Wherever I May Roam

Woke up today with the roaming itch-- the urge to scour a new section of the planet, somewhere that has yet to see my face. So I looked around on Google maps and found this huge island in the South Pacific, just sitting there, waiting for colonization.

I have to find a way to Australian. Meet some Aussies. Swim in their famously shark-infested waters to see what all the fuss is about. Visit Tasmania. Have a look-around. Nothing big.

Ah, but lack of money: the Great Financial Barrier Reef. Maybe time to start writing grant proposals. Heck, maybe someone's already offering residencies to fly artists from Wet & Agricultural Ohio into the Desolate Interior Wastes of Oz to kick around and get inspired.

I'll look into it.

Shakedown

"Now put on the blindfold and walk backwards."

"Alright. I guess I've trusted you this far. Might as well give it a try."

"Good boy."

------------

Looks like the exhibition at the Nonstop space is going to stay up for another couple of weeks. It's a two-week stay of execution for my work; as the discussion goes, "Where would I put it?"

No, better to let these totems and trinkets "vanish" than to rot away in a basement corner somewhere. I've learned that lesson. As much energy as it takes to wipe them off the face of the earth, it's surprisingly much more difficult to save them. Hauling them from one place to another, only to watch them gather those time-honored wreathes of cobwebs. Nah, never again.

Good. At least that's settled and out of the way. This daily expository aids me more than I previously gave it credit. Good boy, blog. Good boy. Heel. Sit.



no peeing on the rug though.

Blurp

So another miracle was visited upon me this week. I'm employed-- teaching. Teaching art. Teaching college-level art. A bloody miracle.

I'm happy, which is an understatement. I'm positively giddy. People see me this happy and they are confused. They ask, "Is this is a full-time gig?" "Is it permanent?" "Does it pays well?"

I respond to those questions in order with "No. I have no idea. And no." Which leads to an awkward moment where I feel I have to qualify my excitement in some way.

A better explanation of what I'm going through is to think that I've spent the past 3 and a half years waking up only to feel a little bit like I'm drowning, that I'm missing something. That I somehow failed to get my 'ducks-in-a-row.' And the doubts: the feeling that all the years I spent in college were wasted. And the rest of my life will be spent banging my head off a door that will never open.

A couple days ago that door popped open. Almost of its own accord. And now's my chance to make a break for it. I'm going to dive in, grab hold of what I can, clutch tight, and pray to God that it works out.



thank you.

Aggression Pact

"Ah, beautiful symmetry."

You inhabit 9x9 virtual inches of space. You are composed of three layers. Your favorite color is that of an exploding star. And I could easily grow to love you.

Last night was a wonderful change of pace. Good to spend the evening in a different room with different motivations. But I skipped the opening. So much for hobnobbing with the art crowd. Instead, we sat on the couch, drank beers, and watched television-- of all things!

You should have seen the two of us there, standing like confounded children, impotently pressing buttons on the remote. Trying with all our might to make this device activate.

Finally, we had to seek help; our savior swooping in to key in the correct sequence to bring this electronic marvel to life. And suddenly, there it was! Like in a dream.... television! Wonderful television!

Fly by the Seat of Your Pants

"Today is impossible."

"Yeah? Who told you that?"

"No one. I figured it out on my own."

"Ah, your wisdom knows no bounds."

"Yeah."

-----------

It's funny that the things I make never quite turn out like the way it was in my head. I was dwelling on the work from this past exhibition, thinking about what it meant, the things I was trying to tell you, and still it didn't come together as planned. Not necessarily in a bad way, just different.

I hit close to the mark, but not dead-on. I'd imagine if it all clicked together, a dimensional rift would form above the exhibition-space and begin to suck up all evidence. Which would probably be okay by me.

I hate these colors. But when life gives you ugly, you've just got to deal. Even when it's vomity green, bloodclot red, and WTF purple all mixed together. My life is a virtual 9 x 12 inch space of endless blank layers. Someone break out the gradient tool and ease this existence.


stop reading this blog.

Hollow Hallowed Halls

"Are you feeling okay?" [concern]

".... Yes." [pause] "I'm just not sleeping well these days."

"Ah, you should try a fan. Or a white noise machine. That might help."

".... Sounds like a good idea." [pause, caught halfway in and out of the bathroom door. Search for something else to add, rub a self-conscious hand through a mess of hair, close the door]

---------------

Let's go back and rewrite history a bit. Take out a few things I said here and there. Eliminate a few defining situations. Mark a few objects for removal. How would it affect the outcome? Are we wired to our decision-making by synaptic connections alone, or is there some greater driving destiny that hounds us?

I like the latter. Makes me feel important; all warm and fuzzy inside. Gives me a proverbial label-maker to click out excuses for myself, something to sticky all over my forehead, to look in the bathroom mirror and say, "Oh! Of course that explains it all!"

My destiny is clear: I'm supposed to be a pirate captain. Or maybe a shampoo baron.

Hygienic Barbarian Raider?

