Todd McClellan

Whoo child these artists are just a never ending barrage of...well, awesome.  My latest find (though I'm certainly not pioneering anything...) is a photographer by the name of Todd McClellan.  I came across him while going on my ritual hunt for the next creative monkey to catch my eye and steal my heart. 

Now...this isn't to say that I've fallen madly in love with Mister McClellan.  Rather I've become quite intrigued by his latest body of work, since it seems that he is more versed in using his photography skills for commercial related materials as well as automotives, places, etc.

This last one's my fave.

Now his most recent body of work, which tackles a much more conceptual based (at least, what I can tell from my perspective) topic seems to have come out of left field.  Or chances are he finally is in a place where he can appropriately express himself outside of mainstream venues that help to pay the bills.  Hell, he probably loves all of it and I'm just being silly.  We'll never know.

The latest in his new series is called "Disassembled," and it is a series of photographs that goes to meticulously take apart old pieces of technology that we've taken for granted and organize them in such a way that it is photo ready right down to the itty bitty washers and pins that hold everything together.  This is definitely a kind of focus and dedication I can understand, and in all seriousness I hope to someday be able to lose myself so completely in my work that what comes as a result are a bunch of tiny minutely detailed pieces of radical awesome.

His work has been examined by DesignBoom , Juxtapoz, Twisted Sifter and LostAtEMinor , sites that I try to visit religiously to seek out what's going on in the art world. ( The last two I just added to my repertoire, and I hope that I'll continue to be intrigued by what I can pull from there.)

What makes this work really stand out is, simply, its precision and attention to detail.  This is an artist who has taken the time to really examine the makeups of what we have used in our world and magnifies the definition by forcing the viewer to really look at everything that makes up what seems to be a very basic mechanized tool for every day use.  Push a button and it works, right?  But do we really think about the textures and details that make the whole for what it is?  Do we really see that?

It's times like these that it helps to just stop, take a minute, breathe and...be.  Just be.

Shaun Tan

Well friends it looks like I've found myself another artist to become twitterpated over.  Which is wonderful for me since I'm stuck at the PDX airport waiting on mine and my family's flight to San Diego to watch my brother graduate from the Marine Corp Boot Camp.  Alas!

But, *ahem* onward!

The artist who has recently captured my eye is the inimitable Shaun Tan.  He's originally from Perth, Australia, which is where a good chunk of his inspiration came from for consistently implementing the clear open Western Australian skies in his work.  He'd recently won an Oscar for working on the animated short "The Lost Thing," which was based on one of his already illustrated picture books.


Excerpt from "The Lost Thing"


He's a tireless worker, finding more pleasure derived from creating his next illustrations in the quiet of his home with wife, parrot and budgies.  I add this little tid bit in because honestly...how often do you find someone really living such a quintessential life?  I'm a fan, essentially.  I'd be doing something almost entirely mirror-like, except I'd have an artistic wife and a few moose sized dogs gallivanting around the home.


Excerpt from "The Red Tree"


His childhood to adult life is also a classic progression to fame.  Never his goal, but as a child he was known as the "good drawer," which was better than being known as "the short kid."  A quiet serious fellow, he attended Balcatta Senior High School in the arts program graduating in 1991 and attained his Bachelor of Arts at University of Western Australia graduating in 1995.  Since then he'd been working as a freelance illustrator and taking whatever gigs came his way to hone his craft and pay the bills.

Now, obviously, things have taken quite the drastic turn.  Over the past 16 years he has won numerous awards for his picture books and continues to wow people with his insane ability to narrate using hardly any words to accompany his visuals.  There isn't really a specific age group that he aims for, he just wants to tell a good story.

And boy I can't wait until I get my grubby little paws on his stuff.  This is more than just exciting for me.  This is the kind of work I'd like to someday aspire to.  I've no idea what my style is yet, other than it being light-hearted whimsy based material.  Which doesn't always stay on paper.  But at least I have an idea of where my style lays!
 


The Rabbits


The Arrival


Tales From Outer Suburbia

Ah, finally! An ART blog.

*note: the links are apparently the same color as the rest of the font in this blog, but the names I've dropped all have links to them*

I'm always on new missions, it seems.  New goals, new everything.  Something to rebuild what was, because clearly the direction I've been going has been useless.  At least that's the rumor.  But really.  I've just been letting my brain go to mush because I've spent so much time pushing to do the things that I have to do.  And that's no fun.  Where is the pleasure to be taken from doing the things that I want to do?  Where have those days, gone, eh?

So, without further ado, I introduce y'all to Dustin Nguyen:

And Ashley Wood:

Ben Templesmith:

These are some of many illustrators that have inspired me.  Their styles are bold, punchy, and while there are other illustrators like Darick Robertson, Matt Wagner (my all time FAVORITE for creating the brilliance of Grendel), these guys stick out pretty solidly.  

