Steven Rutledge

2002-09-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

I have decided to move my blog to http://www.stevenrutledge.com/stevenrutledge/netscape_frameset/blog.html

This is a temporary frameset. If it doesn't work, then you will need to simply go to http://www.stevenrutledge.com

for those of you who may be interested

2002-07-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

What Am I doing wrong

Maybe I try to hard. It seems like I give, people take, and then they leave me. Is this why no one tries to help anyone anymore? Should I do the same?

2002-06-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

removed

2002-06-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

All the things you wish you never knew

Working at a Gas Station leads to some interesting investigations of humanity. My conclusion: We have more flavors of weird (and sad) than Baskin and Robbins. In some ways it saddens me to know that people don't ever encounter this side of us and never expand their understanding of the condition of those around them. It does reinforce my understanding of why they avoid this level of knowing.

Pathos:

One of my customers, a man, my age, who seems much younger, told me about running away from his father who apparently beat him. He has been living on the streets for three years. He was low on cash and looking for a place to stay and food to eat. I provided neither. I simply listened. He disappeared for a few months and I started working days. I see him everyonce in a while now, showing up irregularly.

Sometimes he asks for our restroom key, other times he stands out front, slinking behind the wall or the ice freezer and send the other guy around to get the key. It is often a different guy each time (though he has some regulars). They disappear into the restroom together for twenty or thirty minutes, then emerge, smoke a ciggarette.

I don't wonder what he does. I can imagine. I do wonder what his reward is. Is it worth it? He seems to have come to grips with it. I don't get the feeling he attempts to hide it from me because he is ashamed, but rather because he doesn't want to stop it.

What do you do with this information? Withold the key? Preventing him from rendering his service and reaping whatever reward there may be? Perhaps call the police, or some service agency?

Nothing?

kesti

The kids file in around two twenty, neatly grouped and self organised according to color, social terminology and economic status. The half dozen that seem to be of asian descent even segregate themselves further though they by far represent the smallest minority. They come in pairs. Two apparently japanese girls. Two apparently chinese boys. The other groups are larger. The white kids, segmented into wealth and social stanging. The largest group, african americas, seem most cohesive, usually two large groups.

Why? They are just kids? A week ago a huge fight erupted across the street. Apparently the fued was directed along racial lines. Apparently the latinos needed to be put in their place.

I, of course, did nothing.

Eric laughed. Jesus watched. I counted out my till and went home.

Does anyone notice how completely fucked up we are? On every level we are deliberately screwing ourselves and our neighbors almost with the fervor or religious zealot. As though pathos is the air we breathe.

2002-06-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

New Population count:

Two Humans
Three dogs
Two cats

No word yet on the addition of any fish.

2002-06-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

ok, yeah. but what if I want this girl in my life...

(thus begins the saga...)

2002-06-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

About ten months ago...

Things were not working out so well with me. I had just got here, to seattle, just graduated from college, just turned down three jobs that paid more than I can bare to think of now, the gallery-thing was turning out to be more depressing than functional -- all the reasons I came here evaporated.

Lindsay met me outside a coffee bar. You might be thinking 'how cliche', but it gets better. I had my Dalmatian. She had her's. Yep. Just like movies. We clicked. For the next several months we laughed and loved and made life bearable for each other. We fell in love.

No. Really. I loved her. Still do, deeply.

One of the things she became was my only reason for being here. It wasn't my job (of course). It wasn't my friends (of course). It was Lindsay.

Now, that reason too has gone.

I have an overwhelming fly home to Ohio, get my motorcycle ready and take my time coming back.

I am thinking maybe it is time to move to New York.

Maybe it is time to back pack Europe.

2002-06-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

haven't posted in a while (other than my all too accurate statement below) so I thought I would update you:

Wednesday: Lindsay calls me just around noon. Calls me honey. Asks me how I am about twenty times. I sit down. We have a new puppy, thus increasing the population of my apartment to : 2 cats, 3 dogs, 1 fish, 2 humans.

