NUGENT ONE

Insight into a wild mind with Ted Nugent stuck on repeat. 

Now it's time to wash the screen print ink off my hands and kick back, zone out, and have a cider with my lover and the Weenie Mutt (Humble).
I hope the weekend is treating everyone sweetly.

A STONE, A LEAF, A DOOR

Little sketchbook page // thought crash

... a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door.

And of all the forgotten faces.


...

Remembering speechlessly we seek




the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a



stone, a leaf, an unfound door.  Where?  When?


O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.




- Thomas Wolfe
Did anyone else use to be borderline obsessive about Bad Religion? They were my 
favourite band when I was about 16, and it's weird reading Look Homeward Angel, 
by Thomas Wolfe, and noticing where an 80s/90s thesaurus punk band got some of its lyrics from. 

I love things that connect to other things.

⋙↣ CREEDENCE ↢⋘LIMITED RUN SHIRTS

Pony Gold Creedence shirt; Spell and the Gypsy Collective necklace; The Wild Unknown tarot.

This is about lying under a clear sky at night and talking about the endless unknowable truths; about a shared bottle of whiskey moving hand-to-hand; about bare feet on the dash of a speeding car; about sun on naked legs -- running through a summer field, chasing dogs and horses and guitar riffs and ideas and notions.
It's about a beat-up copy of East of Eden and a scratched vinyl record collection that you inherited from your dad... at the same time that you inherited the truth about good music. 
It's about cracked leather, engine grease, wildflowers in a brown beer bottle.
It's about everything rough and messy and wild and beautiful.

☪

So this is something I've been meaning to do for ages, but the logistics were just way too intimidating. It was hard to get things working exactly the way I wanted, which probably has more to do with my control/perfectionism tendencies than anything else. In the end it was just time to bite the bullet and do it myself... So I'm sending out into the world a limited-run of hand screened shirts (Creedence is the first style, one more to come). They're available for pre-order here, and I'll be shipping out the first lot on September 2. After that, I'm not sure how long I'll keep the screens for... just until a better idea comes along, I guess!

SKETCHBOOK: QUICK THOUGHTS

Here's a little sneak peek at all the ideas I've been playing with lately... 

Also, a big thanks for everyone who keeps supporting me and checking in, even though I've been the worst emailer/comment-replier ever. All your kind words and just general rad supportiveness is amazing and keeps me working to create and curate more inspiring, light-giving work and images. So thanks. 

Hopefully I'll be able to dedicate a bit more time to interacting more with everyone, I've just been working a way on a very special project that I'll be revealing in the coming days.

So check back in soon, I'm really excited to share something new with you all...

Δ LIGHT IN AUGUST Δ

Images from Rookie, Zahra Abraham, here, here, and Tumblr (unsourced).

It’s the last month of winter in one of the southern states in the southern hemisphere. Longer days mean walks in the park with the almost-grown dog Δ creating succulent patchworks in the back yard Δ stringing up fairy lights and hanging tea candles Δ screen printing new flags to fly – indoors and out Δ running a little further every day Δ berries dipped in rich yoghurt with a lover Δ photographing the dying light Δ cold nights in warm beds Δ letting the wild spring weather get in your blood Δ planning camping trips Δ staring at the sea Δ cranking Neil Young in the kitchen, singing along and roasting vegetables Δ sitting around a fire talking about important things like aliens and politics and philosophy and music and war Δ more pastel sunrises with magnolia blooms and bird songs Δ reading Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway and McCarthy Δ gathering energy for the final sprint of the year Δ clearing your mind Δ carving out solace Δ

↠≫ RABBITS ≪↞

Hat from Camberwell markets; Lenni Noise tank; Dr Denim Arlene jeans; vintage velvet burn-out shirt; boots and concho belt via eBay; markets/vintage rings. 

My editor at work always says this thing to me about chasing rabbits: that if you chase a whole bunch of different ones at the same time, they’re all going to get away. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying before. But notwithstanding the fact that I kind-of dislike rabbits – or, I’ll admit it, am a bit frightened/grossed out by them – it’s a totally true analogy for me at the moment.

Lately it feels like I’ve been chasing a whole bunch of rabbits and catching none. I’ve been furiously hopping from one half-finished project to one new-formed idea to one vaguely-glimpsed vision and back again – a process which leaves a trail of incomplete things everywhere.   

And on top of all this proverbial rabbit-chasing, I’m finding it almost impossible to keep pace with the bare-minimum requirements of day-to-day life, like staying on good terms with the real estate and making it to work on time, and remembering to feed the dog and not getting fined for minor traffic infringements.

