Found Art in Parking Garage (November 2024 - March 2025 )

 Untitled - Found art object - 2024 - Artist Unknown 

This art installation has been at my college since November. It is a simple pair of nail clippers, vibrantly decorated with a pink oval. The anonymous artist left it on a poll in one of the parking garages, and it has been making students, faculty, and staff ponder its true meaning for months.

The artist might be challenging the community to begin the simple act of noticing. Parking garages are places of transition; they are not meant for contemplation. When we arrive, our minds wander toward our destination and we think about what we will be doing at work or school. On the way back into the garage, our minds turn inward, homeward, such as what you might be eating for dinner. In this transition space, we usually go unchallenged, looking down at our phones, lost in our thoughts, or talking with colleagues or friends about our evening's plans. Maybe the artist is telling us, "Wait....not so fast"....the simple appearance of nail clippers, a common item in an uncommon place, can bring us out of our own heads and into questioning why this object was left here, put more broadly, why is anything, anywhere? 

Nail clippers are common objects, but they are also intimate. After all, you only share nail clippers with those you love; a stolen pair of nail clippers is almost as absurd as a stolen toothbrush. This item is perfectly usable and yet no one has taken it or thrown it away. The very idea of touching it is revolting but with a simple wash in alcohol, it would be clean. Nail clippers outside the context of a home are disconcerting. The piece makes viewers wrestle with its dual nature, completely normal and useful but also disturbingly disgusting; an item out of context is an item that does not belong. 

Last week, I came upon the installation to find it in an open position, ready to cut nails. Was it the artist, making another statement? Or was it another viewer, participating in the art?  I simply folded it back to its current position...there's no need to alarm anyone. 

I hope I can enjoy this absurdist art piece for months to come. 

Edit April 2025: It disappeared the last week of March. 

3 Old Paintings and the Stories they Tell

I was going through my old art portfolio last night and I really noticed how the phases in my life correlated with style in my art. I thought I would share a few of the pieces and reflections here. Here they are in chronological order. 

Untitled - 2000 (acrylic) 

This is one of the oldest paintings I still have. I don't think this is a particularly good piece but also, there's a reason I never trashed it either. I guess I kinda like it. This was done in the Spring of 2000, in my last semester of college.  My roommate had moved out the year before and while I briefly had a roommate in the summer, I couldn't find another roommate. One of my closest friends had died in 1998, my girlfriend dumped me and I was a real piece of work. Lonely and yet hopeful for the next season of life to begin. 

Keep in mind that College Station, TX had one of the lowest cost of living rates in the nation. My rent for a two bedroom, 1.5 bath and it was only $500 a month. This was a pretty good apartment too! I miss the 90s. Anyway, this meant I had a whole other bedroom that was sitting empty. I began to use it as an art studio and started to tape up my best work on the walls as if it were an exhibit hall. It was a unique time in my life, I briefly wrote about somewhere on this blog....but when I look back on that time, this painting makes a lot of sense. It was a time of self-discovery, chaos, and a bit of danger. This character seems to exhibit all those qualities. 

Untitled - 2006-2009 (??) (printer ink) 

This next piece was done in the mid-2000s. At this point, I was married and had a kid or two. We had recently had our printer break, so we were left with a ton of printer ink that wouldn't fit in the new printer....so, it was either the trash or art! At this point in time, I had kept busy by working, having babies, and maintaining our first home..... and I hadn't created art in a long time.  The results were experiments in the garage because I was too impatient to find something to catch misplaced ink. I used a wet sponge and random tools on each of the pieces. Some of the paint found its way to the concrete floor and the stains were still there when we moved out over a decade later.  Some of these paintings are bright like this one but most are dark. They are a bit moody but this was purely a chance event, the main memory of this art was pure experiment. A lovely time of life that was busy but also a time of experimentation and purity. 

Untitled, 2012-2015 (?) (acrylic paint and ink) 

The last piece came from the early 2010s, maybe as late as 2014. If the last piece was just random experimentation, this next piece is its polar opposite. When I was bored, I would often draw these maze-like structures, usually on the margins of notes, ever since college. The design would grow around the notes and other doodles. It was just fun to do. I decided I should do a whole piece of my maze structures one day. This is on a single sheet, maybe a 12X10, so it's not too big but it's not small either....it was painstaking and time-consuming work. After the kids were tucked in,  I would sit in the kitchen and build the maze in pencil, trace in ink, and later I colored it in red acrylic paint with the smallest brush you could buy. Sure, I could have used a red pen....but there was something extremely satisfying about using the brush. It was an act of relaxation that yet, it doesn't quite look relaxing at all. I hold only lovely memories of those days and yet they were exhausting. A simple painting that took hours of effort. No doubt, we had a deceptively simple life but a life that took hours of love and patience to make it work. 

