negative space copies

the original is winslow homer's "child seated in a wicker chair."

i was told to copy it, but i wasn't told how, so i thought i'd try both
ways as an experience.. the first drawing is my right-side-up copy, the
second was done a few days later and is an inverted copy (with a major
error on the left side).

egotists, artists and other bastards

why stop when i'm on a roll.

i have a lot of pals that are artists. they run the gamut from highly talented amateurs to MFAs to museum curators to people that use art daily as part of their work.

when we talk about my drawing, not only do they ALL give me the brush-off-i'm-not-amazed reaction, but to a person they all give me their little detailed theory on art and what's important. it's infuriating at a level that's hard to imagine.

do these people listen? hell no. why bother when they can pontificate instead. and of course, no two of them say the same thing. in fact, some of them directly contradict each other.

i've never seen a bunch of people that are more self-entranced, self-assured, egocentric and dismissive of any external input than these folks and i've worked with engineers for 20 years for chrissakes.

let me put this another way:

i love mikkel grüner (and therefore, by default, sara). everyone else is suspect.

rule finnmärk.

and yes, i'm done for now.

i've had this nightmare over and over ...

as long as i'm spleen venting, i'll share this little tidbit with you.

since i was at least five years old i've had a recurring theme appear in my dreams. and when i say recurring, i mean i've had dreams of this type at least three times a week, every week, for decades.

in my dream something fantastic will happen. i dream like salvador dali paints, so just as an example let's say that there's a spindle legged elephant walking down the street on fire. i'll be amazed by it. entranced. "whoa! there's a spindle legged elephant walking down the street on fire!"

and everyone else involved will either ignore it or ridicule me for acting like it's a big deal.

i've had decades of dreams of this type, and i'm a pretty creative guy, so every single damn wrinkle you can put in that general category i've done. i can lucid dream, so i can change it around (or i can just wake up then go back to sleep), but i'm to the point now that i don't even bother.

and now there's this damn art thing.

i tell person-after-person that i couldn't draw then i show them my pre-instruction self-portrait and to a person they say something along the lines of "of course, everyone can draw." I'M LIVING MY NIGHTMARES WHEN I SHOW THAT DRAWING. i'm the only one amazed by it (only because, oh let's see, I COULDN'T DRAW LAST TIME I TRIED) and everyone else thinks it's normal.

i don't talk about the situation or show the drawing to anyone anymore. i haven't dreamt of it yet.

but i will.

well hell

so here's the basic problem ...

pickles wanted to work through drawing on the right side of the brain with me, which is a little awkward since she could kick my artist ass, but okay fine. then we summarily sat on the damn book for a year. at my prodding we started talking about actually doing it, but that was going to be problematic due to her school schedule and my hardcore unpredictability. then my pal louella came up with the solution: blog it and everything just works.

okay, fine.

so we set up a 'blog, more to pickles liking than mine (because i don't really care how it looks) and i started up.

i am exactly one day in when she comes in in some kind of hyper-drive funk and changes the original 'blog content, essentially leaving it all to me (but leaving grammatical errors for me to sweep up in her teenage rampage). this without telling me, of course.

the reason? "i didn't know we were starting."

i would think that my buying art supplies and setting up the 'blog might be a hint, but why approach things that way? my response: "i'm exactly one day in. i can stop and wait."

instead of saying that what i should have done is gone and thrown 100 beer bottles against the wall, because it would have had the exact same effect as my glorious statement (which is to say, "nothing") and would have been more fun.

so here's the actual problem:

anyone who's read what i've written in detail knows that i treat my 'blogs as scrapbooks or collections of specific thoughts. i don't use them as a "here's my soul and i'm so goddamn important that i think you should read about it." as i explained in oh so much detail three years ago, i'm not that interested in airing myself on the 'net.

and for damn sure i wouldn't be posting my artistic efforts here.

which means there's a lot of stuff here i'd rather not share with anyone and i most certainly wouldn't have done it on my own. i know it's going to sound paranoid -- but i assure you it's absolutely true -- i have more than a few stalkers, some of whom i'm pretty sure are (or will be) reading this.

BUT i'm also not a quitter or a runner. (unlike my theoretical co-author) i don't start, or say i start, then turn. so i'm going to keep right up here. and you, dear reader, are welcome to it.

the only reason i haven't mentioned this sooner is i wanted to see if pickles was going to re-join (she still could, i guess) and i needed to get the fire in my soul down to a merely threatening level before i wrote anything about the topic. rest assured, this will be the last time i do.

as rodney dangerfield said in caddyshack, "now i know why tigers eat their young."

negative space drawing of a chair