Alan Gordon  

. "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got."

12/3/24      A.I. is not your phone pal

The brain in a jar philosophical experiment applies.  What is real?  Could we all be just a brain floating in a jar getting electrical signals that tell us: I am holding a pen.  I am in a hotel looking out the window at the Vegas strip.  Isn't that what the new AI "friend" in our cell phones is having us believe?  Someone is on the other end of a conversation.  Someone cares.  Someone is listening.  It's another lie that we think we need.  We think it will be as warm and real as the commercial using an actor.  We think it will be the missing stimulation to replace actual social contact with other human beings, because we just cannot do that anymore.  We have been worn down, pushed into depression, anxiety, fear; to the point that a fake hollow algorithm is easier than the emotional needs of another human being.  We are all going to be eternally alone.

11/6/24      Remember, Remember the fifth of November

I am not objective on this election event, not am I a conspiracy theorist.  That said, I believe time will bear the truth and will reveal that the republicans and the Trump campaign cheated their way to victory. I think that we the people are all at fault for allowing our diseased system to continue unchecked.  The rich win.  The rest of us are observers to the machine.  The number of legal facts and convictions from the 2020 election fraud cases performed by the republicans in the Trump camp point to a continued behavior of fraud, greed, and crimes against us all.  Democracy was never really going to be lost with this election, because it never existed for all of us.  That is a capital T truth from an older white man with privilege.  I never had the daily worries and terrors of a woman.  A black man.  A gay man.  An immigrant.  The poor.  I enjoyed the illusion.  We are at fault because we continued to believe in the wizard of Oz.  That there is justice without having to do the work, or risk anything.  Even when the curtain was pulled back the media and public collectively closed our eyes to rock back and forth to believe in the great and powerful Oz.

As I have gotten older, my only truth is what is within my artwork.  It remains true.  It is my only way to express my shame.  My disappointment, and my disgust in the fake ideals in my country and society.  This is the morning after the election, and I am sitting in my office at work facing 6 different statements on my walls.  

1. Be who you say you are. 

2. Who I am makes a difference.

3. Hate has no home in New York.

4. Empathy is not endorsement.

5. Knowing what is right doesn't mean much unless you do what is right.

6. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

10/28/24      A Dinosaur in a world of something made up of not Dinosaur friendly things

Over the last decade or so, I have seen my world shrink.  My world of art.  My world of values.  My world of knowledge, and my world of youth. The world grows in directions that I cannot keep up with, and I am left behind as that car kicks me out onto the dirt road leaving me in a cloud of dust.  And I sit there as the dust settles taking it. That dust plume settles onto my ideals, my values, my creativity, and my worth.  It ages me. It makes me an antique telephone that seems so nifty to look at but offers little to the emergency at hand.  You cannot call 911 to complain that you still think what you offer to the world is valuable. You cannot claim that ideas & values do not age!  When clearly, it is you who has aged. 

The brain becomes an overloaded pile of memories that never happened quite the way you recall them.  Creative ideas seem overcooked.  Art is mundane, and my circle seems smaller.  Irrelevant.  You can only wait so long hoping that you didn't miss the only bus leaving town before you look at your watch and realize that you never set the time ahead for daylight savings.  Is daylight savings still a thing?  Are watches still a thing?  

We all just keep hanging on in order to just hang on.  It is not getting better; it is getting worse. Yesterday I read a very basic article with a click-bait title.  Is click-baiting still a thing?  It stated that NASA confirmed the Stephen Hawking theory that the world will end around the year 2600.  That the cataclysmic heat and boiling from what we are all doing has doomed the Earth.  Now, I am not dumb.  I'll be long dead and dust to scatter throughout the eternal black inky universe.  Why should I care? Anyone related and the relatives of those relatives will be gone.  My first thought was how much time and passion I have put into rearranging my life's scars and making artwork that will just ...go away. I guess that maybe it will be gone already, but if this planet flames out- any remaining scrap will really-really-super-duper be gone.  I can't even say that I am a big burly dinosaur in my last days watching the giant asteroid burst into the sky soon to make me a big burly dead dinosaur.  I can't say that I'm an indestructible roach.  I am just a bit of porridge or indigestible beef.  Is Charles Dickinson still a thing?  A fleeting scrap that had hopes and dreams that no one else shared that I was something more than a miniscule dot that was part of a coincidental merging of DNA and carbon and other muck that I never learned about because I was too lazy in school.  I am a dinosaur holding a knife that thought I was tough enough to take on the world.  Except, that I was ignoring that huge rock up in the sky hurtling at the earth, and that all the other dinosaurs had brought guns to the knife fight.

10/26/24    FOO

The world will get the best of me, but no one will get the best of me.

10/24/24     Living or being

Don't live in a shell that you are forced to create in the hope of avoiding reality.  A shell that allows you to always be right, of doing no wrong, deluding yourself into the idea that "this is life".  Because that shell can -and will be broken by reality.

10/21/24   A Clockwork Orange

My mother Anita banned me from watching Stanley Kubrick's a Clockwork Orange when we had our first experience getting the new technology of cable television.  It included HBO.  Back then we would get a paper guide once a month that highlighted the new movies coming onto HBO, along with the multiple times that it was played a day.  That was the great height of choice in those days.  Anita had never forbid me from watching (or really doing) anything I wanted, I parented myself.  But when she saw that movie listed some month around 1980, she said the words that guaranteed me watching it late at night after she had enough drinks to fall asleep.  And watch it I did.  The rape and violence portrayed in the movie really did shock me.  Even if I was a horror fan, this depiction was very real and very cruel.  

Some people are exposed to a variety of things that grow into psychological fractures.  Violent criminals have mommy issues or hate animals.  Or it is being ignored, abused, bullied that warps into some kind of human stuck in very dark places.  This is not me.  Seeing this often-misinterpreted film and having an older father that learned new ways -made me a better man.  That will not be true for everyone, but it had a profound impact upon me.

Every life is unique, there is no one reason humans commit the evil they do.  This film, along with many other markers in my life allowed my issues to be turned inward, a self-image struggle- you might even say hatred.  I have spent decades undoing the unintended harm that parents and society did to me, a burden we all bear.  But I can say with no hesitation that a Clockwork Orange forced me to watch rape and violence parallel to the manner in which the movie itself depicted Roddy McDowell with eyes clamped open, being forced to watch violence until he could take it no more.  It nauseated his character.  Rape nauseates me.  It triggers something like a rage in me directed toward the rapist.

​10/19/24     Invisible

I have one child, and I have literally hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of him as a baby and toddler.  What does it mean if there are no pictures of me as a baby?

​10/18/24      Social Media & Me

Social media is not what it once was. Scrolling endlessly, being manipulated by bots, and feeling that something has been lost that was never really there is not where I began, but it is where I am.
I’m not going to say that I am leaving social media, but I’m applying the questions “Do I like this?” And “Why am I doing this?”…and my answers point me away from what all that social media has now become.

I started social media and my own website as a means to make a record of myself, and to have people see what I do. It was a main outline of what I do as a visual artist and journalist of the time that I exist in. Nothing lasts forever, and what was social media has de-evolved into a heap of smoldering trash exposing the worst of humanity and selling all that we must buy and think to be something more than ourselves.  Wading into that sludge only reinforces the worst base biases and emotions.  I control my reason to be here, and this “here” is not where I want to be. I am “here” in existence, which does not include this made-up social internet.  My own website answers those 2 questions I started with and more.  Posting new art, new ideas, and writing out the “me” in any given moment- that is what I need. That is who I am.

And it’s all ad, influencer, and bot free. 

The thoughts are always me at a keyboard, not written by AI. Some of it is good, some awful.  None of it depends on likes, what’s trending, or chosen to manipulate you into buying anything.  My website isn’t even a commercial website.  It is just me.  My last social media post “Art from being sick & tired of being sick & tired”  is a collection of art and words from the many years of social media, trimmed down into the only 2 forms that I bothered with during and after the Pandemic: Facebook & Instagram. Both will go this new route of existing as they are, with only the rare art posting along with a title.  The majority new art and writing will only be found at this site now sitting in front of you.  If you message me through social media, I will eventually respond- but my real life, and who I am is genuinely found elsewhere.

I think that the damage of what social media has become is simply too much for me, and the opposite of what I wanted when I jumped in.  So, I am 98% stepping away from the machine.  Monetization does eventually move-in to all of the new capitalist ideas eventually.  The greedy move in, and push out those that have a meaning.  I'm not doing this to impress anyone with my rejection of what so many use daily.  I'm doing this for my own well-being.  I'm sick & tired of being a cog to someone else's machine- even if I am just one ant in a world of billions.  These are my words, and my creative creations. This is the time that I exist in, and I want control of my own life.

10/9/24         En Vogue

Critical thinking is not a popular approach to anything right now.  As we continue to try to figure out our fast paced now-now-now world, it takes up too much time to find out the truth.

​9/30/24        The last dance

This is my last foray into the world of social services. It has been an exhausting 25 years. Powers that be that have rarely if ever actually done work involving face to face with the people needing help make the rules. You do your very best to push for change, but you do it alone.  The prevalence of fear keeps people down, and quiet. Isolated, powerless and subjected to corporate slang that makes it easy to slide the chess pieces around to put a fix on the game.
I am tired. The attempt alone to help people that are invisible to a system designed to avoid helping those in need is crushing.  To shoulder that weight while fighting for genuine humane values and policy that has action over words, that has aged me too much.

 
9/29/24       A normal everyday person who has no skills 
I’d like a revenge/action movie where the person whose family is killed is not at all a retired world class assassin or ex-CIA agent with exceptional skills in every fighting style and weapon and is also in great cardio shape and never out of breath.
Just a regular, somewhat out of shape person.  Doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun, or have an cache' of weapons and contacts for fake ID's and whatnot. Oh, and they do not have unreal driving at high speed (forwards and reverse) skills through heavy traffic, on sidewalks, beaches, grass...all the surfaces.

​9/24/24     Social Media,  HUH!  What is it good for?

Absolutely nuthin' say it again.

Social media is not what it once was. Scrolling endlessly, being manipulated by bots, and feeling that something has been lost that was never really there is not where I began, but it is where I am.
I’m not going to say that I am leaving social media, but I’m applying the questions “Do I like this?” And “Why am I doing this?”…and my answers point me away from what all this has now become.

I started social media and my own website as a means to make a record of myself. The main outline of what I do as a visual artist and journalist of the time that I exist in. Nothing lasts forever, and what was social media has de-evolved into a heap of smoldering trash exposing the worst of humanity and selling all that we must buy and think to be something more than ourselves. Wading into that sludge only reinforces the worst base biases and emotions.  I control my reason to be here, and this “here” is not where I want to be. I am “here” in existence, which does not include the made-up internet.

My own website answers those 2 questions I started with and more.  Posting new art, new ideas, and writing out the “me” in any given moment- that is what I need. That is who I am.

And it’s all ad and bot free.  The thoughts are always me at a keyboard, not written by AI. Some of it is good, some awful.  None of it depends on likes, what’s trending, or chosen to manipulate you into buying anything.  My website isn’t even a commercial website.  It is just me. My last social media post “Art from being sick & tired of being sick & tired”  is a collection of art and words from the many years of social media, trimmed down into the only 2 forms that I bothered with during and after the Pandemic: Facebook & Instagram. Both will go this new route of existing as they are, but the only new art and writing will be found right here at my own website If you message me through social media, I will eventually respond- but my real life, and who I am is genuinely found elsewhere.

No fees.  No subscriptions, no clickbait, no ads, no donations, no checkout page, and no art or writing made by a machine collecting leftover piecemeal from a rapidly declining wasteland. For all you real people- you rock!  You amaze me. So many of you inspire me.  I am still here, but I am located at a quiet spot down the street.

10/1 update:  I am going to be posting any daily artwork as Inktober (drawing a day) is this month and I do love the challenge of art every day for a month.

​​9/8 -9/9/24 & 9/27/24      A Willow dream
9/8/24 My Dream -You made it all ok by leaning into me at alarm time.  But obviously Willow was the precursor.  She was not just a cat.  It had baby Asher, trying to drive a car on slick roads out of control, couldn’t find my way home, a Pontillo's pizza order, my pop, his old apartment, oversleeping, danger, crashing… Pretty much everything. And the visit dream on 9/27 was the same dream that I had of Harley.  In the dream she was there with us.  I knew she had died, but here she was, and I was trying to make sense of it.  How was she there?  Did we bury her alive? Did she find her way back?  The same dream as Harley.  I logically know that this was my brain re-cycling leftovers, but I prefer to think this was a final visit and her love for us.

 
9/21/24     Bummy dday. Coincidence?
Bummy was my fathers nickname because my twin cousins could not say "Barney".

What was I so afraid of with my sex life?  No role model or lead, I just figured it out as I went.  I always had the worry of (even as it happened) rejection, or the woman not really wanting to do it, or not really wanting me.  Did I force it? Go through with it because I thought I had to? And stay after because that’s what the “bad men” don’t do? The act of sex became the unknown, uncertain, a vague idea of what love was supposed to lead to, at least according to tv and movies.
My August and September were filled with a faster recognition of the deeper hit of particular traumas of self-worth, self-respect, and identity. Trying to stay out of drama, and not escalate myself due to somebody else having problems that were not real.
In July, I started to challenge the deeper traumas that have created inner flaws (criticism on uncertain topics) that jab in deep and cause ruminating anxiety.  It takes hours and effort. An adventure of thinking of childhood trauma.  I’ve spent my life trying to be seen.  To be visible.  To make art visible.  Standing up for rights- even when there was no fight.  Avoiding the ordinary.
Trying to make that invisible after thought of me and my childhood seen. No matter what, that kid in me will never be visible.  The other side of me doesn’t want the attention.  Even when I say I do- I don’t.  Or when I say that I don’t - I do.
Ain’t that a pickle??  No one says this phrase anymore.
I carry an unwanted feeling. Unworthy. And I desperately need to be wanted. I don’t trust praise.

9/13/24    The dreams that bleed

I have had a re-occurring dream for more than 3 decades about my father Barney.  Born in 1916, an Army veteran of World War II, a sometimes angry violent alcoholic that found reformed to sobriety, an every day decent man that passed away on 9/21/93.  My first experience was a journal topic from long ago with the same core story.  He has been alive all these years but never let me know. I have had this dream 8-10 times.  Sometimes due to life stress, sometimes out of the blue. My in-dream responses are similar.  I feel a deep sadness and rejection that he has been here all this time and not tried to tell me, or even talk to me.  Depending on which fraudulent life coach psychic church you adhere to, this has been said to mean many things.  This is how the dead visit the living.  The dead have unfinished business.  The dead have a message.  The dead want to convey the afterlife. It is a

sign of heaven, Hell, and God.

I see dreams as the brains recycle bin.  Some is trash, some are scraps, some is a washing of deeper psychological issues.  One of my often-mentioned issues that started in my very early years is: feeling invisible and un-wanted. Which bleeds into a whole mountain of other self-image and confidence problems.  A you-suck-a-palooza if you will.  However, this entry is not that.  This is about the feeling after decades of these dreams, I now have a persisting waking itch that my father is alive and I need to talk to him.  Inform him, update him.  this all comes with not a dream emotion, but a real waking emotion of rejection.  Which in turn tickles my real life trauma.  I guess this is a good time to note that my pop is not still alive.  He did pass away after a long-extended illness in September of 1993. I did not know how to mourn then, nor did I for years afterward.  Sure, I missed him.  I cried.  I journaled.  I made art.  I fell into a cycle of desperate choices to avoid the pain of grief.  But I do how to mourn now.  Even with this new understanding and re-created self- here I am having my dreams bleed into my reality.  Having moments of confusion about who is still here, and who is not, what I still have and what I have lost as all the memories of my life pile into a blender of the here and now.

​9/12/24   Thought

I think about people that I once knew, and I know nobody thinks about me. Do they?

​9/10/24       All good things

Yesterday, my 20 year 8 month old son made the choice to put our 20 year 5 month old cat Willow to sleep.  That is a hard decision for anyone, let alone a person who has spent their entire life with a companion. The devastation and loneliness he felt had such weight on us as parents. Loss is a part of life, but no one can be prepared. We did the very best we could to guide, not lecture.  To support, not deny. To grieve with him and cry.  He said that he felt like he lost one of us.  We cleaned his home spaces to help, and we built a coffin and dug a hole.  As parents we watched him from inside our house as he stood quietly alone at her grave for such a long time. There is no right way to grieve, or to help.  But everyone is the paralyzed state of loss needs us.  Never think that you cannot do something, just quietly being there is what we all need to make sense of the world while it keeps spinning on.  In that moment, for those feeling loss- we want the world to just stop.

9/1/24   Artificial Intelligence (an in-progress thought)

 The art produced by AI is a confusing matter for me.  It isn't just the visual arts.  It is writing, poetry, commercial ads, news and articles, augmented decisions, music, and other areas that I don't really think we all desire for computers to do for us.  These are the things that humanity needs to express our inner world- which is where most of us spend a great deal of our lives.  Although I am sure there are many arguments to be made about useful AI, the current way that visual art is created is by a conglomeration of all imagery and art that can be crawled to and collected from the universe that is the internet.  Including my own artwork.  *to be continued

6/14/24   Corporate circle talk annoys the sh*t out of me.
Lets put a pin in it and circle back to the 50,000 foot view to address the low hanging fruit of core competencies to capacity build and do a deep dive with synergy to drill down for deliverables utilizing best practices going forward with best practices as game changers to get our ducks in a row and think outside the box to touch base offline and do a brain dump on action items when we have bandwidth to drink the kool-aid before we have a hard stop.  Capeesh?

5/25/24    Dear you

Dear world, you suck.  I’m tired of your drama and emergencies.  I’m tired that we as a human race cannot get our shit together.  I don’t care about your conflicts or the routines of the haves vs. the have nots.  Get it together, or shut it all down. Get your shit together.

4/11/24    Ask your Father​

When I just reached my teen years I told my mom that I wanted to take martial arts and guitar lessons.  She told me to ask my father.  That was the end of that because it was not easy to even ask for those things like activities.  Ask him what?  I just asked you.  I still dream of being a great guitar player.

​

3/19/24   You Belong Here

It is not what you do, it is who you are.

Sitting on stolen lands, built by stolen labor.

Include everyone at the table.

When one wins, we all win.  When one hurts, we all hurt.

2/22/24  Don't make someone wait if they have always waited.

I know it's been a while, but for some reason my computer at work would only load my host provider in Spanish.  That made everything hard because I don't speak Spanish.  

A little while ago, I was talking to an older woman resident at the YWCA, and I really want you to read this.  I’m sorry it’s a bit sappy.
She had a rough day yesterday, it was her birthday.  She does a lot for others on their birthdays.  She bakes them something special.  She baby sits her grandson all day, every day.  Sometimes overnights and more.  She volunteers to help the staff when we need it.  She very soft spoken, almost shaky.  She brings her grandson all around, and many staff and other residents hold the baby.  Some for long periods as they know she needs a short break.
It’s beautiful to watch how many ladies, with lives filled with terror and hardships that I will never have to experience -become a loving soft mom pillow as soon as that baby is around.
This lady also had food she had purchased get taken out of a refrigerator yesterday.  She told me that she always respects others, and this made her feel “violated”.

     This lady, a meek background character, so quiet that she almost  turns invisible, told me something that she told my female staff earlier.  She told me that her bad day was because she felt singled out and blamed in a meeting, but knows that didn’t really happen.  She just felt that way. She felt that way because no one, not one person acknowledged her birthday yesterday.  No one.  And she always does something for everyone.  Her whole posture was shrunken in.  Definitely teary.  She was not worth even a happy birthday.  So, I talked to her.  I made sure that I emphasized key words.  I focused in for her to hear it, and did my best quiet Baptist preacher.

     Amazing.  Wonderful.  Fantastic grandmother. You are worth it.  And I told her to come see me early in the morning.  I asked what time she got up, she said last night 330am.  I laughed and told her I don’t get in that early.  I thought that I could stop at a store or two on the way home to pick up a few small things- I could make tomorrow better.  That was a good plan. A good guy plan.

      I was walking back to my office, and I just felt that this lady has always been put off to another day.  Always had to wait.  Always told everyone- you first, I’ll wait.  She did not need to be put off today.  Not after her birthday of nothing. (so skipping details here) I turned around and went back to the front area and of course, there’s a small group of residents holding and playing with her grandson.  She comes out of the bathroom next to me because she was warming her bottle up, and I said “shake my hand”.
      It’s an old joke reference to my Uncle Jack.  Whenever I saw him as a kid he’d shake my hand and had cash in his palm.  I shook her hand and I had a gift card in my palm.
     I said to her “Go get new food.  Get some baby toys. And you will still have enough to treat yourself to something just for you.”  Oh boy, she totally crumpled into me crying.  And I heard her saying her thanks.  She has been around for a lot of meetings and groups.
     She has seen the change I am working towards.
     It’s a change of how well we treat each other.  It’s caring about what matters- not just numbers.  I understand the need for results, and how to show it to funders.
     This will never show up as a number that means something.  There is no real way to give this to others, and have them see the value.  The respect.  The empathy.  The support of a stranger to me.  Pretty much, right?
      And I said “This is what we are building.  We will pick each other up when one is down.  We will be supports, and this is where it grows, by telling you I wasn’t going to wait until tomorrow. “ I didn’t need to wait. And nuts, she’s crying again, and gave my delicate figure a rib crushing hug.
     There has been no more favorite moment doing my job than this one.  And I get to experience this a lot with what I do.  There is nothing that has made me feel more alive, more human, and made all these underpaid years worth every minute. The calm happy wave that hits you knowing that this moment was good, and it mattered.

Don’t make good people wait.
Make them feel worth it.
And do it again.
And again. 

And that is how we change the terrible times we are in. 

Every single act we do needs a thought. Every act matters.

We can make any moment good, and choose to help it grow, or destroy it all.

8/5/23       One liner​

Evolution of confused conditions.

7/21/2023      Choirs and Cults

Not being raised in much of a religious environment has been very healthy for me- or at least I think it has been.  I have strong values and morals.  I have become a good adult.  I work for my community, and for people that are often invisible to society.  It is with that frame that I say this; Watching people sing gospel in churches, with their eyes closed and swaying back and forth - is very creepy and cult like.  I have found that the extremely religious types, are the least trustworthy.  As the saying goes: If all there is- is God, then there is no God.

7/17/2023      how I survived job loss, or Pop goes the Weasel coz' the Weasel goes pop!

How I survived the times that I have stood up and watched my life flash before my eyes...

I was talking about family and friends today with a staff member. And I said that I don't have a best friend, then I corrected myself and said I have my wife Chris. I explained why I don't have a best friend, I have not found the person that can be that for me. It wasn't sad to me because I have realized over many years that I like me. And these spaces in my home where I am surrounded by the things I loved throughout my life are like stepping into a really loved part of myself. I built a family to be what I did not have, loving and supportive. Real. I am not invisible at home. I am talked to, not at. If I say that I cannot do something, I do not worry about being punished. I get and give respect. I listen, and I am heard. If I should lose myself and have a jerky moment- I take responsibility and I fix it. It's not hard.

This has rarely been my experience at work.

Maybe I have aged out of the workplace, certainly my viewpoints have.

The abuse of power and disrespect is very difficult to watch.

It's upsetting, and I end up stumbling around looking for coping skills.

I don't have any way to express how much my home space matters to me, and I finally discovered why. But I had to stand up and fight toxic abuse -AGAIN, within my former workplace before I genuinely understood that those who have power, will often abuse their power.

As I have said many times, there are moments where you choose to stand up with great fear for your well-being, or stay seated and take it. Everyone has to make that choice on their own. I have been on both sides many times. No matter the consequence (and I have taken some big hits over the years), I have NEVER regretted standing up. I have always regretted staying seated.

I have held a standard for workplaces that has been developed over many years, and different jobs. It's not hard to create a happy workplace. Be respectful. Earn trust. Show people they matter. Don't overload. Help.

It is obvious to all except those that don't care.

They care about themselves.

They care about money.  Title.  Power.

They speak with a forked tongue.
I have learned to not worry about how much those "higher ups" offer the new young workers that want a job, but they are not willing to do the extra work to move up the responsibility chain.
Instead, I worry about the old quality experienced workers that keep everything going, the ones that put in all those extra underpaid (or unpaid) hours to show their value. The ones that do not seek credit, their value is that the team succeeds.

The older staff see the new youth making as much -or more before paying dues. The old become ignored. Used up. Out of date. Invisible. Replaceable.

EXCEPT,

They are not replaceable. 

These bosses leave after they make a mess.  They see the staff as toys for the new business coach books they have bought and built their hollow life upon.  They cut and run.  They started higher up that ladder, they abuse the privilege- and they abuse people.

Their work life is taking apart the engine, and then hailing a cab to go to the next place.  They leave a wake of frustration and chaos.

I put all my years in being paid at a poverty level. Literal poverty.   I chose that, I am not just now complaining about my choice.  I wanted to help, and I found the best people that I have ever met who want to be helpers in their community.  This was me paying my dues to a life I lived before that was really all about me.  That was a miserable life.

At one point I was working 3 jobs.  I did all the extra work. Covering all the extra jobs AND doing my own extra to help out. I expanded my skills and abilities to show my value.  I watched years go by with little or no financial gain- always with the same excuses along the lines of a tight budget.

Just hold on -raises are coming!

I had new administrations and new supervisors all with bold ideas of what more I could do for them, but for less.  It made them look good.  It set them up for a higher move.

Just hold on, if you work hard -raises are coming! 
Making changes simply for change.  Unneeded changes to showcase whatever the current hot BS leadership self-help books say is the “secret” key.  Which almost always boils down to poor leadership and assholes, because who else would buy that garbage? 

Who cares how it impacts staff? 
Those people need the job.

All of these new "leaders" have boiler plate hot concepts to improve their image, and where they land next.  It showcases their value at the expense of the staff actually doing the work  

They all impact our lives.  It’s no longer work if all you do is work.
That’s a life transformed to hell by people who have no idea what they are doing.

That has been said many times, and in many places-

The incompetent are in charge.

They have disposable work books on how to do more for less.  Ways that we could be more creative, more flexible, more positive, more involved, more ideal, more…everything-

and, nothing at the same time.

Each new year was the same.  Low wages for more work.  
Just hold on, better wages are coming! 

They lay the track to social disaster. It harms the organization that they have nested in, it harms the people, and it harms the community.

We are all reaping the benefits of poor leadership.

New job descriptions carefully reinforced by HR. New rules, new methods, new plans, new evaluations, less benefits- more distance between US and THEM- but the same wages for those drowning below the water line.  

Just hold on, next year we will plan for raises! Promise! We appreciate you!

