we went to see the padres vs the cubs last night here in san diego. i was conflicted about who to root for as predicted. the friends we went with asked "what's with chicago's teams being bear-themed, are there bears in illinois?" and it's kind of bugging me that i don't know why. (no, there are no bears in illinois...that i know of)

i kind of want to challenge myself to make an artwork a day, preferably varying media as much as possible, but i feel like i would let myself down & eventually slack. sometimes i wish i could just not have email, so i could reclaim the hours i have to spend every day responding to it & do something creative FOR FUN (not for work) with my time instead. my sister is always suggesting that i allot 2 hours, say..2 days a week to respond, but that would never cover it all. i got 562 emails in the last week, over 18,000 in my inbox total. so much of my life feels wasted responding to emails saying things like 'please take me off your email list' and 'i'll get back to you on that'

i saw something on the news about how it's a new type of classifiable anxiety: fear of having too much email or something like that. email feels like someone is constantly tapping me on the shoulder asking me to please, please pay attention to them now right now please look now.

one more quote from that Fitzgerald book i've been reading - which by the way, I'm not sure i'd recommend to anyone. (the protagonists are completely unlikeable and the story is basically tragic yet unmoving)

"all the qualities that [we] don't use in [our] daily lives get cobwebbed up"

doesn't that just make you want to do something drastic just to fight the cobwebs? i want to rollerskate around my neighborhood with a boombox over my shoulder or build a pinewood derby car. that could be my new daily life. cobweb free 4eva.

two quotes from "The Beautiful and Damned" by F Scott Fitzgerald (which i am currently reading)

"Art isn't meaningless... It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so."

and

"Frantically, I get a thing I call sentence-fever that must be like buck-fever. It's a sort of intense literary self-consciousness that comes when I try to force myself. But the really awful days aren't when I think I can't write. They're when I wonder whether any writing is worth while at all -- I mean whether I'm not a sort of glorified buffoon."


on a sidenote, while i love the plethora of design blogs and often find myself clicking around them for hours in wonderment, has there ever been such a sheer mass of work so readily available, so out of context? it does sort of make it all feel meaningless and oversaturated...

i guess that means i have sentence-fever or whatever its visual equivalent must be.

1. i broke my shoulder a few days ago. i was skiing, it was unremarkable, and now i am in a lot of pain and have pretty much no use of my drawing arm

2. before i broke my arm i updated the shop with new notecards, magnets and paintings/artwork - and now that i've broken it, it's all i have to pay the bills until i heal, which is frustrating. i am not used to having so many eggs in one basket. what a weird phrase. cause who's walking around carrying eggs in a basket besides the easter bunny?

3. i had a realization that i've become sorta steve keene-ish -- not in style, and clearly not in popularity- i feel so unknown! but like, in art for the people-ness, i guess, and doing what i do because it's fun and offbeat. especially the minis.

CK: Do you feel that because you sell your paintings for so little, that you haven’t been taken as seriously by the art world as you would have been had you made some giant paintings that cost thousands of dollars?

SK: Um, I don’t know what to say about that.

last night, i was a frog.

[for halloween!]

today i can't believe it's november.
where have the days, weeks, years gone?
i suspect this is all anyone thinks / says after a certain age.

am i fixed yet?
are things better yet?

i spent the entire day in bed, wearing pajamas, wondering why my life is like this right now.

so the answer is, no, things are not fixed/better/different yet.

mostly i feel the same as always, i guess -- in love, happy to see my friends, my family, grateful for what i have -- but i guess i just feel my creativity is at a standstill sometimes, or that i've taken it hostage. like by carving out my own life as an artist -- making handmade everything, doing tiny art shows with heartfelt galleries that burn out & disappear, working on a website till my fingers feel numb, and along the way having fun -- i've chosen to be taken less seriously as an artist. which is something i never expected as a repercussion of my life or work, and now at 28 i'm having a hard time feeling out of place everywhere, and part of no community anymore, in a town of millions where i know not a single other artist.

i joined twitter recently and have found that for almost every morning since i've joined, i have wanted to twitter "it's morning, mom, isn't it?" as the first thing i think every single day, dejected. i only recently found out that the cibo matto song i got that from is actually saying "it's moldy, mom, isn't it?"

nothing else to report except maurice died this week, in his sleep, no sickness or anything. it's a better way to die i guess but harder for me to understand. i miss him.

lately i feel like i've had to answer the question "so.... when do you take a vacation?" way more than usual. (to which my answer is 'i don't.') which usually doesn't bother me, but lately -- just having been asked it so much -- has really been making me feel like i'm missing out on days off and breaks. it's kind of like when somebody suggests something about a back massage and suddenly it's all you can think about.

i'm addicted to eating at restaurants. if given the option between spending a few hours at home to carefully prepare a healthful and delicious meal vs. picking up semi-expensive mediocre takeout, for some reason, i will pick the takeout.

i think that reason may be somewhat related to working at home and feeling like every minute matters as work-time, even if every minute is spent writing reviews on yelp.com about the aforementioned semi-expensive mediocre takeout meal.

i also believe that cooking is a creative skill and frankly, sometimes i just feel creatively burnt out.

when did i get like this?

i think that everybody has a 'fantasy wealth standard' -- their 'when i'm rich' fantasy could be to travel endlessly, or to have an original mark ryden painting or to go to space. i think mine is 'have a personal chef'.

i was installing my art show yesterday at giant robot SF with Francois and a bunch of people came through and were asking about what we were doing, when the opening was, etc. which was awesome. on one hand, i'm there to work and it can be distracting, but on the other hand, i start to get really excited about the reception. (up until this moment, in the gallery, i was -- as i always do -- imagine no one will come to my opening and a tumbleweed will roll through the gallery) it's energizing to know people are curious or interested! and, especially if they think i'm just a hired hand helping to install the show (which i guess i am actually), i get the rare opportunity to be a little like a fly on the wall at my own show while i install.

anyway, so we were hanging the show and one woman came in and asked if she could check out the show -- of course, we said and i went back to hammering. she asked for a pricelist and francois explained that we release the pricelist when the opening begins on saturday night. i know some artists don't do this, i know some artists are happy to conduct sales as soon as artwork is on the wall but i just don't think that's fair to everyone coming to the opening so i am kinda firm about not selling before the advertised show start. to which this viewer (who was totally sweet by the way, and i'm sure meant this innocently) responded "well that's annoying, why would i want to go to some big crowded opening?"

in case that question is on anybody elses' mind, and i -- as a claustrophobe and general hermit -- totally get that, i just want to open up discussion about the value of big, crowded receptions (i'm sure mine will be softly attended and not crowded at all, but just to make a point here, i continue.)

here's one reason why art receptions are worth hitting up from my perspective:

artmaking is a very solitary process, and to see my work exist outside of my studio independently and to talk with strangers about it is uncomfortable for me too!! (more uncomfortable for me than a viewer, i'm sure!! seriously, i've had butterflies in my stomach for weeks about it.) but it's also wonderful and entirely the point of a reception. when art silently gets made and then silently goes to peoples' homes, it can feel disconnected for the artist, or like the artwork merely disappeared. the reception is something tangible, a place for some unexpected dialogue to happen, and honestly, where i have met some of my favorite people, patrons, collectors and fellow artists!

(and i drove kind of a really long way to get to the show and meet you.)

i guess when you think about it, the reception is the exact opposite of the concentrated, quiet, introspective world of artmaking. something to celebrate!