GGNNARRRR!

GGNNARRRR!, originally uploaded by kai smart.

hahahahahahahahahaha.
two years ago.

my work!

Draw:

art nouveau grandfather clock
a small turtle
a Danse-Macabre woman dancing w/ skeleton
something for Cerridwyn
70's owl figurine wearing a samurai hat
calligraphy penmanship-practice unicorn *done
California Poppies
Wisteria

Lovely collage:
Eduardo Recife

Forgetten Poetry and the underside of rocks

Laudanum













Girls will wait in meadows hoping to catch unicorns
Conceiving a thirst that begins and ends in your body,

Drinking it's white flesh. The way they put their hands
Together, in prayer- it is like a corset: the whittled

Stone in the vial of a whale. Someone shall put an ivory conversation in a box. Another will whisper of lace.

Spoons. They are all listening for the small moment when the temple's last stair falls into the sea.

Herons begin their landing.
In the kingdom of the lynx-eye the palm-tree splits the rock, greedy for rain.

For this is the room where the door comes close. For this is the limestone gallery, the well of dreams, their dormition.

They shall prick themselves with silver sewing needles.
And in the morning be silver and lake; a tincture of snow.

-by Monica Ferrell


It is indicative of my debaucherous lifestyle of the past that poems will show up written in journals that I DIDN'T write but that sound exactly like something I WOULD write, that I have no recollection of transcribing. Like the poem above. Underneath is written,
"What does this poem mean? What is it talking about? Contact Her"

Over the poem is a line drawing of a single magnolia blossom.

Photo by Imogen Cunningham


I have been thinking of Antarctica a lot lately.
The folks down there for this summer season are leaving now, taking the 6 hour ride back to "The Real World" of Christchurch, New Zealand. After all of my resentment (Write this down about me: "I have resented an entire continent before. Kai Smart resents a continent.") I realize that The experience was one of the most incredible ones anyone could ever hope for and I, and perhaps we all, must STRIVE to make our lives that interesting ALWAYS.
I am inspired by my friend Arline, a traveler who just came back from Venezuela, and before that Nepal. My friend Richard is leaving Antarctica after another season and going to Costa Rica (3 weeks), then India (5 weeks), then East Africa (3 months). It's really inspiring. I am such a homebody that I can only stand travel in small doses. 2 months max, usually. Not that traveling solves things. It's just that the world is so wide and so complex. It's inspiring to see it.

Here are some things I wrote "on the ice".

I relate to the monumental range of mountains (that exist! That we can see every moment as we termite away at our little jobs!) only in mystery terms. I do not want to relate to them so much in the terms of science or adventure or discovery. I want to think -and I do- of all the nothing we know about the mountains. I want to think there are secrets there under the sliding glaciers that we will never learn. Not us as a race, not us as a species. I want to think of the place that no one will ever see. The ice, the cold, the remote frozen land, the killing weather,, they will keep an outrageous and surreal secret. A crystalline palace, or a second sun, or perhaps just the underside of a rock that no human will ever touch.

What about those things that are never touched by something living? Is inanimacy the lonliest thing or is it nothingness?


This attitude may seem depressing but I assure you- those vast landscapes brought me awe and joy which I can't replicate here in this part of the world.

This could be the bitter end. I know it won't.

I feel like I should go over to my brother's house. Funny enough, now that we live in the same town, I don't often see him. I started out as his connection to music, now he's mine. I've been happily revolving my favorite CDs for the last 6 months or so, but I fear getting too used to them.
Brother Jordan! What should I buy? What is the new thing? Give me a CD to devastate me........

Last 6 mo. Fav. CDs:

Silversun Pickups stay refreshingly not-boring AND put me in a killer yearning/self destructive sort of teenager mood.

Handsome Furs perfectly complement my empty countryside and nothingness-town ennui. And the Joy Division part of myself.

Andrew Bird produced a masterpiece, Armchair Apokrypha, which I am super wary of over-listening to, because it's on the ipod at work and we listen to music for 9 hours straight there.

The National's new album is rock for grownups, and very beautiful. The lead singer does not sound like a little boy, and that makes all the women instantly like it.

Patrick Wolf is my perennial art-boy crush and his new album is fucking awesome (and has Marianne Faithful on it).


I want new music I want all music.
I live in a house with two professional musicians and they almost NEVER listen to music at home. I listen to probably 97% of the music played in the house, but do to the aforementioned musicians annoying habit of making fun of all music that is played in the house, I listen to less and less, unless I sequester myself in the bedroom or studio.

I want to buy (on CD in my hot little hand):

The new Magnetic Fields
The new Bob Mould (I read a good review of it)
Vampire Weekend (possibly? The sound like afro-pop)
Lightning Seed (I read a good review of this too, They're from the Black Mountain family)
Cat Power's Jukebox
Something by Sage Francis (whenever he starts rapping on the ipod at work I'm like "woah this is awesome," and then I check and it's Mr. Francis being incredibly verbose AGAIN.)
23 by Blonde Redhead (why don't I have this already??)

more? Can YOU reccomend something? I have incredibly varied musical tastes. I even like goth and celtic (is that the same thing? Hmmmmm.) So try me.



I love this video because of the way she moved down to hip hop video level- crouching, walking towards the camera with her makeshift "posse" of bar denzins behind her, throwing up "signs". Also because it is so happy-golden-summer.

Cat Power- Lived in Bars
Starts off slow and sultry, ends joyfully.

VALENTINE'S!

I had a lot of fun drawing this caricature of myself in my journal just now. It's a challenge with the mirror-image vision that I have. I got my tattoos of their respective arms, but to the world my bangs go to the other side and my flower is always behind my right ear.
Anyway- Happy Valentine's Day from the self-crowned Queen of Hearts. Queen of the actual symbol - the heart, in all it's many depictions throughout history. There is a cultural history of the heart that we carried at the book cafe that I kick myself for not buying- but it is not on ABE or Amazon as far as I can tell. There is another book called "A History of the Heart", which looks good and along the same exact lines.
I hope your day was filled with love, as mine was.
And Kai Smart most likely does love YOU!

besos,
kai

Burmese Map of the Universe

I am such a lucky tattoo artist- in more ways than one, but one of the main ways is that I have a very 'ahem' CREATIVE group of friends. My people want tattoos and they want interesting and inspiring stuff, dammit. I still have only done one piece of flash EVER.

I get messages like this on Myspace (this one is from my friend Cerridwyn):

I was thinking of maybe a chest or back or 1/2 sleeve....
With all these incorporated in an art nouveau/kai/mucha way:
bird skull/antlers
octopi/kracken/ships/ocean
moths
weird flowers-poppies/love in the mist/yarrow
pretty ladies(maybe)
bicycle parts
bones
iron work/skeleton key
twirly designs

Holy Cow, right? There are 1000 ideas in each one of the things she mentioned!

Recently Jessica was sent the most beautiful "inspiration package" to use in the design of a 1/2 sleeve tattoo. It was from a friend of ours- Amie, (who HAS a degree in graphic design) and great taste as evidenced by the package; pictures of feathers, bandanna fabric, works by Jean Toroop and Camille Rose Garcia, actual bits of lace and rickrac...it was really cool. She also wanted to incorporate a needle, thread, spiderwebs and keys into the design. We were a bit overwhelmed, to say the least. Overwhelmed and overjoyed.

What about this guy?