Always making
I’m a little late with this one but still important bits of shinny muchness to put on plates for you and yours.
This week’s Painter Files is about Insomnia. All most all creative art type people have it in some way and in that I do too. I have had it off and on like we do for around 30 years maybe. Maybe a little less than 30.
Also, painting updates.
A lot of things going one this month coming up. I’m really hoping it all works out perfectly.
Mostly just trying to figure out what I want to teach.
I wash in the middle of thinking about this day and I got sidelined. That happens some times. I get in the groove and then something reminds me of my Marley and I’m taken back. I don’t know that I’m ever going to be … great. I don’t know that I really want to be. Alec is so wonderful and she sees me drift and helps me when I come back. I have this way with me that wants to be here but is traveling through my timeline. That pain is my own personal magnet. It is a planet and I am a space rock. I’m working on living better in the now than being lost in my time.
I’m proud of this one. I feel like I’m getting so much better each time. Also all most at 100 subs. Please subscribe if you enjoy my videos. When I reach 100 I get my own personal web address rather than that long generic one they give.
later
Jaws
I need to get back to just listening to podcasts and watching old Japanese samurai movies. It’s an odd sentence I know but I like the work I make when I have one foot in the just now and one foot in the black and white subtitles.
I never saw that finish line. I was the kid who walked the mile. It just seemed pointless to run to get to the starting point of a circle. The goal had no prize. Filling up a book with a pencil was like making my own trophy. And sadly, most people when I showed them as a kid felt the same way about a book of sketches as I did about running in circles. I guess I’m that type of artists. The one who saw kids playing and thought; this would be cooler with a dragon in the corner.
Anyways; it’s Dia De Los Muertos today and I’m thinking about my Avos and my Avas. I miss them. We didn’t really know each other deeply but they helped shape my life in ways. They taught me kindness, food, sometimes anger, bravery and lots of laughter. I have photos of them and a video of one of the last moments in the last month of mone’s life. The other I never met at all but his children shined thru him. And then there is my Marley. She only lived the tiniest of times but means so much to my heart. Parents are not meant to outlive their kids but it happens and you live in that truth. This day is special for me because it is a celebration are their greatness. How much love they had and how much love I gave. And my heart; she is exploding with love. Â She beats out the sadness with songs and joy and creativity.
I got into a show today. If you are in the area please come.
This has been one of those years where everything awful has been said over politics. I am done living my life like this anymore. We need to feel like we can make and be anything again. I was always told that good food and amazing music are the vitamins of a healthy soul. So I can feed your stomachs but I can feed your ears. Here is my mix tape just for you this season of beautiful Fall 2017.
I always listen to music when I paint. It takes me to a perfect place to listen to my heart song. I hope these songs find your direction and inspiration.
The weird bit in my life was I never meant to remind people of Basquiat. It just kind of became a thing people saw in me. I remember in art school I hated that people put us in the same box. I felt it was a little racist at first but the more I educated myself the more I started to understand. We paint from the same place so to speak. The heart and-and the darkness are so opposite. Not a lot of people can think about both and not get stuck in this loop. I guess that is where we meet.
We both hate rules. The outlaw who ends ass up with bunny eared pockets feels more natural than still life paintings of fruit in bowls. I never felt like I wasn’t wasting a surface on potted plaint paintings.
I thankfully have not burned out thanks to my friends at 27. There were some years back when I was burning the candle to the nub. People need people. It’s simple but honest.
By the by,
as of this moment I have 71 YouTube suscribers and when I reach 100 subscribers I will unlock new features for my channel so I realy hope that happens. I just have this feeling I can do so much once this happens. It will be that wall I can keep tagging and the world will see it. Samo would have made it his by now.
We all want to be an indie song. We want to be a secret favorite of everyone that no one knows is really popular. That is my nature. To make these huge statements with ink and paint and not give deep long answers to what they mean at all and just let you think about them and make up your own narrative but I would love to secretly read chat room arguments on what it means to you conflicting to the screen name across the world. I daydream about the day when I’m so busy someone sees me on the street and goes “wait is that , that guy who did that painting?” Â I want to be the atom in the scarlet. I didn’t come up with that I heard it in a song from a movie but it stuck with me and my mind ran with it. That is what I want to be with paint. A song in your head.
I’m at this point where the pain is huge but I want to paint more then I want to rest and rub painkiller cream on the fun bits.
This rocking chair is like a base drum. As the beat hits, I am dancing in my blinks Light bulbs are the rhythm as I move in this motion to the cahone.
I feel like this is where my heart took me. That is felt the yellow ink in the paper and let it dance in the fibers. It was a freedom dance. I know the roads we walk as painters are long but in the soberness, they are also completely freeing. We are so much more than the brooding. It is a big part of it, don’t get me wrong but not the main part of it.
I realized that I shine because the people around me are so bright. I like to think we are each other’s lifelines. We have to be there for each other. Just know I have your back and hopefully you have mine.
jaws_blake 