step 1

Here is my first attempt of taking the rust off. I don't know if i've ever done a self portrait. Very quick sketch i did on scraps of paper sitting around the studio. more to follow... :)

The blog that started the whole thing...

I wrote this blog Tuesday, May 06, 2008. i really hit a wall artistically but, since then i've started to climb out. It stinks when everything else in your life is great but, one subject matter can linger and really get to you. especially something like this you've been doing your whole life for the most part. enjoy.... if you can.

It's been a while since I wrote a blog…. Let alone one to myself. This blog to myself is to hopefully help me get through a difficult thing I've been struggling with for too long. Artistically, I feel dead. I don't feel I have a creative bone in my body some days. My artwork is just me copying pictures out of a book. Nothing more. Not just my baseball pics but my old comic book stuff. My "style" is nothing more than a compilation of other people's art. Again, "copying". I cling to "pieces" I did almost ten years ago with no new stuff to show. Copying something out of a book doesn't make you an artist. It just means you're good at copying something. I'm a mimic. It's easy to ignore that fact when you have tons of people admire what you do only because they can't do it. It doesn't make me good, it makes me just better than them. My dad is great with cars but he told me once that it chose him not the other way around. He just happened to be good at something that he didn't have much passion for. That's the way I feel about art. I feel I've been forced into this art thing because I was good at it from an early age, not because I particularly enjoy it. I did when I was a kid but, it's just a big hassle now. It's a feeling I've ignored for ages and maybe it's time to hang 'em up completely. I can't keep up. I don't have the education, techniques or desire anymore, to be honest. If I really wanted to be great at this I'd take the effort. My competitive side keeps me from accepting just being okay or listening to real artists trying to spare my feelings. Too much stress. I DON'T want to hear friends and family dispute this. I'm moody and I believe this dilemma has something to do with it. I feel like a fraud incapable of taking criticism and unable to expand and become an artist because I'm sure as hell not one right now. No regrets, no worries though. I just want resolution so I can breathe again. I feel a day late and a dollar short constantly when it comes to art. I don't fit in with the art folks. I can't comment on stuff very well and just feel generally lost. I'm tired of hearing "you have talent" I almost despise the word anymore. It's just a word that reminds me of what I haven't achieved.

Maybe the desire will come back to me, maybe not. But, I have to find a resolution to this before I go mad. It's trivial to you all but, this whole blog calls my whole career and what I've been pegged to become since the age of 3 into question. It's not just a bad day at work or a bad piece, this is putting my entire life under a microscope and being honest with myself and stop portraying myself as someone or something I'm not. I'm tired of lying to myself. It is true about me that if I can't be the best then I'm not interested. This might be the case here. If this comes across as being a crybaby, I apologize. I just needed to get this out. I do feel better and maybe a break from art, not that I've been pumping out tons of work anyway, may do wonders. I still like my job and feel I can do it pretty well. I'm never going to be that top notch designer at some high brow firm in Chicago nor do I want to be. Art has gotten in the way of a lot as much as it's helped me. Everything is so subjective but, yet cramed down my throat as fact. I'm tired of art being presented as fact rather than opinion. I don't belong and I'm not that upset about it atall. Kinda relieved to be honest. Take care friends…