Also notice how they're all guys?  Eh?  ;P

I need to do more research into female illustrators.  From the few that I've seen I haven't been too impressed, and maybe I just haven't given enough due credit.  But perhaps someday I'll be swingin' with the rest of the guys and proving that I'm worth my salt.

First I gotta sit my butt down and actually draw something first. ;)

Untitled

In my quiet I imagine there to be open land and space.  

Wintry wonderland, where the tree branches reach like 

fingers or veins into the sky, creating shapes of woman's

legs and letting you know how old the earth is.  I want to

kiss them and run my fingers along the bark, the dry skin

no one wants to touch.  If inside such quiet you should find

me sitting in my snow pants on the roots sucking in all the

cold air until my lungs and nostrils burn like lungs and nostrils

are supposed to burn when the cold is dry, dry, dry.

I imagine there's more to life than just waking up and feeling like

you're just another day.  Poetry just in keeping your eyes open

and staring into clouds, waiting for birds to come out of the pillows

and flex their deceptively solid wings, their bones so hollow you could

whistle music through their joints and pretend you're a kite on a string

while you swing and sing with the windy catches and dips overlooking

God's vastness and valleys that remember you to be so big even though

you make out to see yourself so small.

I feel like Bobby, want like Claire and cry like Jonathan.   My fingers are 

longer than God made them out to be and if I stretch myself out far enough

then I can tap your shoulders and then you'll know that I was standing there.

The Motion.

Well.  It's official.  I'm finally beginning personal transition.  Not only in specific regards to my current stasis of being out of a 2.5 year relationship, but just in regards to what I want out of things.  Which I've talked about in various layers.  Same thing but a new detail each time sort of deal.

As a wonderful friend of mine put it, I'm finally having some emotional reserve for myself.  Part of me will always feel sad in a way to see this huge chapter close but I can tell you I am just as excited to transition into the next one.  I'm not so much living in the past like I love to do but taking what was along with me and preparing to collage the new right on top.  Not so much so that my past becomes encased and sealed away, but so that the layers keep on building and expanding over time.  This in a weird way is the kind of complexity I was subconsciously hoping for, and so I'm just gonna ride it till it's time to catch another wave and then whoop and holler my way to shore and get the bonfire party really lit up.  Man I can't wait for that day.

So!  To start off, here is the current state of my "room":

Yes, that is my See's uniform you see in the forefront on the left.  I'll probably be bringin it back come Fall.  It's good money.

I can install hooks and things along the wooden beams overhead and hang some pretty sweet lanterns or something if I so choose.  I'm still working on figuring out what I'd like to get as far as lighting goes.

The shelves to the right of my dresser were already there, so I can turn that into something for later on...

This little nook I'm MOST excited about.  I can't wait to stuff it with more music gizmos once I figure out how to get the most out of my keyboard.  And I wanna get the most out of making and having shelving space as much as is humanly possible.  

There is so much rawness to where I'm at right now...and maybe I'm being all head in the clouds, maybe I'm overshooting...but really I want this to be my creative space.  I'll stop being so self centered soon, I promise.  I even make myself gag on occasion. :P

I would like to figure out how something like this is accomplished.  Stencils and layering...this is the kind of vibe I'd like to have set up.  Maybe not quite with the dead fish, but this is what I was thinking in terms of what I wanna put on my concrete walls.  There will probably be hot ladies or something, I'd imagine.

Well, there's my day in the life.  And some of my thoughts a bit, art wise.  I'll try to talk more about that later. ;)  

Push.

I'm slowly noticing more and more that I'm not the kind of person who does well when I don't have a lot of work to do.  Work as in the hours I put in to get the monies.  That sort of thing.  Although I've got the sleep part down.  Sleep I could do for eons, since I spend more time losing it than gaining it.  Ah...youth?  

So what is the appropriate reaction for a young workaholic like myself when there aren't enough hours to make the days fly by?  I cook.  A lot.  And listen to a ton of blues, bluegrass, and soul.  I daydream of what I could be writing about in my head but by the time it's ready to hit the page I've instantly forgotten.  I walk my friend's dog, I stare at stupid social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr, and OkCupid (shush, don't judge).  For whatever reason my insane urges to establish human contact rev up to an all time high because when I am left to my own stillness it actually drives me quite mad.  I'm not sure what to do with all this....time.  And soon I'll be back to the patterns of having no time at all to do anything.

So why not try to fill it with more things?  Like...?

I keep talking about drawing more, sculpting more, working on putting together strings of animations to develop whatever craft I think I might have up my sleeve.  I have no idea what I would create, I just know the kinds of things I would like to create and like to see created.  Things that have a darker macabre sort of vibe, like a scene at an old carnival.  Or something lighthearted and whimsical, like a child riding a bicycle on a bridge of dreams, the speed of her pedaling determining how fast the piano notes fly while she rides through a city made of paper stacks held together by wishes and segmented yarn pieces.  Something.

I keep thinking about music.  Making it, breathing it, doing something that would allow me to dance the way I hear the world.

