Dawn in the garden of Ahhhhh

    My brain feels like a big poop tank with a school of turds floating around in it, feeding voraciously  on what few rational thoughts I have left. It is grey and wet outside. I do not know what I would want, but it would probably include a bed and a TV. I am sort of glad that that is not an option for me. Simply having more time not to absorb media, weather off of a tv or from a computer makes living in my vehicle more appealing. 'Cept the cops are starting to get to me. It is not that they have done anything particularly aggressive too recently, They have just been strutin'. And I know that they can give me a ticket any time, which I cannot pay for. So I live in fear. Well depending on where I am parked. In the NW industrial district I don't think they care. They just mark you down, keep an eye on you.

    It is art in the Pearl day. People rent spots to set up their pop up tents with their art inside. I cannot relate to them. Not that we are all that different, they are a little ahead in the game, they have some money to invest in their business. I wonder if anyone is buying their stuff. I don't think I can do any of this street selling any more. It is just too exhausting. You build up all this nervous excitement to get everything ready and set up and then end up feeling like a captive monkey in a zoo, as the throngs of people mossy by, looking briefly at your artwork, but not long enough for you to address them about questions. After hours of that you pack up and go home, hopefully having made enough money that you are not poorer than before you came. And then yo are tired and don't feel like making art for a day because you hate humanity. But it is ok, you are supposed to be defeated by the world, you are an artist, and that's what it means, and why does no one succeed at this anyway. Oh, yeah.

     I am living to create and create only. For the month of september it is all art all the time. In pretty much all ways living as an artist making paintings in the street is more refreshing than these art shows anyway. That is what you need, to stir it up alittle. These art walk shows are set up like a mall of booths, there is no way for the audience to feel involved, to break out of that window shopping attitude and involve themselves. 

     Since my funds are deteriorating this may not be a good conclusion, but I think it is. I may do another one, maybe last Thursday, or even Saturday market before I leave, but my mental state is both too important and delicate for me to toss myself to these vultures. 

    When I feel good I can do anything, hold on to that.

In between thoughts

      Digging down into the muck and grime of our world, on a quest for meaning where all seems to be tinsel.  What is our roll here. For me it is to put paint on canvas and to attempt to live in a less destructive way in the world. But that is rather shallow and does not address the deeper meaning, just dances around the edge of the shit bowl of truth.
       When I think about all that has happened in my life. The people I have known, the places I have been, the things I have experienced. I have started to zero in on a clear direction. I have begun to find my place. But I am still a ways off. Only having two years at community college is a bit hampering. Predominantly because I do not actually know anyone in my field, and actually, besides being relatively certain art is completely nepotistic I do not know the field and the way it works. Well I know it has become more and more business oriented. But that is not much.
     Each day I reassess, it comes with the territory of living in a bus that has to be moved to a new location each day. It comes with making art and having no security and little money. Each day i am granted the privilege of not knowing what i am doing and trying to reform my plan.
     Maybe i should go back to the beginning. explore the entire story of my life. Tell it all and see what motifs form. God it sounds like so much. so many lenses to look through to understand those times and the people involved.

Just some thoughts of the day..

