I don't know what to say

Hi Guys, I really don't know what to say other than this week has been a rough one on just about everybody as far I can see. It began thursday when my mother had corrective surgery on her arm to fix the metal plate in her arm after she broke it last year. I waited in the hospital for about four hours, actually it wasn't so bad even though I had to stay up all day after I got off work. I got in some good quality time with my grandparents during the wait and the surgery was a success. The next day I was sad to hear that Farrah Fawcett passed away after a four year battle with cancer, it was strange because I actually thought about her two days prior and wondered how she was doing. I was never a huge fan or anything but I sympathized with her greatly in her battle with cancer, when cancer hits your family, you can relate to anyones struggle with it, famous or not. After I mowed my moms lawn on thursday not two hours after I heard about Farrah, Michael Jackson passed. It was a crazy day! Although I pretty much wrote michael off in the early 90s after one media drama fest after another, I couldnt help but be sad and of course now that he's dead, everybody is finally paying tribute and focusing on his career accomplishments which were very overshadowed for the last 15 years or so. Although I wrote him off years ago, I always did know what a musical genius he was. Anyway so I was planning on having a restfell weekend and then I got a flat tire and had to get that fixed as soon as I got off and then did some more medical errand stuff for my grandparents. I thought it was all over, I couldnt have been more wrong. I got a tearfull phone call from Amber and I learned yesterday that an old friend of mine from high school Traci Spangler, who I hung out with alot when I was younger was murdered in oakland saturday morning, from what I gather, she and a friend were outside somewhere and were shot at random. Traci's friend survived and Traci died. To be be honest I have alot of mixed feelings right now, I pretty much rode traci off and I hadn't spoke to her since 2006 after some rather bitter feelings. She attempted to get ahold of me several times but I never responded. I never thought in a million years that this would happen and as of now, I feel very much for her sisters, friends and other family. I'm still having feelings that I never thought I'd have. So I'll leave you with this for now, I'm sorry for everyone who's had a shitty week, maybe next week will be a bit better. I have to keep reminding myself, I'm very lucky compared to many right now and I think what I've learned out of all this is to love the people you love more and cherish the time I have with them on this earth and maybe tolerate people a bit more. See you next time.

Hmm!

Hi Guys, well it rained all weekend so art in the garden was cancelled but hopefully I'll be able to participate next month. I've had some issues I've had to accept these last few days, first off i've been sleeping way too much and not getting anything accomplished so I have to put a stop to that and not be on the friggin computer so much and get my ass to bed, working night shift isn't helping that much either these days, when I decided to go to nights a year ago it was mainly to get a break from shodair and get some homework done, I have to say it's been a nice break overall but I'm wondering if it's worth my overall health, I do miss being alive during the day when everyone else is. As far as my art goes, it's something you have to constantly work at and pay your dues the entire way. Unfortunately one of my newest paintings I've been working on was an official flop and I ended up tossing it tonight. I came to the realization that it wasn't working out and ended up tossing it. To tell you the truth though, I'm not that devastated despite all the work I put into it. Maybe this flop will be a great lesson in the future. I think I've finally realized what my instructors have been lecturing me about since 2004, if your subject is weak no matter how pasionate you feel about it personally, it's usually grounds for murder in the finished piece as Kevin Moore my heads and hands instructor once said to me last year. So from now on, I'm going to be much more carefull with the subjects I choose to paint as well as the medium I choose for it, perhaps this will help me, it seems everything I've done in the last year has turned out to be a disappointment, except my B-52's painting which I still have a long way to go on. So next time hopefully i'll do better. My grandmother is cancer free which I'm still so greatfull about but now it seems it's my mom whos having all the medical problems these days, she'll have surgery tomorrow to fix her broken arm. I dont mean to sound so negative but Jesus Christ, it's always one medical thing after another in my family and I'm very frustrated about it GRRRRR. Okay I'm done venting, my next post will be much better. See you next time!

Art in the Garden!!!!!

Hi there, well first of all the garage sale was a success and I managed to go scrounge around the neighborhood only to find and buy more junk but oh well. It was nice being awake at those hours in the hot early sun on my day off because usually I'm asleep. Okay on to the good news, I finally have my first helena art gig in over two years, it's called Art in the Garden and it will be hosted by Linda Parker in East Helena on Saturday June 20th, I'll be premiering a few new pieces as well as some of the classics. I'm also excited to meet a few other new artists including Linda as well as see an old friend of mine that I haven't seen in over ten years, Josh Hedges and I'm very excited about that. My goal aside from having my pieces ready to display is to get a good nights sleep before hand so I don't look and feel like night shift hell when I go to start the show, I also have to work that night so it will be a long night but what the hay, my objective is to have fun!!! Okay I'll give you a report when it's all said and done. Wish me luck!

Anniversaries!

Hi there! So it was a year ago today that I hopped on a plane and went to italy for the whole summer, one of, if not the best time of my life, I learned how to oil paint and best of all made at least 20 new friends, becoming friends with my instructors was a great privelidge. I want to thank the following people for making the trip worthwhile, Jason, Carolyn, Craig, Anna, Shawn, Sean, Jeff, Amy, Sam, Allison, Sola, Babs, April, Theo, The Bowen Kids, Thomas, Jen, Brandon, Shelley, Judy, Eileen, Gabrielle and Deana. Sorry if I forgot any of you. Today is also my sixth year at shodair, It feels like I've been there much longer considering how many people I've met there. Ahh life is good, just painted all night and now I'm going help my grandparents with a garage sale and enjoy my weekend! Okay thats it for now!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

So I really don't have much to report on except it's been a pretty lazy weekend although it's my weekend to work. I've taken just a small break from painting and drawing but will hopefully resume my duties tomorrow. I have a gig coming up at an event called art in the garden, here in Helena on June 20th, where I will share some of my pieces and meet a friend I've been wanting to meet for some time finally in person, Linda Parker, the mother of two of my good friends in High School Jamie and Josh Hedges. The pieces I will be showing are a mixure of old and new but I'm thinking by the end of summer I will be ready to show all my newest pieces and put my oldies in the vaults as far as shows go. I'm currently still balancing three pieces with one charcoal drawing of Marianne Faithfull more or less complete. I thought it may be complete last week but when I presented it to a few people, I didn't get the response I was hoping for, so i decided to shelf it for a week. So I will see see what happens this week. Today was a pretty lazy day, I got home from work and finally finished a movie I tried watching three times and after falling asleep three times trying to watch it, I watched the whole thing today, it was actually a play filmed for t.v called Hedda Gabler with Diana Rigg, I just love that woman to pieces, it was great after all. Afterwards I slept all day and just couldn't get up for my grandma's birthday, I did get her a card though and apologized for missing it all. Happy 69'th Birthday Grandma. See ya all later.

Memory Lane

So last night was much more productive than saturday, saturday I was completely worthless and fell asleep and didn't get much of anything done. Last night however was a different story, I got into the studio around elevenish and worked on my B-52's painting, it's getting there! I have the second layer of paint on and I'm almost ready to go in and make the refinements and take it to the next level. I have a good feeling about this one! So after a long night of painting I decided to look for a photo reference from an earlier painting and I ended up going through all my artwork I've ever done since I started at the academy in 2004. Wow! it was like taking a trip down memory lane and I didn't fully realize exactly how far I've come since then, I'm talking about my earliest works from analysis of form, god some of the pieces were just awful! but I decided to keep many of them and I ended up throwing out quiet a bit, I did keep many unfinished drawings that still have potential to be good drawings, so hopefully they will see the light of day. Overall it was an interesting night. Okay thats all for now.