This is where we find ourselves.

These images were created for a project in my digital art class where I was tasked to create a digital landscape. I began by drawing a landmass with my digital pen, then clone stamped images from google maps and the internet to create a totally fictional island chain. I then made it more "official" looking by adding markings in an alien language along with graphs and that are obscure as to their purpose. Finally I edited some of my own photos from China to make them look like places on interest on the map. The originals are very high resolution, but I shrunk them for posting on this blog.

New word!

You'd be surprised at how often those little "security" images (you know the kind where you have to type the messed up letters to make a post) make funny words. Todays word: neurd. It's like a really brainy nerd. Neuro + nerd = neurd. Great fun!

Duddle Prey!

Videos for videos sake

Watch these videos one after the other... This is a small taste of what it was like in China while I was there. Granted, they were in a MUCH bigger city than Yichang, so things were different for them. Yichang is much dirtier.

Lost and found

Plans are in place for me to visit my old high school, though which doors I have not passed in 10 years. The teachers there will most likely not remember me, just another face in 500 in my class. I hope at least one of them does.

I look back on the last ten years and see some strange things: four year full scholarship to OSU which I gave up after 3 years to join the US Navy, 2 years in the active duty service where I learned to work on aircraft electrical systems, 3 years back at OSU for a degree in Chinese, a three week tour of Chinese factory towns, a year as a manager at Target, then 1 year in China teaching English... Now I'm back at school for another stab at higher education.

What a wild ten years it's been. Add to that countless heartbreaks, tattoo work, massive body modifications, an engagement, a break in that engagement, and all the normal college life experiences. Still, I can't help but feel like my life hasn't really amounted to much. I don't really feel like I have done anything that is really worth being proud of.

What have I done for ten years? WHAT? How bizarre.

I have a friend in one of my classes who thinks I'm the coolest guy in the world, that I've done so many amazing things, but from my standpoint I've done almost nothing. I just tell her that she's young and all those cool things and more will happen for her, too... but will they? Has my life been cool? I feel like it's been mostly hell.

The Quest

Quest for the Crown!

Hey Art!

I had a critique of my digital artwork yesterday in class and it went really well. The class thought it was really well done. I feel very proud! I would post it up here, but the pictures are 3000x3000 pixels...

Happy B-Day, Dad!

Even though he would never visit this blog, I wanted to say Happy Birthday to my old man. He spends his whole day on a computer at work, so he doesn't use it at home. What a turd. Well, he's 49 this year!

Yeeeeeah!

Montage of Monday and Wednesday

It begins! Here's a short photo montage of my Mondays and Wednesdays...

I dislike the bus.

I am finally somewhat free of the COTA bus! I had my bike repaired last week and just got it back from the shop this morning. I got to ride it again for the first time in over a year. I had forgotten just how crazy it can get trying to navigate around people on campus... Once people put their headphones in, I swear, it's like they lose 60 IQ points.

Well, at least I am self-sufficient again. I really missed being able to crank around town and not worry about whether or not I would be able to catch the #2 COTA to get things done. Now I really have to replace my bag, however, because if the strap snaps again (which it does once a week, now), I risk having my very nice digital camera getting smashed by a passing car.

New Header

I placed a new header up there. I felt the old one was too distracting. It's an edited and recolored version of the glass window I made a few years ago. I think it fits my style much better.

2D project

I just submitted this work for my 2D class. I wanted to push the limit of working with textural elements on a 2D space, so I built up the background with foam core matt. I pasted collected textures from all over the campus onto the matt and cut it out. Eventually I started playing with the layout of the textures, almost like painting, and placed them over previous textures where I felt they looked best.

Overall I think the piece worked well for me, but I didn't get very many comments on it in class. I was really trying to impart a sense of isolation or lonliness surrounding the central figure which, though you can't really tell from these photos, is a childhood picture of me.

What do you think?