      I am back to Portland in a couple hours. The world is feeling small. I have to do something I am not good at, make connections. I am unsocial for all the wrong reasons. I think my overly perfectionist brain does not know how to simply make light conversation. It is always pondering intent and word usage. As if i am incapable of relaxing and letting the interaction flow through it's natural course. Once I know someone this is not a problem. But that is not helpful to me now. Maybe it is the writer in me, always trying to craft the dialogue, or that fool who is thinking there is a right thing to say. A perfect line or word. I must say my desire for perfection has been one of my greatest enemies in life. I have thought of and begun literally hundreds of projects. And so few of them have been brought in to fruition, because they are never good enough. Of course I cannot understand all the angles. I can see many ways in which my obsessive concern for detail has held me back creatively, but i do not know the ways in which the very same traits have behooved my creative process, or are possibly at the very root of it. That is something I feel strongly about, Understanding that all our strengths are also our weaknesses. That there is a reason why we are all so different, because to solve difficult problems we need an ability to look at the question from many different perspectives. Ultimately variety is life.
     I feel like my last blog was a failure. I do not think I am really capturing the story of our times, and the struggle of elevating ones beliefs and dreams above monetary success or even survival really. To dare to live a dream. Maybe I should try again, or maybe I have not fleshed out my own thoughts enough to really know what I am saying.
     Ok, let's take this from the top. I have drawn and painted my entire life, or since I was six or seven. I n many ways I  did not recognize how much it was part of who i was until recently. I knew that I was good at drawing and painting, I received praise. I knew that I enjoyed it. But it was not until I went out into the world and did any job I could find that I actually realized how much focus, how much centered and driven peace I felt while creating art that I started to acknowledge that paint was who I was. That there was a place in my brain that was more alert, more at ease, and more alive while I created art then at any other time in my life. I realized I could not live without drawing and painting. I think at the same time in began to dawn on me that freedom meant being yourself, and I started an aggressive campaign to achieve self expression. In my entire life I can not make all the art I wish to. And so I jumped into living as an artist.
     That said I approach things in my own style. It is easy for me to sit in front of a canvas for eight hours. While it is much harder to sit in front of a computer for eight minutes.  I am a horrible salesman, I don't want someone to buy something unless they want it. I t just seems like a lie if the purchaser does not truly value what they buy. My attitude has to change, and soon. Not that I want to transform into a cut throat salesman, but that I need to find a way to survive. To maintain my life as an artist, and eventually be able to pay for a home that does not have wheels.
     First I had to recognize myself as an artist. Then I had to prove myself to the world and be seen as an artist on the outside. Now, I need to make it work for me. I need to play the game for high stakes. My ability to be who I am.
     This perspective makes me feel a certain amount of daily drama. Living in a bus and dealing with cops, and people that are perturbed by my existence makes me feel daily drama. Working every day at art and receiving daily praise while still being completely broke makes me feel daily drama. Just being on the fringe of society while actively doing what I love brings that tension to the forefront. And then, feeling condemned for not approaching life with a basic greed and sole financial concern continues the essence of my story. That's where i am coming from. Who knows where i am going.

To sleep perchance to dream.

    When I was in first grade my brother Gabriel was in third. He informed me that he would be a writer once he had achieved adulthood. I was the visual artist along with my eldest brother. In many ways these were our roles that had been assigned to us from our own cosmos. I have always enjoyed writing, thinking up stories and as the title of this blog clearly states spent sometime creating comic books. But I was not the writer of the family. My brother, father, uncle, these are the people who held such a title. Now, as my brother married and scrambling to build a life for himself and his wife has put writing aside, I am finally starting to question these roles. I am writing.
    One thing that has intrigued me is how many authors set their stories in real or imagined pasts or futures. In their quests for drama, and action, they must change the world. Reformulate it to a time where stories unfold, where heroes, not just rube's like us live.
    But wait. What is wrong with our time. Whether we know it or not we live in a science future. Because we live in such an important, unique time we have been separated from the drama of our times. Most of us are neither rich nor powerful enough to feel that we are involved. And yet we are.
     Being an artist and a traveler, I have lived through many stories, and they continue, in many ways every day as I attempt to hustle a life out of art. Art is a horrible money making scheme. People like it as a concept, and many people enjoy seeing someone painting a picture on the street. They feel cultured, and the grand design of society seems to be in fulfillment when an artist is present. But Americans do not want to pay for it, usually even if they are getting it for cheap. Art is something the organizations that run everything should somehow support, right.
     I cannot be governed by money. Money doesn't get me up in the morning, it does not wander through a setting with me, and help me find a composition. It doesn't sit with me while I paint, doesn't help me perceive the colors and shapes and form them on the canvas. Money has no involvement in my creative process. For that reason I am one of two thing, or maybe both. A failure, and or locked in to a different value system than the society around me.
     Our day and age, predominantly capitalism and the way it has manifested itself in our time defines our principles and values. There are ways in which this system allows humans to explore themselves and the beings they want to be, and ways in which they are stifled, and held back. The stymied being is growing more apparent as our own regulatory elements grow more pervasive.
     This is where the artist steps in. Where we dig down and quest for a new meaning, a new set of values. Or rather a new focusing, on something that feels more authentic to us, as people. Where do these principles sprout from. The earth of course. I can think of no truer saying then you will reap just what you sow. I mean it is always apparent, a well made object will always out last and be more valuable then an object that received little thought and development. But I am getting sidetracked. What I came here to speak of is the story of our times. the shifting of our attitudes towards, in lieu of a better word, a more sustainable society and ethics. This is the story of our time. And it does not have to do with only the destruction of our planet and it's natural resources. It has to do with the destruction of each other and our cultures. As Americans we are sidelined as passively acquiescing this dismal reality. No body really wants to address it 'cause we are too tightly bonded to our system. That is, there are no easy answers and the one thing we are not free to do is change the way our system works. So we settle for our cars and televisions. We settle for our fantastical past and future stories full of drama and struggle. Our time is too convoluted, too confusing and too personal. We are so bound by right and wrong we cannot even look at our own time without growing uncomfortable.
     It is not my desire to condemn the American citizen. I am one as well. What are we gonna do all join the peace core. Go to some impoverished country with a bunch of holier than thou nut jobs thinking they are saving the savages. NO. We have to dream. Dream a new world, but not like some burner talking about how better it could be. Until we realize that we must work for it. Because we will reap just what we sow.

