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.

My life at the moment

Well I went to truck driving school and was out on the road for like a week until I figured out that it really is just NOT for me. Trucking is a really difficult life and you've got to love it or there's no way you can do it. I thought I could just do it as a job to pay for my art career but that's not happening. Basically right now I'm trying to find a job that will cover my bills as quickly as possible so that I don't lose this apartment at the Tashiro Kaplan.

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Super Excited!

So I'm still waiting to hear back as to whether or not I passed the first part of the leasing process but I'm super excited that if all goes well I'll be moving in to the Tashiro Kaplan hopefully at the beginning of January. I wonder if I'll be able to have a New Years party at my apartment...

So for those of you that don't know the Tashiro Kaplan is a rent controlled artist building in the Pioneer Square area of Seattle Washington. Its one of the Art Space Live Work Artist Loft buildings.

I have all these amazing ideas for paintings that are just screaming to be made. I feel this overwhelming NEED to paint.

Crappy Gay Art

This homo is extremely annoyed with the lack luster quality of gay art being produced in this decade. By gay art I refer to art which specifically addresses LGBT themes or issues. There's been some interesting developments in design and advertising but actual Art with the capital "A" has been severely lacking. For one thing though, if your art isn't erotic, you've gotten over your coming out phase and you're fairly well adjusted, its kind of hard to make good work about LGBT issues that isn't seriously depressing. I mean there are a lot of really important issues that need to be discussed (HIV, Gay bashing, disconnect of identities for LGBT persons of color, those horrible ex-gay ministries, the legal battles LGBT parents go through, etc.) but if every piece you see on gay issues is negative or depressing, eventually you just go numb to it all and you stop taking in the information.

That is part of the reason why I think works of art that show the world as we'd like it to be are so effective. We see this piece and really want to just stand there and soak it up as much as possible because its the world as we know it could be and should be, the way we wish everything worked, and then the message really has a chance to soak in and there's a driving passion to create that world we saw.

I want to live in a world where true love exists and princes fall in love.

Joining the Failure Club

So I came across this thing in the Yahoo news cycle called the The Failure Club, its the most amazing concept I've ever heard of. The whole idea is that if we never allow ourselves to put our entire being into something and put 110% into it and still fail we'll never learn our own limitations, that mediocrity is what fearful people settle for because they're scared to fail. So I've filled out an application to join the club. I had to select a goal to try to accomplish in one year that would be almost certain to fail but not completely impossible. I decided to attempt to move to Paris France and make my living entirely from my art. Its a huge dream and would be the most amazing accomplishment of my life, if I could do that, all I'd really need to have a fulfilled life would be to have babies and possibly a solo show at the Louvre and maybe a husband.