Art Post: Layers and Layers

So, I've continued my artistic output over the last few weeks and have a few more to share. As always, take it for what it's worth (which isn't much). 

"Electronics" - Acrylic and mixed media. 

"Electronics" started as an older painting of mine that I had hanging in my garage. I was never quite satisfied with it though, it just seemed a bit drab (you can see the original pink in the top half of the piece). I used old dictionary pages, a page from an animated Hobbit book, and additional pour techniques to get towards its final permutation.  As I was working on the piece it seemed like I was (it was?) trying to capture the idea of spreading energy. I wanted to continue to make it bright, loud and explosive....at least that's what came out in the process. The final addition was the word art at the center of the piece. It was from a comic book made by Radio Shack in the 1970s that I recently purchased. It seemed to fit perfectly for this loud piece, I loved the font too...so 70s and cool. 

Untitled - Acrylic, Oil Pastels, mixed media 

This untitled piece was also an evolution of sorts. The first iteration a few weeks ago was garish and too much of a try-hard. It relied on huge chunks of newsprint and comic books glued on the surface like snowflakes. I found it distasteful but I didn't know what else to do, so I just sidelined it for a few weeks. When I was quarantined because of my COVID case this past week (yay),  I pulled it back out. I ripped off the little snowflake papers, I used a ton of oil pastel, as well as added texture by use of cross-hatching. Now, it feels better. This piece had layer after layer of paper, paint, oil pastels, more paint, more pastels, more crosshatching, etc. it made me realize how much I enjoy the building of layers. I am eager to replicate the process soon and see what develops. 

"Circus" - Acrylic and Oil Pastels on cardboard. 

This one is just okay. It reminds me of something from the mid-20th century, I just added layers on cardboard because I ran out of canvases to touch up. It doesn't feel particularly interesting but it's pleasant to look at. The bright, primary colors reminded me of a circus. So, the title stuck. 

Untitled - Acrylic and Oil Pastels on cardboard.

This one might have the most layers of anything I have done thus far. It felt swamp-like and it evolved from being primarily green to this mix of green, purple, and yellow (with a bit of orange). At some point, the painting felt organic and I imagined it as moss or mold that you might find growing on a cave wall.  Again, I am eager to try this technique on a larger canvas. 

That's it for now, stay cool out there, and don't forget to not catch COVID. 

The Beauty in Chance Events

Life is full of cycles. 

You can get in a rhythm and you end up in a re-run of habits, hobbies, and activities. Lately, I have been finding myself just watching YouTube on my bed until I was exhausted enough to stop fighting sleep. The old days of my prodigious reading habits faded into an inconsistent bedtime routine. After I finished taking graduate classes in the fall of 2020, my reading fell to almost non-existent. I read a bit but I have struggled to get motivated to read anything in particular. Sure, I would read a few comic books and I did manage to finish an actual book or two but I just wasn't feeling it. 

For the last few years, my creative energy was geared towards writing but art has always been in the background, waiting for me, ever so patiently to come back home. Of course, I have done a few birthday posters for the kids but nothing on my own for years beyond some fun doodling with watercolor markers. With the encouragement of a friend, I started painting again last week. As I painted I realized how much I missed it and how much fun I had been missing out on. I also had forgotten what a gift there is in embracing chance events. 

April, acrylic & paper - April 2022

The above photo was my first effort and I have to admit, I like it. 

I had started fiddling with my watercolor paint pens, drawing branches or roots (a common motif of mine) but it just felt drab and boring. Then I changed my plan and began to paint in an abstract style. Pushing and stretching the paint with my little paint tool.  I purposely didn't put much thought into it. I let my mind and tool unconsciously find their way together, weaving this way, then the other. I selected bright, primary colors (as those make me feel warm and fuzzy).  I added countless layers of paint to give the piece texture and needed depth.  Finally, on the second to last layer, I tore out random bits of paper from old books to add a bit more depth and otherworldliness to the piece. 

