Mitchell Villa, Lyle Schultz, Tuesday Martin, Nathan Davis at Massey gal...

And Now for Something Completely Different .. at the Massey Gallery - AGGV -

The Lyle Schultz and Tani Hamagishi-Allen Art Show

608 Johnson St.  Victoria, BC

The Hole - Blue City Veins - The Nocturnal Art Journals

November, 9 2001

The Hole

I haven't really unpacked anything yet. There are piles of junk and debris floating miscellaneously all over the place. I seem to attract junk like some kind of junk magnet. I find organizing things a very complicated and frustrating ordeal. For instance, I will start with one pile and then make another pile beside the first pile with things from the first pile. I then have 2 piles of things, so then I make another pile with stuff from both of those piles, etc. I have decided to name them "Lyle Piles." These polubious* piles have always surrounded me. My life is a constant struggle between art and reality. I don't particularly want to live in a mess, but when I clean things I feel guilty for not creating any art, its madness. A perpetual ping pong game.

I like to Bike. Biking serves as a barrier from the pink faced pig pumping inbred fascists. Fat bastards rolling around in huge trucks. So pergurantly*obese they need to be greased and shucked from their vehicles with enormous shoe horns. Pinkos. Pinky red fleshed beasts streaming past me. Angry tapping sausage fingers honking horns. Malignant mutant mouths belching profanities. These devilled pigs have a name for me. I am "Hey bike Fag!" It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Ding a ling Ding, eat a potato while you sing.

Ding a ling Dong, beat a pillow with your shlong.

The weekend is quickly approaching. I decided against going to school today. So far the only good thing about college is the exercise I get biking to-and-fro. This town is extremely hilly, as well as full of hillbillies. It's Bill Hilly.

The visual arts section of the college is conveniently located in a condemned shack on the edge of a hill. This shipping container of a building is freezing. Besides its meat locker charm It is also equipped with harsh industrial Fluorescent lights. The lights make my eyes bleed. The cold concrete hurts my knees, and washrooms smell like a swamp. Beside those things its a great place.
My throat hurts when I complain. Little demon germs poking it with infected rusty thumb tacks. "Keep complaining you ungrateful little bastard, your complaints feed satans' flames!""

My main objective was to get out of the work world for awhile so I can concentrate on my own ideas, flesh them out, and carve out my own identity. I need people to know a "Lyle" when they see one.
These art assignments are so retarded. I just want to paint something. Put brush to canvas. I have never painted on canvas. We have to paint apples on wood panels. I think I'm going to make my own canvas stretcher to paint on. I have an old picture frame that I could wrap some canvas around. I need something to nail it with. Perhaps I could snag some tools from the school....

So far I have been able to get away with not doing any assignment properly. I make the assigned projects my own creations as sacrifices to art. I think as long as I always hand something in they will have to pass me.

There's a bar close to my apartment I have been frequenting. It's kind of a dump, but it's cheap. A cheap dark drunk dump on top of a hill. They sell bottles of beer for 2 bux! I sometimes go there in the afternoons to write and drink before all the humants*show up. The bars in this town are strange. For the most part all walks of life share the same watering holes. Its a good town to be a drunk in. It seems as though There's a bar, liquor store, and church on every street corner.

The building I live in is very odd. Not just the building but those that inhabit it as well.This week I found a portal in my bathroom. It was covered by a sheet of plywood painted white.

I drew a picture of a TV on it. I couldn't stop wondering what was lurking behind the panel. Eventually curiosity got the best of me and I removed the nails, revealing a weird gaping hole measuring about 10 feet deep, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet high. Inside was a staircase, a staircase leading to nowhere. Its very odd. I kept the porthole open for awhile. Perhaps for 5 days, give or take a month. Having that weird hole open made me feel nervous, I had this strange sensation that something was living in it, or some foreign energy was permeating from its innards. It was liken to that of an aliens vagina, (and we all know what those are like.)The hole had a very ancient smell as well. What did the smell remind me of? hmmmmm kind of like an old book from the library, a book that hasn't been taken out in years.

