Lost

My sails are torn
My muscles worn
Dark skies
Dark seas
Breath of white cuts my skin cold and wet
Steals my breath
The mast bends and creaks
Splinters shed like dander
Land is the lie of a dream
I am no longer bailing water but treading it
Wedged on a sand bar
Do I die a slow death of starvation
Do I chance the open sea and that which lies within its wake
Fear binds me

Won't Stop Believing...

I REFUSE to give up on my dreams.  For some stupid reason I keep trying to barter with myself to find something almost as good that would make me almost as happy but I need to pursue my dreams.  I want to be a working gallery and museum artist, it's what I went to school for and have devoted the last twelve years of my life working towards.  That's right this is what I've been trying to do since high school, and no I don't give a crap that its been slow going.  While I have a lot of unrelated side projects that I think would be fun they are electives in my school of life and I want to focus on my major which is being an artist.  I'm still really sad that Work of Art got cancelled but I've applied to a reality show on MTV working with Kelly Cutrone, who's a PR expert that is looking to help out young creatives.  I'm hoping beyond all hope she'll pick me as one of her proteges and help me attain my dream of being a working artist.

Feeling an Extreme Need to Vent

So I really try not to let unfortunate individuals darken my mood, but sometimes its simply unavoidable. What is particularly frustrating about this particular incident is that I effectively don't have anyone I can vent to because I'm trying to shut off all contact with the person. The person first said that I wasn't a real artist and that I never make real work and that what work I do make sucks. Then this person recently made fun when a friends got mad at me for expecting her husband to show up for a project we're supposed to be partnering on when he's working on other projects instead. I really don't get people that go out of their way to tear other people down.

 The individual in question isn't even a visual artist she's a fucking writer.  What the fuck does she know about the quality of my photographs or paintings? And excuse the fuck out of me that right now I only have the money and space to draw in my sketch book and take photos with a digital camera. Admittedly the picture up top is something I took with an iphone but I've been getting really curious in exploring the medium and the cultural connections surrounding it.  I think it adds something to the picture knowing that it exists purely in cyberspace and was taken with a camera that isn't supposed to be good for anything serious and yet looks like a very professional photograph.

Someday Can Not Be The Ruler of Today

So my dream is that someday I'll be able to attend Yale University for a master's degree in photography, but I've come to realize you can't live for someday. Right now I am living with my life on hold because I am waiting for things to change in the future, but the thing is I need to be living for now because what I am hoping for it is about as likely as winning the lottery. every year 1500 people apply to the Yale photo program and every year they only accept seven. That means my chances are less than 1 in 200 any given year. So if I want a real shot at going to that program I'm really going to need to bring up my grade point average and build a more impressive resume as which includes having some profound life experiences. The thing I most want to do right now is moved to Paris for a couple of years. I was thinking I could get a 4 x 5 view camera and a digital back with a laptop and take photographs of tourists in importance landscape locations and then use my iPhone to sell them the digital files I can email them. or maybe I could be an au pair or something like that.

Money Fuels Art

It completely drives me nuts when the only thing keeping me from creating these awesome photo series is money! I had a client lined up for a photo shoot, would have been $300 in my pocket, totally enough to get started on my series "Interior Landscapes". My fucking photo portfolio disappeared in the move. I spent four hours going through my storage space, it appears to have vanished. Granted its not enough to produce the entire series but its enough to get started and more than anything that's what I need right now. I'm reading this God awesome book called the business of being an artist. Do yourself a favor and read it if you get a chance, the kindle version is only 99¢. The next book on my reading list is "The Profitable Artist" and then I'm going to read "Untitled:Thoughts on the Creative Process". The first book is teaching me the things I wish I'd learned in school. I'm learning so many things about the art business that I didn't even know there was to learn. The big thing I want to learn about from both the first and second books is about funding for artists. It really doesn't do me too much good to learn how to sell the work till I've gotten it made. Unfortunately I'm not French so I can't type vague descriptions on note cards and call it photography.

How much life has changed lately...