----

A few days later I decided to paint again. This time, I painted two pieces at once but only one is good enough to share. The more "experimental" piece (well, trash piece) is kinda a hot mess bordering on disaster overload. 

However, the "good" piece was a much more successful experiment.  I started by building an acrylic base of texture but I also integrated a little bit of the pour technique that's so popular on YouTube with more overt use of collage. Thankfully over the years of art-making, I have collected old books, comic books, and other ephemera like some of my dad's old college papers. I also have a random assortment of things already cut out that weren't used at the time or just plain forgotten about.

I had brought in a huge stack of random stuff and just started grabbing whatever my grubby little hands could find, by chance. I would grab a page, tear it out and drop it anywhere on the canvas or impulsively find a place for it and go with my gut instinct.  I tried to keep in sync with my primal, spontaneous mind so it could find connections and patterns that my conscious mind could never find on its own. I even managed to escape my over-analyzing, over-thinking consciousness for a while and that's always a nice vacation too.  

After about a half-hour I stopped. I didn't like what I was seeing so I decided to come back to later that evening.  When I returned to the piece I added a bit more but still....something was off but I didn't know what. However, it was getting late, so I started putting my art supplies away and cleaning up. As I picked up my huge stack of old books, notebooks, and junk, a perfectly cut-out photo of a baby ostrich fell out of the stack and onto the floor. I instantly picked it up and plopped it right on the wet green blob in the center of the canvas and I and went back to cleaning up. 

After I finished cleaning up, I looked down at the piece and it seemed the baby ostrich made me look at the piece in a whole different light. It now seemed complete and confident. It gave the viewer's eyes a shared starting place to the canvas. Also, baby birds are cute, so there's that too. 

This random baby ostrich, falling from my stack of junk changed everything. I didn't like the painting before but I didn't know what it was missing. This small chance event changed everything. Now, I can't imagine this piece being any other way.  How many random events have happened like this to you and now you can't imagine your life any other way? Some of my most favorite people, events and ideas stem from the extraordinary origin of chance.  

Missed An Issue???, acrylic and paper, April 2022.

I had forgotten the wisdom of creating art. Of course, it's fun and it's an escape for the soul but more importantly, there are lessons to be had if we open to the opportunities presented by the beauty of chance events. 

Art Post: Untitled (Contagion Collage/Acrylic)

I haven't posted an art post in a long time because I haven't done much painting in the last few years. I have all the usual excuses though (email me for the entire list). I have doodled a bit here and there with some paint markers but nothing too formal (I did draw a cool griffin though).  I've also found my artistic efforts centered on writing a YA fantasy novel (yeah, I'm stuck again) and of course from 2016-2019 in acting in community theater. 

This particular piece has a backstory and a direct inspiration. 

I made this painting back in 2019 after a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. I had recently visited art museums in New Orleans, Philadelphia and DC, so art and art creation had been in my mind at the time.  I love post-modern art and in particular, I am drawn towards bright, expressive, child-like art (begin your psychoanalysis now). 

Anyway,  I was looking at Jackson Pollock's Number 17A.

I love this but David Giffin bought it for $200 million in 1990. Think of the good he could have done with that cash. Capitalism ruins everything.

The exhibit shared a small quote from Pollock that was next to this piece and it had a profound impact on me and how I understand the creation of art:

"When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I am doing...I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through". 

This mindset of trying to exclude that analytical part of your brain from art creation, to tap the reserves of your subconscious (or even chance), appeals to me. The ego part of my brain wants to control how it looks or worries about "ruining" it. This mentality of control often stands in the way of breakthroughs or inspired art. I want to adopt this mindset to my writing, acting, etc.  

I want to let go of my ego and stop worrying about "wasting" the paint or the canvas and just see what happens. 

It was this attitude that I attempted this piece, at least I tried to.  Although I did select what would be in the center of the collage, much of the painting, placement and style came about quite randomly. 

I had a copy of this old children's book from my grandmother's house. It was written by Thorton Burgess and illustrated by Harrison Cady sometime in the 1930's.  I had become fascinated by this book as a child when I discovered it at her "vacation cabin".  Decades later, I found it in her house. I was instantly taken back to my memories of this old worn-out book.   I swiped it as I knew if I didn't it would eventually wind up in the trash or sold in the estate sale. Not sure if that makes me a bad person but I am pretty sure she barely knew it existed. 

