Amuse me, i'm thinking too hard.
First up  ….  i say ready, and i got nothing — then something comes to me. Sometimes all you have to do is say you got nothing, for the inspiration to fall in your lap. It’s the open sesame of the mental cave, that, once opened, out tumbles all the ideas of purpose. That’s my angle + i’m sticking to it. i enjoy being near the edge of disastrous creating, where the art begins to take on a life of its own. Even when i am wrangling in the work through process, i am always surprised with the outcome.

Second … Using one point perspective is like putting a ruler to your intuitive process. i do like to see those invisible lines vanishing into the distance, but only in real life when they can change with every step. On paper it is annoyingly close to perfection. i also like to see a rainbow around everything, kinda cool.

+ there has to be third … An indelible photographic snap of a man in my mental scrapbook. He could sort of, you know, place his hands on the carburetor of a running engine + sort of, you know, massage it to calm it. It would respond to him. This was his claim to manly mechanic fame.

Do not whine. Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone. -Joan Didion

Exhibit E / Burdensome Keychain

It has occurred to me that we all carry some form of keychain around with us on a day to day basis. The object itself takes on different forms, having to do with need, want, + what happened to be our last fob gift. The object itself notwithstanding, the emotional + physiological weight of the keychain is often heavy duty. This is what i need to carry in my pocket: a charm of subtle nagging, + the simple, yet unforgettable people met along the way.

Saying very little, as they were practiced in the art of omission.

Paying in cryptomnesia arrears. Is there room for another life in here somewhere? 

Where do those numbers come from? Why can’t X be just X. Why does it have to be something else? To be a good Mathematician you have to really want to find the correct answer. i just never cared that much. i'm okay w/ not knowing, i'm okay w/ unshaped-ness of bits, i'm okay w/ open wounds for spirits to come and go. You okay? 

Well, here i am … + in this huge vastness of nothingness, again astounded that we are anything, at any time, at anyplace … but here we are together.

Watershed.

Exhausting the possibilities is fun.

Every once in a while i put out a bit of the dictionary from the ongoing work Lonnie + I are building. Here i go again.

 

• ready-fire-aim; The ability to start before you are altogether ready in order to initiate a beginning.

• perfection; Something that needn’t be determined in a concrete way. Something met w/ that is distracting.

• orphan / widow;

A word left alone, set at the top of the page on a line by itself. Lonely, confused + about to jump off.  A typography term.

• dance; Code word for big argument about to happen over here. -e.g. I’m cutting in on this one. I will take this dance.

• mock-up; A quickly built idea in 3D to see if it is a feasible design.

• mustard & shrimp; A color story.

• working designer, a working artist – + in order to keep the working part of the title in the equation an artist must work. A lot. That means there is little time for the stars to align + the majestic creative muse to descend w/ gifts of glorious expressions of great art. No, it is more like hurling yourself into the creative flux at a moment’s notice. It is necessary to turn on creativity at almost anytime + produce work.

• sticks; A gimmick learned for the Hong Kong episode. This skit had been organized + rehearsed numerous times, but whenever we were called upon to perform the ditty it seemed always to be changed into something none of us had ever heard of. -e.g. An inner circle joke became to compose a bewildering look in a confusing situation and ask, Sticks?

• scope creep; What happens when a project grows in scope silently + uncontrollably.

• left field; A proverbial place that you end up preceded by either putting your foot in your mouth, failing to impress a peer, or not paying attention to what is going on at the board meeting. -e.g. It’s a hit! The idea ball is floating over into left field + everyone at the table is scrambling after, trying to figure it out.

-Lonnie falling during the 1535 days.

More from the ongoing WIP/graphic work collab w/ Lonnie Hanzon.

• Houndstooth Check; A twill weave construction in which a broken check is produced by a variation in the pattern of interlacing yarns, utilizing at least two different colored threads. This is the weave that hides stains real well.

