Self Authoring Excercise

Past 

My past has been characterized by a childhood nurtured in fertile and loving soil. I have always felt supported and when not verbalized, it was clear through the dedication of those around me who saw through to provide me with opportunities. I was wanted and capable in varying disciplines, among them athletics and arts. My energies were focused on athletics in addition to my schooling. My family lived on a canal. In my free time, I relished dragging a net along the sea wall to catch aquatic life. I would keep aquariums and study the gobies, flat-fish, ghost shrimps, and sea horses that I captured. Once I drew, under lamp light, a picture of a model race car, and another if I recall. I thought the drawings clever, and I lost them at some point for which I felt a great loss. I drew a copy of a nude that I saw at a garden social gathering that my mother brought me to. Mom put her hands over my eyes but I’d already got a good look, and replicated the image to my abilities when I got home later on. I drew a team of fictional characters, and a design of a bottlenose dolphin which I became preoccupied with and practiced over and over. I cherished these drawings. They conjured so much for so little, and they were personal. Our house was a corner lot up a canal development along the Caloosahatchee River. It was always filled with animals. I got along well with animals, and studied them- geese, cockatiels, bunnies, dogs, cats, gerbils, hamsters, snakes, iguanas, and water creatures. I went from a private secular pre-kindergarten to a private Christian School, where I wore a uniform and went to chapel twice a day. I sang in the third grade class choir, and developed an identity with getting into minor trouble for distracting other students with antics. Mom drove me to gymnastics practice daily after school, in turns with Mrs. Marchildon who was Patrick’s mom. The drive was two hours long. We’d do our homework along the way wether it was me and Patrick, or adding Cami or Lori, or any other gymnasts making the commute. We developed a routine of eating Taco Bell drive through after gym practice. I competed for five years, consistently placing in the fives or threes- at times on the podium and at times not. I traveled regionally thanks to my dedicated mother to compete. I hardly noticed dad. Dad got into trouble, and thus the family as a whole dealt with issues. I practiced some self-harm in the spirit of transcendence. Our family made a move to Montana, where we could be far away from our past and start anew. I stopped doing gymnastics, and traded my beloved inline skates for a skateboard. I wanted to fit in. I entered into fourth grade at a farm school with a class of eight. We lived on the Yellowstone River, and brought along a dog, Papaya. I remember dad being around a lot more, and the river freezing over. Dad participated in hunting, and tried to get me into it. We’d go on walks on the pretense that if we saw a rabbit or a deer I’d shoot it. I killed a deer in the middle of thanksgiving dinner, in a zombie ritualistic technicality. I was upset. I played little guy football, and soccer. I was grateful to be in Montana in times of nature, and I took a sort of solace, as the narrative coaxes, in the ‘falling off’ of it I all. We raised chickens and I kept the incubator and brood box in my bedroom. Some of the chickens attached to me, in particular a healthy chick named Cleopatra, who grew into a hen we called Helen. After two years, the parents decided to move to Tallahassee, FL and Cami and I knew the drill. In Tallahassee I went to high school and continued in much the same path of balancing sports, academics, and creative pursuits. I was a capable swimmer and as a former gymnast, a natural diver. I became drum line captain after four years in marching band. I went to community college while also participating in musical bands in the town. I took up graffiti writing and worked as a lifeguard and as a restaurant server. I went in and out of college, taking four unfocused years to get an Associates Degree. Toward the end of my time in community college, I took a figure drawing course with Ed Toner, then a color theory course and a watercolor course, and illustration, and screen printing. It was clear to me that I wanted to become an artist. I went to Maine for a summer and took a drawing course with Fred Lynch (not RISD’s), and then stayed in Brooklyn for two months. I transferred to FSU as a fine arts major, but it didn’t feel like a solid foundation, so with much distress I chose to drop out. My uncle and aunt died and left me with two hundred thousand dollars, and that cleared the path for me to pursue art however I wanted. I travelled and attended workshops at SVA. I befriended a filmmaker and helped her with projects. I’d met a family through graffiti and they put me up in Amsterdam for a month, wherefrom I traveled to Berlin and rented an apartment for a month, then through Central Europe for a month, and Iceland rendezvousing with the filmmaker. When I got back to the states I called Shaun Thurston, whom I’d met on a mural-oriented residency trip to Jacksonville. He needed help and I moved to Jacksonville for two years, where I lived and worked in a warehouse making paintings for fine art shows in restaurants. I applied to Ringling College after those two years and got in, and went to study illustration. After a year and a half, I thought to transfer to a school with a greater focus on traditional painting. I learned of PAFA and applied and got in, so after two years of Ringling would come two years of PAFA. I finished my first semester at PAFA.

