Evidence

Here are the pictures I mentioned before. It's actually a tryptic I'd drawn on paper once and decided to try it again with the new medium. It looks better in person. Partly because I don't have a slide camera and I'm no good at framing my shots squarely, so I had to photoshop the images to isolate the subject. And partly because the texture of the pieces in person add to them. But here they are.

At last

I attended an art opening last weekend. My friend had a piece in the show and had asked me to attend. I happen to love his work and was excited to see the piece he'd been working on. i was not even remotely disappointed. His piece was gorgious. More so than that though, was the over all feel of the experience. There was so much creative energy in the space. Several of the pieces displayed were impressive, and one got the feeling that something real was transpiring. Some innate means of communication between viewer and art. So often artwork can be too literal and stagnant, for the most part, this wasn't the case in this show. Somehow that communion inspired me. Today I finally experimented with an idea I've been toying with for months. The reults were greater than I had expected. The first piece I tried was admittedly shotty, but tit led me to try a tryptic which I'm completely in love with now. Once the lighing is right I'll photograph and post them for all to see, either here or on my website. The best part is I'm re-motivated to resume my previous series. I'm even going to redraw some of the earlier peices in this new way. Tonight alone I have come up with four (count them 4!!!) new ideas for pieces, plus I finally worked out the kinks in an older design I'd never liked enough to commit to the larger format. I can hardly wait to start working on these, though cost of materials is a bit daunting. If they come out how I envision them though, I may finally try to get a show in some manner. We'll see. For now I'm just excited about the prospects this new style is delivering. Even my dad, in his relentless support, though waivering understanding of what I try to make, was overtly impressed with the results of the trials, exclaiming that I've really found something in this new medium, instructing me to get my ass down to the store and get more supplies. Huzzah!

Farther and farther

The Un-usual place is seeming farther and farther away these days. I'm so lost in my existence, while wondering how that can be since my existence is so shallow and pathetic. I'm back to that place where I often think "Just give me a gun and show me the trigger."

Luckily I'm smarter than that. Yet, I still have to sit and think it. As though just sleeping would solve the emptiness.
But if creating isn't doing it. If going out, being with people I love, sex, drinking, smoking too much, if none of these things will do it....what will? (and don't say hari-krishna)

I want to run away, but there's nothing to run from. I want to immerse myself in the un-usual place, but it's too far to get too, and I know it won't serve the same as it once did. I need a new hole to crawl in. I'll be accepting applications, if you or someone you know has a hole for me to hide in, please feel free to comment or write in to askninny.

abductor

It seems to lie under the surface.

Hiding from view in whatever shadows it may find.

It is the abductor.

It takes from us that which we cherrish.

It takes with and without warning.

It steels life indiscriminately.

It's renaissance is terrifying in scope and realm.

It is cancer.

It is in the lives and deaths of so many. Unchecked, unseen, unrecognized.

Unknown

Unsolved

just taking.

Waiting

The time comes, every day, when I realize I'm waiting for something.

Night walks reveal hints.
Scent of carrob, shape of Jaqueranda and Elm.

Silence and solace while sitting on brick.

Yet nothing betrays the reality of what the thing is.
Nothing explains why I'm waiting.

Perhaps if I had some concept of why I'm waiting, why the purgatory of existence is in place, I'd relax?
Or maybe, had I an inkling of what it is I'm missing, I'd look for it.

I've learned, over time, that when something is needed, searching rarely reveals it.
Patience delivers that what is sought, not searching.

Still I find myself waiting. Day by day, night by night. Wishing for the next stage, if not the conclusion.

Sometimes I long for the un-usual place. Not the time, the place. That wandering, self-reflective period when there were genuine things for me to reflect on.
Now I find myself staring up into the street lamps in the wee hours wondering if I'll ever sleep soundly again, if I'll ever have work again. If I'll ever feel a purpose again.

Creating is my last stronghold. I have no other venues to express what life is than to make things. I divide my time amongst ideas and process. I clean, eat, smoke, and make.

I'm so fortunate to have this odd dilemma. Do I take a job I despise in order to receive a real paycheck, move out and exist. Or do I wait and hope that something will come along. That I'll find work that suits me before I dive back into the world I'd be in now were it not for my parents?

Guilt rides me daily for living as I do. Free of rent and most bills. Just a slacker in the suburbs wishing to escape. But to where?
There is no work for the unemployed elementary school teacher here. There are no apartments that fall into the price range of the poor.

Southern California is a sess pool of classism. The haves must have loads, the have nots must have something. The rest are homeless or leeches. I fall into the latter. I leech. I cling and hope that the day will come when I can do it alone. But for now I have no options and no hope. Alone and waiting. For someone, something, somewhere to take me away.

Obnoxiously personal (feel free not to read)

I just finished writing one of those long drawn out emotional (or should it be demotional?)confessions. I hate writing shit like that. Never ending, uncomfortable for the recipient, and only half true.
Granted half is more truth than most human interactions, but vulnerability has never been something I've admired in myself.
Oddly , it's something I admire in others.
I suppose that's one of those "humanity is okay, as long as I don't have to be human" things.

I can openly admit my faults with pseudo-pride. But realizing that those same faults signify my own personal failings is a rougher pill to swallow. I'm used to my physical short comings. They're unavoidable. But the internal ones, those are the barbed and poisonous stingers. Lurking in the background waiting to dig into the flesh and tear away the thin membrane I build up between attacks.

I find it odd that the one thing I want right now is intimacy, but it's the one thing that can completely screw me up.

Seriously. Castrated hermit would be such a perfect life if only it would fix it. It won't though, so but the shearers away buddy.