Evening light.

Sunday evening at the studio.

Nutters

The Veil (in progress)

I've decided to work on The Veil again. It's a piece that I started a long time ago, but have reworked and recreated a couple of times. The above is a third go at it. I'd like to post images of the other two (one is a drawing, the other a piece in ink) but I'm so busy right now, and everything is so disorganized, that I'm not sure where I stored them. I have a love and hate thing going on with this. I really like the line-work of the original, but am not quite feeling the ink. That may be why I keep on picking it up, over and over.

So, life is busy.

It really is just filled with small roadblocks (and then some not so small ones). There's stuff going on that I can write about here, and then there is some not so good, very serious stuff that I can't write about here. Everyday I wake up and think oh no, another day to plow through. So I get up and turn autopilot-robot mode on. Like slogging through quicksand (wait no nonoo, that would be completely mired and sinking) more as if I 'm just slugging through very think mud that's up to my knees (thankfully), and there are lots of mosquitos, and it's very humid, my hair plastered to my face, and a massive 30 pound sack on my back. That's how it is. Okay, maybe not that bad, take away the sack. Surprisingly though I've kept very levelheaded. For the most part anyway.

The flea problem is still in swing, the vehicle still not repaired. Last week it was a tire going flat, this week it's the car battery spewing green stuff. I mean, GREEN stuff! I really can't stand owning a car. Sometimes I wonder if I should move back to Chicago. Didn't have to have a car then. Those were good times. I used to get a lot done on public transport: reading, organizing my day, sketching, more reading, people watching, spacing out and meditating (it's both the same, spacing out and meditating - maybe I should say daydreaming, or musing, that way I don't sound like a nutter). It just all seemed easier, life seemed easier. I swear that owning a vehicle is 50 percent of the stress in my life, and then the amount of driving I have to do each day! That's it. It's definitely the car. It's the CARRRRR!

Nuts.

It even gave me a really good scare last week. I was sitting (in the car) in the parking area of where my studio is located. It had just turned dark out, there wasn't a single soul in sight. The large brick buildings looming around me, while I sat in silence and waited for a friend to show up. Suddenly I hear a scratch somewhere in my car. Not just a scratch, but more like a scraping, someone scraping something against my car! Then silence. Then I hear it again, louder. Then again, much louder. Was someone messing with me? Suddenly I hear it from the front of my car! Then frantic scraping, like an animal trapped under my hood trying to claw it's way out. It freaked me out, but at the same time I was thinking oh thank god it's not a crazy nutter outside messing with me, it's a rabid animal under the hood instead! Then a squeal followed by loud gurgling. At that point I realized that it was the car itself acting up. Spewing that green stuff from the battery most likely.

Sheesh. 

Time to replace the battery.

Doorways & Andy Kehoe

I sketched this while I was having a moment (okay, it was a short pity party for myself - see below for why). Just a lot of pondering - see how she's pondering, leaning through a doorway over an empty ocean? Drawn from the subconscious, I decipher it later. I consider drawings like this direct reflections of myself at that moment. I don't know what I'll draw, or am drawing, till it's done. Maybe I'll turn this into something later. In ink?

SOOOOO,

No, I'm not lost. Well, yes I am but at the same time I'm not. I'm lost in the real world, but not in the virtual (my blog). In the virtual I'm on a vacation. On this vacation I'm doing lots of painting, relaxing, hanging out with my favorite artists and painting up a storm. Okay, that last bit was a dream I had last night and considering what I've been dealing with in the real world, it was well deserved. My dreams lately have been about running errands, running late for the day job, or just literally running from anything and everything, so, yeah, last night, that was a damn good dream.

On the other hand, the real world: In May I got viciously ill. (Oooo, Viciously ill. That would be a good name for a band.) I was out from the job for two weeks. Massive vertigo kept me from doing anything, no computer, no watching movies, no reading, no going for walks, no drawing. Moving my head made everything shift and spin, I couldn't focus. All I could do was sit or sleep. It was theee MOST boooooring time of my life in a long time.

Then there was the fender bender, or as I'd like to say, a car smoosh. (The lemon is operable, but until I raise moolah to fix it, I have limited lighting at night.)

And now a flea outbreak that I have been dealing with for going on two weeks now. Preston somehow caught them and dispersed them throughout the house. Before I figured out that he had them, it was too late. This chaotic situation has exhausted me to the bone and I feel like a zombie way down to the deep core. Preston is quarantined at my mother's, and I believe, flea free, and my studio has become a mess as I stop by to pick things up, drop things off, in the midst of all this nonsense. I'm also crashing on my mother's floor or at a friend's house while I set bombs off and do lots of vacuuming at home.

GAHHHH!

The only thing that's kept me sane is going on bike rides, even if it's only once a week. I stop everything I'm doing and just go. I drop everything. Thanks to my best bud Gungywump, my bike's been spruced up and also outfitted with some lights. On the 4th of July we rode from Northampton, MA up to Amherst UMASS for the fireworks. It was great being on bikes. We got some nice commentary on our use of this mode of transportation. Just riding through the campus and the fireworks blasting overhead was pretty surreal. When the finale started and a lot of people started leaving (during the best part!) it was great knowing that the two of us could enjoy the whole show and not worry about being stuck in traffic. And sure enough, we blasted past everyone. The cars were fender to fender and we just blew through Amherst and down the Norwottock Trail. It was magically surreal riding down this perfect trail through the woods at night. The moon was full and there was some poofy cloud coverage, which made everything just perfect. What was surprising was the amount of people that were on the trail at this time of the night. I'm sure quite a bit of it had to do with the fireworks, but many people were out just riding. All of it was fantastical. It was like some strange nighttime, woodfolk highway. The sound of crickets and frogs, and in the distance, silently approaching, a pair of faint lights. It was weirdly fairylike and communal at the same time. Very cool.

Oh, and (though this show is over now) I was lucky enough to manage to get myself down to Jonathan LeVine Gallery for the Andy Kehoe exhibit that I had been anxiously anticipating for months! His stuff just oozes awesomeness. I love his surreal landscape backgrounds, they're like bizarre extensions of the strange places I visit in my dreams.


Here's my obligatory photo with the artist. Notice the cup in hand. I don't drink very often, so here after one small drink I was a bit buzzed and talking very silly, looking very silly, and all that. I know I was saying random things, but he was really cool, down to earth, very nice as he listened to my nonsensical raving about his art. I also got to chat with him about his technique - that was the best part.

These were a few of my faves:

Check out the detail:

Okay... now off to do things. I'll try to post again soon.