Hello from the burning shores of the St. Lawrence River. Summer is here, and it wants you to know there's no place to hide. May the martyr and saint Maximillian Rockatansky help us survive this scorching world. And I'm not just talking about the weather.
It's been a bit, and I'm still playing catch-up with All the Things. If I owe you an answer to a message, email, comment, or chat, please give me a second to catch my breath and I'll be right with you. In the meantime, below I have offerings, felines, and celestial mysteries. Hello.
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Well, last time I told you I was on vacation for the first time in a long stretch, and as it always happens, I came back more tired than I left, and with that nagging feeling you get, like you're out of step with the world. But on my trip, I saw wonders and the beautiful work of dead people, and I knelt at the tombs of geniuses, so it was all worth it. Also, I saw doors. Lots of cool doors. |
Who needs a Ring doorbell when you can have an actual 5-pound metal ring on your door? |
While I was away, I kept thinking about things I told you in my last email: I've been building this life, this business, and this creative enterprise in quite a haphazard way. It's the nature of things when you do it all yourself, I suppose. You build what you need when you need it, and you seldom have the time (or the skill) to do a bang-up job at every level. There are wobbly bits and ugly seams and pieces that don't go that well together. So once I came back, I started changing some things that were bothering me: |
- I wrote a welcome sequence for people who join this mailing list. Just a couple emails to tell them, yeah, I'm afraid you signed up to this runaway train on purpose and hey, here's a bit of my story. I figured they'd like to know who the hell this guy is, writing long-ass emails to them.
- I wrote a new "About" page. With bullets (the "bullet point" kind, not the "hollow point" ones.)
- I put up a new "Wallpapers" page with, well, mobile wallpapers I made from my work. That way, you can think about what a swell guy I am every time your phone activates the dopamine drip.
- I made a design pass to the website itself. I changed some colours, moved some stuff around, and made it all a bit prettier and more organized (I think).
- On the social media side, I made and pinned some posts to my profile so people who find me via "The Algorithm" can learn more about me, my work, and my emails. Incidentally, the posts make it easier for you if you ever want to share my work with someone. "Go to his profile and take a look at the pinned posts. Then take it from there." might be easier than explaining my weird birds and critters.
- I made some visual changes to these emails, too. Hopefully, they are cleaner-looking and easier to read -at least visually. Not much I can do about the quality of the text itself. Apologies.
- Oh, I also cleaned my Link In Bio thing. It was getting unwieldy. I'm still not sure the whole Link In Bio concept works. Have you ever been to mine?
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Take a look and let me know if something's broken or ugly or if you think I should add/remove/change anything. You're on the train with me and I value your thoughts, so let me have them.
Also, there are more things on my to-do list, but... Did I mention it's only me doing it all? It is, so it may take a bit to get it all done, but I'll get it done and I will tell you about it. I want to share with you guys the other parts of "the artist's life" that don't have that much to do with the actual art-making.
Speaking of the art part... (did you see that skillful, not on-the-nose at all segue? Boy, am I subtle, or what?) Anyway, speaking of the art part, I've been working on that, too. I want to show you something I've painted and am really happy about. I call it "These things we chase..." |
As always, it comes with extra lyrics, notes, and ramblings:
These things we chase... These things we learn to need, they come with ties, with weights and snares.
We want them anyway. We take them so they'll plug that black hole in our heads, our hearts, our loins.
We take them, and they drink us and bind us to the ground. And once they have us bound, they kill us with our wants.
So we no longer hunt. Nor get. Nor fly. Nor live.
And here are some closeups and beauty shots: |
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