welcome.

new year, new project.

Hello all.

For a year now i’ve been sitting parked on this substack account deciding if I should try my hand at using it as a way to share art, music and works in progress. Late last year I decided that 2024 would be the year to do it. I really seem to have picked a bad time to associate myself with this platform but I am going to try and move forward and hope that substack won’t just become the latest digital platform to disappoint it’s users.

Some history.

Dust Breeding began as a website I started back in 2009 where I posted one creative project a day for 365 consecutive days. Over the course of that year so much happened — I learned a lot, I grew a lot as an artist, I became a father and I am so grateful for the time I spent on everything I did that year. In the years that followed, I brought back Dust Breeding a few times in different ways in shorter bursts but never in a way that was as productive or significant as that first run. This latest incarnation will be something different once again. What that will be, only time will tell. I thought of naming it something else but I’ve kind of grown attached to it.

Remember 2023?

It feels so long ago already. 2022 + 2023 felt like rebuilding years after so much was lost to the pandemic darkness and wreckage that surrounded it. I feel like I am still digging my way out slowly but it’s largely been better.

The Fall of 2023 saw the staging of my first solo art exhibition since the pandemic. “What Was Lost and What Remains” is collection of work addressing themes of loss, generational trauma, and gun violence in America. It encompasses a variety of mediums including sound, sculpture, graphic works on paper and object making. I am so grateful to Blake Shell and Dustin Williams for presenting me with the opportunity to stage this exhibition as well as program the First Saturday events each month. The show is up until February 11th and if you find yourself in Portland any time between now and then I would encourage you to come check it out. If you are here on a day when Oregon Contemporary isn’t open, feel free to reach out and I can try and organize a viewing outside of normal hours.

In 2023 we lost quite a few members of our art and music community, some of which I knew personally and others who I only knew through a connection to their work. The echos of loss fade slowly giving us all a lot of time to reflect (often too much time). I’m thinking a lot about R.S. and S.R. whose work had a lot of impact on me. Thank you to both of them for those gifts they shared.

Moving forward.

My hope for the year is to be better about declaring my intentions around what I want to manifest. My default is to keep things quiet and no say anything until after it has already become a reality. Call it superstition or pessimism or whatever… but whatever it is, it is a pattern that I will try to break. Among my goals for the year is to find my way back to making music on my own. It has been a really, really long time since I made a proper solo album and I am pretty determined to make that happen this year. Collaborations have always come easier for me because of there being more accountability to others. I have confidence that this year will see a new Deupree/Fischer album as well as some kind of Wild Card release.

I have at least two art exhibitions happening this spring. One is a larger group show and the other is a two-person show. Both will be in Oregon but only one in Portland. More information to come soon.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. Wishing you all the best and please stay tuned for further updates.

take care.

m