Present

Presently, I am wondering if I have seasonal depression. I’ve eaten two bowls of cheerios, and have been drinking a lot of coffee. In my freedom allotted by winter break, I have opened up many book projects. I care deeply about learning. So much of my life it seems has been focused on doing. I plan to enter into another round of doing in the spring semester, and until then developing and exposing myself to new ideas. I am meditating twice daily. I love to go into the town and meet people- it’s one of my purest joys. I’ve been watching Jordan Peterson videos and have begun to read the Gulag Archipelago, and continuing with Nietzsche studies. In times with little external stimuli, I need to be careful not to become addicted to little does of dopamine affixed to social media pings. I exercise daily. 

Future 

In the immediate future, I will host Erin Lingard for a few days. I will share with her as best I can Philadelphia. I will attend PAFA’s spring semester, learning and keeping an open mind to new ideas in painting. I will apply for a landscape residency for the summer months, through which I will spend nine weeks in the country outside of Philly making a production of paintings in various sizes and developing styles. The rest of the summer will be spent between workshops, Florida, and Philly, where I’ll find a new apartment that makes better fiscal sense. I’ll attend Fall of 2018 at PAFA, another winter break, then Spring, at which point I will graduate with honors somehow. Upon graduating PAFA, I will finish out my lease in Philly, while searching for next-step opportunities. I will move to France for up to a few weeks to spend time with John in Paris and traveling. I will likely move back with my parents to consolidate paintings, and have some post-baccalaureate thinking time. I will apply to residencies, to somewhere cheap where I can meditate and paint. I’ll make a move to New York City (Crown Heights) and give it a shot- hustling. I’ll foster a terminal dog. After two years, I’ll make a one year study trip to St. Petersburg on a visa for a post-baccalaureate or graduate program. I’ll travel through China and Vietnam, and Japan and South Korea. From there I will get a job, a real one and accrue money and paint for five years. I’ll get a mid-life dog and a cat. I’ll have a small show and sell a quarter of the paintings. I will use the money therefrom to travel to South America for a spell, where I’ll paint pictures in the mountains and a mural in the town. I’ll come back to the states, and move to New York to paint for a year and a half then have a show, in which I will sell ten paintings. I’ll finish a masters program and apply to and accept a teaching position. I’ll buy a house. I hope to live with a partner. I’ll get another dog, and some kittens. I’ll teach and paint for five years, take a semester’s break, and repeat. This far along I will not need to teach or have a job any longer. I’ll trim the school hours in exchange for studio time. I will have a relationship with a gallery and be in a swing. Between school income and painting income, I will plan for retirement and plant a garden and write and paint. I’ll get a borzoi, or a wolfhound and have plenty of land for it to run on, and we’ll go on walks over hills stopping to investigate things at our will. I’ll lay with the dead borzoi for a little bit and think about where I’ve been; about that time I wrote about my future one morning over two bowls of cereal, then I’ll bury the borzoi in the dirt. 

Buffet

Part of me thinks today I was thinking, of myself in historical contexts, which, again, embarrassing, I know. What does all of this writing have to do with my painting? Should it be in close relation? Or dealing directly with paint problems? 

I’d argue, I don’t think so. I think, though I do have problems, like to work through, it would be inaccurate that they all be about paint. I think I got into it too late. Not too late to be successful, but too late to have it be my sole concern. As a kid I had lots of toys. I don’t think this was a good thing- not bad either, but my attention was spread. It’s the same now-  my interests are diverse. 

My life has been a buffet, it’s embarrassing too, but I’m happy. 

Thanksgiving, home bum

Since falling on my skateboard I have been healing. My hand I think was broken, as the swelling lingers. Still, a doctor I know would just tell me to be careful and maybe give me a little shell to keep bother dings away.