So for those of you that didn't know when I first moved into my awesome life work artist loft, I had been guaranteed a gig as a graphic designer and photographer for one of the hottest clubs in the city and then after I moved in the guy flaked out. So I was in a lease and had no job. Well I was doing Task Rabbit for a while, which for me was a waste of time. I guess I've got kind of a bad attitude, but really it was a deal of I'm really not sure how to deal with people in diplomatic way when I feel they're trying to take advantage of me, and you're working with people from other countries sometimes so you get people who have a different idea about what is acceptable business behavior. Basically if you have me spend a month designing a corporate identity for you and you keep having me create multiple versions so you have lots of choices even though you were "in love" with the first one, and then keep asking for more work out of me that is beyond the original scope of the project and then give me flack because I'm not happy after I've created a logo, a corporate identity, files for you to animate for a video logo for your website, you decide you want me to create separate distinct business cards for each of your business partners when your ad said you only wanted one business card for all of you and a logo for your company, I'm going to flip the fuck out. So then I was applying for jobs like a mad man. Almost got job offers several times, actually had one for about a second until they realized that the DOL messed up on my CDL paperwork and they had to hire someone right then. Couldn't find work and had to move out before the first of May. I did get some serious work done on my painting though after I bought some medium. Now I'm living at home with my parents, again, and I'm trying to figure out where I go from here. I've got an amazing idea for an art series and I'd like to apply to graduate school but I don't have enough money for either right now so I'm trying to come up with some initial capital right now. Oh and I went on vacation with my family to Florida and we ended up meeting Beryl face to face.

Things to keep me motivated to Create

So I've become lax in my creative process as of late. The painting I was working on started melting and so I just stop making work. Basically I've decided to start a second blog on tumblr called "Vulnerable before the Lense" which will be a photo blog of tasteful nude and/or erotic photos of young men. Its just something fun and fluffy to do that I can do every single day so I don't get lazy and let myself go for weeks without creating a single work of art.

I always secretly wished I could be a writer

and now that I've shown my writing to someone who is actually really talented who actually likes my writing, I'm a little bit petrified that oh my gosh, I could actually write something. Basically I was told it was overly descriptive, had a few clumsy visuals, and that I'm over outlining and at this point just need to write it, but that they thought it was good and that even though there are too many of them the descriptions are really good.

I'm really excited about this, especially since my painting won't be going anywhere. The homemade medium I tried to make failed and I don't know about medium well enough to fix it and I don't have the money for liquin. Oh well I was starting to get terrible headaches from the paints off gassing anyway. I'll just have to go back to it once I've got money. I think for now I just need to do some drawings and try to sell those for cheap.

First Big Show Since College

So I didn't have any new work for the show so I showed the stuff from my BFA show (which was back in May of '08). So the show went really well and everyone loved the work, but nothing sold which is REALLY disappointing. I think the longer I live here the more I understand that as much as I love love love living here I need to get my art work into a gallery in some sort of tourist location. Really that's the thing is that people will drop a couple grand on a work of art because they're on vacation and its a "souvenir" but really only if its a super touristy place, and it doesn't even have to be "tourist art" is just needs to be in a location that is easy for drunk people with large amounts of disposable income on vacation to just wander into and you really need an atmosphere that is inviting, it really helps if people don't even know they're in an art gallery till they're in it. Really it seems the key is not that you have to sell out, just that you have to know the way to sell yourself. Unfortunately no one really does touristy things in Seattle, and they certainly don't get hammered at scope out all the shops with large amounts of money. I really do know WHAT I need to do, now the key is just figuring out a way to do it.

It was food or paint and paint won out!

At this very second with the exception of a bit of loose change and a couple bucks in quarters I'd intended for laundry, I am flat broke. Some how over the course of storing everything at my parents and then moving to Seattle, all of my oil paints went missing. That's probably around $4,000 in paints, brushes and canvas. I'm still pretty devastated over the whole thing as many of the colors that were among my favorite in that bag are now outlawed for production in the united states, including my cadmiums, which were the staples of my palette. I've got absolutely no idea how to replace my oil paints. The fact is really I can't, I've just got to make do and slowly replenish my stocks over time.

