Saturday, February 23, 2013

Progress...

There will always be a time when you look back on where you came from. A time when you reflect on where your life is now to where it was before. You will also find yourself reflecting on where you are headed or more like where you are going. Sometimes when looking back, we might find that in our current state that we aren't where we expected to be based in what we felt in the past. Meaning "when I grow up I'm going to be a fireman!" Whereas now that we are grown we are an insurance salesman. Not to say that there is something wrong with being an insurance salesman but we deviated from our original goal growing up. Now my example is quite a big leap but let's take a look at that for a minute.

When we were younger our view of the world, especially in the last quarter century or so, had greatly been affected by the ever-changing and rapidly changing modern society. Now when I say "we", I am talking about the generation before the Millenials and Gen Y. We saw a change in the way people dreamed...in the way we made goals. We saw how society right before our eyes were creating things that made it easier...maybe easier is not a good word for this point. Let's say...we have witnessed with the advent of the computer and the super information highway, a means of progressing through life in some aspects with ease. Again not necessarily a bad thing but still something that has contributed to the rise of lesser need of certain older skills and practices. I mean I graduated from college 10 years ago. When I was in art school there really wasn't direct degree programs for video game design. You had to take a more traditional approarch to video game design...i.e., graphic design, illustration, etc...I mean about 5 years after I had graduated, there was an influx of schools that offered BFAs in Game Design. I mean this is a burgeoning field that Millenials,Gen Y'ers and Gen Z'ers will more than likely dominate for the foreseeable future. Something complex yet simple, has changed the way we for the most part view success in some circles.

Sometimes now we are judged and we judge ourselves based upon how we adapt to this ever-changing world. Some of us cope, some of us find it a struggle. I am always finding myself question whether or not I am doing all I can do to better myself or to get to where I believe in my heart and my psyche, where I should be. Whenever I enter into this discourse with myself or my peers, I find it easy to sometimes forget that "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet..." Now I know that nowadays there are things such as "egg beaters" and "egg replacers" that can probably make a better omelet (LOL) but at the end of the day, we should strive to measure our success not by our progress but our struggle to get where we are going.

Frederick Douglass said it best, "...If there is no struggle there is no progress..." I hope this post came off coherent and not too all over the place. Until next time...

 

-Namaste

 

Saturday, February 16, 2013

These words...

So I have been thoroughly engrossed in this book called
Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City.
Its a book by Elizabeth Nix. I am about halfway through the book and as I have been reading it, I have been pulling words out of it. The words are combinations of names, ideals, class, and race. I have jotted them down a couple of times but I have yet to decide exactly what it all means to me. I have been trying to see the connection with it and my current body of work. I know in the past my work has been heavily influenced by race but the last few years for me, my work has tended to go slightly left of race.

Even before I started reading this book I had started to investigate when I had the switch over...when did I go away from mainly talking about race and class in my work to creating art that was more, how can I say it...more or less tamer than what I was doing the first part of this century. What changed my voice? I shouldn't say change...what caused me to hush my tone? Could it have been me feeling like it was something I needed to do so I wouldn't constantly get stuck or have to deal with the lull between pieces. Because for awhile there it felt like constantly focusing on race to me would come off like I'm spewing propaganda. And that's a message I never want my work to convey. Hopefully soon I'll have a better understanding of what this all means for me in the "now." Until then...

-Namaste

Saturday, February 9, 2013

What's up World...

Every once in a while I find myself in a really good place. It just seems like everything is just falling into place...everything is extremely copacetic. Right now I have three pieces of work that I am working on concurrently and I feel good about all three pieces. They are all at different stages of completion but they are coming along nicely. When I'm finished I will probably post a slideshow for you guys. That's all I have for you guys this weekend. I'm going to probably try to get sleep early but probably not...

Oh yeah...I'm going to maybe do a black history post in the next couple of weeks so I'm looking forward to post that for you guys. Until next time...


-Namaste

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Where I am at right now...

So faithful few, how's it going? We have arrived at the one month that we are set aside for learning about the history of black people. I recently had a colleague remark how it's weird that black history month is set aside in the shortest month of the year. I had actually never thought about that and found it in that moment quite perplexing. I have actually blogged about the history of Black History Month but I don't believe I have ever spoke on the shortness of the occasion. That's probably a discourse for another day. This week I just wanted to let you guys know what I was up to this past week. I have still be working on the piece for the missus and I have also been working more on my portrait (which I'll post at the end of this post). I've started working more on the tonal values and the contrast some. Really like how it's evolving.

I have also been trying to plan for the rest of the year. I know it's only February but I have BIG plans for this year. I can't wait to share them with you guys. Some people already know and I'm not worried about jinxing them...but it's still just at a stage where not a lot of people know and this blog will post to the interwebosphere. Don't want to broadcast to the world and maybe put things into motion before its ready...you know what I mean...well that's all I have for you guys now. Until next time...

 

-Namaste