Quit Your Job: Make Art.

“Untitled” (Acrylic on canvas), Museum de Chelsea’s grandma’s house

I have a story in mind, but I’ll make an attempt to shorten it.

     After studying at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, I turned into an “art scrooge.”  I never wanted to touch a paint brush again.  I figured a year off from mark-making, over analyzing color schemes, and observing could result in a great Comeback. I tucked this thought in my pocket and moved to London.  After a buzz of crammed tubes, overwhelming architecture, less pounds and more pageantry (Will and Kate’s wedding) and cute-as-could-be accents, I decided I needed to make my way back to Seattle, WA.
Soon after getting back to Seattle I found a job, a job that would, even with a BA in the Arts, pay me minimum wage.  After many 4am wake-up calls and two bus rides every morning, after forgetting I even had a degree in something, after comparing my priorities to those making tiny wages in a cold production warehouse, January 1st arrived.  I walked in, asked for my paycheck, and walked out.

I quit.

Instantly, I found that thought I had in my pocket for the last year, that promise I would make some sort of creative come back.  The bus ride back to town consisted of me thinking about how I was going straight to the bank, depositing that last check and spending it all on paints at the art store.

That’s exactly what I did.  I painted without thought, only for the sake of painting.  I painted to paint, to make marks, to play with color, to simply get the paints out.  My paintings since then have all been untitled.  I like it.  Why should they be titled?  It made me think that sometimes art doesn’t have to be anything, sometimes not thinking is what makes the art, sometimes you can discover things about your work much later.  Everything I learned in Art School taught me a different kind of process, a process of thought and criticism.

It felt wonderful.  It made me happier than a 600 dollar pay check every two weeks.  It sparked the reality of Babel/Salvage and I havent stopped.  I want to paint, I want to help other artists, I want to assist the community, I want to collaborate, I want a creative business.  This is only the beginning….

Chelsea Corbin

February, 2012

Storefront Seattle

WE APPLIED

that is all… for now.

Philosophical Inquiry

We can begin with a series of questions. The first question: why am I here? The second question: what am I doing and what is the purpose of what I am doing? That is not one question but a bundled question, a question with two parts. It may be that there is in human experience and existence only one question and the various versions or parts of that one cosmic question. What would that question be? The question of God perhaps? The question of existence itself? The fundamental and childish, “Why?” Or maybe, the more hopeful yet simultaneously more apocalyptic, “What if…?”

Just go shopping: for meaning and God.

Spring is coming! Featured items.

BabelSalvageArcade

Vintage mini flowers (Set of Four) $ 5.00

http://www.etsy.com/listing/93033942/vintage-mini-flower-pins-set-of-four

Each week grace our WordPress with an item from each of our storefronts. Our Etsy page focuses on the neatest, greatest, most interesting bric-a-brac, hand-made items, home wares, vintage curiosities, and the just plain fun. Our Big Cartel shop is our vintage clothing store and Book stand.

Vintage Country Western wicker handbag $ 15.00

http://babelsalvage.bigcartel.com/product/vintage-country-western-wicker-purse

We hope you get a chance to visit us soon!

Cheers!

Babel/Salvage

Etsy Redux: Babel Salvage Arcade

We’ve brightened up our Etsy site and added some wonderful items.  Take a look below and visit our little store.  Our Big Cartel site will focus exclusively on clothing and books.  Visit our Sinister Sites page for links to our Big Cartel shop and other wonderful experiments.

