Doodle Crush : David Ellis and Kiku Yamaguch

May 2007

Jerstin Crosby shot the shit with artists, David Ellis, and Kiku Yamaguchi on on the eve of their collaborative exhibition ‘Doodle Crush’ at Lump Gallery/Projects. Part of the audio recording is indecipherable due to Ellis’ SKDubs Double Bass Boombox Fiddle, blasting on shuffle in the background. You can check out this sophisticated ghetto-blaster fiddle as a feature in this month’s special design edition of PAPER magazine.

JC: So you put those albums together with shrink-wrap?
DE: No, no, I glue them together with liquid nails, and then a resin coat.
JC: That’s funny because when I was looking at it, when I was in NY in February for the Exit Art show, I started photographing those loading dock things, the pads, the pads that keep you from hitting the dock when you’re backing your truck up.
DE: Yeah.
JC: I started thinking I could put together magazines like that. Then I saw these and was like, dammit!
DE: Do it!
JC: I think the albums were a better choice, but that’s what it looks like to me is, your piece looks like those loading dock pads.
(the boombox bumps, “hotel, hotel, holiday inn”)
DE: Hmm. Oh, how was the, how did the Prints Gone Wild thing for you?
JC: Uh, yeah good, we actually made some money. It’s amazing, people will throw down on a twenty-dollar print.
DE: Oh yeah no problem.
JC: Even almost more quick than they would buy a twenty-dollar drawing, one of a kind.
DE: Yeah.
JC: Weird. People like prints.
DE: Som’n about it.
JC: It’s like commerce, the mere fact of making multiples.
DE: How much did you make?
JC: Teamlump?
DE: Yeah.
JC: Everybody together made seven or eight hundred bucks, and dude, you know we make, like, zero dollars. (laughs)
(indecipherable chatter about VISA machines, and the ugly condos being built down the street from Lump.)
JC: I found some thing in German, was there a video on Barnstormers in German? (on youtube.com)
DE: I just saw that, somebody just hooked that up, that guy was in New York like four years ago, Christian (dude’s name).
JC: Yeah, it looked older.
DE: Yeah, its old, I was like, super skinny, and, that was a fun day though, I had forgotten he had gotten all that footage.
(boombox bumps GZA)
JC: Where do you get the trucks that you paint on?
DE: Oh, yeah.
JC: Do people just loan those out?
DE: Yeah. I actually have a friend who owns a trucking company.
JC: And he just keeps them that way (painted), right?
DE: Yeah.
JC: That’s one thing, when I’m watching those videos, I’m like, where the hell does he get those trucks.
DE: Yeah. One was his truck, one was (indecipherable), and one was a delivery van in, Osaka.
JC: Where?
DE: Osaka.
JC: What was the one you did in the art parade last year?
DE: Um. That was, last year was one of my friends trucks.
JC: That works out. Get friends with a truck dude.
DE: Yeah.
(indecipherable)
JC: It should be a good opening tonight, the girls at the coffee shop knew about the show.
DE: Oh, yeah, how’d they know? Max, and Stewart?
JC: Yeah, probably, there was a napkin taped to the register that said, ‘hot show at lump tonite’.
DE: laughs.
JC: What’s the name of this show? Is there a name?
DE: Uh, “Doodle Crush”.
JC: “Doodle Crush”. That’s right
KY: I call it “Crush”.
JC: Huh?
DE: She calls it “Crush”. I call it “Doodle Crush”, she tried to change it.
JC: Is it because ya’ll are crushing it?
DE: laughs. It’s because we’ve been a couple for, literally, for like ten years, so, and we’ve work together but not, not that much, so we’re trying to see if we still have a crush on each other.
JC: Oh, I see, doodle crush. Okay.
KY: Is that like a ‘scribble jam’, a doodle crush?
JC: laughs. What does everything in the show mean? laughs.
DE: laughs. What does everything in this world mean?
JC: I’m just playing. Can you just tell me the meaning of each piece? Ha. People are funny like that though.
DE: What’s that supposed to be? What possessed you? I had a guy do that on one of the barns we were painting.
JC: You should be like, what, besides demons?
KY: laughs.
JC: I’m possessed.
(indecipherable conversing about how much Stewart Sineath helped out with their show, and what Med Byrd, (co-owner of Lump), teaches at NC State.
JC: Has Med cooked for ya’ll yet?
DE: Uh, he offered to, and we couldn’t leave here, too much work to do.
JC: He made some good ass Thai food last week.
KY: He said he makes some good chili pepper sauce.
JC: I haven’t had that.
KY: Oh, he’s got a bunch of pepper plants in the back.
JC: Oh yeah….My grandma, my grandparents, in ‘bama, they make pepper sauce. It’s just like, when you grow those little peppers and you put them in vinegar. And you let them sit for a while, it just makes the vinegar hot as shit.
DE: Yeah.
JC: This is the first year they haven’t been able to grow peppers, they are officially too old to grow peppers.
DE: Oh, no.
JC: Yeah, it’s really sad. They can’t get out in the garden anymore.
KY: My grandma came to visit, to New York last year, sometime last year, she’s eighty-eight, so that will be her last time she can, travel.
JC: Yeah.
KY: How long have you had a space over here? (a studio at Lump)
JC: January. I’ve been working out of….
KY: Your house.
JC: Yeah, I’ve been working out of my house, and my band kind of took over that space, and I finally started getting paid enough where I could afford…he only charges seventy-five dollars a month.
DE: That’s really cheap.
JC: Yeah, I do what I can to keep Bill happy and keep my studio for seventy-five bucks a month.
KY: It’s one-fifty?
JC: Yeah, I split it with Stewart.
(At this point in the recording I can’t make out anything else, but there was only a few minutes left, and I’m pretty sure we were just talking about something irrelevant like how bad the Olive Garden is. Regardless, if you missed their show, then you really missed it. Installation shots coming soon.)

Visit David and Kiku at:

www.babyalpaca.org
www.freshwatercatfish.org
www.b-stormers.com

Lump is located at 505 S. Blount St, Raleigh, NC. More information about our mission and exhibition programs can be found at lumpprojects.org.