Wednesday. Writer’s block again… It’s not what you think. I still write and the words come, just not easily. And as soon as I write them down, they stop making sense. Disjointed ideas. Starts and stops. Spurts of consciousness and semi-consciousness.
What helps is a memory of a recent interview with one of my favorite ‘conservatives’ Adam Curtis. He creates films as if they were renditions of the pub talk that he and his friends get up to during long nights of drinking and arguing. Hypernormalisation makes a lot more sense now. More than some highly symbolic investigation into human psychology, which it still is, Curtis offers a glimpse into what it felt like to live in a particular time and place and somehow makes the every-day more interesting than the tattle of all the academic presses and newspapers of record, combined. Pub talk doesn’t care if there is a cohesive through line or a well supported argument, it only cares that the people around you care, if they care about the story you tell, and Curtis’ films are a master class in story telling that we’ve confused with cultural theory....
To continue reading follow the link in the bio
#asecretplot #politics #adamcurtis #substack #writer
After a short break, A Secret Plot is back in the wild. I had to take some time to attend to different business matters, two solo shows, studio tour, some group shows, as well as travel and work life. The writing comes at a cost to all those other things, so I prioritize. But I've been excited about this project for a very long time and I'm glad I get to share it now.
The boxes have been up by The Basic Premise for about a month and I'm very thankful to @madeveart for publishing this piece in The Paint Rag, a print only art publication that is doing a great job patching a hole left over by the exit of LUM Art Mag.
@malinagraves and @stayhomesam dive into making art at the end of an era, both attenuated by very personal circumstances. Read it by following the link in the bio. You can also follow me and A Secret Plot on the Substack app.
In a way I'm still searching for the final ASP aesthetic for the new Instagram format. For now I'll be using the app generated thumbnails. See how that goes.
Thank you all for the support!!
#asecretplot #Ojai #art #work
This week's post is available on Substack. Link in bio.
I'm also starting to be more active on the Substack app. Give me a follow over there.
#asecretplot #tompazderka #art #emergency #podcast
"Something curious happened during the gold medal awards ceremony of the hockey finals in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The medal presenter, the President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch, after having gone down the line, awarding gold medals to the members of the Czech national team, who had just beaten their arch rivals the Russians, was about to give one of the medals to a strange man standing between the hockey players. He was dressed, not in uniform like the others, but in sweats and holding the Czech flag. As if seeing a red flag instead, Samaranch sized up the man and thought that he didn’t quite belong. He went in close at first, holding out the gold medal’s sash in that way that is obvious to everyone watching what is about to happen, a landing on the subject’s neck and shoulders. The strange man looks as if expecting the award. But in a split second decision, Samaranch withdraws the award and quickly moves to the next person down the line. A smile appears on the strange man’s face, followed by a head shake, eliciting signs of both disbelief and embarrassment. Millions of people across the world watched in disbelief with him, including the man’s parents."
New article out now on A Secret Plot Substack. Follow the link in the bio.
#asecretplot #art #opera #substack #hockey #czechrepublic
Very stoked to announce that I'm participating in the next @theojaistudioartists Second Saturday studio tour. A new post just dropped on Substack where I give a little background about my current studio practice. Tap the link in the bio.
The Second Saturday studio tour happens on June 14th, 10 to 5. I'll be in the studio welcoming visitors and passersby. With 13 studios concentrated in the downtown area, there's lots to see.
Hope to see some of you there!
#tompazderka #studio #tour #ojai #ojaistudioartists #art
New post out now! Link in bio.
"I’ve been struggling with a little bit of a writing block lately. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. In some ways I’ve been writing more than ever before. But countless emails, proposals, contracts, memos, and administrative missives, at work and in my ‘spare’ time, do not a creative writer make. I’ve been jotting notes and writing every day, but none of these have made it past my weirdly scrupulous editorial brain. This is while I see creators posting and pushing out content all the time without as much as checking for spelling errors, pronunciations, or fact checks. They just get it out there as fast as possible and let the audience sort through it. But that’s not how I work. I’m slow and methodical. It’s the same with my painting. It requires the audience to spend time with it, do a double take, think and come back.