On the suckiness of freedom

     I was never met to work a nine to five, or at least I never met a regular job, a person does not need a degree for, that after a month my brain was fizzling, and two months I was bored into a wild manicness. I need challenge, risk, and growth or I go mad. That was what I liked about wildland firefighting, and one of the many things drawing me to painting. But is there such thing as too much challenge? Well, obviously, if you are not up to it. And that is the question I have to ask myself all the time.
     Making my go as an urban landscape painter is rife with daily challenges. Predominantly a nagging feeling of self doubt, because I could always be doing better. The painting side has gone well, I feel comfortable with my growth and production. The hard part, where I am riddled with uncertainty is the sales department. Maybe now that I am leaving Portland that voice in my head will stop saying, "Dammit man, I am an artist not a salesman. If I was a salesman I would never of ended up here." Maybe. But probably not.
     But that is not what I want to talk about here. I want to talk about this feeling I have all the time, this haunting freedom. See all I have to do is paint and sell what I paint. This morning I sold a painting for a hundred and fifty dollars. Which is nice, but it is not enough that I can slow down. But, because I could do anything the doubts start arising. What is my next move. Should I paint another one here in seattle, or go back to Portland. Should I move to Port Townsend this month. I formulate plans, but there is always a doubt, am I going about this all wrong?
     In some ways the answer is easy. at the moment I am making art and still have a few bucks to live on. So I am making it. But the winter is on the horizon. And I know I am failing.
      All day people approach me saying they like my paintings. In Portland I said I was being killed with kindness, and it continues here. The reality is I should try putting out a hat. I should try soliciting, maybe in the real world and the cyber world for a few bucks or coins. Every dollar going in to the coffers rather than out is needed. And every day I know I am not doing enough.
      That is the horror of freedom. I can do what ever I want, go where ever I like. Right now and anytime I know there are no limits to my options. I can do whatever I can think of doing, but what should I do. I know myself and my skills. I know I will only grow as a salesman out of desperate necessity. And that is not far away. The future is entirely unknown and completely in my hands. And that is the scariest thing in the world.

In search of a painting

    The sun beams it's hot rays down. I am burdened in the heat, paints, palette, brushes, easel, a canvas, and what ever other nick knacks I need for the day. How is anyone supposed to find a painting like this. I have not been in this city in god knows how long. How do I turn on my electric view finder eye. Well the answer is you don't.
     I am carrying all my painting stuff 'cause that is my baggage. That's how I role. I may wonder around for hours and not find some spot to paint. Maybe the same thing tomorrow. This is my quest.
     Finding a painting is a challenging task. When it comes to landscape images most people are drawn to the epic. They want to capture a skyline, a bridge, they want the dramatic vastness of space. I am not unlike people, so I put my blinders on. when you work on a canvas eighteen inches wide, or even twenty four inches, in order to get that big space you have to make everything really small. Then you can't get all the details, it gets harder to line everything up. You frustratingly work into a little space fumbling into the canvas till it looks like mud.
     Our eyes can do amazing things. I can look out the door of this coffee shop, across the street, through a parking lot and across another street to read a no parking sign. My eyes are zooming in and focusing. That sign seems to enlarge because I am giving it my attention. If I were to do a painting from this perspective the sign would not be legible. I would more than likely overlook it completely.
     So when I look for a painting I observe the world on a small scale. I am looking for an archway, a tree, some sculpture in relation to it's environment, something that I can set the size and proportions and have the space to fit in all the colors, shapes, and lines that make up the complete form. There is already a daunting amount of information to capture in anything you paint. That is the theory behind going smaller.
      Dammit. I am going to end up painting the Pike street market.
      Well it makes sense. I am trying to asses if this is a good city to be making art in. I might as well go to the location that is interesting and obvious. Obvious because it is Seattle's tourist center; a place where money comes to be spent. Well I am still gonna walk around the city today and look for another spot.