In many ways, my fascination with this book was the clue that I would always love old stuff. 

When I began to create this piece I knew I wanted one of these illustrations to be used as the center of the piece. The additional cut-outs including old stamps and advertisements from 1970's comic books were randomly dropped on the canvas and I began to drop paint on the canvas at random. I trusted the moment and stopped worrying. 

A big green glop of paint landed right on the child's face in the illustration. I quickly used a metal tool to make the most of the glop. The random glop became vine-like and as the child was "sick" in the picture, it felt like a spreading virus had come, it became a symbol of disease and contagion. I then worked the glops into plant-like "tumors", each reaching out to grow and connect. I dunno what it means but it gives me a bit of discomfort seeing all the growth surrounding and infecting everything in its path.  

As usual, enjoy if you like. 

Untitled (2019) - Collage and Acryllic 

Untitled (2019) - Close up 

Untitled (2019) - Close up

Art Post: All Suffering Soon To End! (Collage)

 I haven't shared some of my older work in a long time and most of what I have shared was cartoon stuff. 

I became obsessed with creating collages back in 2010-2013 era. I would hunt for old books and materials at garage sales or antique shops some older stuff I destroyed, most I made color copies and used the copies. 

This is a piece stitched together primary with a US Navy handbook of some kind and a Jehovah's Witness track brochure. Some other stuff was also used to fill in the spaces. I liked the contrast of the end of all suffering and preparing for war. 

Enjoy! 

Art Post: Donald Duck: The Black Pearls of Tabu

It's been awhile since I've shared an art project. Given that I have had a little more time to be home  (as we all do), I started doodling a scene from a Carl Bark's story, "The Black Pearls of Tabu Yama". I have love of Carl Barks, so it was just a matter of time when I found the right thing to re-create. The image comes from the first page of the story, and I found it quite captivating.

So, I went for it. I was hampered by two major things. First, I didn't have enough paint to paint it, so I decided on using map pencils. I also couldn't scourge up a small enough ink point and being that we are in quarantine, I didn't have the patience to just wait for an online order, so I worked ahead anyway despite my limitations.  While map pencils have their own unique, child-like charm, it is still an imperfect medium. Nevertheless, it is what it is: a fun project to waste the hours of the day, to day-dream about an adventure on the high sea.

I added a few more seagulls and clouds as well to fill up the now vacated space.

I'd give you a close up of the ship but man, I really goofed up those ducks.

Art Post: Jabberjaw

It was my nephew's birthday and I was called into duty for the pool party. The theme was sharks and my mind was blank...then suddenly it hit me....Jabberjaw. OH YEAH.

I LOVED the Hanna-Barbara Cartoon Olympics when I was a kid and I loved Jabberjaw.

Of course no one demanded Jabberjaw and none of the kids knew who Jabberjaw was....heck, most adults didn't even know either (let alone care)....but my life is one shining moment after another and in this moment I wanted to shine my light on a late 70's - early 80's cartoon LEGEND. 

Enjoy, shark lovers.

Note caption at bottom: "No actual sharks at party!"

Art Post: Existential Snowman

I was sipping my coffee yesterday morning and became inspired by my coffee cup of a snowman helping a bird in a nest get (back?) into a tree.

How many nests just fall from their tree? Maybe the snowman is helping straighten it out? Or maybe, just maybe this is an evil snowman who is about to destroy the nest...

Well anyhoo, I started thinking about how snowmen (snow people?) and how they are always shown as happy, joyful and completely oblivious that they will be melting in short order. Look, it's not too much of a stretch to understand the snowman's plight.

With that in mind, I painted this in a few hours, it's titled Existential Snowman. 

Warning: This is DEEP stuff. Enjoy and then contemplate your own melting.

Existential Snowman, acrilic paint and ink, 2018. 

Art Post: The Old Castle's Secret

I haven't posted in awhile because my PC crashed and we still haven't got it fixed up just yet. Meanwhile, I've been busy teaching an apologetics class for the high school class at church and generally having to share the family laptop. Also, life, ya know.

I have a cool post about performing at a Spurs game and meeting Craig Sager so that's coming at some point.

Ahem, anyway, onto the post.

I adore Carl Barks' work. I first discovered the wonderful world of Barks on a family vacation to (of all places Disney Land) when I was 12. We stopped at my great uncle's house up and I spent the night in his den full of old stuff and old books.

