The hard part

I was working at a pretty good pace this morning but at some point hit a wall and decided better take a break. I can sort of identify when the clouds are rolling in, when I'll be stopping work for a day or two. Some days it's easier to accept than others. The hard part is keeping those days from becoming weeks. I really do believe that so much of doing anything consistently is mental. You can do something every day, but at some point you're gonna be made to sit for a spell.

New Painting: I don't wanna be white

I don't wanna be white. I listen to a lot of white people speak and I think they're up in their head too much. I wanna push myself. I'm tired of hiding from things I've been hiding from, feelings, fears, being shut off because how things are done has already been established. People say that way is educated, thoughtful, but it feels inhuman, missing impulses and those mean something. I think the brain can fuck you. What about being alive though? What about poetry and life and painting and color and traveling and physical touch and feeling and God or whatever it is? I believe there's so much out there and that we don't even understand, we're just trying to be careful and figure things out logically and we think that's civilized. But there's more than thinking. There's something beyond thinking. There's something inside us that's animal, that we're fighting, that's not logical. We want to push past it, but it's part of us.

New painting: Walking around and watching people

I'm walking around town looking at people. Everyone's got their things going on. They're on their paths. I'm off to the side, looking, waiting, wanting some of that, but I don't wanna be in those lanes. I wanna cross the road. I always look toward nature. I want to somehow live above what's typical and normal. I want a better life. I have to make it for myself. I know the pain and struggle is there to serve. I know it is.

I wonder if painting and writing is just redirecting a need for religious devotion to something. Does that make it mean less? What you're looking for is a universal thing, my man. You might not know it but it's balance you're after. Stopping, taking a moment, stepping back...is the right step now. Not walking headstrong in the same direction forever. The road doesn't end. It's about you. Figure out what you want and how to get it from where you're at. You're there already. It's not just about making what you want but about making a life from the things you have. There's people out there that understand that. You're outside looking in but that's okay, for now. Only you can't stay out there. You're on your own road already, but where you're at on it is far enough.

I know I gotta write. I just wanna make something with writing and painting that I've never seen before. I feel like art is full of possibility. Shape, color, lines, are simple things but can speak volumes. On the bus, riding through the city. A bus full of people in total silence. Everybody's somewhere else, distracted, but the hunger's still there. I wanna see more different things, not the same things over and over. I have to make that my reality if I wanna see it.

New Painting: This is your land

This is your land

4ft by 2ft (1.5m by .75m)

Acrylic paint and water color on paper

I just wanna express myself. That's all. I wanna make something colorful, express myself, feel like I did something today with my time, something light and colorful and hopefully with some sort of meaning for people. This started as a picture of two cows eating grass (that yellow and blackspotted grouping in the center is them) but the picture sort of morphed out of control into a mass of color, patterns, shapes and blobs, faint outlines of things that might be people, might be animals, might just be color patterns. Above is a bunch of thought bubbles or speech bubbles that are empty. People's thoughts, opinions, people talking. What's there to say? I don't know. I wanna say something. I have to try and say something.

The shape in the middle is supposed to be a boy standing in water with his arms outstretched. What's around him, below him, above, to the left and right, are people talking, colors, shapes, animals, living things, and it's all a mass, a mix, an experience. But he's missing something. He's not part of either world. He doesn't feel connected to either world. 

My thoughts on the confederate flag issue going on in the states right now

I, for the most part, don't pay much attention to the news unless something in particular grabs me, like the earthquake recently in Nepal or the ruling on gay marriage. Otherwise, I just sort of skim. I feel like most of the news is skewed toward grabbing eyeballs and you can't count on getting the full story about anything. At the same time, searching for the whole story on your own is too much work. That's not the healthiest attitude to have. I agree. I would probably feel differently if I were a minority and my rights and the rights of my children were on the line. I'm trying to have a complex thought right now :) Bear with me.

I was reading about the debate over banning the confederate flag. I wonder if it's not a distraction. I wonder if the real question isn't How do you stop someone who's mentally ill from killing people? Is it even possible? If you read his history, it was a road he went down, it was a point he reached. There were some signs, but it took some time for them to develop. I don't know. I don't think there's much you can do. Maybe what happens is this guy spends the rest of his life in prison, and the mental illness stops there because he doesn't go on to infect anybody else. And how do you stop racism? Is it even possible? And how different is it from mental illness? Maybe each new generation that doesn't grow up around racist people won't be racist. I'm not sure you can do much more than that. I'm not sure that banning symbols and words changes anything. I think the people who want to do it probably have good intentions. I think they're trying to close a chapter from the past they see as evil and hurtful, and that makes sense. But I think it makes certain symbols taboo, which then gives them power. If anybody can help me understand the issue clearer, I open to learn.

With this and the gay marriage issue, I think it's interesting how generations of young people everywhere take steps to move further and further away from the past. I think it's somehow in our nature to look at previous generations and think How could they? I'm not sure how different we are from the generations that came before. I'm not a brain scientist, but I think we've just been born into a different time and have different issues. I think it's important to remember what normal average people are capable of though. I wonder if there are things that we do today that young people will look back on in the future and think, how could they? I suppose there will be. But it's in us to think those people are not us, whoever they are. Even when they are us, just at a different point in space and time. Weird.

New painting: Follow the white rabbit

Follow the white rabbit
Acrylic on paper
4ft by 3ft