Always making
I love comics. I always have. I love how they take your mind on trips and how the art makes you transform as you take it in. It has a perfect quality to it. I hope my art has that effect. My lines change your reality a tiny bit. That textures are now important to you. That you see somehting new and amzing and it makes you think of one of my paintings. I know that is silly but that is how I feel from reading comics after all these years.
I met great people…so many great people. I feel a new kind of inspiration. 
The best things come in the latest of night. It has this part to it that awakens in the moments when your brain yawns.
I remember painting like this when I was younger. These teeth and tongues were the mainstage a few times.
Finding focus in the new year.
I had to stop watching the news for a few days to find my focus. The newspaper I feel has more heart to it. Being able to put it to words has a strength to it, a passion. I remember being a kiddo and finding these “choose your adventure books” in the 80’s. After I would finish them, I would feel superpowered with creativity. I would draw all the things I had imagined, most had nothing to do with what I was reading. It’s funny to read a dictionary and imagine a new comic book. Â To see a new world inside and to be able to make it a real thing.
Once there was a boy and he loved paint. It was all his heart wanted and then he met people and he became a time painter.
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.
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.
My demons are big. They are faceless and yet look like me every time I look in my dirty mirror. They have made me a hell of a fighter. I remember being a kid and not knowing how I felt about sadness and anger. I remember they just came on one day. It had nothing to do with the people who were around me over even the place I was in. I was the prisoner on Avalon and no one would ever be able to see.  It was a labyrinth and I learned to paint sunshine and flowers on the walls and make it my home.  I learned to be happy and calm without depending on others. Learning how to be creative without the sadness was the hardest part. The pain was my drive and when it lessened I felt like a fraud for a bit. I don’t know how I changed out of those robes. Nakedness is a good word. It was the definition of how I felt until I grew to love my nakedness. So raw and so tender like a 20-year sunburn.  I stopped being Jae Jae and let myself be Jawara. I grew my hair out again and let myself be who I felt like on the inside, a new outside. The journey of a painter guys is not an easy road. it never really gets to be an easy road. But it is so deep and empowering once you hit the ground and make your mark.
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.
jaws_blake 