Of course, even at this age, I knew what I had to do.

After rummaging through hundreds of books, I found a huge book of reprints of Carl Barks' stories of Donald Duck.  I settled in for the night with the book in bed and read as long as I could. I already loved comics but these were different. I thought they would be "kiddie" but they were just as good (and most of the time) better than any epic Marvel tale.

From that night forward, I was hooked.

One of the great pleasures of being a parent has been being able to share my favorite stuff with my kids. I have been able to pass on my love of Carl Barks to my oldest, C. She tells me the Barks stories are the best and will frequently turn up her nose at a perfectly fine Don Rosa, telling me it's "boring".

Almost every night, C will read in bed with a reading lamp until at least 8:45 or 9:00 and she usually seeks out comics to read, especially Carl Barks. She doesn't realize how  good she has it, my dad didn't have any comics growing up! I love it.


One Saturday morning last spring, I had one the new Fantographics reprints of on the kitchen table. I am happy to report, the Fantographics Carl Barks collection is just awesome. I can't recommend them enough if you love adventure comics!

Anyway, this was sitting on the table and I started to doodle, which turned into a copy. Enjoy

Here's the original. In this story, which is a great one, the ghost in the story  is supposed to be Scrooge's ancestor, but the skeleton looks nothing like a duck. Why did this happen? An editor here would have been a valuable resource.

The only thing I regret is the text, which is pretty awful.

Detail. I had to improvise the writing on the gravestones (although the names are Barks'). The original image was pretty small, so it was just gibberish.

Fun With My Scanner: Burrito Boy

Found this beauty in a folder with a slew of notes, cartoons, weird stuff from the the late 90's.

ALL OF THIS IS TRADEMARKED.

If you steal this idea and make millions, I am coming after you. If you want to develop this for a CARTOON NETWORK show, contact me and let's make MILLIONS TOGETHER -- I have other weird characters that could appear and make this the next  ADVENTURE TIME.

Yes, that's right, now that this is on the WORLD WIDE WEB - I am sure this will take off ---get in now why you still can!!

Notice the beans spilling out of Burrito Boy. I love how the Devil is the actual antagonist on the show and that he looks ridiculous. Randy the chicken shows promise.  You might ask yourself why is there a tiny strawberry lifting a barbell? But don't, don't ask that question. It's better the world never finds out. 

Art Post: Dr. Suess' The Sleep Book

I love Dr. Seuss. 

He's one of my heroes of life. He had such a distinctive, authentic and creative outlook in his art.

I "copied" this out of the excellent The Sleep Book this past week. My son loves the story and I had been itching for an art project. The great thing about the book is that it actually makes us tired before bed time!  Seuss just keeps the readers viewing all these varieties of characters yawning and it's contagious!  So awesome.  

It's a copy but it's completely free hand. I had to leave out some of the characters (no room) and because of shape/size of the paper, I had to add additional characters (a few of which are my creation but of course based in the Suessian world). 

I added the night sky and some other details, but nothing to get excited about. I originally planned on painting it but, nah, I'll just leave it be for now. Enjoy and go to sleep, will ya, it's getting late?  

Art Post: Toucan Sam & Fragments on Cereal

Sometimes art imitates life and sometimes I imitate cartoons.

Inspired by picking up some Froot Loops from the hotel lobby this morning, I drew Toucan Sam. My mom would never let us get sugar cereal so it was a little cathartic for me to draw Sam. I loved cartoons. I loved sugar. So, why couldn't she just buy me Froot Loops once, just once!?!?

I loved staring at the colorful boxes at the store. Each cereal had it's own cool cartoon character.  I was a cartoon manic so I would just look up in wonder.  Also, how could any kid resist the little toy inside the box.  Wow, what a temptation. Whoever invented that was a genius!  So mysterious, so cool and yet most kids would be likely to lose all interest in it by the end of the day -  if you ever got your little grubby hands on it to begin with!

I loved the special offers and contests too!  I would read the back of  a cereal box like it was a map to a hidden treasure. It just made you feel like you were losing out on life if you didn't get that particular box.

Ok, so my Mom caved a few times. One time I ordered a magnet set of the Monster Characters (ya know like Boo Berry and Count Chocula). That was epic. I had those forever and I might still have Boo Berry somewhere.

