Finished a second piece tonight.

THIS IS IT.

This idea is something I've toyed with for a number of years. I was sooo frustrated tonight. I started reworking the earlier slab of cement and I was just angry. Process had turned into madness and I was cursing during each layer of paint. It's not what I wanted. It wasn't coming out. A few years ago I started incorporating the stenciled alphabet in the corner of my work.

I was asked what it meant and why I did it. My answer "I don't know" but there was something AMAZING about it, something that I fell in love with each time I applied the stencil. I hadn't come to a point of resolution or resolve in what I was doing, I was still based in figurative work, drifting into a more decorative style in terms of painting a branch or a leaf. I was satisfied with my work but not excited about it.

When I had been questioned about the application and use of the stencil, I perceived the questions as threats, or possibly doubts about my talent and vision. I stopped using them after a while. I somehow believed, because of that conversation that it was a device that wasn't working because I had no motivation.

Tonight I nearly threw the original cement slab against the wall. I had layered it and primed it and detailed it, blah blah. I HATED IT. I wanted to paint a person in a globe in the center of the piece but it wasn't happening. I don't think I wanted a person in there, I felt like there should be, based on what I thought other people like or expected to see.

My work has never been easy to understand, for me or anyone else. It's never an easy process. I don't really want it to be, but for the most part it's been enjoyable. Three days ago all my work I did in california burned up in a storage unit. Everything is gone except for the large 12 piece that's on my myspace page and a piece that I painted the day a friend of mine died.

EVERYTHING ELSE IS GONE. There is only a digital record of those pieces, and they're really not great pictures anyway.

I've been angry [creatively speaking]. I'm ADD, and impatient, and those aren't the best qualities in a painter and I've always tried to play to my strengths and create from what flows so that my attention span isn't a factor in the creation process. I don't want instant art, it's never usually that successful nor does it say much. I want art that reflects who I am and the thousands of words that travel in my head at a breakneck speed.

This piece tonight is a breakthrough, the breakthrough I've searched for and it was so simple, so easy, and always there.

Every piece from here on out will be a reflection of this and it's what I've always wanted.

J.M. Prater

This is what's left of the cement block after a blaze of inspiration. I've painted a coat of polyeurathane and will continue to layer thin coats of acrylic and eurathane until something happens or I'm satisfied with it.

I realized quickly that structure and routine method isn't my forte in terms of the process in which I create. The shirt idea was interesting but too rigid. I need to be able to layer and create memory in each layer without a clear path of where I'm headed to, much like the way I write, stream of consciousness.

I'm still not sure where I'm going. I wish I did because I'm so fucking impatient.

Jaime

I took this photo today. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect image.

This piece is IN PROCESS...

I purchased a shirt worn in world war 2 at a garage sale in a town called North Liberty. Prior to purchasing the shirt I had poured a slab of cement to be used in a series of new pieces, hopefully finding a creative path to walk down as I continue my artistic journey [god, that sounded lame].

The shirt I bought is charged with some incredible energy, mystery and memory. I want to capture that on the piece of cement. This image of the shirt you see on the cement at the moment is only one layer. I am undecided if I should leave it simple or take it further with oils and paint more of a photo real shirt?

Any suggestions? Aaron? ha!

Jaime

The finished piece and the waiting cement canvas.

This is also a very new piece. I'm in the process of working out a lot of things, and I think it comes out in the visual torment that this figure looks to be in. It's turning out to be more of a self-portrait then anything else.

Having moved from Southern California back to the midwest after a 5 year stint, I don't think I have a grasp of who I am and what I want creatively. So, for me, that means, working these things out visually, trying to find a nitch or an idea or a style that works and running with it. This piece has a lot in common with some work I did about 12 years ago in North Carolina, with the exception of the structural instability of those pieces. This is still a work in progress.

I have my mind set on buying cement and pouring small cement blocks for use as a pseudo-canvas and incorporating newspaper and the insect world. I'm actually VERY excited about it. I felt that the piece you see below was neccessary for me to complete before I move on.

I will be posting a finished version of it in the next day or so.

I guess I'm calling this piece BOUND TO A LIFE HE NEVER CHOSE

CORAZON

This pieces is entitled Corazon. I was inspired to create it after hearing a song by Lila Downs of the same name. I'm actually not really sure what to think about it myself, it's a bit hap-hazard and experimental.

The photos/collage below are a part of a larger series as yet to be titled.

I thought I'd update this time without the dramatics of my usual prose.

It's September 11th, a big day for everyone. The television is littered with memorials and tributes. A large part of me is unaffected by everything that's happened but at the same time, I remember everything from that day and I'll never forget it for as long as I live.

I recently took a trip to Chicago, I was there for a training meeting with Starbucks but I wanted to go back to my old haunts on Wilson avenue. Something has always called me back to Uptown Chicago. It's no secret that that's where I grew up and spent most of my youth. In many ways I've been afraid in some respects. I don't know how I'll be received or what people will say when and if they see me. At the same time I'm drawn to this place that is the only childhood home I know. I remember the rage, the anger and the pain. I remember everything I felt when I left that life behind. As the years have gone on and that life becomes more and more of a blur for me I find myself not wanting to lose my connections to it.

When I arrived there I stood outside the doors, on the opposite side of the street for about a half an hour, hoping I'd meet a familiar face, hoping I'd engage kindness. As it happened I only saw one or two people walk in and out, and a flurry of people I didn't know. I walked around the side yard and started taking photos. One of several photos I snapped was the window into 316, the room I spent many years in. I had a bit of trouble locating it but then it realized itself. There was no mystery to it, it was just a window, a hundred among a thousand, nothing special.

I stared up at that window for a while, imagining myself behind it, what I discovered, what I learned, how it felt, how it hurt and how it laughed. After going to the back I went around front again and just waited. I saw a few familiar faces drive by in cars but no one static or approaching except the curious glance of someone I knew who either didn't recognize me or didn't want to. I found myself walking back to the Wilson train stop and as I climbed to the platform I met Brian Gray and Michael Warne. They both greeted me with smiles and conversation and an invitation to have me over at some point.

It was all odd, at one point I felt myself return to this familiarity, that I could've walked through the doors and the life I'm living now, all a dream.

She's Discovered

Shh, listen, do you hear her? Do you sense her presence?
She's there, just outside but finding her way in , slithering in her misery.
The silence, the lonlely, she's discovered where I rest tonight.

I shall have no peace, this heart no solace, these feet no warmth.
She finds me in the stillness of the night, the quiet of the morning
the beautiful nothing of the sun's first light.

I've outrun her over and over, only to see her black jagged legs unbuckle from
underneath the deadwood trees, creeping from her filthy web to remind me of
how much I have, and how meaningless it all is without love.

I take her sister, I take the tempting name of her sister.
She who looks so radiant until you focus and see the skelton beneath her wedding dress.
But the dress masks the truth and it's a blanket of white and our wedding night blissful

It ends, and ends abruptly, the wedding night a ruse, the climax falsified.
I'm left with her name next to my closed eyes, her horrible name.
She left me with her name and sought the comfort her sister in that coil of dredge in that black forest on that desolate island upon that dead sea.

She left me with her name.

Denial.

J.M. Prater

A Tree, worthy of Heaven.
A door worthy of earth
I lay before you, a whisper on the wind
he goes before I, entrenched in heaven
yet praising the skies

A Tree Worthy of Heaven