Post pandemic, I am watching the whole way of work turn upside down, but the low people are still paying the price.  They are doing 2 jobs for no extra money.  I watched a company save over a million dollars from vacant positions in the first year of the pandemic.  The "leaders" dismissed the regular staff issues of exhaustion.  They sought out new people to be hired in desperate times making as much as experienced quality employees.  The new people could not handle the jobs, and they left.  The old people have finally reached that point of too much disrespect.  A desperate workplace is a perfect time to leave a toxic workplace behind.  And of course, as I have said- those "leaders" that created the mess are leaving too.  They don't want to deal with what they created.  That empty vacuum sound is a poor leader desperately pushing untrained and unprepared employees over the cliff edge.  But it is not just the employees, it is communities.  And in my particular field of social services within poverty, mental health, homelessness, and addiction- I will call it as I see it.  White privileged people destroying communities through overt racism.  Yes, I did call it what it really is.  The damaged communities of black and brown people, poor whites, women, LGBTQ+ were already on the cliffs edge.  And all they have left to hang on to is bullshit corporate speak.

Don’t worry about the cliff, we got you a $.17 raise! Let's do a deep dive into how you can do more. 
That’s great news!  
Smile! We appreciate you!
Think positive!  
Big picture!  
Let’s circle back to those concerns and pass the baton using a different lens and chat about the narrative of our optics while drilling down and taking a deeper dive of the 50,000 foot view to brain dump on improving our customer service with all hands on deck to help me understand and put a pin in it.  
Ok?

And that is when they submit their resignation for a job they weaseled into months ago.  They have told no one.  They leave a mess.  Pop goes the weasel.

7/7/2023    The truest moment

The truest most awake moment of my life was when we put our dog Harley to sleep, which is also the saddest moment of my life.

6/25/2023  Lost

If I fall into a lost state of dementia, you will be the last thought that I hold onto.

6/16/2023    Making a mountain

Working on issues inside of your memories is no simple task.  If you are battling all of the giant social constructs and expectations as well, it becomes an intimidating shadow eating up the light.

6/9/23    The older I think

Getting older is hard.  You lose communications with younger generations.  You are separated from supports.  You start to become socially irrelevant and invisible, and the world bestows a weight that is directed towards youth upon your back.   We are working backwards.  Vitality and beauty is front and center, experience and wisdom trail far behind.  The possibilities are there, but not for everyone.

​5/31/23    Name

"How much do you charge for a painting?  Can I buy one for $50?  It'll get your name out there."  Please.  No.  No, it won't.

4/20/23   Breathing in the toxicity, thinking it's better than no air

Many are stuck in a toxic job (or relationship) because change is hard.  I was one of those people stuck in a horribly toxic workplace for the last 3+ years, until I wasn't.  It was a fantastic place to be.  Helping the community, living out great human values, until the inevitable change brought administrators who were not leaders.  Slowly each area was stripped of the roles, and the good staff left. I fought it, I fought it hard.  I was in trouble for everything that I challenged and did to support and lift up my peers and the organization.  It did not matter.  That is what happens when bad people are given power.  Eventually all of the fighters leave.  People feel like they are not involved and have no voice.  They become trapped. 

I too was trapped.  My mindset was trapped.  Everything became stress.  I did more work protecting my peers and the people that we served than I did doing any other kind of work.  I was constantly on alert to avoid interference from people who clearly showed they had no idea what social services are in a community.  Those in power were quietly despised. Workers were in fear.   Complaints were ignored, or outright covered up by others in power.  That is not a conspiratorial statement.  That is not an angry ex creating drama.  I knew what was coming, and warned my circle of staff that "This is that moment that you either stand up or stay seated.  I have never regretted standing up, but I have always regretted staying seated."  I told them that I would have no issue if they stay seated.  In that moment, your life flashes in front of you.  Your income.  Bills.  Medical needs, and more if you have family.  I had been tearing myself up inside about what to do for the last year.  It is not as easy as those not in the situation make it out to be.  I was there for 13 years.  I had co-workers that were like family.  The program that I was running was considered to be one of the best around in the area.  I knew my job.

What was missing from my work was taken little by little. 

It did not happen overnight.  The stress build up was intense, causing me physical harm.  It started with the autonomy.  Power strips you of yourself.  The ability to make decisions.  Then it strips you of your supports.  It strips away the training of staff.  Communications.  All micromanaged away until you are a shell of yourself.  All controlled.  I tried to accept the reality, but the entire environment took on that of an alcoholic household.  They say that the alcoholic household has a clean front room where guests go, but the rest of the house is pure chaos. 

Secrets keep you sick. 

Any mention of the problems were denied to be true, I was a problem employee. 

In a toxic workplace, everything becomes a secret.  All interactions with those in power focused on confusion and corporate speak.  Let's circle back after we take a deep dive and put a pin in it.  Empty phrases.  Power creates and hides behind HR policy that can be bent to support those desperate to control. It is a pan on the stove boiling.

I can say that I looked around, even had some mediocre job offers- but that involved too much of a pay cut.

That was pre-pandemic, and at the start of the pandemic. 

I could post and apply for positions, and see maybe 1-2 hits or calls in a month.  But the landscape had changed.  And then (this is a true story) within 5 minutes of saying to someone that "I've never been fired", there I was - fired.  The decision was made for me. 

I did not panic, nor rage.  When I was told, I simply said "ok" stood up and started taking down items from my wall.  The HR person sat there as my supervisor exited, and asked "Do you want to be alone?"  I said no and just continued to throw everything that was mine in a bag.  I was packed in 15 minutes.  I loaded my car at the back door, and that was it.  I paused in my car before leaving to send a text out to everyone that I had in my phone to say I was no longer employed.

No panic, a slight bit of shock.

I think my wife was angrier than I was.  Rightfully so.  I told my peers that it was OK.  She said that it was not OK.  She was witness to the PTSD.  The OCD, the obvious mental health issues of my supervisor.  the subversive racism and toxic nature of poor leadership. 

I barely took time to catch my breath before the next morning scrolling through opportunities.

I had a call back my first afternoon, and 3 interviews set up in the first week. 

What I really wanted was a job that understood and was active about social issues- in particular racism. 

But I have had many experiences of being shut down in that area because I am white. 

Then, I did have the contact that I have been waiting for, the position of creating a new program specifically around a mission statement to "eliminate racism & empower women".  And here I am.  I made the change.  I did not panic with the loss and leaving, I simply kept myself even keel.  I was ready when the opportunity arose, not curled up in a ball.

What is my point?  I am honestly not sure. Sometimes the world plays the cards for you.

My point is that Shakespeare wrote: Events are neither Good, nor Bad.  It is how we perceive them that makes them so.  

3/7/2023    Finland

Remember that time when Donald Trump, the fake US president tried to buy Finland?! I just thought of that and could not remember if that was fake or real.  That was real right?  Right??

3/5/23    Witness

It is throughout this country, and maybe even world-wide what the pandemic has wrought.  The pandemic seems to have sped up the clock on the worst of humanity.  That may sound all deep and philosophical, but it ain't.  It's an eye witness account.

1/30/23   These times

Here is a popular saying that I have heard said frequently about these times: "This is the new norm."  I completely disagree.  This is a giant leap backwards in the employment workplace.  Most people have been doing 2 jobs throughout this 3 year Pandemic, with no compensation.  Employers benefit- employees do not.

Those administrators above have hardened their resolve that We know better than you.  Communication has dried up.  Compassion and empathy is fading to black.  And the days of unionizing are on life support.  This step backwards is erasing a 100+ years of workers rights.  There is an indentured servant feel to all of this hidden behind the oft denied impact of isolation and pandemic shortages.  Mental health is crashing all around us, and no amount of toxic positivity can pull us back from the brink of social destruction.

12/27/22    Our minds are locked in a jail 

Our past haunts us, and our future taunts us.  

We come out of our own history scarred and bleeding, but continue to say "I'm good".  We turn to face our future putting on a mask of control.  Panic?  What Panic?  We hear the drumbeats of: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get over it, you should smile more, don't worry, don't be angry, think positive...

Which does little to provide support in a crisis to anyone.  It diminishes how we feel.

However, You CAN hold yourself accountable to why we think, what we think, and what we do- when it is in our control.  Pay attention to what we are paying attention to is a beginning of taking back the power that you have in the present moment.  Choose to be here and now -over the depression of fighting a never winning argument with what is past and gone, or the anxiety of what has not yet happened.

If you have been traumatized, choose to not continue to re-traumatize yourself by examining what it is you are thinking about, and how that becomes behavior.  If the panic and anxiety stomps through your mind- ask why?  What triggered that?  What is it that is being triggered?  How can you cope with your past to feel empowered?

​10/31/22   Shorts

1. If you don't have sex, money, or power- you are being ground up to feed those that do.

2. The amazing are born with a free mind.

3. What if the "thinning of the herd" has been taking all the good people?  Covid19, serial killers, accidents and disasters may be tipping the scales against humanity.

4. Remember, it doesn't work if you don t use it.

9/22/22   Overheard

I overheard this yesterday and could not help myself from shouting "YES!"

"All money is not good money."   YES.

9/22/22   Sometimes your goals crash headfirst into a wall

What happens when you have a dream or goal that ends up in conflict with your values/ethics?  It is not what you thought it would be, or it has been co-opted by interfering forces.  Do you stay with your dream and abandon your values/ethics?  Or do you let your dream go, to hold onto your values and your ethics?

​​9/13/22   Ayn Rand was nuts, but I learned a few lessons

I am not an old movie expert, but I have plenty of old black & white films that I was exposed to.  I'm also a fan of Gary Cooper.  Somewhere right after grad school I stumbled onto "the Fountainhead".  I don't know which came to me first, the book (1943) or the movie (1949)- and it doesn't really matter.  The book was not much of an enjoyable read, but the movie had plenty to say about how the individual navigates the creative field in society.  I used to show this every semester in classes with the caveat that the male female dynamic and acting has greatly changed, and the points were about Art- not relationships.  I am not the intellectual admiral needed to discuss the waters of Rand and society, but I am the guy to point out the values of art that hides within some of the other social philosophy.  Not all of which stems from Ayn Rand.

I came away from that movie (not really the book) with a few lessons.

1. I am the artist, what I create I own. No matter where it goes after it leaves me- the idea is mine alone. The ideas are not for sale.

2. As soon as any artist strays from the path of their own creation, it is no longer just the ownership of the artist.

3. Once strayed from that individual creative process, it is altered to something else.  Maybe it remains true to the heart of the concept in Art, but more often it evolves into commodity.

4. If Art is to remain creative, it cannot be a commodity.

5.  If the artist wishes to have a life of growth within their Art, they must avidly protect the process of creation of the individual.

6.  Becoming locked into a style may be good for commercialism, but it is destructive to the path of unhindered creativity.  Every decision in style creates compromises the path and growth of Art.

7. Each student and artist are faced with a decision.  A decision to have a career in Art, or a life in Art.  Either is acceptable.  Both have issues that cross paths, but they are very different in meaning.

I cannot claim this to be wholly original, or just interpretation.  It is an amalgamation of many Art and social theories.  I also cannot claim this to be truth.  I don't know the truth of Art yet, I'm still wandering the forest myself.  I do know that when I encounter theory and philosophy, I alter and modify it to what meets my ethics and values.  I value the visual communication of Art.  I value what I create, even if no one else does.  And I knew early that I have great struggles with people in positions of power trying to direct what I create.  There is always an imbalance of: play ball, or it will be the next artist up that gets the work.  When I have let that slip, the artwork that I end up producing is, in my opinion- garbage.  If I am subjected to the creative process as if I am using Google maps to find the destination, I never arrive.  Others handle the shared creative process well, I do not.  I'm pretty good at getting along with people, but not in Art.  

9/5/22   The point of aging into art

Everyone gets older, everyone encounters challenges within their life.  I have been a lucky person.   I have been a person with luck from very hard work on my artistic skills and even harder work on who I am.  Who I am matters, and art matters to my every day life.  I make some form of art daily.  Sometimes for hours a day.  I have developed a lot of various skills throughout the years trying out materials: Ink, graphite, pastels, collage, oils, acrylics, watercolors, color dyes, charcoal, wood, paper, canvas, glass, color pencils, airbrush, lithography, mixed-media, etching, photography, and now, digital tools. I know a fair amount about materials, and I have studied art and art history for over 35 years. The point is that I do a lot of work.  What follows is no sob story, there are many worse things that can happen.

I had a steady hand in school.  I took to inking pens as my first true style/skill.  That transferred to painting, and then to small mixed-media work.  My hands were steady even if my faith in what came from my hands was shaky.  I was (and am) very critical of what I create, not in an attention seeking "I'm so bad console me" way- more developing a critical eye.  Working on my weak areas by creating a lot of art has always been my way.  I don't make a lot of art to impress anyone.  I am self-propelled.  I make and move on.  I don't ask many people for feedback, and I don't often promote myself.  There are literally hundreds of works that even those in my circle have never seen.  The point is that I make art for me to communicate- even if it is only to myself.

I am not young, but I am also not yet old.  As I have aged, I have hit a few issues both within art and outside of art that impacts what I can do. I have been distracted over the decades by career, relationships, life responsibilities, and financial roadblocks.  Most of which I settled within myself and found the sweet spot to get into my creative groove.  In the last 5 years (2018-2022), I have created nearly 600 works of art. One of the major changes that I have made is that while I still do very traditional artwork, I am heavily moving into pure digital creation.  Like any medium, it has a good and bad side.  I still use the same techniques that I have always used, but it all happens within a much faster timeline.  The point is that nothing much has changed.

Except, that I have hit an impactful set of health issues.   One is that I have developed what is currently diagnosed as a "Mild Cognitive Impairment".  People hear that and they break eye contact.  They immediately think- Alzheimer's.  That is not the case.  I have also become very sure that this is not new, but a very old Ailment.  I was never the most brilliant student.  In the last few years, I have realized that I have a form of "Aphantasia"- or, I see no images in my head.  There is a bit more about that in my "About" section.  It explains a lot of the educational and artistic issues that I have encountered.  When the issue first jumped to my attention it was because I had a non-stop swimmy feeling in my head rise to the surface around 2012.   This also doubled down to a bizarre kind of visual focus problem with tracking.  That was labeled as a "Vestibular Disorder".  Then I had a balance issue.  Being off-balance, or walking like I am drunk is the every day.  All of which I have seen a lot of specialists for, but the cause or treatment to- as of right now is to just deal with it.  Last fall, I started to notice a lot of issues with my hand fine motor skills, and a trembling.  I thought caffeine, or adrenaline (because of my job in crisis management).  I noticed in making art, that I was not as controlled (small jerking movements, shaking), and some of my thoughts in concept were foggy. As it turned out, beyond the cognitive, visual, and balance issues- we can now add "Essential Tremors".  They are not constant (nor "essential" in my opinion), but interfere with any fine line work.  Which brings all this rambling to my point.

I still make a high volume of art.  But, I am not inclined to work traditionally as correcting unprovoked errors is often very difficult.  One time while doing a painting demo at RIT, I had a hair dryer plugged into a hanging ceiling outlet.  It unplugged and fell directly down onto my surface and cut a hole through the stretched paper.  I remember students reactions, but I was calm. I practiced rescuing artwork for SO many years that I am hard to rattle when things go sideways.  And they go sideways a lot.  That is the very real realm of art for many of us.  It never goes as planned, so be prepared.  I am not complaining about the impact of my health on my art.  When I can, I break out the old materials.  I keep a bag filled with traditional materials and a sketchbook as my bug-out pack.  But what I may do in that sketchbook will not be the same old-same old.  It has to change with what I can do today.  Anything I do now is about today.  What is, and not what was.  The art is now following the same path as my life.  I cannot spend any of my time left living in the past.  The past is over and where it should be, behind me.

9/1/22   Elaborating on a pile of junk

My backyard installation is not an eyesore, or a collection of random thrown away objects- or junk.  It is a representation of the messiness of life.  There are moments of beauty amidst the daily grind of monotony rotting away to nothing one day at a time. I have passed a decade of adding, altering, and working with nature as my co-creator.  Here are 10 things that (at the moment) I can say about this artistic adventure:

1. I do not like verbally explaining it.

2. I write about it instead as I have to gather my thoughts.

3.  I love finding things out in the community to add.

4. "Non-biodegradable" does not mean that it won't dissolve if left to the elements.

5. Mother nature and animals are my co-artists.

6. It confuses people.

7. It intimidates people.

8. It has deep roots.

9. It has a source.

10. It accepts donations as sacrifices, but only those that connect to the roots.

8/29/22   More singular or short thoughts

a. "We are a collection of self-conscious nothings"

b. Good people can still make bad decisions.

c. Rules and law that do not apply to everyone are just tools of oppression.

d. History is not open to interpretation because someone is butt hurt.

8/19/22   Some singular thoughts

a. "It is a population that exists closer to dying than to living." -Me

b. Have an aggressive soundtrack to keep you on the right side of who you are.

c. Your life catches up to you.

d. Act as if it matters to your life, because it does.

8/3/22  Songs that make me

On the way in to work today I was listening to a song that really drives the way I do things, and music. that impacted me at the time that I needed it most.  Here is a list of songs (in no particular order and most certainly not every song) that make me...me:

1. Capital G, Hurt, Good Soldier, Something I could never have     NIN

2. Can't Truss it, Fight the Power, Don't believe the hype     Public Enemy

3. They can't take that away from me, Someone to watch over me, Azure      Ella Fitzgerald

4. Follow the Leader     Eric B & Rakim

5.  Missed the Boat, Parting of the Sensory, Spitting Venom     Modest Mouse

6. God was never on your side     Motorhead

7. Sympathy for the Devil, Gimmee Shelter     Rolling Stones

8. Buggin out, Bonita Applebaum, Butter     Tribe called Quest

9. Lake Fever, Fireworks, Grace Too     Tragically Hip

10. Show me how to Live, Original Fire, Be Yourself     Audioslave

11. Black    Pearl Jam

12. Dear God, Across this Antheap     XTC

13. Looking at the World from the bottom of a well     Mike Doughty

14. Evenin'      Count Basie with Joe Williams

15. Revolution     Arrested Development

16. Skin, Keg on my Coffin     Chris Trapper

17. How soon is Now?      The Smiths

18. Diary of a Madman      Ozzy Osbourne

19. Lola     The Kinks

20. Too many songs to mention...    

De La Soul, U2, Talking Heads, Gorillaz, Led Zeppelin, Beastie Boys, Thelonius Monk, Soul Coughing, Pink Floyd, Foo Fighters, the Police, REM, Radiohead, Miles Davis

21. Escape      Whodini

22. All I need      Matt Kearney

23. Fight the Good Fight, Never Surrender     Triumph

24. Mistadobalina      Del the Funky Homosapien

25.  "A Woman's work"         Kate Bush

26. Symphony #7      Beethoven

27. Best of You          Foo Fighters

8/2/22   tech thought...

I think with all of the implanted tech coming out each day, it would make sense for an innovation to traffic issues.  I did not bother to have this sorted out in my head, it's just an inspired thought.  Emergency vehicles equipped with a transmitter like bluetooth and stop lights that connect as vehicles speed through to emergencies.  As firetrucks, police, EMT get within range, all lights/all directions go red to freeze the traffic until the emergency has cleared the intersection.  Our traffic has to embrace some innovation to change the way we operate.

7/21/22  Some random lines from a stress packed world.

If 2.5 years of Pandemic life was not enough, we now have a variant that is ultra contagious.  Add in racial tensions, out of control gun violence, politics of hate, treason by a former president, sky high prices on everything, doubling gas prices, and an epidemic of mental health...to name a few things weighing on us all.  I don't feel like writing a long post, so I am instead just going to list a few of the random notes that I have made for inspirations leading to artwork.  It is not poetic.  It is blurted out.

-Don't talk down, speak up. 

-In the blackened bright light.

-I was born to be someone's victim.

-Shut up & Mind your place.

And

...then I had a very basic idea for a ghost story inspired by our summer vacation.  Family vacation up in the Adirondacks, husband and youngest twin boys come home a few days earlier as he has to work, and the boys have baseball games.  The wife stays with the older daughter and dog.  The wife calls and texts to talk to the husband and little ones the way we all do when we are apart.  Little things nag at the wife, it just feels off. They seem distant, short tempered, and just not sounding like themselves.  The wife packs ups and heads home in the next week with the daughter and dog.  When they get home, she discovers that the husband and twins never arrived.  They were all killed in an accident on their way home.

7/12/22 the value and path, or how Art saved me

I had never been to an art gallery until I started college. 

Ever. 

I did not know anyone that was an actual artist, the idea was something totally foreign. I drew as a kid from what I knew, a few presidential portraits, and comic books. 

in my first semester in college, after being discouraged from declaring fine arts before I started (I ignored that)- I had my first Art history class.  Thomas Cooper was the professor.  He was dry, but very very knowledgeable and approachable.  It was also my first introduction to the notorious bible of "Gardner's Art through the Ages".  

The first steps into art were not at all me.  Layouts of cathedrals, flying buttress's, and very dry dusty history. Then I had to take my first trip to the Memorial Art Gallery here in Rochester, and that was the spark.  I grew up at the height of the King Tut craze.  I had a beautiful book when I was a kid, who knows where that went to?   But, I shot right back to my little kid days of staring at those glossy Sarcophagus photos with gold and stylized figures.  At the MAG, I stood in front of Egyptian work that travelled across time to sit before me.  That started what would become my drive.  Art from thousands of years ago existing with me in that moment.  Capturing lives and cultures now gone- but not lost.  From there I fell into the pre-renaissance and the renaissance.  Stylized figures, elongated hands, babies structured like adults, and spaces that were flattened before perspective was understood.  An almost cubist approach.  The religious iconography with the halos of gold leaf, and muted colors. I did not know then, but I know now- this was the very first layer of what would be with me my entire life.  I fell in love with both the beautiful and the ugly.  I marveled at the ability to create, to speak with pictures.  And it all rolled in like a tidal wave.  Realism, abstraction, color, line, concept- everything became a lifesaver.  Art gave me my purpose, my understanding and construction of what my life could become.  I did not need to be something that was expected, I could choose the life I wanted- and this life, the life of fighting to figure out life, to not lose what was all around me, to capture moments that would be lost- was the reason that I needed to live.  I could not just be asleep at the wheel, I wanted so bad to wake up and live, but did not have any instruction manual on how to do it coming from a family that drank to dull life.

That is how I see art.  Some see it as a skill, a talent, a job.  Others as a mystery, an intimidating object that makes them feel dumb or superior.  I see it as an adventure into my time, and visits to all of the other times that are now relegated to books.

6/5/22 the Documentary General Orders no. 9

"You are not a witness to the ruin, you are the ruin.  You are to be witnessed."

"When what is lost by the father is lost by the son, could it have been some other way?"

5/31/22 Notes on a new painting

I have seen the facial expression and silence in regards to some of the darker art that I make.  It is best summed up by:  WTF? 

Well, this is an opportunity to know WTF???:

This is a random collection of notes on what I was thinking about while working on a painting with John F Kennedy as the main subject.
All my thoughts guide the color, composition, painting & drawing marks.
I expect to complete this in about 30-35 hours. This work is not complex enough that it needs that much time, but in the current 15ish hours- there are many changes  and layers already living underneath.
I really want to control the values to have some of the brush strokes give an illusion of dance and detail.

He was dead before I was born.

It is JFK that I drew from a photo in 1975 that was my first art “moment”.
A little kid at the kitchen counter tapped into that mystical event of expression. My mother gushed praise.  That’s when I started chasing the dragon.
The latchkey generation.
The first Sesame Street kids.
The invisible.

JFK has dogged entire generations as a shameful event, a conspiracy, a darkness, a giant social depression.  JFK is never clear. Photos are like smearing Vaseline in your eyes.
Just representing a quote and his assassination are not enough.

All of my life there have been endless television shows, books, movies, music; it is the bloody founder of the great American conspiracy theory.
Jack, Jackie O, Bobby, MLK, Ted, Robert, the curse, Oswald, Ruby, the grassy knoll, the Mafia, Russia, Dallas…it goes on and on.  I only know JFK as a blurry photo and a Zapruder film entity.  Just out of focus, but just enough focus to know the violence.
One of my first self bought art books in college was: Images of Horror and Fantasy, with one particular image “Fragments from a Vietnam Shrine”, 1966 Gregory Gillespie.  A very intense artwork.
The book showcased some of the most powerful artworks in history.  Picasso, Bosch, Magritte, Dix, Dali, Bacon…

January 6th was a bad day for our nation.  We were, and are- on fire.  It seemed to be the obvious end of what is drilled into us as children.
Freedom, fairness, equality-
but not for everyone.
We have been doomed to a harsh reality that we grow into while being freely unfree.

A lie.
A sanitized reality
Democracy is not applied to all of us, being white with money produces privilege.
The 60’s fed upheaval in counterculture.
The 60’s movement ended many times over
with death.
With war.
With lies.
Pollution. Disgrace. Waste.

What is the real sacrifice we make?
Who are the “we”?
There are leaders that realize they may need to sacrifice everything.
Don’t sanitize reality.

Is blindly following any one person going to lead to what we were all promised as kids? Sitting in desks, neatly aligned in rows.  Be quiet.  Raise your hand to speak. Pledge allegiance. Completing worksheets by connecting cartoons of OUR founding fathers with  cartoon symbols of flags and revolutions for stickers.

Gold stars.
Clear simplified right & wrong.
Good little Americans.
Trust the wealthy to lead us.
Trust the lies.
And we can return to a glory that never existed for most of us.
An imagined reality.
Unfulfilled promises.
Lies.
Corruption.
Destruction.
A rotting corpse.
A blurry leader.

5/16/22  Sharks in the water
I’m sitting down to write something so long and so unprepared, that I doubt anyone will read through it all.  I’m not even going to re-read it, or edit it. That is no sob story.  No plea for attention.  It is just the reality of our world.  I chose art.  And naturally for me, journaling my thoughts that come and go while I am art-making came into maturity.  I don’t know if that’s the proper word, maturity; but it was there so I used it.
I have been deeply in love with art for so long, I don’t remember not being in love.  Every era, every movement, has given me something that has never let me go.  Maybe it’s the appreciation of beauty, or ideas, or just the act of creation.  It will really be all that’s left of me after my lifetime fizzles out.  I push so hard to produce artwork worthwhile.  I always come up short, it is never good enough.  I look at all of the incredible artists that I have studied, and I see how far away I am from understanding what is missing in myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach that special area where artwork transcends beyond a surface into our actual living space, but I keep trying.
This shadow area is where the artwork invades our world.  
A world that is obviously broken.  Throw away all the claptrap Hallmark card nonsense and really see our world.  The violence  thrust upon each other in war, crime, and abuse.  The oppression of color, gender, and choice.  The chains of money, jobs, debt.  All of this maintained by a relative few people in a planet of 7 billion.  If the masses rose up to to say “NO MORE”, that would be the end of a system maintained to keep us from our happiness.
Lately, I have been looking at events in my life that have no escape without immense sacrifice.  The never ending college debt.  The cycles of aging and health issues.  The greed of corporations.  The evils of people free upon the earth to commit mass murder, mass oppression, and chaos. It is a never ending cycle to get more by taking from others.  
Attempting to speak truth to power with artwork was the path that I chose because it is the only skill that I have.  And the hands that allow for that skill are weak.  
I have had the distorted fear of sharks in water my whole life.  It is not a fear that immobilizes me, but I feel it all the time.  Being helpless with no escape.  Bitten.  Losing parts of myself until the last thought is about how I ended up alone with my fear.  The sharks are everywhere.  There is no safe space.  They want everything from you.  Your youth, your voice, all that you earn.  And in return you will get the lie: Think positive, there are no sharks in the water.
At times in my life I have seen heroes stand up for the whole 7 billion of us.  They know the water is not safe.  They know they will be eaten.  They stand up any way, to pull back the curtain on what is all around us that we are told to not see. For a moment we have hope that the machines driving the system are at an end.  Then that hero is stolen from us all.  Taken like our lifetime of paychecks, and our youth, and our desires.  Reality slaps us in the face, and back in line. I’m not skilled enough to keep that curtain open.  To capture whatever was inside of that hero that brought them into the water for all of us.  That is what great art has deep in its core, TRUTH.  The truth that 7 billion people can change this entire story today.  Truth that cannot be stopped.  Truth that requires sacrifice. Art is telling the truth that we all have to wade into the water eventually. 