Thursday: Gold Fish dies. This is a bad omen.

Friday: Quickly put the finishing touches on twenty paintings. Go to sleep very very very late.

Saturday: Me and Coop hung my first show in Sattle. At the Essential Bakery at 34th and Wallingford (I think)

Sunday: Slept most of the day, played with dogs at the dog park. First day of recreation in recent history.

Monday: Geoff Cooper (friend) cuts splits his hand in half, from the junction of his middle fingers to his wrist. I don't find this out till much later, rush to the hospital just in time to miss him as he goes into surgery. After recovering and flirting with some cute nurses ( if I known you were going to be here I would have worn nicer underwear... ) I take him home, falling asleep on his couch about 3 am. Population of the apartment increases by one dog (Rhea, geoff's red dog)

Tuesday: Made some damn good chicken soup, checked on Geoff (took him his car and some soup)

Wednesday: Broke up with Lindsay. It's the first time I broke up with anyone. She is quite a girl. I miss her alot. Total popular

Hmmm, wonder why I am chain smoking and drinking guiness....

2002-06-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

shit

2002-06-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

Something I need to say

This may end up being a long rant, but I don't want it to distract from the announcement I made below so I will include a link to it here.

Yesterday morning I took the dogs out early in the morning. This is usually Lindsay's chore, but she mercifully got a chance to sleep in that morning. Work has been hard on her lately.

At the bottom of the steps to my apartment I discovered a small common bird fluttering around. Being tethered to three eager dogs, one of which has on at least three occasions plucked healthy crows out of the sky, my reaction was mostly just to hurry them on. It was behaving poorly, flying in short skips, but never gaining great altitude. I have encountered several birds in this state before and concluded that it was best simply to let it be, chances are it would be better off without the stress my attention would give it.

We went about our rounds to the patch of grass nearby that has seen an amazing surge of growth since I moved there almost a year earlier (the result, I am convinced of our daily contributions to the soil.) and back to the house without seeing the bird again. I brushed my teeth threw on my silly corporate uniform and headed out.

Driving out of my parking lot I encountered about fifteen crows gathered just in front of the driveway in the street. I approached them slowly so as to give them a chance to move. They seemed reluctant, but at last they retreated a few feet back.

Doing so revealed the same bird I had encountered before, laying prostrate on it's back fluttering it's head back and fourth, one leg clawing and clenching at the sky. I drove forward a little more to push the crows further, then got out of my car.

The crows scattered to power lines just ahead. I approached the bird. It had two large wounds in it's chest, and was missing many feathers along it's wings and breast. It looked at me. It was probably just afraid as I, an even larger predator, approached. I could clearly see it's rib cage through on of the holes, in the corner what looked like little bubbles in the surprisingly little blood. It didn't move much, just looked at me with it's beak open ( Gasping for breath? ).

About this time one of the crows flew overhead nearby. The other were growing louder overhead. It sounded like an angry crowd at a coliseums.

It was dead. I knew it wouldn't last half a day if I took it now. At least they wouldn't get it, but who am I take away a meal? I briefly thought about putting it out of it's misery, but in the end I left it.

Today I found it's eviscerated corpse on the side of the road.

I don't know how to put this image to bed. What does this all mean? What metaphors does it inspire? What does it say about me?

It's just a moment.

We all have them.

What are we going to do with them all?

2002-06-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

Hung the show with coop tonight. Here is a prelim of the artist statement I plan to post with it:

This show is a collaborative work executed by Geoff Cooper1 and Steven Rutledge2 -- two artists whose work, and approach to life couldn’t be more different. Accordingly, the show is distinctly segmented into two portions.