 

Thanks,

Bryan & Chelsea, or

Babel/Salvage

3 Opening Paragraphs from the Babel Books Archives

3 Opening Paragraphs
edited by Bryan Edenfield

1.
Two months ago my parents were murdered by a white Ford Bronco and now I’m having what seems to be a religious crisis. My therapist suggests that writing things down will help, get these demon thoughts out of my messy skull. I think that’s hogshit but I don’t have anything better to do.

from, “A Young Man’s Search for God,” by Anonymous

2.
People lived here. Not anymore.

from, “In the Land of Ghosts,” by Bryan Edenfield
3.
I am not a brave man, only good at doing what I am told. If anything, this is a sign of my cowardice. Thus when I was given the Elect’s Medallion of Courage, I humbly accepted because it was my duty as a soldier of the great New Army of the Coastland Republic, not because I deserved it. I joined the New Army not out of any notion of civic duty but because of dire poverty. My work is the work of a poet and after a series of unfortunate decisions, I found myself nearly homeless and without much prospects. The newly created military offered room and board and a pension once my service ended. When word came to our republic that the Nameless Kingdom had fallen, the previous Elect created the armed body in order to fight against the still powerful local governor of the Kingdom.

from, “Journey Through Unknown Worlds,” by Emmanuel Lainez

Four False Biographies. An Excerpt From “Glossolopolis Number One.”

Four False Biographies

 

Franz Kafka (False Biography 1)

We try to name something unnameable, namely, your infinite regress into a joy so horrible it transforms the world, lovely and idiotic, into an infernal mistake, the next level of hell, banality, which finds perfect solace staring into the last comedy before slumber, the one you dreamed about the night before. What I mean by that is this: I cannot see any of the objects you hold in your hands because when you hold them they become something else, something blinding. And when you describe them to me, you sing in the most beautiful voice, but I know you are only speaking in tongues, and when translated, we will have all of the gasps humanity has ever quivered, wilted down into death. Death sounds like a laugh, not a scream, but the two are easily confused.

Gertrude Stein (False Biography 2)

I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately but not because I know you or could even imagine. When I think about you I simply think about a series of words that would describe you perfectly, but I don’t know what those words are and wonder if they have even been invented yet. Certainly they have been but I know that the sentence that describes you so perfectly if read would be mistaken for the real thing (a transformative sentence using magic needlessly to conjure you up woops accidentally) and would necessarily be composed of words in the wrong order or in no order at all. Again I know you are my friend but again whenever you take me to a place full of things that are supposed to be familiar I forget what all of those things are.

Jules Verne (False Biography 3)

When I was a kid I wanted to travel to imaginary places not because they were imaginary but because they weren’t. Given maps, I build a paper city only to watch it collapse. The collapse is the best part, but for the people inside the maps, their whole world has just been destroyed. They plea to me but they speak in a sophisticated jargon that sounds exactly like the clicking of insects. I click back and pretend it means something. We’ve all just gone on an adventure and we have all survived. This imaginary land was for no one else but me. Even its inhabitants have to die.

Jorge Luis Borges (False Biography 4)

Before the Big Bang, everything was compressed into one tiny spot. What if it still is? When I see you looking at your watch with such intensity I know you couldn’t possibly be that befuddled by the time of day, you must be staring into the entirety of existence. People who collect rare coins might be doing the same thing, or people who study architecture, or someone reading a book. What bothers me is the thought that all spots, all objects, still contain the whole of the universe. That’s too many universes for the universe to hold and I fear it may explode. Every day I lay in bed and tremble with fearful anticipation: a multitude of big bangs spreading out from every spot in the universe, spawning innumerably more spots where innumerably more universes will sit, compressed, waiting to be contemplated, waiting to explode.

 To donate to the printing of “Glossolopolis Number One” visit the kickstarter site or donate here.

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1919611900/glossolopolis-number-one-a-publication-of-babel-bo

Glossolopolis Number One

 

“Glossolopolis Number One” is a short book of poetry and nonsense writing that I have written and designed. The next step: printing and distribution. This is where I need your help. Due to sub-par day job employment, debt, rent and other poverty related factors, I cannot afford the printing costs.
My intention is to make Glossolopolis a semi-annual literary journal, though this issue features only my own writing. Included is a short book of poetry titled “XAGY: a land of monsters,” an excerpt from a mock-academic essay titled “Against Biology, or, Specter Analysis,” and a few other works I had lying around. The intention was to give the issue the feel of an anthology, even if all the work comes from one person.