I always found it particularly disgusting to find crusted snot in library books. Library books are very odious and loathsome creatures if you think about it. Hitchhiking from one gross grotto to another. Kind of like sex slaves. Forced to do unmentionable things. The only revenge they ever can hope of getting is maybe wasting someone's time with a bad story, or a paper cut or two. Most books tend to hide themselves once brought home. Hidden in hopes they will not be returned to the sick book brothel from once they came. I wonder if there are libraries for the elite. Pristine books with no mucous, fecal matter, or pudding smeared on their pages. How many perverts have touched those pages? What have those hands been doing?

Some books have a distinct smell, characteristic of toilet reading. If you really have to read books while defecating, please have the courtesy to wrap the book in a clear bag while doing so.

Some books smell like the people that read them. There was this guy I coined "The Clown", his house happened to be on my childhood paper route. Everything he had was orange and brown. The orange and brown clown. Even his wiry hairs on his balding head were red. (You thought I was going to say orange didn't you! Well Orange doesn't rhyme with head, now does it!, well actually orange doesn't rhyme with anything.) The clowns house had a distinct smell. Reminiscent of stew and carrots, the smell of orange coloured food. It was a heavy lumbering scent. The odour kind of hung in the atmosphere like an old thick drape. An old thick drape with a leering pervert hiding behind it.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah dirty smelly weird holes. The hole in question also had these strange little beetles inside of it. Little piles of dead flies, and other assorted debris.

I decided to seal the hole shut today. I even used clear packing tape around the edges, just incase some kind of filth decided to ooze out. Hopefully everything went back inside before I shut the gates. Nothing worse than having some pissed off and displaced poltergeist haunting your toilet bowl.
boogly goobly boooo!

I photographed the hole, I figured something that peculiar needs to be documented. After all it could be some kind of message from ART!

Speaking of ART and strange messages, this is kind of interesting.... Last week I dialled a wrong number on my phone. After a few seconds of beeping and blooping this odd computer starting talking to me. It said something like "Zzzzzzzop....Golf + hamburger = 1023.76 zero minus electricity beep beep beep Frederick mulnard x57 golf+hamburger = minus."

I tried misdialing again but to no avail. What could this possibly mean? What kind of cryptic code is this. Was I in fact talking to ART himself?

Chances are that strange message was delivered from a very lonely and somewhat scared answering machine. Just sitting there. Sitting there on a small wooden table in a dimly lit room. Patiently waiting for its one purpose in life. That purpose being for know other reason than to confuse whatever poor bastard that accidentally called it.

All this talk about weird answering machines, dirty holes and stew is making me thirsty, I need some water.

so much for long goodbyes,
keep it weird.
L.

* signifies words I have invented.

An Introduction To Nothing by Lyle Schultz

Before we dive head first into the weird abyss of my sorted art journals, I figured it would be best if I revealed a bit about my art background as it were....

Part 1 The Early Years.

As far back as I can recall I was always drawing something. Even in the womb I was drawing nutrients.

Sand Eaters Inc.

In kindergarten there was 3 types of people. Glue drinkers, eraser munchers, and sand eaters. If I recall correctly I was a sand eater. Probably the healthiest choice. I was also prone to eating play- doh, until my teachers starting cutting it with salt.

Scribblings.

It is interesting to see ones drawings from early childhood. I was fortunate enough that my parents kept most of my illustrations. I reviewed them a couple months back. Curious as to what it is that makes me tick, some sort of clue in the scribblings that would show a connection to what I am now. What I discovered is that most of my work was very heavily detailed. Overtly detailed even. Verging on the point of insanity. That affliction still prevails in my work today. I have an uncontrollable need to keep adding more and more extraneous details. Some strange fear of wasting space perhaps.

The Horror.

As a child I drew lots of images with blood, well not my blood. What I mean to say is that I liked to draw gory things. Vampyres mostly. Fanged creatures, I was obsessed with ghosts and the macabre. After school I would spend countless hours with a friend making comic books. The comics were usually based on horror movies that we watched repetitively. I recall the sexual scenes in the films we watched being fuzzy and warbled, presumably caused by constant rewinding and pausing.

Writing.

My first claim to fame happened In grade 3. I was awarded an honorable mention by Stephen King in a short story competition. My story was about an insane ice-cream truck driver who chopped up children and sold their body parts as frozen treats. It was called "Eye Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Eyescream." Perhaps that was  the first time I figured I might have some sort of redeemable talent.

Grade School.

