Inspiration

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
Vincent van Gogh

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come from something good or bad. Love, hate, a song, a word, the color of the morning sky, or the stars at night. I suppose all art is inspired by something. I never thought that way but looking back at my work I see it is true. I mean even a photo is inspired by what you are seeing.

Of my three fav paintings two were done years ago when I was still an undergrad. One I call ‘Dark Shit’. It was painted just after I got out of rehab and is painted in grey undertones with swatches of black and red over top. Still dazed and confused from a summer in hell it is if I stood back and threw my demons on a canvas hoping to trap them there.

Not even a year later I painted the blue painting on the sideboard. ‘Elephant Rose’. Totally diff from the dark one it is all bright shades of blue. Inspired, if anything, by the sheer joy of survival and putting some of the dark times behind me.

What I never experienced before was a continuing inspiration. In the past year I have done a dozen ‘quality’ sketches, one painting, and picked up my camera again. All inspired by the words, and just desire to see, of a good friend. What was an off handed comment about a rough sketch became a months long project ending in my third fav painting ‘Gurl Parts’. A summer vacation became an overdue artistic release of charcoal. I picked up my camera again just to see if she was right. And I started taking dozens of pics in sl partly in competition but mainly just to her reaction.

Probably the biggest body of work I have ever done in such a short period. Inspired by a my friend.

Thanks

tuneage

Addiction

I was an addict. I *am* an addict. It’s a very hard thing to say but its true. It's something that, once you have been there, you never totally leave it behind.

I have an addictive personality. It has taken many forms in my life from cigarettes to Ben & Jerries Cherry Garcia to, at times, sl. But its also left me with demons Ill forever struggle with.

I left myself in a pit so black I never thought I would be able to climb out. I’ve spent a month in rehab and almost wrecked a car. The police found me sitting on the hood of my car in a ditch. I think I waved. I burned through a years worth of tuition money in a month. So in other words I’ve been to hell and I know what it looks like.

The memory becomes the backdrop that you forever look at your life against. Little things that bother other people I shrug off as nothing. Than I’ll blow up over something trivial because it sets off something in the deepest darkest part of my brain. Some people think I’m down right crazy.

I tend to use the word ‘karma’ now.

I’m thinking Amy and I have a lot to talk about ….

tuneage

How

How did I end up here? Waking up in the middle of the morning to the sound of sirens in the street instead of the peace and quiet of the mountains of central Pennsylvania?

I always loved NY. Since the first time my mom brought me here when I was a kid. And yes there was a time when I was a kid. At times it seems so long ago. This city, and especially the Village, always had a hold on me. I don’t think a year has gone by since that first trip that I didn’t spend some time here. The museums, galleries and later the music and clubs. The crowded streets at three in the morning. I don’t think there is another place quite like it anywhere.

I met Ash my second year in college and we have been good friends ever since. That in itself says something about her because I have no idea how she could put up with me all this time. When we graduated she headed right for NY while a muddled along for years working on my masters.

All along my plan had been to move up with Ash after I finished my degree. But things never seem to go as planed and I was offered an almost perfect job at Penn State. I had to think long and hard about it but, in the end, it was just too good an offer to pass up. I did some teaching, met new people, and got to spend a lot of time with my brother who is now a senior there.

Than this past summer I spent some time with Ash and at the gallery she works at. I met the woman who runs it for the Swiss owners and ended up going home with a loose job offer. I think I spent two months torn over what to do. I remember somebody saying “I can't figure out if this is the gods dropping another gift in your lap, or the gods tempting you to fuck everything up again”. This was exactly my problem. The hold the Village has on me against my job at Penn State a place that has almost an equal hold.

In the end I had to do it or spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been. So here I am with the sirens blaring.

Hey I can always go back to the mountains …..

tuneage

Lessons

A few lessons Ive learned in my first days up here ....

1. Bars being open on a Sunday is a blessing and a curse. I mean even I need a day to say 'oh no I'm not gonna today'
2. I need a smaller bed ! And with that I'm to effing tall to live here !!
3. I procrastinate and sometimes it kicks your ass. I wanted to have a new portfolio together before I moved and alas I didn't do squat. So now I have this week to do it if i want it finished before I start work. grrrrrr

tuneage

Me

emo. A word from hell. Yes I can be emo. I have a short temper that i have been know to lose on occasion. I have been trying to keep that reigned in. Sometimes successfully sometimes not.

But to understand me you have to understand one simple fact. My art is everything to me. Its comes first, last, and fills the middle. It has been that way since I first picked up a pink crayon and fucked up the bedroom walls. And to me all art flows from emotion. Maybe I'm wrong in that but it's how i feel. I know artists who think the exact opposite is true (artists are a weird bunch). Some people never seem to get that without the emo side I just wouldn't be who I am.

When I paint I put everything I have into it. I can go days living on nothing but coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes. No food, sleep, or contact with anybody. Court, who I lived with at PSU, would check every now and than just to make sure I was still alive. Than when I'm finished I go thru the biggest crash. It can last for days and is hard on anybody close to me. The last time i painted anything I fought with somebody for days after. And the sex sucked too! Now that is something you will rarely if ever hear me admit.

So where am I going with this. Who knows. But that's it for now.

saddest tune i ever heard

ugh thanks sis for sending me that

new pic

Here I Am

Why am I doing this? Honestly I have no clue.

In the past weeks I left a place and a job I love dearly. Penn State University (btw Capital One Bowl final. PSU 19 - LSU 17). A good friend of mine moved to the west coast. And the day after new years I moved in with another good friend in the Village. Soon Ill be starting a job in a gallery there.

Years ago I kept a journal. It always seemed to help me clear my head in the 'dark days'. Recently I had a conversation with a doctor friend who thought it might be a good idea to do it again. To help me adjust to all the recent changes in my life.

Well here I am. Time will tell .....

tuneage