So I need a little help with printing costs…

For those who donate at least $8 I will send an issue of Glossolopolis Number One directly to you, signed, dated and numbered (if you care about that sort of thing). The book will eventually be sold for about $10 (and most won’t be signed) so this amounts to a discounted copy of the book.

For those who donate $20 or more, I’ll try to put something special together. Maybe I’ll be able to get you a copy of my first book, “33 Opening Paragraphs,” though I can’t guarantee anything at this juncture. A hand-made notebook might also come to your doorstep.

Finally, for every single person who donates, even just a dollar, I’ll give you a dedication page shoat out in my next book, if you’d like.  You can donate here or at the top of the site under the “Donate” menu option.

Thanks for the help.

Thanks
Bryan Edenfield

 

Babel/Salvage opens shop!

Welcome to the opening of our Babel/Salvage boutique!

http://babelsalvage.bigcartel.com/

We are so excited to invite you to the opening of our new on-line store front. Our shop is full of  AFFORDABLE Art and design, fun and flirty vintage, bric-a-brac, as well as books  by (Babel Books & Publishing)  full of interesting and enticing subject matter.  Here at Babel/Salvage we aim to rotate our product (gotta keep em fresh),  and keep our prices affordable.

Tell your friends and family! Upon purchase-mail us with your product number/item and code: “WPBSYES” for a prize along with your item.

              $5.75      Recycled “Anatomy of a Murder” note book set  Brought to you by  Babel Books & Publishing.  (Click on the picture to see this item)

Again we thank you for your support

Enjoy! Keep checking back for more news and products!

Questions or Enquiry?

Attention to Bryan Edenfield or Chelsea Corbin

wearebabelsalvage@gmail.com

Wunderkammern: Archaeology of the Fantastic

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Artists, Writers, Architects and Schizophrenic Dreamers, We Need You for…

Wunderkammern: Archaeology of the Fantastic 

Inspired by the 17th Century Cabinet of Curiosities, Babel/Salvage is putting together an art exhibition for the spring of 2012 and we need your help.

Imagine a fantastic land, a Utopian civilization, a dystopian nightmare, an alien world or an alternate reality.  Imagine the cultures and conflicts, the flora and fauna, the geography and cosmology, the religious and political institutions, the rocks, hardware and detritus of this dream world. Your job is to immerse yourself in your own invisible land and build an artifact from that world.  It may be a cup-holder for a society of seven-fingered creatures with two mouths.  It may be drawings of the fantastic creatures that roam the alien forests.  It could be the architectural schematics for their underwater dwellings or the toiletries of a vastly different society.  It could be a painting, sculpture, book or piece of exotic garbage.  Truly, it could be anything, a mysterious window into a world different from our own.

We will be exhibiting these archaeological finds in the style of the wunderkammer in a room filled with the other strange relics of illusory worlds.  Your work will be for sale at a price you choose and we will take a measly 10% commission that will go towards building Babel/Salvage into a beautiful machine of art & literature.

If you’re interested, please email wearebabelsalvage@gmail.com with a brief proposal for your exhibit and a few examples of previous work (jpeg preferred for pictures, Word or Open Office documents for writing).  Are you a new artist without a lot of examples of previous work or a Luddite-type lacking digitized examples?  That’s okay: persuade us with some pretty words or awesome ideas.

 As of yet, we don’t have a space for our exhibition, so any ideas or suggestions are welcome.  We are a fledgling organization, so a little patience will be necessary.

Thank you,

Bryan and Chelsea, or

Babel/Salvage

PS: If you need some inspiration, or would like to know where we are coming from aesthetically, here are a few clues….

Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders by Lawrence Weschler

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Mark Dion

Cabinet of Natural Curiosities by Albertus Seba