The first portion is a series of paintings on canvas. These paintings depict a chaotic, intensely emotionally charged backgrounds super transposed by a shadowy flat cartoonish figure dressed in corporate uniforms. Through use of all the primary colors, and the implied gradations of white to black the piece attempts to convey a sense of depth behind the retail figure that the corporation we represent and the customers we serve to often want us to be.. Kind of a gentle reminder that that person you hand the twenty too (in any situation) is actually a person. I wonder how his day is going. Maybe you should tip that guy over there behind the counter, or at very least give’em a smile that says you know he is alive.

The second portion of the show is composed of painted glass circles. These peaces are extended studies from a series of pieces entitled Uncertainty, which explored the nature of Heisenberg’s principle of Uncertainty and more specifically the significance of a scientific precept that maintains that we fundamentally can never know truth. This playful display attempts to find beauty in that unknowing.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this show, especially this establishment. If you are interested in purchasing any piece within this show, or hosting the show at your location, please contact Steve at steven.rutledge@ohiou.edu or 206.351.4773. You may also purchase pieces online at http://www.stevenrutledge.blogspot.com.

1 Geoff "Coop" Cooper was kicked out of Clarkstown North Senior High School in New City, NY, and attended Rockland Community college for almost one full year before being distracted by a tall, blue-eyed redhead. He forgot about school almost as fast as she forgot about him. Coop is a mechanic, a musician, a sculptor, a martial artist, and a writer. The bulk of Coop's work has been in the field of horror fiction. He is an associate editor for the weekly market listing and newsletter, Jobs in Hell. His work as been anthologized in hardcover volumes such as Bad News, edited by Richard Laymon, and The Last Continent: New Tales of Zothique, edited by John Pelan, in magazines such as Cemetery Dance, and Gothic.Net. He has won the Blindside Award, The Chiaroscuro Short Fiction Award, and was a finalist in the Masters of Terror Reader's Poll. Delirium books released a collaborative collection featuring Coop's fiction, 4x4 (along with Brian Keene, Mike Oliveri, and Michael T. Huyck, Jr.), in October of 2001. He has been featured on The Jerry Lentz Experiments and was the subject of a skit on Late Night With David Letterman. He is currently employed as the lead mechanic at the Wallingford Chevron because he has a massive karmic debt to repay for a grevious error made in a former life.

2 Steven Rutledge is a graduate of Ohio University with bachelors degrees in Biological Premedical Science and Fine Arts. He is the recipient of the Student Enhancement Award Grant, Directors Award (College of Fine Arts), Directors Award (School of Fine Arts), and the Elizabeth Downey Award for excellence in Arts. His work has been displayed in the Dungeon Gallery, Siegfred Gallery, The UAL Alternative gallery, Trisolini Gallery, cube4 gallery, and the Huston house. His work was featured in the award winning Perspectives Magazine and the Ohio Today television series. Despite this he is currently employed as a store manager at Wallingford Chevron because he and the world have come to the mutual agreement that he is not the second coming he thought he was.

2002-06-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

Let's discuss collaboration.

Say artist three times quick. (...artist, artist, artist.)
then say artists three times quick. (...artists, artists, artists.)

If the second one didn't seem slightly odd, then you have never tried to on a collaborative art project. Artists are many things, happy little team members is rarely one of them. The things that make them artists (individuality, passion, strong will, etc.) combined with the effects of working in a field where they are often less than validated (insecurity, defensiveness, etc.) combined again with the neuro-toxic effects of the chemicals they often use (flakiness, impulsiveness, etc.) render collaborative pursuits often less than productive.

I think I have tried collaborative projects about a dozen times in the last three or four years. One of which would have been considered a complete success except for the fact that any work I did (like originating the concept, developming the mechanics, all of the wood working, emotional support, even some financial support, etc. (by the way that was pretty much the whole thing...) was not at all acknowledged.

The others didn't even get that far.

So why bother? Well, there is something to be gained from working and sharing ideas with another artist. The sum of that work is often greater than either would have produced. In theory.