On the holiday weekend I did not travel. There’s something cheesy called a staycation. All in all, it may be less cheesy than tourism, so, that’s another point towards staying put. I did not go to New York, to see Michaelangelo’s or Hockney’s or David Hornung’s show, or to Boston, to see a show of paintings by George Nick, patron saint of PAFA. In the short term then, I’ll remain ignorant, or uninformed, or uninfluenced. 

I likewise did not run to Florida. I’ve had plenty of hundred-dollar hamburgers, so I stayed put. 

My neighbor had invited me to dinner, for Thanksgiving. I said I might just take her up. On the last night of school before the break, I stayed really late painting with another motivated student. I left first, and invited him to join our Thanksgiving celebration on the way out, giving him my phone number on a band-aid. He didn’t call, and after waking late the following morning, and going on a run to the tune of six miles, I cleaned up and knocked on my neighbor’s door, and she let me in, and I had a Thanksgiving afternoon and evening with her and her family. It occurred to me how plastic a holiday could be. Sitting with her mother and father and sister and brother-in-law, felt like sitting with my mother and father and sister and brother-in-law. And there was a dog; a big golden retriever who was a pet addict, and I obliged because I’m so terribly lonely probably. I ate two portions of dinner, and two slices of pie, and felt a little bad about that, about thinking about dinner like that, like a buffet. 

On Saturday following, I ran to the Woodmere Art Museum, a ten mile run. I’d looked up a marathon training program, and, this far out from the race, was scheduled a 20 miler. So I planned to run there and back- to the Woodmere, and to attend the museum to see the Violet Oakley show in between, and I did. I did and more. I got lost a long the way, which I estimate accounted for three to five extra miles, and at the Woodmere I took a break to run into town to get lunch and a coffee, which I estimate accounted for another 2-3 miles. So, I’m counting Saturday’s running efforts as twenty-five miles. I ran 25, and my body seemed to break apart in a calculated way through the week following. I got an okay painting on that following Sunday, though I scratched out the portrait. I’ll need to get that portrait- to composite one on. We’ve got the same model for yet another week, so it’s looking up. 

I tried maintenance running, it my knee is hurting and swollen, along with my hand. This is a real Ship of Theseus kind of thing, that happens when you go into many too-big projects at once. My dad’s got a titanium knee, and Grammy’s got a metal hip. So here’s to hoping, here’s a poem, for a taught sea-worthy ship.  

I’ve got another batch of paintings on the way. Models in chairs. 

Sky Blue, Severes

Currently, we’re a little more than half way through the semester. Things are well. I’ve kept to meditating. I fell on my skateboard the other morning- a combination of things, primarily poor shoe choice. I was wearing these all-weather kind of hiking sandals, and a new hat, and maybe a scarf. All of these things combined made me a sort of Floridian blind missile, in combination with the whipping winds gusting through corridors in downtown Philadelphia. 

I have a scratch on my face- roadrash, and road rash too on both hand’s knuckles, and one of my hands I used to break my fall is swollen still, almost three days out. The swollen hand doesn’t hurt, and I can squeeze it and explore and it feels like everything’s in it’s right place, so I’ll hang out on it. Yesterday I signed up for a marathon, and ran five miles that day too. Yesterday night I went to a ceramics workshop, which I’d been attending for three weeks, led by Bronwyn L. Simons. Bronwyn is a young master, and very humble and an incredible teacher. Fresh out of MICA ceramics department, it’s a blessing to learn from her. She speaks about ceramics in geeky terms, which a drunkard buddy of mine ( a wall hangabout at the mural wall of Pete’s Pier of Crystal River had me feeling comfortable about). “That’s what it takes!”, he said, “It’s geeky shit! And you gotta love the geeky shit!”. And I do. I love the geeky shit. That’s the difference maker- breaking taboos. So, let’s talk about breaking taboos: it’s enough to make people live in a seeming satirical modality, preyed upon by, well, it doesn’t matter- (typing myself into a corner there). Um.. what I want to talk about briefly are taboos about craft in art. Not too much, it’s a lot of what PAFA’s about and I’m surrounded by it a lot- so, that’s a disclaimer, but the more I read and refine what I’m into, it’s pictures- picture making, and picture making is hard, and it takes a lot of insider knowledge. Not just exclusivity, but like a density of provable outcomes, because otherwise its a crapshoot.

