Find The Others...

"Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…” - Timothy Leary

just some pics

Getting Nancy ready for her wedding.

Me NOT catching the bouquet! (lower right)

Nancy's firstborn - Riley Lane - almost 1 yr old

All of us at my parent's 40th wedding anniversary 12-4-2004. Top left to right, Nancy, Me, Josh (Nancy's husband), Kirk, Andrew in the middle (Kirk's son), Linora on the bottom left (Kirk's wife), Riley in the front.

Mom and Dad's 40th anniversary. (their last one)

Us again - Thanksgiving 2006 (I hate this picture.) The guy downfront is my Mom's dad. So, Linora, Me, Mom, Kirk, Grandaddy

Riley and Nora Beth. Nora is Nancy's second. She turned 1 on 1-8-08.

Me and Jessica

2-21-06 at the bottom

Boston Legal and that FREAKING song. "Thank you Daddy"

He said "It was like that song was aimed at my head."
Amen!
**********************

I can't face this and
I can't walk away.
I can't even drug it gone.
It's bigger today
than yesterday.
It's more than I am
and all that I ever was.

I can't see tomorrow
without your face.
I've lost all direction
I don't know the way.
I'm empty every minute...
but so full of pain.
Let this be a nightmare.
Oh God, shake me awake.

2-15-06 Clock

tick tick tick
she sits in silence
the only sound
tick tick tick

she was busy
not thinking of anything else

tick tick ticking
keeping her company
the irony of that
tick tick tick

all she wants
is to turn it back, to
un tick tick tick

but she is alone now
with the same noise that
tick tick ticked away
all the years before

tick tick ....
everything stopped
there will be no more
clock

2-20-06

I look at us
I can't see what it's worth
All this spinning round
here on Earth.
It isn't what we planned
from the first.
It's so much worse.
It's all a curse
from death to birth.
What is it worth?

I look at you
dancing out your dreams
but on the inside
ripping at the seams
I don't think I'll ever
know what it all means.
.....unfinished....

2-19-2006 from home to here

Don't think.
for a while let the music
drown out who we are.
Let's be what we feel instead.

I want,
You want,
What we were then.
What we've always been.
What we can't be again.
(time fucking ends it.)

Oh, it's forbidden.
This never will be right.
A million reasons
we shouldn't know what this feels like.
But in my mind I hold on so tight,
I draw blood just to taste your life.

I want,
You want,
What we were then.
What we've always been.
What we can't be again.

I know it's not right.
but all the fight in me is gone.
Let's be what we feel for once.

I want you because
I want what we were then.
I want you because
I'm afraid
we'll never be...ever again.

Bad Art Gallery - A chronological view of my life's work

This is by no means all of my artwork. It is barely a glimpse. The better pieces have been framed or passed on to family members. There is a fantastic conti drawing of Mickey and Minnie Mouse in love (see The Mickey Mouse Years) that I drew for my sister. It is in another city and possibly still hanging on a wall.
There are abstracts - which I never fully understood and so I won't share them. There are countless human-figure sketches from classes. There is an infinite number of charcoal, pencil, ink, & tempra drawings of circles, oblisks and squares from high-school art class.
There are drawings I will never share with anyone and the memories of their stories, both good and bad, will go to my grave with me.

What I have learned from my parusal of items that have followed me thus far, is that there are not nearly enough. It is high time I make a habit of this.
It was also high time I put this stuff on disk.


Enjoy your trip down my memory lane.

(Come to think of it, I did a fantastic drawing of Princess Grace once. I wonder where that went. Maybe another closet?? Off I go.)

The first 1971

This is the first thing I remember intentionally sitting down to draw.
I was 4 years old. It is from a candle that was on my grandmother's table. She made the candle.
The candle was dark green with a gold flamingo and it smelled like pine.

I remember knowing that I could draw it. I knew I could draw anything I wanted to.
This memory has played a very large role in the development of my belief system.
Was I born with the ability? Was this some leftover karma from a past life? Something not yet resolved?

Regardless, drawing became my sanctuary. It was the place I would hide when the world didn't make sense.