Art shows

This weekend I went to my friend Jeff Fernegel's art show. He is a really creative artist who makes some very fun paintings. His painting style is almost like seeing a frame illustrated from the middle of a story. When viewed it feels like there should be some long explanation or back story, but it isn't there. When the elements of color and characters are factored in, there is a sense of childishness that really comes out powerfully. In effect, it feels like having the climax of a childhood dream painted.

Check out his blog, which has some of his paintings in it: http://www.newdarkages.net/withjeff/

It was a really good show. He had it in a great space, but it was a one-night-only deal, so a lot of people showed up. Also, being that it was so quickly up and over, his paintings were being sold left and right. I think he must have sold 90% of his paintings two hours. People would come in already knowing what painting they wanted and just pay him right there. I was really happy for him as well as reassured that it is possible to sell art in this city. Hopefully, when I make my emergence onto the gallery scene, I'll do half as well.

Will Ferrel as G.W. Bush

Catch a Stupid Thief

YEEEEHAW! I love Macs, the smart people who know how to use them, and the dumb people who steal them. HAHA!

Older glass works

Here's a few of my older works. These are the best ones I made, though I have a lot of stuff still stuck in the design phase, waiting to be made.
A little older... look at that mohawk! This next one is a remake of a commissioned piece that I wasn't pleased with.

Death and coffee

“Serving size is about the American fear of death. Instead of a great, short experience, people want to prolong a mediocre experience.”

James Freeman of Blue Bottle Coffee

It's the movement

Check this out, because you know you can't help yourself:

www.whollycraft.net

Locally created and lovingly crafted works of art from OUR generation. This is the future of art, made for us by our own, connected to us in ways we cannot explain, and disconnected from everything else in ways we all understand. This is art for you and for me that we can all enjoy.

Waxing... (drunk)

Small droplets of creativity drop from guitars played so beautifully, like butterflies tuned in chorus, like samples of the monotonous piping of the harmonic convergence of astronomical spheres, or the crunch of fresh blades of grass, all frozen in the sudden resurgence of winter's crushing grip. Frost glistens like blue nylons on a cute girl's leg, sidewalks framed by sprinkling dewdrops about to smash on the sidewalk as I carry my broken bicycle down the street, her wheels deflated and sad, a grimace of child who got the wrong birthday gift from dyslexic parents.

I saw you there; I saw your mouth move even though no one else heard. You were the quiet one, the one who wore bright pink against the backdrop of green and blue, standing out like a rhubarb amongst a field of kale. Keep shining, quietly, because some day someone will see you like I did and write you in a small black book under the heading "Fran".

You sing a song about longing and I long for a girl like you, your smile like a flash flood, overwhelming and fleeting, remembered in the aftermath as an event that shapes a season, but I think you didn't even see me. You, the quiet one, walked out with no expression, leaving me to wonder if you could feel the cold on a spring night like I do. I imagine you now, cuddle in a blanket alone, reading my favorite novel, and wondering if you'll ever fall in love. Yeah, you already have, in thoughts I share with you. However, you don't even remember my name. Maybe I'll see you again. And then I'll ask you: "What's your favorite color?"; and you'll say "Grey". It's always ambiguous like that, because I am Sisyphus.

As it should be.

I took a break this weekend and did almost nothing. I tried to get a few things done, but the bike shop was closed, the office that handles my school loans was closed all weekend, and I didn't feel like walking from Clintonville all the way to Utrecht to buy art supplies. Instead I stayed at home, listened to music, and spent time with friends. It was a true weekend.

No homework?

Technically I have a few things to work on, but nothing specifically assigned. Now I can relax and *gasp!* make some artwork that I want to make for myself. Also, I might finally get around to photographing my older pieces and posting a few of them on this blog.

In other news: my tattoo artist and I have started the planning phase for my next piece. It will cover my almost my entire upper torso and I think it'll be incredible. We won't be able to begin tattooing for another month, however.

Again.

