I'm re-posting this ... just because.

I saw Ginny's car today. She almost hit me. I’m left trying to figure out what the heads up was about. Do you believe in that strange displaced channeling, when someone passing by says something off hand to you and it goes in deep? Or, vice versa, you just have to say something to a stranger as if someone else is forcing you. Bypass brave or cordial, you message what this person needs to know, needs to hear.
Well, I do.

65 “What type of animal is that?”
Ginny was a triple scorpio. The only one I’ve met so far. Known her and knew it, anyway. A breed that would be hard to miss. As it happened our determination took us to see prints from the John Lennon archive that were being sold at a posh gallery downtown. We headed out to take a long lunch break in the name of art. Simply beautiful drawings and lithos had been collected. Eventually, we came to a closed portfolio on a wood rack with a sign warning of the erotic material within. Always interested in the hidden, Ginny raised an eyebrow cocked her head, looked around and said,
“This, we have to see.”
Well, as soon as she cracked open the large folio six people zapped over like magnets to peer over our shoulders. I guess they were waiting for a Ginny to oblige their fear and interest. She flipped through with a running commentary.
“Okay... not offended... yet... got it... I could have done better... what type of animal is that?”

I do the best I can... the yen is to, by not getting in my way, without hesitation, draw an inspiration and write something profound. Too often I’m writing while driving, scraping into the dust, or drawing hits with only a bad pen and a ripped receipt.
Art, then, sometimes seems an elaborate dance around something you can’t make.
Add A muffled boom and a ring of smoke appearing at the bottom of the cartoon canyon.

Who would the Minotaur Apologize to? 

This is an memory circa '90 put down in ... Script for a Practicing Artist and an Unfinished Life. I read this thinking how judgmental it is, which isn't really me. Add too, I am fairly skittish, and scare easily. But wondering, now, what was really going on then. 

You could live at the Vulcan for a long while, then all of a sudden someone you’d never seen nor ever want to meet would surface. A friend of a friend wanted to introduce us to someone's painting. I believe a false word had got around that we had lots of work for all that asked. Little did they know. And little did they know how picky we were about who we worked with. Though always eager to cheer someone on, I walked by Lonnie’s side to the other end of the complex with an open heart and beginners mind. We entered through the creaking garage door, jumping (with fight or flight) as it slammed closing us in. My thoughts were as murky as the cavernous studio. Eyes adjusted, I looked into the rambling studio set up like an art show. We walked past the art with wide eyed poker faces. The work was colorless, abstract, sans expressionism and expression. When the dreaded artist pointed saying, “The good stuff is in here.” I mouthed words to Lonnie, ‘I’m not going in there!’ He rolled his eyes to let me know this too will pass so lets get it over with sooner than later. We walked into the artist’s private chamber like we were doomed. And, as it turned out, we had good reason. 

Sometimes I suspect we were all left here to unravel each other. Art is subjective, and this fellow is probably a celeb now. It has become a standard joke between us that when you start talking about the size of a piece of artwork, you don’t think highly of it. If the best compliment you can come up with is ‘that's a great size for a poster’ then you must think the work isn’t worth looking at any closer. Just too scary. 

When the scene is a Victorian mansion, you should know it’s going to be a horror movie. I tend to carry that backdrop around in my head so it’s accessible at appropriate moments.

Plead as you might - she will not bite.

She will pick up a wiggly worm and feign to eat it,
Down milk to hear her tummy slosh for chuckles,
She will digest a worrisome quasi-candy,
Even throw a slobbery Frisbee for dog Knuckles.

Of all this there is not a woe,
Unless, of course, you serve her a wrinkled potato.

(photo: any resemblance to a messiah, is purely accidental)
Happy TT...

Disinherit Praise 

Cultivate stamina. 

I believe in a spider check before bedtime. I believe in the music so loud you can feel it. I believe in the drama on the stage. I believe in the colors of a wavelength. I believe that experimenting in other mediums gives energy in your primary work. I believe in stepping out of the usual color box. Again and again. 

 Cease trying to work out everything within your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be revelation.

-Eileen Caddy

W. S. Trax
as a Stuffed Toy.

Just a quick post,
so I can visit more this TT.

When you have ghosts you see them everywhere / just because something walks behind you doesn't mean it has trouble keeping up.
detail from
Minotaur: There is a Shadow of a Monster on the Front Porch

I’ve lost a lawnmower.

Mysteriously, we have all lost things and found other’s stuff.
I do not like this universal swapping thingy.
I’d like to have back the things I have lost over the years before I get too old to remember the use and in what designated project.

Jaw of a horse. I lost ‘Bucky’ three or four moves ago.
A roll of fabric that was a heavy canvas weave and the warp was a fine gauge wire copper. So when the cotton was burned out, what was left behind was an incredible apocalyptic looking cloth.
A very old charcoal drawing, executed on gray paper of the head of a young girl copied from one of the old masters.

Isn't it weird how we find things lost?

I excel at pretending I’m somewhere else.
No biggie.
Just sayin'.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. 

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. 

 If at first you don't succeed, try again. After that, give up. No sense making a fool of yourself. 

 If there is an easier way, way bother? 

 -Mark Twain  (at different moments.)

Fodder for thought. I do not necessarily agree with it all, even though he does look real sharp in his robe.  -J

These are lyrics from
BOUNDIN’
one of my favorite animated shorts.
It’s not political, though it could be. And it’s not dark, nobody dies.
Here's the part that when the Great American Jackalope is trying to cheer up the Miserable Pink Shorn Sheep.

...“Pink? Pink? Well, what’s wrong with pink?
Seems you’ve got a pink kink in your think.
Does it matter what color? Well, that gets nope.
Be it pink purple or heliotrope.
Now sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down,
When you find that you’re down well just look around:
You still got a body, good legs and fine feet,
Get your head in the right place and hey, you’re complete!”

“Now as for the dancin’, you can do more,
You can reach great heights, in fact you can soar.
You just get a leg up and ya slap it on down,
And you’ll find you’re up in what’s called a bound.
Bound, bound, and rebound.
Bound and you’re up right next to the sky,
And I think you can do it if you give it a try,
First get a leg up, slap it on down…”

Written, Animated & Voiced by Bud Luckey. (of PIXAR)

Bud Luckey, and what a great name.

Unfinished pages from:
When Sword Swallowing does not Impress,
queued up, out the door, down the hall,
painfully waiting to be worked on.

Ahm just saying...

Everyone wanting to make their mark aside...

If you are treading the fine between designer/artist you may hear yourself droning,

"Hey, that’s been done ... that’s not original, hey!"

In contrast, as a designer, your inner voice may cheer on with a license to beg, borrow or steal.

"HEY, I REALLY NEED THAT IDEA!"

A compliment to the last manipulator, really.

Oh, he just stole from me, I steal from everybody. -Woody Guthrie

Plagiarism is basic to all cultures. -Seeger Sr.

Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. -Pablo Picasso (oh yes, even him.)