Michael Sieben ponders the use of blogs by catching you up on his vacation and artings.
2008 was not a good year for me in terms of the blog. I took lots of pictures... and I made lots of notes... but I just never seemed to get around to sending any of the stuff to Trippe for the site. I think I just really started to feel weird about trying to document everything I was doing. It's human nature to question things, right? Anyway, I think I'm over that hurdle and now I'm assuming everybody in the world is totally interested in looking at my vacation photos.

So sit back, pour a cup of coffee or a mug of beer and enjoy. Or just scroll through real fast to see if you're in any of these photos.

I love the internet.
-Michael Sieben

Have you seen the new iPods?

Not for real. Actually this is a weird little screen burner they have up at Volcom.

My buddy Mike Aho and I made a bunch of monotype screen prints back in August.

Super low-budget high-experimentation. We made about fifty of these things.

Wooden apples and goat reapers. The usual.

Then somehow ended up in Peru.

Actually ended up in Peru because the prints we made were for an art show being thrown in Lima by this guy Luigi who distributes Volcom in South America.

It was more of a dance party than an art show. Which is fine with me. I'd rather watch people dance than try to talk about my art when I'm half-drunk.

This Summer I also went on my first actual skateboard road trip (lasting more than two days.) We (nine dudes in a van) drove from Austin to Trinidad, CO in one stretch. When we got to Trinidad we found this little dude in the grill of the van. Bumming way to start things off. (He was totally dead. But still totally cute.)

Straight Meekin'

How the hell did a World Industries board get in the van? (Note: we camped every night and skated every day. Simple pleasures.)

You wanna see a dead body?

We don't have these gas stations in TX, but I totally remember seeing these as a kid in MO. I really like that logo design.

There's just something about waking up in a tent and seeing this first thing in the morning instead of an alarm clock.

I still don't know how Joe got up there.

Life is really awesome sometimes.

At the end of September I went to Portland for a show with Mek Kadel and Travis Millard at Upper Playground PDX. We stayed with Ryan Smith (not the pro-skate dude) and his wife Kate. Ryan's brother Johnny let us use his van the whole time we were in town. Crazy generous.

Not a lot to say about this Bronco other than "hell yeaher."

Aside from setting up the show at the gallery, pretty much spent the entire time playing ping pong in Ryan and Kate's basement.

Mel and Travis pretty much made me feel like I'd never played the game in my life.

This was right around the time of the debates...

Scary, scary ass times.

Mel sent me this photo to prove there really was an art show. I sort of stopped taking pictures halfway through the trip. Self-conscious freak-out.

She also sent me this photo of America's favorite son.

So probably the next big thing that happened in my life (and in the history of the world) was this.

If you didn't cry at least a little bit then you might be a robot. Or a Republican. Same thing, yeah?

We were so happy.

Happy enough to blow some shit up.

The next "blogworthy" thing that happened in my life was an Okay Mountain show in Kansas City at the Paragraph Gallery.

We built a replica of the picnic table that's in the backyard of Okay Mountain as part of the installation.

Exact specs. We hand painted faux wood grain on all of the boards so it would look awesome. I think to us, the picnic table really represents the camaraderie of the gallery.

We slept in the gallery the whole time we were there. Low-tech sleeping pad.

Ambitious 5 day mural project.

The cheat sheet.

Sharpie tattoo/temporary gang.

We had a bunch of new 7" x 7" collaborative drawings for the show.

And we made sure to make a good impression on our Kansas City hosts.

Here's the finished mural. Post-apocalyptic animal weirdness.

Beeramid and sun with sunglasses resurrection (from the 1st Okay Mountain group show.)

All of the gallery's podiums were being used so we did our best to make one ourselves.

Here's what the finished picnic table looked like. It totally worked despite the fact that it was Art.

Then, back to Texas. Love it or hate it, it's home to me.

And besides the amazing BBQ, it's where all of my skate friends live. That shit's important.

Words and photos: Michael Sieben {moscomment}

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