Liam Drain is studying this semester at the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art, in Brittany, France. He’s sharing his take on the sights, the people and the unique study experience he’s found. Email Liam your thoughts at .

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Nov 06, 2006

Bon Venture

In case you were wondering, my crit went awesome. I could have sold them land in Florida. Seriously, I should do that for a living. Anybody want to buy a papier mache Noam Chomsky mug? (Priced to sell, serious offers only.)
So, I’ve been blogging everyday for two weeks and Brendan Florey has asked me to please stop. Just kidding, it’s totally rad that he hooked this up but I think this will be my last entry on my PNCA blog for a while and I’m going back to my other one (the one with all the f-words). Since you already have it set as your homepage I don’t need to remind you that it’s Godspeed to USA. So check that out if you like -it’s a safe, caring place where you’ll always be welcome. Another idea I just had is that since I just thought it would be cool to make a joke about web browsers, maybe I’ll go drink poison instead. Just kidding but I will drink soupe du poisson, which is fish soup. Yum! Today we’re going into the bigger village nearby to eat at the tex/mex joint where my French teacher’s Moroccan husband works. French, Moroccan, Tex/Mex…. Man, it sure is a big world of different kinds of things!

Peace!

PS. Do my friends think I’m a dork for doing this blog? ; >)()()*&*(*@&#lol omg*(@&!!!!!!

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Nov 05, 2006

Hanging

I have a huge crit today (19 people!) so I’m posting a photo I took a while ago in London. I took this photo to express myself. You know, my feelings -as an artist.
I don’t get to read the news much here but I hear they’re going to hang Saddam. I for one feel much better knowing he’s off the street. I wonder what the recidivism rate is for crimes against humanity.

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Nov 04, 2006

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

Last night a Rockabilly band played here for some reason. They’re called Tornados Cowboys. They were totally awesome. Pay attention to the guy in the back ground. I call him The Colonel.

Also, happy Guy Fawkes day everyone! Next year lets blow something up!

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Nov 03, 2006

Sculpture Garden

Yesterday in Pierre Picot’s drawing/field-trip class we went to the house of a stone sculpture to see his work and draw. He’s was a giant, funny, gracious and sweet guy in the way that giant guys can be. The chisels in the picture are pretty much the only tools he uses. He had a drill and some kind of saw and that’s about it. He also built the stone house in the picture, by himself with those tools. His little daughter got excited about having company and came out and drew with us. It was so great! She looked at the picture I made and said, “ah, joli!”, which means “pretty” and then ran off.

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Nov 03, 2006

Luck of the Irish

Dudes! Check out what I found today! For some reason I’ve been looking for one of these since I got here!

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Nov 02, 2006

The Chilling Truth

Okay three things, none of which have to do with Pont Aven:
1) Ryan Adams and Bryan Adams have the same birthday – Novermber 5th.

2) The only member of ZZ Top who doesn’t have a beard’s last name is Beard.

3) I’m on Moveon.org’s email list so I get tons of spam all the time. I just got an email from Moveon/Al Gore titled “A Convient Truth”. -Come on guys… No more dumb word play! Remember when Michael Moore’s little pun on the tittle of a Ray Bradbury story got us eight years of Bush? I wonder if today I’ll get one called “An Unconvoonient Bluth”. Those aren’t even words!

Here’s a picture of the village. I guess I’m not the first person to notice how much more arty things look in B&W. Try to ignore the bad photoshopping I did (taking out the Nazgul).

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Nov 02, 2006

R.I.P. Pupoon

My host’s dog died yesterday. It’s pretty bad. She was thirteen years old, so she’d had a pretty good run but our host was pretty attached to that dog. Plus now she lives there alone. My roommate Nick and I talked about that dog constantly for some reason.
That’s about all the news from yesterday and today.
I took this photo on a beautiful day a few weeks ago. Now it’s bitterly cold here. That’s all.

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Oct 31, 2006

Jesus Walks

Because Paul Gauguin once lived in Pont Aven, the village is very deeply entrenched in Gauguinalia. The sculpture of Christ in the painting on the left is in a little chapel down the road. So one of the tourist attractions of this town is related to Gauguin and some other artists who lived here.
For Halloween (which is celebrated here a little more than Bastille Day is celebrate in the states but not much) two of my friends dressed up as Gauguin and the Yellow Christ. This photo on the right is a still from a video I’m putting together of the event. If you want you can image that Kayne West song as the sound track.

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Oct 30, 2006

Psych-Out Man!

I finallly found one of the main things I can to France for; it’s this compilation of French psychedelic music from the 60’s and 70’s and it completely rules! Check it out if you’re not too square.

The other day I read about this British artist who promises to use all the proceeds from his sales to buy stock in BP. His goal is to eventually become a principal shareholder in the company and have the name changed to YBP; Young British Petroleum.

Also the other day I had an idea; genetically engineer four leaf clovers. Bam! You’re a millionaire.

