Arts and crafts update from the Kura barn with recent dossiers of various mixed media projects including: Suez Canal panoramas, more Kerala India spy photos & sherbet-coloured houses in oil pastels, poetry & travelogues on hotel stationæry, and the circular story of a postcard series from Cascadia, also a fun-gible Shiba Eno stamp.
Get in on the fun. #hint https://daveostory.com/shop
PS happy to be “at home” at Tsuchida Cottage
Items (no longer) forgotten at DaveOShopAssembling dossiers with artifacts which span continents, generations and mediums. Get in on the fun with an Art Dossier delivered to you, whichever century or continent you live in.
Spanish Alleys series
2 new series of postcards up for sale!
First is” Spanish Alleys” – a set of 2 quality, hand-finished art prints of paintings by me (hello!) from alleys in Barcelona – right off Las Ramblas, peeking into apartments from a Juliet balcony – and Granada – amidst a jumbled alley of a Teteria with shishas, paper lamps and buildings seeming to fall into each other. Watercolour and pastel mixed-media.
Second is “India Lomos” – a set of 4 B&W photo prints from a Lomo “sardine can” spy camera from Cochi (Kochin) Kerala, India featuring a steel steed bicycle, Royal Enfield motorcycle, “Danger” stacks, and cenotaph by the church (was Portuguese, then Dutch, then British, now tourist) which held Vasco Da Gamma’s bones. All fuzzy and mysterious (both bones and photos).
Both limited to sets of 5 and hand-finished with affection here at Tsuchida Cottage, Japan. Available (along with other “Extras” at BuyMeACoffee.com/daveo where you can also sign up for the DaveO Shop Club and receive a postal treat automagically each month plus extra digital treats #worthit
Get in while they are fresh and shiny, think you’ll love sharing with your friends (or keeping for yourself).
Fondly, dvo
Just dropping off a load of dispatches at the post office. Indeed, they are always amused by my stacks of stacks, dispatched to many parts of the world, hopefully to you. Each made with affection and intention.
Painting, Letter writing, Collage, Podcasting, all at once. Totally usual behaviour right?
Stories are stories – the important this is to create and then share (if’n ya want).
Be your own master of all crafts/media.
Quickly before running a bath, Dave – regaining equilibrium – discusses creation of a slightly-delayed but very-pleasurable project, ergo: “Time Travelers“ handmade cards including outfits, printing techniques and paper choices, fire hazards, inky & postal stamps, and fingerprints.
Plus riffs about carrying on in strange times, wonderful events, fountain pens and puppets. And expressing gratitude to friends who sent cards and letters, often reciprocated by Hokusai woodblock prints and/or “cheap and cheerful” time traveler cards.
++
Drinking a Turmeric / Reishi mushroom concoction in a stolen mug with a velour tracksuit, Dave rambles about misplaced “tribute to Mom” memorandum log and love of receiving cards and letters which are stashed lovingly in handmade scrapbooks and shared with family.
Plus quick hits about festive cards (and evidential delays), poems, time traveller photos, letterhead, stationery and Ryoko’s Kinome office.
+ Name checks for new Papas, Steve Rapport (Mostly Rock n Roll), David Bowie 83, and Hotel Monterey and lost/odd Christmases + brother Anders.
Continuing the story of the Olympia SM9 typewriter (from 2018 at Wonder Hotel) simply to show the difference a year of diligence and intrepidness can bring.
Yup, it truly was the most difficult of times, pulled in directions i didn’t want to go but then… states and provinces crossed, affairs sorted, planes and memories faced, trains and ferries joined / turmoil, bureaucracy, paperwork, disrespect and frustration, all well, just sort of sorted itself out. I mean, I know how but the point is: the time came when i was reunited with this typewriter and all was different from when i left it.
Still the keys get jammed, the ribbon inexplicably requires flipping/rewinding after barely a page of typing but, now smudged with thumbprints from changing said ribbon and supplied with aerogrammes from often lost countries, used envelopes with franked stamps (and sometimes intimate thoughts), and the usual hotel stationery, I made things.
Mostly poems and erstwhile letters, quite literally banged out without regard for perfection, just passion! Rapid transcriptions from scribbled journals, imagined lives of a doppelgänger, and notes from undergrounds.
Then joyfully accessorized with inky stamps and collages of postage stamps which may or may not have anything to do with the poem at hand (actually, they were all very intentionally consciously chosen but hey… that’s for the art to say). Oh, you can find evidence of these sessions in Items: Forgotten cycle vol. 7 Espionage and bits in vol. 6 Circumnavigation.
Now, the burly beast sits in a teakwood closet awaiting another opportunity to resist my indelicate fingers. Reminding me to touch gently with nuance and care.
All this is to say, art saves lives (in some cases anyhow).
I stayed in Sri Lanka (near Galle) for a while doing some Ayurvedic treatments, drinking tea and wondering wtf i was doing etc. As such, i made an address stamp for ease in my copious correspondence, usually performed at a tea shack down the road.
Bad Wougar is/was a hard rocking band in Vancouver BC with four fine gentleman who practised diligently in a room called the “the Den” which I’ve visited several times – occasionally playing some drums, especially extended jams to “Cortez the killer”. The name “Bad Wougar” came from a campfire myth about a dangerous animal which was a mix of a wolf and a cougar.
On a trail walk one day, I recorded a myth about the creature for the bands use and amusement. They then invited me into the glorious brand-new Monarch Studio (which has an origin story to share another time) to record a few snippets from the riff for the songs. In all, my voice/words appear in two tracks on this final release which was distributed on CD with a paper gatefold cover (i have 2, Mac Kobayashi has 1).
For the record, released: February 28, 2014 (noting this was a high point in an otherwise tough tough year). As mentioned, the four members of the band (including a non-related Olson) were each fantastically kind, interesting fellas as well as quality musicians and it’s a privilege to know them.
So it goes, folks have other commitments and adventures in life so they don’t play anymore but I hope this CD/album is more widely distributed in future / Kind of band that would be big in Europe.
You can check the Bad Wougar Bandcamp or Soundcloud + Youtube Discogs + a review in UberRock, a snippet:
… every time I sling this album on the stereo I can’t but feel like I’ve been transported to a wood-panelled backwoods bar where the band are plying their gnarled rock ‘n’ roll trade in such a fashion that the venue’s customers are worried that the whole place will go up in flames, the sounds so incendiary….
There’s a grubby charm to this band and its self-described brand of hard charging rock ‘n’ roll. It’s garage rock by way of the forest and you can’t really ask for anything dirtier, earthier than that.
As the stoner-like riff of final track, ‘Spoke Too Soon’, rattles the fillings out of my teeth I’m left wondering if maybe what I just listened to was part of a crazed fever dream. Then I look up and see the album cover, the eyes of the Bad Wougar appearing to follow my every move…..
Another review in Permanent Rain references my spoken-word bit, ergo:
This spoken kick off made me realize I was in for a fun ride, just as if I was watching a movie–and I was not disappointed. …
The album itself has a delightfully punk element to it, often mixing with elements of classic and progressive rock. It could have been released in 1984, 1994, 2004, or 2014 and reflected the music of its time period.