Whisper In My Ear

"Yeah, well...."

You are in my dreams these days. Getting more and more aggressive. Leaning into me. Whispering in my ear. We're standing amongst paintings and drawings hanging on the walls of a classroom, and I am cold and wet for some reason.

Ah, yes. It was the water fountain. Someone had sabotaged it. I came along, bent down for a drink, and got water sprayed in my face. Cold. Very cold. In my moment of blindness I crashed into a professor as she was coming out of the restroom. Another typical day.

In my wildest dreams, there's a flicker; a spark, a moment of clarity. That microcosmic nod that would obliterate my day... in a good way, I mean.

Instead, I wake with a start of discomfort. A ping of surprise, looking around and expecting some glowing beacon, some corporal vestige of the dream to which I can cling. Something real. But there is nothing.

Until then...

Light-Blind

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

"Now what?"

I passed some birds on the way home today. They were just sitting, chilling in the middle of the road, happily pecking away at the ground. Only something was strange about the situation, almost surreal, in that they didn't even attempt to get out of the way when I drove by, didn't even flinch as my car passed within a couple feet from their little beaks. And I'm no bird expert, but these weren't your lazy carrion-eater-type-birds that wait until the very last instant to fly away, these were the "other" kind. The kind of birds that flee from everything on a good day. So something was wrong with these birds. Their little brains weren't getting the all-so-important message that they were gambling their lives away.

And whatever bet was going on between them, I later found that the road-birds were on the losing end. I drove by again to find them still sitting in the road, just chillin'. One or two of them had been destroyed by the inevitable passing of a vehicle, their fellows oblivious to the doom. All the while I'm thinking, "Dumb birds. Get up and hop twenty inches. Get off the road! For the love of God, save yourselves! Do something!"

Moral of the story pending...

Eater Made Manifest

Today I reveal myself to you in all my terrible glory: the eater of small things, the interdimensional devourer foretold in the fevered scribblings of Reggie Lovecraft. Look on my infinite maw of gibbous horror and despair, mere mortal, for this is the end of your pitiful existence.

ROAR.

Funniest Thing

Ha ha ha.

.....

It's not that funny.

And I'm not really laughing anymore.

I Need My Happy Place

+++---post deleted because it undermines the delicate balance---+++









So where's my happy place?


scales fell from my eyes. gross.

Leash and Noose

Getting tired of bruised purple-blue? Good, because it's still my favorite color scheme. Unabashedly, I roll out another one where some bizarre creature is doing something-- possibly ninja-kicking some scribbles, or break-dancing. I dunno. We'll have to put it to a vote, though I prefer to think he's harvesting something, maybe even picking a wittle fwower.

It's snowing. I'm trapped inside. Glee! Because what's trapped in here with me? Work table! Tools! Caffeine! And a lonely bottle of Magic Hat's 'Not Quite Pale Ale' whose remaining lifespan is being measured in hours. Tick, tock, tick, tock... Sad little beer. No worries. Soon you will go on to join your brothers. Mwah hah ha ha.

I daydream about you reading this, maybe sitting cross-legged in a field, snow drifting down to settle on your shoulders while you click-click-click on a little laptop computer. Or maybe on a beach at night, where your face is lit ghoulish white from the screen, waves crashing just out of reach. Toes digging in the sand, and the breeze is actually a bit more chilly than you anticipated. Maybe you're in your secret underground lair, where you've taken a break from hatching your evil schemes to just surf the net and see what's been going on.

Sinister laser-eyed guard-dogs drool on the rug as you click-click-click.

Time to Repair

This morning I woke up with superpowers. And then I subsequently lost them a half-hour later. I'll spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get them back. Then you'll see something neat. Something along the lines of jumping over buildings and throwing cars and getting cats out of trees.

I need you to come over here and repair my disposition. Fix me up enough to send me lurching out to whatever events are going on this week, set my head nodding and a smile on my face. A genuine smile, not one of those squirming fake ones that are both exquisite and painful to behold.

I worked by candlelight for about an hour last night. It was a novel idea, though I kept having visions of something catching fire. Fortunate that real life is far less dramatic than the stories. No fires. No breaking glass. No Frankenstein's Monster spasming to life and tromping through the laboratory to wreak terrible vengeance.

Implied kinetic motion. That's what I've been telling people when they suggest my sculptures should have movement. The intent is to suggest movement. Having these things hop around would cause all sorts of new problems. I've got enough worries. Although I suppose there is merit in employing some sort of self-destruct mechanism, where the work implodes after the show. After you've seen it. Anything else though, and it would be an opening of horrors: art piece that roars to life, assaults guests, scoops up the swooning maiden, crashes through the door, and trundles off into the night.

For posterity, the verbs in that last sentence were roars, assaults, scoops, crashes, and trundles. That's amazing; now I have to build it.

Long Burn

There's a candle burning in my mind's eye, very far away. It's a beacon in the featureless night, visible for miles around.




Are you getting enough sleep?