Brett Walker

So apparently a city official in Mesa, Arizona didn't like my Jimi and Linda piece, so they asked the Mesa Contemporary Art Center to remove it from the show. Since the arts center is publicly funded by the city, they had to oblige. So now my video piece is no longer in the show. If I can get them some info about another piece I submitted to them by tonight, than that piece can be in the show.

Interesting.


Summer is here, in theory, but it's been grey and rainy for the last three weeks. My garden is not doing well.


Working on a lot of great stuff right now. Some photos and drawings. A video piece and some other more sculptural items.


My friend Caleb Larsen is back in Seatle for the summer and he's probably going to be making messes in my studio all summer. It's good to be able to have such a like minded comrade around, to continually find the fualts in my work, and to drink all my cheap beer.

as usual, Brett Walker rambling on about mopeds




and if not rambling on about mopeds, you can find Brett Walker rambling on about beards, and then making coffee

Webcast by Ustream.TV

So about 13 days ago, my wife was laying completely still and unresponsive in our bed. She wasn't breathing and her face was very blue. In a nutshell, her heart went into what is called ventricular fibrillation. Today, she is alive and better and at home with Elanor and I. There are no words to describe how happy I am to have her here with us. It's been a long last couple weeks, and the next month or so will be just as long. But she is alive and well and healthy and we're doing okay. As she regains her memory of the last couple weeks, and I fill her in on what exactly happend, she will be updating her blog on the incidence, which you can find here if you are so inclined.

Yesterday was the first day I really got to relax, and I spent most of the day out in my garden. As Kathleens gets progressively better and better, I can let go a little and not worry about her 24 hours a day. I am so happy to be at home with her and it feels so good to start thinking about art and the wonderful little projects that fill up my mind sometimes. Hopefully I'll have some lighthearted art related updates to post about soon.

Wednesday morning I leave for another barista competition. This time it's the national competition, the USBC in Minneapolis. I'm pretty excited and have been working like mad creating various signature beverages and table settings. Everything is looking good and coming together. I am off to practice for another 5 or 6 hours today, then I pack up all my stuff and ship it out Monday. Wednesday I leave and I'll be back sometime next week.

Just barely managed to get some work out for shows as well. Most notably is the Art on Paper show in California as well as the New American Talent 23 show in Austin. I may go down to Texas for the opening of the NAT show. The NAT show was curated by Nato Thompson, with whom I have met and worked before, while he was the curator at MASS MOCA.

Other than that, I am looking forward to coming home from the competition and spending the summer hanging out with Kathleen and Elanor, and making/finishing various projects I am in the midst of right now.

So my amazing wife has started writing a weekly column for a website called Seattle Mom Blogs. She's doing this in addition to her normal blog which she has been writing for some time now.

Pretty busy with work stuff right now, but finding time to finish some pieces and send out work for shows that I am either in or would like to be in.

Been very busy, obviously, as most new fathers often find themselves. Kathleen's really the one who deserves all the credit though, as she gets stuck with the brunt of the work only because I can't physically feed Elanor.

Anyway, I am off to Berkeley, California tomorrow morning for a barista competition. I'll be back Sunday night, and will spend next week sending work out for a few different shows in which I am exhibiting.

Amazingly enough, I am still finding time to pursue all my art making and such. The barista competition work becomes a little exhausting, as I have been practicing somewhere between 8-15 extra hours a week, on top of my 40 regular hours of work. It's a lot of time away from home, and this weekend is going to be the third weekend I've been out of town for something in the last month. Not to complain or anything, as I am really excited and happy to be doing all of it, but it's just a lot of time spent away from my family.

So, 2 weeks ago tonight, my wife Kathleen went into labor, and after 24 hours and some use of a scalpel, we were blessed with this new addition to our family, Miss Elanor Naudain Walker. My amazing wife Kathleen wrote a good little bit about the entire birthing thing, which you can read on her blog here. I don't know if I have anything I could add about the experience that my wife didn't already, other than the fact that birthing is not for men. I don't think I am anywhere near as tough as Kathleen is, and probably would have shut down upon the first pressures of labor pains.

Been fairly productive lately, completed a few video pieces that have been in progress for the last couple weeks. I have also begun working on a series of photographs I will be producing over the next few months. It's curious how seemingly non-linear most of this is at times. I think as my work evolves, the one thing that remains constant is the direct and immediate nature of my work -- what you see is what you get, usually. However, repeated viewing and contemplation leaves one with a multitude of ideas and concepts regarding a simple action, movement, or idea. One video piece I just finished deals with control and the lack of physicality in our contemporary culture, through the use of a mechanical mediator like an air compressor.

I have also been going over older work and pieces. One piece that I had mixed feelings about early on is this video work. I remember that at the time, friends and collaborators thought it was a strong and complex piece, but it never felt right for me. Today, it seems more relative and similar to my current work and thoughts than it did two years ago. Additionally, the editing and technical controls resemble my current work method.
This is the older piece:


I have also been working closely with my friend Rosanna Veatch. She and I have started a collaboration called "R is for Rad and the Surly Burly." We haven't quite yet figured out what we are doing and why we are doing it. A few concepts that keep coming up are theatrics, the role of the pretentious in contemporary culture, and the need for a distraction from the mundane. We're in the process of doing some two-dimensional print-based work, mostly letter pressed, as well as some performance and photographic pieces that deal with the conceptual characterization of "R is for Rad and the Surly Burly."

This is a video piece we just recently finished:

This Thursday is the opening reception of the juried show I am participating in at the Punch and SOIL Galleries here in Seattle. My bread flick has been selected and will be shown at the SOIL gallery for the month of December. You can find more info here.

The work-making has been relatively slow lately; however, I have been able to work on some collaborations with a friend of mine. A few video and performance pieces will be finished and made public soon, and we have been furiously working on some more graphic-based letterpressed editions which we will hopefully end/begin sometime in late January.