February 2007 Archives

Yes it is true, I am now published by the well read and respected Northeast Megaphone, next was thinking of moving on to Rolling Stone or GQ...

Many of you who know me know I started attending a christian church again a couple of months ago in fishtown. I started attending "cell" meetings with members of my church even more recently and have found it to be the bright spot of my week (aside from visits to the studio and visits to my Grandparents). The cell I originally was attending split into a new group to accomodate its growing numbers, which has been a great chance to feel like I'm part of this new group which is growing. I wanted to share a personal revelation of sorts that came this week at our cell meeting.

We were discussing the occurance of what we percieve as "tragedies" or really anything "bad". Some really thought provoking questions arose and interesting discussion of different peoples views on God's role in our lives and free will came up. In the midst of our discussion a realization came to me as I was reflecting on some of the events of my life. I recently have been graced to see the complex way my life has led to this point, and what I choose to percieve as divine intervention that has brought me to seek and rely upon a relationship with God.

I spent a large portion of my life completely disconnected spiritually, seeking everything outside of myself to fill an insatiable emptiness. Needless to say nothing worked and I had an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I believe I was living in what we commonly refer to as Hell. Life was unbearable and ugly, there was no purpose and I detested the thought of another day. The cell's meeting was at the tail end of what proved to be a challenging week. There are however several stark differences from the present and when I was feeling so lost. One of the most notable differences was I had a choice. I had a choice to invite God into my struggle or to try and plow through it with my own power. I spent what seems like my whole life approaching things in this way, God was not even a distant thought, now I'm almost (it's not always the first thought) always turning to God for comfort, guidance and love in these struggles.

I'm not sure if everyone can relate to this... but it blows my mind that I never have to feel alone again, whatever problem I have I can turn to God and open up my heart. That act alone and this gift of even just having him/her there with me in my heart is comforting beyond words, it's everything I was searching for in everything else... and it was here the whole time. fhdjskafhdsjlfhdsjklghklsdfjkskl! WOW! Thank you God.

I'm now the proud owner of what american mortals calls a "mullhawkador"

I haven’t posted anything on here in a while and since I have the privilege of weekends off I thought it would be appropriate to do something productive instead of sitting around doing nothing. Last night I went with Jess www.jessroberts.com to The Big Art Show at the new studios up in Kensington. The space was huge and it was inspiring to see some people I went to school with contributing something very significant to the art community in Philadelphia. I saw some really great work and ran into some old friends from Tyler. Some artists’ work who stood out to me were the people from Madmaude with their letterpress setup and bandana printing, Anthony Weber and finally Jim and Greg Labold.
www.madmaude.com
www.thepubliccereal.com
www.thelaboldbrothers.com

It was wonderful to see people I went to school with and hear all the exciting things they have going on in their lives. College was an incredible experience for me, I learned so much and it has had a huge impact on who I am today, I’m sure many of you can relate. I had a chance to catch up with people whom I lived in Rome with, and student taught with and others who I spent wild nights in the studio with. The unspoken bond I have with these people is pretty incredible, and I’ve only realized this with distance. Just being in their company was very healing, if that makes any sense.
Jess suggested we travel down to Baltimore for the Big Art Show in March and set up a table to sell work and get to know more people, hopefully we will be able to get a table. This was also helpful to kind of kick me in the butt about getting more of these prints cut, proofed and printed… I’ve been slacking the last two weekends. I look forward to getting back into the studio.
Speaking of going into the studio and making work, I’ve been experiencing a surge of artistic stimulation recently. It seems like any chance I get to sketch I’m working on another profile and developing my portrait abilities. It’s been very relaxing and motivating to make more.
I watched a great DVD on Wyeth this morning. Two statements really stuck out with me and I wanted to share them with you, one was from Wyeth's Neighbor who was talking about his talents as a painter, he said something along the lines that Wyeth was given the gift of painting and that would be it, speaking of himself he said he was given the gift of caring for the farm and that would probably be it. It made me consider what gifts I’ve been given and how much joy they bring into my life. The second statement was from a letter Mr. Wyeth wrote; he stated “there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything I want”. I could easily relate to this as a teacher and a working artist. I can tend to get wrapped up in thoughts about my “lack of free time” or “heavy work load” instead of thinking about how incredible it is to have such a full life in the first place. I touched on this briefly in my last post but it really does blow me away when I stop and look at what my life is today, I literally live a dream, my life is surrounded by and filled with the things I love, and a huge part of that is art… which is life, which is yada yada yada. That’s all I have for today, I hope you can reflect on your life with an equal sense of awe and gratitude. I’ll keep you all up to date on my new work soon.