I felt the world through food today.  I made ravioli from scratch for the second time, and I think that it was necessary for me to do that.  Kneading dough is probably one of the more therapeutic things I've come across, especially with all that has happened recently.  When I finally get time to myself I am cooking.  And the more back to roots basics I can begin with it, the better I am.  This whole process takes about three and a half to four hours.  Who the hell can meditate on food for that long?  Apparently I can.

This time I made the dough like I saw it on this Italian website, where you just pour the flour onto the counter and make a hole in the middle to have it look like a volcano.  Then you put the two eggs in there, some olive oil and some water (or milk if you're stuffing the pasta) and then you just have this gooey mess until your hands mould it and create this dough.  And you keep working into it, and pushing your palms into the dough, pushing so hard you launch yourself off the floor and almost over the whole counter itself.  (though I'm quite tiny, so maybe it's just me)  You take it in your hands and squeeze and turn, and fold it over itself again and again until there is some elasticity to the dough.  Let it sit..and then go to other things.  I'm old school (and probably a little stubborn) so I use the good ol' knife and cutting board to mince and dice my ingredients.

Alcohol is a good companion when losing yourself in these culinary intimacies, but I've also found that hooka works just as well.  It's soothing in a weird way.  I'm sure my lungs will tell me to fuck off later down the road.

Now there are all these crazy leftovers for me to do with as I please.  Dough, garlic, ravioli stuffing, pasta sauce...I could make a lot of different things.  And that makes me happy, that I can spend my time without anyone else around.  Just tinkering away, creating as I understand how things are to be created (and then putting my own spin on it), and having nothing but my two hands working ceaselessly.  While I make the food it's hard to not have my mind drift to inviting a ton of people over and feeding all of them and having a great time filling the living room with smiles, snuggles and laughter.  It's hard to not want to throw spontaneous food parties and have us dance the night away stumbling with our half empty bottles of wine clutched in our hands.

I think it would be wonderful to just lean into another human body, smiling and breathing full bodied flavors of home cooked meals and cabernet into their shirt collars, ties, jackets, dresses or neck.  Dance the evening away like you never meant it for anything else, and love with everything you own and kiss like it is the very sustenance to move your heart for just a few more beats.

Live with passion, I suppose.  I think that's what I want to do.  Live with passion.  I certainly dream with it.  Why not bring it into reality?

Just Dance

It figures that just when I start getting into the realm of really wanting to dance (not just club dance, but stylistic dancing...) one of my jobs starts pooping out on me.  So I'm back to applying for work in hopes that I can just have a regular joe schmoe job that will help me pay the bills and I can still get my butt through school.   But my thoughts on that are for a whole other rant entirely.

So last night I did Bollywood dancing for the first time.  I really wasn't doing Bollywood at all, just dancing how I felt to the music that was being played.  My heart will gradually skip more beats the more I look to see where DJ Anjali is playing.  She's a lovely soul, and is so into the music she spins that it was hard not to appreciate everything about the night.

And the fact that I had a hot date didn't hurt either.  Which, by the by, I've found that the girl is even more smokin' hot if she is actually down for the sweating that happens when one is dancing up a storm.  By that I mean if I'm gonna dance as hard as I love to do and sweat like I do...and actually be called sexy for it...well then you have my attention for as long as you want.  Or for as many dances that we have together.

I love to dance and put everything I have into the movements.  Whether it's a martial arts form, sparring, or working on martial arts drills, it all boils down to being a kind of dance.  It can leave you tired so good it's about the equivalent of post sex euphoria or will get you so jazzed you'll want to wrestle a bear.  Maybe you'll just be sweaty tired happy just for moving your body to where the rhythm took you.

There's a reason massage therapists comment on how well my hips move when checking for anything muscle or joint related on my body.

Now, back to Bollywood.

As I said, I wasn't really dancing specifically to the Bollywood style, because all I knew was that it was a crazy Indian musical extravaganza that's been around since the 50s, with the films lasting about 3 hours with intermission.  The reason why these movie/musical deals are as long as they are is because Indian people expect the whole she-bang when it comes to paying to see entertainment on the big screen.  A dance number of some sort, as well as love interests and dare devil thrills are things that absolutely must be included in the film.  It's pretty intense.

Long story short, it was just a blast.  I hope I can do more.

What I would also really like to do is go blues and tango dancing.  Yes there is the idealized sexiness of it all, and the fact that I've actually gone blues dancing a few times and participated in the sexy is just too much to resist.  How can you not feel like a Sassy McSasserson when you've got dancing game?  There's only so much to be won from being able to drop it like it's hot, but to be able to apply specific dance techniques that's about joining your very skeleton to the notes that hit the floor with intention and damn near animalistic base sensual drive?  You tell me where there isn't room to be so hypnotized by something as captivating as this.

But...all in good time.  Where there's a will there's a way and where there's music you can bet your sweet ass I'll be there shakin' my booty to it all until I drop from exhaustion.