So today I took a bus down to Daniel Smiths and spent $162.06 on seven tubes of paint, three brushes, a bottle of poppy seed oil, a can turpenoid, and a palette knife. I then came home and grabbed my last eleven dollars in bills, dipped into my laundry money, and spent it all on a pizza and bread sticks from dominos. I realize I could have possibly gotten something cheaper, like ramen from a package, but if I want real groceries I'd have to ride an hour on the bus to the grocery store and I'm not in the mood for that. Now I realize this is going to seem ridiculous for a lot of people, not the pizza because that's always awesome, but I having been dying to paint for months now. I've got all of these images screaming to get out of my head and I just need to paint!

I have a show on thursday so I'm hoping the work from that will sell but if not life's a bitch and then you die. My hope is just that I'm able to sell some work and be able to buy food, pay rent and keep making art work. I'm applying for a job driving a bus for the King Country Metro and another driving buses for the airport incase nothing sells. The works I'm showing are the photo collages from my BFA show, which was back in 2008, its pretty humiliating not to having anything recent to show. I just couldn't be this humiliated next month, I HAVE to have a series of recent works to show. I had to buy those oil paints, I couldn't just have that canvas all prepared, ground colored and ready, sitting there mocking me. I have to complete this painting and how myself and everyone else that I WILL make it as an artist.

My intention is to do a series of oil paintings about visual metaphors. Its not the most high brow thing I've ever done but I just need to start cranking out work for now and worry about being a great genius once I've found my momentum. The picture is of the canvas I'm getting ready to paint.

Taking Stock

So I'm officially moved into my apartment. Things are going pretty well, other than I'm 100% broke and living off rice and water till I start making some money, but at least my apartment is prepaid till April courtesy of a sweet Christmas rent check from my parents. I'm supposed to be doing some graphic design work for the Last Supper Club at some point soon, but till I've actually got money in hand I'm going to continue applying for other positions and looking for alternative avenues of income. I kind of need to apply for EBT which is really frustrating just because my mother is a huge snob that looks down on anyone that takes food stamps but there's nothing I can do about and since she doesn't want to give me any money for food its just what's got to happen till I start actually making money.

Really I am so horrible with money, or to be more accurate I'm amazing at making it when I have it and get the most out of it when I spend it but I've got like no ability to budget it. Case in point, I bought a really cool book which I'm hoping will lead to a new source of income. Its a book on how to get into doing microstock through pages like istockphoto and how to take stock photography. The book is called "Taking Stock". Now when one takes stock of my life currently its arguable as to whether or not it was wise to spend $30 on a book about stock photography. While on the one hand I do have a pay check on its way (just mailed out today) from my last job which should arrive in a few days but until that happens I'm going to be pretty hungry just eating rice. On the other hand though learning to make a living taking stock photos could really help me in the long run. Who knows I may not make any money at all off this, or maybe not a lot. But at least its something productive to do while I apply for and wait on other work and it won't cost me anything apart from the initial investment of the book and the camera and computer that I already own. I figure that I'm a pretty exceptional photographer and if I can figure out the shift in mindset from fine arts photographer to stock photographer, I might be able to put something other than rice on the table, even if its just a pot of beans.

Here is a photo I took while I was trucking, hope you like it, I'm not sure if its sharp enough to submit to istockphoto but its a nice image anyway.

My first blog of the new year

Well this is my first blog of the year. I'm sitting here in the apartment of my friends Felix and Willie watching one of my favorite films ever which I'm pretty sure was one of the unconscious inspirations for this blog, "Julie and Julia", and I realized I'd been neglecting my blog lately. So an update on my life, I gave up on trucking I have neither the disposition or the patience for it, which is saying something because I've been told I have the patience of a saint unless I lose my sleep and I can not sleep in a moving semi.

So I'm two thirds of the way through the process of getting into the Tashiro Kaplan and I've found some work as a graphic designer to hopefully cover the bills. I've actually been working on designing a logo for a dj company here in Seattle. The guy I'm making it for really didn't give me any parameters so I got to go pretty free flow on it. I ended up deciding on this really amazing three-headed raven, it actually looks really amazing. These are the kinds of jobs that make graphic design fun and amazing.

I applied for the 4Culture Gallery show, I really hope I get it. I'm checking the internet everyday to look for info on when casting for season 3 of work of art comes out. I'm still working towards the dream of owning my own place with a storefront art gallery in front, studio in back and attached apartment upstairs. We'll see when I actually get into my apartment I plan to start blogging weekly if not daily about my art practice.

Till next time dear readers and art lovers.