long-timey thoughts

It sure feels good to start finding a regular home routine again. Drawing, painting, administrative stuff, biking, swimming, storyboarding, reading, writing. It takes several days to work back up into a steady work pace, but that's a whole lot faster than it used to take. It took me years of frustration and challenge to get to a point where I could work productively from a home studio.

Now that I'm back onto my own work, I feel a strong "voice" emerging from this ol' soul of mine. I suppose it's always been there, but I think it's gained focus and confidence, especially over the last couple years. My art will still be diverse (maybe even more so than before), but it is coming out with more intention and less hesitation than before. More referencing my own reality than anyone else's. More ideas and thoughts and experiences to draw from, I suppose. I suppose it's about living a rich and balanced life as much as it's about making a lot of art.

I don't mean to say I'm awesome, and I certainly don't mean to say that my art is awesome. I'm simply making an observation about my personal growth. And learning and growth is what it all comes down to for me - making art is (hopefully) a byproduct of those experiences. A recording of what's going on in life.

I think this blog has played a big part in focusing my thoughts together, defining my truths and recording my observations. On top of drawing, painting and animating, Draw or be Drawn has become another important creative outlet for me. I hope I keep writing it for a long time to come. Maybe for the rest of my life.

Thanks to everyone who reads this blog. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't feel like people occasionally stopped in for a peek.

swimming calculations

After three months on the road, I'm finally home and settling in. The studio is cleaned up and I'm just about to start painting.

Swimming is getting good. Now that the winter storms are gone and the water is warm, the big challenge is distance. I'm back onto my goal of swimming from Gabriola Island to Entrance Island this summer, with a double-seater kayak as an escort.

My daily swim is going to be lengths of my local cove - from the point to the pub and back, multiple times. I need to do that three times to make up a kilometer, which is the distance to Entrance Island. I can easily swim one kilometer in a pool, but it's a different story with the waves and cold water sapping my energy away. Also:

Even at the best tides, I need to assume that I'm at least swimming perpendicular to a 1 knot current. I swim about 1 knot on average over long periods of time, so the water will be dragging me at the same speed I'm swimming. I need to aim for a different point than the island, and hope I hit it with the current. That also means I should assume I'll be swimming 1.5 km instead of 1 km. Maybe best to be comfortable with 2km, because the water will be colder and rougher out there.

I'll need to get a good marine chart and talk to some locals about this before I try it, obviously, and I have a lot of training to do to hit 2 kilometers at 1 knot in rough ocean. Eventually I'll probably start training by swimming a bit further out (but not in the shipping / fishing lanes, and not in the strong current areas).

I'm also having a hard time gauging when my body is getting too tired to swim. I don't know what that feels like. Next time I'm in Vancouver I'm going to hit a pool with a lifeguard and swim myself to near-exhaustion so I know what the signs are.

Off to paint..

last day in the city and my bitterness doth overflow

Nomadic-hobo style Festival Submissions. Cuttin' DVD covers with a knife at a coffeeshop with my backpack and shit laying all over the place.

Look at this guy sitting to my left. There were only two other people in the whole fucking coffeeshop when he came in, and he sat right next to me. (It's a wide-angle lens, so objects are closer than they appear.) I just don't understand some peoples' insensitivity about personal space. Every time I look at him, he pretends I'm not there. Fuck, dude, you're sitting three feet away from me, and you've even pushed your table closer to me so you have to be about one foot from me every time you reach for your coffee. Have you completely blocked out my presence, or are you stupid or what?

He had no idea I was rotating my entire laptop to shine my webcam at him to take his photo. I just don't get it. Does he live his whole life like this? He would be a shitty soccer player if that was the case. For the sake of the gene pool, I just hope it's a general survival mechanism for some people in densely populated areas to block out their surroundings like that.

I wish I had to fart right now, just to see if he would smell it.

negative space

I love the view from my sister's place. It makes Vancouver look like Norway or some shit like that.

I've been living out of a backpack for three months now. First the Yukon, then Vancouver. At first it was strenuous, but I'm starting to get used to the lifestyle. Humans are nomadic creatures. It is our natural way of being. Babies will only rest when you hold them and walk with them (or simulate the motion by rocking them), because that is how our species prospered for 99.9% of our history - walking, walking, in our mothers' arms, from one place to the next, as our families hunted and camped and slept and walked again the next day. When we are babies, we're not so indoctrinated to forget that nomadic lifestyle, and we require it.

It feels good to move around the city carrying everything I need, and nothing more:

Backpack
4-5 T-Shirts
1 Longsleeved Shirt
3 Pairs of Socks
2 Pairs of Shorts (usually wearing one pair)
1 Pair Underwear (I overpacked - underwear is not necessary if it's summer and you're swimming every day.)
2 Camp Towels (quick-drying, thin and small)
Tent
Sleeping Bag
Thermarest
Sil-Tarp (super lightweight small tarp)
Bit o' Rope
Toiletries
Leatherman (multitool)
Knife
Sketchbook
1-2 Reading Books

...Normally I would pack food, a campstove, a pot, a mug and warmer clothes, but since I'm in the city to work, the rest of the pack is taken up by

Laptop Bag containing:
Laptop
The Economist Magazine
2 Thumb Drives
1 Backup Drive (1TB)
Mouse, Mousepad, Headphones
Digital Camera
Assorted cables to make these things talk to each other.