The Art of Doing Nothing.

I work too much, it's true.  Sometimes I find myself moving so quickly that in the briefest moments of genuinely organic borne solitude I feel this sudden urge to explode, like a firework.  Some kind of sound so that I know I'm not alone in the quiet.

But when I am made conscious of it, this curious bit of solace, I feel...like I'm floating on my back in water.  It isn't contained, it simply...exists.  I'm not even so sure I would call it an ocean.  Almost like The Truman Show, but without the painted walls of sky.  Just that sense of real but not real.  My ears are submerged, and my face sits on the surface like a painted mask, my torso, knuckles, knees and bits of toes following suit.  There is no fight, there is no struggle.  I'm just there.

I can actually fix myself breakfast in the mornings without turning my mouth into a hoover vacuum so that I can leave the house on time, layered coats swirling through the air to wrap around my body as I open the door to leave.  As soon as I simultaneously flip off the porch switch and close the door, it becomes as good as a pistol firing into the air to begin the race towards the end of the day.

Sounds become even more heightened and significant on days where the world makes no demands.  The sound of the knob on the stove as I heat up a just washed pan, and the crack of the garlic shell as I peel away  the thin exterior.  The moisture of the minced garlic seeps into the cutting board, and as soon as the butter hits the pan it begins to brown upon impact.  Sweeping the garlic with the back of the knife into the butter, my fingers somehow manage to hold all three eggs while they crack and drop, translucence matter becoming solid.

My plate is half eggs, half sliced strawberries.  I make just enough coffee, and can actually pour soymilk into my mug because this time we have some.  Two boxes, even.  This doesn't sound like anything exciting, but because my adventures rarely travel beyond my work places and home, these kinds of mornings are things I look forward to.

As for the rest of my day?  I shower, clean the house, dance with myself to Gotan Project radio, and get lost in the realms of politics, news, and art.  This is my way of doing nothing.  My own little music box for me to happily spin on one foot and think only of the sounds that I rarely get to hear because usually its companion is dust and time spent racing against myself towards the end of a day I've barely remembered once I've turned off my alarm.

Adventures in busland

So I'm waiting for the 56 at Washington Square when this old lady named Nes (which also means "nose," because she is apparently a nosy woman and talks way too much, according to her self analysis) asks me about when the 56 comes.  We chat about that for a bit, and then she goes on to tell me how she'd been a smoker for 53 years and now that she'd quit (in October), she had gotten fat.

She doesn't like the fact that she's fat.  She swears that she'll start exercising more, because when she smoked she didn't gain weight but still ate the things she wasn't supposed to be eating.  She gave me a little torn sheet of coupons for KFC for me to use so she wouldn't be so tempted.  Nes then goes to tell me that she told her husband that she swore she'd work out and soon get a six pack, but he retorted that it looked more like a short stack to him.

After talking about about when the bus would come, I casually mention that I'll probably go inside and get a cup of tea from Starbucks.  She says that sounds like a good idea and why doesn't she buy me the tea since she wants to go in for coffee.  And if Emily the 21 year old is there then the coffee will be really delicious.  I politely decline at first hoping that would deter Nes, but apparently she had settled herself into the determination of continuing our conversation.  So, Nes uncovered my weakness for not being able to say no to funny old ladies and I acquiesced and followed her into the mall.

At that point we'd learned one another's names and she went to list out all the other Teresa's she's know/n throughout her life, starting from the east coast and then working her way around from there.  I can't quite fully recall.  There was something about a woman who married an attorney which eventually caused them to get a divorce.  Not sure if it was because he was an attorney or if it's because someone wasn't nice to the other person.

I'll admit, the initial beginning of our conversation I only half listened to because I wasn't too invested in our conversation, but I was intrigued enough to pursue this curious turn of events.

As we're walking towards Starbucks, she talks about how she was just awful at fourteen, just awful.  She has 7 siblings, likes coffee but knows she shouldn't be drinking it, and a few other curious events.  We get to Starbucks, and I get my tea and she gets her coffee.  We wander over to the condiments bar and Nes proceeds to pour in a packet of sugar, a dash of half and half, and sprinklings of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, and chocolate into her regular house coffee.  Then she puts a straw through the mouth piece of the lid.  Nes admits this is a terrible thing for her to be doing, and she swears she'll work on it soon.  But later.

I tried walking really, really slowly.  I could hear her wheezing incredibly hard and for a few moments I wondered if she was borderline ready to have a heart attack.  But she trundled on in her curious waddle like fashion, with her ridiculous furniture cushion fabric decorated little old lady shoes, her old lady cloth pants and flower long sleeve shirt and her multicolored knit cap that looked more like it should have been a doily set on a coffee table somewhere with an antique chalice-like ornate oval ceramic bowl filled with fake fruit.  Or ceramic kittens.  Something about old broads and ceramic kittens...

