For My Psychopomp

There is sound in this clip, and it's kind of quiet; I suggest you turn up the volume on your computer and also click the 'high quality' (HQ) button on the viewer.



Here it is, my final film for the semester and what I've been working on like a demon for the past three months. It's screening tonight for the first time. The word psychopomp is one that my mother brought to my knowledge, during a discussion of my film. I was telling her how I wanted to make a movie not only about my recurring childhood nightmare (you know, llama man) but how my relationship with that narrative and the character who inhabits it has changed. "He's turned into something like a muse," I told her, "he's like a conductor between my unconscious, which is where I think a lot of my creativity comes from, and my waking life, bringing me ideas."

Psychopomp literally means 'soul conductor' and refers to those people or things that act as escorts to the afterlife. In Jungian terminology, it means the mediator between conscious and unconscious minds. I dedicated this film to Llama Man, who I've decided is my personal psychopomp in the Jungian sense, and the dedication doubles as a title. (This is also why he shows up in the first pages of Night City, as a welcome committee.)

For My Psychopomp was shot on 16mm and Super 8 Tri-X film stock. All the stuff outside is Super 8.

Room Tone

I drew this poster last weekend in preparation for my upcoming screening at The Nightingale, Room Tone. I'll be showing two films: For My Psychopomp, a ten minute exploration into the origins and character of Llama Man, and an edited version of House Fuck, which will actually be projecting on real film. (Gasp!)

If you're in Chicago or visiting Chicago this Friday, please please come, it will be a great show! A lot of us helped each other make our movies, too. All the info is on the flier.

The Crocodile

This is a chalkboard I was hired to draw and write on in January of this year. It's eight feet across, four feet high, and on the ceiling above the bar. It took me about twenty hours to complete fully, stretched across several weeks of precarious balancing on chairs on top of chairs on top of bar tables and plywood. You can see it if you live in the Chicagoland area by visiting Wicker Park.

Zine Purchase

One of our first assignments in my comics class last semester was to go to the local independent comics store, Quimby's, and purchase a zine that someone had put out. We then had to respond in a two page comic in our sketchbook. This is what I drew:



The drawings get lazy towards the second page, but that picture up top is a sketch of the actual zine, which was full of weird, tiny little exquisite corpse drawings that I half-heartedly tried to imitate.

Spring Break

This is an edit I made of three rolls of Super 8 Ektachrome footage from my spring break camping trip last March. It's the first film I edited with tape splices, on janky plastic super 8 rewind arms in a small dark room. I like it.

Tough Times

Assignment: A one page comic with movement in every panel. From earlier this semester.

Stationary: Owl Print

A set of ten two-color prints on scrap paper (the scraps from the paper I used to make this) I turned into simple stationary earlier this semester. The print is a smaller scan and copy of the stencil screenprint I made last year.



I started making the envelopes at Pantheacon this year, absentmindedly folding them in different angles until I reached a design I liked. It was important to me that you be able to see the owl when the envelope is opened, like how you can see the owl before opening the card. I also wanted to keep with the kind of strange folds that didn't meet each other that the card had going on.


To seal the sides of the envelope and make it functional, I decided not to glue or tape it, and sewed it instead. The paper is very soft and tactile, and it felt appropriate. Also, as you all know, I like nothing more than stitching things that aren't supposed to be stitched.

Triptych Triptych

Three series of three photographs. Three locations important to me, in California. These photographs were taken in February of this year.




The Doubletree Hotel, in San Jose, where Pantheacon is currently held. I like to hang out in the bathrooms and think about the women who come and crimp the tissues every day. That's my mother's flask sitting on the entertainment center, overpowered by the reflection of the lamp in the gloss on the particleboard; I like to think about who polishes those surfaces, and the surface of the faucet. I'm aware that the job is most likely a boring/grueling one, but when I imagine myself performing these tasks, it is in a meditative state. This is the state in which I took these pictures, and the state in which they ought to be viewed.




Ragle Park, in Sebastopol, where I spent many days between the ages of one and sixteen, and which I visit every time I'm in town. It is a beautiful, expansive park, with creeks and hills and little paths and little gardens, tadpoles in the summer and mud pits in the winter, and lots of trees to climb. This spot in the park, specifically, is special to me. It's one of those places that feels completely magical and private. It is always lit ecstatically. The branches of these trees defy logic, constantly flexing to extend, heavy, further away from the trunk and parallel to the ground. These photographs look unreal, and for that reason I find them more factual. Look at the blue here, and the gloss.




In-N-Out Burger. There's not much to say that hasn't already been said about how amazing it is. I encounter a lot of people in Chicago who are jealous of my California heritage soley based on the fact that I get to eat In-N-Out every time I visit. I really love these photographs because of how eerie they look. The restaraunt looks like a demon hellhole with grey zombie employees, somehow still spotless while infested with decay. All of which just makes me love In-N-Out more. Quality you can taste.

Night City (Part 3)

A composite dream narrative, compiled from various nighttime adventures, both conscious and unconscious. We had the option to either write a ten page paper or create a six page comic in response to a graphic novel, and I picked one of my all time favorites, Daniel Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. There was no penciling in the creation of this comic. Everything drawn straight up with a pen, yeah.

part 1
part 2