A shared story of presentness. Over this past weekend, I was honored to participate in the Red Bull Curates San Francisco Canvas Cooler event. Alongside a number of other selected artists (Carly Ivan Garcia • ErikOtto • Apex • Studio DCL • Ian Ross • CHOR BOOGIE • Eon75 • Hugh Leeman • Zio Ziegler • Kelly Allen • N8 Van Dyke • D Young V • Jet Martinez • Ryan De La Hoz • Slvstr© • Oliver Black • Tommy Noshitsky • Joshua Clements • jdkjdk), the project was for us to gather at a designated space where Red Bull cooler boxes were wrapped in blank canvas, and each artist was to create to their own desire. I heard this story of Allen Ginsberg recently where he was talking to a Tibetan Monk/Rinpoche and the two were discussing their itineraries where they had been giving various lectures thru out an extended period of time. Ginsberg complained ' don't you get tired running around', where the monk replied' thats because you don't like your poetry', where Ginsberg replied' ehh. What do you know about my poetry?'. The Monk's response, "well why don't you do like the greek poets of old... why don't you get up onstage and compose out of tongue, why do you need a paper. Don't you trust your own mind?". This inspired me to explore this approach with my cooler. No map, no prep work. I went into the event having no idea of what I was going to do. Paints, brushes packed, I would put on my ipod listening to a lecture by Sogyal Rinpoche giving a lecture on happiness. In it he said 'Samsara is the mind turned outward, lost in its own projections... Nirvana is the mind turned inwards, recognizing its nature". Less than a hundred footsteps before I walked in the doors of Public Works, the venue, this was to be the concept decided from which to create. I would express thru my imagined heads, using color and gesture to express the feelings of Nirvana/Samsara, and would finish by adding text of the mentioned definitions of each. Nearly finished at the end of the day, I would look at what my comrades were doing, and a fellow artist asked me 'how do you think they judge the competition?'. I said 'what competition?'. And he explained that 2 winners are chosen (judges choice and peoples choice) to be flown at shown at Art Scope in Miami at Art Basel. I said, 'oh, wow. I had no idea'. And he asked why was I there, which I replied "to make art". And please don't mistake this as arrogance, for ironically I would win Judges choice at the reception which followed a few days later for which I am grateful for, and which came shockingly unexpected. Rather, the nature of my mind, I tend to focus on things deeply and forget, or don't recognize other related aspects. This is an example. I was excited to participate, and the focus became predominantly of how I most wanted to approach it. Especially with art, the art itself is given the mindfulness, the integrity, the heart, the soul. All else, tends to lose focus in the background. In this case the background came into focus in the most beautiful way. So thank you. Thank you to Billy Franchey and Julie Zener at Artsfund for the orginization, work, and support. Thank you to friends and fellowartists that participated. Some new friends were made as a result of the event. Thank you Red Bull for the opportunity. And thank you to all that made it to the event that showed love and had a fun time.