Art class was always my favorite subject. It was the one class that not even the school took seriously. Having good grades in art class didn't really count as anything. Art class was utterly useless in the eyes of most parents, teachers, and students. Art and music instructors were the only teachers that liked me, or moderately tolerated me. Art class in the prairies was mostly comprised of gluing Chiclets on a rabbits mouth for Easter or tracing yer hand to make a Thanks Giving turkey.

I had a strange habit of breaking all my pencil crayons in half and tossing them out the 2nd story window. To my surprise I was discovered. Perhaps it had something to do with each crayon saying "Property of Lyle" printed on them. It was a very odd thing to be caught doing. Standing there at the teachers desk, looking down at a pile of broken pencil crayons and dirt. Was it really a punishable crime? Can't a man break his pencils and throw them out a 2nd story window if he damn well pleases?!

Speaking of pencil crayons and art, I have a very vivid memory of an instance that perhaps shaped my life as a creative individualist thinker forever. One day in English class a student spilled her pencil crayons all over the floor. When this sort of thing happened, the whole class for some sick reason would stare at the person and sing Happy Birthday. I did not. My Pink little brain instructed me to look the other way. To this day I still do the same thing. I feel disgust doing anything other people are doing. I also make sure not to look down when I cross the cross walk. Almost everyone else does. Its hard not to do. Try it next time. I double dare you!

Blue City Veins - The Nocturnal Art Journals by Lyle Schultz

Do you wonder what it might like to be a young struggling artist? In the new Exhibit-v’ Blog section, "Blue City Veins - The Nocturnal Art Journals”, you can discover one young artist's challenges. Lyle Schultz will be giving us the chance to follow his struggle as an emerging artist through his weekly journal entries. Follow Lyle down his dark and twisted rabbit hole of artistic existence. Learn how to live on a 1$ dollar a day, how to paint your dress shoes to make them look new, and other mystifying adventures in an artist’s life!

Coming Soon !! 

"Days in The Life" book by Philip Willey

Synopsis
  Simon is a groovy young rock writer in Swinging London who always manages to be in the right place at the right time. We follow him to the TV studios where Ready Steady Go is produced, then on to the flat of art dealer Robert Fraser where only the hippest of the hip hang out. He drives out to Weybridge to visit John Lennon, Abbey Road Studios where Sergeant Pepper is being made, and the Bag of Nails club for the London debut of Jimi Hendrix. Many years later, in Bermuda, he reflects on his life and has an encounter with John Lennon’s ghost. All that in 54 pages, 9 beautifully illustrated. Fact or fiction? Or a mixture of both? Read it and decide for yourself.

 Here you have the new book about John Lennon by our collaborator Philip Willey illustrated by :

Carollyne Yardley, Lance Austin Olsen, Michael Lewis, Lyle Schultz, Robert Amos, Roy Green, Brad Pasutti and Darren White.

to buy the book go to : 

