features, madman edition

A shout-out to my little sister [lethifer] who had her birthday yesterday, you are all lucky DA does not have a sound and music section or she'd be all up in there kicking your collective ass. Like she is kicking her school's ass atm.


Was also my birthday last week, turned 25 which feels kind of like a milestone. Half way to fifty and a quarter century old. In all likelihood more then a fourth of a life spent already, which does not mean all that much since I know I could die any day. It's important to try to live fully everyday and don't go to bed leaving things unsaid or too many regrets, that's been harder to live up to this year then in years past but I try.

Being so very introverted I spend a lot of time in personal reflection anyhow, but around a birthday it's a good chance to look more broadly over the past year and think about how life is going and if you are on the right path for you, so I'll digress at length and share some thoughts on that for anyone interested;

I cut back on my work at Resurgere even more this year, will write more on this some other time. In any case I feel guilty that there is an unrealized potential there, but since I volunteer there and don't get paid I can't put in the full time effort it needs. So have focused more on myself, more time for my own art and my own account, which I think is fair because I've given so much to that project that I deserve to focus on my own needs for awhile. Still did work there it's not like we gave up on the account just can't put in the same kind of hours, in addition I donated design-time  and/or art and/or time this year to dA-ArtJam & PrintsForLit & ArtistsForCharity & seniormentors & Community Choice features and likely other smaller projects I don't even remember atm, all together not an insignificant volume of community support effort... Community is what you make of it, got'a do what you can for the greater good even at your own expense, thinking about what you can do for others rather then your own needs...

Up until about this time last year I put most of my uploads into my scraps and was not too active in my own account, it was just a place to be besides Resurgere, a chair for the man behind the curtain. Only had a few deviations, but then I started doing prints I had a reason to post a part of my back catalogue and am sitting on an unmanageably full gallery now. I watch ten times as many people as I used to and have found all sorts of great artists, I've featured almost 100 of them in my journal now. Made a lot of new friends which is cool, am more involved and active around the site. Still pretty unknown but a big rise in support now that I am more active here, will hit 50k page views soon and I forget how many I had last year but my guess would be 15k. I remember from  Resurgere that the first 100k is the hardest.

Anyhow moving on to REAL life, away from DA Life, a few

This time last year I was skin and bones and dangerously out of shape when it came to my heart etc. Now after a year of work I don't know how many hundreds of hours in the gym, I'm able to hold a steady healthy weight and my heart is in good shape too. Typically I would rather sit and read some book with large words, so I had to give up almost all my [video-game and] reading time to make time for working out. But I am strong and fit [and as a bonus, easier on the eyes] and that feels fantastic.

My portfolio site is still semi-designed because I've had no time, maybe when i shoot less in winter now i can do that, been pissing me off to see it not materialize. Likewise for my coffee table book, though now I think perhaps it is a good thing I did not do it last year because I will have a better sense of how to sort it's content this year. Work is ok, still doing design part time to give me time for my art the other part of the time, but am always contemplating getting full time work instead to provide some financial flexibility which I do not have atm. And to buy some gear that is not a joke. It is hard to judge 'success' for me, most people seem to define that as money in our society. I define in terms of my culture [mainly art, but community etc], my spiritual wholeness, and my love [for friends family etc]. Those are the things that matter to me, and I'm not that good at the whole career side of things because it's not what's most important to me... So, that is something to work on in the next year. New gear would make a world of difference in my art, and a opportunity to do some photo trips far afield would be awesome.

I've been feeling more driven to draw and paint this year, and have started to learn how to do that better though I have a huge amount left to learn. Also more driven to pick up my old manip skills, and to push my vector skills. I think this is because I have a renewed interest in non-spiritual themes and photography is not best suited.

Photography wise I think there is a greater emotional element taken hold in my work, which is usually intellectual and philosophical in subject matter. I had periods of unproductive shooting this year when I was too distracted by emotional trouble to achieve the sort of state I need to be in to make my art, as a way to cope I had to change the style of a lot of my work. It's a little easier for people to understand emotional work like Held or Songs of Summer because the intellectual formality that define the compositions is clothed in some accessible emotionally expressive surface. It was a struggle to learn ways of making this balance and I am still learning. But it makes me a more well rounded artist and for the first time maybe expressing personal feelings instead of ideas.

Is good. Family is good for the most part. Miss my sister but I'm glad to see she is doing well at school and making the most of her time there.

For most of this last year my days have been filled with an emotional turmoil at a depth of which I have not felt probably since my father passed away when I was a child. I am usually one of the most emotionally healthy and balanced people I know, but I had never fallen in love before. And in the most unlikely of places last year, met a rose in full bloom and could not help but fall. A great treasure, one in a billion, I confidently stake my heart and all my credibility as a perceiver of beauty on that assessment. But, I am powerless to make a relationship bloom between us. It is my loss I am sure, but an immense loss. If I am honest I would have to say the ups and down of heartache and heartthrob is a daily challenge that is always with me now, and I do not have the ability with words to express the power of those emotions or the struggle it is to stay on my feet. It would be so easy to let myself be crushed by the gravity of it all, but I hope instead that I can use the whole experience to grow into a better more worthy person.

And that's what another year should be about, not aging, but growing. To see the time in our life as a gift to be spent trying to accomplish those things that matter most to us and trying to mature and learn so that we have a greater capacity to do those things. There was an unexpected twist in the path for me last year, but I feel its is still the path I want be on because I still believe in all my goals. It was a good year all and all despite points of real struggling, I hope next year goes better and I wish those less fortunate and less happy then myself receive some of the sorts of blessings I am lucky enough to live with.