Friday, February 27, 2009

spare change



by no stretch of the imagination am i an individual that understands the state of the economy. i've heard many words slung around, words that years of books and movies have taught me to understand as bad things. it would appear that the world... or at least the parts of it that seem to affect me.. is fast approaching a recession... thats if we are not already "there".
jobs are being lost left and right, thankfully it has yet to hit home. parents aren't feeling any backlash at work, and my brother has actually started working again. all is fine for them, and for my close friends etc... well, im not doing too hot.

economy aside i am horrible at the job of job-hunting. i seem to be qualified for nothing. that is unless "excessive imagination and short attention span" are sought after resume traits, oh and lets not forget my terrible sleeping pattern.

all in all i am fated the life of an artist, which is great... until i came to the conclusion that people probably don't want to buy art when they may lose their job in the days to come.
i did some googling to see if my "conclusion" was valid... and the results were surprising.

from the few sites i visited i learned that this recession is a good thing for art... sorta.
art, good art, is a good investment. simple. people realize this and are expected to act on it. the art that isn't so good on the other hand... will crumble away. so from what i have pieced together... the recession will strengthen the art world, cut away at the useless and help restore ART as something to be applauded, opposed to a saturday night hobby.

with 2 shows in March fast approaching and with bills piling up... i can't help but worry. will i survive this... cleansing? if all goes well i will sell fair amounts of work and still be able to order a few things off amazon. if things don't go so well... if the see-saw that is my wallet brings me nothing but frustration... well... mcdonalds is always hiring right?

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

investing in umbrellas


 i know i am not alone when i type in my blog, with obvious irony; that i hate computers. 
today my newest technological investment decided to go belly-up... i swear it had a smile on its face. not 3 months old and it decided that it was going to screw me over just like its predecessor, and the one before that, and the one before that. its funny that i'm complaining about a computer by typing on the one that it supposedly replaced.
its been 3 times now (3 is a popular number), that i have had to sigh the sad sigh of losing hundreds of memories to the hard drive in the sky. i cant even tell you how many files named "words.doc" and "rants.doc" i have lost over the years. byte after byte of clever pairings of words and contradicting metaphors. after a while you learn to let go. though really what i should have learned is to keep a hard copy of everything. afterwards there is always a nagging voice telling you that you could have saved them! could have saved them all if you had but the slightest foresight to backup, to prepare.
oh its all so ridiculous. 
but really, how many books and memoirs have been lost to hard drive crashes and office fires? in the end i suppose it just goes to show you that nothing is forever. not even the "non-physical" of data is safe from time and human error.
yesterday i installed a doorknob on my new bathroom door. that door was without a knob for a few months. come to think of it... that bathroom was without complete privacy for over 4 months now. its amazing what some people can do without when they are too lazy to care. its even more amazing to think that i still have a girlfriend after all those months.
the important thing is that i got off the couch, drove to my local Home Depot, bought a doorknob and then proceeded to work for over an hour installing it. i truly am amazing. now it is only a matter of time before my house comes crashing down! door and all... and i lose my precious doorknob. victory can be so short-lived!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

rewinding lines


how does one begin a blog post without anything of consequence to report?
i am still sick. it sucks. though i am still able to hover over a desk and spill lines, so really it could be much worse. a day under a week ago i had some work on display at Mitzi's sister, a bar of sorts. although fun was had by all the event didn't quite turn out as planned... but that is not important. what is important is that it was the driving force behind 15 small drawings, some on mylar some on paper.
its funny, when i was much younger, in elementary school... i was so sure i was going to grow up to be a comic book artist. i wasn't much of a comic book buyer at the time, but as everyone knows its not about the material things. i had a handful of comics and cards that i would read over countless times. my dad had many years of education regarding medicine and human anatomy, as such he was my teacher when i was having a hard time drawing from books and action figures alone. he would start rambling off the proper terminology and names for the different muscles, when all i really wanted to know was how to draw a really powerful Hulk without making him look like he had just been stung by a swarm of bees.
i remember in grade6 i had a large sheet of paper where i had drawn over 20 characters of varying size and "powers"... they were all bug-people of some kind aka muscle-bound humans with bug heads and buggy feet. i had such ambition then. spending hours mapping out the panels for a page before i had any concrete idea of what the story was about.

somewhere along the way i became more of an observer than a player. books piling up on my bookshelf, but hardly any drawings to go alongside them. somewhere along the line a line was drawn between "real" art and comicbook art. i guess i convinced myself that i would never be as good as the pro guys and decided to do my own thing. my "own" thing is going pretty good, i can still draw a half-decent spiderman... but the energy is gone... or misplaced.
although the small stack of capes are very cartoony and playful, not at all what i had sought out to do many years pass... maybe i can still get back in the game. draw a few bug heroes or something.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

sneezing profanities


i am feeling like crap today and in my cold-induced daze i have decided to start a blog thing.
whether i will maintain and watch over it is a toss-up, but maybe just maybe i will grow to love and cherish it and it will grow... bloom.... into a wonderful orange tree from which i will squeeze delicious orange juice with extra pulp. do oranges come from trees?... or are they more like bushes?

this is a horrible first blog entry. ah well, i'm all about bad first impressions anyways.