When your birthday falls straight after baby jesus’ you can get folded into to the chaos of the holidaze frenzy,and your not mythical but real birthday can get overlooked. unless your friends have a yacht and they treat you real special. Happy birthday my forever love @nikkifenix you everyday astounder. And our beautiful rad sensitive hosts, the Captain @haydn5222 and his mermaid @claireplentyfood . What a beautiful day!
Brave I’m so lucky to have been your dad for 20 years! Thanks for teaching me how to be one. Watching you invent yourself has been one of my favorite things to stare at. You surpassed your old man in the brains department like when you were 12, you make beautiful sandwiches, you’re an amazing sister and man I love you with all my heart. Your 20th birthday is the first we’re not together, OMG enjoy Japan!!! I love you honey.
last night in bed feeling unmoored I had an idea and it made me think i used to carry a pen until it ran out of ink and i made little notebooks for always in my pocket. for ideas. not information but just to have a place to put thinks. i have about 40 filled little books, but none really since my goddamn phone. looking at one book i saw where i had noted i was tired and jotted down between November 24th and October 18th i had gone from Portland to San Francisco to New Jersey to Zurich to Washington DC to Portland to Chicago to Tampa to New Orleans to Ft. Lauderdale to Denver to Portland. i would come up with dumb word combos like sweatpants bootie dance in my haze. i banged out a new little book this morning to write down the tiger i had in mind while I couldn’t sleep. Handle With Thank You. the cover is an envelope i had carried for 25 years and a sticker from @theotherfudge . note the thoughts drain the pen.
My wife, @nikkifenix , is my favorite girl that I ever got to meet. Not because she is wildly supportive and endlessly patient of my emotionally erratic nonsensical sensitivities, but because the way she puts on her helmet upside down unknowingly and wears it bravely like a bonnet after her few glasses of wine. That alone is why she’s my favorite girl under the big fat moon.
Cool to exercise my make and placement muscles with this permanent functioning set that will serve my buds @sabotagemotorcycles . I was a lone man crew battling handsmade drawers for levelness and squareness. Reclaimed rusted tools from times neglect, and come to find, sandblasting is my new favorite time suck. The space will serve for a shootable backdrop of the final assembly of vintage motorcycle restorations. Thanks for the great time @meisterdorr@greasyknuckles111@pietguilfoyle now grease it up! 👍🏽
When I first moved into my studio I would walk the alleyways and wonder what was behind this good vibe door. I saw it opened one day and asked what was going on. Thomas became a quick friend. He’s talented kind patient and I haven’t heard him say anything mean or lame in two years. He sculpts chairs with his hands. Pulls through found hardwoods with handsaws. Near zero machines are used but largely just his imagination and his hands. He’s tattooed me and I tattooed him even. My first and only given. He’s got a show on tonight of twelve beauties. Has named them “owl”, “butterfly” the warmth of home” in his other dialect, Welsh. What a sweet guy! @studiofrayne I’ll be happy to celebrate you tonight. Nice going pal.
This week is two years since leaving the circus USA. For Nikki’s first Mother’s Day I gave her a picnic basket with Brave’s baby hand print dipped in paint pressed onto it. She has continued to pack it with lovely delights and made us all sit in the grass hundreds of times over the years. This year on our 2 year Australian anniversary she did it again. I look at my girls in this landscape, under this sky, in their smiles and think I’m the luckiest fool to have ever come out of Nacogdoches Texas. The way they all landed and hit the ground running has been outrageous. And I think to myself quietly you’ve come along way baby.
Tomorrow, Saturday 12-3 me and PP @pietguilfoyle are gonna be throwing down Chicago style hotdogs for the people. Please come around! We’ve worked with a local butcher, an angry baker who didn’t want to work with us, researched, and tried and tried and oh baby! Treat yourself! Plant based options too, easy. Thanks @meisterdorr@sabotagemotorcycles for hosting this previously american during a rough week for love. Throwing Down, Come Around!
it’s been a year since I’ve had my studio and didn’t know but a few Australians. i’ve come to know and cherish a gang of dear people, just when i needed them. rough AF moving across the globe and not being seen, but i set my scope to seeking joy, making good, and standing by lovely people. i’ve taken epic motorcycle camp trips and been keeping my hands busy. currently i’m making custom belts, relining moto helmets, making motorbike saddles and whistling. Machined 40 of my drawings into brass leather stamps… for pants up or down. Do drop in, you’ll be welcomed. DM for belt orders deliverable by Christmas quickly. Thanks to my mates Andy @sabatogemotorcycles , Pablo @incasious , @heatherhanrahan and @youarebrave , @kdupholstery , @younghenrys , @innerwestcouncil Studio is at: 8 Saywell Street, Marrickville.
