planned! She posted this on her blog today : )

In a beautiful strange coincidence, I also happened to have run into Shoko Wanger while I was hanging out on the street in Williamsburg last night! Shoko is the sweet, beautiful and talented writer that did the interview for my Dark Weirdo Rue Magazine feature, and we had never met in person before either. She recognized me on the street and we gave each other a huge hug – she’s so lovely!! Then Jessise and I talked about how gorgeous she was for, like, ever.

I am stayng with my best friend designer Teo Griscom of Unforeseen Circumstances here in Williamsburg. We all met up last night with Jessie, an old friend of mine from San Diego- Noelle, incredible Photographer Eric Kvatek who’s an old friend from Santa Fe, NM that I haven’t seen in 17 years, and his beautiful girlfriend, Bunny.

After that we went over to see my friend Jane Blevin– a cult icon in her own right/ incredible artists, designer & textile maker. I also hadn’t seen her in about 14 years since she left San Diego to go on her adventures. The first time I saw her was at my first Crash Worship show back in 97/98 (changed my life). What an epic creature she was on stage! Last night, until 4am, we had the most “ineffable” (her favorite word) time: listening to Jane’s stories about her burlesque days in New Orleans (Lady Jane was the FIRST burlesque show in this now-modern resurgence of the old performance art). She showed us her magical garden, built around the grave of her beautiful 3-legged dog Doodle, she made us cocktails and showed us all her photos & art: textiles, prints, and her beautiful illustrated poetry book (which made me cry and reminded me a LOT of the concept for my short film: The Alchemical Poisoning Of Magus Sherwood). Jane is one of the most fascinating, beautiful, talented and honest people I have ever met. A true artist. We got Blevinated.

I took photos of everyone on my film camera, so when I get back from this trip I will get it all developed and post. Heading to the Catskills tomorrow morning…