Brandon's boyd books

My
name is Brandon Boyd. I am a Los Angeles native, a Vegan sympathizer,
an artist by day and come nightfall I sing in a band called
Incubus. I am suspicious of religion, advertising and know-it-alls.
My teeth will one day fall out from overconsumption of licorice.
My closest friend on the Earth is a dog from France. I sleep
diagonally until I have company, then I sleep lengthwise.
I am straight, yet I adore sparkling mineral water. I have
a bionic right leg as a result of a freak gardening accident.
My right eye goes lazy after about 3am. If you feed me after
midnight, I multiply. My name, when translated literally,
means 'Broom-Hill' which I find horrifyingly exotic. I live
in an old building that at one point in the 1900's was a working
brothel. As a result, the ghosts of under paid and over worked
prostitutes roam my hallways. So, there is a lingering smell
of cheap perfume on the second story of my home after 3am,
which might explain my occasional lazy eye. I am allergic
to milk and as a result have never had an ice cream party.
You may have just heard the sounds of very small violins playing
behind that last comment, but don't feel bad for me; I have
sorbet parties at every Equinox and spend about half a day
thereafter happily cleaning the 'sticky' out of my fingernails.
My right knee is named Chet and my left is Garrison. Everything
I wear once belonged to someone else with the specific exception
of socks and underpants.

I am quite certain that in the above rant/ Myspace 'About
Me' section there is a sizable window for you curious and
or skeptical observers to peer through. I have always cringed
at the thought of describing myself and my multiplying creative
endeavors, but it seems as time wears on, that the personal
'Bio' is a necessary evil in the vast catacombs of the "I
wish I didn't have to, buts..." of our strange culture.
So with that veiled apology out of the way, I shall now recall
(for those who desire to know more) a not so brief remembrance
of my time in art thus far...
The
first piece of art I can remember is actually now hanging
in my kitchen. It is a self portrait my Mother did while she
was in Art School. She was very pregnant with my older brother
and thought it would be funny to paint herself as the Virgin
Mary. So this painting, for all it's cracked and aging beauty,
looks very pious and intimidating. It hung in the guest bedroom
of my Grandfather's house that my brothers and I would bunk
in when staying there. On more than three occasions, I woke
in the middle of the night and saw the eyes of this painting
alive and looking down at me! My Mother ( the Virgin Mary)
in a very ominous voice would say, "Go back to sleep,
Brandon!"
I
started scribbling in very small pads with very small pencils
as a child. I have since been scaling up exponentially. In
Medium, content and size. As my mind grows, so do my sights
on what is possible creatively. This has allowed me to reach
into pen-ink, paint, pencil, photography, music, literature
and lifestyle. All of which are as important as the next.
The
kinds of art that have stood out to me have never really followed
any particular pattern. I guess my eyes and my heart gravitate
towards unusual, dark, absurd, sincere and beautiful works.
I obsess over line work and flow.
I
have no formal training; other than a few semesters at community
college and some classes at the YMCA. I would very much like
to return to school in the near future and absorb the myriad
different techniques I have been missing out on! That being
said, I was raised in a creative environment, and that does
wonders for a young person's mind.
I have always had a hard time in describing my creative style.
I find the same dilemma when asked what type of music I play.
But if I had to, I would say that I am doing my best to turn
my mind inside out and see what it looks like framed. Once
you get past the gooey bits and the debris, there is the occasional
sparkly gem that glows like the edges of Barbara Walters in
one of her interviews.
My
creative process is both complex and simple. The complexities
arise when I try and understand what I am doing when I am
doing it. It's like trying to describe the sensation of love;
one is better suited just experiencing it for oneself. But
it becomes simple when I let go into the process and don't
question it so much. Kind of a surrender into right brian,
as it were. But for clarity's sake, I have waves of creativity,
followed by times of drought. In these times, I have learned
that just reading, listening to music, and surfing a whole
lot help to pass the time before the next creative pulse arises.
It's been this way in my life for as long as I can remember.
I
work predominately out of my kitchen. It looks like a kitchen,
but it's actually...well, a kitchen. Things are cooked there,
and things are consumed. But just as much paint is thrown
into amorphous abstractions onto paper and canvas that reveal
my inner perv and my longing for contact with extraterrestrial
intelligences (not to be confused with one another) as there
is corn chowder stirred and swallowed!
I
like to allow any and all influence into my world. Cultural
or geographic. Political, or emotional. As far as I am concerned,
anything is game. I find that large parts of my work are observational
in the sense that I am merely living as I chose and the art,
in whatever form it takes, is the unconscious filter of my
experience.
I
think that to live a life of expressivity is paramount. To
me it is the embodiment of freedom. I don't have a particularly
specific statement that I am trying to convey; like the Romantic's
Manifesto, or something akin. I am more interested in existing
in a continual state of creativity. To be able to see the
art in every occurrence. To find beauty in the mundane and
in the otherwise trite and or trivial. My life, as it were,
is not unlike one of my drawings; a continually evolving,
bulbous, mass of thought, after-thought, absurdity, intention
and enthusiasm. Scribbled happily in ink without pencil lines
and signed at the bottom.
I
am currently working on a new series of paintings on canvas
in acrylic that I will have no idea how to talk about until
they are hung and dry and my shrink is standing back from
them with an inquisitive scowl.
I
just did a quick proofread of this communication, and I am
struck by how often I used the word, "I." To my
count, it is repeated 63 times in this glorified Personals
Ad. Cheese and Rice! You'd think I was a fucking rock star
with these levels of self absorption. Fuck it. I think that'll
do for now. If anybody has anymore questions beyond art, music,
haunted paintings, relevance, used clothes, literature, tiny
pencils on tiny pads of paper, heartbreak, disillusionment,
love, death, addiction, leather goods, lactose intolerance,
the future, optimism, nihilism, idealism, plagiarism, environmentalism
and the smell of turpentine, please don't Google my name or
ask your "friend who knows about music". Call me
at your Mom's house, I'll be there having a sorbet party on
March 20th.
Your
friend and lover,
Brandon Boyd