One time when my Grandma was in town visiting, I went to the grocery store with her and begged her for Ghostbusters cereal. It worked! I couldn't believe it!  My mom was perturbed when she saw it sitting on the counter.

Update from the next week: 

Been Awhile Fragments

A post of real fragments, cause it's been awhile.

You know who I'm tired of: complainers about the complainers. The world only gets better because people complain.  

Spurs keep truckin' - 18 years of contention. Unbelievable. I was going to quantify all that with charts and stuff from basketballreference.com but it got too demanding. I'm lazy.

Summary of my research: Most team's window for contention of a title (minimum 50+ wins) is about 5-6 years. That's it. There are few exceptions: Lakers & Celtics of 80's. Bulls (I'll give them 89-90 and that half season with Jordan) of the 90's and that's it. Some teams only get a 3-5 years. The Spurs have tripled a solid contending window. That's unheard of in sports history.

Just in case you're a stickler. No, I don't count the 1960's Celtics. The league had like 8 teams. Modern NBA history begins from 1980. 

Took a break from writing my book. I am around 17,000 words. First, I got lazy, then I got busy, and now it's playoff time. Plan on starting back up in May after we install our new flooring. 

H (my son, age 3) calls Parmesan cheese, "Parmish".  Cool, huh? 

I showed my kids some Tim & Eric clips (Totino Boy). They all loved it so much. Don't know what's crazier the fact that they love it, or that I even showed it to them. 

Planning a new study abroad to Ecuardor in summer of 2016. Should be awesome, man. All that reminds me I need to finish my Peru study abroad posts! (yikes) 

Other posts I want to get to in the next 6 months: 

Thoughts on Weezer's Everything Will Be Alright in the End 

Wonder Years: Part II

Spurs 90's Fragments: Part II

Weezer's Red Album Post 

Post on Islam's hadith tradition 

Confucius Didn't Say That! Part II 

Checked out the new Sufjan Stevens album. Wow. Some of the only new music that gets to me in any way. 

As I have gotten older, I experience music differently than I did when I was young.  When you're young you have all this drama about love and relationships,  so every love song becomes instantly relate-able. Your feelings are deep and the songs are ALL SO MEANINGFUL to you romantic little heart. 

Now, I'm settled and happy. Maybe a little wiser, too.  I miss "feeling" new music and yet, I don't. I don't want to scream to Nirvana anymore and I don't want to feel the emotional pain of romantic rejection again.  Music appreciation becomes just that, an aesthetic, appreciative experience.  

I'm not a robot, it just takes more for me to get "into" any new music. Sufjan Stevens is the only new artist that I can consistently "feel" or "get". 

Drew a picture for my 9 year-old before she took our state's standardized test and taped on a letter that her teacher encouraged us to write to her. Yes, that's the Dungeon Master from the 1980's cartoon, Dungeon & Dragons. She loves that show. 

That's it fine friends. In the meantime, eat a cookie from the kitchen when no one else is looking. I won't tell a soul. 

Art Post: Mike from "Monsters, Inc" Birthday Poster

Getting crazy on the blog - two art posts in a row!  I was called to duty last night to produce a birthday poster for my son's  H birthday party.

It will also double as a "Pin the Eyeball on Mike" game as well.  It was taken from a composite of two different models I selected of Mike that I found online. The perspective is a little screwy but it was already too late for me to change it. Anyway, I am pretty happy with it, considering all of it was done free hand and I spent all of ten minutes penciling it and then tracing it with a sharpie.  

As usual, it was painted with acrylic paint while the lettering was done with map pencils because I'm lazy. 

Self Portrait: Fall of 2014

I was flying back home from a conference in October of last year when I started drawing triangles. Lots and lots of  triangles. Triangles with different designs and shapes inside. Some designs were connected within larger triangles, others were contained.

It was fun and I was jamming out with some tunes, wasting time until I got home.

Then I started writing random numbers inside of them and I found myself lazily trying to create a code of some importance using math or combinations of numbers with letters, etc. We were starting to land, so I figured I would expand on this idea and create a proper self portrait.  After a week or so of drawing a few triangles a night, here was the result:

The page was too big for my scanner so the edges are little blurry. Oh well. 

