brian and cherri - greeting from jogjakarta indonesia.

hello, i made it here and everything, despite the insane culture shock i am expierencing, is good. communication can be a bit hard at times, but i am making do. i took a 3hr class on speaking indonesian and have learned some words. jamie james, the writer for time magazine will be here tonite at 6pm (1800 hours). he will be spending a week here to write an article about what we are doing over here. we are having dinner with the mayor of jogjakarta on monday. he is backing the project 100%. It seems as though there has been much more support for the project on this side of the fence, then in s.f. (pretty pathetic huh?)

i will be beginning my mural tomorrow. the wall i am painting is approx 17ft tall by about a half mile long.(very fucking huge) i will be painting collosall sized imagery to ensure covering the whole space. i am more inspired to paint than i have been in a long time due to the architecture and what is common.in s.f. i go around the entire city searching for delapidation and urban decay, and obsessive compulsive ghetto rigged stuff. here that sort of thing is everywhere. shanty towns, piles of stuff, etc. some of the things i have seen here look much like things and scenes i have already painted.

i saw a mahogany tree for the first time in my life yesterday. I thought i would be able to find good garbage/excess to paint on while i was here, but everything is used here, there is no excess or scrap anything. people gather everything that could possibly be used for anything or sold. the indonesian artists that are working with us are amazing artists. my assistant Nanu Warsano is an incredible artist who makes sculptures, murals and comic books. his art is very much along the same lines as mine. very politically driven subject matter. he is also an under cover punker just like me. stylistically his work is a bit different but, he uses much of the same symbolism, bottles, birds, houses (not bird), and many other things as well.

there is so much info to relay but i would be sitting here typing for like two hours. Muralism here in indonesia does not seem to have been tarnished by graffiti. i.e. it is not linked to it in any way which seems to make it much easier to get walls to piant. you know, often times in s.f./california people link murals with graffiti. dont get me wrong though tagging is alive and well here in jogjakarta. i have seen some kid that is tagging Plester 351 up all over the city, and this city is fucking huge. and murals get tagged here as well, just like in s.f.

well, that is it for now. let me know that you got this. my internet situation is much sketchier than i thought it would be.

peace-andrew

Anno Domini

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