At the beach now

I’m at Panama City Beach now, spending the winter break with my family (parents, sister, in laws, and two grandmothers) at two beach condos with periodic visits to my sister’s house. I’m an uncle to a 3 year old girl called Loxie, and a one year old boy named Gideon. They’re both very healthy and very sweet. I have noticed I’m not very interested in them. Tonight I have been displaced from my parent’s condo by occasion that the niece and nephew have been foistered off onto the grandparents, and the room I was staying in is now occupied by a sleeping baby. The feeling of staying away from the baby is a natural one to me. It’s just lying alone in that room now, with my parents in another room, so strange. But it would be much more strange to me to be in there as well, so I’m downstairs with the old folks, and it feels better, and maybe I should’ve been sleeping here all along. I’m more motivated to go to bed early and wake early with my grandmothers around. Somehow I’m a little more overt in my irresponsibility when around my parents. I wonder why this is. I’m a lot more at peace in my mind now around this family group. I don’t get so angry. When something comes up, like tonight’s being displaced by a baby, talking was done on my behalf about how unbearable I was in my reaction to the news. Thing was I didn’t react. So with greater clarity I saw that my upset as instrumental to their joined production, would go on regardless of my participation. 

The attitude that’s leveled me out shines itself now in my third night away from school. I will sleep on a couch, not as planned. The attitude that’s leveled me out has had to do with fatalism, and the short term idea that assumed humility is the same as humility, that work will be of the same value coming from me indiscriminate as to how I spend my time- it’s an energy thing- what I bring, and I’ve got what I’ve got and cultivation of a certain flavor will be at the expense of another, and since you can’t please people and no one cares, might as well do what you want. Learning the world’s big, and the bigness of it helps. Also, choosing to accept this phase of my life as one of hard work. Pouring into the work in one way is likely to yield a result different from that using another method, and it’s only a matter of polemic as to better or worse indiscriminate to energies and faculties employed. Ooph, where am I? So I’m going to sleep on a couch tonight one night out of 4 into the winter break, and that’s kind of like how it has been for me in the school semester preceding. Actually, during the semester my sleeping place was half and half between my apartment and the school. 

My parents have been really nice to me, especially my dad. I’m enjoying much more independence, which, without a schedule to be accountable to, I’ve translated into poor sleep habits (who am I kidding- during school my sleep was spotty and often felt insufficient; though I would do it the same exact way again). Indeed I’m enjoying my break, and have had a good semester; perhaps they are resultant of one another. I worked hard knowing I would be on the beach, and I am now enjoying the beach, knowing I have worked hard. What’s more is I have a killer girlfriend. I am really thrilled about my girlfriend. She even reads my blog. It’s incredible how incredible she is. She is that incredible. 

I’ve been watching some Pewdiepie videos on YouTube, and it’s influenced my speech. I’m grateful for it, as he’s got an ease about him, and manages to string together words in an associative manner that seems so natural to those to whom English is not their first or only language. The blend is very charming. I’m also spending time watching video tutorials in softwares that might be of use to me for the coming semester. I don’t think our school has a  license for Maya or Zbrush. No worries, I am investing my time in watching tutorials for Blender. 

My brother in law has got a 3D printer and scanner, because he makes money and wants to be able to print prototypes for engineering projects. He’s offered me to use them. Likewise my sister has a vinyl plotter. If I were to come up with files, I could send them via mail and have them printed and sent back to PAFA. These things probably won’t happen. 

I will be taking a 3D printing class next semester through the CE department. The course is taught by the head of our sculpture department, Rob Roesch. My decision to sign up for this has to do with being under his tutelage, as well as building a professional and an interpersonal relationship with him. He is a panelist for scholarship consideration at the Annual Student Exhibition. When asked, other adults like to be demurring in regards to placing importance on the ASE, or on vying for scholarship etc., emphasizing how small this is in the grand scheme, and all that and I absolutely agree. That said, how fun it is to see black, and lose yourself in the fervor of a living breathing studio; to breathe purpose and fire! It’s all I can think about. There’s this scholarship that puts you on for another year- it’s like (and I’m phrasing it like, and thinking about it like) some sort of reality tv pageantry leading up to some big reveal. The scholarship is awarded based on the wall. I do want to keep a level head about me in relation to not hanging an ironic wall- which I have done- I have hung, about half the time,  ugly and ironic shows. Anyway, I can’t speak to what I will do, as that’s something else. 