A lot of the semester I was all stoked on this poetry class with Emily Abendroth. She’s great. I still am stoked about the class, but the ceramics class I feel has taken over it’s place as the most new and unfamiliar thing. All the while I wrote this neo-benshi poetry piece for Abendroth’s class, and recorded it over a video of someone playing super Mario- a scene where Mario dives into water and swims around and collects coins. It was our midterm and it provided a rush of clarity, though the buzzer caught up before I felt it was fully fully resolved. 

I wonder if I will ever make a masterpiece. I think I have actually, but I guess I mean one where I set out to make it and do it. Idk. . I’ve been surprised by little masterpieces I feel. Anyway, writing that poem helped me to express some thoughts- put them out on the proverbial table, so that I could have a look and move on a little bit. There’s a line in particular; ‘a solipsistic inquiry brings me to test arbitrary barriers. “Are these but perceived? A construct?”, no sooner am I toying with walls do I realize the irony of my experiments.’

That line gives a little nod to graffiti too, but primarily shoots the all-seeing eye back onto the reader/thinker, in a way that just helped me get over it, and that’s what I’m saying- to get over it. How should a work be judged if not on visual terms? Or with regard to it’s formal qualities? THis is what I’m saying- I’m becoming one of the army of old-skill drones maybe. It’s whatever. It’s like Don Quixote as far as I can tell- not inborn. 

Tonight I was thinking about how I owe it all to Cosby. I used to say that my sister up-and-picked-up my mother’s modalities and replicated them closely. Thing is, that was at a time when our mom was a mother, and taking us to church, and school, and all that, and my sister is there now- with two kids, little girly first and a little tyke two years later, trucking them to and fro- no hate. So that was a story about replicating a shadow of sorts, a mannerism. How boring, I think I thought. Anyway, I did the same. I owe it all to Cosby, in one telling. I bit his steel-os, and I’m playing a prolonged game of Cosby, it might seem. . I thought this tonight while sculpting. A lot of my visual vocabularies come from him still. He’s in his circumstances, doing well from what I can tell, and I look back to him from time to time, and I’m lucky to still be able to call him my friend. And I differ, and grow, as does my sister. And I forgive, and I talk less and less shit, as does my sister. And I have this youthful outlook again, as I see that it’s not getting any easier, yet somehow it’s all so sharp and dangerous and beautiful. I know what dying is like. It’s like . . Okay , either I don’t know or I can’t put it into words, but. . Okay, how’s this- it’s a quote from a song- that life is a dance of energy. That’s it, so dying would just be a really funky dance move- one where you spilt into a hundred worms and grass blades and seeds and flowers all at once, where no energy is lost- really funky. 

I’ve been painting big, and focusing on process for better of worse. I think it’s good to explore these processes. I’m getting closer to expressing myself through paint and in visual terms I think. Sculpture is okay, too. I’m reserving the right to become a full-time sculptor late-career by planting little seeds now (learning methods, and making little doo-dads). I made some nice little ceramic pieces tonight- one in particular is a star- isn’t that how it goes? After I hit my head on the road blacktop on Sunday, I made a killer painting. It’s a 2 by one landscape orientation, with a nude reclining female model in a cast hall, with painters all around. It was the Sunday four-hour that Scott Noel runs, and he set it up. I ‘cheated’ the sketch by holding up a plexiglass plane and tracing the scene in litho crayon, then transferring that to a panel with vellum. Once my sketch was down I pre-mixed some colors from a palette I’m working out- hookers green (to be nixed), ivory black, titanium white, Indian yellow, rose madder permanent, and severes blue. The painting was a little heater. Scott told me the tale of a British portrait artist who was mediocre until he hit his head on the bottom of a pool, wherefrom he became a highly skilled savant-like draughtsman. I told him I’d need to get back out there on my skateboard then. 

Scott advised I go to Boston to see paintings by George Nick, on display now at some gallery. I might. I might too go to NYC, where there’s a show hanging with work from a David Hornung, who’s book on color I’d studied from in 2012 under the guidance of Ed Toner, unbeknownst that he (David) was a funky and skilled painter! I’d tried to see his show the other weekend by going up to NYC on a China bus, but I’d arrived too late for the opening, and found myself stranded in the city on the basis that china buses don’t seem to leave after ten pm, so I walked and ran around New York, both Brooklyn and Manhattan until figuring it out and booking a train for 3am back to Philly. All that running and sleep deprivation had me inspired and my muscles have been running at a high tone. 