Nes then turned her attention fully to me and said, "Enough about me and all my talking, tell me about you."  Blinking for a few seconds, I was momentarily at a loss for words on where to start.  So I stick to the small talk descriptions, about being the oldest and how I'm waiting to get back into school again to go into art therapy.  She makes an aghast face and apologizes for me about being the oldest out of three, because that means I have to do everything.  And are my parents still alive and together?  Yes?  Well.  That means I'll have to take care of them when the time comes, just I wait.  I tell her that I don't mind that so much because they've done so much for me and I'm pretty grateful for what I have with my parents.  I guess her history with her parents wasn't so easy breezy, being a terrible fourteen year old and all.

We head back outside, and she proceeds to tell me about her foster daughter who was in the Gulf War, had joined the army, and when she returned went to Marylhurst to get her degree in art therapy.  Then she says how she herself went to Marylhurst for a degree in Social Work and attained four minor degrees in the process.  She worked in the field of mental health, and is now in the process of writing a book.  It's only 40 pages long on the computer, and she's been putting it off.  But it's a reflection of her experiences as a social worker and it's for all different kinds of families to read because she herself has been adopted into so many different families throughout her life.

Nes then mentions that 8 years ago she was hit by an SUV by an old couple who weren't more than a few years older than she was.  Her head bounced on the ground like a bouncy ball, and as she lay on the cement, she swears that 13 or so angels or spirits or whatever hovered around her in that instant.  One of them said to her, "Hey!  You.  Pull down your dress and get up, you're not done yet.  You've still got homework to do."  Nes has never prided herself on being very obedient, but in the case of life or death, you do as you're told.  I concurred.

She planned on giving me her daughter's tea because I love tea so much.  Again, I politely declined.  But she insisted.  I then got a phone call from my lady and excused myself while I took the phone call.  The 56 had arrived somewhere in between the Gulf War story and Marylhurst, and we boarded taking separate seats.  As she was leaving the bus for her appropriate stop, she apologized for not being able to find the tea.  I told her it was alright and wished her a safe night as she stepped off into the black.

And that is one of my many adventures in busland.

And....reset!

So, being that I all of a sudden have vast amounts of time on my hands (pfft) I am slowly but surely re-working my place here in the blogosphere.  Now...while I could devote my material to a specific theme like most bloggers do to get their hobbies and pride n' joys out there for the world to see, I have way too many interests.  And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to devote one particular blog to said interests unless I've really been gunning for certain habits which would then require (out of common courtesy) me to filter my fandom into its own little interwebby cubicle of awesome.

Another problem with having as many interests as I do is that it is a guarantee I will accomplish none of these things to the fullest unicorn-like existentially orgasmic extent that I would like them to be.  I am indeed a Gemini full force, with a million miles an hour attention span coupled with a million miles an hour IRL (in real life) schedule.

Dilemma?  Maybe.

That, and there's that whole get outside into the real world and interact with real humanoids type...thing.  Adventures are good, but...um...I wanna decorate my brain more.  Kind of like the space pod in Little Big Planet.  With doodles and bobbles and whiz-whams or clawm-foozles in harlequin and sparkle spandex while riding a fantastically muscular unicorn breathing glitter  fire from its nostrils.

Yeeaaaa glitter fire.

I had a point...somewhere...

Ah yes!  Before my brain collapses infinitely into potential cold doom, my point was that I will plan to blog more.  I've become much more inspired artistically and intellectually with the various news articles and tumblr feeds I've come across (my tumblr btw is gaysianwanderlust.tumblr.com).  It's stretched my noodle to magnanimously laffy taffy sized proportions, for which I am eternally grateful (which makes it fair game to warn you that my brain has become more dangerous to traipse around in.  Ask my roomies).

This also means that I will be adding and subtracting to the blogs I follow (and will try to keep track of as well), which is another reflection of my interests as they bumble along like bumblers do.

Which reminds me.  I need to blog about this amazing old lady I met today.

Hello, ladies.

It being International Women's Day, it seemed appropriate that I should list the women in my life who have been an undying inspiration to me.  Even if I never talk to some of them anymore due to diverging life paths or what have you, I still think of key phrases and quirks that keep me in check whenever I come across something out of the ordinary in my daily life habits.

Obviously the first person I should be listing is my mother, Lisa Nguyen.  She was brought into my Vietnamese family as the first white woman to be married into our generally absurd but religiously vehement Catholic hive.  While it took me the better part of forever to appreciate everything about this sturdy and endlessly compassionate soul,  I suppose it's better now than never.  My existence became the first marker for my two siblings and eventually several cousins of mine who were born half Vietnamese and half white.  And now, half Filipino as well.  We're certainly expanding and growing as far as nature's genetic kitchen is concerned, if not fully mentally for our more traditional family members.

