Home

These are two pieces of home-a view of the hay field from my back deck and a view from the edge of the woods behind my house.

New from the Book of Sketching

Yesterday I moved to The Market Street Art Studios in Lockport, NY. I was gonna start something right away but then realized I forgot my paper...but I did have a sketch book. Then I had a wild urge to do a life drawing at a cafe so I drove to Elmwood Ave. A very trendy part of Buffalo, close to Buff. State I think. I stopped at the little cafe thats attached to Talking Leaves bookstore and drew. This took all of 10 minutes.

Im really hoping that moving to a studio will help me to not procrasti nate with the T.V. and internet.

I had a really good time. It was kind of a cheap way of being around people. But I have to start making friends. Its harder to make friends for me than it is to slip into isolation. When I drove back I decided to look at Rembrandt's work a bit and got inspired to try my hand at a Master's study of part of one of his self-portraits. I worked on it today for about three hours with colored pencil and a little adjustment on photoshop. I'm really pumped about it.

I'm honestly working on little more than fumes and I feel like I should probably say this before I forget. I don't know why- I'm not all for going public about inner baggage. But I do want to say that this morning I started juggling between clarity and a panic attack. Laying bed and thinking too much-trying to slow down my heart beating-and some inner voice somewhere was saying that whatever lids we pull up on ourselves-its because we are becoming ready to be perceptive. I think that maybe one of the hardest fights-if not the hardest fight is the one we have with ourselves and our ego. And when we start to listen to how we ahve been dishonest, or not fully present we must atone for it. Those moments are OK, but we always reap what we sow. When we are growing up we suffer all sorts of growing pains. When we are emotionally growing up, it usually is precursed by some sort of struggle. But if the struggle doesnt beat us then we grow from it. I think I've realized in part why I'm home. Why I'm lucky to be home.

What a day

I saw The Wizard of Oz two nights ago, and Im constantly floored by that story. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and recently found out that Action Synthese is creating a fully CGI animated film based of the L. Frank Baum books. I tried not to react-but honestly felt a little torn that I am not a part of this, as if God has given me some authority over this story because its meant so much to me. Now especially, after graduation from school. I feel a little like I was in Oz and now am back in Kansas; a place that has its own beauties but where I'm not fully home either. Now a character liek Dorothy is like the quintessential child in all of us. The one that digs its heels into the ground in fear of growing up. But eventually we do have to grow up. We must own up to our humanity, face the consequences of our actions or inaction, and be a part of this world. We're all afraid of being brainless, heartless, and cowards-we all experience what those things are like. And we suffer for them, and occassionaly so do others.
I was driving one day to work and I completely zoned out and suddenly I was at work and thought "How the hell did I get here?"

Amazing art

Oh my god, Thank you Portland Studios for creating such magic.

Go West

This gal is a concept for a character for a new piece I'm working on. She's an old Western damsel.

Wacky Day

Today I took my dog Star for a really long and treacherous walk. She really didn't know what she was in for. Neither did I. It's really scary to be responsible for another being. Being a parent must be the most terrifying kind of position to find yourself in. Why would anyone want that, lol. That's crazy! Wack-a-doo!

Here's to Parents everywhere!

-Ruh-Roh! :0

*And here's to Star-what a trooper.

Sometimes I avoid making art. I'm not sure why this is, but I feel like it's something like avoidance coping. On the other side of that, if I don't doodle at least a little bit every day, I become an absolute basket case. And when I am drawing, I bite my fingernails till they bleed. Sometimes I swear I hate drawing, but I think that if that were true than it wouldn't bother me as much when Im spending way too much time washing dishes while my mind is on drawing.

Goodness, maybe Im avoiding right now!

I've been thinking a lot about Alice, or Dorothy and how they keep running from situations and for a while thats cool, but eventually they always come back to reality. Even if there aren't any talking animals.