Well, I’ve crossed some strange little bridge where I’m finally remembering that frenetic, stay-up-all-night, I’m too goddamn excited about this project to sleep, kind of energy that I used to get in high school. And I have to say I haven’t been happier in a LONG ass time. I feel like I’ve finally fixed that broken module in my brain, and the only thing I’m afraid of is when it’s going to short out next.
Sure, my computer’s broken (so I’m using someone else’s to do this), my teeth are screaming at me and falling apart with no sign of dental care in sight, my car makes a funny grinding noise that only goes away when I turn right and I’m constantly in terror of dying every time I leave my house, my job at the Food Bank ended and my new job at that winter resort doesn’t start until the next big storm which isn’t due till the middle of December, and I’m running on the fumes of my last big paycheck from A-TCAA which are sure to vanish the second any minor emergency comes up. Sure, I’m in the most dire financial situation I’ve been in since that time I was squatting in the Linoberg St. shacks, making soup from other people’s old chicken carcasses. But I got through that time, didn’t I? And tell me, how did I get through that one time I was stranded in L.A. with no money for a train ticket home?
I painted for money.
It’s time to do so again, and finding a real, dire reason to do so, rather than just practicing, is really lighting a fire under my creative ass. It always seemed like a bad idea before; every reasonable voice in my world said that to try and paint commissions while I should be looking for a “real” job would be a waste of time. Well, guess what, you lousy sadsacks? The joke’s on you this time, because I HAVE a “real” job lined up, I’m just waiting for it to start, and to sit around with my thumb up my ass and NOT try and paint commissions would be a waste of time on my part, so HA! Bugger off, I’m actually trying to turn my skillset into money responsibly with the time allotted. I feel like, with my world coming apart around me, all my weird reprehensible creative blocks have been shattered and there’s nothing for it but apply paint to canvas. Not that I’m necessarily celebrating the whole “starving artist” thing, but goddamn if this wasn’t exactly the kick in the ass I needed to get the juices flowing.
So, I’m opening (an embarrassing, embarrassing) shop on DA. Here’s the link if you want to watch me fail.
I’ll be painting traditional, reach-out-and-touch-it, non-digital work through various means that I’ll be shipping in the mail. I’d sit here and write about it more, but everything you’ll ever need to know about it is over there, and if I continue writing I’ll start focusing on the negative aspects of my life again and starting thinking why this is such a ridiculously stupid idea, and that kind of thinking is why 99.9% of the world’s cool shit doesn’t happen. I’d like to say that I tried to make something cool happen than stay on the reasonable side of things and wonder all my life if that would have worked if I’d just put a little elbow grease into it.
ON TO VICTORY.
Fever-Induced Paranoid Ravings 