🄼 Do you have any routines that are helping you during this period of isolation and social distancing? 

🅅 This current life doesn’t seem all that different from the various iterations of the artist life that I have experienced to date—long periods of no work, deep despair, little food, little to no money, debt left unattended and growing, homelessness, anxiety from isolation that leads to longer periods of isolation and greater anxiety, sprinkled lightly with moments of happiness and joy, rest and relaxation. That is not to say that I haven’t dipped into any versions of the aforementioned these past few days. Only now, I practice welcoming my feelings, sitting with them, and giving myself the time and space necessary to move as compassionately as possible through them… so that I can get some shit done. Even it that shit is simply getting showered and fed.— Oops…. Routines… yeah… I keep my mornings sacred… so I do whatever I need to do so that I can feel fulfilled. I hydrate, read, eat breakfast, look for new music, share new music, write… then begin the day. Later I walk to notice things and get fresh air.

🄼 Do you have access to your art studio during the shelter-in-place? If not, how has this affected you/your practice? 

🅅 I do have limited access, however due to the severity of the current circumstances I have found it better to simply stay home. Nothing at the studio is urgent. 

🄼 Do you have any current podcast recommendations for artists (or anyone)? 

🅅 I almost always recommend: 

𝗙𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁

• Scene on Radio: season 2 – seeing white

• Scene on Radio: season 3 – MEN

𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰

• Cowboy Mustang Jane’s Country Music Jazz hour (I contributed a couple of mixes under the alias Pancho Villain). It is a podcast done by one of my music junkie friends Jonathan Pivovar…he’s a pretty great photographer. See his work here. http://www.jonathanpivovar.org/. Below are the episodes I created for his podcast. 

- episode #21 – there is gold in everything

- episode #36 – the sun is almost a perfect sphere

🄼 We know that you have a deep passion for music. Is there a particular song or album that you’re finding yourself listening to over and over again?yourself listening to over and over again?

🅅 Oh snap… a music question.. 

When I need to focus and get through shit… I sit with a 𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙧 (𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡) from Kendrick lamar’s DAMN album, found on youtube. While that may have the most plays, nothing comes close to 𝙅𝙤𝙚 𝙈𝙘𝙋𝙝𝙚𝙚’𝙨 - 𝘾𝙤𝙨𝙢𝙞𝙘 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚. A recent dig through the webz reunited me with a mix that introduced me to Madlib- here https://vimeo.com/7269356. 

Last, whenever I feel uninspired with my own digs, I don’t waste time sitting still with the endless digs by:

• Aaron Harbor over at the TIMBER show KGPC 969 http://www.kgpc969.org/timber 

or

• with the sounds being shared and generated by Los Angeles producer HAZ SOLO https://hazsolo.bandcamp.com/music

A few other go-to albums that I highly recommend:

Erykah Badu – momma’s gun

Kendrick Lamar – untitled / unmastered

Neil young – on the beach

Mountain Man – Magic Ship

🄼 A lot of people have been taking this time to slow down and cook. Do you have any recipes or food ideas to share?  

🅅 Yes. But I can’t own the cooking part. I only help in the kitchen. Livien Yin—peep out her artwork here http://livienyin.com/— is quite possibly the best food juggler I have ever met. My favorite dishes thus far have been African peanut stew, japchae and kimchi stew.

For video; https://vimeo.com/274419216

🄼 Do you have any positive messages that you’d like to share with other artists?

🅅 Eat good food, drink good coffee, welcome them growing pains, take good care of your heart, your friends & fam are like plants… don’t forget to water them, too.

🄼 Do you have anything coming up that you’d like to share or promote? 

🅅 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄

25 at 25: a community of artists at California State University, Monterey Bay

𝗣𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴/𝗨𝗽𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴:

YBCA group exhibition — San Francisco — MUZ : A Place Beyond 

Vistor Welcome Center at Arm Gallery group exhibition — Los Angeles — No more lands West 

Djerassi Artist Residency Residency

This summer I’ll be gone for a good chunk of time to continue a body of work titled, 𝙙𝙚, that I started prior to graduate school. It’s a body of work I quietly in produced, that my dear friend Matt Austin gently pulled into the public eye. See his work here http://www.mattislearning.com/

He published it in 2016 via his project Candor Arts http://www.candorarts.com/goods/pre-order-de-by-victor-yaez-lazcano. He’s advocated persistently on re-publishing. So hopefully he and I can meet while I’m in the Midwest and talk about that idea. Otherwise, I’ll just be patiently coming up with more ideas for work.  Here are two links to that book.

Making the book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gT725Spb4M

Sharing the book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heHR7ht3HRQ