At the beach here, I am investing in some cartoon penciling, and some inking. I have brought along traditional gouache, as it’s always a bummer to want to do color, and you’ve only got ink, but thus far, I’m wholly satisfied without color. 

I am making outlines for projects that I am following and compiling; that’s my goal while here- to design projects, compile the drawings for them, draw for them, ink, and that’s it I guess. Then, I’ll assemble them into books at PAFA when I get back- that’s the plan. 

Alas, I had a great few ideas while in the car driving to the beach, (my journey to get here was 6amPHL>ORL flight, 12pm rental car>3pm Vero Beach to visit a grandma, 5:30pm Titusville to pick up another grandma, Nighttime Crystal River to be with parents and return the rental car, then next day driving to the beach with dad in his truck), among them to make cast sculpture directly from negative molds made into the beach sand. Yesterday, I procured some quick-set cement and gave it a try. Pushing sculptural shapes down into the semi-wet sand then pouring the mixed cement, I got a few keeper sculptures and a few junkers. It was a successful experiment. I also brought along an underwater camera, and thought the natural next phase of this would be to film these sculptures in an interesting environment, namely the rocky crop of a nearby jetty. 

I won’t have time for it all. I will have to choose. 

Latter half of summer and Ringling in Sarasota

The latter half of my summer was a blast. I'd developed an M.O. in Brooklyn- waking up to get out to class (interdisciplinary writing workshop at Art Students League, switched from Peter Cox's figure class), and studio time, and figure drawing opportunities at the Society of Illustrators and at Spring Studio in Chinatown. I busked with my drawings from these sessions a few times in Brooklyn, and just the other weekend here in Sarasota with successful sales. What a great feeling it is to represent your own work, and to sell directly to interested peoples. I hope to go to Miami with my many drawings and paintings from school and otherwise, to sit with during Art Basel coming up in December.
I hung this flyer in a practice/rehearsal space in Brooklyn with my contact info on it:

One morning while in my writing/sculpture class I received a text from a Larry, one of the members of Hopeless Otis. He told me that their drummer just dropped out, and they needed someone to fill in for two short long-weekend tours. He sent me a link to their music. I listened to the songs briefly and felt a fun project in the works. The music was punk, and also positive in tone. On their website it says "from New York City. Aiming to bring back positivity to punk rock." Larry invited me to one of their shows in a public park. I went, and saw a bunch of red flags in the way of day-drunk forty-year-olds and circle-jerk music-making. I thought I was going to flake. The scene was the thing I didn't like about being in bands and this scene looked terrible. I took a short walk to weigh out the dialectic. Really, the whole thing was about adventure. The adventure would not really be on my terms- the cities, the destinations, etc., but did I want to do it at all? Yes, is the best I could come up with, or maybe with a curiosity to find out. I knew this would make a good story- almost too good- like, "what  did you do this summer?", "Oh I joined a punk rock band in New York for a tour". Pretty swag. Anyways, they hadn't even played yet and I was over a few blocks away and talking myself into joining this band, so I came back and saw them near the stage, Larry, Joe, and the flaky drummer Eddie, loading in their equipment. I watched their show, and knew some of the songs from listening to them in preparation for playing with them. The show suffered from a disinterested drummer, Eddie. I guess the band had been together for about seven years by this point, and I would not be their first fill-in for Eddie's flakiness. Yeah, he just played through the tunes (flawlessly) with seemingly zero interest. I can kind-of relate- I'd been in bands where I was done with the song before it started- but in these instances you've really got to pull it up from its bootstraps, not check out and autopilot the set. I mean, what do I know? After their set, I gave them their space, and let them pack up. Part of me was still on the fence as to whether or not to speak with them and come-out as the interested potential fill-in drummer from the text message thread. I thought about class a bunch. These boys were working men, and they wrote songs about it, and about minimum wage, and they lived in Queens, and all tis stuff. Wouldn't it be better to turn this down and wait out for a freakier arrangement of more likeminded intellectuals to respond to my inquiry. It's like I dropped a lure into a pond and hooked a catfish. So I walk up to Larry (who I perceive, rightly, as Larry, tall thick with a big little beard and crooked warm smile), and introduce myself. I walk parole with the band back to the mini-van, where they are loading-out. I tell them that it seems do-able, and that it was nice to meet them. I went somewhere else at that point, maybe a figure drawing session, as I was in SoHo, or maybe the korean barbecue spot, where I became a known regular, always ordering a taro smoothie and an order of straw mushrooms that were prepared spicy. I would always sit alone at a table nearby the reception counter.
I practiced the songs like crazy- Hopeless Otis's songs.