4/10/22  Random thoughts in random moments

-Common sense is becoming extinct in favor of the evolution of greed.

-Life seems incomplete without Fred Gwynn in the world.

-It hurts to become a ghost in your own life.

-Our lives become all old experiences.

-The best monsters hide in plain sight.

3/31/2022  Pandemic brain and living with loss

Over the past 2 years I'm one of the people that went to work every day.  My job with the homeless cannot be done by remote.  While it was hectic and chaotic, I was ok doing work that helped.  Like everyone else I have developed an almost intoxicated daily brain.  The stress, the overload, the dreamlike quality of days and times and seasons became the norm.  I don't know the extent of how much my brain has changed due to the overloads of caffeine, jumping to do multiple jobs, working 10 hour days, the anxiety and fear of the Pandemic- but it has lost the path it was on.  During all of this I have experienced the deep loss of a beloved pet, many co-workers leaving their jobs, an employment landscape that no one has ever seen,  and a small tiny leak that damaged 30+ years of art collections and work- PLUS a large amount of my comic collection going back to before I had memories.  And very few people are accepting that grief needs to be felt.  The world goes on spinning and doesn't have time for our individual woes.  The choking grip of the workplace on humans being human is no longer a viable method for companies to wall up that we are all people.  Quitting jobs is the new choice.  Ignoring etiquette that was once honored is on fire, and we are all watching.  Those still in the chaos are told to be quiet and do more for less.  And me?  I packed up about 1200 wet and warped comic books that my pop bought every weekend when I was a little kid.  Remnants of time lost.  The core of what most of my artwork attempts to capture.  And no one cares.  Grief does not just go away, time heals nothing.  All time does is remind you that you cannot go back, you cannot keep it, and certainly- it will fade.

The start of 2022 with a bunch of short thoughts

-When enough people start making false promises, words lose meaning.

-Don't bother doing good deeds, just post that you did on social media.

-People in harms way are not your enemy.

-I know a lot about a lot of things, but not everything about any one thing.

11/1/2021 Hi-Voltage creativity, or a semi-charged 9-volt battery?

I am still on the wildest pace for making art that I have ever experienced.  Certainly this past October (with an art challenge) had me working at least 2 hours a day, and up to 10 hours.  I am teetering on the 100th artwork of 2021 (I am at 99). As of 10/17, I have worked on artwork for 286 of 290 days this year.  This is the 4th year in a row that I will produce over 100 works of art.

But, am I really making works of art?

No, this isn't a digital art essay.  It's questioning what I am doing to find depth.  Art that matters.  Art that punches you in your fat smug face.  I know that I have moved further away from any type of illustration, into more of a diet version of editorializing.  And I bounce between an intensive rendering to a rough expressionistic application of materials and layers.  I am slowly dragging myself towards a very raw existence.  The shadows of mental health and addiction.  The gossip, back-talking and extreme avoidance of families with alcoholism.  The manipulation.  The guilt.  The emotional neglect.  The nights as a kid with a drunk parent at the wheel hoping that we don't crash.  It's right there.  In every stroke and color.  

I would love to be noticed.  To have someone to talk to about it all.  All the hours and mistakes and theories.  But, I don't.  I am hermit like.  I am social at work, but focused on how to keep everyone in reality in a soon to be 23 month pandemic,  I'm isolated.  When you experience extreme isolation, you begin to question what is good and bad as an artist.  You question the value of what you are doing.  I have seen that paralyze and destroy artists.  I have seen people go for years  without making anything much.  This could be where I freeze, but I don't- because I simply don't really care what others think about what I'm doing.  The act of making has become a meditative therapy for me, nobody has the power to take that away.

10/16/21  Dave Chappelle is a genius

There is a lot of pushback to the "Don't hurt my feelings" campaigners.  Not at all because they are wrong- no, they are very right about speech intended to harm others.  But because they are so damn annoying with choosing the fight on the weakest subjects.  If you want to protest, at least protest on the important topics and the right places.  Protesting songs and books and comedians, while avoiding the institutions and the politicians just looks so foolish.  It's picking to fight the smallest people in the room while telling everyone how strong (woke) you are.  Is that how we can change the broken systems?  No.  No, it is not.  And my favorite comedian, one that echos the best of the past: Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin- is Dave Chappelle, who ends the war with a simple sentence.  It eliminates the pro-noun and over-reactive self-righteous fury.  "She was my friend."

10/5/21  Drive

My son Asher got his license yesterday.  I remember the huge desire for being independent, it was getting away from home.  Asher isn't that way, he just wants to know that he is not dependent on us.  The side issue is he is one giant step closer to an adult, an adult that I very much love, but I miss the little kid.  I have written a million times about parenting stress, but I genuinely feel life moving into a new stage.  Who knows what I'll feel about that?!

9/13/21 Ella, Baby it's cold outside

Yes, I love Ella Fitzgerald.  Her music and big band remind me of my pops.

No, I do not think a 70+ year old “Baby it’s cold outside” is “rapey” sounding.

Relationships, courting, romance, and flirting were different in our past, and are always changing. 

I understand the calls to boycott the song by those who have been hurt by our cultural makeup,

but I can choose that line for myself.

For those trying to make a society universally non-offensive- start with the actual constructs that create hate.

If you focus the outrage on songs, and TV stars, and clothing- but not on the institutionalized and deeply rooted racism and misogyny- what the f*ck is your point?  Will boycotting that song:

Provide equal wages?

Stop rape?

Promote cultural diversity?

Empower you when confronted with blatant bigotry?

The answer is no, no it will not.

Erasing history that was less than correct does not solve a current problem.  Erasing the past does not allow us to learn where we have failed.  What it does do is create a self righteous approach to determine what other people can choose to see and hear to debate based on their own morals, values and ethics.

That, that right there- is wrong, and it is a forced censorship.

Values have no power when projected onto others.  Values are built from the inside, and they can be created and modified at any point in our lives.

I believe that people can change- but not when they are forced into a corner and threatened.

You cannot erase trauma.  Trauma must be given space to be talked about and felt.  With that first step taken, then you have a society moving forward together instead of a fractured culture of censorship.

9/1/21 Me

"I'll keep making disturbing art while we keep doing disturbing things. Stop asking for pretty pictures in an ugly world."

8/3/21    How hard do you have to work as an artist?

From 1/1/2018 to 8/3/21 i created 441 total pieces of art (and some that I am sure to have missed counting).

Work times range depending on the complexity from 10 hours to 40+ hours each.

Currently, I have 5 works in progress. This year alone, except for the first week of January 2021, I have drawn/painted for 1-8 hours every day for nearly 208 days.  The streak stopped for 1 day at 136 straight days.

That’s not including- research, references, photography, sketching or planning.

The average time is 20 hours per finished piece of art, for the simpler artworks.

The more complex they are the more hours.

This is also outside of my full time job, and my full time home and family life.

Which because my wife is an angel who gets it, and allows me to also create a lot of work.

I would be curious to know the first reactions to this for people who don’t have much art in their lives.

How does this compare with what you have as the image of an artist?

How does this compare to the amount of time that you work?

About 18 months ago I posted how long I was in school. How many hours a day I put towards art, and some approximation on the number of artworks I had done from college to that time.

I have always been all in. I love making artwork, I love art.

Even with the staggering numbers of hours over decades, I cannot recall the number from the post- but it was around 300,000 hours. If the cliche' of 1,000,000 hours are needed to master something, I’ll die before I make it.

8/1/21  A bathroom Horror movie shrine

My wife is not even a horror fan (at all), but she did not bat an eyelash as I turned our guest bathroom into a walk in horror show. Not long ago I said “That’ll be the first thing you take down after I die.”

She instantly said “No I won’t, that’s a part of you.” She may not be a fan of horror, but she understands the passion I have for it, and the depth that I get out of the genre.

This tiny bathroom is the only one downstairs. I am in and out constantly, and it never fails to ground me.

Our home spaces ought to be that powerful.

​7/25/21 Thoughts on my backyard installation

I know for myself, my memory of all of the bits and pieces that have made my life are a shambled wreck.

That’s what happens. Memories fade.

We find bits here and there that spark moments back to life while we sit around telling stories, that’s how we keep them alive. We build new ones on top, and if we are lucky- we have something to show about the old ones.

I feel cheated out of experiences.

I feel left out of memories.

I wasn’t there even when I was there.

That is the hand I was dealt.  An angry set of cards. I played out the game by ignoring it. Denying it. Self-helping it. Meh, none of that really works. Actually feeling it works as long as there is a plan, otherwise you get stuck in a cycle and become a standard asshole swirling in anger that exists only in a life that is in the past.

It can’t be erased. No matter how much money and stuff you amass- there you are with the same damned cards. I can embrace it. I can give it a space.

A space I can walk around. A space with a hollow center for the dogs to have shade because closing that off didn’t work. A space that can be engaged. Acknowledged. Experienced -as I tinker with the shambles of the past.

This whole thing, has gone beyond what physically exists in the yard.

It’s a teasing joke at work.

Some people are genuinely frightened by it.

Some wonder what neighbors think.

It is changed by BarryAllen (our current youngest dog) running off with the head, or Dora.

Christie Gordon worries about the dogs getting hurt, or altering parts.

People see a meme on Facebook and send it it to me.

I get cards or postcards with dolls.
It has become something alive in other people’s minds as an idea with its own meaning.
It’s not all about the physical work, it is about the idea of the little parts that make us all.
What you think of this in relation to art no longer matters.

What matters is that you do think of this.

7/24/21  "Explain it to me"

I get this request a lot, especially with a large rotting doll installation in my backyard.

Walk over and look at the artwork, to find meaning or reason- that act becomes part of the meaning. Art is not invisible. You are in a physical space with it.
Is there meaning or depth if you remain safely 30 feet away asking

“what’s this about?” to others instead of yourself.
The experience of being in the space of the artwork (regardless of what it is)- the intimacy of sharing a space with the idea is part of the meaning.
By being safely away from the experience, the “meaning” becomes a new and different- viewer altered concept.
It is an: “I don’t want to really know. I want to keep my bubble intact, I don’t want to engage in that thinking. I want to forget that this challenge exists”, which in turn also means that:

“I want to forget that you (the creator), and what caused this to be made exist.”
Does the idea only become an idea if there is a choice to engage it, and allow it? The idea exists, understood or not. Interpretation (of any type) is valid.

The art is there. In that space whether you enter with it, or stay safe.

Love it, hate it, ignore it, censor it, challenge it- it is there in a space of its own.

Engage it or not, it will be there on the fringes.

7/15/21 Submit

Whether you submit to the fear or embrace it, that is where you find your answers.

7/13/21 Fear

"Men fear being made fun of, women fear being murdered."

6/20/21   Haunted

Someone suggested to me to paint a living, breathing house as a horror project.  And this phrase stuck to me while I was working: The void is consuming more of where I exist, transforming it into a myth of stuck together happenings that never happened to me at all.

6/19/21   Unattached

Being unattached as an artist is still fairly new for me.  No attachment to teaching.  No attachment to exhibiting.  No attachment to particular styles.  No attachment to producing something that fits into a particular box.  Just me making whatever moves me at any given time.

6/13/21   The disappearance of invisible relationships

I've been keeping notes for the time when I can sit down and put some words to what is fueling artwork.  Again, these are a random collection...

1. Invisible relationships: I've blamed myself over the years for friendships that fade away.  The reality is that sometimes it's me, and sometimes it's the other person that has the issue.  I have experienced enough short term friends of convenience to last a lifetime. 

2. What does it really mean for someone to go "off script"?  Life on life's terms means flexibility. 

3.  I started a drawing every day streak the second week of January that was just recently snapped at 136 straight days of 1 to as many as 8 or more hours per day. 

4. Unsolicited life advice from  me: you have to endure. 

5.  There are popular self-help workplace buzzword phrases of the moment that I just hate.  I'm a regular person. No matter who I'm talking to- you get me.  Not a collection of phrases designed to avoid being a human.  Some of those that make me grit my teeth are: I'm helping you to be your best self, best practices, Let's circle back to that, touch base, Moving forward, drill down, deliverables, comfort zone, actionable items, break out rooms.  When these are said, I want to leave the room. 

6. The dull ache of nostalgia. 

7. I also really want to write about some short creepy experiences that I have had over the years. 

8. Even as the pandemic is ending, the destruction it has done to our brains, our souls, and our emotions; will take years to sort out and heal.  Tuesday 6/15 -NYS just about ends the pandemic rules that dictated our lives for the last 15 months.  33.4 million infected, 599,779 dead in just the USA.  176,037,471 infected, 3.8 million deaths globally, and that is ONLY counting confirmed.  As I learned from a death in April, they don't test the dead.  As we are now learning, even those that have "recovered" are still sick, or have long term health issues.  This virus does not care if you wear a mask or not. It does not care if you think the vaccine contains nano-bots to track and control you, or if you think the vaccine is a medical marvel.  It does not care if you are a democrat or republican.  It does not care if you are black, or white, or asian- male of female or other.  Why?  because it is a virus.  The whole purpose is to replicate and infect.

3/3/21  The addiction of being wanted , Truth vs. Fantasy, and trauma

Addiction to false feelings created from alcoholism

I have been thinking about particular aspects of my psychological make-up as I age.  There was (and is) a lot of self esteem, or self worth in my looks, or appearance.  There are also many layers to my appearance.  Not wanting to stand out, but also wanting to be noticed, fitting in, avoiding scorn, attractions.  Setting aside all but one, the very deep raw feeling of needing to be wanted.  It has a strong tie to the nature of my youth: the invisible child.  I'm no great looking man, but I am not ugly either.  That has been enough to satisfy the wanted need.  That I could attract partners.  That was a solid physical proof of being wanted.  It was like a drug addiction.  The high only lasted a short time, and then I had to go seeking another hit- even if I was still in a relationship with a person still providing a need.  I had that need, I needed a fresh hit.  As I have aged, this becomes a very painful need.  It's one I talk to my wife about.  It's one that I think about, and challenge the psychology of as it becomes twisted within me.  It's a challenge of truth versus fantasy.  The fantasy is the unquenchable thirst to feel wanted.  The truth is always "chasing the dragon".  The hole that I am trying to fill cannot be filled by anyone else but me.  In the wake left chasing the fantasy, I ended up harming myself and others. I did not get what I needed in the past.  That trauma was carried forward into my teen and adult years.  Always looking to fix the past, and at the same time refusing to acknowledge it within me.  Breaking the hold of a past trauma cannot be described.  The weight of those shackles on life is heavy and dark.  It leaves you breathless.  And finally coming to terms with what is any type of abuse is akin to taking in a big full breath of air.

2/28/21  No time for the wordiness of words part II

With the chaos of the Trump failed experiment easing, and the continued push to create a fair society still working its way through the masses- it has been hard to sit and journal consistently.  So, here again is my brain dump of random thoughts that influence my days and understanding, but slightly longer and numbered:

1. the fatigue and depression that I have felt are not a traditional sort.  And only now, standing outside of the daily chaos of Trump can I clearly see that it is all Trump based, and traumatic.  The daily hate filled bully based tweets.  The unbelievably bold corruption.  The lack of any consequence.  The destruction of our social norms and gains.  The isolation from our allies- this was very hard to take every day.  Every hour.  Every middle of the night wake up wondering "What has he done now?"  It's a form of PTSD.

2. Social media is dangerous.   

3. Twitter sure as hell did the right thing taking away the platforms of dangerous people. 

4.  My goal for 2021 is to work even harder on creating and emotional reaction to my artwork.  I go through a lot of varied trends of style and approach when I work- this is a good goal. 

5. When you don't sleep, the dreaming world bleeds into the waking world. 

6. The invisible kid in me fears leading an invisible life with an invisible disease.  My vestibular disorder is getting worse. 

7. I really like a title I gave to one painting "Erasing my Memoirs".  If I  ever write a book, or have a large one-man exhibition this is the title. 

8. "Tomorrow comes like a suicide" 

9. Don't talk big and act small, talk small and act big. 

10. "There are things in the corners of this world, that if you look them right in the face- will drive you insane" 

11. No one really wants to know how you are doing or talk about Pandemic life.

1/7/21  A groundswell of decline

There is absolutely nothing American about what happened in our country yesterday.  I have long said that conspiracy theory is dangerous.  This is what it can build, chaos from lies.  The default anger setting that we all have about what we are as a country.  An uneven place where the rich and famous can do whatever they want, and the rest are waiting for the table scraps.  If you put your faith in a liar, do not be shocked at the lies.  And if you perpetuate those lies, what is your goal?

12/30/20    No time for the wordiness of words

I have been so busy making art and dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic at work, that I have not had enough time to properly come to my site to write.  That means I am just going to dump a bunch of ideas and phrases that have influenced my art work:

Friends of convenience.  The devil is in the wind.  "A scream looking for a mouth"- Hubert Selby Jr.  You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts.  "There is nothing so unfair, as the equal treatment of unequal people."  Both the 'cancel culture' and the 'politically correct' movements frighten me.  You either get smart and learn how to deal with your demons, or you become one of them.

11/19/20        Amazing

I lost another inspiration at the end of October

"No amount of belief makes something a fact."  -James "the Amazing" Randi

11/7/20        The Great hoax that will never see justice
I am going to carefully choose my words on this, because this is how I have survived the last 4 years- and countless years before. It is a belief system based in reality.
4 years of lies spewing from our countries leader- our spotlight to the world- went without ever really being critically examined. Any challenge was met with derision and labels of badness. Every critical challenge was a personal attack. The perpetrator played the victim. That was a daily event dominating the news. “Alternative facts” was a nifty way to say we prefer the lie to maintain our status. At least 2/3’s of the country was so worn down, so fast- that we gave up the fight by noon of day one.
That was the plan. Every law, every hearing, every appointee, every destructive social action was never held to the very clear & simple idea of: there is right, and there is wrong. There was never justice.
Wealth and power continue to do what they want, while the rest of us are in another system of accountability and justice. I have seen how heavy and hard that has hit and worn out the average everyday decent person. I have felt that weight myself crushing inside until I could not catch my breath.
And then 11/3 came as a mild relief.
I do not expect any miracles. This life when seen as a whole society, has never really been on a path of good for all of us. It isn’t going to change with Biden.
Our pandemic is utterly ignored by the government as we break daily records of disease and death. There is clear accountability that will never materialize for those of us being lost each day. If this should impact myself, or my family- I know who is responsible. I know what they deemed as more important than the safety of the citizens they are representing. I saw each and every lie, and each consequence forced on us- not you. You have, and you will beat the system. You will swim in money to never know desperation. You will sleep well as the “haves”, and never think of the “have nots”. We will not see a justice in this system. Your supporters will applaud your theft of every last coin in their pockets. They will pat you on the back, even as you stab them in theirs.
They will never see it coming. Some of you have won your elections. It will allow you to continue this clear treachery against your country and its citizens. That is exactly what it is. Treason.
Now, here is the point where the religious will say “you will get yours when you stand in front of God”, but I don’t believe in that idea of religion. It is not solid for me, and I need solid beliefs. I do not believe you will stand in judgement in front of anyone you can’t bribe or bully.
Except us.
The common good citizens of the world, not America- the world. Those that are not frauds. Those who have a very real integrity deep inside that is earned in life. You are not really living life, you live a pretend version. We know our personal values, and see you as you are- frauds.
As far as Donald Trump goes, he lifted up the worst behaviors and traits of humanity. He held up being an asshole as strength, and will never know it’s really an obvious weakness. He was not the first to do so, he will not be the last.
His “base” expected greatness. They thought they would be allowed into the resorts. Allowed to taste the food, and be treated with respect and dignity. Just be loyal, and you will get yours -has been the trick of the wealthy echoing across time to keep raping the have-nots while claiming to love them. It always works.
Either know your history, or you are doomed to repeat it. Know yourself, become a tool in the plans of others.
The greatest trait I have is to know my own value.
Trump has no traits or value. He is a fraud in full view of us all. He will never believe that he is anything but a god that rules with lies because the money makes cheating easy. He is never really living, or earning anything. That is why he demands loyalty. Because his circle of frauds will turn because they have no reason to care. The dead don’t need to breathe, they just need to be. However, I know two things.
One, I know the depth of the lies he is using to keep his base loyal. To burn the idea of Democracy down to ash. To deceive. This is the propaganda utilized by Joseph Goebbels, to repeat a lie enough makes it a truth- eventually fails. History is our fact. That is why every single act and investigation of the Trump administration failed, except one. The tax cut for the rich. The rich passing that legislation for their own gain was an easy lie to sell to those believing it was their reward for loyalty. No truth is needed.
But the lies about the election, they must eventually have truth. Or they fail.
Which leads to the second thing I know. The truth of this election makes Donald J Trump a loser. He lost. He can lie about it. He can say he won, and will yell that he was cheated out of winning, but the end of the tale remains unchanged- he is a loser. And I absolutely know in all I have seen from him. The statements, the conspiracies, the lies, the wild boasting of self, the bullying, the bigotry - ALL point to one inescapable truth. He KNOWS that he is a fraud as a human being, and he knows 2/3s of the nation knows it too. It is so deep within him that he can never get away from it. It lies in his very core, his soul, the self hate and true image of pretending to live a genuine life- cannot be erased.
While legal justice may not ever be reckoned for Trump, this justice being carried out daily inside of his head and soul is very real. It cannot be bribed away. It cannot be denied. No amount of resorts or Trump crowds will erase that when he is alone with himself in thought reminded who he really is.
We all know right and wrong. We make a choice. We can collect valuables, bulky those lacking strength, cheat, lies, steal- but never escape ourselves.

10/3/20       "Cancel Culture" and the lines we are drawing

There are 2 ends of our social spectrum at war.  Any big social change, or using the hip term "paradigm shift" begins like this: there is an introduction, rejection, push back, and then - overreaction, start again.  Similar to a wave pool with just one cycle. The waves get smaller over time, but it also depends on where you stand.  I am not, nor have I ever been really gung ho on the politically correct movement.  Not because it is wrong, but because it includes so many people just getting to the waking up point, or to use the hip term "woke".  The new people have an undeniable energy, and some older vets cannot resist jumping on the train.  The new people have not yet been in the battle long enough to know the day in- day out fight.  They overreact to everything, every word, saying, song, movie, book, news station and so on- is now suspect.  I am 100% for old slang that has a dark meaning being deleted.  I am 100% for slurs being deleted.  I am 100% for labeling old ideas wherever they may be found for what they are.  However, the wave pool is still moving and everything that is getting called out is not necessarily good for the war.  We should focus on the big wave before the ripples.  A racial slur is obvious.  What is behind it is obvious.  That is the real issue.  Just calling out the slur, and moving onto the next hip word or song or book to cancel is not doing anything of value to create change.  You cannot erase history, but you can learn from it.  Whitewashing history and deleting it- are the same thing.  That is not history, that's editing.  That is where my issue lies.  It is now popular to be the first to call racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or any other bias- for those just getting on the bus to battle.  They have no scars.  No wins.  No losses.  They have self-righteousness akin to the other end of the spectrum declaring religion as our moral scale.  All while boinking the porn star and paying for her abortion and hush money.  Neither end operates with a care to the majority in the middle, and the middle is what gets shit done.  The middle knows the war.  They have been there a long time.  They also know compromise and respect.  They know social and personal grace.  The other 2 ends of the spectrum yell because they feel like ignored children inside.  They have had their thoughts and beliefs pampered and protected from real life, and that is why we are where we are.  Real life is not yelling and bullying.  Real life is not getting your way.  Real life is not something that can be bleached and sanitized into submission.  Real life is not something that can be controlled. The anger for a demanded instant gratification from both ends needs to sit down, grow up, and shut up.  Change can happen.  Superficial change, and hurried reactionary change offers no soul.  It offers a vacant mind.  Real change accounts for most of us in unison for a positive change.

10/1/20      the Inktober boycotts

If you are unaware, for many -many years October has also been called "Inktober"  It is a 31 day long challenge to make 1 work of art a day in ink.  It was begun by artist Jake Parker.  It began as a way for all to join in on art.  It was inclusive, where art is often exclusive.  For many reasons, it became less fun each year.  And, true to 2020 lore- a huge controversy unfolded this past summer on  Mr. Parker possibly plagarizing an artist to have his own book, and in copywriting the term "Inktober".  I did not rely on was posted abbreviated article.   I looked up the issues to see the whole story,  there is a lot to the story, and many people did not look to see what was happening before calling a boycott.  Whatever the reasons are here, I decided to make my own inclusive art challenge,  art31- 31 days of art-making.  And it is way more open than many challenges.

I have never liked the challenges with prompt words. I just do what I want. 31 days is a huge challenge for anyone. Make it easier and more inclusive- not exclusive. Art has done enough of that tired routine. 

I will say this to all my fellow artists- if you are still making art each day this month- lots of love and support to you. If you have a job AND make art for 31 days, admiration and respect. If you are tagging your work with #inktober, don’t do that. It does not do anything for you in any way. It will end up in a pile of thousands of ignored artworks as a number used in a hashtag for someone else’s public relations. Make the art for yourself, and then post it anywhere you want for people to see, to enjoy, to think about, and if you can- even buy. The commercialization of art is everywhere else, don’t let it be in what you love.

You can’t make art for others. The making (or process of creation) is you “shaking hands with yourself” (modest mouse). Whatever happens before, or after- is open to anything you want. You want to put it on a t-shirt, in a frame, in a box, in the trash, in a deck of cards, in a Pepsi ad, on a business card, give it away, or set it on fire. All of that is ok. But not the process. Once that becomes tainted with other reasons beyond “to create and express”, you have already lost something. You may still end up with artwork that wins awards, and sells prints, and people golf clap when they see it, but you as the artist- you lose. The very rare exception, similar to that 6 year old that wants to play basketball, and actually grows up to be Lebron James, does happen. You can’t plan on your stars aligning with that type of perfection. You cannot say, I’m going to be Mozart. You plan on saying I am going to set the bar really high, to go beyond being the best That I can, by holding to an absolute truth. That your real art, made from a place of deep understanding- is worth it. All by itself. Without anyone else ever seeing it. If you can make and maintain that connection, you will never fail. 