Note that I had a very difficult time staying inside the lines, or even outside of them, with the big fat brush that came in those 5-color watercolor sets.
Also note that pink and orange are not in the 5 color set. Pretty smart kid huh.
;)

SMOG (1980)

I was 12 when I drew this. It's been around a block or two.
I was reading The Hobbit. This is SMOG the dragon.
I could have been drawing happy little hobbit...but no...I had to draw the evil dragon. heh heh heh
My parents worried.

I kept it all this time because it was a very detailed free-hand drawing for a 12 yr old.
I'm still pretty impressed by it.

Drawings of Flowers (1981)

1981 - I'm 14 yrs old. I like the intricacies of drawing flowers.
Note that I still have no clue about shading.

Bad Designs (1983)

A freshman in High School. Full of confusion.
This is one of my first real "designs". I was young.
I think the star was meant to be a pentagram and should have been upside down.
What did I know?!

Houses of the Holy 1985

I was 18 and a senior in High School.
ROCK AND ROOOOLLLL!!!!

Does anyone recognize the drawing?

The Mickey Mouse Years

Mickey Pose 1 (1989)

I stayed in practice by doodling cartoons.
I had an addiction to drawing Mickey Mouse.
My cat is named Mickey because of it. (I thought it was funny to name a cat after a mouse. Aren't I a hoot?)

Mickey Pose 2 (1989)

Mickey Pose 3 (1989)

Mickey Pose 4 (1989)

Mickey Mouse (1991)

Perfection.

Ren & Stimpy (1992)

Ok, so the cartoons got a little more twisted as I got older.
I loved Ren and Stimpy!!!

Stephanie (1992)

I drew her for a friend who was going through a bad break up. I wanted him to have a girl who would never leave him and always want him.

Brochure (1991)

The lawfirm where I worked commissioned me (and man was I cheap!) to do the artwork for their brochure. It depicts the four cities where the offices were located. Each drawing is done in ink pointillism. It was a phase I was going through. I doubt those attorneys had any idea the time I spent on them.

Jeans 1 and 2 (1992)

Jeans Composition part one.
I enjoy the shadows, subtle and otherwise, of cloth. This was nothing more than a class project. Still, I think it's frameable. It's one of my favorites. I hope you can see the zipper detail. THAT'S anal retentive. hahahaha

Old Time Religion

Jeans Composition part two. Art Class.
I liked the mood of the piece.

Victim (1992)

The result (and emotional salvation) of a particularly tumultous moment in my life. I say "moment" as it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There would not be a second.
I became the bird at the top right.

Victim - Detail 1 (1992)

The date of the paper is significant. As are the words in the text.

Victim - Detail 2 (1992)

The label reads: SURGEON GENERALS WARNING This product will cause you to hurt the ones you love.

Karen 2005

August 2005 - I am an artist once again.

From the original post of this drawing:
"I am naming this drawing "Karen" to forever remind me of the kindness of strangers, stories of starfish, the land of bloggers and this sublime Saturday."

8-23-05 - in progress - Gone Away

She startles awake
on her lips, his name
only to fade
gone away, gone away.

She passed on the street
the one from her dream
She turns to see
gone away, gone away

She looks at her child
to recognize
his soulful eyes
now grown, gone away

The passing of time
is taking her mind
is it unkind?
gone away? gone away?

And now she is old
Letting loose life's hold.
He's calling her home.
gone away. gone away.

List of things to draw:

-the hummingbird for Mom
-the nephews
-abstracts of color and shape - for practice

Songs...songs create images in my mind. I will begin to list songs to draw:
-Dog and Butterfly

tree

It is a most unusual sound when a large branch breaks from a tree.
That sound conjures feelings of being lost or empty or alone or...broken.
It's very odd.

knife

I can't save your life.
I don't hold the knife.
I thought that you and I
were closer than this.

I can't change your mind.
It's up to you this time.
There are no words of mine
to make a difference.

Alice

you're ok when you're with me.
you try to tell us that's the truth.
I just can't buy in to that.
I just can't see the proof.

I'd love to take the pain away
but for that, you don't need me.
Salvation isn't in my arms.
I wish that it could be.

**It's all about you
**always was...
**RECIPROCATE!
**Alice,
**this mirror
**has to break.

I don't know the answers.
You're staring at me like I do.
I could talk about your chances
and tomorrows...
but I won't get through.

**chorus
(Additional notes: rabbit hole, looking glass, done it before, too many times etc)