Where to begin?  She is one of the most resilient women I've ever known, and is a fierce warrior when it comes to providing and giving her children and husband all that she can offer within her reach.  If there was a way to realign the stars so we could get our favorite cookie from the bakery that closed three years ago, she'd do it.  Despite her being a conservative Christian woman, she is one of the most welcoming and openly loving humans who actually sticks to the practiced philosophy of loving people for who they are despite her own personal moral disagreements.  Quite the rare breed, if I do say so myself.  Especially with having a queer as all get out heathen daughter like myself. ;)  She taught me how to say what I meant but using a delicate finesse at the same time, how to love unconditionally, how to fight when I needed to and to let lie what could be revisited later.  She taught me to rely on myself and be resourceful, investigate things to the tiniest detail so as not to be taken advantage of, and most importantly she taught me to work my tail off.  Because that's what she did to provide for my siblings and I.  We are a middle class family, so we didn't have too much to want for and too little to savor.  It makes her sad that she spent so much time working to give us what she couldn't have and missing out on some key moments in our childhood, but to me she is still my hero. 

What was really important was that she never quit on my siblings or myself.   I think the biggest thing was that she never quit on me even though I was hitting rock bottom morally (according to her, anyway) and rock bottom in a couple other areas.  Or close to it.  She always focused on what we could do and where we could go next to be great.  I've probably been her biggest challenge and the overall result for her grey hairs that keep cropping up like weeds but she refuses to let me slip away from her.  And that never giving up attitude is...amazing.  Insurmountably.

My maternal Grandma, Angie Tucker.  Sicilian immigrant to the states in 1939 before Mussolini came into power, my Grandma grew up Italian raised but American bred, if that makes sense.  She always stuck to her roots of where she came from and made sure to raise me with a sense for having an iron will and speaking up for what I wanted.  Even if that meant ordering for myself at our usual breakfast spot, which for a kid who never talked and was insanely shy, those were terrifying moments.  She nurtured my curiosity for science, art, nature, and overall the meanings of life.  Plus she took me to the mall so I could play with the virtual arcade games.  You know, the kind where you're standing on this platform and wearing a head device from the future and a gun blaster in hand.  She was responsible for keeping my tiny human brain from lapsing into deep depressions, and even fended off a mad goose when he tried to bite my face off at the local Sellwood park.  Both she and my mother are also responsible for my feistiness.

Aunt Jen.  Regardless of our current relationship status now, when she was around she was my idol.  Anytime I got to speak with her or hang out with her I never felt judged, under-appreciated or like I could do any wrong.  Rather, I was gently guided to figuring out what to do with my angry 17 year old self and allowed a safe haven (out in the middle of no where in McMinnville) to hide out at on weekends when I just needed to get away.  I almost moved in with her and my uncle when they were still married just to get away from my mother, because at the time I was convinced she (my mom) was a terrible person and should just piss off.  But, thankfully, that never happened.  Not only would it have altered the course of events as they have guided me here, but it would have turned my world even more inside out with the events that happened with her marriage.  But I am grateful that for the time we were bonded, she was the lighthouse I could go to in my times of extreme emotional needs.

Vicki Doyle.  I initially dropped into her universe at the mention that I could watch her kid and get paid for it while she ran her hair salon downstairs.  So I was a part time live in nanny on weekends.  She and her brother and parents grew up with my mother and her siblings and parents, so there was already a good solid foundation of history.  She even took me to church for my parents when we could have easily avoided it all and just said we did it.  For me she somehow landed the role of...mentor/aunt...thing.  She is a back-breaking hard working lady, and a whirlwind of a personality to boot.  Despite her penchant for being one crass old broad, there was no question in my mind that she was a fierce fighter for her family and close friends.  If you needed a hand she was there to help in any way that she could.  She worked for everything she has now, and will probably be weilding a pair of clippers until she is six feet underground lobbing insults and laughing at you the whole way down.  She kept me in line during the time I consistently spent with her, and didn't let me get away with squat.  She also influenced me to work my butt off for what I had and do whatever it takes to get to where I need to go.  I think she also got me started on my snarky sense of humor as well, seeing as how I was her regular punching bag for a good couple of years. ;)

Angela Gay.  Artist, business woman, friend, mentor.  As weird as it is to have a friend who is also fulfilling the mentor role, I had to eventually admit to myself she was just that.  But not only, if that makes sense.  She was in a way like an older sister, once I got over my puppy love crush that went on for ages.  Also a sarcastic piece of work, she was there for me during my baby gay days.  I was at one point her biggest fan (before life took over) when she finally started showing her work in galleries.  Now she's married to a beautiful woman (whom I've never met), and momma to three dogs and two cats in a house she bought with her lovely wife.  I've never seen her house, I wasn't invited to her wedding, and despite my repeated attempts to rekindle our friendship she seems to hold no interest.  But when she was in my life she reminded me that it was important to appreciate the people who you spent time with and to be ok with letting them go when it was time for them to leave.  I always remember that whenever my connections with people begin to disappear and I still feel like there's more to go, but really there isn't.  And I think of her any time I make "your mom" jokes.

