Sa Martinez

I love the visual. Who doesn't? The color. The movement. The mood. And when things are captured and frozen in time they become the most powerful images. And we try to describe how the visual makes us feel but generally we are at a loss for words & what it takes to say them. And for me that's what does it - when I'm like "Damn...that's fuckin.....the shit."

On the road I try to make it out to local galleries. One of the benefits of touring - to actually venture away from the venue and feel like you are really on tour of the country. And I have to say that there are dope spots everywhere. Aside from the obvious places: New York, LA...I'd have to say Portland was the most memorable. Some very nice artists up there.

This past year I had the good fortune to start collecting art. I realize that my idols (Pollack, Picasso, etc..) will never hold up my walls but that's OK. I know from searchin that master works from lesser knowns are hanging everywhere.

I grew up a good part of my youth in the Catholic Church - Our Lady of Guadalupe. The very heart & soul of South Omaha. The church was constructed around the turn of the century & had some huge mosaic frescoes. Church Art. Jesus, Joseph, The Virgin Mary...the whole nine. I also had to be an altar boy. It pretty much sucked. Kneelin most the fuckin time in that funky vestment - listening to what the gospel had to say according to such & such (Paul, the Corinthians and you can bet there was a John in there too). Communion had me holding the plate out for all those pasty morning tongues. But what sucked hardest was that I had to carry the cross in the procession. I had to hoist this huge ass crucifix attached to this big ass pole with my tiny little arms & anchor the female end of it onto this gold plated penis lookin thing. And this was one of those realistic lookin Jesus dudes - splayed out on the cross, spikes through the wrists, dried blood where the holes were, his gaze heavenward with this look-how-much-fuckin-pain-I'm-in expression. And during special services like Ash Wednesday the parishoners would line up & kiss his feet. Let's stop here. This is where shit just gets too carried away. I mean I'm not gonna kiss that shit. I'm nine years old. I'm scared. I don't need that drama.

Now in that scene, the church scene, you see a lot of suffering depicted (the stations of the cross, etc..). I can appreciate it too. In a lot of ways that's like the Old School. The church way back in the day commissioned artists to depict bible scenes and these artists honed their craft to a science creating very realistic images passed down depicted again & again with very few changes. Church art is arguably the most recognizable.

Alright....let's fast forward to how I began collecting art. During the making of the Down video - we were shooting in a warehouse right next to this place called Artcore Gallery. During a break in the filming I made my way over to the spot. What first struck me were these beautiful figures, these carved colored figures - then I realized they were the dreaded christ figure. "Holy Shit! Jesus is that really you? You don't look so bad. You look kind of fly." And he did. He was done up in all these cool colors: cactus greens, sky blues, pinks, mettallic grays, etc.. On some he was stuck all over with rose thorns, another had these colored baubles glued all over him, and another had all these cactus spines sticking out of him. I could go on. There were over 20 Jesus figures and they were all so unigue. The artist is named Michelle Conor. She was raised in Japan, lived for a time in LA & now resides in Mexico. I thought she was really cool & I really enjoyed looking at her work. She transformed this tired looking Jesus figure & gave him new life. Bravo. I bought ?????? of them: names???????.

This other artist I began collecting is Juan Perdiquero. He has this technique which I can't even begin to explain. He takes photographic paper & coats it with this thick ass ink and....fuck it. I'm not even gonna try because I know he has labored hard coming up with this style and me deconstructing it is just gonna fuck it up all to hell. So fuck it. I will say his work does have a strong Spanish Baroque flavor though. I saw his work while in New York at this spot called the Alternative Museum. Michelle mentioned that she had work on display there so naturally I wanted to check it out. When I saw the exhibhit the one piece that stood out most was this piece called Aparicion III by Juan Perdiquero. Now that piece is hanging in my living room. It is a spooky eerie portrait of this androgynous looking humanoid. I also thought it looked like an end of the century Mona Lisa or even possibly something much more ancient. Otherworldly. The gaze....Damn, everytime I look at this image the gaze is just penetrating. Its cold & strange & seductive all at the same time. Tres cool.

Another artist that I've been collecting is a dude by the name of Randy Galaska. I've been fortunate in that I've met both Michele & Juan (even got to check out Juan's studio in Brooklyn) - but Randy I know on a deeper level. He's my homey. I first saw his work back in 1990 when a mutual friend took me to his show. I was like, "Damn. He's bad." I can't really remember one specific piece - there were so many that it was overwhelming. And they were dope. My friend Jeff was like "Yep, that's Randy. He can produce." I was like, " Fuck yeah he can." I was amazed. Not at their existence (although I have yet to see anything like them) but rather at the fact that he wasn't much older than I was and he had done all these cool assemblage tribal like shapes and I was just trying to use the word "homing" in a rhyme. However, it wasn't till a couple of years ago that I actually hung with Randy. I was swingin through Omaha visiting my friend Tony at his skate shop when he goes, "Yeah I just gave a bunch of broken decks to Randy to use." When I go, "Galuska? What's he doin?" "Just makin fat art," Tony says. Naturally I wanted to check him out so we cruised over. When we got to his pad I immediately noticed that his style had really evolved. He had come into his own & had markedly developed his vision. His colors were much more vibrant, his lines were cleaner and tighter. His shit was boomin. "Yo Randy, how much you want for these?" I saw him as a renegade hip-hop producer. Instead of piecing together his art with James Brown or Roy Ayers samples, he was using the deconstructed skateboard decks of Kareem Cambell, Mark Gonzalez, Steve Bara & Tony Hawk. There is so much street vibe in his art. Very young. Very dope.

Well enough about art. Simply put - I love it. It's just like the world. Just as magical and I can't get enough.