Yes. I am that artist. It is a highly personal experience. It is a conversation you have with materials and yourself. It is an expression without words, and if you are hell bent to be good, to be gut wrenchingly truthful in your style and communication- then it becomes as close as it can be to that so-called “religious experience”, without God. It is not some weirdo artist statement to say, in the acts of artistic creation, you are God.

9/23/20      Aphantasia and the former illustrator in me declare a truce

I have some new work started, but I have been in a rut of disappointment. To break out of that, I have gone back to a few recent failures to impartially look at the flaws and see what I can do to the work to refocus what I lost in the first go round.  My biggest problems are when I faceplant a few times in a row, I try to put too much information into one artwork. That’s also why I was never satisfied with work that I was doing as an illustrator. I did not grasp the concept of simplicity once there was an editor watching. In sports that is called "the yips". When I start to feel forced and unstable, I tend to add too much to the composition and feel a need to rush to the finish. That never works out in anything I do. It’s always better to step away and go work on something else until you can come back with an impartial eye and make those hard choices to remove and rework. That’s been my way for a long time, which caused me to take a lot of risks in experimentation. Whether it was experimenting with concept, subject, or materials I know one truth- if it isn’t working, it’s not magically going to start to suddenly work. I have to be the one to take the steps. There’s no art fairy.

Maybe.  Maybe there's an art fairy.

It has not at all ever been easy. With my mental limitation (aphantasia- I do not see images when I think), I have had to fight through countless failures. I don’t create in a traditional way. I need a sense of read and react spontaneity. If it is a more structured, rigid subject- I need to handle it in stages. Sometimes leaving work alone for weeks and months to get the bad taste of a false start out of me. I end up walking around every day with my head about 80% in the day, and 20% in all the artwork I have in various stages. My wife gets frustrated when I need things repeated. Yes, some of that is the dozens and dozens of heavy metal concerts in my teens impacting my hearing. Most of it is because I’m trying to figure out artwork with my brain being blind. It’s funny that this might be another example of my life having a lot of fence sitting. I get stuck between 2 opposites. I really want to know what it’s like to think with images. My thinking is all words and descriptions. I also don’t really know how long, or how much this has effected my life. There are certain skills and activities that come naturally to me, and others that I have not ever been able to do- in art and so many other parts of my life.

I was always just a bit off as an illustrator.  I know how to physically create artwork.  I know mentally how to "illustrate" an idea, but there was always something missing that derailed my work.  The conceptual stage never seemed to have any weight, I always wanted to skip ahead and avoid it.  I always felt like the artwork was stale after the sketch stage.  It was only 4 years ago that a particular awareness came to me that my brain has a slight difference in function.

I'm mentally blind.

It is no disability, I assume that I have always been this way.  I compensated fairly well.  It is too long to plot out how I became an artist with this condition, but the summary was that I experimented with materials, and I failed a lot.  But I have a way of cataloging what the materials will do, how they behave- at least enough to get the basics started.  Then I was again blind.  I can only try, and react to what happens.  That does not bode well for an artist in any form of commercial art.  There is a lot of inconsistency of style, and quality.  That is a hard sell for any artist.  I still have this problem.  But, now I know that it exists.  I accept it.  I do not have to be any particular type of artist, or have one particular style.  I don't pursue showing artwork, I don't pursue illustration.  The act of creating the work is free.  What happens afterwards- that will be where I see where it fits into a plan as an artist.

I think for any artist, a chance to break the mold you make for yourself is a high similar to sky diving. There’s a stretch where you are hurtling towards doom hoping the chute opens.  I have this same mentality in a few other life areas. Innovation, improvisation, and risk. I developed this part of me over a lot of years, but only Now feel it in full bloom. I just said to someone yesterday: maybe it’s my age, maybe it is what I have learned- but I have reached that point where I don’t care what people think of me anymore. I’m open minded enough to be very comfortable with who I am all on my own, but not to believe that I am ever anything but a student.

9/12/20      Covid brain

In February, the Covid-19 virus began to explode, everything started shutting down.  Everything started changing in ways that I have never experienced. time changed.  Work changed.  Social interaction, daily routines, grocery shopping, meals and so much more all changed.  I wish I had a more creative skillset with writing, none of this tells the story of not knowing what day of the week it is.  Not knowing what month it is.  Working 10-12 hours a day because your come home to a remote office in your laptop with 150+ emails.  Zoom became understood as video conferencing.  As of today 7.3 million have tested positive in the US, with almost 205,000 deaths- and those are just the ones verified as virus related.  My brain processes as if it is stuffed with cotton at the bottom of a swamp.  Each day is a chore to stay on task.  It does not help to have just started to sort through a 3-pronged neurological disorder, or to hear that diabetes is one of the 3 big problems if you contract the virus.  Compared to many, I am doing good.  The general mental health and frustration levels are on full display everyday with videos of outbursts, and news of even more mayhem.  We have a current government administration that cannot tell the truth, and has downplayed or called the virus a hoax for months.  Every day is 2 mixed messages, science and government teams say wear a mask, and then the president and other cronies say that masks are a political ploy.  And to top it all off, if social media does not create enough issues for our well-being, it is now almost exclusively how we talk to most of our communities.  So, I go through my routines, day in and day out.  Waiting for some type of normality.  Waiting to vote in less than a month.  Waiting for some reason and common sense to return to American society.  Waiting to know what day of the week it is today.  Does it matter?

8/26/20      Explaining the unexplainable

I was adding and securing some parts of my doll totem, and also updated some of my notes and thoughts on this as it evolves, so here are some thoughts:

Dolls creep people out, yes -that is true. Things that age and rust and fall to ruin do the same. This does not make me a villain. Not a serial killer, not a molester, not a stalker, not a weirdo. It is just an artistic expression that makes you uncomfortable, so you need a label for me. But, if you stop and ask some questions maybe you will find something out. Try these:
1. What is this about?
2. What objects do I see? How are those objects used in the world? What can they mean here in this context?
3. What do I feel looking at this? Why?
4. Is this intentional?  Why is this outside rotting and falling apart?
5. Is there a story or an idea to what I see?  Guess
6. What do I like and not like? Why?

Many comments here reference specific additions which are in the odds & ends photo page, but I will give a brief description.  There is a lot of wear and tear on any areas of paint.  This summer I covered many older areas with a layer of fresh paint.  That act in itself is a significant biographical note.  (Regarding a wooden shelf with doll parts that was added)  One really odd, unfair, and even painful quirk that men do (not all men) is compare females. We construct favorite body parts, personalities, passions, and faults to create a minds version of the “perfect” mate. It’s a harmful habit. It creates a pedestal for the impossible, and finds fault everywhere. Fantasy overrides reality. (On a very top section there is just a pair of severely weathered doll legs)  This was an original doll from when this started 8 years ago. I salvaged the head (in another pic), the hands, and the legs after animals shredded it this last year.  That’s part of the process. Memories are never fully comprehensive. We hold onto  certain parts, and lose others in time.  What’s left is a distortion of what was there.  We constantly reinvent who we are. All the old pieces are still there. Some are strong reminders of important aspects, other are weak hauntings of times that we would rather forget.  (Regarding a nicely composed photo of a ladder)  There’s a lot of actual ladders involved in this build.  Even a few windows and frames. All of it is about growth or regression. You can’t just stay on a ladder, that’s pointless. You go up, or you go down. Down may be safety, but you never get anywhere. Up is dangerous, but now you see it all in perspective. I guess with that you can try to figure out your own meanings to windows and frames. (About a very creepy photo of the head that belonged with the legs)  Some memories haunt us our whole lives. They never go away.  (About a mens suit jacket on a hanger)  That jacket has been out all summer.  Winter will be hard on that fabric. Black is for funerals and formals. Black is serious, black is death.  *I'm adding a bit here that this is a specific add regarding formality in general and my own experiences with death.  (I added the old doorbell chime cover from our house, and replaced it with a Guy Fawkes mask)  That’s the old doorbell chime cover. It is very similar to the one we had in my first house as a child. It is wildly outdated and from the 60s-70s. You can’t buy anything to replace it, so you improvise.  Improvisation is at the core of my artwork, and my social services job. Everything is fluid, everything changes. Materials don’t cooperate. Ideas fall flat. Plans don’t go as planned. I have the artistically disabling condition now called “aphantasia”, I don’t see anything at all in my head. In some ways starting commercially as an artist helped me understand planning and visualization, but it also sent me spiraling into an area of art that made me unhappy. The read and react version of my artwork brings me a rush of satisfaction that leaves words as pointless. The improvisation leads me to feeling the moment, being in the present. Loving the materials, and having a conversation with my ideas and actions. It is adapting to life. It is exploring capabilities and failures of unrestrained thoughts. Constraints that come from the social order, democracy, employment, family, gender, race, age, religion, nationality, location, technology, education, industry, time, fears and so many more that keep us in place.

update 9/30/20:

I was sitting outside looking at the doll installation, and how overgrown the plants facing the sun have become, and i realized looking at some picture of previous years- just how many things that were attached may have fallen down into those plants and become lost.  Doll parts, wood, small objects, or rotted attachments just disappeared.  Just like memories and history.  What remains year after year is reconstructed.

8/7/20    Friends of Convenience

Don't talk big and act small.  Talk small and act big.

Making lasting friendships as an adult is so damn hard.  You have so many fleeting relationships.  A co-worker, an acquaintance, a friend of a friend, an old re-connection.  You try them, out.  Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.  Someone needs something.  Someone needs support.  Someone calls on someone in the moment that the pool of availability is low.  And something like a friendship is born.  For how long, varies.  Then they get a new job.  They move.  One or the other realizes that you have nothing in common.  Someone commits too much time, and then have to pull back.  Someone is not who they appear to be.  Or, it is a friendship of the moment, a matter of convenience.   

They promise to "stay in touch".  To meet up after work.  To get the dogs or kids or spouses together.  To get a drink.  We smile, but we know the Dear John letter is already in the mail.  I'm growing weary of the effort.  I am finding myself closing the ranks.  I don't feel like looking, or making the effort.  I have my immediate family, that I always stress: "do not worry about me, go make plans with your friends", and I have myself.  They do not have the baggage that I have, or the experience of being on the outside.  I do not want them to have it.  I have always been ok being alone.  There's no trust issues, no boundaries, no compromises, no judgements.  No one to spring a sudden change on you that signals everything you know will be in upheaval while you put on a smile and think "not again".  No future pangs of rejection because no one thinks this is a good place for a friendship.

7/24/20    Erasing my Memoirs

I get jealous of people with a full set of fond memories across key points in their lives.  Family gatherings, siblings, childhood friends, school events, sports, college...They have a clear recall of those times.  They have connections to them over decades. I survived a not horrible childhood through my adult life by a heavy reliance on disassociation. In plain terms, my body was in one place- but my mind was somewhere else- almost all the time.  I don't know when it began, I can only guess very young as a way to cope with my parents pretty extreme alcohol fueled arguments, that eventually led to a divorce.  That was followed by excessive moves, very different schools, and a revolving door of temporary friends.  Throughout all of this I had: a roof over my head, food, clothes, and many toys.  I am not comparing my life to a more severe form of abuse, but emotional abuse IS abuse.  Without getting into the details to keep this one short, if parents don't nurture a relationship, if they don't provide a caring environment and involvement- kids disconnect.  That becomes the default.  A disconnected child grows into an ill-prepared adult to handle emotions.  All of this had me go elsewhere in my head to feel whatever I was looking for.  Love, attention, safety, encouragement, connection- whatever I was missing at the time.  In doing this, I was not in the present moment.  I missed huge chunks of my life and my connection.  I see old friends, or co-workers wax nostalgia over those times, and I feel a dull ache.  While I am so proud to say that I have made many adult commitments to change my life and become free from the disassociation, that ache persists more and more as I get older.  Remembering key points of your life as you get older is a part of self examination and joy.  To me, these are literal blank spots.  Redacted documents that make my heart feel a dull ache over what never was.

7/2/20    An inner dialogue on why I hate Walmart, 10:55am - 11:45am

Today’s adventure, or a running narrative on why I hate Walmart as I walk through the store:
the only reason I‘m here is because it was close to where I was...mask on.

Why is there a fence in front? Why is the door blocked off so I have to walk all the way down the fenced area to get in? Is there a sign? no signs, nothing. it’s got to be virus related. Wow this is a long blocked off area all the way down, and all the way back. Those 2 old ladies just squeezed through a spot in the gate! Why did I go all the way down here? I have to use the restroom. Of course the restroom is behind customer service with a long line of people -a foot apart. No one is standing on the social distancing stickers. There’s not enough stickers. That’s a long line for 1 employee to deal with. Did they just open? What time is it? It’s 11am, where’s the staff? I squeeze through to get to the door just as this old guy in a plaid- hey nice shirt, is coming out. I glance at a sign on the door about sanitizing. Oh this place is a mess. Is that a piece of uncooked salmon in the urinal? Don’t touch anything! Just pee and wash. Ok, that sink is not working. That soap dispenser is not working. Finally. The hand dryer is broken, and the roll of towels is on top of the garbage. Back through the customer service line with wet hands. Oh! Wait, I need a cart aaaaaaand yep, I set off an alarm going out a strange automatic gate that you can literally walk around. Why is this gate here? There’s no sign or reason for this. Does someone think that I’m shoplifting? No one responds to the alarm. Where’s the hand sanitizer? I can choose from the 4 available carts. No sanitizer, no cart wipes. Well, we all gotta die sometime. Head to the back of the store for fans (buying them for work for tenants who have nothing to cool down in this heat). Why am I heading to automotive through women’s underwear? Christ almighty!! (as my pop used to say) this store is a mess. Don’t touch anything. Fishing. Paint. Pets. Shoes. Bulk...what the fuck? Who planned this?

Ok, here we go, tools. Fans. Fans. More paint. One gallon can that somebody opened and just left. Why? Here are the fans. Nope, that’s a high air “mover” to dry paint. Is this the same bulk area? Or another one? Every god damned person I pass is within a foot. There’s the fans! Wow, that is a lot of fans. Whoa, there is a whole nother display of fans. Ok -5 box fans. Only 4 fit in the cart. Ok I’ll put this one underneath. It doesn’t fit, it just sits there on a slope. It’s telling me “don’t leave me like this! One quick stop and I am on the floor.” I know it’ll fall out, but I’m going to risk it. Ok dish soap...hold on -toys and clearance. 2 boys are in the middle of the action figure aisle with wrestlers out of the package. No adult in site. Ok, I can still go down the action figure aisle. Dammit! I knew that fan would fall out. I’ll just put it on top. Was there a run on action figures during the virus? The marvel “legends” line is reduced to about 10 Loki’s and some blue guy that I have never heard of. How is that a legend? Ok, quick turn to the clearance ais...what happened? There’s literally nothing here, and what is here is all opened. Who buys a clothesline for $5? ...it’s just rope. This aisle is a mess. Don’t touch anything. Screw it. Go find the dish soap. Why is there another paint section? I slowly stroll by 2 employees (because a third employee was blocking the only way I could go and despite looking right at me, wasn't moving) and I hear this -(Male) “they didn’t pay you?”  (Female) “no overtime, and they took away holiday pay from us too.” I am past the aisle but can still hear them... (Male): “that’s making your arm all red.”  (Female): “yeh, it’s breaking out all over here too” DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! Where’s the damn dish soap? How am I in Bulk again?

Ok yay! Dish soap is in this bulk aisle. But one lady on the left does not give a shit that I need to get by as she is reading a roll of toilet paper, and the guy in front of me is in a motor scooter blocking me. “Do you want to get by?” He says. “no, I just need the dish soap right there”. He literally backs up towards me making it harder to reach. The lady on the left continues to read the labels on the rolls of toilet paper. I have never read toilet paper information, I wonder what it says? Good to go. Thanks scooter guy for confusing the hell out of me. You offered to move. You saw what I needed- and made it harder. I hate scooters. There’s hardly ever a nice person in a scooter. Why is that?

Where is the front of the store from here? Just head towards the light. I either check out or die. Ugh...There’s a line. What time is it? There’s 8 people ahead of me. Ha! That little girl is dancing. Why is 1 lane open at 11:40am? Checkout lady says self-scan is open!  Cool...oh, I can’t do tax exempt there. Fine. Wait...wait wait wait. Did that old lady just ask the person in front of me if this is the line? She just fucking cut me!  How does she miss the the 5 people in line behind me? Eh, she’s old. I can save her 20 minutes of her life. Good for you Edna. She looks like an Edna. Edna the line cutter. Now that’s a Marvel Legend figure.

That is a lot of candy on display...wait wait wait. Apple pie Kit Kat?! It’s a limited edition candy... That’s the shit you only see at Walmart. Why are so many things “limited edition”? If it’s at Walmart it’s not “limited”. It’s the opposite of limited. What’s the opposite of limited? Unlimited?  That doesn’t seem right, but unlimited editions of candy would sell better. No one is standing on the social distancing stickers except me. Reese’s. Mmm. I should try that Kit Kat. No, what am I thinking?!  Wow, that candy shelf is a wreck. Wow, the big pack Reese’s is huge. Wow, Check out is surprisingly fast because no one had a problem, and the register did not crash.  I'm shocked. Edna paid cash. I’m shocked that she didn’t pull that out of a change purse. Wait. Where did that money come from? She doesn’t have a purse, maybe she’s a counterfe- that weird door-gate alarm goes off. No one does anything.

If I did not just get the dish soap from the cart she would have totally missed it. Why do they have a huge freezer of ice cream half gallons next to the exit after you pay? I’d be afraid to eat anything from here. People are opening and touching everything with pudgey-smudgey sweaty hands. Where’s the hand sanitizer? None. Nothing. Do they know that there is a pandemic? “Sorry mam you can’t buy 2 of those, 1 per customer”. I hear behind me. I don’t even dare to turn and look back. I can’t imagine what it is. Toilet paper lady?  Wait  wait wait- I can’t leave without showing my receipt? Why?  I’m 10 feet from the register I just paid at, there’s only ONE register open! Fine. The alarm at that weird door-gate goes off again. Security, which is really just this old lady with what I am pretty sure is a Boy Scout sash doesn’t even look up from my receipt. What are you doing???!!  Checking the spelling -the date? Adding up the charges in your head? It’s 5 box fans and 3 bottles of dish soap- it is right in front of you in my cart!  Finally- Jesus, this took forever...holy god it’s hot out! Throw these in the back, and I am good to go. Why are there no cart racks anywhere near me? Yikes LADY, I am just getting in my car -hold on. Mask off, phew. Is that guy pushing a rack of carts to the store an employee? That is not an employee.  Why is he doing that? He is not wearing a Walmart vest, or a Walmart shirt, and he has on jeans. Plus he looks really really old to be on cart duty in this heat. What if he’s just a random guy? I think he is just a random old guy. I am sure that he is just a random guy.  I fucking hate Walmart -and this is why. Where’s my sanitizer? I’m writing this down so I don’t forget “Why I hate Walmart”.

6/9/20     Developing a voice in controversy

if you think my backyard installation is creepy, beware ever looking at my undergrad/grad civil rights/racial art while I was desperately trying to sort out my artistic voice. Jeez- If I did that type of stuff now, I think I might have an internet mob problem.​  

Social subjects have always been a big deal to me. When I jumped in I wanted people to pay attention, so I was mashing together shocking and controversial subjects. Even at a relatively safe pre-pc time, in an almost exclusively white environment- white people reacted and called me a racist.​  

To keep going with the work was not easy. I did not have a lot of artistic confidence, and I was on very shaky unknown conceptual ground. But, I knew this was where I wanted to be with my artwork. I think that this very uneasy territory lasted about 5 years.​

​You can’t ignore the critics when you are young. And you can’t change personal paths based on people who don’t even know you. But, you can filter out the legitimate issues to help yourself grow. That can be a challenge for angry youth.

Now and then I still bounce across the lines of what is “allowed”. I still follow ideas across multiple images until it’s a dead end. Sometimes that dead end is not acceptable- even to other artists. I have had work rejected, changes requested, censored in print, called out in talks, cut from jobs, and taken down in shows over the years. I think as long as I know my principles, I am good.

6/8/20    Some updated thoughts on my back yard installation (photos under "odds & ends")

Ok artists and non-artists, I updated photos yesterday to my backyard installation.  A lot of sections are about exploring deeply held/rejected psychological areas. It’s not meant to be pretty, or comfortable. It’s meant to challenge.  Every spring, I spend time re-building and cleaning up sections that experience the harshness of being outdoors year round. I have had a lot of reactions to this, and a lot of questions about this “thing” in my yard. I normally let people think and see what they want in my artwork, which frustrates people that just need to know what art is all about. So, I decided on a little bit of insight. The entire installation is self-biographical. Everything is in someway a direct representation, or a concept of my life. Including the annual re-building, sometimes from scratch. As far as that particular monstrous face, an animal did that face. Nature did that face. Chance did that face. A large part of the overall concept is the effect of time. The letting go of control. The loss of small stories, interactions, and emotional events into history that will never be known again. We talk, we interact, we live with people and lose people, we love and hate and cry- and time goes on. Only those involved ever know that experience, and when they are gone- so is that story. That concept of erasing life and losing experiences is at the core of everything I make. This is just a larger, creepier version that I can watch grow and disappear every year. Sometimes I control where this goes, sometimes I don’t. Life has some control, and risk involved. You lose if you go too far in either direction, and you never really know what’s coming.

6/6/20    On the protests and riots

There is a big picture that the looting is only one tiny momentary piece. That is an act of desperation, and there are many more horrible pieces to that desperation that are completely ignored that go on for years, lifetimes, and generations.

The media is sloppy, especially here in Rochester New York. They will run stories on businesses, and outraged shop owners, and show damages over and over. The reporters will stroll through broken glass on the sidewalks while talking about how this “isn’t us”. They will ignore the widely available documentation of the white protesters, the white supremacists, and even the white police creating damages- videos and all. They will run stories asking why with no real intention to know why...because that would make us all culpable. Rochester has the highest child poverty rate in the nation. That is a day in and day out agony. We have endless acts of desperation that people label as poor peoples choices. Drugs, crime, alcoholism, homelessness. Daily racism and human trauma that leads to desperate mindsets. No peaceful protest is acceptable by those who see it as “uppity”. You can't march, you can't take a knee, you can't gather, and you can't organize without being told YOU ARE WRONG.  If you are shocked and outraged, take a few minutes to see and hear what is not being said in the media. Look at reactions to protests historically. Look into how many George Floyds have happened with no justice or change. Have someone help you feel poverty. Have someone help you feel discrimination. And, once you really feel it and see it- then you will understand desperation.  with all of this I did not even scratch the surface of the unbelievable pressures that are put on non-white people. I could sit here all day and list them with actual stories that I have been told and seen through 20+ years in social Services. One of my biggest reasons to do the work that I do is to give the invisible people in our society a voice, to help fix what is wrong with the world.  And to feel so angry at the never ending injustices laid upon you for the color of your skin- only to see the racist president then announce yesterday “there are no racial tensions in America” is the ultimate moment where you have been told- YOU DON’T MATTER.

5/31/20    The Pandemic, being essential, and poop in the pool

I'm not going to type out all the elements of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic.  We are all living it, so I'll take it for granted that you know the basics. So much has been written and said about all of this, it's a strange and terrible time for the world.  As I write this there are about 1.7 million people infected in the US, with 100,000 confirmed deaths attributed to the virus.  That does not count all of the untested, nor does it count the dead that were not tested. 

Much of my city shut down in late February.  Some of our high risk staff were allowed to work from home.  Being a diabetic, I too was given the OK to work from home.  I chose to not do that. Why?  I work in residential programs for those that have recently been homeless with a certified disability.  Most of those disabilities are in mental health and addiction.  The state wide shut-down came fast as NYS was the hardest hit in our country.  Except for absolute essential services, everything closed.  I work with amazing people that rarely get fanfare for what they do to help the invisible and marginalized in our society.  Our tenants depend on groups, therapy, and services to survive.  All of that shut down.  There was not a lot of time to plan, but we had emergency meetings to have plans for staff coverage in case many staff became ill, and how to staff programs where people worked from home for their own safety.  Was I, or am I still at risk?  Yes.  I am no hero, I am not tooting my horn.  I chose to go to work because the level of client support was going to be high without all of the regular supports and regular schedules.  I have scrambled daily working regular 50+ hour weeks.  My wife is a teacher, her life was no easier.  The entire way that we all live changed overnight. Many time the word "essential" was thrown out for those in healthcare and hospitals. Grocery store and gas stations.  Never for our line of work.  And yet, we just kept going.   We printed our own staff t-shirts with "I am essential" and "we are essential".  I'm proud of my community.  I'm proud that I work for the Volunteers of America.  I'm proud that we lead the way in how we address homelessness, mental health, and addictions.  3+ months later we are still here, and doing pretty darn good.  As we cautiously re-open the city and state there is much being argued from conspiracy theorists, and business owners.  Politicians, and groups carrying weapons to protest in state capitols.  We will do our jobs the right way, and be safe.  I came across the best analogy of our situation, so I am leaving it here to float for however long this website exists just in case the pandemic is another 1918 Spanish Flu,  

Jeremy Konyndyk, global outbreak preparedness and humanitarian response expert and former director of USAID's Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance, offered an explanation on Twitter for the folks who don't seem to understand the concern—"a short analogy about pooping and accountability."

"Alright. There is a LOT of chatter on this website bashing those who are saying most of the country still isn't ready for a safe reopening. So, as we approach what would normally be summer pool season, here's a short analogy about pooping and accountability.
Imagine you're at the pool, and a kid poops in the water. It happens a few times every summer. What happens next? Everybody clears the pool. That's the initial step to protect people from the poop.
But it's not the end of the story.
There's a next step - some poor soul on pool staff has to go fish out the poop. It's a pretty thankless job.
Then they have to shock the pool with chlorine to kill off bacteria.
And then everyone waits half an hour or so til it's safe to swim again.
You can see where I'm going with this.
If the lifeguards tell everyone to clear the pool, but the pool staff declines to actually get rid of the poop, what happens?
No one can go back in. The poop is still there. Limbo.
Whose fault is it that it's not safe to go back in the water? Who is accountable?
Do you focus on the people saying "clean up the poop before we can go back in safely!"?
Or do you focus on the staff whose job it is to clean up the poop?
And what would you think if the staff started saying - look, just get back in. Be a warrior.
The answer is pretty obvious.