The dance project is finally finished. Super fun, super challenging and very inspiring. I worked with some great artists who I know I will work with again in the future. The experience has left me with a strong desire to create my own performance pieces. More like performed short films that are edited on-the-spot, combined with sound / music. We'll see.

The incredible thing about creativity is that you don't burn out on it. The more you're creating, the more ideas you have. I guess it's like exercising in a way. If you run every day, you're going to be able to run further and further with each passing day. On the other hand, it's also healthy to have periods of rest to give your muscles a chance to grow and heal.

I think that sometimes we hold on to ideas because it's the 'big one', because we fear that there will be no 'big ones' to follow it up. I don't believe this. There is a bottomless well of inspiration within us. We're only restrained by our own fears; by not consistently exercising the muscles that put ideas into action.

My mind is brewing with ideas for my own work and for collaborations. I'm stoked to get home and start painting.

The only thing missing is some serious bush time. I love to draw people and buildings, but my heart and my inspiration comes from the wilderness. I'm planning a week-long trip along some uninhabited bit of coastline somewhere, to get my head back into my painting-space.

home

Swimming in the ocean is my daily rite of manhood.
Its wildness forces me to accept and understand my own wildness.
When I am surrounded by its power, it's potential for violence,
My own violence drains away into humility and awe.

I believe that my body now craves that daily battle,
The water burning every inch of my skin,
Fighting the terror of unseen teeth in the murk,
The imagined cramps, riptides,
Drowning far from land.

Too many days without it
Makes my stomach twist,
People feel too close, I get angry,
Yearn for danger, conflict, and physical challenge.

Now that summer is here, I find that a simple dip is not enough. The warmth of the water is a disappointment. (Warmth is relative - I still haven't seen anyone else swimming on the beaches.)

I try to make every swim a challenge. I like it when it's windy and the waves are high. In Vancouver, I would swim far out from the beach, trying to overcome my fears of currents, big boats, sudden cramps, drowning.

One night last week it was too late to swim in the ocean, so I went to a pool at UBC. There was thirty minutes until closing time. With a lifeguard on duty, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to test one of my worst deep-water imaginings. What would happen if I cramped up badly. Could I swim it out?

I swam as hard as I could for fifteen or twenty minutes until my side cramped up, then my right leg. I glanced back at the lifeguard to make she was watching. Yes, she was watching - trying to look calm, sort of staring past me, well aware that I was now struggling - swimming oddly sideways, kicking with only one leg and treading water with my arms.

I tried to give her a calm smile and went about my business. It took me a few minutes of deep breaths and slow movement to swim it off, then I was fine.

Good to know.

(Last thought - I think it's bullshit that Aquaman is depicted as a hairless, fatless young man. Like every other sea mammal, Aquaman should have a healthy layer of either hair or fat or both. That would be way cooler.)

ceilings

Here's a review of Plaything, the dance show I've been working on. Come check it out this weekend or next, if you're in Vancouver. Now that the show is rolling, I can start thinking about my next projects.

Since I first started doing fulltime art about a decade ago, my overall career pattern hasn't changed much - tonnes of big ideas, some frustration that I'm not doing all of them at once, a broad range of interests, all reigned in by a fanatical desire to organize things into schedules and lists.

The result is a tonne of pages of dreams and "TO DO" lists taped on my walls and strewn across my desk.

They go something like this:

NEXT MONTHS' STUFF

June

Market Perfect Detonator Film - website, mailing list, continue festival submissions, send out copies to contributors etc.
Check Motionbuilder / Maya for quadripeds
Talk to Joyce about Mexico etc.


July

Dog installation gig.
Solo camping / sketching week.
Start painting for Sept. show.
Check Banff deadlines.
Start jamming next film for BravoFact.
More PDet submissions.

August

Painting mania for September
Bravofact refine
PDet Fest Stuff.

September

Art show
More dog installation gig
Dogsit
Document paintings for portfolio.
BravoFact submit.

October

Dog installation gig.
Find and contact galleries across Canada and internationally for painting
P. Det show

LATER IN FALL

Next film (quickie)
P Det Submissions Ongoing
Ramp up painting / gallery hunts. Combine with trip(s)?

...

That's all I got for now. Lots to do, always changing. Part of me wishes I could plan further into the future, but I've learned that things change too fast to go much further than 6 months. New ideas and opportunities will arise, other ideas will fall flat, timelines will change. It's an interesting way of making a living, I'll tell ya. You gotta be a bit philosophical about the whole thing, I think.

riots

I was going to write some stuff about the riots in downtown Vancouver, but then I looked at some nice photos of bright green trees and lush West Coast rainforest, and now I don't really give a shit about the riots.

I will say that I'm excited to have had my first douse of teargas, and that I don't really think the "riots" are a big surprise, or worthy of indignation. What do you expect when you hype up hundreds of thousands of young adult males, unite them under one "tribe", dress them up in the same colours, get them drunk, and set them loose downtown? The male Homo Sapiens is not a peaceful animal - it never has been, and it never will be.

Young adult male readers of this blog - do you remember doing stupid shit when you were young? If so, try not to get all righteous on the Esteemed Rioters - if you were in the same situation, years ago, it might have been you.