I feel like Instagram is often misused. In its essence Instagram is a platform to share parts of your life. However, I don’t always think that’s what it’s used for. In fact, I think it’s fucked up our society greater than we can even understand. I’m guilty of it, myself.
It’s used for pictures. Some say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Some of us scroll through a thousand pictures a day, probably with the T.V. used as back ground noise. How many words could they all be worth? If you’ve made it this far, I thought it might be cool to go behind the scenes of a picture. Or pictures. When I look at art, I don’t just look at it for it’s merits or how it makes me feel. Often times I wanna know how, why, and what the artist was doing when they created it.
So, I thought I might go about this post in an unconventional way, if only for me to look back one day when I’m old and senile and can’t remember the story behind this series.
It’s called “Girl in Hat.” People have inferred that it’s of my ex. For the record it’s not. It’s of a girl from Sweden. These prints were done in 2016, possibly during the best fall/winter of my life. I was living in Muenster, Germany. It’s fucking crazy how I ended up there.
It all started in Greven, Germany, about 15 miles from Muenster. I used to live in Greven the year after I graduated high school. I forget, I either met this dude Adem at a bar called the Lennox or at the skatepark the night after I met all of his friends. He’s one of the craziest dudes I’ve ever encountered. Whip smart but in a very unorthodox way. At his core this dude is one of the kindest people around. Out of the group of the 13 or so friends I made in Germany all those years ago, I’ve stayed in contact with about half of them. Adem is one.
So in the summer of 2016 my friend Aaron and I took a trip to Spain. We went to Madrid where he used to live, and Barcelona, our favorite city in the world. From there I met my mom and we went a few places before ending back up in Greven.
It was such a beautiful night. Mariola, Adem’s mom heard we were coming through town and invited us to dinner. It was cute because Adem’s mom speaks about as much English as my mom speaks German, as to say there was no way for them to actually speak to each other. I mean, yes they communicated with one another, but it was Adem, his girlfriend, and I translating back and forth. And let me tell you those girls had so much fun together. They laughed all night like sisters. While Mariola played my mom music from the choir in which she sang and showed my mom pictures from her family photo album, Adem and I slipped outside to have a smoke and catch up. We’d talked over the phone or messaged through What’sApp or whatever, but we hadn’t seen each other in four years. He asked me what my plan for after Muenster was. That was the end of my mom’s trip and I had to go see about a girl in Barcelona. Besides that I was totally open.
He asked if I had anything going on the weekend of such and such and I said that didn’t. ”Good” he told me.
Adem’s a professional skate photographer and he was going on tour with the Muenster Titus team in Warsaw, Poland. “Do you want to come?” I was like fuck yeah. I had just started skating again and I was getting the feel of my board back. So after it didn’t work out with me and the Mari Linda (unfortunately), my Brazilian girl in Spain, I flew over to meet Adem and the team. I was the newcomer, but these guys couldn’t have been cooler. That’s one great things about skateboarding. We’re accepting people in general, but if you ride a skateboard, your almost automatically part of the crew.
That trip was fucking wild. I forgot what it was like to party with Germans. Those crazy fuckers can drink with the Irish. Especially the skaters. So for five days, we got up in the morning and skated all day. That is the best possible way to see a city in my opinion. Cruising through it on your board. And then at night we went back to the hostel and pregamed. Once when we were nice and drunk we wandered around the corner to the “fun” street in Warsaw. It was full of bars and strip clubs. We’d stay out all night drinking and then wake up and do the same thing all over again.
Well one night I had gotten so fucked up that and I didn’t make it skating. In fact I stayed out by my self that night and got home just as they were leaving. It’s not like I was on tour or anything. I didn’t need to get and clips so I ended up sleeping all the day. Around three o’clock in the afternoon I was awaken by a commotion outside my window. Two stories down I heard the team and Christian was cursing like a sailor. I could tell he was hurt, but that made very little sense. He was the filmer. If my recollection is right they were skating down hill when Christian, or “Bluelme,” as I came to know him, with a 40 pound backpack full of filming gear ate shit and skid his face across the rocky road. He had a T-shirt wrapped around his head. Needless to say it was soaked in blood, and dripping down his bare chess. He was f u c k e d up. You could see in his eyes that he wasn’t all the way there. Concussed for sure. That was our last day there, and besides Christian, we stayed out all night. The next morning we said our goodbyes.
In just a short week I had become very close with that crew. I knew I was gonna miss them and I hoped they felt the same way. They took me in as one of their own and I’ll never forget that.
When they left back for Muenster I flew to Italy where my friends were getting married in the foothills right outside this little beach town called Chiavari. We all stayed there for a week, including the bride and groom, and explored 50 kilometers in all directions. We did your typical tourist shit, but typical shit kicks ass. I never understood why popular things get such a bad wrap. Their popular for a reason. Anyways, we lied around on rented beach chairs, bathed in the Mediterranean, and ate insanely good Italian food and drank Negronis and cheap red wine.