So right now, our country is a big swimming pool with a poop problem.
And the President, rather than fix the mess, is urging everyone back into the pool regardless and saying the 'real' problem is those people who think the pool's not safe yet. They must hate the pool, etc.
And a lot of the public is buying it!!
The President's whole play here is to distract from his failure to fix the mess by focusing the country's attention on people who don't want to swim in a pooped-in pool.
He wants you to believe they're saying you should never go back in.
And if you buy that, he's off the hook. He doesn't have to clean up the poop, and he doesn't get blamed for failing to do so. Win-win for him.
But NO ONE is saying 'never go back in the pool.' They're saying - please clean out the poop first.
Everyone wants to get back in the pool. Everyone wants to reopen the country.
And if you're frustrated that we can't, please hold the right folks accountable. The problem isn't the people saying we need to reopen 'safely.'
It's the people saying needn't bother with that part."

5/21/20    The evolution of my horror themed bathroom (photos in "odds & ends")

Thank Jebus my wife Christie understands and even encourages the weird things that mean a lot to me. I have written in older journals posted here that Horror movies and books have impacted most of my life.  Horror movies And all that are related have always been a big part of my life. My pop ordered and showed me super 8 movies of classic horror on the weekend from as young as I can remember. He drove me and my friends to the Monroe theater to watch the Saturday Godzilla double features. Yes, before it was a porn theater, it was a legit place to go. When I was kid, He bought me comics every week and I always grabbed a magazine called “Famous Monsters of Filmland”. The founder Forry J. Ackerman basically created the sci-fi genre. His house called the “Ackermansion” was floor to ceiling memorabilia. He gave open tours to any fans showing up at his door. I wanted to see it so bad, but it was in California, and my family never travelled very far. Families have their traditions, they do this or that every year. I don’t have many of these remaining. This is a tribute to one of the very few I have, and all those that accepted me. Scary stories, horror movies, monsters, the dark and the unknown. I have seen and even written about the censorship of my passion that has ebbed a flowed over the years. Obviously, I turned out to be a decent person, I would argue a better person from all of this. This will continue to grow even as it out grows this small bathroom.  Don’t worry, it’s safe...maybe.

update 7/3/20:

I had not heard of the #metoo movement accusations about Forry.  That he was well known as a predator of young women.  That made me incredibly sad.  I can't say that it is all true, or all false.  I don't know.  He is not here to answer to the accusations.  But, I can say that reading the stories had me lean far towards belief.  This was such a huge part of my life, a life saver to a drowning kid.  The times were much more allowable to behaviors that ranged from stalking to sexual assault, and very harsh to any females that made accusations.  That does NOT make it ok, it is just a footnote to how this could have gone on for so long without anyone speaking out, but in context- it makes sense.  As far as why now?  it has become a safer time to speak out.  And there is a greater understanding that there can be no healing and recovery if it is kept a secret.

5/20/20     I don't need you to fix it, I need you to listen

Mental Health note: I reference a very popular video about men and women, listening and fixing called "It's not about the nail". Look it up, it is worth 5 minutes. I am usually the man in the video, I am a fixer, the man who sees the nail in her forehead as the problem.  But over the past 2 months I have switched roles. I am now the woman with the nail who needs someone to listen.  In this pandemic, I have seen many people that are so overwhelmed and busy- that they immediately go into “fix-it” mode. People are scrambling to work remotely. To answer an avalanche of emails, voicemails, texts, and push in endless zoom video meeting requests. To cook. To clean. To plan for what store is open when, and what the new rules are. To get that package delivery, to home-school. To exercise, to find something to do so they don’t go crazy. Who has the time to listen to someone vent? Or to vent to someone? We are urged to work together, so we want to help and fix the problem. But not all problems are fixable, and sometimes we already know what we need to do. We need to release the pressure by talking without fixing. We just need to pull the kettle off the burner so it stops whistling.

4/25/20     You are SO talented

Artist confessions: I wish that people who say to me “you are so talented” could know how much I bristle at that statement in regards to my work.

6.5 years of college. 3 degrees. Classes in the human figure and anatomy, design, drawing, painting, color, commercial, industrial, business, materials, art classes by the dozens. Art history, theory and interpretation every semester. Hundreds of research papers. Years of preparing presentations, shows, portfolios, contracts, legal issues, copyrights. Countless calls, coordinating groups-shows-reviews, and meetings about artwork- both commercial and fine art. Reading and researching the transitions of formats, production, and methods that involve commercial and non-commercial artwork. Never ending hours of website design, new website builds, technical errors, new platforms, posting files, losing files, printing platforms, new media, old media, promotion, and having to look at the always new applications every other day in the digital age. And I have logged well over 275,000 hours making artwork- and that is a low average.

On top of all that I have forgotten in the last 30 years. I think that this no longer qualifies as a “talent”, it’s a highly professional based skill. An artist usually receives such a basic-blank, almost dismissive response to their career. Think about how other professions are described. Teachers, doctors, attorneys, chefs, dancers, musicians, architects, biologists... And then compare that to “you are so talented” when given as a response to a very highly regarded individual within another profession. Rarely is an artist regarded as having worked very hard. They are often seen as lazy, and offer little to society. Obviously, I see it very differently. I would compare my work time as an artist- even after 40-50 hour weeks of my regular job helping the homeless, against anyone. I see the artists (all fields) right now as holding the fucking line against our societies collapse in the hands of the anti-educated mess of people grinding us down. Even if no one sees us or hears us, that is an integral part of the very long subversive history of art.

So, whew- right? The next time you say “you are so talented” to an artist above the age of 12- understand all that I just ranted about flashes through their head. You may get a nod and smile. That’s proper manners, we know you mean well. But we also feel like you have just disrespected us, and are now referring to us as you would a child. Take a few seconds more. Look at the artwork. See all that time spent in an attempt to give you a thought. An idea. And say a little more. It will work wonders for every artist, and maybe create a dialogue that can allow you to see and understand something that you did not know before witnessing that work.

2/4/20      1984 isn’t the past

I no longer trust what I am seeing across any media platforms.  It seems to be that everything everywhere is being used to manipulate the populace.  This is not conspiracy theory, it is from multiple studies and books that have been slowly trotting out in the last 5 years.  Corporations and governments have taken the big and small media into their think tanks.  Half truths, whole lies, and outright corruption have taken my country.  As I wrote many years back in one of my old journals, technology and information were moving too fast for human beings to keep up.  We did not really see what was coming, and when those that saw it sounded the alarm- it was too late. We were already deeply isolated, divided, depressed, and struggling to maintain our collective sanity.  The populace screams “get outta here with yer mambo jumbo psychological BS” while never looking up from the phones.  Never breaking the Netflix streaming binge.  Never holding on buying one more thing from Amazon.  And they too miss the signs.  Heavily armed protestors in public spaces.  A nation that is so deeply divided by two political parties that represent only the rich, but the division is right in our families and neighborhoods.  Rising hatred of minorities, religions, women, gays, and everyone in between.  This virus crept in pretending to be news.  Pretending to be documentaries, tv shows, music, education, religion, support groups, medicine, employment, and mega corporations.  It distracted us from ourselves, and separated all of us into tiny isolated factions.  Factions for anything at all created solely to argue with an opposite group.  Once separated we lose our collective power, and we can be conquered.  Not by an invading army, but from within.  It strips us of who we are, manipulates our thinking, and breaks us down into easily digestible consumer incomes.  When everything and everyone has an agenda- what is real?  Are my hopes and dreams real, or deposited by a long con corporation?  Are my values real, or are they merely unachievable standards put in place so that I remain socially disappointed with the dream?  War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength- and the lie became the truth.  We are living in George Orwell’s 1984.

1/29/20    The death of Kobe Bryant to me

I am well aware that I open myself up to a lot of dislike with this opinion written over 2 days on Facebook.  And I say this being a sports fan- AND one of those people in complete shock on Sunday at 3pm when I saw the news.   Kobe has also been in one aspect of my awareness for more than 20 years.  I am very aware of his entire story.  This is long, it had to be.

Let’s see if I can say this and stay somewhere in the middle of the road. Kobe Bryant’s helicopter accident and death on Sunday January 26, 2020 is a tragedy.  So are the other 8 deaths involved. He impacts so many because of how intensely, and how long he has been in our public consciousness. Sports fans feel like they have lost someone they know, even though they never did know him.  Either way, he was an icon.  An icon with an unexpected death.  That produces shock.  Also, for much of his career he was defined as a complete egotistical jerk.  Admit it fans, you know that is true.  It’s a common trait among everyone who reaches the ultimate peak with any skill.  That’s how they get there.  Kobe is also very well known for a sexual assault and a halfhearted admission with his wife sitting next to him in the 90's.
Yes, tragedy is sad.  He inspired many to play a sport. However, he did not inspire very many at all to become better at becoming genuine human beings, or become better men that do not cheat on their wives and commit assault.  In fact, I recall a lot of men laughing off the assault.  How many men may have been inspired there?  He was a hero to some, a jerk to others, a man that did damage to women, a man’s-man, a champion, a fierce competitor, and for quite a few he was the “Who died? Oh, the athlete. Eh, so?”  He has many in shock, and is reminding many of a trauma that they are white-knuckling their way through because they fear speaking out about sexual assault.

 
He was one of thousands of human beings to die on Sunday.  All of those people had friends and families that are in grief too.  Many more tragic than Kobe and his daughter.  He really was just a person with a skill.  He was definitely not a saint that altered our world, but he did alter the world for some.  Does he need to be eulogized non-stop like this? I always say that death does not wash away the sins of life.  You can speak ill of the dead if they lived that way.  Right? Or am I wrong?  I mean where was this type of public outpouring when some guy armed beyond all reasonable means shot nearly 500 people in Las Vegas?  Where are our values on the non-stop insult and corruption machine that is our government?  Why is less said about the mothers and children murdered every single day in domestic violence?  You can say apples and oranges here, but is it really?  This is all tragedy and daily trauma to our mental well-being, filled with unexpected destruction of humans of all shapes and sizes.  I guess what I am asking is- why does losing Kobe have such value over the larger issues effecting ALL of us?
It is definitely awkward to speak about this event, but it is much harder to hear and see him everywhere as if he was humanities savior.  I appreciate that he changed for the better as a person.  I appreciate his drive and determination- to a point (but that’s why he is who he is, and I am who I am).  I appreciate the role he took on as a father.  We are human, we make bad judgments and do wrong. There is no simple good or bad.  But when those wrongs go on for a decade plus, and include sexual assault- they cannot be erased by an unexpected tragic death.  They exist.  And to push them aside to praise and worship the celebrity, while hiding the perpetrator behind a curtain, we do more damage to victims, families, and the everyday people that pass on invisibly.  He is hero-worshipped, while sexual assault victims, the families, and the rest of us remain blamed or all together invisible.

I hope to not be misinterpreted.  I would never say don’t mourn what he meant for you.  But I would ask you why are you so impassioned to share your grief regarding an athlete compared to any other tragedy?
I can’t seem to phrase that last line right.  What I mean is to share one social media post on this event making you sad seems fair.  A few news stories and collective review of his life on ESPN, seems fair.  But the media onslaught and overwhelming postings on all of social media is too much.  Yes, probably shock induced a lot of these responses.  But that’s not a reason to make this event larger than it actually is in life.
I just briefly saw an article the same day as Kobe's accident from North Carolina about a husband that had previously shot himself and still had his guns at home.  He murdered his wife, his toddler son, 2 baby daughters, and the family dog before shooting himself.  The article focused on the recent mental health law gaining popularity to remove weapons from a residence if someone is deemed unstable.  North Carolina opted not to put that to a vote.  Isn’t that a worse tragedy than a superstar athlete (plus 8 more, lets be honest- not many stories are leading with the other victims) dying in a helicopter crash?
I also feel a strong need to add to everyone here again: I am not at all saying don’t mourn Kobe.  I mourn Kobe.  He went from a 19 year-old kid to a 41 year-old NBA legend within my lifetime.  I'm a sports fan.  In that time, he grew up.  So did I.  The larger issues of the positive and negative values of sports, media bias and manipulation, or celebrity worship in our culture are lengthy and for another time.   All that I want to express is the viewpoint of many that are out here in the sea of mourners that are feeling uneasy with all of this as something more than a tragedy that killed 9 people.  They have lost loved ones.  They have been sexually assaulted.  They have been bullied, humiliated, and ridiculed by those better at sports.  They may be in their communities being real true heroes.  Heroes to their families.  Heroes to their poverty stricken communities.  They may be champions of civil rights.  They may fiercely defend their environment.   They give everything up for others.  They put away their own hopes and dreams for the betterment of others.  Ask yourself honestly, did Kobe ever do that?  Or, did he put everyone else far behind obsessively becoming the best at a sport?  To winning above all else?  He was a man.  A man that was really damn good at a sport.  It entertained and thrilled many of us.  And when we look at what he did in his life without the sports glorification rose colored glasses- he did not do much else.

1/6/20       I'm a why person

I dropped two more framed artworks off at Monroe Community College this week for the permanent collection.  Two are already installed in a hallway in building one, these new two are going into the library in the graphic novel section.  I’m very proud to be a part of permanency at MCC.  A community college gets a lot of knocks, but I can’t credit this school enough with making who I am today.  I was not an academic student coming out of high school.  I did not like school.  I did not feel that I was actually learning anything of value beyond names and dates.  I am a “why” person.  Why was there war?  Slavery?  Democracy?  I never really felt that I had anything but a superficial response.  MCC had some amazing faculty in my day, as I am sure they have had after my day.  I had a creative writing 101 teacher that really made me enjoy writing.  It was always a huge task before that class.  Facts, citations, structure.  She introduced me to emotion, description, and power.  I also took a class on skeptical thinking that focused on really fun subjects like bigfoot, ghosts, psychics, and UFO’s.  That was where I discovered James Randi, junk science, and skeptical thinking.  I have not even touched on the art department, who literally changed my life and introduced me to a huge world of Art and expression.  It put me on the path of being thirsty.  Thirsty for not only understanding the world, but most importantly seeking self-understanding.  The “why” question finally had a purpose, Why am I this way?

12/23/19       Harley's Education 

This will be short.  Today we put our beautiful dog Harley to sleep.  She was the dog love of our lives.  Grief has never been easy.  I needed a guide, and never had one.  No one talked about the hard life things with me when I was young, or as an adult.  I felt that I failed with death many times early on.  I experienced the loss of family and friends, and handled it poorly.  By poorly, I mean- I let it burn a hole inside of me.  Through my adult years, and with my wife Chris we made a pact.  We can do life differently than we experienced, and we have.  Many people say- "it's just a dog".  No, she was not.  She was in our inner circle, and helped create a "home".  Which we did not grow up having.  We had shelter.  A home is s a supportive connection, a safe space to be yourself.  She taught us how to love unconditionally.  She helped us let go of what no longer matters.  She taught us to focus on the home and each other.  She was the catalyst to breaking the cycles we both wanted so desperately to leave behind. This morning we both brought her back to the vet after the horribly hard weekend of her good-bye tour.  We both stayed for the whole time.  We both cried.  I held her head and whispered in her ear until it was all over.  I cried more intensely than I ever have in my entire life.  I felt every minute, and did not disassociate.  She taught me to be present, and to feel things.  There is no thank you big enough, and no sadness deep enough.  To the very end she taught me that life really needs to be felt.  I was not just a bystander, numb to the world.  I carried her home, and we buried her in the backyard.  We all stood together, Myself, Chris, our son Asher, and our other 3 dogs: Fiona, JJ, and Barryallen- who is a puppy that only knew Harley for a week.  It was a pure moment of love and respect.  In the spring we will plant the most beautiful tree we can find where she rests watching over all of us.  

12/20/19    I was never really an Illustrator
I went to college for Illustration.  In my early days, that was where the exciting work in Art was being done.  I was never the most skilled artist.  I had a couple of shaky classes that did not really push me to do something more, or be more critical of what I was producing.  But, I was in love with the artwork that I was seeing being produced in illustration in the late 80’s and 90’s.  The concepts and styles were beautiful, and it bled into my love of comics.  The same boom was happening there with some of the same artists.  I never had much money in college, who does?  But as I neared finishing my BFA, I really had no way of creating some of the promotional work that I was seeing as a necessity.  I could not afford the $500 portfolio, and the high end prints.  Not to mention that my work was really not up to the quality that I saw all around me.  It’s not for lack of effort, or putting in the time.  I regularly worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week on my art.  Some of the basics of design were never introduced to me, and I was not the most self-aware conceptual person at the time.  Some important aspects were never shared with me in school.  Connections, who you know; is very important.  Social skills, how you interact with others that can help you is critical.  And when reproducing work, you can’t go cheap.  All 3 of these aspects were really not good for me.  As far as reproducing work, I tried to go cheap and did everything possible the wrong way.  I learned from it, but not without endless failure.  The other 2 aspects, I have never been able to overcome.  I have no real contacts in the “old boy network”.  I had no family guides in art, school, or business.  And social skills?  Ha!  I’m a lone wolf.  I spent nearly 20 years unhappy.  I did not like the artwork, or myself.  Trying to be what I am not.  At odds with myself.  Pretending to be what I really did not want to be.  Watching the world pass me by.  During all of this was when I spent a lot of time working on my own self-awareness, of which I have written numerous journals about on here.  One of the elements that began to creep into my artwork was the extreme willingness to take a risk.  To explore.  To dare greatly and fail.  I started creating an alternative care free style.  I fell in love with the making, and the freedom of not caring.  I am still madly in love with it today.  It dramatically improved the quality and content of my artwork.  It put it at its best on par with what I see out in the world, and at its worst s lesson for me to keep growing with my self-awareness.  They say that the artist can be seen in all of their work.  I agree.  Each work is a conversation that I am having with myself and my materials.  Sometimes it’s an argument, sometimes it's loving, sometimes it’s deep, sometimes superficial.  But, what is vital to say is- that it is mine. 

​11/27/19    Your 2nd Amendment opportunity!

The right to bear arms (against an oppressive government).  Supporters, those who fear the government becoming an out of control entity that suppresses your rights- NOW is your moment!  You have the spotlight to show your full support of American freedoms. You can choose to go have a grand slam breakfast in Denny's while having an AK-47 strapped on, claiming this is a fine example of your right to bear arms.  Or you can gather to march into Washington DC for impeachment against a corrupt traitorous group of criminals stripping away all of your other rights.  They have sold out America to foreign nations to line their own pockets, not your freedom.  It is time to put up, or shut up.

11/12/19     Hoarding thoughts

I hoard things to remind me of good thinking because I’m terrified to forget everything that has changed me.  I think I am one of those weird people that clawed myself out of negative thinking and negative world views, and I don’t want anything that helped me to be lost or forgotten.   I’d be curious to see what my FB algorithms are from what I post and search for through Facebook and Google and Amazon. I post personal thoughts and art, search for bizarre and obscure information, and buy everything from the dull screen protectors to underwear that expands when dunked in water. Good luck seeing my revolution coming billionaire cabal.

11/4/19      Metaphors that fight through the mental confusion into Daybreak

So, to be clear.  I am continuing to attempt blogging even with neurological and cognitive issues.  I'll have to keep things shorter to avoid monumental mental blunders.

I have just finished watching the first season of "Daybreak" on Netflix, it's based on a graphic novel of the same name.  The apocalypse happens, turning all the adults into zombies repeating their last words and eating kids.  The whole series begins with a humorous situation of the main character directly speaking to the camera, and explaining the kids tribes.  The jocks, cheerleaders, science nerds, ect.  The metaphors are obvious: adults devouring children, social circles that  fight for a misdirected self importance, an immature female empowerment that contrasts an immature male ego.  The change in gears happens midway through the season when they delve deep into the development of females in a male dominated society, and interpersonal relationships.  And I, for one; love this show.

10/14/19        The Invisible

Is there anything worse than dealing with a debilitating medical problem that is invisible on the outside?  I'm 3.5 years in to an ever frustrating problem.  No doctor has been able to figure it out, and it is temporarily tagged as a "Vestibular disorder".  I look healthy and fine on the outside, even good for my age.  But my brain and vision are bobbing around in a tank of water.  I can't walk a straight line, whenever I am up walking- I lose my balance.  I am incredibly fatigued.  And I struggle to read, to write, and work on anything complex.  I have had my testing.  I have had so many medical visits, and most of the time I hear that I'm "fine", let's just "keep an eye on this".  My family and co-workers can easily forget and get frustrated with me.  I can get frustrated with myself.  I chug along through my days, because I have to- I have no other choice.  When I was a kid growing up in an alcoholic household, I became the invisible kid.  The afterthought to any event.  That's what happens with alcoholics, addiction needs come first.  It psychologically dogged me into my adulthood.  Now, that invisible kid has an invisible illness.  It is so strange not being able to trust your own body.

10/11/19        Falling Short

From my artist confessions quotes: The more you understand about art, the less you like your result.  There it is.  The artist confession series finally finds something.  The more that I understand about art, the more skills that I develop, the less I approve of my results.  I may reach a point in work where I know what to do; but I fall frustratingly short in knowledge, in technique, in my intellectual abilities, or my hand skills.  All while fighting off the pressures of the outside world.  Pressure to do "something else" to make money.  Something else to climb the ladders of success.  Something else to stop rocking the boat.  Something else that does not make people uncomfortable.  And yet, we keep going.  Trying to make the next one perfect, but it stays just out of our grasp.  Knowing this battle, it is no wonder that so many artists go crazy.  Commit suicide.  Become addicted to drugs and alcohol.  Isolate, give up, or just become intolerable jerks.  That internal civil war rages on to destroy us, and give us salvation.

9/29/19      Art in the dark

"The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance" -Aristotle.  It is a strange thing to create something personal.  To dig out what you may not even realize is inside, to be looked at, judged, criticized, praised, and ignored. To constantly keep going in the face of these demons.  To find that daily reason to start again while the world goes on.  For many artists that I know, it is no longer a choice.  It is the way we unabashedly speak when our words fail.  And we do it even when we go without recognition.  Without awards, money, or position.  How would you label that artist that creates in the dark?

9/11/19      Figure out why you are

"Be diligent in discovery, honest in revelation, legitimate in truth, and worthy of change."

This quote has been a part of my entire adult life.  They may be the most important group of words that I have ever known.  They are words to rescue, to inspire, to drive, to change, and to save.  Figure out who you are, and maybe even why you are.

8/30/19        Corners

Like most every American, and probably most of the world, our inept lying president has worn me out.  I avoid the news.  The daily thumping drum of lies and insults, and flat out racism has had a draining effect like no other I have experienced.  I don't understand how someone can lie so blatantly every time he speaks.  I don't understand the widespread hate.  Nor do I understand the lack of fight against this in our congress.  We are an imperfect nation, but this is so much worse than anything I have experienced.  I can only strive to make my corner better, and hope for a time when this purely evil mentality is beat back under the rocks.

8/26/19        When the dead visit

I've read some philosophies that say the dead visit you in your dreams.  Over the years I've had a few dreams of my father, and sometimes they have helped me move to a deeper understanding of loss.  The last 2 nights my dreams have been filled with people that have passed away.  My father twice, a client that I worked with in social services, and an ex-sister in-law.  I have not had a stretch of dreams like this that I can remember.  It needles old trauma that carries into the waking life, it's both calming and stressful at the same time.

7/24/19       Artists Confessions
I have always made notes and snippets of ideas in sketchbooks and journals to support concepts, or just about thoughts in general.  Recently I started converting them to something I called: Artist Confessions.  I will add more as they pop out.  Here is what I have posted across a few Social Media platforms.

1. If you support it, and can’t own it out in the open; then there is a problem with that belief.
2. Sometimes I get to the point of frustration that I just become silent.
3. I let the art guide me, to decide its own path with each mark.  It is the only way I know.
4. There are some mistakes that I struggle to move on from, but everyone else forgets.
5. Sometimes I title artwork because a song is on and I just like a lyric. 

    It has nothing to do with the  work.
6. More times than not, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.
7. Artists don’t have a 2-hour movie, or a 3-minute song to make people feel mad, or happy,

    to cry, or to think.  But I try so hard.
8. I have not risked enough to legitimize what risks I do take.
9. I spend so much time making art and sleeping awful, that I confuse reality and dreams.
10. I am always thinking about art, even when I am talking to you.
11. If someone looks at my artwork and feels uncomfortable or uneasy, for just a moment;

      they feel my life.
12. Yes.  That was really done on purpose.
13. I silently disagree with your view on “dark art” being ugly.  That ugliness is pure truth. 

      Truth is beautiful.
14. Most artists have to come to terms with living a life of little consequence & notice,

      and keep on working.

15. Monetizing and greed is killing us all.
16. You never stop looking for answers.

17. You either play the game, or you are left out.

18. If you only look at art & artists through the distorted lens of a career, you miss

      what makes life worthwhile.

19. Art is an exploration, not a style or a box that you are locked into once 

      you have a success.

20. The more you understand about art, the less you like the result.

7/4/19         Nationalism

"There ain't no Russians, and there ain't no yanks.  Just corporate criminals playin' with tanks." 

-The Call, the Walls came Down

I love my country. I support every veteran, and go out of my way at work to help them. I don’t hate all Republicans. I don’t love all Democrats. I would literally die to save the values of my country, but I’m not celebrating July 4th with thousands of innocent people and scattered families in cages. I can’t celebrate when every day people are shot for being black. Where women have to answer to higher standards for less respect and fear of being assaulted, and then blamed for it. Where some brain dead teen draws a swastika on a desk-wears blackface-or sports a confederate flag, or rapes an unconscious woman behind a dumpster- but is not held accountable because boys will be boys. Where people are shunned for what gender they love. Do we have freedom? Yep, I’ll eat. I’ll sit in the sun. I’ll be with good people. But I'm not in a celebratory mood. I am not blind to our growing crimes against humanity as a nation. All while some filthy idiot masturbates as tanks drive by to John Phillip Souza. Is this really even freedom? If you think this is freedom, then you are not free. It is just a stale superficial old white man trying to desperately avoid irrelevance as his time comes to an end by ordering so much wasted money to drive tanks around as a form of unchecked Nationalism.  Where will your thoughts be today? Flag waiving at a parade celebrating how little you matter except as a tax based ATM? Will you drink more beer than usual and argue just a bit hotter because we are all so tense? Will you wear a mask that says “this is just good enough”? Is this our value?

6/4/19       the beautiful ugly

Making art is hard enough. Trying to make art about non-beautiful moments, to be in some way beautiful enough to just not be ugly is that moment in the movie SPEED where Sandra Bullock has to jump the freeway gap driving a bus. It’s not possible without a little magic or trickery. Some days the magic to mire about in the ugliness and be beautiful is there. Other days you just soak up the ugly and go on to the next one.