In our skibidi toilet age, where internet slop comes at you hard and fast, this approach is almost guaranteed to be ‘unalived’ in the crib by the algorithms and I’m sure this attitude cost me a lot of followers and caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety. This is why I’m so grateful for the real followers I do have and this little introductory rant, and others like it, is my way of spreading love. Cultural criticism is what I consider my love language.
The following article was originally published in the Ojai Vortex back in October. While some of the information in the piece is now outdated, the theme is now probably more relevant than ever."
#asecretplot #capitalism #substack #art #ojai
New post on A Secret Plot dropped this week.
"We’re mired in cultural overproduction, or as a friend of mine says, everyone is in the business of producing garbage. And he would know. Every day he throws out hundreds of books that people trade or donate to a bookshop that he manages for a living.
So much effort went into the production of an object that just ends up in landfill is difficult to fathom, until it is right there in front of you. But that is the case with most modern production. Every day millions of objects are designed, planned, produced, processed, bought and paid for, shipped, used up and discarded. It can be argued that from the very beginning each and every one of these objects exists to be thrown away. These objects do not simply become garbage, they are garbage by their very essence of having been produced simply for consumption."
Link in the bio
#asecretplot #culture #substack #essay #words #art #ojai
"Thirty years ago I stepped foot on American soil for the first time as an emigre from Central Europe. That was in April. This month it has been ten years since I moved to California. In all those years I felt like I’ve been leading a double or triple life, not quite a fully American or European kind, not quite an East Coast or West Coast kind, and before that not quite a Northeast or a Southeast kind. Since the mid 1990s I have moved from the Czech Republic to the United States, from New York to North Carolina, and from North Carolina to California, with lots of of other moves between cities and places in between. Because of those moves the last thirty years have felt broadly, and the last ten more acutely, as a sort of non-existence in a non-place, a definition of that dreaded word ‘liminal’. Nowhere feels truly home. This ‘nowhere-ness’ exists as a mere possibility, because ‘everywhere-ness’ is also possible. It is predicated on a sense of displacement, a reenactment of the moment of being placed, rather than an arrival through one’s own agency."
For the rest of the story, please continue reading on Substack. Link is in the bio.
Share, subscribe and all that.
Merch available through Bonfire. Link is also in the bio.
#asecretplot #tompazderka #nostalgia #Czech #revolution #art
'QWRQ' by @deguevaraart continues to be on view around the corner of @bartsbooksojai . If you're out and about Ojai this weekend you may run across this little gem of an artwork. Drop a line and say you saw it :)
#asecretplot #ojai #street #art #qwrq #bookstore #contemporaryart #gallery #Ventura
A new article dropped earlier this week. This time A Secret Plot is taking a romp through the landscape of political jokes and revolutionary nostalgia, a topic I've been increasingly obsessing over for a while.
What jokes you say? Mostly the old Soviet sort, the jokes of my youth, many of which can only be appreciated with age and time, like a good wine.
Here's a good sample
Question: Is there a difference between capitalism and communism?
Answer: In principle yes. In capitalism man exploits man. In communism it's the reverse.
If you enjoy A Secret Plot consider support by purchasing some merch. Both links, to the article and to the merch store are in the bio. Instagram has a weird way of showing one and hiding the other.
#asecretplot #joke #nostalgia #essay #ojai
Awesome Secret Reception hang with @deguevaraart next to her work yesterday. Thanks to all the fine folks who came out in support of the artist and the project. Thanks to @bartsbooksojai for supplying the wallspace! I think this might be now a tradition.
If anyone else is interested in hosting A Secret Plot on their wall(s), fence(s), or other outdoor structures, get in touch and let's talk.
And don't forget about A Secret Plot shirts. Get yours and support the project through the link in the bio. It was a bit hidden before, but I think I fixed it.
#asecretplot #ojai #street #art #qwrq