Some triangles are homage to beloved pop culture items/people (you'll find Spider-Man, Kermit, references to Spurs, Weezer, etc.) Other triangles relate to religious iconography, verses, concepts, etc. including Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. There are also a few philosophical concepts and questions taking up space. Of course there are personal coded messages from my past, including initials of people or events, years of note, etc. This includes relationships, friends, jobs, trips and events. Finally, there are the symbols and pictographs, many of which are symbolic and obvious, some symbols are not-so-obvious and others are, well, just designs or silly pictures that have no meaning whatsoever. If you like you could label them "red herrings".

There are "quadrants" (ironic in a picture of triangles to use that term) that are roughly (very roughly) set up chronologically around my life. So for example, most of my early and middle childhood memories are at the top. The caveat to that is that there are many triangles out of order but I figured that's a lot like our brains anyway. Our lives often are narratives that are pieced together out of tangled synapses and wrinkles.

The main message is that triangles are cool, man. Real cool.

Fun With My Scanner: 1994-1995 Book Cover

I loved text book covers. They would hand these out for us to "protect" our books but I loved just drawing all over my covers. Any excuse to doodle, I take it (even today).

This was from my Algebra II class. I actually ended up failing it for the entire year by 2 points. What can I say? I was a really, really terrible student in high school. It also hurt that I was lazy and didn't care all that much.

That kinda makes excelling at school difficult.

"Do You Fear the Wind?" was a song we sang for the men's chorus. 

Art Post: My Little Pony

We just celebrated C's 8th birthday last night and I went to work on a poster for the door. C loves My Little Pony (MLP, ya know).  Cliche Alert: WE CAN'T BELIEVE OUR BABY IS ALMOST 8 (we have few days of 7 yet!!)  It may be the last time she has a "character" birthday party, which makes me a little sad. In the meantime, she has grown into a smart, empathetic, sweet, sensitive and funny 2nd grader. I couldn't be more proud of her.

There are worst things than MLP to be into, and it's a halfway enjoyable show.  My "art" has dwindled down to projects for my kids, drawing Sesame Street characters for my son to keep him busy and doodling on occasion at work. I nailed a picture of the "the Count" about two weeks ago for H and felt like a KING.  Oh yeah, it's on the fridge (seriously). I still love drawing - it's just now I'm more like an artist for hire for my kids (they pay me in hugs).  Here are the results from the party: 

Don't call me a "Brony" but that's Twlight and Spike. Pencil, Map colors & Sharpie. I wanted to use paint but really didn't have time for it. C loves it and now has it hanging on her wall. That's the biggest compliment!

Quote of the Day: Duchamp on Tools

This week was my annual book shelf cleaning week. I dust the shelf, dust off each book, re-organize as needed and decide whether to keep or sell any books. While I was thumbing through an old book, I found an old note in my handwriting on a folded, beat-up Post-It note:  

"Tools that are no good require more skill" - Duchamp

My Kid's Camera

Our oldest child loves taking pictures. It might have something to do with the fact that we taken about 2.1 million pictures of her since birth. Her grandfather bought her a kid's camera (Hello Kitty) awhile back. It takes crappy pictures, but she loves it.


Like most children's art, my daughter's photos are brimming with boldness, purity and innocence. Children take risks with their art - they create it not for art to one-up another artist or for art's sake but because it's fun. 

They don't have much to compare their own art to, so they are free to do what they want without over-thinking. Children can teach us to trust our inner guide and to remind us the joy of creation.
Or maybe she just takes lots of pictures and some are bound to look halfway interesting to her father.

Full Disclosure: I am not posting these photos believing they are some kind of artistic revelation. However, I never undervalue children's art. There's a painting my youngest did a few years ago that I need to get framed - it's more evocative and beautiful than a lot of modern art I've seen.

This is her great grandmother on her mother's side.  Ok, so there are lots of blurry photos in her batch...part of it is she's a kid, the other part is the crappy camera.  The red shirt brought something out in this one that I liked.  It looked more Monet-like than the other blurry shots.  You still see grandma's smile and the woman on the right makes for an interesting contrast.

This is our cat. She sits here for much of the day. C took a ton of photos of the cat....mainly with the cat looking irritated but this one is nicely framed...and...it's not blurry! That's a minor miracle.

Never a dull moment when you're a kid with a camera.

             It's wonderful to see the kid's prospective on life. I also liked the garage reflected back into the car.

This was a nice one of our youngest.

Self Portrait. She did a few of these, so she knew what she was doing.

These last two are taken in our church. You forget how big the world was when you were a kid. I loved this shot as it brought back memories of being small.