I was chosen for ArtSpan's Selections 2010

Selections 2010, ArtSpan's prestigious biennial juried exhibition will feature 20 SF Open Studios artists at California Modern Gallery, 1035 Market Street, in January. Selections 2010 will be juried by artist Ray Beldner, author and arts writer Alison Bing, and director of California Modern Gallery Inga Fischer. Exhibition Opening Reception: Thursday, January 14, 2010 (free and open to the public). Exhibition Dates: January 7 - 22, 2010. It's still very interesting to me.. when I draw and when I go around taking photographs, my body and my energy are at very different levels, I feel as if I jump to and from quantum-like states going from one activity to the other. Drawing is very still and I feel perfect calm and I understand all, and everything in the universe makes sense. When I go out with my camera it's constant excitement and fascination, as if i see things for the very first time. I marvel at very tiny details or at very big details, and I try to understand the world and steal pieces of it via the lenses.

Christmas

I will spend Christmas in the Netherlands again, although for a very short amount of time and afterward I am heading to Madrid to study at the Prado, mostly to look at Hieronymus Bosch work, hope it's not travelling somewhere. Especially interested in The Garden of Earthly Delights, the museum site says it's in room 56, so I'll be there.

Slices of a Mountain

Battle of Hoth

I had a great time working on Star Wars: The force Unleashed - Ultimate Sith Edition. The Empire Strikes Back was my favorite episode from the original trilogy and I was in my childhood  heaven working on the battle of Hoth as an Environment lead of an awesome team. ATATs, Snowspeeders, X-Wings, Wampas..  the latest provided a bit of a comic relief and enormous fun to do.

Dia de Los Muertos

"Dia de los Muertos is a traditional Meso-American holiday dedicated to the ancestors; it honors both death and the cycle of life. In Mexico, neighbors gather in local cemeteries to share food, music, and fun with their extended community, both living and departed. The celebration acknowledges that we still have a relationship with our ancestors and loved ones that have passed away. In San Francisco, Day of the Dead has been celebrated since the early 70s with art, music, performances and a walking procession, which help us contemplate our existence and mortality -- a moment to remember deceased friends and family, and our connections beyond our immediate concerns."

-I took the following photographs at the Mission district of San Francisco as well as at the Mission Cultural center, where an altar installation was held at the beginning of November. In my culture when it comes to the dearly departed it's all somber black and sometimes crying.. Here I was just hypnotized by the beauty and the exuberance... A woman who gave me sweet tea and bread told me on this day I am supposed to be happy. This is what I red afterwards and made me change my outlook entirely: "Don't just cry mournfully over the individuals, dreams and influences that have helped make you what you are. Dance for them; sing for them; honor them; leap into the air and kiss the sky for them." It was almost wonderful..

Fashion Feud

My favorite sport is base jumping, I practice a special version of it where you have to perform some aerial acrobatics and go through a series of hoops to get the chute to open. I really enjoy this. Occasionally I look at fashion and the display of fabrics accompanied by beautiful lighting.

i am no longer dreaming - i just finished "dreams", India ink on board

This is a drawing on paper and all the lines are hand painted. The background is not a canvas or a texture either... each line is hand drawn as well to achieve the canvas look.

Luminous Sculpture - Eric Ehlenberger's work was a lot of fun to look at and photograph !

Luminous Sculptures -  @ The Venusian Garden - 1286 Folsom ( at 9th )

Alex Andon's piece - real water tank with jellyfish. I took Andy's suggestion and took a picture of the luminous sculptures through the tank -  and Voila!

Open Studios in SOMA

Open Studios in SOMA - Garage Gallery

Garage Gallery is for real... and the space is beautiful. SAAB repair shop and used car dealer by day, a Gallery by Night and on weekends. and Where does the art end and the wall start..Curated by Susan Tuttle - way to go, Susan!

On my second visit to Alcatraz...

I felt the oppression embeded in the walls and the pain of the inprisoned ghosts, I wouldn't say this was very attractive to me. I find it very strange this place is a tourist attraction.

Looking out of the rock and towards the beautiful city across the bay I can think of only one thing - how very priviliged we are to enjoy our freedoms and to enjoy the freedom to do the things we love.

Open Studios is over for me - I had such a blast

The Flying Tree hangs at SomArts Gallery

At 934 Brannan Street in San Francisco, the opening gala is tonight starting @ 6:30 pm.

For unconditional love and other things

When someone tells you repeatedly they love you - you get used to it and when this is gone you terribly miss it. Unconditional love is a very hard thing to get over and I have been trying to come to terms with that loss this past week. I will never forget this black monday, I hope the worst is over and I can keep my head up moving forward. My grandfather Spas passed away in the morning of September 28, 2009 bulgarian time and I was absolutely powerless to do anything to be able to see him for one last time. I spent endless summers with him, family and friends and these were the happiest days of my life. Once I found out I sent heartbreaking letters to friends who knew him. This is what a friend of mine wrote back:

mirena -

so sorry to hear of the passing of dear diado spas - such a wonderful vital man full of genuine good spirit - i think he must have had a terrific life and earned a lot of good karma to have continued to enjoy everything as he did at a ripe old age - that plus eating a whole lemon every day!

you are a lucky lady to have had such a real connection to this kind of spirit - so seldom in our world today -

i am sure that his positive vitality will continue to inspire you your whole life - this is when memories can truly have meaning -

please give my condolences to nicki his daughter your dad and your whole family -

my heart is with you!

And he attached this picture from my birthday a couple of years ago - Grandpa Spas is in the middle:

Lucidity is out and beautiful

Lucidity has been announced by Lucasarts and the ign preview is here. There is one essential quality to beauty and it is the fact that it doesn't need champions. People always aspire to beauty because it is a window to a pure world - it lifts them up and makes them aspire to things bigger and better than themselves.

The Flying Tree inspired by Piranesi

The second in a series of drawings inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. I drew the first sketch a few years ago while on a stint modeling 3d Baghdad for the US army - in between IED detonation simulations I was thinking about the Flying Tree from Stephen Baxter's book Raft... and started imaging it in my notebook.  My visual language is drawing on my work as a 3d artist but the look is a few centuries old, an etching technique developed in the fifteenth century and mastered by Piranesi in his capricious fantasies. I really enjoy seeing how the imperfections of the drawing are shaping up in total juxtaposition to the flawless figures I imagine in my head, the dreams of a 21 century polygonal brain.

Waiting for the astronomical twilight on my hands and knees under the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts

I returned to the palace of Fine Arts to reshoot photographs I took a month earlier - back then I had wondered into the space by chance and didn't carry a tripod... which resulted in grain and noise. I looked up the time stamps on the files and then googled for the sunset time for that day. Turned out besides sunset there are all these interesting terms associated with sunset data like Civil Twilight, Nautical Twilight and Astronomical twilight. According to the charts I had taken the picture (below) 20 minutes after sunset and 10 before civil twilight when wild things come out, obviously, beasts are partial to beautiful light.

Today sunset was around 7:30 pm so I waited 2o minutes for the twilight to set in and some amazing things happened during that time - a guy stood under the belly of the dome and sung with the most beautiful voice a song called "Salve Regina" ... after that I lied to a couple of Tourists that the Palace was a part of a pre-earthquake bathhouse, absolutely not on purpose and out of sheer ignorance.

So Here it is San Francisco palace of Fine Arts - round Two: