brian and cherri-slemat pagi (good morning),

at least it is morning here. yesterday we had lunch with the mayor of jogjakarta. it was pretty crazy, but he was very mellow and very cool. he was very into having a hands off approach with public art projects, that is with the art work. he said that he trusts artist to do good work. no intervening in artists designs and no preliminary bullshit. this is a breath of fresh air for me.

in sf i choose not to work with such organizations as the arts commission, and any organization that wants to have you go through some long process of having a committee ok your design. i hate beauracracy in the arts, especially for me. most of the time when you try to do go throught this kind of process, you end up painting a mural like a year after you come up with a design, and by that time the design is old news and irellevant to where your art is at, at that present time.

unlike sf, the government here is in full support of this project,the mayor and his associates are even lending us their bikes. crazy huh? the other nite i went to this crazy digital arts festival on a roof top in downtown jogja. they had 13 bands playing, hip hop, techno, metal,punk, you name it.... it was cool to see the subculture alive and well here. i actually painted live at the event with one of the indonesian artists. i did a spraycan piece. people were flipping out. they had never seen, a nyc style piece done. i did it with the local type of spaypaint, which is actually quite good. the indonesians thought that it wasnt possible, except with american spraypaint, but i showed them that it was. they all want me to show them how to do it now. i am planning on teaching them some tricks of the trade.

the journalist from time magazine is here, and is writing a 9 page story about the project. he is actually surprisingly cool, (at least cooler than i thought he would be). he seemed very interested in my politics and my work. it will be interesting to see what comes of this whole thing.

i am finally becoming used to things here and can actually sleep at nite. alicia mccarthy will be arriving 9 in one week, which i am looking forward to. despite being used to things here to some degree i cannot say that i am not a bit homesick. although, we are so busy i dont have much time to think about it. well i guess this is it for now.

peace-andrew

Anno Domini

Get Together. enlist today