PAFA’s in-house open studios was the other night. I saw many studios of friends. Brandillon, a friend from tinder app joined me on the basis I that she wanted to see some other show in the neighborhood. She was good company, but amidst the excitement and exhaustion that comes with a big event at the end of a taxing week, I was fried. I wanted a beer. I wanted to stay with Brandillon. It seemed like we were hitting it off. We went to a bar, then another, then to her apartment, where I met her cat, and slept, and woke. It was such a beautiful night, and morning, and I had some coffee, and before I left, I felt faint, but I left all the same, and sat down beside a wooden fence post in the grass on a corner by a lot, where traffic passed intermittently and a man asked how I was doing and I said good, and the road was piebald black and cold and wet with lakes in crags reflecting sky, and I let the cold in and I breathed. The Philadelphia  marathon was that morning, and I looked up the route when I got home, and it looked not-so bad, so I looked up some other marathon things too and eventually (a few days later) signed up for one. The idea of finishing a semester, then flying down to Florida and next-day running a marathon is helping me get by I think. It’s like a big goal behind a big goal, in front of family time and holidays at the beach. And it’s got me running. 

Philadelphia, PAFA

My current address is as follows:

2200 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, apt. N1014

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19130

A blog entry is in order. I wrapped up those two murals in Crystal River. I feel okay about them. Mom paid for a rental car, and I loaded it up and drove to Philadelphia over the course of two days. I stopped in Jacksonville to visit with Shaun. I checked out his new studio spot in Phoenix District in Springfield, where efforts are being made to beautify and lay groundwork for a creative arts highschool. I'd been invited to paint a section of wall there in October, however, after visiting, and seeing the cutty wall sections, and then having a two-day drive to think about it, and then signing up for eighteen hours of classes upon arriving at PAFA, I reneged. 

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I stayed in a cheap hotel just south of Virginia. I slept on the floor in case of bedbugs, which I would not want to bring into a new apartment; plus, I’d gotten in the habit of sleeping on the floor at my parent's house over the summer anyway. I took off in the morning, got a flat tire just north of the Virginia border, (good timing if there ever was one). The sidewall totally blew out, but I heard it and pulled over with control thankfully. A Virginia road service worker pulled over behind me and put up a flashing sign (a pneumatic ordeal from the roof of his truck), and a run of traffic cones too. I had the tire changed in no time, and took a pit stop in a small town not long after to have the tire replaced at a professional tire center. The car rental company covered the cost. I arrived in Philly as we were losing light. Daniel met me at the door, handed me my keys, and helped me move in. I’d taken along painting and sculpting supplies basically, and some books, and clothes, and a skateboard. 

Daniel and I went out to meet some of Daniel’s friends that night. I expressed interest in one of the friend’s basement mural project- later to learn he drastically oversold the spot. We all drank, I had two beers at this garden bar spot. 

PAFA had three days of orientation, which was two and two-thirds days more than it needed to be. 

I made a run to Drexel University area, and salvaged two nice dressers and rode them a mile back to my apartment upside down on my skateboard (one at a time)- it was a small scene. Up the elevator, ten flights, into the apartment- they look nice, and I now have more than enough storage space; story of my apartment- it’s nice. It’s too much- It’s like living on a cruise ship. I’m eating it every month with the rent, but otherwise, I’m not getting weighed down by the upscal-ed-ness. I made a run to Ikea and bought a chair, which I ubered home and assembled. The spot is nice. I also bought a couple plants. 

Classes are cool. It’s more art school, but thing is, this is the best art school I’ve been to by far, and the city is legit. A lot of what I couldn't know for sure, has been granted with this program. How do the students produce such large (good) figure paintings?- There are more extended poses at PAFA than any other kind of pose. Gestures are near unheard of (thus far, from what I’ve seen). I have either two or three classes per day. The figure classes do two week, three week, four week, five week (30 hour) poses. In contrast, Ringling maxed at 12hour. I wonder what I’ll make with that kind of time- not really, I don’t wonder. Hmm. 

I’ve been getting into these marathon days, and I’ve looked up every figure drawing opportunity in Philly, in addition to our school’s curriculum, and made a schedule and posted it in the school elevators. 