Lolly Patton.  I've slowly been learning more about this amazing specimen of a human being as time goes on, and she wows me like nobody's business.  Not only is she a vision to behold and worship for eons, her mind is a delightful endless collected calamity of odds and ends that range from your daily dose of advice to anecdotes about stealing gnomes from your front lawn (of which I've been a hapless victim to). ;)  She is a quiet riot, a battle ready defender for justice built on her long and well traveled road of shaping and re-shaping her place in the universe.  A proud mother of three children wise beyond their years and husband to one of my other good friends Benjamin Balzer.  She makes no apologies for hacking away at the places, situations and people who didn't add to her life and fills the bellies of those who do with more rice and beans than you can shake a stick at.  Pull a stool up to the kitchen bar and swap tales of all things sensical and non around a mouthful of food and a small glass of Jameson, and that in my book is a way to end your day when the world seems to enjoy beating the crap out of you.

The list is endless, really.  My cousins Lizzie, Julie and Amy, who continue to be as true to themselves as they know how and make no apologies for where they've taken themselves in life.  Carol Kappertz, who has survived a million and a half things that most humans couldn't survive and is still rarin' to go (and laughing at your woopsies in the process). My good friend Chelsie, who is a ridiculous powerhouse of a human being.  I've never met anyone more determined to get what she wants out of life and is fearless about tearing herself down to build back up into a human she can be more pleased with.  That takes balls.  My oldest friend Alex, whose endless compassion for people never ceases to amaze me.  Her patience is long and courageous, and is one of the more stable people in my life that I know will always continue to love no matter who you are or where you're from. 

To all these women...thank you for being in my life.  I probably wouldn't have made it here without you.

Keys.

Every time I hit a wall I always remember something that my guru said to me.  People seem to find themselves in cages but what they don't realize is that they were the ones holding the keys the entire time.  You don't have to settle for what's in front of you and be upset and angry and think that there's no way out.  There is.  You just have to decide that you're going to make this change.

Sometimes the absurdities we put ourselves through allow us to forget why we did them in the first place.  We forget how sometimes there are happy moments and as soon as they're gone we remember why we were sad and hold on tighter to that.  It makes me wonder, why do we always hold on to what makes us unhappy?  Why should so much energy be expended into maintaining a stasis which serves no greater purpose other than to offer unfortunate health problems and a fouler than thou mood?

Working three jobs puts a few things into perspective for me.  Number one, it leaves very little time for self care, much less time spent with lovers and friends.  Number two, all I think about is work.  I worry about whether or not I'm accepted, whether or not I'm doing a good job, rearranging the order of events I normally perform in my head so as to be more efficient and somehow earn more kudo points.  If people notice.  I mainly always wonder if I'm noticed.  Some rubbish childhood trigger of always being made invisible or some such thing.  Who knows. :P

I've allowed myself to settle into this commitment to a relationship I haven't even given myself the time to properly explore.  And I don't mind breaking my back (sometimes literally) to make sure I'm helping move the day along that much more smoothly.  I love the people I talk to, I'm actually really liking my bosses and co-workers (most of them, anyway), and the road continues to get brighter as things go on, hiccups or no.

But all I think about...is work.  Money.  Savings.  Or lack, thereof.  I thought this time out of school was to be spent working and having fun.  Not working and being exhausted all the time.  I hold the key to my fun.

Didn't I say I was going to draw more?  Work on music more?  Dance more?  Laugh more?  Didn't I say that I was going to give myself a chance to breathe and be and exist and celebrate?

Well, didn't I?

I think I did.  I'm going to unlock myself now.  I'll see you when I get back.

Goodbyes

With a little inspiration from pleasedraweveryday, it has come to my attention that...well, I should write more.  Again.

And blessedly, with a good 3 - 4 year hiatus from the blogosphere (or in my case, writing about everything under the sun in 1000+ words when really it only needed 5...), I think my brain feels cleansed enough to have another go at pontificating on the things that sing with pleasurable vibrato.  Something beyond words.

I was saving this blog to write about all the lessons I'm currently learning about the tiny humans, but I realized that there will always be time to learn about tiny humans.  After all, I plan to devote my career to it utilizing the magical wonders of art.

What's come to mind lately is the way people communicate goodbyes.  How we celebrate a friend or family member's departure into our collective unknown but will soon be their collaborative planet of shifting continents and crafting mountains of history and beautiful natural sculptures of re-birth we could never fathom when we were young.  

"Goodbyes," "see you later's," they're all said in different ways within the construct of those words.  And maybe I live in a fantastical universe inside my head that says everything should have its own crescendo when you bid farewell to someone.  Or something.  Maybe there is just as much beauty to be found in the subtleties as much as there is to be found on grandiose scales of knightly gallivanting into sunsets championing for better tomorrows.  

