A Charlie Brown Kind of Guy

If there were any character in fiction that I most relate with its Charlie Brown.  Of course in my Charlie Brown story Charlie is secretly in love with Linus who rejects him emotionally then uses him sexually when he can't find a chick to get him off.

Knowing there are people that have it worse in the world really doesn't help me, and having it worse is really dependent on the way you measure it.  If you're describing it in terms of the freedom to move through life independently, the ability to follow what you love, I find my life lacking.  My whole life I heard that if you find your true calling everything will just flow together for you, you'll be happy and nothing and no one will be able to keep you from accomplishing it.  I guess I'm starting to understand that what they meant is that regardless of how much shit gets in your way, you won't stop until you accomplish your goals.  Even if it never happens for you, you just keep trying.  The problem with that, is when you have a strong desireto accomplish great things, but are unable to find the resources to do it.

It really sucks but the world we live in is so much nicer to you if you're a good looking skinny person.  Hell if you're straight, white, male, good looking, trim, and come from money the entire world is open to you.  I am short, gay, fat, mixed race, balding, and have no financial help to pursue my art and no one will hire me.  Every time I think I'm going to get over this rut in my life and get to go back to my "real life" where I make art and live in a big city and have fabulous artistic friends who throw amazing parties and everything else that implies, Lucy pulls the football.

I land on my back every time and I never learn my lesson.  I keep letting Lucy get my hopes up, that I'll not just get to kick the ball and get to move the line of scrimmage off my own field goal so I'll have a fighting chance but that somehow I'm magically going to kick a 100 yard field goal.

My magic wish, if I had a Fairy Godfather, would be to a full time fine art gallery and museum artist with a three bedroom flat in either New York, London or Paris, and I would have a husband that was a stay at home dad and three sons.  I'm at the point now, where just having enough money to rent a room in someone's basement that isn't my parents, and be able to eat and make art would make me happy.

So people are always talking about building a staircase to the moon or the stars, that its slow and it takes work.  Yes, I do look for short cuts and yes they have been backfiring but I can never seem to find the tools and the resources I need to win if I play by the rules.  Where is this great American upward mobility?

Finding My Path

Well I've been working on a visualization technique where you visualize and repeat something to yourself and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  The visualization I've been using is "I am living my true calling."  I really believe I've actually figured out what that is.  I've been working as a substitute teacher and I absolutely love it and I'm talking to the head of the MAT program at RISD and he's actually giving some consideration to possibly letting me into the program.  I really feel that becoming an art teacher is my true calling, for myself at least its the most wonderful job in the entire world.  When you look at my talents and interests it really makes sense!

In other news I've gotten really involved in the Mind's Eye Society, its a nonprofit LARPing club for the World of Darkness game system.  I'm the Venue Story Teller for my local domain for the Accord Venue, its extremely fun and this is the very beginning of the new venue.  I love finding fun creative things to do when you don't have the space for huge art pieces or the money to drive all over taking photos.  Its also a great way to get involved in my community, make friend and have fun that doesn't involve spending crap loads of money every week.  I'm even using my art skills to help the club, below is a photo I took for the club.

Crap Weather Blues

    I don't know about you guys but I'm completely SICK of winter, especially living somewhere that you don't really get to enjoy the benefits.  It would be one thing if I lived somewhere that I could go cross country skiing or inner-tubing or if I lived somewhere warm where the weather never really changed but instead I live where we just get grey and ick.  Mainly we get the occasional bout of freezing rain or freezing fog, if we do get snow its usually less than an inch, never enough to even go sledding.  The light quality sucks, I'm kind of sick of drawing right now and the light quality is horrible for photography.  I've been writing a bit, getting some good responses but more than anything I've been escaping to watch my little pony and down prozac.  I really need to move back either somewhere with better weather or to a big city where there's stuff to do when the weather sucks.
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Living for Today

As I've said before I can't live for someday, I've got to live for today because someday may never come.  So I know that I've said that "someday" I'd like to go to Yale for a masters in photography, well I've decided instead to live for today. 

I may have mentioned it before but there is a school in London known as the London College of Fashion and they have an MFA program in Fashion Photography and what's great is that their program seems to really have that balance of employability and fine art that I'm looking for.  I actually think this might even be a better fit for me than Yale would have been, don't get me wrong going to a school where people pay you millions of dollars a shot when you graduate would be fabulous but unless you've got wealthy politician parents that went to the school and a 4.0 GPA, getting in is like winning the powerball, maybe even harder since only 7 people get into Yale MFA Photo every year and probably dozens of people win the powerball every year. 
The reality is though that when I really thought about my visual ascetic and the kind of life style I want to live when I'm done with graduate school LCOF just made sense, it fit.

 The thing is I really do actually love fashion too, not like what's trendy at Walmart kind of fashion but like gorgeous art wear type fashion.  One of the girls I went to college with made dresses out of teabags and hair and different weird things and they were really some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen I totally loved them.  I hope I can get in.

That really is the thing isn't it, getting in...

You can have all the greatest ideas and intentions in the world but until you make it happen its less relevant than a fart in a stiff wind.  I'm not totally sure how to make it happen.  How do I get all the pieces to line up to give me the best possible shot, and will even my best shot be enough to get me in? How do I know who to ask to write me a letter for graduate school? How do I know what pieces to pick? Should I pick things that are more conceptual or technical? Should I send them a CD or print a book?

I miss college when if it really mattered one way or another the teacher would just tell you and otherwise it was up to your own discretion.

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.