A Bit About Everything

As I've gotten older, I've tried to change myself out of "complaining" habits. I try to focus on the good in the world and merely work harder, or try to adjust my outlook when things get tough. So I hope that what I have to discuss with you next doesn't sound like it's coming out of the mouth of a prodigal daughter. There's something that has astonished and disheartened me as an artist as I've gotten older and been treated differently by both people older than me and by people I might consider peers. Occasionally, I will tout my own horn about projects I'm working on, though I try not to do so overly. Mostly, I try to bring it up if I think someone would be interested in the project I've worked on, or if they might be interested in doing similar types of work themselves. On occasion, either the person I bring it up to or someone else in the room will try to bring me down by making disparaging marks about the project I'm working on, or the

It never fails. I'm halfway through my shower or bath, when I get this flood of ideas and words and I need to run out of the shower wrapped in a towel and plop my fingers down on a keyboard to get some of this out. I know the science behind it and yet it always amuses me. It's not a habit that lends itself to a 9-5 work schedule. But maybe it's the habit that is beginning to help me understand where I actually get my joy from. I've been struggling to draw again. I'm having this strange realization, as I sit there countless times, both disgusted and horrified by my quality of drawings, that I'm not enjoying myself. I'm not enjoying creating visual art, and that's... also horrifying. Drawing is how I've defined a joyful activity for myself since I was between three and four years old. What is wrong with my brain that I find it utterly... boring now? Is this just a stage of the multipotentialite brain, that I find myself completely turned off by an ac

This morning I was thinking a lot about my successes, and how I tend not to give credit to myself when credit is due. In graduate school, a talented adjunct professor in watercolor called out my entire class on our melancholy disposition, and asked us why we couldn't rejoice in our achievements? Sadly, our society has implemented a "journey is not as important as result" clause on achievements, especially artistic ones. And artistic endeavors are so closely tied to emotion that it is not hard to see the detriment in holding this position. I've been thinking a lot about where I've come from, and most particularly trying to figure out how I came from Charlotte, NC from a highschool with almost no support for the arts, to working as a professional artist first in DC, then NYC and now across the country in Portland. Aside from my family and closest friends, there haven't been a lot of people to congratulate me or tell me that they're particularly proud of wh

(Artist Linked Here )  Anger hangs like a noose around those men filled to the brim with it. It hangs those who move forward in attempts to wield it. It burns those who are obsessed with it. Until they are husks devoid of understanding. Just scarecrows. Just mannequins. Without humanity. You move forward without sight, and you are blind Until you can love the loveless Until you can pity the cruel Until you can hold your own screeching and howling doomsday beast in both arms and kiss it on the mouth - Only then will you know anything at all.