A·pos·tro·phe: A figure of speech by which the orator breaks off from the previous method of discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present;

This project was filmed over one of the hottest weeks in July, 2002 in a dusty garage studio in Brooklyn. It features members of the Barnstormers crew exploring a wide-range of visual “apostrophe”. It is a piece, much more about appreciating the spaces in between than reaching some sort of final conclusion. It is the fourth “motion painting” I have created collectively with other artists, many of whom have painted the sides of old barns with me in the southern tobacco country where I was raised.

B-Stormers
    Brooklyn, 1999. No one really admits it, especially now that there’s so much in the world to really be concerned about. But there was, for alot of people I know, a real sense of anxiety as the new millenium was dawning. For me relief would come from visiting the green pastures where I had spent the first years of my life, down south.
    I had been feeling a growing need to go down there, and paint for the folks who, when I was a boy, had taught me how to tie a square knot and ride a horse. At the same time, I wanted to do these paintings along side my crew, the artists I most respected in New York City. I felt that if I could connect these forces in some kind of shared experience, I could start to deal with with the seemingly incongruous cultures that have long wrestled within me. Little did I know, this quest would soon become a semi-annual visiting artist program of sorts, with no real guidelines or application process, just momentum. It all started In late September, with almost no planning. 25 artists from NY and Japan drove down Interstate 95 through the night to catch the sun rising on Cameron, North Carolina.
    The sun was shining on our arrival but this didn’t last. Hurricane Floyd was active off the coast, bringing steady rainfall, flooding, and incidentally our name, “The Barnstormers”. We battled the rain by constructing makeshift tents with plastic tarps and eventually triumphed. Several pieces were washed away in the night only to be repainted the following day. Frustrating at the time, this act of painting over would prove to be a precursor to our future time-lapse painting projects.

Watching Paint Dry
    August 2000. I was commissioned to produce a film for “RFD”, a pioneer hardcore punk band from Osaka. They needed something that could be projected on stage during their concerts while on tour with “Bad Brains”. My idea was to create a constantly evolving painting with time-lapse photography.
    On the streets of Brooklyn the walls change daily. The layers of piss, sun, rain, ice, graffiti, wheat-pasted flyers for lost pets, and posters build up on the sides of buildings like the thick bark of a tree. If these layers happen to be ripped down or painted over by a building owner, its only a matter of days before the process begins again. To me, this kind of layering is New York.
    I had been working with breakers in the Bronx on a series of video projects at B-boy battles, where I installed linoleum floor mats, painted with circular designs and shot them from directly above as breakers competed for all-city championship. I lknew from doing these projects that an arial shot would create an abstract environment where the act of painting would obscure very little of the overall composition.
    Having just completed several barns, eighteen wheelers, and various pieces of farm equipment with the Barnstormers, I knew what my crew was capable of. The wide range of styles we represent would be all the more striking when juxtoposed against one another.
    I brought in Alex Lebadev, a Barnstormer who had earlier that year co-directed a music video with me. We devised a special method of shooting using a digital camera and several powerful motion graphics applications. Twelve artists buffed each other out with style for two weeks straight. The result was our first time-lapse collaboration, “Watching Paint Dry”, and though watching paint dry sounds like possibly the most boring activity ever, this film is not. Special thanks to GSSA for giving us the opportunity.
    Our U.S. debut of “Watching Paint Dry” at the Downtown Arts Festival featured the music of my brother John’s quartet. From the back of a crowded downtown bar, the musicians improvised to the film, as they were seeing it projected on the screen for the first time. The circle was complete. We artists often paint to music. Having a band play to our “motion-painting” was dope. We were determined to make our improvisational painting skills as tight as a serious jazz player’s.