The late night/early morning of the wedding was an absolute disaster. For some reason the group got split up and Tyler and I ended up at some random club. We drank there and then had pizza with some locals around the corner. Right as the sun was setting Tyler got a ride to his hotel on the back of some girls moped and I got stuck. My place was up in the foothills and no taxi was going that deep and in that direction at that time in the morning. I found some of those beach chairs for rent—yellow and white striped—and tried to fall asleep. That’s when some guy came and kicked me out in Italian. I slept on some rocks a few feet down. It was an especially hot morning and I got a sixth degree sunburn. Later that day the whole crew rounded up and we headed to Cinque Terre which stands four 5 cities, or something like that. I can only speak for the first city because on the train ride to the second I had a panic attack and had to go home.
Anyways, I digress. The following morning the group split up. Most of them were going to Paris followed by Amsterdam. I needed to get back to Germany. Josh, a friend from California, was meeting me there. We went a few places before ending up in Amsterdam. Originally I was going to stay through the Josh’s time there, three months in total, but I wasn’t ready to go home so I went back to Muenster for a few days. Well that’s what I planned- a few days.
I stayed with my friends Christoph and Tini for a couple weeks. It was a little weird because Christoph was my ex’s brother, but long before we broke up Christoph and I promised each other that no matter what happened between his sister and me, we would never lose contact. I’m glad we didn’t because I love that dude, and I love his girlfriend too. Tini and I quickly became Bff’s. I slept up in their office on the second floor. They said they were happy to have me for however long I wanted to stay, but I felt like I was beginning to cramp their style, even if I wasn’t. So I decided to rent an Air BnB for a week in old town on Cow Street. I fucking loved that apartment.
Christoph had to work every day, but Tini and I didn’t have shit to do, so everyday I’d ride Christoph’s second bike over to their apartment and pick her up. It was part of our daily itinerary. Kaese broetchen (Cheese rolls) from Kiepen Kerl bakery and good salami from the market. Around 2 we’d head to the best day time bar in Muenster. Stuhlmacher is in the heart of their little downtown, and is perfect for people watching from their sidewalk tables. After that we’d get on bikes and head to the river where we’d continue to drink beer and listen to Frank Ocean. (It was around the time Blonde came out, and still every time I listen to that album it reminds me of those two.) Christoph would join us later.
I was having a blast there and I didn’t have anything that I needed to get back to in America. I had just dropped out of grad school and I still had some cash from my dad’s inheritance. That’s to say that I wasn’t in a hurry, but I still needed to get home at some point. “Next week.” That’s what I said for about a month.
Then one day it all happened. The whole scenario was serendipitous. I had run out of the weed that I had brought back from Amsterdam and needed more. Let me tell you this- if you ever find yourself in a town you don’t know and you need some weed, go to where the skaters are. Back when I lived in Muenster 8 years before I used to skate this place called StadtWerke. It’s the best spot in town. So Christoph, Tini, and I got on our bikes and headed that way.
Who do I meet there but my man Christian “Bluemle,” the filmer with whom I’d been on tour. He was as surprised to see me as I was him. We got to talking. Of course he had a week connect who happened to be sitting on the stairs ten feet from us. I bought a few grams and Bluemle rolled up a joint. By the time it burned to the end he asked me what my plans were. I told him that I was planning on heading home next week and Tini and Christoph laughed because they had heard me tell that same story a million times over. That’s when he said, “Well if you’re looking for a more long-term place to stay, one of our roommates is moving out and we have a free room.”
Yeah?
“Yeah, I gotta run it by my other roommate, but I’m sure he’ll be cool with it.” Riedel was most def cool with it and a week later I moved my one suit case to Wolbecker Street.
I’ve lived in a lot of great apartments and have had a lot of awesome roommates, but these guys are right at the top of the list. We clicked immediately. They were a few years younger than me, but growing up I had always been the little brother, so it was cool to be the older brother for once. Fuck, just thinking back to it now, I wish I could replicate that time. It was all fun and games. Literally. We’d go skating all day, drink and smoke at night, and play either Fifa or this card game called Shit head.
It was also a lucky coincidence that both of them were creative types. Bluemle worked at the local skate shop and in their headquarters where he moonlighted as a filmer. He’d always be editing something in his room. Riedel had a handful of creative outlets. Mainly he was a dope ass goldsmith, but he was into all kinds of art, and played the guitar. And then I was gifted with yet another artsy friend, all be it a different kind. I met Alina out one night at a bar that my friends had just opened. Originally Alina was just stopping by with her friends before the went to the club, but in the end she told her friends she was going to stay back and hang out with me. She became my muse.
The four of them inspired me to get back to painting, so one day I went down to the local art shop and filled up my basket with all types of shit. I had to go back the day later because the shop was so big I didn’t get to see everything they had to offer. I found some hand-pressed German paper and bought as much as I could cary. That night I made a stencil, which is my own way of print making, and got to work on the “Girl in Hat” Series.
I gave a few of them away. Besides Alina and Adem’s girlfriend, I don’t remember to whom. I know I sold few as well, but to whom, I forget as well. The rest, I shipped home. They’re somewhere among the some 150 painting/prints I’ve done throughout the years.
In any case that is the history of how the series of “Girl in Hat” came to be, and I wish I could go back to the days when I lied them down.