Finding the space

      Manifest your dreams. We can do that. We know that we can, if it was not for all the demands put upon us by the world. That is the theory behind college, place a young receptive mind in a healthy learning environment and they will spend their parents money partying. But we are past all that.
     I can and will become an artist, but my responsibility right now is to work at producing images that intrigue and excite me. But more important it is to create and maintain an environment where I am constantly inspired to do that. And sell myself. Those are large requests. Some days, like today you are just tired. Can't think about art. I can't even think about thinking about art. Some days I do not have the energy to reach into the future and pull out a trail, a road into my future dream self. Some days crash into you and wash over you, they carry you along.
      Fortunately my future is not governed by time. My dreams are controlled by my monetary situation. And I still have a few hundred left. Need to sell art. Need to make art. No, what you need to do is be art.
      My natural state really is creating. I love to paint, draw, sculpt, write, perform, direct. I love it all working alone or with people. And I really can't hold down a regular job for very long. I get bored. I think I could spend the rest of my life creating and still not have enough time. Then I remember I decided I was going to spend the rest of my life creating. That, as my money dwindles, is exactly what I am trying to figure out.  That I am here, in Seattle to answer these questions. To solve this predicament, this financial debacle that holds me back. That have tied my hands mid spell, mid manifestation.
       I don't need to make art, to think about art, need to be art. Just like I don't ned to wear a costume to be a superhero. The walls, even the walls of money are on the inside. I have no responsibilities, no ties, no job. Only a responsibility to myself to be what I want.
       Suddenly I am more focused. I want to go into the city and find a painting. Can't squander a day, a moment. That is a good word. Squander. I mean it is a bad word, something humans afraid to live, myself included, afraid to risk, to fail, we do it every day. Squander the moment. I love the way the Q seems to be a pool that you slip into, so easy to get stuck in. To look out realizing the moment is gone. You are stuck in another squandered moment.
      The thing is if we are really focused on our aspirations we are driven by our own insecure need to be valued by people because we do not value ourselves enough. Or we realize there is no other option, but to do what we love and do it well. But without our insecure vanity do we have the desire, the gumption to actually succeed, and will we be plagued all our lives by the thought that we just wanted to be admired. And even when we are successful and well known, even when we are admired by all, we will not be happy. Will our loneliness haunt us to our grave. Is that what happened to Robin Williams?Is the American dream really American's dreams? Dreams that should not be fulfilled, dreams that are not fulfilling. That is why we get distracted. Because we really ought to smell the roses. Take a kid out for ice cream and give our lover a kiss.
     Sorry. Still gonna stay on my road to paintersville.

Evening walk and thoughts.

