The past six months

So I figured since I updated my website it was finally time to update my blog since I haven't posted anything since August.

Excuse me if I sound a bit crazy like I always do but that's kinda of my right as an artist and rambling helps sort things out even if no one else reads it.

Since September I feel like I have been trying to catch my breath but something just keeps coming up. Between painting commissions, applying to grad schools, getting ready for the show at the P.L.U.M gallery and doing things like changing car taillights (while still working at least 50 hours a week and going to the gym or running religiously) I feel like my days and then months have blended together and I haven't stopped. But that's life. Everyone I talk to is always busy. I completely blame our society.

The frustrating thing is that I chose to do something in my life that allows me to evaluate some sort of meaning in this world. Something that's supposed to make you stop and realize what's important in life, and while I've decided that making art is pretty high on the list, I find that I constantly have to remember that people are just as important. I often find that I have to remind myself that friendships and family and soaking up the life that's around me is not one more thing on my to do list but a natural and essential human instinct.

Anyways I'm going to try to not ramble on like I did this past summer. I think the summer heat somehow makes me feel lonely and restless, two feelings that I hate the most and can never seem to shack. I think I've figured it out though. A few weeks ago I decide to take a break and go running on the beach right around the time the moon was the closest to Earth it had ever been in the past 18 years. I took note of all the families playing on the beach. I think it was right after the Japanese Tsunami had hit. I feel like personally I have felt very unsettled and restless the past two years but it's been building up even more the past two months and the collective restlessness of the world (between earthquakes an the economy) has only enhanced these feelings. It's comforting to know that others are feeling it too but still unnerving nonetheless. Individual energies just feed the growing apprehensiveness of the planet.

I don't really have any specific point that I'm trying to convey, just that in that moment running on the beach and watching all the kids play I was very aware of the looming ocean besides me. I had my ipod on and I somehow felt like I was in a very separate world from the people around me. As people started flocking to the beach i think it hit me that this past summer it wasn't those times that I was by myself that I felt lonely but only those times that I was in public by myself. The key to loneliness is being able to be content with being by yourself in a crowd. I know plenty of people have discovered this before me but I seemed to be having this crazy epiphany while watching the moon rise.

It also shouldn't take things like major earthquakes (or reading Tuesdays with Morrie on your lunch break) to make me recognize how busy I've let myself become.

Artist get to address all of these uncomfortable issues that it's almost taboo or cliche to mention in our society. Loneliness. Death. Love. Sex. Life. Loss. All the major themes of being human that people seem to not take the time to understand. I mean when you stop and think about it how odd are humans? We are very strange creatures. The way we act individually, as a society. The way we need each other but are too selfish and busy to truly function as a whole. It's human nature. Even the best people disappoint, it's inevitable.

Even as an artist, a person whos job it is to convey emotion, meaning, feeling in life, I find myself running around sleep and food deprived sucked up into the chaos I try to fight against as an artists to begin with.

Still, I can't imagine a life without art..without passion, feeling, music, THINKING. It's part of being human, part of life.

So I ended up rambling more than I meant to. I guess onto the important stuff. I finished the charcoal drawing from this summer. I wasn't sure if it was done but after leaving it under my bed for a few months I knew it was complete. I worked on another one this fall and the busted my ass to finish one the past few months for cellar six/ the plum gallery (it almost made me feel like I was back in school). I feel like I've really learned how to control the charcoal, almost, pushing it around like how a painter learns to manipulate paint. I've also really enjoyed playing with light and shadows.

I guess I should also mention the P.L.U.M show opening. It was really exciting to have everything up framed on the walls. The night was a blur, but that's how most show openings are. There was definitely a different feel to it than the school shows but that's to be expected.