Well, I am happy to announce a successfull colaboration. Geoff Cooper and I will be having a show of our work at a cafe / gallery about a dozen blocks from home. The work is described, somewhat, below. I will be posting images soon.

In the mean time, my website should be working at this very moment. Scary huh?

2002-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Did you know?

- That there was a 90 fold increase (not 90% but 90 times) increase in put options (bets that the stock market would go lower) between Sept. 6 and Sept.10, and a 285 times increase on the Thursday before the attack on the world trade center?. [CBS News, Sept. 26]

- That this trading occurred to the tune of $12 to $15 billion dollars?

- That, according to NPR (October 16th), British Finacial Authorities had stated that this movement in the market was not orchestrated by Bin Laden or his organisation but rather by United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley, Merrill-Lynch, Axa Reinsurance, Marsh & McLennan, Munich Reinsurance, Swiss Reinsurance, and Citigroup -- all of which were some of those hardest hit by the attacks?

I didn't. If you would like to learn more read the full describtion here: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/042202_bushknows.html

ps. the link to my website will remain down for today, possibly the rest of the weekend (sorry.)

2002-05-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

Another productive day at Wallingford Chevron:

Mechanicus angrius ---- & ---- Mechanicus cannibus

2002-05-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Last night was fun. I slept. I wasn't supposed to, but I don't feel even the inkling of regret about it.

I deserve some sleep, some time.

I worked on some paintings yesterday. I wouldn't call them a pinnacle of human creation, but they are surprising me in lots of ways. These are the ones I spoke of earlier, that Geoff and I worked on last weekend. We developed a nicely chaotic backdrop for what I am doing now. I am superimposing a semitranslucent image of a faceless figure in a chevron uniform.

What the hell does that mean?

First off let's not take this too seriously. Just because I write something about it doesn't make me a pretentious art critic, nor does it render the painting itself the product of an pretentious art critic...

Why did I do this? What do the paintings mean or symbolize? I think more than anything else, it means that there is more there.

When I worked as a cart collected at a mega mall in Columbus, I became infinitely aware and appreciative of the simple gesture of returning my own shopping cart to the shopping cart coral. Simple gesture that won't change anything, or make anyone appreciative, but it won't be the opposite either. The guy who is now cursed with that job won't have to walk an extra twenty feet. Little things. Ever think of the guy who is collecting your carts? How is his day going? School going well? Broken heart? These things we do are people we never meet.

I have worked as a gas station attendant for nine months more than I would like to admit. I can't tell you the ways that other people have invalidated my existence through subtle actions, or inactions.

So, these are just a reminder there is more there.

2002-05-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning with a hell-u-va twinge in my back. It is now functioning as a painful remider of all the things I am doing, but don't want to be doing...

2002-05-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Tommorrow is Geoff Coopers Birthday. Wish him well.

On a darker note: why do I feel more and more like no one gives a damn? No, not about Geoff or his birthday, but about me. Reoccuring theme. Re occur.

2002-05-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

Getting my stuff together... kinda

This is the second weekend in a row were I actually had a weekend. Weekends, once thought of as a staple of modern American life, are becoming increasingly thought of as optional.

In a manner of speaking, they have been always optional for me. I always work weekends. It just so happens that while working, I am not always at work.

This weekend I hung six paintings. Which is a pretty good weekend, especially since I had to paint three of them before that whole hanging process could take place.

That was a bit of fun. I hauled out three primed canvases to what Kelley loving refers to as the 'ron where these finely constructed beauties met a grizzly end. My concept was to make some interesting and emotive backgrounds to be framed by three sad sagging figures dressed in chevron corporate garb.

To that end I was equipped with a garden hose, a leaf blower, and some paint. Try it. It is fun. Geoff did, I think he would agree.

Perhaps the most satisfying moments were spent afterwards, sitting on concrete just looking at the three. Angst, nostalgia, and peace intermingled as much as the red yellow and blue on the canvas...

moments...