        I was walking down Milwaukee through the Brooklyn neighborhood in Portland. I was coming from the house where I am storing my short school bus studio home. I was coming from longing around on a couch being stoned for two days and nursing my banged up pride and face. I had one more day in Portland.
        There was a couple standing at the edge of the street. Darkness had recently completed it's decent. I was calmed by the darkness, it made it more difficult to notice my bruised face. The couple looked middle aged. She was round with a tent like shirt that made you think of a hospital. He was bald with a greying goatee. I could not tell what they were doing till I was right next to them, they stood next to each other looking across and down the street. As I passed she kicked a crap apple and he clicked on a flashlight and announced it's trajectory. I smiled and walked on, had a long ways to go still and I was behind schedule.
        I was musing on the cycle of violence I recently felt drawn into. A few days ago I did not feel that I could hurt a person, now, after being jumped I had a rage in me. If I had saw the kids who attacked me I may run at them, swung till I hit, and hit till something popped. I wanted my revenge. It was as if they had shared they're internal strife with me. My world had been too comfy, I was a step away from their anger. Not any more.
        I thought of the competitive nature of humanity. I thought of the thin constructs of society, and how close everything always is to falling apart. Held together simply because we all believed society should be. That we were safer being ruled by our government. We are scared into accepting the social contract once we realize how quickly say a band of kids can take whatever you have, whatever you care about, away from you. We are violent aggressive beasts barely held in check by the laws of society.
        Then I thought about the couple kicking crab apples across the street. The reality humans are fun loving and brimming with curiosity. For all the morbid mayhem that would occur that would envelop us is society fragmented and presently fills our nightly news, humans will always play meaningless little games. That easy going playfulness may be the saving grace of our species. I smiled and walked on.

busted and russling, the karmic build up..

First of all I do not like the use of the word Karma. I remember driving in a sixty seven rambler, a long shapely thing, with my friend Josh Lord and we were having this discussion.
     "I probably don't like the way people use the word. it is slapped on to things and how well do we understand it." Josh was a wonder to talk with. His eyes were pools of curiosity, his body would animate as he shifted the clutch on the steering column. He probably said something having the words to discuss reciprocity.
   But things catch up to you. I was talking to my brother as i walked over the Hawthorne bridge. A woman approached me, she was asking the time, but I was more aware of her glowing red and purple eye. I was not sure what to do. My phone is my clock, and I was talking to Gabe in China where I could not call, since he uses skype and i have a flip phone. I started to look at her quizzically, remembered it was some time after ten and told her it's ten thirty. My brother said it was ten forty five. I hollered it back at her hopping she had time to get to the shelter and kept walking. An hour my eye was puffy and swollen.
    I had to move the bus. It was parked in south east industrial district and it was Sunday night. The other thing was that I am going to go to Seattle and am storing the bus, my home and art studio at my friends David and Stephanie. A cop rolled by me while I was sitting in the darkness. Cops have mixed reviews about my existence. and recently they had started flexing a little. The cop sat down the street, two glowing red orbs. It was the kind of urban scene I never paint but always want to. Once he seemed gone I turned over my big Bertha beast and warmed her up. And then drove an uneventful trip to trip to a road behind Blush,not far. As I popped out of the bus a cop slowed at the end of the block, checked me out an then sped off. He really just drove around the block and was there to observe me again and speed off as I approached the house.
    The patio was dark, and the house a cavernous open door. A cat shot by my feet.I walked out. Like rats abandoning a ship cops started streaming out of the street in front of me in successive order. OK, there was three of them. I flipped open my phone to text. Maybe I just wanted to talk to someone, but I was thinking that they would not fuck with me if I was communicating with someone. Once they drove off I decided to go to the store an purchase a beverage.
     As I walked over there I thought how I should wear the Deadpool costume. It is a an invigorating experience to mask up. i had worn the costume a week ago when I had gone to this store. the store attendant had been excited and requested I put the mask on over my head. This is head to toe spandex, and it feel s strange being on camera with your face completely covered. I mean you could just rob the place. But being in full body spandex suits makes you question the constructs of your own reality anyway.
     This time I just needed some orange juice or water. I didn't think it was the same guy working, couldn't be sure. There were two young ladies in line in front of me. They did not know what they wanted , and offered for me to cut her in line. I smiled and thanked her noting in my mind that she was attractive as she told me something about buying things for friends who are drinking.
    Another for the record: I do not hit on or flirt with women I meet public for the simple reason every day I witness jack ass men insinuating themselves into a woman's space in order to demand her attention by saying and doing something horribly stupid. And maybe I end up a little shy and having not met as many people, and maybe a missed out on a relationship here or there, but it probably wouldn't of worked out anyway, right.
    So when this little pipsqueak out side said " don't fucking look at my girl, I am gonna kick your ass". I was surprised to say the least. "You better run old man 'cause I am gonna fuck you up. I am gonna fuck that under age pussy not you. There was nothing to say,trying to explain that she had let me go first in line just prompted the response she let you do what. I backed away but he wanted to rile me. i was a pussy if I walked and was getting my ass bear if i didn't. His lanky friend wanted to instigate and he started to charge. I don't know exactly what happened. there was an initial scuffle, the orange juice was knocked over, spilled but i recovered it. Started to yell at him that he was an asshole and using his friend to surround me, they were doing. I had spun around so i was moving back Magloughland towards the seven eleven again. a car drove around us at some point, and he charged. I was backing up, fist raised, but still holding my water and orange juice in each hand, like some ridiculous fighting style. He got a punch in, I got one he got another. i remember being happy he had orange juice all over his shirt. I got him in a head lock but his buddy was eager to punch something too. It ended once my shirt was ripped off and he got a good on in my eye.
     i got up from the street. collected my water and shirt. The OJ was done. there had been an older man sitting in the car smoking. He was standing behind his car, the store attendant was in the door way, propped in the frame. We thought we should called the cops." he informed me. "I don't want to deal with the cops" I said. The older man said something, flabbergasted at the teenagers vehemence to fight. I wandered of down the road to find an ice cube and maybe a drink.
     superheros have to be trained. They have to be forged.
     A year and a half ago on new years I was wearing a super hero costume and came across a bike. It looked like a friends that was stolen. Some dude quickly showed up to say it was his bike, in a shifty unconvincing way. Our friend didn't call back. How far did I want to take this. And if I did could I trust that I was doing the right thing? Could i justify the power to take action. I didn't, I backed down and it was totally our friends bike. I felt that I had let myself down. then the next summer i helped someone lost and on drugs get home safe.
    Once you become a costumed super hero issues of morality will craft your inner space, and getting in a violent physical fight is an important step. Deadpool, if not Julian needed this. i do look pretty gnarly though.