I’ve brought along my mediation practice, which I’m very happy with. The worry seems to have gone away, though I understand it’s kind of one missed session away. . 

My cardio has been killer. I’ve been skateboarding usually about three to seven miles a day, hauling ass! It’s such a great city when You’ve got somewhere to be a fun way to get there, and smooth (yet delightfully choppy) roads! My legs have been sore since I moved here, but I imagine they’ll get used to the commutes. 

The dating scene seems healthy here! I’m on tinder still, and with great enthusiasm I’ll report that there is real possibility to transcend the app here! I’d been on one date (made the transition from app to rl once elsewhere), but here in Philly, within the week, twice! Both dates were friendly more than anything else. I really got along with this one young woman. I’ll not go further bc my mom suggested that I feel guilty for posting my exploits on a public blog. (It’s a writing excersise, mom). 

I went to a house show the other night. I went to a movie the other night at an independent theater. The movie was called Marjorie Prime. It was about loading sims of deceased family, and coping with the human condition in a climate of AI. It was dialogue dependent, and dark. I thought about my parents offing themselves the next morning in a worry-dream, deriving from the film. I talked to my parents on the phone yesterday. They seemed healthy. My mother’s voice was a little withery. I may be projecting. It’s another phase of empty nest I imagine. I owe them everything, especially for their hospitality over the summer. 

I didn’t eat for a few days, then picked it up with some lentils. Now my appetite is healthy. I’d been sick when I first arrived. I’m very inspired by my classmates, and the fellow PAFA students. I feel fully that this is the best art school in the world! 

Beginning tomorrow I will have sat in at least one section of every class on my school schedule, so I’ll know a little clearer what I’m in for. 

If I were to recount the events of each day, I shouldn’t sleep, or heaven forbid paint. Serendipity that I thought to write even now.

While writing this section, I received an email from my tinder friend about another music show (though I’ve yet to open it and see what it says)! Also, my friend called my name and we said hi 
even here while I write at a Whole Foods. She was curious about my blog, so I gave her the website link. Hi Jules! 

  

Walls on the way out

I took a motorcycle trip to Sarasota the other weekend. I got sunburned on the way down and rode through thunderstorms on the way back up. While in Sarasota I visited Angie and her boyfriend, and Aaron Persh and some other friends too. I retrieved a canvas from the school storage racks, which had been a monkey on my back for a little while. The canvas has a sketch of a nude model I'd been working with while at Ringling. 

I'm working on this big wall at Fancy's Pets in Crystal River. It's about eighty feet long, by twelve high, with a deep stucco textured surface. The wall is going well. It's subtly stylized and it's been a kind of long term relationship, with big corrections, and moments of vivid inspiration. All in all I'm trying to keep my head on about it. Recently I emailed a picture of it to Shaun Thurston for critique, and he obliged with a long phone call, while I stood in front of the wall, and we talked about the painting and physics (light) and life. This is what creative community and friendship are all about. 

I began working on Fancy's wall at different times of the day, and experienced different people (who get off work at a certain time, etc. ) coming to talk to me. Captain Tim came up to me and said I was his guy for a mural that he wanted on his building at Pete's Pier. On his suggestion I drew up a wall and bit an Al Parker illustration, pretty directly. I put in a day's work on it today. My dad bought the paint for it. My family has been really great about supporting my passion. The paint helped to hone in on the palette in efficient time. Captain Tim's giving me 200 dollars for the wall. The plan is to wrap it up tomorrow.

I've been talking with the City of Crystal River to do a mural in city hall. When I sat down for a meeting initially, I told them that I as basically doing Fancy's for the cost of paint, and they wanted that too. I asked if they wanted to pay me, and Molly (really, it was just a meeting with Molly) gave the empty promise of exposure, and I kind of said well I don't really need the wall. And then I kind of entertained the idea and kind-of rolled and apologized for being a diva, and said yeah, it could work. So I've been working on that sketch, and contacted a biologist for consultations regarding native flora and fauna, and have gone through revisions, and the city payed my way in to Three Sisters Springs Park for research, and it's been pretty good and I have a design in development. Now that I have a decent sketch, and also now that I've got two distinct paying exterior walls, I went back to the city and asked Molly for 200 dollars to do this mural, and otherwise I don't feel very motivated to do it. So I'm waiting on a call from them. I'm sitting on a good design, so I'm happy and sitting pretty. 

