Static.COOKIE_BANNER_CAPABLE = true;

Week 9, Day 6


Working on this. 


Sad technology.


Cover up what you don't want black.


Moving along.

Week 9, Day 5


Studio life exposed.


Up close and impersonal. Working in close quarters but don't forget to snap those candid action shots.

 


If a falling tree, bombs your selfie and you don't post it, did it happen?

Week 9, Day 3


Coming to terms with the inconvenient reality that my energy levels are not infinite is harder than I would have thought it to be.


After a certain point it's a struggle to make your body do what you want it to. Tiredness couldn't care less about  your deadlines, self imposed or otherwise.


Indeed the spirit is willing, but the flesh is week.

Week 9, Day 2

 
More pencil work.


Gotta nail the feet.


Gotta nail everything actually.
 


You can endure a lot if you are confident that the work your doing is good, but if the work is @%$# who can endure that.

Week 9, Day 1


A fresh start. 


I'm just diving right in again. This is a rawer approach for sure but it seems much better suited to a week long project. I've found myself on day seven wishing I had two more days. No way to get it except to start doing more sooner.

Week 8, Day 7


There is such a big difference between the work of art and the work of art. Very closely related but by no means the same thing.


I love good food but I would rather cook than eat. I'd rather be the guy in the kitchen than the guy at the table.


Making for me is inherently more fulfilling than consuming in just about every sense.


Work can be life and life can be work and not in a bad way.


I would have a hard time selling something that cost me nothing.


Perhaps that's why I work at being good at what I do.


There is a proverb that that comes to mind often when I'm making things, "In all labor there is profit".


It's simple, but profound and I do believe it has application in a monetary sense.


However, I feel there is a greater profit from our labor that is much more valuable than money. 


Hard work refines your character. The ups and downs, the struggles, the problem solving, the creative solutions inherent in taking on something and seeing it through developes something of value in the laborer.


Something you can't buy and something that is not susceptible to the fragility of econimics.


Strength of character is as good as gold. Regardless of how things look on the outside your stronger on the inside.


It's something worth pursuing in your work, whatever it is. 


Even if the work you do is making art and maybe even especially if your work is making art.


Hang in there. 


Week 8 complete.

The People Who Live Here Now
18" x 24"
ink, acrylic and spray enamel on paper
 

Week 8, day 5


Patience is pretty much invaluable as far as I'm concerned. It improves everything and detracts from nothing. The problem is that so much in our society is about doing things quickly and speed is given priority often at the cost of depth, quality and thoughtful consideration. The worst part of which is the kind of flurry of anxiety that comes with the pressure to get things done fast.


A society the values the imeeditate so highly runs the great risk of being short sighted and can very easily lose its context. The most obvious paradox I have found in this is simply that trying to do things in this manner more often than not leads to more mistakes and poorer choices that require more time to correct in the long run.


This kind of detachment seems perilous to say the least. The funny thing (not really) is that as I sit at my drawing table I often feel this pressure seeping into my thinking, even when I am working in relative isolation. It seems it is something in the air, collective anxiety constantly knocking at the door.


To be anchored in you're thinking to the contrary is no easy task. You will be swimming upstream so to speak.


Even so, More and more I have become convinced that to produce anything of real value in both strength of character and craftsmanship alike takes time.

Week 8, Day 4


Sooner or later you're going to have to do something. 


Sooner is usually better than later, but not always.


It seems for the most part the only way to get an idea to stick is by repeated exposure. Marketing people figured that out.


It's a shame that the idea that stick are not better ones.

week 8, Day 3


It always seems like there is so much to do, so much to be done.


I can't consciously recall what it feels like to have nothing to do. Maybe when I was a kid, too bad I never appreciated it then. I'm pretty sure if future me, gave past me some advice past me would ignore it. That or listen intently and then totally forget it ever happened.

Week 8, Day 1


The more you start something new, the better you get at starting something new. I do think you get better at it but I don’t necessarily think that means that it gets easier. What I actually think happens is that you get better at doing something hard. Granted, finishing what you start is also very important, without a doubt, starting something that you never finish is worse than never starting something at all.    


Last week I started something with no plan in mind. This way of working is not new for me but I sort of got in a rut of planning things out. This is of course is not a bad thing, just a different thing from setting out with no particular course of action in mind.


There are benefits and deficits in both approaches and I cannot say that one is superior to the other, as most things of this nature are subjective, only that they are different and sometimes doing something different is good for the soul.


Setting forth without a plan certainly has the perception of greater risk (at least to me) but the truth is even the best laid plans are subject to failure, and having planned only to fail is a greater loss than not having planned at all and having it come to nothing. Also, there is a great deal more discovery to be had when you don’t know where you are going, and almost no frustration due to not arriving where you thought you should have been. So begins week 8.

Week 7, Day 7


Week 7 complete.

Explain Yourself
18" x 24
ink, acrylic and spray enamel on paper
(2015)

 

Week 7, Day 6


Seems like I have a ways to go on this with only one day left.


I suppose it helps that I don't know which way I'm going.

 
Just because something exists doesn't mean its good.

Week 7, Day 1


Mondays, as it turns out, are the days I post an image of a blank piece of paper. I don’t plan it that way but it’s seems to have become the natural cycle.  I have lots of ideas but nothing concrete yet. I suppose the commitment to share daily progressions of my work (regardless of audience) inevitably will include nothing.
 


Perhaps here I'll find something here.