Bustling trains in China

     The train is crowded. On the wall it says that the max capacity is a hundred and eighteen. But that is in the seats. the isles are almost unnavigateable. In between cars is where the men crowd around to smoke. Grace, my brother's wife, was concerned. The train was going through some poorer towns in the mountains, and there were some guys of questionable character on the train. They were young guys she was worried about. One had a tattoo. Maybe that alone made Grace nervous. They wore bright clothes, one guy in a Hawaiian shirt, another in electric blue pants and no shoes. And they were interested in me. Of course we did not speak the same language. They smiled, shook hands, and practiced their English. "I love you." He held my hand like he did not want to let go. It was awkward, his accent was heavy and obviously it was hard to interpret his intent. Did he have any idea what he was saying. One of the guys sought out Grace to attempt further communication. Once she walked into the scene she was a little aghast, and shut down our relations of unknown romantic qualities. I was not to talk to these bad boys. They may tell me they loved me, but for them getting in my pants was just a way to fleece me. Maybe.
    I don't think I missed my opportunity to meet my Romeo. But I do think it is interesting how we need to shut people out, close our doors in order to feel safe. We are protecting ourselves from from life, from reality, from the challenge of being challenged. And it is easier, easier to be afraid.
     If I ever go back to China I will learn the language. China is a very crowded country, and if you think about it simply from number crunching, if ninety nine percent of the people have no interest in taking advantage of you than probability wise someone on the car should of been out for the graft. But why does it have to be about us. I found that many people who were in the business of taking money felt that they had a responsibility to try to squeeze a little extra out of the foreigner. But the average person person was honestly interested or not. As opposed to a place like Belize city which is riddled with gangster culture, where someone may feign interest to get close to you. Not that I don't call some of my boys in Belize city friend.
      I watched a number of films glorifying gangster life on the plane back. But I never saw it when I was there. In China the family unit is paramount. Confucius was only a philosopher, but his sayings and the life style that stems from those sayings has developed into a religion and is fundamental to Chinese thought. Strong family ties and a culture that forces the individual to assist anyone connected to them always has a danger of being very nepotistic, quickly leads to graft and corruption. China will always struggle with this. So while in some very obvious ways the entire country is one big communist mafia, the every day people, possibly because they were always dealing with gangsters, seemed to be genuine and honest.
     I am going to cut it off there. I should clean this up. clarify my ideas, but I don't have to really deal with being people actually reading this. So here we go