I’m not sure why life’s being difficult in that way, but I’m putting it down to the rabbits. So I’m going to chose one, maybe two, and work on catching them.  

Then I’ll come back for the others.  

SPIRIT OF THE PAINTED DESERT

Bona Drag Spirit of the Painted Desert lookbook

Photography: Harper Smith

Model: Kelley Ash

Makeup/painting: Kali Kennedy

...Because Kelley Ash is the forever style muse. 

CONSTELLATIONS

∆ GOING UP THE COUNTRY ∆

Photography: Amanda Leigh Smith ∆ Model: Thalia Kelly ∆ Styling: Tashina Hill ∆ Assistant: Ginger McCabe

Shirts: Mate Vintage ∆ Jewellery: Cobracult ∆ Leather bags: New Church ∆ Painted skull: Medicine Collective

See the whole shoot here.

Two years ago, I was sitting at my parents' dining room table, inking in painstaking fine lines, leaning over a sketchbook until the muscles in my neck started seizing up and giving me migraines. I was watching the clock to see how late I leave it before I got up from the table and went to work.
I was totally compulsive. I had to finish a new work every day. Some of them were starting to come out well, I thought, and every now and then my hands would accurately interpret what my head wanted to communicate.

Despite my compulsion to draw all the time, I didn't know why I was doing it. Or what I was trying to make. Or where I wanted to go with it. There was a sense of inertia that I very much still feel, the need to just keep creating at any cost.

But I can say one thing for sure. Two years ago, in the late-winter dawn of my parents farm, I would not have ever thought that my artwork would be out in the world, being worn by people I'll never meet or see, and -- no less -- being shot by one of my favourite photographers. It's a huge privilege and honour to share in such an amazing creative community, and I guess it's part of the why, what and where I've been trying to get to for the past few years. 

DISCOURAGEMENT

QUICK SKETCHES ...

...Just quickly, a couple of sketchbook pages. I did a time lapse/stop motion of the second piece on Instagram (@raychponygold)... Which is always fun.

LOVE THINGS: WINTER BLOOMS

1. Collecting the few winter blooms I can find...
2. Car-scrawls and road-trip sketchbooks -- as well as comfiest-ever Somedays Lovin jeans.
3. My mum has an incredible succulent collection, and I'm starting a collection of incredible Spell and the Gypsy Collective rings // A recent favourite.
4. I read the Virgin Suicides and, sure, the movie was beautiful, but the book totally kidnapped my mind and I lived deep in suburban 70s Detroit for a few days // Annnnnd I drew some stuff, and on my hands.
5. One of my favourite recent illustrations -- Lavender // And as a screen print, which I'm really exciting about... Good things are on the way. 

WILD ONE

TEXAS RADIO

 

I've been meaning to make another one of these for a while, and here it is. 

I always find it fun to watch a piece grow in time lapse. I guess it also gives some little clues about how my mind interprets what I'm drawing. It also makes me nervous, which results in funny hand tics and pencil clicking. 

I'll be putting this original up online soon, too, and hopefully some others that I've been accumulating for too long. 

I hope you're all set for another big week of good fortunes and, failing that, repair schemes. 

ANOTHER WORLD

SOUL LOVE

That only they can share in.

FUTURE THOUGHTS

Minkpink knit via Market HQ; vintage sunglasses; Spell & the Gypsy Collective rings and Prism Bomb necklace.

Yesterday I addressed a parcel to Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, and it suddenly made Flinders Street, Melbourne -- and my presence there -- seem a bit obscure. Because, three years ago, I was sitting on the floor in my sharehouse -- in Brisbane, no less -- drinking cans of pre-mixed whiskey and trying to paint a frustrated love letter and avoiding study and just so, so scared that nothing was going to work out, ever. 

There would be no job, no love, no freedom, no travel, no safety, no money, no art. 

But that's precisely not how it worked out. And it's just so weird that when you try to imagine your future, you have absolutely no way of even coming close. 

The future is being good so far, and I hope yours is too -- enjoy the weekend x

LIFE INERTIA

An age suspended between exhaustion and replenishment, between input too ordinary to process and input too intense to bear.

- David Foster Wallace.

SKETCHBOOK: A MONTH OF WANDERING

This is just about a month's worth of scrawlings in two A5 sketchbooks... so apologies if this is a bit of an overdose -- there's been lots to think about.

I filmed a flick-through of the first sketchbook here, and the second below.

Δ THOUGHT MAGIC DAYS Δ

 

Photos from Makenna Snyder, Jessica Mai Walker, Max Ernst, here and here.