2002-05-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

So, another day and here I am. Scary. Very scary stuff.

I wasn't going to mention anything about my job here (except for my continous destain for it's mere existence) because I hover above this petty position as a god-child cursed to this sad station for some forgotten deed (like working my ass off for too long to secure an education sufficent enough to acknowledge the pathos of my life but apparently not enough to instantly transform it.) (cut me some slack, I am working on it.) but this is too good.

Since I have worked at this, shall we say, estabilshment (read : shit hole) for nine month. In that time I have worked with about a half dozen different mechanics.

Mechanics are odd fellows. No two alike, enough so that I have often wondered about assigning genus and species classifications.

I have had the pleasure (read: ick!) of working with one such fellow for two days before he was arrested and hauled off to jail. Ron was a man of distinction in many ways. Before I had encountered him I already knew that he had worked here before, spending at least a couple weeks living in his car beside the station. There was even some rumours of him intangled in a hundred thousand dollar embesslement thing that happened here a year or so earlier.

Ok, so that is at least three reasons why you shouldn't hire the guy. A couple dozen more were the here and there feeling I, the other mechanics, the other cashiers, the neighbors, and a strange wire haired terrier who stopped by one day had about him.

All these reasons were reported to Jim, the poodle-puppy-in-a-turtle-neck-sweater owner. Jim didn't seem to be to impressed with this. Kinda like the way Isa, my silly dalmatian, wouldn't notice a juicy stake if I happened to have a red frisbee in my hand. He was after money. Maybe Ron would make him more money. Money. Money.

So when we found out that Ron was a social crack smoker.... money!

So when we found out Ron doesn't have auto insurance, or a licence.... money!

So when we found out the Ron owes his old shop $2,400... money!

So when Ron started borrowing for the shops till every night... money!

So when Ron would sit in his car with his friends and harrass femal customers at night... money!

So when we found out that Ron was originally arressted for beating his girlfriend... money.

When strangers came in for repairs recognized Ron and left... money?

Surprise, Ron is in jail. Apparently driving under the influence is a crime, even more so when you have a warrent out for your arrest. Looking back at the numbers, Ron didn't do so well. About half of what we were doing before he showed up. Were is the money Jim?

Do you think you can start trusting us yet? We the humble masses that make your money, turn your wenches, and smoke peacefully by the 4 inch vapor recovery tubes instead of opening them up and chucking our ciggarette down the abyss smiling and confortable with our decision to end the madness while flames first highlight our cackling features and then consume them?

I should probably think of a better way to phrase that before I talk to jim.

Steve

(Oh, my god, am I still here?)

2002-05-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

What do you say about a very cute red head standing twenty feet on the other side of the laundry mat where you wash the uniform of the gas station you work out at because you and the world have come to the mutual agreement that you are not the great second coming you thought you were? Nothing. The answer to that question is nothing.

Sounds like a loaded question doesn’t it? All of my questions seem loaded lately. Loaded not so much as to suggest that they are laden with secondary meanings, but more in the vein of a loaded forty-five, especially one you own out of some peculiar want to use it. Some of these words, I know, are Goeff’s coming through my mouth. Not that he deservers all the credit, these were mine once too, I just misplaced them in a fit of anticipation and excitement about potential. I guess it only makes sense since he is the one that unintentionally inspired this outlet for ranting. (Look what you’ve done.)

“I was going to be some body” I just didn’t know it was the guy that asks if you want anything more, and dutifully counts your change when you put seventeen-twenty two on pump seven.

Oh, my god.

Just for the record, I have two degrees, in two difficult and distinct fields. You would think that I would have thought this ahead enough to make sure that one of them would land me a job (other than this one, smart ass.)

So this is what it is to blog. Kinda fun.

Steve

“bisquick, bisquick, bisquick, bisquick, bisquick, bisquick, bisquick, bisquick, pancake, pancake, pancake, pancake, pancake, pancake, waffle.”