Art Fuel

Coffee, rye, cigarettes and sorrow. Yup.

Colour and composition- these are things I understand.  But I suspect I'll never fathom people.  At least if I can never find any lasting connection (or fleeting ones) I'll find plenty of fuel for the soul.

It seems it's always based in disconnection, my inspiration.

I've loved often and deeply, but never well.  And every disconnection makes me more distrustful and paranoid.  Makes me overly cautious.  Makes me me doubt my every thought and feeling.  Fills me with this darkness or perhaps more aptly bleeds the light from me.

Nobody loves you when you're down.  You're like a panhandler asking for kisses.

In the center of a turgid flood of heat and dark, I extinguished my cigarette.  This is the flower's ashen stigma.

I'm jealous of sociopaths.  It must be so easy for them.  Me though, I'm always trying so hard to connect and in failure being drawn further from the possibility.

 Blue and white are home and peace collectively.  In this second piece they are evaporated by rage and embarrassment.  Like tears on a hot sidewalk where flowers want to grow.

I never did paint that flower last night.  I wanted to.

I'm nearly out of paint again, but there's no shortage of material.

Rendezvous

I wasn't sure what to do this evening, so I went out with myself on a date. Rendezvous in Central Square has been one of my favourite places since they opened, so I walked over and splurged on gnocchi and roasted chicken. And cocktails. And coffee. And read my book. It was nice. A little too expensive for a guy like me, but then it wouldn't really be splurging otherwise, now would it?

Then I met up with Alexandria and drank more coffee and smoked cigarettes. We walked around a bit and then settled down on my favourite Central Square bench. She's always such a trip. And so socially unabashed. Inspiring, really.

Before I went out I was working on a little project about which I can't really speak right now ( I will when there's something to show for it) which involved some wood carving. I loved whittling as a kid in my dad's sign shop, and it always feels good to get back to that.

An a separate and totally unrelated note, I don't think I've had a migraine in nearly a month, which is awesome. I've been pretty stressed out intermittently lately so it's a little surprising, but perhaps this just goes to show how much difference a little change in one's eating habits can really make.

All in all, today was a good day, even though I didn't do much in the way of making art. I'm in something of a rebuilding phase right now and collecting psychic material with which to work. Spending time chatting with Alexandria always makes me feel like I've been productive, even when (or possibly especially when) I haven't actually done anything at all. She can't help but challenge me intellectually and creatively, so I'm always left with this feeling like I've really accomplished something simply by virtue of having survived the experience- which is probably why I like her so much.

A Weird and Wonderful Life

For years, I had this sense of surreality surrounding me nearly all the time. This idea that I could measure the quality of my existence by its strangeness. I've been missing it for quite ahile, but lately, shit's getting weird again, and it's wonderful. Makes me feel like I'm coming back to myself.

Even when I'm not bringing paint to panel on a regular basis, I'm always painting in my head. Last night was one of those nights that brought everything into a sort of unreal focus. Today I'm home from work with another headache, but smiling anyway.

There's of course lots I need to do in a practical sense to keep things afloat, but that feeling of floating that makes it all worthwhile and it's returning to me.

There may or may not be a picture of me in an upcoming issue of Stuff @ Night with the beautiful Alex Long on our Davis Square excursion last night. Me looking totally pimp and hopefully not quite as drunk as I was. Later on, I spent a couple hours drinking and smoking on some random person's stoop nearby with this totally cute art student and then took a cab back to Central with one of those cabbies that makes you wonder...

Meghan's back at the apartment for the next two weeks or so while she gears up to move into her new place around the corner. Which is no longer awkward. Pretty nice actually. We make great roommates if not lovers.

I've been sketching out ideas for the My Life in a Cage project (about which I'll go into more detail in another, dedicated post), and researching places to make that happen. As much as I'd prefer not to, I may have to give up my sweet studio in Central to make it work. The pieces slowly coming together, reshuffling, etc.

There's a sense lately of a pending rebirth. Like the universe is pregnant with possibilities meant especially for me. And there was something about that art student last night...