www.philipwilley.com

Blair, Yardley, Schultz and the Pop Sensibility by Philip Willey

 Call it synchronicity or serendipity, one of those words, but sometimes things just seem to come together….as when three quite different artists with similar pop interests decide to show simultaneously.
I think the first time I met Bill Blair it was at a show of his photographs, Open Space maybe, back in the 80s, salmon chanted evening, so I thought of him as primarily a photographer. But I knew he had other interests. Paint by numbers being one. It’s the kitchiness that intrigues him I think. He likes to pose people in front of paint-by-number type trees….perhaps holding an axe or a decoy duck. The result is a whimsical Canadian unreality. He likes Mexican iconography too, the nostalgia of vintage postcards, votive offerings. In recent years all these elements have fused into what he calls guitar shrines. These are guitars, or ukuleles, often incorporating paint-by-numbers scenes, nudes, birds, artificial flowers etc. often with a string of coloured lights. There seems to be no end to Blair’s inventiveness. You can see his work at Victoria Spirits out on Old West Saanich Road. You can also learn a lot about the distilling process. They make gin there. And whisky and vodka. Take a designated driver.
Carollyne Yardley is another artist with a pop sensibility. She studied at U.Vic, the Victoria College of Art and with Tony Ryder in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1997 she founded a software application and web development company so she has a strong foundation in the visual communications industry. She views art and design as a process of thinking, creating, problem-solving, and communicating.
She describes her work as Pop Surrealism. She cites Mark Ryden as a major influence along with Todd Schorr, Heather Watts, Ron English and Noah Becker perhaps because they blend pop culture with traditional techniques. She also likes Wonder Woman, Elvis Presley and helicopter rides. And she’s Sirius about squirrels.
In September 2010, Carollyne launched her new business as a visual artist, and “began to remove the mask of technology to emerge as her true self, standing with her hands on her hips, yelling and laughing at the squirrels in her yard.”
The squirrels turned out to be an ideal vehicle for communicating her observations about people. They allow her to explore character development without being too blatant or anthropomorphic. We in turn are obliged to think about her intentions. If we recognize something of ourselves in these cute little creatures so much the better.
Her technique is illustrational rather than painterly and always it’s the big eyes, that look of startled surprise, which hold the viewer’s interest. Her work will be at Sooke Harbour House Gallery until May 28^th.
Meanwhile at Bean Around the World, on Fisgard Street, Lyle Schultz, yes him again, continues to explore the obscure recesses of his mind to bring us a new collection of mixed media creations. Full of surprises that’s Lyle. He manages to be both alienated and accessible. His abstracts are never totally abstract, his figurative works enjoy throwing curveballs. You just never know where he’ll pop up next. You may have seen his soup cans, or his hairy trousers, or his pointy shoes. Perhaps you’ve run into one of his light-bulbs? Maybe you’ve thrilled to his gladiatorial sponges fighting to the death in a kitchen sink arena on facebook? Perhaps you have some of his worms. No? Well now’s your chance to get some. Versatile? You bet. He can do cartoons. He does landscapes too when he’s not making wry comments on art history and foraging through the dark side. All this on a diet of Mr. Noodle and ketchup with a landlord breathing down his neck.
Victoria, BC - May 2012

Lyle Schultz - May 2012 - Artist of the Month

Sparticrust 2

Born in a monastery in South Eastern Angoria, living on nothing but Christ and aphid eggs, Schultz first started showing signs of creativity. He excelled in cross stitching and pottery. As Schultz grew so did his will to be weird. Bored was he of the teachings of Christ and craft making. One day whilst milking a beast in a barn, he found a porno magazine. It was carelessly hidden under some straw. It was dated 50 years ahead of its time. Schultz figured this was a sign from God. Which God, he was not certain, but  A God nonetheless. His life now had a purpose! After years of worshiping the porno magazine God and constant  beast milking, his hands became cramped, resembling wretched hairy claws. The monks figured perhaps art would be a good therapy for him. They fashioned large brushes to fit in his now contorted hands. It was at this point that Schultz discovered that ART was the true God, not porn. Porn was merely a derivative, a mealy subservant of ART. ART was the true pink flesh! Porn was a gateway drug. Since then he vowed to be ARTS loyal slave, carrying out its demands, no matter how weird, degrading, or perverted they were. To this day you can see Schultz attempting to proselytize ARTS inane teachings to all heretics that cross his path. Living in squalor, abject poverty, ceaselessly humiliating himself on the steps of fascist art galleries, trying to make them see the true light. Drinketh the blood of ART!!!, and that he does, wine flowing from his mouth quivering in existential ecstasy, sacrificing his humanity, and health for the divine liar. There he twitches,Crucified to his Easel in the name of ART!

 www.lyleart.com

Glenn Romasanta,Michelle Miller & Lyle Schultz at Dales Gallery

Lyle Schultz in " Question Period "

Lyle Schultz

artistic background-

graduated 2003 medicine hat college visual communications program
exhibiting since 2001

description of work-

I work in many media including painting, comics, animation, short film, and literature, my work reflects all aspects of my mind, depending on my mood, its best viewed than written about.

living artists-

Terry Gilliam, SAM Kieth, David Cronenberg, David lynch.

no longer living-

William s.Burroughs, Picasso, Van Gogh, Shiele, Munch.....

should art have social/political message?

I think it depends on the artist. The very act of doing art that's true to one self is a social and political act. I am not one that creates or is interested in very political art, well at least not art that crams it down your throat. I believe the true master can get the point across in a more subdued, or even humorous fashion. Like Terry Gilliam for example.

why do I do art?-

at first it was a way out of the work world, i went to art school not because I cared about art, but a way to temporarily escape hell, now its just a way of life, I am controlled by the bastard god "Art" I really have no say in the matter any more. I am bored by most art, and figured I should do something about it, so I have created work that entertains me.

websites

www.lyleart.com
www.oceanretarded.com