No Condition Is Permanent
    August 2001. We were offered an opportunity to create a new time-lapse work at Smack Mellon Studios, a non-profit art space in a converted spice factory in D.U.M.B.O. For this, we went much larger, a 20 x 30 foot floor size. We painted for 2 months and featured 26 artists.
    The project was epic. It was one of the highlights of my life yet it spans the most confusing time of all my years in New York. The WTC tragedies of 9-11 occurred just across the river, in plain sight from the gallery. We were 4 weeks into what became a 7 week project. Unsure of what to do we were back in the gallery September 12th. At that point we were in it for something else. We painted to settle our emotions, calm our fears, ask questions, come to terms (as best we could) with what had happened. We spoke to the time with brushes, rollers, and aerosol. It was good to have people around to share the shock.
    Before any of this, I had come up with the title, “No Condition is Permanent.” It came from an African proverb on a bumper sticker that a friend of mine had picked up in Ghana. On 9-11 the idea of non-permanence would take on profound meaning not only in our painting, but our immediate lives, our great city, our small world. It was time to ask questions. What became a truth to me through this experience was that our times need artists. Some say we need more bombs to protect our way of life. I think we need more artists who “bomb” with their creativity, constantly reinventing the way we experience life, keeping us fresh, awake, inspired. We plan to release “No Condition is Permanent” in the fall of 2002 in conjunction with a month long show in “The New Museum” window in Soho.

Apostrophe
    July 2002. It was time to make another “motion painting”. It had been a year and we were thirsty. It was 98 degrees and humid, Stephen Powers originally started the piece using sign painter’s classics- red, yellow and blue. Sadly, just 20 minutes into shooting, the trusty camera I had been using for the last two years overheated and died. By the time I could get a replacement camera, Steve was in Cincinnati on a gig.
    That weekend, I found a special fast drying latex paint, intended for zone marking on highways. Great stuff, drys instantly, but the only colors are black and white. This would prove vital. When we started the piece (the second time around) we tried the traffic paint. The results were some of the best in our career. From then on it was black and white all the way. The elimination of color forced us to focus on the very skeleton of our styles, the architecture behind the painting, the raw, unfiltered juice. Our other films tended to be more solo oriented. This being more of a collaborative thing, with as many as five artists painting together at the same time, the simplicty of black-and-white opened up broader possibilities for connections. As a result, the 13 artists featured in the piece were able to make a solid week of collaborative painting look effortless, like birds in flight. Being in the studio with the crew that week, one sensed a nearly telepathic visual communication, something ancient and new all in one. After shooting "Apostrophe" we invited different musicians to watch the film and arrange original scores. Depending on the "Take" you select, you'll experience the film with accompaniment from varied aural traditions. There's the live improvisational scores of jazzmen, "John Ellis, Josh Roseman, Chris Lovejoy, and Danton Boller." There's the jungle-driven electronica of "Alex Lebadev". There's the sound collage work of "Lemi Gita and the Slices" and "The 3 AM B-stormers Mix Show". And there's the built from scratch turntablist-montages of "DJ Excess".

David Skwerm Ellis,
2002

Featured artists in “Apostrophe”

Painters
Kenji Hirata
David Ellis
Madsaki
Yuri-C-Mojo
Edski
Michael Houston
K-Fuze
Che Jen
Martin Mazorra
Mike Ming
Rostarr
Maya Hayuk
Alex Lebadev

Musicians
Take 1 - John Ellis - tenor saxophone, Josh Roseman - trombone, Danton Boller - bass, Chris Lovejoy - percussion
Take 2 - John Ellis - tenor saxophone, Josh Roseman - trombone, Danton Boller - bass, Chris Lovejoy - percussion (Track 2)
Take 3 - Alex Lebadev
Take 4 - Lemi Gita and The Slices
Take 5 - DJ Excess
Take 6- The 3 AM B-Stormers Mix Show

www.dantonboller.tripod.com
www.chopeklovejoy.com
www.joshroseman.com
www.johnaxsonellis.com
www.b-stormers.com
www.styluswars.com

Featured artists in “Watching Paint Dry”
Mike Ming
Kenji Hirata
Alice Helander
Martin Mazorra
Alex Lebadev
David Ellis
Michael Houston
Che Jen
Todd James
Stephen Powers

Featured artists in “No Condition is Permanent”
Blust
Michael Houston
Kenji Hirata
Martin Mazorra
Chuck Webster
Stephen Powers
Che Jen
KR
Ewok
Madsaki
Alex Lebadev
David Ellis
Rostarr
Jest
Cycle
Kevin Lions
Ease
West
Doze Green
Kami
UFO
Wello
Sasuke
Faile
Bast
Revs