• mistake; Also called Spontaneous Expressions, and, they add uniqueness and expense to the work.

• now; As in The Now. The very now gets very old very fast and starting from scratch can be old news to begin with. So begin with something that is already on the designated design path that will get you there sooner than now so you can say you’ve been there later. 

• hypomnemata; A material memory. A copybook, a notebook. A written permanent relationship between self and self. Memorandum, quotations, fragments of works, examples, actions witnessed or read, reflections and reasoning heard or have come to mind. An accumulated treasure for rereading and later meditation. Also, raw material for writing more formal work.

• Toshiro Mifune; 

A line left blank in his honor.

-This project is not angst riddled + smartassy, though it may seem, by this small slice. We are (way) over that part of our lives. Or, i am. Lonnie may need to speak for himself here. -jahh

Just dusting off the unfinished manuscript from the collaborative piece, w/ Hanzon, on the cross-training dictionary. 
i’ve not posted any in a long while + thought i would break this silence w/ a few more of our simple revelations: or not.

1. Materials-alter / Method-alchemy / Inspiration-spirit.

2. There exists in everything the potential of transformation.

The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has. -Michelangelo

3. Try to know if that was the easy part or the hard part.

4. If something is not changing you are not looking close enough.

5. Muse: Learn to work this. Most successful freelancers can't afford to wait for inspiration. People in other professions work everyday whether they feel like it or not.

6. Keep the iron moving.

7. Use gravity to you own advantage.

8. In a proposal I like to always throw in something terribly wrong ... just to see if they are watching.

9. Inner-directed / Outer-directed.

10. Edentulous; Without teeth. I just really like this word.

11. Dynamic Change; Change that happens positively, immediately and, is not irreversible.

12. Great creative works are hard work and not simple. Move towards a true quiet profound excitement, and, being in this slipstream of the creative flux is indeed our element of trusting the outcome.

Very random thoughts...

Grown up children feeling the need to earn what the world means to give them.

i wish i had lived in the ‘20s. 

Oh hell, who am i kidding, i would have been ostracized then, too.

• lurch; A mental hangout. -e.g. The few members of the questioning committee were left in the lurch when the spokesman had to answer an emergency phone call from his neighbor's dog. also- A scary person.

• process; -23 things to remember
1.
2. Have the right tools or the right people. Anything done without the proper whatever-you-need is the bad timing in a black whole.
3. pick two; Fast, Cheap, or Good.
4. Be aware that absolutes are not true things, but tendencies, and roll with them.
5. Don’t suffer future pain.
...

Revisit Remedious Varo

This looks like an interesting, hard edged aesthetics kind of day.

i hit on a memory of a slice of conversation.
“They were having a special on eye wear so I bought three pairs for only $100 dollars.”
“But you don’t wear glasses!”
“I know, but it’s fun to accessorize.”

i base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.  -Gilda Radner

We all remain at large.

Begin now.

There exists a a very long, even for me, working title of a jargon dictionary. Here are a few extrapolations from the wip on beginning, the cycling of a beginning, or sort of... 

• Acedia: A state of restlessness + inability either to work or to pray. Seems to be the moment between the grounded plane + the flying plane. There is enormous energy trying to get the plan off the ground. Once you are in the air, you can react to being in the space, in the context to create something. Beginning is sometimes a forced exertion of momentum.

• Product; Product is not art, it’s the result of art. You can criticize product. Art, to whatever degree is a process. It begins in the heart + the mind w/ the eyes + hands. see- PROCESS.

• Now; As in The Now. The very now gets very old very fast + starting from scratch can be old news to begin w/. So begin w/ something that is already on the designated design path that will get you there sooner than now so you can say you’ve been there later.

• Ready-Fire-Aim; The ability to start before you are altogether ready in order to initiate a beginning. Available in stores soon.

When the war of the giants is over, the wars of the pygmies will begin.  -Winston Churchill

Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.  -Alan Alda

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.   -Wally Disney