Almost all the goodbyes I've experienced have been subtle.  Quiet.  Maybe I'm just craving loudness.  An exeunt made for the books.  Something to say, "this is it."  And all I want to do is throw huge shindigs.  We'll dance and laugh, drink with arms around shoulders and faces so close you can feel the hot breath pushing past your cheek while we hold each other close for the last time.  I want to be able to say, "This friendship was amazing.  I'm really sad to see you go, but I know that our life paths are going in opposite directions and it would be impossible to find one another again if we tried.  But at some point, hopefully I'll see you soon."  I want to wish them a fair journey.  Blow a kiss to the sea as a silent prayer for sleepy sailing.  

Maybe I want to make the memories as poignant as I believe they should be because the fallibility of my personal memory is sketchy at best.  It feels like I'm holding on to pieces of thread that at one point connected to something important.  Or at least I think it was important.  And I'm so scared of losing things that I want to document and memorize everything.  Somehow.  Anything.  Any tool that's available to help me remember you because at some point I am terrified I could forget you.  And no one should ever be forgotten. 

But if it's important enough you'll remember...right?

I like big goodbyes.  

I know that dancing with all goodbyes as they come and go creates a worthier palate for my fingers to paint with; a layered convolution of yarn, string, legos, paint tubes, photographs, words, zeros and ones.  Don't think I'm retreating to a binary, but maybe get a glimpse of how I like to piece things together, yea?  I want to remember...everything.  

And maybe with all the art I could potentially create out of this it will be my way of throwing you a party.  I'll hold you close then let you go,  sending you off with your paper lanterns twisting and dancing in the wind while the carriage bounces and leaps away, as though the sunrise could catch you at any moment and you just need to get a little farther down the road.  

Goodbyes are a funny thing.  A funny thing indeed.

Stories

I hear a lot of them.

I find myself more entranced and fascinated and just wanting to listen to people talk until I fall asleep.  The words and images continue to roll inside my mind, through my dreams.  But after a while, after hearing the story so many times it becomes part of me in a way.  Of course I also want to include stories that had me laughing so hard my sides hurt.  Laughing so hard my face muscles couldn't laugh any more.  This isn't to say that I am looking for something to alleviate a possible notion of emptiness I might be feeling.  I just like to listen.

Stories.

We are a culture that thrives, on stories.  The heartbreaks, the adventure, the mystery, the horror, the comedy, the sadness, the anger...something in the way we all tell them, hear them, feel them, are them...it is an underrepresented complexity that makes me wonder about how often they are really felt and listened to.

And that's not to say that every story we tell means that we are that story.  What I mean by that is...sometimes the stories we tell are to give people an idea of where we come from.  Who we are now by no means represents or defines our character as it has been crafted today.

So many times I have heard friends and families tell me stories of where they began, where the middles appeared and thankfully I almost never got to know the ends of those stories.  Because my friends, and family, are still crafting more today.  And in a way it's almost disheartening that the stories I remember most are the ones filled with more tragedy than comedy.  More strife than smile.

But at the same time there is that automatic thing we all do when we hear "those stories."  We compare who they were to who they are.  And we realize that through what happened before can now be considered laughable, for some.  What was considered strife was really a forging of strength.

It sounds cheesy, but this is one of those quiet times where it hits me square in the chest that, Damn.  I know some powerful people.

And I know I've got my strengths too.  I know I've got my stories as well.  But like most folks I know, it was just a thing that happened.  At the time it felt big.  And sometimes when we look back we see how big it really was.  But mostly it isn't about trying to show you how big it is, or was.  Most folks, including myself, aren't interested in making what happened their life.  Some of course choose to take what they experienced and turn it into something for the better to help those who have had the same sorry stroke of luck.  Or wonderful blessing.  Some people choose to keep it a conscious part of remembering where they've been.

Others, myself included, keep gentle reminders of the stories we bear.  Written in journals, drawn in pictures, held within the malleable recesses of our minds.  Because after a while you stop making those stories the focal point for everything you do.  You stop screaming into the bullhorn.  Some people never pick one up to begin with.  You saw it, you met it, you dealt with it, and you move on to the next stage of your life that requires most if not your full attention.

I am a lover of stories.  I developed my passion in books, and gradually moved to develop my passion for people which had me falling in love all over again.  Part of me knows that what I remember is only meant to be held inside my memory until it gradually fades away.  Part of me wants to never forget what I heard.  To record everything and hold it tight against my body.  Wrap myself in rainbow twine, each color representing a new person and story that loops itself around me, until I am a massive ball of string, made of tales of joy and woe, anger and terror, mundane and adventurous.  I want to be able to just float in space, a massive ball of twine, spinning ever fervently, ever forward (wherever "forward" winds up being), collecting more and more stories as I go.

Human beings are so amazingly complex I just want to revel in their gloriousness.  Smarts and stupids and all. Skin smoother than a baby's ass and warts on warts on warts.  I revel in you, fair storytellers.  And marvel at your tenacity.  Even if it is as mundane as opening your eyes, cursing the fact that it's Monday and finding out someone ate your favorite cereal.

The bastards.