Ryan Coffey

I met ryan through my new at that time friend Jonas Beecham , they both were moving to SF from brooklyn and needed a place to stay. I had a one room studio in North Beach at the time so we packed in for a cozy week. I don't remember much from that week except an overall feeling of goodness. I also remember them watching ' the celebration ' with me , one of my long standing favorite mind-fuck movies, they left in the middle saying" damn Trevor this shit is fucked up and sad, why do you want to watch this?". Needless to say this wouldn't be the last time they walked out on me and a movie. They found a home and were gone.

I spent many days at their apartment, it was a bare affair, no furniture cept' for a bookshelf packed to the hilt, and a work table. they slept on the floor and put their bedding away during the day. This apartment is where I first tried Meditating in the sitting (non-yoga) form. Both Jon and Ryan at the time were very serious about Zazen and Zen and later spent 3 months at Crestline monastary doing exactly that.
Oats were often made and eaten with passion.

Ryan and Jonas eventually parted their inseparable ways, his work really started to hit new levels. He was living alone in the western addition and making crazy amounts of work . I would go over for a visit and their would be a 100 new small paintings, scattered stacks of books, and various random sculptures. Fueled by broken heartedness and pure love of process. Watercolor/collages started happening at this time.

We kick it to Mt. Tamalpais as often possible. There we have entered a new level of friendship indescribable, unspoken. It thrives in the things we have seen, it thrives like the moss on fir, the rainiest day of the year. Their is a world that exists under the canopy in the heavy rain , everything comes alive in fluorescent majesty. I come alive, Ryan comes alive. We walk and say nothing, breathe deep/ moist air, drops from high redwoods on our cheeks, Muddy Bliss down the cataract.

Ryan makes paintings that are reaching towards an unknown somewhere, they are not machine like, more like blood spilled for a perfect reason. More soil than filthy fucking lucre.



Listening to:

Eluvium - Copia
Eluvium - Talk amongst the trees