That's it. Shaun pitched a wall in October for a mural festival in Jacksonville, to which I jumped. I think I'll have a mural portfolio I can stand by for a little while pretty soon. I'm twenty-seven years old now. 

Motorcycle Trip

Plan has gone not terribly, but not operating at a ten. A friend of mine quotes some study (he read it in a book about quitting smoking) that stating intention offsets motivation to preform the task. That’s not written too clearly, but I guess some relief occurs, or sense of accomplishment by stating, you get the idea. 

I’m very sore now. I’ve been sore for a week, escalating due to my engagements. Habitat for humanity had me erecting interior frames, which was harder work than I was used to I guess. Since, I’ve been waking later, missing the most recent Habitat shift entirely. The work on the wall has been equal in hours per session, but it seems the nature of the work has changed, as I am fatigued. I like the feeling somewhat. It helps to justify the downtime as healing time. After I overslept for my Habitat shift, I geared up for a motorcycle trip down to Sarasota, to close loose ends. These included picking up my big sketch on canvas of a model. I called Ringling campus police that let me into Bayou103, where I ripped it off its eight by five foot support, folded it up, and got off campus for the last time in likely a long time. Another thing I went down for was to see Angie before she headed off to New York for a few weeks before her next semester starts up again at Ringling. Turns out, her boyfriend (whom I like), also had plans of spending (as much as possible) time with her before she left. Angie and I got some conversation in anyhow. 

I’ve kept to meditating, but after the Sarasota trip, I feel that the drive is gone. The motorcycle trip down there I left my arms bare to the sun, and got a good red bake on my forearms. I didn’t eat much while in Sarasota. On the trip back there were scattered thunderstorms, for which I took breaks, and made rain predictions and risky stretches on wet roads. I took a three hour break half way through. I controlled my breathing and kept an eagle eye. In total the trip back took eight hours. When I got home, the parents were gone somewhere, and the house was staged, and lit, and outside there was a heavy fog and cold light. I rolled a joint. 

That motorcycle trip had me questioning the existence of a higher power afterward, and again, my meditation habit has been in question of late (not that it would reason to be). Then I saw some video with Elon Musk suggesting our likelihood of being actually in a simulation, and also the existence of a higher power as one of two-hundred billion versions of ourselves that is in control of the simulation. I entertained that the motorcycle trip was carried out by the god version of myself; the in-control-one-in-two-hundred-billion self. I had a one in two hundred billion experience. 

Yesterday I painted on the wall. The business owner came to our house directly and asked me to change the design of the wall. This was after three design meetings, with approvals all along the way. Now, I’m kind of free-painting on the wall, painting blind. Today, I went to the wall and felt too pooped to start. I’m taking the weekend, and we’ll see what comes. I need to think about the painting in a wholistic sense as it comes to a close. I’m getting closed to finishing, maybe. 

I’ve got a couple offers on the table for other mural projects. I won’t go into details, but it would be special circumstances indeed to take on more mural projects at the moment. 

I'd dropped off four glass sculptures with Debbie at the local glass studio before setting down to Sarasota, and she fired two in my absence. They did not turn out. Whereas my experience in school and my understanding from reading stated a fourty-hour kiln cycle, Debbie tried to get away with a four hour cycle, keeping the glass at 1500degrees for ten minutes, rather than two hours, with relative abbreviations throughout. Luckily, she chose a good couple to experiment on, and I'll be shopping around for a kiln-relationship in Philadelphia tentatively. I bought some plaster-silica mix from her, and said goodbye for now. The idea now is to make a bunch of molds, and weigh out my glass, to take to Philly to try to get a glass caster's kiln to use. 

Also before Sarasota, I went diving in Three Sister's Springs, for reference videos to assist with the design of a mural for City Hall's Visitor's Center. The dive was like the motorcycle trip- cold, wet, eerie, with an acute earthy deathy quality. The springs were nice and scenic, however without sun on that day, the swim out to it in the river with tannic black water, was unsettling, and again, the cold. 

That's it. Looking at the calendar, it's more about wrapping up here in Crystal River than spreading out. Let's see if I keep my cool. Who am I talking to?- this could be a simulation. . .