5/31/19      Sharing a thought to myself on Saying “I’m good” 

I am low key on my path. I understand this is not what some want. They want friends and loved ones who have good things for the world to be shouting from the rooftops. I know That I am awkward and odd, I embrace that. I prefer to just wander on my way. Those who want to be on the rooftop, I will hold your ladder. But trust me when I say “I’m good”. All of my life I had one big goal, to find my way. No big job, big bank account, giant social circles, fame or fortune. No mansions, European vacations, or luxuries. That frustrated people in my life. I simply wanted to find my way with the adventure in my head. I knew it before I didn’t know it. It was one simple goal, but not an easy one. When you are lost, it is easy to just say I want to be “found”. The hard part is to understand, there is no one else looking for you. Yes, we can be distracted by life. Love, family, job, social media and a million other things. But, you are still there needing to be found. Being lost has terrible moments, but you also have the opportunity to take risks. Risk is all we have, isn’t it? Being safe is not all it’s cracked up to be. It is even fair to say that playing it safe is not safe at all. If there is anything I really want to give out to anyone reading this far, it is a strong belief that the inner journey is so very worth the time. It is more valuable than any money or status. More memorable than any photo or souvenir. To be lost in a universe and find yourself, allows you to mean it when you say “I’m good”.

​5/24/19       Make for yourself 

“You can make average work for average people, or you can delight a small group of lifelong fans.”
This is me. As much as Ayn Rand is a nut job, the Fountainhead is a great story for me to think about art. It changed my path for the better. Better quality, and a better personal approach.  Many people who read this may not understand or agree with this mentality. Art is a notoriously hard career.  You want to reach as many people and connections as possible to fortify how you survive.  Unless you are willing to survive doing something else, and make art in between the lines.  That is me.  If you look at my artwork and think “WTH?”, think about doing what you love- but not at all the way you want.  For years. What you love begins to fade, and you better rescue it before it’s gone. Art, whether it’s beautiful flowers or dark political satire- is art. It’s expression. And when you remove 99% of that self-expression to please others, little is left to inspire making more work. As I’ve grown over the last 30 years of making art, I’ve moved more towards what I want to make when I want to make it. Maybe one day it’s a gorgeous sunset in my town through waving flags, and maybe the next it’s a dead crow I photographed on the street. It cannot ever be about everybody else. It has to be about me first. I control nothing but the creation, after that it goes wherever it goes. It’s hated, it’s loved, it’s confusing- enlightening- or indifferent. By then, I’ve let go. I’ve already had the adventure.

5/21/19       Truthful advice 
I would love to say I have answers on art, and life, and surviving society- but the truth is I do not have those answers.  So, I’d better stick to what I know.
Happiness will come to you.  Sadly, no.  Happiness is work, as much work as any job.  You have to commit to working on your thoughts and your behaviors. Be in the present moment, not the past and not the future.  That only floods the body with chemicals designed to create anxiety, action, depression- all of which change who you are.  Eventually it becomes permanent.  Same with happiness.  In Taoist concepts, your brain is blank.  Like a clear glass of water.  Add dirt, you have muddy water.  Add shit, you have shit water.  This can be learned as a conscious choice.  The alternative is the unconscious negative rapid fire of negative thinking, which can also become your norm.
Planning your life will work out.  No, life on life’s terms.  We all have plans.  Maybe the weekend vacation goes perfect, but the career and life expectations better be flexible.  Rolling with life as it comes is better than having all the plans and getting rolled over.
Real love lasts forever.  This is another no.  Love, and staying in love is also constant work.  It is not effortless.  Much like happiness, if you forget to work at it daily, it fades until you find yourself lost in the woods.
Someone else will take care of that [problem].  Nah, they won’t.  Most people can barely take care of their own circle of problems.  Rarely will they jump into your problems.  Trust in yourself to take care of even the towering problems yourself.  Done right or done wrong,  will not matter in just a few hours or days.  But you being able to manage things yourself, will matter the rest of your life.
Getting old is a long way away.  Blink, and you are old.  It happens to all of us in an instant.  Keep yourself in the present, and time can slow down.  Forget to pay attention, and time speeds up.
There is always time.  There is not.  None of us know what will be.  Focus on what is really important to you and let that other shit go.
Family is everything.  NO.  This is usually touted by those who let their thinking go unconscious, or they have had a fairly good family experience.  A family is what you make from what is around you.  Maybe friends, maybe siblings, maybe parents, maybe co-workers.  It is yours to make and depend on when you need it.  You are not obligated to blood.
Money is not everything.  True, but it gets you everything else that you need or want.  If your life is based on greed, you will have wasted your life amassing what cannot go with you to the next plane of existence.  If you are careful, and balance money in with needs, you will be ok.
Science doesn’t know everything.  True, but what it does know is pretty solid.  And failing to honor good science just leads to scams, illness, waste, destruction, and sometimes even death.
The world is equal opportunity, if you work for it.  NO. Ideally we all want fairness.  It’s pummeled into us, but it is rarely dealt out.  Equality is a level playing field.  Equity is giving people what they need to succeed.  Person A, may need a job.  Person B, may need a job and training.  Person C, may need a job, training, practice, interview clothes, and transportation.  Just having the job there is not equality because each person does not have the same starting point.  Society needs to dole out equity, not equality.

4/30/19       Alive or Dead

About 10 years ago I had an experience that really left me wondering.  I have lifelong sleep issues, and I had gone days without much sleep in a very pressure packed time period of my life.  It was day 4 or so, when I was sitting at a red light waiting to turn.  A van crossed in front of me, and the morning sunlight played a trick with the windows and passengers.  They looked like twisted, laughing demons staring right back at me.  Later that day I wondered if I had died and I was somewhere in-between being alive and being dead, a purgatory for the sake of explanation.  There is a great movie with Tim Robbins called "Jacob's Ladder", focusing on the idea of in-between and hallucinations on comprehending the philosophy of reality. Ever since that day, I have wondered if I am alive or dead.  How could I know that this form of reality, is indeed real, and not the last sets of electrical charges rolling across my brain?

4/29/19      the 27 Club

​This "club" is the designated name for the group of artist/musicians that have died at the age of 27.  This is a group of famous musicians and other creative types that may have overdosed, been murdered, or flat out died.  I realized the other day, that the most difficult time of my entire life happened at the age of 27.  Death, relationship issues, career issues, and interpersonal conflicts welled to a perfect storm.  I wondered if the reason 27 is that time of life for so many is because it it a period caught between youth and adult, but not quite either. You have to let go of a care-free age, a period for some of school, or less demanding employment.  Some may live at home, or be in their first apartment.  It's the beginning of change.  Relationships from a younger age fade, along with the vigor of being part of societies young set.  Responsibilities get real, realities become large, and the mortal timeline becomes a part of your own timeline.  It's an age of clashing  identities, and a time where depression and anxiety tower over you like storm clouds.  You can find yourself teetering on the very edge of the abyss.  Do you end your story as is?  Or do you continue on knowing that the vanity of aging, and the responsibility of surviving and thriving will be your baggage? 

4/22/19      Negative Noise

Those in power want you to focus on the non-stop negatives in the world that they are sending out to every corner.  To distract you, to make you believe the world is burning.  Because when you break free to focus on all the positive out here, and change your world- they lose all their power over you.  This is not any type of conspiracy theory, this is divide and conquer.  Those with wealth and power are few, and they want to keep what they have- they are the haves.  The rest of the world is made to believe chaos rules.  That we need to be ruled.  We are the have-nots.  Break free in your little corner of the world, see what is positive; and watch their hold over you slip away.  They fear nothing more.

​4/16/19  The Notre Dame Cathedral fire
One of the cores of my art is a fear of losing every day moments and ideas.  The loss of social interactions, stories, concepts, and even emotions disappearing as time keeps moving has long been a factor in what I choose as subject matter.  This became a core of my artwork as in my own life so many sections are gone.  No photos, no memoirs, no video, no keepsakes, and no one else as a witness.  Notre Dame hit me like a brick to the head because this beautiful place was the very beginning of my art studies.  It was my introduction to art history, and a pivotal point in my self-awareness that led me to appreciate the beauty in the world instead of being a self-consumed train-wreck.  To watch this place burn was devastating to me.  And the days that followed with all the other types of world needs chiming in that “the ocean and forests are  still here and need help, it’s a symbol of a religion that has killed millions, it’s just a building- Christ wanted people to prosper, not structures” was also painful.  Not that any of these causes is less than saving 900 years of history from becoming a charred mess, in fact they are more important.  But for me, I watched my own humble origin in art burn.  That was hard, and all I could do was to make art to capture this moment so that did not burn away as well.  

4/2/19  Art Notes- Self-Esteem

The struggle that every artist has in searching for the production of satisfying artwork is always burdened with an extreme version of isolation.  It's not too dramatic to say that the determined artist is in a fight for their very survival.  Most of the artwork that is produced feels like a setback, a gut-punch, a deep reaching challenge to your self-esteem.  In order to grow, you have to look back and reflect, but each reflection is a challenge to keep going.  It's a debilitating hurdle that can weigh you down.

3/25/19  My Health and Adapting

I have had a physical battle going on more than 2 years.  Something went bonkers with my balance system (technically: Vestibular system).  I have had a few diagnosis's ruled out, and at the moment its called a Vestibular disorder.  In my head I feel like my vision is floating in a jar of water held by someone running.  I walk like I'm drunk, and I've fallen a few times.  I can't visually track very well to read or type.  Right now as I type, its a giant struggle.  I'm ok if I'm laying down, and surprisingly- driving (movement without me walking) is ok.  So why am I writing this?  Well, I have had to change a lot of my habits and activities.  And there was a lot of guilt and self-arguments about what I wasn't doing.  But, one day I had a revelation-  I was just going to go all in with what I wanted, instead of what I thought that I should be doing.  Those "should" thoughts kill you.  I completely threw myself into 2 types of youtube videos to replace reading.  Educational (of all types), and Horror.  Horror I have explained many times.  I have grown up with it, the make believe terrors are never as bad as reality.  Plus, I have a dark side- and that's ok.  The videos that I have been hooked on educationally have been culturally based.  In particular, the channel "advchina".  The format is so engrossing.  2 guys who are from America and South Africa ride motorcycles all over China while discussing topics of Chinese culture in depth.  Not only do you get to see the real country (as well as other areas of Asia), but you also get a very level even view of what China actually is about below the surface.  It strips all the gloss of other countries intricate cultures away to showcase the real society.  The positives and the negatives.  This is the possibility of what the internet can be, a richness of exploration.  So, I am doing all of this because I want to.  I could go the woe is me route, but I choose to fill my personal time with making mountains of artwork, and exploring new frontiers of understanding the world and myself.

3/22/19  Neglect

"One of the reasons many people don't have what they want is neglect.  Neglect starts out as an infection and then develops into a disease." - Jim Rohn   ...it starts small, with the little things.  And before you know it you are 5 years into a life you don't recognize, and don't want.

3/20/19  Change

When you change who you are to become a better husband, child, parent, wife, friend- human being; they never tell you the old bad you stays with you forever, it haunts you.  It haunts me. It pains me, I even physically wince thinking about my days of the thoughtless me.  I realize that I simply did not know better.  I was not taught better.  I gave in to peer pressure, or weak self-esteem.  I also know that through education, self-examination and philosophy- I dragged myself up.  I'm proud of that.  I understand that I have overcome, and outrun what many never get away from in their lifetime.  I'm privileged.  Which has also led me to have time to reach out and help others while I propel myself along.  And the harsh truth is, the old me will never shake free.  It hangs there like a bad meal.  It haunts me daily, it's a source of embarrassment.  Like I stated, I physically and emotionally wince when I think about my old faults.  The trick is learning to accept and live with them.  Because the past cannot ever be altered.

3/7/19  My City

I know why I love my city, Rochester New York.  It's because I admire overcoming adversity in people.  Overcoming mistakes, and poor skills.  Becoming a new, better person.  That is also my city.  Rochester has its flaws.  We have crime and high poverty, a long history of racism, and an urban sprawl that has created a generally unappealing aesthetic everywhere.  Those are issues that are possible to work on.  What is often not noted is how we as a city are continuing to overcome 2 dramatic failings for homegrown world business leaders: Kodak and Xerox.  Kodak whiffed with discovering digital photos, and desperately clung to film based cameras until well after the death toll rang.  They employed huge numbers in Rochester, and were vital to the economy.  That decline has been long and destructive to local families and local business.  Over the course of just 20 years, it wiped thousands off of payrolls.  That alone, in a smaller city dependent upon a large company would create a ghost town.  Xerox also whiffed on being first in developing a computer operating system in 1973, which was sold with little understanding of the value to no less than Steve Jobs, who then reinvented Apple.  Copies have gone the way of film based photos.  They are becoming Dinosaurs, just like Xerox and Kodak.  And yet, Rochester is still here.  Still fighting its issues, and still finding ways to overcome the adversity.  We have an amazing variety of Arts in our area.  Easy access to the Fingerlakes and open park and land spaces that many cities would kill for close by.  We rarely have traffic issues, a strong variety of the seasons, and Fall is the Best on the East coast.  Lots of farms, lots of small business opportunities, the Genesee River and Falls smack dab in the middle of the city.  Housing is extremely affordable, and largely NYS is progressive in the actions it takes towards citizen rights.  We have multiple great vineyards, and a long history with beautiful high end crafts (ceramics, woodworking, metal working).  I have left in the past.  Explored other areas, but always returned.  And I know it's because the city itself keeps fighting forward instead of looking backward.​

2/20/19  Kanye​

Last night, during the February drawing challenge ("Penci-uary") I was working with the word of the day "Great".  I chose to do Kanye West (see inspirations page under "music" and as I began work I was challenging my concept.  Because Kanye recently was interviewed and declared slavery to be a choice, and was at the white house for a staged -and quite unhinged, minstrel show for the press, I did not want a pretty picture.  His recent mental health concerns aside, what he was saying and doing made me sick to my stomach.  I was working fairly aggressive with the digital materials, and against my aesthetic judgments.  I changed my approach to challenge the idea of ugly applications and format.  I found that I was having a full argument and discussion on balancing the beauty and the ugliness of art in my head.  Each layer was a chore.  Colors were a fight, and even the composition became a battle. I specifically used a compositional error to create visual tension and uncomfortablness.  Bringing his swelled head just to and beyond the edges. Creating layers of color, strokes, and scratches.  Over dramatizing lines and shapes within his face, and I found the struggle of balance to be very mentally rewarding.  I have always taken days of monthly art challenges to completely experiment, or dramatically change course.  It keeps me fresh.

2/11/19  Art Notes- Career

This past week was a week of ups & downs & sideways. A type of week that comes from all sides: social, political, personal, health, art.  In these trying times, art rescues me. It’s a personal type of inner rescue that comes with a challenge when it goes beyond my own skull.  I find myself replying to people chiming in to what I do over and over: […hahaha yes, I did make that... Thank you for saying I’m so creative!...yes I know I could have HAD an art career, but I really love what I do.]

Many careers have really funny sides and common reactions. I only know art and social services. It’s funny how all the comments we make to those careers , or fields of interest we really don’t understand tend to produce generally the same commentary. For social services, when people hear I work with the homeless in mental health and addiction it’s almost always the same: […I don’t know how you do it…god bless you for what you do…oh wow! that’s amazing.]  That last one usually translates to: gosh I’m uncomfortable, can we talk about sports or movies instead?

In regards to my choices, Teaching was amazing for many years, I loved the interaction and excitement of teaching art to students that simply wanted to be great.  But, when the population changed from wanting to make great art, to wanting to do as little as possible for an expected high grade and a paper degree, my time was up. When commercial art buyers or art buyers went from investing in great intelligent illustration to accompany the printed word, to using wildly generic stock images, and thinking they owned the art copyrights forever.  And wanting hours of changes for free, or expected actual artwork for less than a fraction of the true cost, my time was up.  When people think you are only good if you constantly sell your soul and show work in galleries, my time was up. When I am free, I can make anything.  Any way I want.  No style limitations, no content restrictions.  In the past 3-4 years, I have been producing hundreds of artworks a year and cannot wait to work.  The quality (generally) far surpasses my wildest expectations AND I’m still not happy- well, that’s my time to feel like I have lived up to my post college goals. My goals were never lofty.  I just desperately wanted to make really good to even great artwork.  I had no other clear aspirations.  They came into the light later, after I not only figured myself out, but I also targeted what I thought to be important.  I make art.  I serve my community.  I’m a happy family guy. I don’t need more, I needed this. I did not need whatever people desperately search for out there to fill the empty void. If money, or power genuinely works for you, more success to you. It doesn’t for me.  It may be easy to argue you don’t miss what you never had, but I spent a lot of my free time trying to find peace within myself.  I had a lot of bookstore and library time.  I was able to begin my own free education.  I pursued a variety of philosophies about art.  About life.  About Philosophy itself.  I miss just browsing bookstores.  I learned so much on lazy days.  One key find was: If this is all the time I have in this life, if this is all there is- I wanted to find what I needed.  Across many miles, and many failures- I found a good path.  I owe that saving grace to art, and education, and a belief that there is something more than money and ego, and all the other happiness deterrents that we all encounter.

So, when it comes to my artwork. When it comes to making hundreds of pieces a year, I make it for my intense love of art making and the meditation that it brings me as I work. It allows me to focus on where my energy needs to go. My love of confronting weak ideas and dark places, and my love of changing my little corner of the world. If people really want my type of art, they will find me.  It took a long time to come to peace with what I thought was expected of me, and what I actually wanted. But I would not change a step. Failures, misfires and poor choice have become part of my process.  A process of growth leading to the end.  All of this has altered me, and to quote Francis Bacon: [I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him.] Of course, Francis was bat-shit crazy. But, that is a capital T truth.

I have a lot of people ask how to do it. I have no answer. My way was my way.  There was no formula.  My way was to try and fail, many times not knowing if I was on the wrong path and doomed, or heading somewhere that would help me.  I learned that the adventure was not “out there”, it was in my head. Not out on a mountain. I failed over and over until the obvious lesson sunk in.  I’m responsible for it all. Every choice, every thought, every way I see myself and others. Waiting for someone to rescue you, or for the world to change leaves you standing out in the cold at a bus stop, with no bus coming. I preach the same mentality at work with staff and clients in my Social Services job. You have to be the change.

12/28/18  Addiction

Why do a lot of people with addiction and mental health issues hate the staff?  5 out of 100 is a legitimate staff conflict/personality clash.  Maybe more, depending on the quality of the organization that employs the staff.  95 out of 100 is that staff must manage the client with truth and reality. That is the only way to grow, and possibly win the battle.  It becomes the defense of an addict to point the finger at the counselor and everyone-everything else as the problem.  The first stage to change is realizing how much hurt is locked away that drives the addiction, and unlocking that door.  We pull back the curtain on things trying to be ignored or kept secret, because "secrets keep you sick".

​12/17/18  A Concept in my Artwork

I have always tried to be a visual journalist.  I don’t think that I understood why until recently, but as I have grown older I have been able to identify what my art purpose really is.  Like every single person, my years, months, days, minutes and seconds are made up of small experiences.  Choices are made. People come and go.  What really keeps your life record?  All those experiences disappear into the large murkiness of time.  What remains of who “YOU” were?  What you witnessed? What you felt? Loved? Hated?  Dreamed of?  And ran from?

We live a linear life.  But we spend so much time in the past within our heads, that I question if our lives are actually linear.  They are more loops that we age within.  I see so many of these loops that have lost experiences.   What happens each moment fades into obscurity?   We become ghosts.  I’m trying to preserve some of that journalistically, some narratives, and some personal internal dialogues of the time.  I attempt to be a keeper of small and large moments that will disappear after they are over. They might be a memory, or completely lost. They may become stories that will be told, or invisible markers to an invisible life.  Think of all the human stories that happen all day, every day.  They become forgotten.  Lives are whittled down to common shared name, with birth and death dates carved in stone.  I feel responsible to capture a small part of that, but often feel like I miss the mark.  But isn’t that too part of the experience?

 Sometimes, or let’s be honest- most of the time I find myself fighting through the process.  “This sucks” “What am I doing?”  Shouted over and over while I stumble blindly.  I have no ability to see visuals in my head (aphantasia),  so I keep working until I like what I see. In many ways this is a great disability to a visual artist, I see nothing in my head.  It’s like being in a dark room with some other people.  I can hear them, but see nothing.  I just keep going until I bump into someone.  Hopefully that bump is someone I like, if not it ends up with me saying something that never comes out right.  My brain speaks one language, but out pops another.  Creating art has never been easy, but I keep doing it.  I love the language, even if no one is listening.

12/5/18  I'm Good

Mental Health has such a stigma attached to it.  The customary greeting of "How are you?" is often has an automatic reply of "Good, how are you?"  Very few are good.  We hide, we pretend, we wear a mask.  I'm not advocating for everyone to share their deepest issues everywhere all day everyday.  But I am an advocate for being able to say "I'm depressed because..."  "I'm a little anxious because..."  You can have issues of mental health AND have a good life.  I'm here out in the open right now to say:  I have had periods of high and low depression and anxiety throughout my life, AND I'm happy.  Like everyone else, I have had negative moments in my life.  We carry that weight on our backs unless we learn coping skills.  I did not learn in my younger days how to cope with many issues.  That's not any form of excuse, it's just a reality.  It weighed on me, it changed the chemical make up of my brain as it was a never ending drumbeat.  There was no "magic pill".  Medications can make it easier, and if it's the wrong medication- it can make it harder.  There is no easy path.  It has been years of hard work, hard change, and acceptance that finally got me to where I am.  Not to a place where I no longer struggle, but a place where I know what to do with that struggle that creates a more positive outcome.  So to anyone that ever stumbles across this, it's OK to not be "good".

​11/12/18  Stan Lee
This was such a hard post to find the proper words.  Stan Lee died.  It’ll be a brief blip in the media news-cycle, and an earthquake for any comic-book fan.  For me, it’s even a bit beyond the earthquake.  That quake broke the dam that killed all the villagers below. 

Stan Lee created the characters, and wrote the stories that gave me the seed of strength to handle alcoholic parents, dysfunctional family, mental health, discrimination, addiction, bullying, and lousy self-esteem.  Most people are not as far into comics as I have been.  I had thousands on shelves as far back as I can remember.  I do not remember NOT having comic books.  I grew up distancing myself from reality by retreating into the Marvel Universe, which is way beyond what the movies have managed to showcase.  Stan Lee changed comics forever by writing stories with real life issues, personal struggles, and personal strength.  As a kid, I did not realize these seeds were being planted, but as I got older and started to tackle my responsibility with these issues and my life, all signs pointed back to Marvel.  My father started me on comics, and Stan Lee was almost the same age and generation.  I always have connected the two as “raising” me, making my base for morals, ethics, and my own self-image.  My father passed in 1993, that left me with what Stan Lee was representing in my head and my psyche.

Stan Lee's story-telling was groundbreaking.  It gave me survival skills that I lacked.  It also started my career path into art. I had my artistic taste bred by legendary artists: Kirby, Buscema, Romita, Simonson, Byrne, Ross, Ditko, Steranko, Jim Lee (no relation), Shooter, Starlin, and so many more.  I thought that I would enter into comics, and made the full-blown jump walking the sidewalk and submitting work in NYC in the very early 90's, and landing a freelance job with a storyboard.  I immediately realized this was not the work for me, which was supported by the job being cancelled.  I never went anywhere near Marvel.  The pedestal was too high and intimidating for me.  It still is, all because of Stan Lee.

When the news broke of Stan's passing, my heart sank so low. The rug was pulled out from beneath me, and I came crashing down hard.  He was 95.  He lived a great long life.  He  contributed unknowingly to myself and countless others ability to overcome adversity.  To take on life on life's terms, and when that didn't work- to fight for my own terms.  At 95 years old, I expected him to pass, but I was still devastated.   That night I started my cathartic artwork per a plan hatched in my head in these last few years.  Realizing it was time, and finally pulling myself up to that pedestal.  I started a very intense portrait of Stan Lee with highlights of many great Marvel artists.  True to my plan, I took the next day off and continued working all day until I met an artistic standard suitable for Stan Lee.  His standard rescued my life, at the very least my standard should be above my previous achievements.  Good enough -just was not good enough, ‘nuff said.  I could easily have tossed in the towel on my life, but I learned to keep going through the adversity from the characters that populated my childhood.  Yes, they are not real.  Yes, they wear costumes.  Yes, they have superpowers- and they stood tall for me when I could not for myself.  They are modern Gods acting out stories to teach us lessons.  Thank you Stan Lee, those lessons were a lifeline for a drowning child.

10/15/18  Style

On Style:

"I let the art guide me, to decide its own path with each mark. It is the only way I know." 

Each artwork is a discussion, a debate, or a full on argument between myself, the subject and the materials. Art scares a lot of people. Many artists are to blame for that feeling, but it is much like any other creative act. You like some, you hate some, you understand or you don’t. But fear or intimidation do nothing but keep you in the dark.  I posted this first line italicized above because one of the constant criticisms I have heard over decades of making artwork is that I jump around too much with “style”. I have always disagreed with that view. Each subject is unique. If I only have one method with materials, it negates a world of subjects that do not fit the style. The style is part of the story (or concept/idea) which many times develops as I work.  Over many years, I have recommended the book “Art & Fear” (Bayles and Orlando). Some criticized it, some loved it. It is too simple for some, many never read it because they do not want to admit to the struggle. Fear and Art are completely entwined. Creating and putting your artwork out on a stage to be be viewed, dissected, and criticized takes courage.  It takes a level of self confrontation that many people simply do not want to face.  You understand the fear, and overcome it- or you become one of many that stop making art.

9/24/18  Art Notes- Production

Last night I completed my 150th piece of art in the last year.  From October 1, 2017 to October 1st 2018 I averaged an artwork every 2.4 days.  3 months (October, January, May) I made 1-a-day for challenges like Inktober, Penci-uary, and Mixed Media May.  That alone was 93 artworks. This may have been the most productive artistic year of my life.  Many are one-off's or throw away's, but a few good ones slipped in when I wasn't looking.  It has also been an extremely educational year for me in learning about how to apply my hands on skills to a new digital format.  I have also been tackling some of what I consider to be my weak points.  Compositional and conceptual development.  I have always struggled with composition, early in my student days I feel that was skipped in many of my classes.  The focus was on technique, materials, and meeting project expectations.  I did not feel like there was anyone really honing me in on how to see composition.  I worked on that after I finished school.  I focused on fine art and illustration inspirations.  Not just for a simple composition, but color theory, leading the eye, spacial development, and light as composition.  All of this work made me realize one giant art truth- I don't know anything. 

I have discovered more weak points in color, design, lighting, rendering, and always- developing a concept beyond the superficial.   I have a lot more work in front of me with Inktober starting in 8 days, my own collaboration project, my outdoor sculpture, and many more.  I always lean back on the book "Art & Fear" that still rings in my head after many years.  The best way to conquer the fear of failing artistically is to make a lot of work and not look back.  This entire journey of being an artist has helped create a brand new me.  Each artwork has parts of me in it, in layers waiting to be found.  It really has not been about pursuing any artistic fame, or money, or awards.  It has been for me alone, to help find my own voice.  It took me some time to figure that out.  I make art because it makes me so happy.  It gives me time to know myself, to think.  To soak in ideas and ghosts of the past that I fear losing.  Those subtle moments when we feel invisible, alone fighting with what's in the dark without any hope.  To have those be given a stage, is both invigorating and terrifying.  You put yourself on display.  To be judged, or ignored.  And the one hurdle that I struggled with for years after school was a simple one, but one that I could never get over.  It doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter if I am judged or ignored, purchased, collected, ridiculed, dissected, misunderstood, or understood.  What matters is my fight of creation that happens with the subject.  That fight is what has breathed an understanding into my life, and my time here.  It may go fast, it may go slow.  But when I am making artwork- it is my time.

