putting off epiphanies

blowing the dust off my thoughts, surveying the multiple boxes of words and ideas with no place to go and as such remain boxed up in storage... is it a matter of TIME? need i be patient and wait for my half-empty cup to fill? to runeth over? i don't know. everything keeps getting put off, life getting in the way of life. pointless hobbies and unnecessary sleeping devouring any available time i have. time not spent in front of a screen assisting others live their lives, the 8 hours wasted to make someone else's dream come true while mine is put on hold. when is it going to be MY turn? when will the world stand still, the ball stop, the dart fly and land on my name?

it feels like the internet is trying to tell me something. various images popping up on my FB newsfeed from various friends feeling so specifically directed at me, when in fact they are posted by friends that find themselves in the same hole as i, and as such they speak to them... well at least i am not alone.

the internet is simply loaded with these images! different voices saying the same thing. DO IT! just get off your ass and fucking do it! there is no reason why you can't be happy. no reason why you cannot achieve your dreams but first you have to go for it. take aim. fire.

we are all so unhappy at times with the same routine life but continue to do so because well, there is no other option. bills need to be paid. food needs to be put on the table and no money does not grow on trees... and even if it did it would requires lots of work and maintenance i'm sure! heck i cant even keep these little potted herbs from dying!

you are what you want to be. life is what you make of it. if theres a voice in the back of your head telling you to make time for your passion, to not forget what truly makes you happy.. well.. you should listen to it. 

i know i sure as hell need to.

need to clear my desk of all this clutter and junk and lay down some crisp white emptiness on which to free myself. 

yea....

well what else can i tell you? i have been living with the gf for just over a month now. its very awesome. i am very happy. now if only i can get art going i would be a COMPLETE person... and hopefully that wont lead to some scale being unbalanced and horrible shit happening haha.. that would suck.. well, goodnight!

time machine-o

greetings!

soon to be seasons greetings i suppose, though really i do not know what that means. but anyways... the other day i was at SLEEPINGGIANTGALLERY at the reception for Different Strokes for Different Folks, i was talking with fellow artists Jacob Hughes and Mark Burnham. for obvious reasons the conversation turned to age, to the fact that Jacob was 17, Mark 32 and myself 24. three different generations in the same place at the same time. which got me thinking about what i was up to at 17, because sometimes to get a better idea of what the future holds one has to look into the past.
after taking a trip back in time in my amazing time machine i came to realize that although much has changed much has remained the same. many themes and subjects have stayed with me through the years. the more evident ones are as follow; figures, teeth, angel wings, outlines, white figures, superheroes, muscles, distortion of said figures, and darkness. haha looking at this short list i can't help but feel like i should have many more issues than i do (i got none baby!).

at the moment i don't care enough to dig up pre-highschool images so we wil make do with these:

these two images here are from gr.11. it was the first time having to create a "series" of work. for whatever reason my series was on phobias. above we have fear of public speaking and below we have fear of being alone. its pretty crazy looking back into old sketchbooks. i had "meanings" and "reasons" for every element in the paintings. haha and as much as they suggested i avoid outlining things.... i clearly couldn't help myself.

these two here are from a much longer series that came up from a strange dream and metaphors class i had in... first year at OCAD i believe. so i was... 19? i really liked these and stuck with them for a bit. the first one came before OCAD i think, while i was messing with some paint in trying to be a "rougher" painting... i think thats where the buildings came about. the one above here is actually the first piece i ever had in a showed outside of a classroom. it was for a square foot show. which was really open to anyone but it still made me feel very special. especially when i saw that little red dot on the wall beside it haha. good times.

ok so now we come to the present. which all began with much smaller ink on paper drawings in a 4th year class with Ed Pien. the idea was to challenge ourselves by working like one of the artists he showed us slideshows of. i think i actually went with Ed's approach to some of his works which was to begin with a random stroke of ink on the empty paper and draw from it and with it. my first reactions was to draw from inkblots but to draw superheroes. so i had a batman here, a superman there. Ed saw potential in it and told me to keep trying but to not use copyrighted images that the world recognize as such. which led to small random images which ithen decided would be fractions of stories, as they were based on random titles i pulled from books. eventually i tried out mylar as it would allow me to use layers much like i do in Photoshop. time passed... and here we are. the image above is actually one of the first mylar pieces that i regarded as a success. it remains one of my favorites and is the image on my business cards! the image below is much more recent and is currently in a juried show at StationGallery in Whitby.
the current series is doing pretty awesome for me. people seem to like it. which of course is all i can ask for haha. but as any good artist knows, i can keep doing the same thing for only so long. already its begun to evolve in leaps and bounds, at this point i can only guess where i will go. as much as i hate it... i think the plan is to go BIGGER!