The shoulder strap for my bag snapped again today after the small repair I did to it the other day. I think I will have to buy a new bag very soon. More money slips between my fingers...

Where can I go? Where have I been?

Ever since I was a young boy I have always enjoyed cartography. There something interesting about seeing the layout of land masses without actually having to be there. I would stare at relief maps in class for hours.

As I got older I started drawing my own maps, creating my own chains of islands, mountain ranges, rivers, etc. I even peppered them with cities with complicated names, histories, rivalries, and even empires. The maps themselves became alive, drawing me into their stories so much that I felt I was channeling these landscapes more than I was drawing them myself. Now I can easily spend days drawing series of maps from continent down to the cities themselves.

In my digital manipulation class I will be creating maps as part of a project and that's going to be a very interesting and personal work of art. I think I'll take it on myself to begin drawing those maps now, just because I know I'll want to put a lot of detail into it.

I guess that also relates to the assignment that I have been tasked with for the next two weeks, which is to create a digital landscape. I might draw up the maps digitally and then place images from Google Earth to populate them...

Another thing that I have played with since a child has been words and language. One day I opened an old set of history books I had received from a school and found a section detailing the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. As a child this was absolutely fascinating, to see for the first time the unraveling of such a mysterious language. I became obsessed with memorizing the symbols and writing my own letters in hieroglyphics.

Years later I stumbled on an mathematician's exploration in simple evolution of symbols and shapes based on strict rules. The charts of their permutations called me back to that moment of awe with the Rosetta Stone, which further inspired me to start creating my own alphabets following very simple rules. I still enjoy doing that today in my sketchbooks.

Perhaps I will marry the two concepts together, creating a fictional landscape with borders and cities and even with its own street signs and language.

He (almost) died.

After 14 years of faithful dedicated service in the field, my Israeli Paratrooper Satchel finally died. Kinda. The strap on one side completely snapped, which flung my bag to the side and down some stairs. I was able to repair the strap, but I don't know how much longer it's going to last.

I've carried my art books and projects in this bag for years. It's been around for so long that it's almost a part of me and my art, so I've decided to immortalize it by making art from it. I'm not sure what I will do with it, but somehow I'll incorporate it. I'm not sure if I'll get another one just like it. I think I might want a totally new bag that will hold more stuff and be a little more water resistant.

He was a good soldier and deserves a proper send off.

Weekend, Interrupted

All I did this weekend was art homework. What a drag.

However, I did make some visually appealing pieces that I enjoy. This one is titled "Do you wanna see my tattoos?" Almost every tattoo that I get is for me, and for my pleasure. I get a little nervous showing anyone my work, mainly because everyone seems to assume that there has to be a "meaning" behind it. There is, for the most part, but that doesn't mean I want to explain it. Sometimes personal art can be very personal. So here they are. My tattoos.

What does it mean, though, to put personal art out for people to see? My body art is personal and, usually, it's completely covered. When it isn't though, I feel like I'm letting someone look at my private journal. Perhaps my body is a kind of blog... Something to think about I guess.

Hatchy-batchy

Another day...

Today I had a hard time getting up. I feel like I haven't had a day to relax in over a month. School, work, moving, waaaay too much homework from the design class... Also my youngest brother left for the Air Force, which was pretty hard to deal with.

This weekend I was going to get all my glass studio stuff from my other apartment, but now I think I just want to chill and put my mind back together. However, this weekend happens to be my best friend's birthday. Ugh.

I sincerely believe that I will become undead after I finally pass away. Then I'll finally have some time. Eating? No need. Sleep? Not for a restless soul. I'll be the first fully-functional skeleton artist.

I posted one of the pictures I have been working on in class. Easy stuff to accomplish with Photoshop. More to come in the next few days.

Wow

Last night I discovered Jens Lekman. Floored. I have never heard such a beautiful voice. He's like an upbeat Morrissey... with better vocals. Watch all these videos, to really see what I mean.