9/21/18  Anniversary
My father passed away on September 21, 1993.  1993 was a seminal year for me.  Finishing my MFA thesis, graduating with a Masters degree, and having my father pass away.  25 years later, and rarely have I ever felt weight like I felt in that period again.  I have had moments of great highs and great lows- but little compares to that crushing weight of 1993 sitting on top of me.  I was teaching college part-time, and I was working on any freelance illustration assignments to pay the bills.  I lived in fear of bills, fear of lack of employment, and fear of myself. 

My father became sick enough with cancer, that he required surgery just 2 weeks before my graduation.  I went to the graduation ceremony, but did nothing else after.  It's a selfish feeling.  I still grieve for this time.  I grieve for my own anti-celebration that never happened, and I grieve for my father.  It’s a high wire act of grief and selfishness, and there is no net below.  There’s no crowd of spectators in awe,  just me and 25 years of balancing in the dark.

9/11/18  Art Notes

Some hits and a lot of misses.  That sums up my career in art so far.  I did not start with very much innate talent, I had to build my way up with piles of work.  Much of that work showcases major flaws and downright lack of understanding.  But art has become the singular way that I express myself, so I keep going forward.  With, or without people to view the results.  The patent response of “you’re so talented” actually makes me sad.  I have heard that for all my career and thought am I really?  Does the general person walking around think of what I do as valuable in some way?  My answer at the start of my career was: Of course I’m valuable!  I’m creative!  My answer midway through my career became: I will explain my creativity and they will see the value! And my answer now is: The public opinion of value no longer matters to me.  That’s dismissive I know, but I have grown in countless aspects of my life, while people who see my work are still stuck at “You’re so talented”.  If I see a movie, read a book, or listen to music- I work at the interpretation.  But very rarely do I encounter those who want to think about visual art.  And it's getting worse in our microsecond access to everything via technology.  They either use the catch phrase of talent, pass right over it, or dismiss it with a flip response about modern art that translates as a universal joke on art is junk without purpose.  The idea that our purpose must translate to some form of career and income is a superficial way of living life.  I have long struggled with justifying my artwork as an extension of myself- and I am at the point where the struggle is no longer worth the effort.  I’m tired.  Mentally and physically exhausted of the battle to explain my worth.  It’s art.  Either think about it, or walk away empty handed.

9/5/18  Life Notes

Have you ever walked up on, or into a situation that is just plain ridiculous?  I have.  The first time I was just starting college, still living with my parents.  I was walking my dog on a summer night.  They lived in a townhouse setting.  You know the types of mass-molded "good living" that are everywhere.  A few hundred places, sidewalks, and a clubhouse with a pool.  It was definitely a late 70's, early 80's build.  The clubhouse was dark brown cedar, with tall ground thin windows that didn't open.  The kind to just let light in.  On my walk as I approached the clubhouse and pool, there appeared to be a  party as at each window all the way around the clubhouse had old men (some with dogs like me) peeping in the windows- at least 8-10 men surrounded the building.  When I got closer going by windows, I could see a stripper dancing for the group inside, which I assume was a bachelor party.  What a weird moment, all those sweaty old men circling a building peeping on a stripper at a party they were never invited to.

The second time was at our first house.  Our son was just about a year, and the neighborhood was a great walk.  Each block was a square, so stroller walks were easy.  As my wife and I strollered on and walked by a heavily overgrown corner turning left, there in the yard- without any warning is a crowd of 25-30 teenagers,  Most had some sort of Medieval cosplay items on.  They were sitting up on a porch, and about 8-10 were having sword fights in the yard.  Both of us could not help but bust out laughing as we walked by, and momentarily they all stopped to look at us.  I have never seen such a random gathering in the middle of the day in my life.

The third time was when my wife and I lived in a townhouse.  As our college was nearby and had a shortage of housing they rented out a town house next to us for NTID students (National Technical Institute for the Deaf).  Right out back off our patio areas was a green belt.  One sunny Sunday, I guess they had a big BBQ with deaf students.  I did not even notice until i saw at least 50+ people out back eating and drinking.  Windows were open, no noise.  I thought that was pretty funny, but then the live cartoon moment happened.  I walked into my kitchen, which has a window to the greenbelt.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement and a rumble, so I looked over.  Nothing.  I Went back to what I was doing, and it happened again- movement and a rumble.  Nothing.  It was a thin window, so I walked over to it, and there was a huge group of people playing *"kill the carrier".  (*a simple game of a football and whomever has it runs with everyone in chase until they are gang tackled, or throw it away for anyone to pick up- then it starts again.) So what I saw out of the corner of my eye was 20 people all chasing down one person running by the window in silence except for the rumble of people giving chase. 

These are great and unexpected life moments.  I welcome more.

8/24/18  Art Notes

To new & old artists:

I get asked a lot about my artistic process, and my views on creating art.  I feel somewhat uncomfortable about sharing this only because I see myself as a student with a lot to learn.  But here are some things that I have learned or built up along the way.

1.  Right out the gate you don't know what you think you know.  Yes, you may have skill.  Yes, you may have had some teachers that supported your creative endeavors.  That is not the end of the line, it's not even the beginning.  Shut down your ego.  Listen.  Make a lot of art.  Make even more.  Learn the materials, and the basics.  And then learn them again-  and dare to fail.

2.  A job well begun is half done.  As a student, a lot of times I skipped the emphasis on composition, research, and photo reference.  I always regretted it.  As I grew older, I started to study composition.  Best choice ever, and its still a weak point for me.  I always ran to the flashiness of the color, the rendering, the "ooh, you are so talented!" thinking that this was what made the art. Composition is purpose, balance, and concept.  All necessary for success.  The subject choices were made based on projects, and even then- somewhat randomly.  Research was finding one good photo and getting right into it.  What I learned later, is that the more time you spend deeply immersed in a subject, the more you understand.  The more you understand that subject, the more your concepts move from the simplistic and superficial to new areas never before breached.  The conceptual path becomes broad.  Ideas flourish with information, they stagnate with ignorance.  The more referencing you do, the more you work on seeing what is in reality- the more your path opens up to not being reference reliant.  Draw and paint what you see first, not what you think is there.

3. Representing yourself in your art.  I have been told "Realism is dead" too many times to count.   Realism is approachable by anyone, abstraction is difficult for many.  Abstraction vs. Realism is similar to Republicans vs. Democrats, no one is listening anymore.  What I know (and it is just my understanding) is that you cannot legitimately "abstract" from "reality", if you do not yet know how to present reality.  Many people are surprised to see me do any type of abstract art, they see "illustrator" and "representational" and close their mind.  I LOVE abstraction and non-objective art.  Rothko is one of my all time favorites, you have to be well rounded.  As a young artist, I tried to make the jump to abstraction when prodded by teachers who had experienced the long path.  The path that pushed mastering representation and academics first, then conceptual development last.  But then the 1960's came, and everyone began to reject the academic path.  For those professors reared in the 1960s, expression of self came first- screw the old ways.  They saw the old way as a waste of time.  They wanted to get to the ideas, not trudge through still life and figure drawing.  They wanted to challenge the man, not color theory and technique.  New ideas, not old ones.  At this, I failed every time- as I should have. You cant take a first year medical student and throw them into surgery with a scalpel, that patient is doomed.  My art was doomed.  I did not yet have the artist vision (or personal vision of "self") to really see how to present reality.  How could I pull out real elements to abstract?  Somewhere in that foggy area of going from student to artist, we all become lost.  Ships without rudders.  You will find yourself by continuing to struggle and make a lot of art.  It may be short journey, or it may be long- but you will find yourself.  I had a student many MANY years ago who was very argumentative.  He desperately wanted to be the next Frank Franzetta.  Love who you love, I don't care- just make sure they are *good.  He argued with me that he should know how to draw anatomy without looking anymore for he had done his year (3 classes) of figure drawing.  He studied Burne Hogarth, and therefore thought he was done (see statement #1).  My reply was simple: I held up my hand and asked him to look at it.  I put my hand behind my back.  I asked if he knew what a hand looked like (he said yes).  And then I told him to draw my hand from his head.  I would love to say he understood my point.  It'd be a better story if he did.  I spent weeks talking to him about how rendering anatomy based on another artists drawing is failing to see reality.  You are only drawing what that one artist saw, and even then; it discounted the hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice and failure that Hogarth experienced.  There is NO shortcut.

*(So short explanation on "good" and "bad" art: Art really works with the execution of basic and established principles and elements.  Much like anything, the good and bad can be identified when these rules are well understood.  How do you understand them?  The basic Principles & Elements of Art are easy to find.  Google it.  Then keeping these in mind, you look at a lot of art.  You identify the practices in art that attracts you.  You think about a lot of art.  You breakdown the parts to a lot of art- and bam!  You have developed the start of your tastes in art.   Are there exceptions?  Yes, but that is a whole other discussion.

So to sum up a few things:  check your ego, learn and re-learn the best basics, make a lot of art- and have faith in the principle and elements, look at a lot of art, and most importantly as a last personal note- allow yourself to fail. If your dare greatly, the failures will be great as well.

8/16/18  The Red Light

I was waiting at a red light today when a man and a small 4-5 year old girl crossed in front of me. She had (what I thought was) a 12-15 ft long lime green ribbon trailing behind her that she kept looking back at. The stop light turned green, but I had to crane my neck to be sure that ribbon was not in front of me and had cleared from my driving area. That’s when I noticed this was not a ribbon, it was a dog leash. And dragging at the end was a broken black dog collar. By this point I missed the green light, but I watched her keep looking back at the collar dragging and bouncing behind her. Did she just wish that she had a dog? Or was there once a dog in that collar at the end of the leash? I watched her and this man walk down the street. Never said a word. She just kept looking back at that collar dragging behind her.  When you are able to tune out the noise of the world, and see the small things in front of you as parts of the whole universe, you will find great worth.

​

​8/8/18  Media Notes

The problem that I see is not so much the fake news content, more it is the purchased content.  More and more I am seeing a generic push because stations, and publishers, and interviewers have been bought out.  Maybe it is a money deal, or a corporation deal, or a personal relationship deal.  This is what creates the "fake news", which in my opinion is getting old.  Our souls are being sold. 

I just had a discussion about a news story involving Ohio State.  The scandal is who knew what -and when.  The students rally around the football coach Urban Meyer.  The story is that 2 years went by with an assistant coach having committed acts of domestic violence, and Urban knew about it.  He got caught in multiple lies at a press conference.  There is no argument that people knew, the argument is that this coach brings in $60 million in profit for the school and he wins.  He did not commit the crime.  This is a problem.  Our ethics and morals cannot be put on a scale with profits.  Somewhere, in order to create a real lasting social change, a line must be drawn and held.  Held against money.  Held against the threat of employment.  Held against pressures.  It's a case of domestic violence, this is not a grey area.  It's been covered up.  But hey, he does bring in $60 million a year for the University.  How much profit is enough?  How much more do you need to understand right from wrong?

A few years back when Peyton Manning was at the very end of his NFL career, a  story started to break that his injury may be linked to steroids (HGH), he sat down for an interview with Jim Nance.  Jim Nance announced that Peyton was a friend, and he was not going to disrespect him with questions of steroids.  That to me moved this from a media interview to public relations.  There was no content after this.  It was a Papa Johns pizza commercial to present a clean generic white guy being held up for admiration.  These are the stories that lead to fake news.  This is not all media.  But there is much money and power at play behind the stories in much of mainstream.  I grew up in a generation cynical of what we are being fed in print and television.  I want our national standards back (or more accurately, to be established).  Is that wrong?

7/12/18  An Eye Opening Incident

PART I: the incident

A broken system failed me.  This is how people wind up dead.  I don't wish to post every detail, but my firsthand account opened my very white male eyes (which I thought were pretty open already).  I was patient, understanding, and treating everyone kindly in this journey.  I know what it's like to work in a job clogged with red tape, I do it every day in Mental Health and Addiction for the Homeless.  I had an experience on the 4th of July.  Someone who I have not seen in 10 years, and barely spoken to in almost 20 years just showed up at the end of my driveway midday.  They were not invited, I did not know they were even in the city.  After just moments of talking, I knew something was wrong.  This person has a long history of mental illness.  The delusions were obvious, they were extensive, and there was no reasoning that could happen.  I heard all the classic government and religious paranoia.  The torture.  The secret service targeting him, the classic stalking and recording of his every move.  The sexual abuse, the sexual pervasiveness of his delusions.  He was highly focused on my wife and son.  People he barely knows.  He wanted my son to read his journal.  A journal filled with almost unreadable dialogue about being terrorized, abused, and punished.  I did not let that happen.  I am ok in this situation- I did not feel in danger, my wife and son were not ok.  They were scared.  I kept them inside.  He had not taken his medications in many months. 

For almost 3 hours I attempted to work through the situation on my porch with every intervention I knew.  I tried to suggest plans, enforce boundaries, set limits- and most importantly, I listened.  I understand.  I work with many people.  I have no urgent need to hurt someone in pain. I did not feel in danger, and I kept everyone away.  And make no mistake about it, mental illness is painful.  No matter what I tried, I failed.  Sometimes we just cannot do anything.  I called the police, they came.  They understood he was not ok, but because he made no threats to anyone, he could not be forced to go to the hospital for an evaluation.  He chose not to follow a plan that I laid out to help him.  He walked away. He was homeless, had nowhere to go, extremely delusional- and just walked away.  The day goes on with us eating and going to our neighbors.  I was exhausted, my son and I came home early.  I fell asleep watching tv.  I know, I am an exciting person right?  11pm, my wife comes in from walking home and I can hear the fear in her voice that someone is outside the house.  The creepiest thing in the world is when you do not feel safe in your own home at night.  It only gets worse when you can see someone just on the edge of the dark moving.  He had returned.

PART II: the system

We called the police again.  They came fairly fast and picked him up.  Earlier, in processing this situation with my wife and son, my wife wanted an order of protection.  I agreed to look into it.  After he returned that night, it was first on my agenda.  I again have to leave out all the little details, but here is what I experienced.  One, we had no idea what the police did with him that night.  Two, the last we knew he was living about 3 hours away.  That was many years ago.  He told me he had nowhere to live in Rochester.  I told him I would help him if he tried my plan to help himself.  He chose not to do that.  So I called into work the next day to go look into the Order of Protection.  I started on the county website, and drove into the city.  The information, and place to go get help was flat out wrong.  I had to go over to court.  In filing, I had to verbally tell a clerk through a window in an open waiting room my situation.  No privacy at all.  I was lucky I got there early, it became super-crowded.  I heard stories of stalking, children exposed to brutality, and listened to a woman with her jaw wired shut try to tell her story- in full detail, in the waiting room.  90 minutes of waiting later I was taken back to a room for a parole officer to write up the order to present to a judge.  They were short staffed after the holiday, so they had officers doing the paperwork.  I asked questions, he had no answers.  By the time I was moved to the court waiting area, there were at least 15-20 people in the first waiting area.  In the new waiting area I was met first by a researcher that asked me to participate in a survey for a local University.  Sure, why not?  I don't know this person, I just had a traumatic event, I'd love to answer questions in a waiting room.  Then (again in a wide open waiting room) I was approached by a woman and a "trainee" from a Domestic Violence center.  She explained the court process, and what I could expect.  She could not answer any of my questions, but she offered to go to court with me.  She told me what I would expect from the judge.  She was wrong.  I got called and went in to court.  I told the judge why I was there.  The judge focused on what actual threats were made.  I explained that there were none, he just simply would not leave.  I had his journal with me, she did not want to see it.  I explained that this person wanted to "save" my son, and expressed in detail how my son was in danger to be raped, and recorded by the government.  The judge said "Did he say he was going to do this?"  I responded no.  She said "That's not against the law."  ok.  my son is 14.  I felt like I had done something wrong to be standing in this court.  She granted the order.  I was supposed to have how the order works explained to me, and given a choice of how it is served to the person.  It has to be served to be violated.  They explained nothing.  I waited for about 30 minutes in the hall.  It's not a wait room, but it is a wait room.  While I waited, I was sitting between a young teenage girl with her mother, and her sister with a girl about 4 years old.  I was not nosy, but it was hard to ignore as the teen girl was antagonizing her sister.  Obviously they were there for family court.  This was very hard to listen to, there's a 4-year old child listening to this teen call her mother a bitch and other colorful names.  Not a court guard in sight.  What a bad idea to have people on opposing sides wait in the same place right?.  Finally a lady comes out, says not one word, and hands me the order of protection paperwork.  3.5 hours, but I have it.  I head home. 

Just as I get home I get a phone call. It's a social worker from the hospital who wants to know what happened to have the police bring this person in for evaluation.  Because, well- he's there being evaluated.  I explain it all, and the order of protection.  ok.  Now I know where he is, so I can follow the directions on the court forms.  I explained to the social worker that he has to get the paperwork. ok.  I hang up, call the local police (per instructions on where the person is to be served).  Wrong place, I have to call the city police.  I call the city police.  That's not how this is done sir, you call 911.  They get the paperwork and serve it.  ok.  I call 911.  No, we need you to drive it to the hospital, see if the public safety office will serve it- on the far side of the city.  If not, call 911 and we will send an officer .  Fine.  It's literally 97 degrees out, but back in the car.  I am in hour 4 of this, but dammit!  I am getting this done.  I go to the hospital.  I go into emergency (as they told me he was in psych ED).  The place is literally jammed to the gills.  50 or more people.  I talk to security in a closet office, he has to ask someone.  ok.  I wait outside of the emergency waiting room (because no way was I staying there) in the parking valet area.  Next guard comes up.  He needs to call a supervisor.  ok.  He comes back and has to go speak to someone in the mental health inpatient area.  I'm about 45 minutes in, but ok.  The social worker who I spoke to earlier comes back with the guard.  No sir, we cannot allow that to be served on our property.  It's not appropriate for the patients well-being.  ok.  Even though I spoke to you about an hour earlier, and you were fine with this, and its a court order?  no sir.  ok.  I tell them I can't just leave.  I have this chance to serve him.  I have been doing this all day, and specifically appealed with "Can you just throw me a bone here?  It's really about my wife and son." I explain that I was directed by 911 to call the 911 (irony?) if they would not serve the order.  ok.  I call.  I tell the dispatcher that I will wait outside the Emergency room doors so I could be found by the officer.  It's 97 degrees.  I hate hot muggy weather.  I have not eaten.  I have had very little to drink, and I am now entering hour 5.  I wait an hour.  Outside.  In the heat.  I call again.  Sir we are in the middle of a shift change, someone will be there soon.  ok.  another hour, this is hour 6- and I see an officer.  I am drenched in sweat.  I would mostly likely murder someone for a cold drink.  He takes the form, and has me wait.  About 20 minutes later he comes back.  Papers in hand.  It's private property, they do not want to upset the patient.  They do not feel this is an appropriate time.  ok.  So he is already in the hospital.  They do not want to upset him?  Is there a better place?  Maybe my house?  This is my shot, there is no address to serve him.  ok.  I give myself credit.  I asked for help.  I followed the rules.  I have no interest in hurting this person who scared the $#@%! out of my wife and son.  This is the only place I know he will be,  and all along the way the system failed. 

7 hours.  I do have the order, but it is un-served.  He can be served if he shows up at my house.  Really.  That's what I was told.  The officer signed off on the attempt, but that is all I have to show.  Was he dangerous?  I did not get that feeling- but when someone believes that they have been tortured, they are paranoid, delusional- and desperate...who knows what can happen?  That is unpredictable.  Anyone in mental health knows that is not a good situation.  No one can know what will happen.   Is the hospital going to protect my family?  Will they be responsible if something happens?  Who has the rights here, and what is the ultimate line to not cross?

PART III: the effects

I work in mental health.  I understand the system.  I believe in human rights.  For a few hours after this, all I could say is "This is how people wind up dead".  I know he has rights.  Do I?  Where does that show?  All of these people are failing in a broken system.  The justice system, the law enforcement system, and the mental health system.  Anyone along the way could have stood up and done something to make this easier.  I do.  Instead, every person passed the buck.  Someone else would take care of this.  I learned a lot.  Domestic Violence is already a subject that makes me very angry.  The male system makes me angry.  The absolute hopelessness that I have seen, and saw that day makes me angry.  The fact that I know the system, I have a car, I have income, I have knowledge, I could go here and there and do whatever it takes to feel safe in my own god-damned home.  I am an adult.  I'm professional.  I have empathy, and I understand limits.  But every step failed for me.  Each failure built into a frustration that can destroy anyone who has less resources than I do.  It should not be this hard for any person to feel safe from someone who has caused, or can cause harm.  I overheard endless stories of threats, stalking, beatings, bruises, hair pulling.  Abuses at home, in the street, on the job.  THIS.  IS.  NOT.  OK.  I'm a man that feels he can protect himself.  I can handle situations.  But in this situation because the system failed, I have failed my family.  That inherent safety was taken away, and it won't come back.

Part IV: Update 11/21/18

I submitted the paperwork to the upstate mental health facility in September.  After a short back and forth, I've been in a holding pattern waiting to hear the order of protection has been served.  I emailed the facility social worker, and the same day I received a reply.  The reply said that my nephew was aware of the order, he did not want to discuss it, and that the "legal team" agreed it was not in his best interest to serve the order.  Oh, and he "will be getting out in a few weeks".  So, if I did not reach out, she would never have told me that it was not served.

REALLY?!

This has been an amazing and frustrating process.  I immediately contacted the court, they will have it served.  I have no faith, and to my nephew who may read this:

I understand you are struggling with mental illness.  I'm not mad, I do not hold a grudge.  That said, your illness does NOT give you any right or any allowance to frighten my wife and my son.  You need to own that.  That is your doing by not keeping up with medications and treatment, and abusing alcohol and drugs.  None of that will help you stabilize.  It will further isolate you, and you will lose any grip you have on your life.  DO NOT attempt to violate this order, I will press charges.  It seems as if you do not understand the effect you have had, and you are not hearing what my family has said to you.  Take the time to get yourself well.  Stabilize, follow a plan to get well.  Down the road of recovery, if you still feel the need to reach out you can.  But not while you are in the grip of delusion.

6/28/18  John Lewis

Has America been made great in the last 18 months? Are we seeing more money, more jobs, more international deals? Are we viewed better? Are we safer? Less gun violence? Are we socially happier? Have we made any educational or scientific breakthroughs? Do people feel stronger, wiser, more in touch with the government?  Do we feel represented for what we need?  What exactly has been made "great"?  Look to your heroes, then go be one yourself...

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair.  Be hopeful.  Be optimistic.  Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year.  It is the struggle of a lifetime.  Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." -John Lewis

4/10/18  The Holocaust

I spent a few days reworking old drawings about the Holocaust this weekend. In the late 1990's I had a complete sketchbook with only the holocaust as the subject.  I worked on it night and day.  It really took over and changed me, and the research that I did was traumatizing.  Annually I try to do a few works for Yom HaShoah.  This past weekend as I worked, I was watching documentaries, prepping more art work for Wednesday and Thursdays Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance day).  My goal is another 4 artworks by Thursday 4/12.  I have not always been the best at understanding issues. My youth made me numb, but I've grown up and focused a lot on the Holocaust and the civil rights movement, as there is nothing else like it in modern history. People of my generation (and before) grew up with the annual Holocaust movie on TV. We knew the stories. My father served in WWII, and delivered heavy Machinery to Bergen-Belsen.  Currently there is a resurgence of intolerance and outright hate running loose in our land. There is a right time to pick a side and have a voice. However you make yourself heard, is how you fight. This is how I do it.

4/7/18  The Beauty & The Ugly

It’s funny how many people (some I know, some internet strangers) send me messages of support thinking that I am painting my suffering.  While I do draw on much of my own experiences and understanding, I have become a genuinely happy person.  I work with parts of my community that experience the worst of this life, and still keep going. That pain, that adversity, and that fight is what inspires me in my subject matter and style.  I guess my art style is always in flux, but my focus of the darker corners of humanity is the constant. I just choose to show it and not hide it away. The opposite of beauty is ugly, but in a way it’s the existence of that ugliness that allows the beauty to be. What is the real difference?

3/12/18  Weekend Thoughts

A couple of weekend questions that came up from quiet art making time and streaming binges.  First, why do people whisper when they allude/say/blurt out beliefs that are bigoted?  I'll be talking to someone and suddenly they go to a low whisper slur (or borderline language) in talking about black people, gay and lesbians, women.  Similar to those bigots that are in hiding, and when they are exposed they back peddle (I didn't mean it that way, its a joke, you are too sensitive...).  If you believe it, and cant own it; then there is a problem with that belief.  Two, why with hauntings and possessions do they just end?  Why cant the haunting/possession continue until the Today show gets there?  Why is it only just enough to get noticed, and then over?  I think we all know why.  Third, why do so many people fight so hard for the whales/wolves/lions- but rarely share the same passion for the people in the community that are suffering just as much?

3/5/2018  Social Media

Trying out more social media.  Not because I'm all about me, I just want to share my artwork.  I love what I do.  I'd like to find more people who just love their art.  Find work that inspires me, work that is different.  Artists that are different.  One aspect of social media that I am very disappointed with is the abundance of fake accounts and fake people.  People that want to monetize everything.  That do not join for the social or art aspect, but for PR and greed.  It's obvious, it's shallow, and it butts into my ability to share.  If I go to an art sharing site, I do not want your porn, your million dollar ideas, or your fitness tips.  No, everything is not art.  Is everything medicine?  Is everything technology?  Of course not.  You can't ram your attempts at connections into every corner.  Every field has creativity, but every field is not art.  Many years ago, a very well known and influential illustrator (Brad Holland) wrote an essay that highlighted how everyone was now an "artist", except the actual artists.  Art had just seen yet another bout of being maligned, "useless" to "produce" in the modern age.  Ideas are not to be a commodity.  Ideas are to push our global society in a direction.  To assist in understanding, comprehending, and developing us in our world.  Maybe, maybe not.  Maybe I'm just getting old.

2/20/18  Art Notes

I have been on an obsessive art creation streak.  Over the last 5 months, I have created nearly 100 artworks.  Its as if I am chasing something, and just when it's in reach; I miss it.  This is different from previous productive years.  I would make art and see all the flaws in the final image, then start a new work.  The quality is much higher now, but it still misses the marks.

