I thought I'd make money in stocks and extra money by working construction. Well, I lost about three grand in stocks, one in particular called ENG. I sold after six long months. I vow to cut losses sooner next time, lesson learned. Heather quit a couple jobs and fell short on money. I hadn't gotten any covid money from the government, and expenses were up all around with the dog and cars. I had to pay a lot on taxes too. I had to cover a lot, but I did.
March, April, May, June; The barn builders needed me more and more, and I needed money, so I worked in the shop in addition to on the road. I learned a lot about the process of building barns. We ripped through four modulars, from setting the sills to shingling the roofs and hanging doors. I thought of these days as my nest egg, but with losses from the stocks it was really just treading water. Some days I'd lose more than I'd made, and my body was being destroyed by the construction work. It was a very defeating feeling.
After work I'd take the Hugo the Dog out for a walk at County Park. If I was lucky, I'd get an hour or two to paint in the evening upon returning home, then bed time and repeat.
Barn work became less optional because of the nature of a two-month long project, to which I had to drive the crew, and therefore work the day. Some art deadlines flew right by because I was so busy. For a short while the dates with Heather went away, as I was usually working weekends too, and trying to make art happen, ironically, but they started to trickle back in when we could. We'd find a good Tuesday or Thursday or whenever to walk to a bar restaurant and grab a meal out.
Heather's precarious employment was worrisome, but alas, now she has positioned herself well in two stellar employment positions, and it seems clear she has a north star.
The barn work gave me a lung infection because I didn't protect myself while doing demolition work on a rehab project we've been on for a few months. I breathed in old barn dust, insulation, mold and rat and bird shit. Most of the damage was done in one day, and you know, sometimes you roll up to a jobsite not knowing what the nature of the day's work is going to be; so that's how that happened. I tried to breathe strategically, but it got me anyway. After the demo, the work got progressively cleaner, and the project has turned out very nicely. I am getting used to the work, and I think I will keep the job for a year or two, until I can buy a house.
My sketchbook submission is being worked on. Some things take so much time that it feels as though you can waste a little and that would be okay in the long run. But enough of a little makes a lot, and that's what I'm dong with this blog entry- procrastinating. But also, these entries do help orient me and allow me to clear my head. If I have enough of them I begin to get into topics that I care about crafting a thought out of. The topical stuff needs to spill out into the sketchbook today, and the thought-crafting will go on inside of the minds of the viewer.
I'm not sure whether or not my artwork is wicked or evil or anything. It is very often in consideration while I make it, because my thoughts are dark as I learn more about the world. Of course, the love becomes deeper and precious too, but the (perceived) realities are harsh often, so the work is dark. Dickens said after writing Moby Dick; "I've written a wicked book, and I feel spotless as a lamb!"
Political leaders are clearly devoid of any moral anchoring; and that yields them upwards. Criminals go upwards so long as the state (or other competition) doesn't catch up with them to put a lid on the competition securing their monopoly. Statement making is a way of ratting oneself out, or pledging allegiance to the status quo, and so many 'statements' are built right into the status quo, like legalize weed, and gay rights and black rights, trans rights and the oft used 'what's next?'; they're rolled and doled out so long as the structures that be are further reinforced, never challenged; but perhaps I'm taking some the work of radicals for granted; just so much radical work is hacky and dumb- like why do you need the approval of everyone to live your life? Or why do you advocate for others' rights beyond just personally being nice to them and representing them well in your speech? Then also the other cannot be communicated about, though it is so often tried; marginalized groups are so often used as pawns. The kicker is that there are so many jobs on the market right now. Everyone is hiring. Get out there people! Not to be insensitive to.... what... those who choose not to work? Or 'cannot'? When I worked dispatch for a tow truck company, I'd call brokers and they'd clearly be at home taking care of kids; it can be done. In a way I think then that if you don't work or whatever, if you get left behind, that's a part of the whole process of change. I really wish the marginalized would get going (and many and most have), because that's the game. We can't grow weaker, the microorganisms are coming for us, if nothing else. Leave people alone too, that's huge. Shop as local as possible and as little as possible too. Take sustainability seriously. So now I'm like a working class hipster, equality seeking skinhead libertarian nationalist, who tries to shop organic and buy secondhand, and give back, like Jesus, but I also don't fucking know. Great, lol. So what is one to do regarding making art? What is to be communicated, to whom, and how?
Therefore withholding opinions has become a part of the credo; to fly under the radar, and to what extent that has to do with a lack of conviction is where the art resides maybe. Because I don't know whether it's a lack of conviction or an allegiance to a lack of conviction. I don't know how to move forward. The matrix of it like fascia holding the thing together, begins to become palpable, tangible/physical. All the while I paint serieses of non-statements which I can only hope communicate a vision of what the thing is; wicked, beautiful but wicked, and all on the table; to be won or lost.
.
Lot's of free money out there- that's one last thing I have enjoyed saying recently; like it's a solution to my problems. It is so blanketing, the implication being that I have been severely scammed. And other's successes are unearned.
I think the thing to do is keep this job, work it for a few years, get into a house, work work work, and paint; paint the whole time, and the network will work. Doesn't need to be New Yorker network or anything, just a network, and in my case with people I love and respect so much.
That should do it. Sketchbook due in July, Murals to come in July through October, Plein Air painting show in the hopper, and bringing me much monkey on my back energy, but in a good way.
okay, godspeed.