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Oct 29, 2006

Dear Abbey,

Unfortunately, the most valuable lessons seem to arrive capriciously and of their own accord. And when they do, they’re obvious to the point of being banal. For example, it’s just ridiculous how long it’s taken for me to understand why a Campbell’s soup can is capable of teaching something, as Jerry Saltz likes to write, “you didn’t know you need to know until you know it”. A really short and simple but true answer is that as a friend back home put it, Andy Warhol knew that those images rule you. So it’s kind of funny, these difficult easy things. Not exactly laugh out loud funny, but funny like when you’ve been failing at some task for so long you’ve gone past frustration, exasperation and despair and reached some kind of exhausted giddiness. Then it can be hilarious and if it’s not then that’s probably trouble. Another example is; just be your self. Now, clearly you could be ups nights trying to unravel some of the mind-bending existential hair-balls wrapped up in that statement but for the sake of brevity I’ll just be satisfied to quote good old John Prine, who sings, “you are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t” and save some of the hard-core philosophizing to the pros. The main point though, is that knowing how to be your self involves taking a few steps back and examining pretty much everyday. Not like looking in the mirror though, because then you just see yourself looking at your self, which seems to me to be the same as doing nothing. Maybe it’s more like those fancy camera angles in The Matrix. I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s a very difficult task to become less self-absorbed. It’s hard work and paradoxically the pay-off is to become more comfortable with who I am, which is essentially a selfish motivation (but that’s getting into the kind of stuff that’s better left to some of those uptown philosophy tycoons). What I’ve also come to know is that thousands of miles from home it can just as easily go either way. That is to say, it’s made me both more and less self-absorbed at different times. At certain times I’ve felt very comfortable with myself and very directed toward goals that I’m excited about. Other times I’ve felt totally lost and intensely alone. Hardly an hour goes by that I don’t resent something about Pont Aven and wish I was home. And just as often I’m totally grateful for all the good things about being here. So it’s been a pretty even split. Certainly no vacation though. It seems like the thing to do is to keep my head (another lesson that’s easier to think than believe) and remember that my problems are way less unique than they seem. I’m sure everyone here has a long and growing list of things they miss from home. My experience with travel is that it’s just like anything else, in that the effects are totally unpredictable and so subtly nuanced that any over-arching statement I write will probably turn out to be completely wrong before the ink on the page is dry. Especially because at this point I’m about half-way home, still pretty frustrated and I have miles to go before I reach giddiness.

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Oct 28, 2006

Bumpercars and Art are Both Inefficient

Pont Aven is a good place to have illusions about the importance of art dispelled. Normally I like to see art all the time but here there’s about fifteen stores and thirteen of them are art galleries. Sometimes it’s tempting to think art is useful in some spiritual, abstract way -which is fine but sometimes you just want a sandwich or some thumbtacks.

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Oct 28, 2006

Most People are DJs

Here’s a short little video I made of some of the ways I spend my time around here. There’s a discotheque down the road a bit and a partial tour of my studio, which is not very exciting right now.

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Oct 26, 2006

"We're mosh-pitting!!!"

Today our visiting artist, Pegan Brook, gave a talk about apply to grad schools. She gave us the best advise I’ve ever gotten about writting artist statements. I don’t know whether to feel totally dumb or relieved that the advise pretty much amounts to the same thing my kindergarten teacher told me, which is; just be yourself.
If you are thinking about grad school, I would highly recomend this program. I think it’s a really great preview.

It’s also great if you like to ride a bike around to totally astonishingly beautiful places like I did today. This is a picture from the edge of town. The line through Pont Aven is instead of a sign that says leaving.

In other news, some girls just crashed through my studio and knocked everything over doing something called “mosh-pitting”. Hilarious.

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Oct 25, 2006

Coming Through in Waves

Just about five minutes ago two students, one Czech and the other American, were having a conversation about a tragic event involving the Czech woman’s friend back home. The American girl asked if she wanted to talk about. The Czech woman said, “No, it’s okay. You are like my sister.” Sheesh. Why is stuff like that so much more touching when it has an accent?

At any rate, this is a photo of sunrise outside the school. I’ve been awake too long.

PS. There’s no movie theater here so I’m wondering what anybody thought of the new Scorsese flick? The version of Comfortably Numb with Van Morrison singing in the trailer is really cool (I must be getting older). The bass in his voice makes it seem more apocalyptic instead of desolate like the original. But it’s still a “not with a bang but a whimper” kind of apocalype. It’s cool. Scorsese always uses music so well.

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Oct 24, 2006

Good Old Eckard

So, I wanted to start this thing off with a nice photo of some of the beautiful scenery around this little village I’m living in but I have homework! So what I can tell you about though, is that a few weeks ago I went to one of the little bars down the road and noticed a small framed photo on the mantel. At first I thought it was just some rustic Breton guy doing rustic Breton stuff ( Brittany is the region of France that I am staying in). But then I noticed he has a saw tied around his neck, and then he has some weird long thing in his mouth with a candle on the end. Now, I’ve been around the block enough to know what’s art when I see it but, man, that through me for a loop. I’m seriously in the middle of nowhere! His the beard gave it away though. I was all, Holy Crap! That’s David Eckard! Man, what a sight for sore eyes.
So anyway David, if you’re reading this; Nadine at Cafe des Arts says hello!

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