Haggered

     deadpool came out this weekend. That is I pulled out the super hero costume of deadpool that my brother purchased for his super hero reality TV show. Deadpool is actually quite good at a party.
      Now my eyes burn, I have a constant heart burn burn, and my head feels distant and fuzzy. I have things to do. I am leaving town if I can just wrap some things up. Don't know when I will run out of money. That is taking a trip to Seattle sounds pricey.
      Maybe this is going to take a few days to put together. It would help if I made a list. And clean the bus. I had a few paintings in storage. Got them back. I am stuffed to the brim. The bus is a mess. And I have not done laundry for weeks. I should probably take a moment, reassess. Breath. Figure out a plan.
      That is what I need. Need to find a way to make this life work. I have written into the clause of my schemes that the more desperate my situation becomes, the more I will desperately work to make it happen. But what that actually looks like. That, me stepping up my game, the constant creation of art on a sale able level, that, no quarter, dreams or bust. Maybe it is just this ragged dude with dirty clothes on, walking down a bright street with a heavy pack and a canvas in hand.  It is making it through one more day, some you can wake up and make it through another one.
      It is good to know. Dreams are dirty. They wear you down and spit you out spiraling off in strange directions. They hurt because they change you. Make you have to be what is needed.
       All I want to do is to be able to paint. But in order to do that I have to sell my self to the world as a painter. I need to fulfill the worlds expectations of who and what I am. And I need to reach that audience. So what is this dirty, scuzzy broke bum prepared to do to succeed. The artist in me is fine. He has always been there, abiding. this is a job for someone who can act quick without doubt, while still recognizing the whole picture. This is a job for Deadpool.
      The world has changed me. In my hunger to do what I want. To funnel some of this paper power down my gullet. To get my little piece in this american pie of wealth and comfort, I have fostered a monster. A creature within, an self reflective mutant villain in red and black spandex.
      Good thing it is a Deadpool outfit and not Cap America or some chode like that.

The big adventure

    That is what Gabe said to me when i arrived in China. "So starts the big adventure." It was meant to mean the time that he would be showing me and the rest of the family around China, his wedding, the hike up Emei shan. But he was talking about much more than that. He was talking about being married, returning to the U.S. to find work and a home to welcome his wife into. He was talking about a new existence. An uncertain existence where he would have to be serious in his decisions. Not the self absorbed writer guy living in squalor part that he had been playing up until now. for me I was returning to a short school bus that I had to get out of storage in a friends driveway. But first find a way to access my remaining monies, and make the buses stickers up to date. Which may be simple task to some, but since I have no actual address, and being in Portland should go through DEQ, things could get complicated.
      But in reality I was done with Portland. I had been killed with kindness. I t may sound weird but there is only so much you can hear, "I wish I could paint like you.", or "That is so amazing, your a great painter." But no one wants to buy. So, since I plein air paint and am working out in the city, I receive compliments all day. And then again at first and last Thursdays. But I am broke. really broke. No money coming in.  In my head I am thinking, "You don't wish you could do this, art is pretty and makes the world seem like a wonderful place, but no one wants to pay for it, no one will take the dive, the commitment to believe in what they love. To be passionate." I guess that is what makes me an artist. That importance in creation. I have to continue to fight for meaning in this world. To fight for love. But not in this town. Portland you have cracked my spirit, and I do not believe in making it here any more. I could live here and sell somewhere else, but i will not attempt to sell to Portlanders.
      So I am moving to Seattle. I am telling everyone I am just going up there to check it out, and I am. The thing is, doing what I do, the summer months are essential. I need to get a body of salable work locked down before the winter retreat. I was going to say hibernation, which is in many ways what winter is for me as an artist. Studio time. And I need to prepare for that time, like a squirrel collecting nuts. Only I am making connections. I am trying to find a place to park the bus that will be safe, and also allow me some inside space to use as painting studio. And cheap too. There are lots of things to consider and Portland was not yielding.
       So the big adventure was on for both of us. We were having to go through a number of changes and transitions in preparation for a new life we would work hard to build for ourselves and loved ones. Game on.