2/17/18  School Shooting

Another week, another mass school shooting.  I keep hearing about mental illness, and let's not jump to conclusions about gun control.  I want my son alive.  I want him and his teachers to focus on education.  Instead they are focusing on daily trauma, and procedures for "active shooters".  Our priorities are broken.  Our morality is missing.  It is all about stuffing as much money in your pockets while you can.  So, all I have is my voice, my art, and my vote.  None of which will go to anyone not focused on ending this murder and embarrassment.

1/29/18  American Bigotry

What has played out with "Make America Great Again", is simply unleashing our national hidden bigotry.  But it has not really been hidden from those it has affected.  Our "greatness" was never great to anyone who was not a white male.  I don't say this with a white guilt complex, I say this because you can never know where you are going if you do not know where you have been.  I do not see a problem in acknowledging our history of racism and sexism, in order to dismantle the machine that oppresses those that are not male, white, and rich.  I benefit from this system, which is why I work in social services for those with homes, without a means of support, and who have repeatedly been cast out by our system.  It's why I go an extra few equalizing steps, it's why I make a lot of art- even work that appears non-threatening- but always has my beliefs embedded.  It is not taking from others to even out the system, it empowers everyone to achieve a better society for us all.  Capital T truth.

1/3/18  American Shame

Last night I went to bed with the so-called leader of the United States taunting North Korea on twitter that his nuclear button was "bigger and works".  We are currently under the thumb of a person who is not fit, or mentally capable of leading any nation, especially one that can wage war the likes of the United States.  I don't want to go to bed or wake up with the thought of nuclear war.  Do you? 

11/21/17  The Struggle

I have become a very productive, but very isolated artist.  I'm not sure that I could intelligently talk to anyone anymore about what it is I am pursuing in my artwork.  The base loves of lighting, narratives, and textures still remain, but conveying that in a dialogue no longer seems a viable choice.  I am in a dogged pursuit of something that I cannot see.  The changes that I have gone through artistically in the past 3 years with the inclusion of complete digital, hands on combined with digital, and photography have altered my production into a breakneck speed.  What my intentions are with artwork have not been able to keep up.  I could not do this type of digital application without the previous 30 years of hands on exploration.  Digital artwork is amazing, but not without the struggle of getting your hands dirty with materials.  I am simply going to embrace becoming the art hermit that I have always wanted to be, I can now aim to become the Walt Whitman of art.

11/9/17  Sin

If you are a bad person while living, I don't think death should bring a level of censored respect and praise.  Death does not wash away the sins of life.

10/24/17  Branches

When people in our lives begin to die, some of us take our lives into other directions.  Sometimes, those directions are unexpected.  Other branches than what we have experienced previously.  Some of those branches lead nowhere, they are just a tangle of lost limbs.  But some lead us to a spot higher on the tree.  We won’t know where they go until we follow it away.  It is better to have tried, than to have missed the opportunity.  For those left behind it hurts.  It hurts to grow old without growing.  And it hurts too, to leave your only known past behind.

10/10/17  Take a Knee

Taking a knee during the national anthem is a right of protest in our country.  If you cannot choose to protest the way you want (peacefully), then we are not free.  It is a protest of an all too obvious institutional racism that keeps non-whites down.  I’m white, I know it exists.  So, 2 things: 1) if you have been shouting that it’s not about racism- you are wrong.  This is not about the flag, or troops- it’s about race.  Our current white supremacy administration wants to fool you, and change the narrative.  That works to keep your eyes off the real rape and theft they commit, and it keeps the people who have the power to topple the regime divided.  Face it, or get out of the way.  (2) if you are so much about equality, then you do not understand the difference between equality and equity.  Equality is everyone gets the same.  Equity is understanding that the starting point is not the same, and adjusting so those behind the equal point have more to truly create equal opportunity.  If you have 2 farms, one with good soil, good machinery, and good labor- and one with sour land, no machinery, and no labor; are they equal?  If the argument is to move to better land, with what finances?  What labor?  What goods to create a living?  Systemic poverty hurts all races, and creates generations of hopelessness.  If you have ever been hopeless, how do you feel when someone wealthy, educated, and connected since birth shouts “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!”  It is not an equal start comparing a low middle class white, to anyone non-white in poverty.  If you say, oh no...not true.  I say you are a blind liar.  Every white man who claims they are not racist/misogynistic/homophobic- needs to not just speak up, but act up.  And just acting isn’t enough.  To make this right you must take it many steps further.  If you do not agree with these two concepts, then you too are the problem.  And if you counter that with- well what do you do loud mouth white guy?  I was not brought up with money.  I had no plans for college because I had no role model for education.  I hated school, and yet I started college.  Still paying on those loans all in my name.  I have been working for 20 years in low wage social services trying to make the world better.  I make art about my issues.  I did not choose money.  I have not sought to use the system of inequality, but I benefit from it.  I am not pulled over for driving while black.  Not been harassed or raped (but nearly every female I know has been). No holocaust, or war in my city.  I do not live in the epicenter of crime and drugs.  I have made it my life goal to fight for what is right, no matter what is in the way.

10/1/17  Protest

If you can’t protest peacefully here in America, then what exactly is America?

8/29/17  Open Letter to the Angry White Guy

Dear resentful angry white guy & disenfranchised white youth. Can we talk? I'm white, so we have that out on the table. I'm not sure (a) why you're angry, and (b) why you're disenfranchised. Being white and male, I don't fear police interaction- even with the jerk cops. I don't fear sexual harassment (I wish! - no I don't) I often get paid well, don't get beat up or murdered for my skin color/sex partners/beliefs, its assumed that I'm educated-not a criminal-fit the religious mold-and my needs are mostly first to be met...always. That's privilege. It means I don't have to pay attention to the same everyday stressors of being gay, black, female, or Muslim. But you know what? I choose to pay attention. My community is my support, and it can be yours too- but not when you choose to see the world the way you do. Filled with rage, hate, and blame. You are disenfranchised because you have done it to yourself. You stepped away, no one made you do that. Own up to it. Unclench your fist. You can still be frustrated at the world, I am too. But so is that woman, that black man, that Muslim teen- see, it's easier to confront those life issues with a group. You just picked the wrong group. There is much more to be found with your community than with nazis and the kkk. That's a dead end. There's no magic jobs returning that you never had, no sleazy sexual innuendo that's going to get any female to love you and stay, no hate filled nazi armband will make you feel more like a man when you feel like child inside, and certainly- no law/act/wall that will stop us from joining together. Because that IS America. The hate filled side has already lost, they just haven't realized it yet. Reality isn't their strong suit.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, from one white guy to some other white guys, you have a choice to make- you can join in and automatically feel SO much better (I promise), because in all of history- hate always loses; or you can stay the course. Stay angry, depressed, unfulfilled, uniformed, and regretting your life. That last part will happen, and if you don't start really thinking- it will be too late to do anything about it.

8/8/17  Conspiracy

​​ Written as a response to today's White House non-statement to the Minnesota Islamic mosque bombing on 8/5/17.  Today they announced that (without any evidence from any source) it may be a "false flag".  The cry of the conspiracist.  I grew up with a lot of presidential BS. At times I questioned the choices. I may have supported some, argued against others. Never have I felt the way I am feeling now as a citizen. Embarrassed is not enough. Scared is not enough.  Shocked is not enough. I honestly question the mental health and well being of our leaders and their supporters. It is hate driven. Unless action is quickly taken, this will all slide towards a terrible destructive conclusion. I doubt many will even see this comment, but it is increasingly hard to go about your everyday life when the sheer pain inflicted upon the core of our country doubles every day. I fully expect a large scale strike on DPRK as a pissing contest. Maybe thousands will die, maybe more. For what?  Ego. To avoid treason? To distract the masses? To create fear and cement power? This blood will be on every Americans hands. Supporter or not, unless action is taken. Disagree if you want, but the wounded animal is in a corner. Politics are rough, this isn't politics. Politics are tough situations resolved with carefully thought out choices. Do good, be good, think good. None of that is happening here, and it honestly hurts me where I have never been hurt. In my pride as a citizen.

​7/18/17  Imagine

Imagine yourself as a child.  Most kids grow up with some family issues to deal with, some small- some large.  Now imagine being a young child and everything you are told does not match the reality you see and feel.  EVERYTHING.  Imagine how much that would affect you as you get older.  What would it do to your social skills?  Your self-esteem?  Your relationships, jobs, education?  Growing up in an alcoholic household affects the rest of your life, and bears a very strong resemblance to the effects of a household in Domestic Violence (physical and emotional).  All that you think, you see, you feel, and what you do- is questioned.  You spend the rest of your life trying to make the puzzle pieces fit.  They don't.  You are better off just starting a new puzzle.

7/8/17  Quotes

If you get hung up on words, you are going to let a lot of evil people through.  Because they are the first to learn the words to smuggle their evil shit through- Patton Oswalt

but also,

Words shape the way we think. 

"Watch your thoughts, they become words.  Watch your words, they become actions.  Watch your actions, they become character.  Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."   -Lao Tsu

6/24/17  9

(I stole this, but believe in it) 

9 things to give up if you want to be happy:

1. Complaining

2.  Limiting beliefs

3. Blaming others

4. Negative self-talk/thoughts

5. Dwelling on the past

6. Resistance to change

7. The need to impress others

8. The need to always be right

9. The need for others approval

6/5/17  The Outside Inside
On or about of October 2005, I saw a special on creepy world destinations.  One place really caught my attention:  Xochimilco, San Lorenzo, Ciudad de México- better known as the “Island of the Dolls”.  I am a skeptic through and through, but the mystery and magic of monsters in the world has had a grip on me from the time I was a wee tot.  This island has the standard legend of the little girl who died, and the odd isolated caretaker of the island.  But the story turns when people began leaving dolls at the island.  Hanging from trees, nailed to sheds, tied and bound- all rotting away from the non-stop barrage of weather and time.  At the same time I started to develop a fascination of old abandoned structures.  Asylums, schools, military bases, hospitals- all caught my artistic eye.  I had long been making mixed media drawings about moments lost in time.  Small forgotten interactions.  Words, expressions, feelings.  I held a fear after my father passed away in 1993 that people would never know about lives lived, we would all become some dusty name in a roll call book that no one ever knew. 

So, here is where I started.  I wanted to make artwork to leave outside.  Let the weather have its way, to make my own little island of the dolls, my own abandoned school.  Where old thoughts and dreams and fears all intertwined en mass as a victim to time and weather.  I started with one painting, and then a few dolls, and then more collected materials.  Things that caught my eye, or things I did not want to throw away all made it out to the pile.  Then as my son aged it took over part of the wooden structure of his play-set as he outgrew it.  At first it was a pile of materials, nothing I would even call art- except as a creepy joke in reference to my neighbors.  In the summer of 2016, I took it all apart, and began reassembling the materials into a cohesive idea.  I grew up in an alcoholic household, and I have worked in addiction for many years.  Decades of my life have been bogged down by a cruise control method of thinking.  Detachment was a way of surviving the fears of “feeling”.  That was my rudderless direction, the branches of my life.  The ups and downs, the mistake of ignorance is bliss.  What I learned as I got older, is that the old saying “ignorance is bliss” is a lie. There is no bliss when you ignore a problem, and growing up in a household with 2 alcoholics, even if I am not an addict- created many problems.  I wanted all of those entanglements on display.  All of life that I missed, and all of the life that I found.  A combination of the real fear and disjointed reality of alcoholism, and my life long fascination with the macabre and all that is horror.  This creeptacular backyard assemblage is my inside, outside.

Pictures can be viewed on the "Odds & Ends" page of this site

6/1/2017  As it Should Be

If it leads to nowhere, if all is lost;  and I too get lost along the way- at least I know I had a map of the world as it should be. I will stay on that trail for myself and for my corner of the world. The disease that has the power cannot touch me.

​5/16/17  Inspiration

Inspiration for the day:

If I have not before mentioned this, I work with clients that are homeless with mental health and/or addiction issues.  Today I spoke to a client at work. He grew up with a series of his moms boyfriends being verbally and physically abusive. He is a prime candidate to be an abuser. Poor, ignored, and distorted relationships as a home model. He is young, but has been in our program for a number of years.  3 years ago his mother was murdered by her boyfriend. Beaten into a coma for a week before dying. This left my client, barely 20- alone with a drug addicted brother, and a 14 year old sister. What remained of his family all shows the struggle with violence and addiction. The ripple effect. Very few that grow up in this environment avoid becoming abusers themselves to deal with the rage and lack of control, or become addicts to numb and forget. On Mother's Day (2 days ago) he went to his "Aunties", she's not related. Her boyfriend was very drunk and verbally abusing everyone. The more he drank, the more it became physical. The whole house shut down. Accepted it, stared at the floor, fled to other rooms. All except my client. 23 years old, black, no role model family. The kid who with help got into Community College. He got off public assistance (or welfare if you like), works 2 jobs, and helps his sister who is only 17 pay for baby needs and models maturity. That "kid" did not leave. That kid dragged this man outside and it became a physical fight. "I just saw black and thought of my mom" he told me. No one broke it up, and as he said "there was no way I was just going to sit there". It may not have been the best way to handle this, but it sure was the most noble.  This is standing up to Domestic Violence. This is being a MAN.  This is saying out loud- NOT EVEN ONCE WILL I LET THIS HAPPEN. He is not alone as a survivor of a dysfunctional family.  A survivor of public assistance to a better life. This won't be a quiet discussion to end generations of pain, it will be a fight.  This kid has the real way to Make America Great.

5/15/17  Acting Up

To survive the times we currently live in requires humor, and a need to create.  And by "create", I mean anything.  This is the type of climate and daily barrage of negativity that cause everyone to seek out some activity to release the sheer disbelief.  Disbelief of audacious lies, all while looking directly at us as citizens.  Our democracy is not just at risk, it is in the shredder.  Corporations and religion have joined hands to become one large money gobbling rapist of the American citizen.  The most at risk are anyone who is not white and male.  I'm privileged, but it matters to me because it is threatening to use up and spit out everyone and everything I love dearly.  So I write.  I write on facebook, and I write to my representatives.  I make art.  Whether I plan for it to be political or not, that seems to be where it ends up.  I am acting up, and acting out...and I'm not ready to finish any time soon.

4/28/17  Plaid for President

What started as a joke out of anger & frustration, became a very serious statement about my country.   I decided to run for president.  The odds cannot be calculated against me, but I have my reasons...

2020Plaid4Prez

4/25/17  Taoism

"The world has waited too long for a voice with fresh ideas and a new approach...we are not scholars who make every effort to understand books. We are artists who apply our knowledge to our lives." (Do nothing [Wu Wei] & Do Everything [Wu Bu Wei] by Qiguang Zhao)

4/7/17  Thoughts, Words, Habits

"Watch your thoughts; for they become words. Watch your words; for they become actions. Watch your actions; for they become habits. Watch your habits; for they become character. Watch your character for it will become your destiny."  This is a solid path to finding happiness. It is a reminder to limit negative thinking, and just how fast a thought becomes an action, and that action becomes a habit.

3/31/17  Creation

Many people believe that things "just happen" to them.  But as you connect more closely to yourself and the realities of who you are (instead of tuning life and feelings out); we are able to see that everything that happens to us is of our own creation.

3/22/17  Art & Culture

The attached article is a very good read on a current heated debate in the Arts.  It is a very complex subject, with multiple areas open to debate, and (as shown) to incite anger.  Its a debate of artistic style, white objectification of black tragedy, culture, public relations, art history, white guilt, censorship, social responsibility, civil protest, dignity, history, civil rights, cultural appropriation, racism, and freedom. Or is it?  It is very difficult to have an objective point of view because every viewer comes with a solid set of baggage.

ARTICLE

​3/16/17  Empathy

Awaken your empathy to become a better person, and to take less personally.

3/6/17  1968

I was born in 1968.  The same year that Martin Luther King jr. was murdered.  The same year that Bobby Kennedy was murdered.  The same year that Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black gloved fists in solidarity.  How would you like me to act when I see rampant bigotry taking over MY country?

3/2/17  Grounding

It's been a few days of avoiding the ever expanding black hole that announces the choices of our current government.  I read a short story on how depressed the average US citizen is right now, how anxiety is becoming the default setting, and how laughing is the only sane response.  I'm trying.  When you see the law, the land, and the liberty stripped from so many for no other reason than because they are not rich white men- it is hard to laugh.  I need all of those others, the variety of ideas and companionship.  The wealth of principles and beliefs; to keep me grounded as a human being.  I need people who value more than money.

2/20/17  Caring

Freedom of speech is lost when no one listens.  Reach across the divide.  Being for, or against:  jobs, safety, immigration, healthcare, gay marriage, crime, body image, gun control, money, global warming, capitalism, pipelines or God-  is absolutely meaningless if you do not care about people.  Prioritizing the well-being of your fellow men, women, and children makes problem solving simple.

2/16/17  Harlem Renaissance

DRUM by Langston Hughes

Bear in mind
That death is a drum
Beating forever
Till the last worms come
To answer its call,
Till the last stars fall,
Until the last atom
Is no atom at all,
Until time is lost
And there is no air
And space itself
Is nothing nowhere,
Death is a drum,
A signal drum,
Calling life
To come!
Come!

I am a big fan of Harlem Renaissance poetry, the rhythm of the words for me are one of the precursors to early (or old school) rap.  The period of the early 1980's to early 1990's had great substance, it was the music of the revolution.  I know I'm getting old when I hear the pure pointlessness of what rap youth is spouting today.  Fake nonsense with only money in mind.  Whether stars (of all kinds) like it or not, they have a social responsibility.  They speak to and for millions who have no voice.  Anything short of trying to express the anxiety, the love, the needs, or the dreams of the voiceless is simply superficial crap destined to become a false nostalgia.

2/12/17  Fear

Fear drove us to where we are, and makes us vulnerable to the worst crimes imaginable. Historically speaking, Safety is never the result of fear; tragedy is the result of fear.

2/8/17  Art & Craft

No, you don't need to make art with the sole intent of sales.  That's a craft, although love is certainly involved.  Art is following your inside feeling to an end, not to a sale.  Most often there is not much risk involved with a craft beyond "Will someone buy this?"  Art is risking everything, exposing your safe locked away inside self.  When done right, crafts are an excellent creative representation of artistic skill.  But Art and Craft are not the same, any more than Life and Death.

2/3/17  Horror Notes

I have been a lifelong fan of Horror/scary movies.  I was drawn to the dark because I was living in it.  I think when I was a kid, it was the monsters.  The fake monsters on screen were not as bad as the real life monsters.  Then as a teen, it was the taboo, the gore, and the teen sex.  Now it is the deep dark hidden emotions, and the palpable fear.  The bleak and quiet hidden feeling that we have to come to terms with each day.  Being scared is exciting, it's a rush.  Everyone has their movies they enjoy, be it drama, comedy, romance- mine is horror.  But horror is one of the genres that creates a heavy judgment against the watcher.  Horror fans are the: dark, twisted, unstable, weird, dangerous people that you are told to avoid.  I enjoy it because the fear element is fun for me.  The monsters, the dark, the unknown, the uncontrollable- is what dominated my childhood in an alcoholic household.  This was (and is) a controlled burn for me.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying that terror, just as there is nothing wrong with enjoying sappy romance, or startling documentary, or gripping drama.  We are all different, and all ok.

1/30/17  I am Muslim

I am a Muslim.  The most dangerous kind to our current fascist government, because; I am not actually a Muslim.  I'm not even religious.  I LOVE my country so much, I would die for it.  So much that I can't stand how quickly we have lost our ideals.  I love my country, but not the government.  We are not perfect, but we are not this disfigured monstrosity led by an orange moron.  I.  Am.  Muslim.  

1/27/17  Facebook Hiatus

I am taking a self imposed short hiatus from facebook (except to post art) and the news.  In one week what has happened in politics is shocking.  The drumbeat of you-know-who's name is non stop.  Magazines, news, all over tv in every damn direction.  The saturation point of pure negativity, bordering on evil actions is too much.  It is like being out on a sunny day when that thick slow cloud rolls by blocking out the sun, except it never stops.  I love my country, I would die for it.  But, I hate the government that is moving in the polar opposite direction of what America strives to be.  This is not freedom, its oppression.  I'm ashamed.

1/24/17  Trading Card Concept

I have been watching the show Supernatural.  I love the show, how I did not watch before now (12 seasons late) I don't know.  But better late than not at all.  Anyway, I am in a season where the 4 horsemen are a major set of characters.  I love the alternative character ideas, and I decided to focus in on them for a project.  I want to make trading card inspired updated versions of not just the 4 horsemen, but also the 7 deadly sins- and maybe one God, and one Satan to make the pack a perfect 13 in number.  Nothing like upbeat topics!

1/22/17  Get Over It

My son Asher turned 13 yesterday; and the Women's march in support of women's rights and against our notmypresident Trump stunned everyone with people coming out not only all around the country, but also around the world.  The photos are inspiring, and I am so grateful to everyone who participated, you give people like me hope.  Turning 13 is a big deal.  Asher is a teen, and it only happens once.  Chris and I chose to focus on our little corner for the day, but we both supported the march.  I have great pride that so many people chose to march for rights, freedom, and ethics.  Here is a fantastic article with photos, and the first commenter below the article nails how so many people feel about "getting over it"...

ARTICLE

1/16/17   MLK day  

Improve yourself.

Everything you do, you do as a member of a community.  It affects you, me, your family, your neighbors, your schools...your actions do more than hurt you.  Think before you speak.  Think before you act.  When you improve YOU, we all improve.

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1/2/17  Man in the Arena

​I'll start the new year with one of my all time favorite quotes by Teddy Roosevelt, because I'm a quote junkie...

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

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12/27/16  Friends & Beliefs

I come from a very skewed view of friendships.  I moved 4 times when I was in that key range of 9-15.  As you get older, a lot gets in the way of creating new meaningful friendships.   Relationships, jobs, schedules, kids- and then beliefs.  For most people, beliefs cement as you get older, and you tire of the debate, or at least I do.  It seems as if it's getting harder to find people who don't think that they know you after a few meetings (they don't), who don't want to judge you (they do), and don't come with a never-ending set of issues that they are going to thrust upon you.  

12/21/16  The Influx of Digital Art

My time in grad school was fairly prolific in art production, I made multiple paintings and drawings a week.  Then in my late 20's I was mixed media drawing obsessed, I carried a sketchbook everywhere.  I have piles and stacks of art.  I wasn't just trying to improve the quality of what I was making, I have always used art to communicate when words have failed me.  I thought until about a year ago that I was slowing down.  I didn't know if it was my  age, or just how it worked with creativity and life pushing its way in each day.  But then I found (or finally embraced) mixed media and digital creation.  It was like setting off a bomb in my soul.  All my studio approaches all at once. Walking, eyes closed up to the cliffs edge, the excitement of living and dying and making art bloomed all over again.  Risk and reward, trial and error, all my tools, textures, colors, challenges- are now on the table.  Now I know, it wasn't age- it was the boredom of limitation.  My brain is always on fire to make my thoughts visual, that rush of creating something is like getting answers to questions you don't yet know.

12/16/16  Notes on Art

Few will bother to read the content of the link below, or even notice it. Even I'm numb to the utter disregard of the arts in the US. There are many professions that are maligned and mistreated, but a lot of people don't even think of art as a profession. "You are so talented" has been my go to joke for years, but not talented enough to even come close to making a living financially. The years of hard work are seen as a scam of the lazy. Hundreds of hours of hard work to create a one-of-a-kind artwork judged against mass-produced Wal-Mart garbage. The artist will always lose the fight for the dollar.  Even at the peak of commercial work, I just barely paid my bills. Heck, comics are more popular than ever- and the established legendary artists that made comics are near broke. But it's art, so no one cares. Oh I'll get nice compliments and more, but little else that allows for a total commitment to pursue the arts in this country. People will say I chose this, and stop complaining, and try harder. This right here is the most I have complained. I have always gone to a second profession to live, and outside of that 40 hour work week, outside of family and home care, and many other responsibilities- what's left for me, I soak up every second to make art. And here is the capital T truth, so few survive as long as I have. The creative passion is killed off in order to pay bills and take care of family. Imagine how much passion has been killed? Imagine what we might be if we had support? I'm only still here because I owe my life to it. If art had not taken me over as a creative outlet for a raging, repressed, ill-educated, and misguided lost youth, I may very well be dead or wishing I was. So I go on, for myself and for those lost. I pour a little oil paint on the street curb for my art homies, and wonder how the world may have been different.

ARTICLE​

12/12/16  My Last Class
I have taught some form of college level art for 20 years.  I've had the talent challenged classes and survived.  But this fall I was faced with a generation that would only do the bare minimum to complete an assignment.  It wasn't about quality, it was about getting it done and expecting praise for anything.  I sent email after email that went unread, handed out copies that students wanted me to read to them, and geared the projects to their own personal interests.  Nothing created the interest and desire to work diligently.  Nothing.  I even bluntly told a student "if you don't challenge this level of quality, you will never work in any area of art."  I had a student expect an "A" simply for being there and doing something.  That was after he told me over and over "This is hard.", and "I wanted to take art because I wanted something relaxing."  Art has a stigma that all my action and work won't change, but no god damned way!  No way do you (at best) half ass the work, not read the emailed directions, ask me questions answered right in the fucking handouts and expect much of a grade.  I know this is running rampant in school.  This do nothing and complain until there is some pressure to be given a passing grade to avoid the heat mentality is real, but come on!  What on earth is your future going to be like with this mentality?  I was distressed by the lack of urgency from an educational standpoint, and the  overwhelming apathy towards independent thinking.

ps ...12/15/16  
I was called "merciless'" by a student because I did not accept her portfolio late on the final day of class.  A portfolio deadline that had a strict verbally announced and discussed time- not once, but for 3 consecutive classes prior.  A deadline that that was also emailed twice, and placed in bold on the final project handout.  Not only did she rarely complete an assignment in 15 weeks, she missed this deadline that allowed students to make up for the ENTIRE semesters missing work by 2.5 hours. And, ​I was also responsible for damaging her GPA to get into her "dream school".

12/5/16  The Internet
Maybe the end of mankind is not in some disease, or zombies, or nuclear war' may be it's ​the internet.  The raging sheer ignorance that has run unchecked via conspiracy sites will be the fall of Rome.  Rome will burn and the astronauts from the fake moon landing will play a fiddle with the pilots creating vapor trails to keep us sedate while we are all consumed.

12/1/16  2016 Election
Anyone who is not nervous about what paths of destruction our president elect will wreak, is just plain ignorant, or willfully blind.  Each day has brought a new statement against everything that our country should be about.  Yes, we have a lot of problems.  Yes, we are too slow to fix them.  But we still hold our truths to be self evident.  Nothing about our soon to be leader shows any signs of self evaluation and justice for me to support.  And no, I will not blindly support any leader simply because they hold a title.  You want respect?  Fucking earn it.

We are not witnesses, we are participants.

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11/ 27/16  New Blog
The start of my fresh new website.  My very old and outdated site had a lot of varied writing.  I like writing, even if no one reads it.  I have been told that I'm "opinionated", "sarcastic"   hmm- maybe.  Most of what I write and think about is related to some element of my artwork.