I was immediately struck by her imagery.

See, i have an ongoing obsession with horizons and skies. Horizons are an interesting thing. They are boundaries that exist within our perception and nowhere else. They provide a dramatic stage by which a day both enters and leaves our lives. They can turn a dismal gray day into an eternity where sunrise, daytime and sunsets have little meaning.

And they’re illusions. You can observe a horizon but you will never reach it. For every step that you take towards one, it changes and moves away with every step you take.

To give you an idea of my love for open, nearly endless spaces, consider that one of my dream vacations is to spend weeks driving around Alberta and Saskatchewan (no offense, Manitoba). I’ll put some links below to show why.

When i found Ms. Klein’s site, it… well, she’s managed to achieve what i always wanted to achieve in my work. Not to assign any sort of mysticism or try to parade any sort of artistic equivalence between her and i but it’s almost as though we’ve had a shared dream or perhaps an equal love and affection for the mystery of the marriage between skies and horizons.

I don’t know that i would have ever have been able to articulate with the skill and beauty she does in her work. I don’t work in acrylics because of: 1) money, 2) space, 3) time. I don’t work in oils because of: 1) money, 2) space, 3) time and 4) health risks. And frankly, my media of choice is watercolors. But no matter how much i love watercolors, they often lack the visual weight that oils and acrylics are able to achieve.

If nothing else, finding her site again is motivating me to start painting again. It’s spring and although it’s relatively chilly this morning, it’s supposed to get up to 70 by this afternoon and possibly near 80 tomorrow. Lately i’ve been painting more “commercial” type images of bees and/or coffee and honestly, i’m probably going to continue doing so for a while. I need money and i think i’ve found some imagery that is a healthy blend of commercial viability while still allowing me to keep some integrity.

But when i can, i hope to return to letting my brush reveal more horizons and the sheltering sky that holds it – and that in doing so, i take one step closer to those horizons in my mind and by doing so, reveal another something entirely new and yet comfortably familiar.

carla klein 1 2 3 4 5 6

Saskatchewan 1 2 3 4 5 6

Below is my response to this article.

“Ms. Ifill represents the most threatening woman possible for the neo-con mindset. She’s intelligent, successful, articulate and worst of all (in their mind), she inspires other women to be educated and self-deterministic. The War Against Women is a natural part of the fundamentalist/ neo-con mindset (I would argue the WAW is repulsive to the few Eisenhower Conservatives left). Ideologically, there is no greater threat to the fundamentalist mindset than educated women that are in control of their own lives.”

Note: this comment was eventually posted; it just took a while.

I know godaddy.com has pissed off a lot of folk for political reasons (and i happen to agree with those reasons) but politics aside, godaddy tech support and customer service are outstanding. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night that i call- and believe me, i’ve called them at 2am on any given night more than once.

And for about $5 for my monthly hosting bill for this site, the price is good great.

So after a long drive from Olympia back to Oregon City, i get out of my car. One of my roommates is there. He asks, “So, how did it go?”

“I think it went well but it’s out of my control now,” i replied.

He stops and says, “Well, most of your life is out of your control.” Then he walks away.

And i just stood there for a minute, dumbfounded. And maybe because his comment disgusted me so much, i muttered to myself, “Almost all of my life is in my control.”

I get that bad things happen to each of us. But even in those cases, many times the bad things are the result of our decisions and the results of others making bad decisions. You get cancer and have your lungs, lips and throat carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey because you dedicated your life and finances to smoking. Your family is T-boned by a drunk driver and you’re left to bury them because someone decided to get behind the wheel after drinking, thinking they’d done it before and no one got hurt, so why not do it again?

I’m not entirely happy with where i am in my life. But where i differ from my roommate on this is that while he may see himself as a result of what others have done to him, i see my situation as the result of the decisions i’ve made. I should not have gone to college as young as i did. I should have had some real life experiences before i went. I should have addressed my sleep apnea many, many years ago instead of being proud. There’s a reason why Pride is considered the worst of the “Seven Deadly Sins”. Pride keeps you from doing what’s right because there’s a strength to be found when you’re arrogant, sanctimonious and when believing you’re right is more important than doing what’s right.

Mind you, there’s a distinction between what’s considered “pride” and what’s considered “honor”.

I’m sure i have more to say although not so much on this subject. I keep meaning to do more entries but there appear to be more things to do than there are hours in the day. Battlefield 3 does NOT help things at all. Stupid, stupid timehole.

part two

part three

part four

This entry has a few goals. One is to provide a narrative about how my undiagnosed and untreated sleep apnea irrevocably and negatively affected my life. The other is to continue building samples of my voice and the third is to do a longer narration so that i can hear myself and learn from my mistakes.

For those that don’t know, i’m trying to find work doing voiceover and/or narration. So if you know of anything, please let me know.

The recording isn’t perfect. I don’t know if it’s me or if if i’m hearing myself wrong or what but i sound nasally- well, i THINK i sound nasally. I’ll let you decide. I also had a bunch of pauses where i was trying to gather my thoughts before moving onto the next subject. I spent quite a bit of time in Audacity, culling those pauses. There may be times where my narration feels jerky.

It’s getting late. I may alter this entry later.

media: watercolor, pencil, archival pen

I’ll add more to this post later. I just wanted to post it tonight.

Allergies are hammering me, the heat is out in the house and I ran into some extra expenditures that I wasn’t anticipating. It’s not shaping up to be a very good Christmas. There are so many things I want to do/ get for friends and family and there just never seems to be enough time or money.

I’ll update everyone on the weirdness known as my life asap. Promise.

Sigh. I just listened to my recording. It rendered fine locally but once it was posted, the quality has degraded. I’ll look into it tomorrow to tomorrow’ish.

This entry references this post. It’s probably the most important thing i’ve written on synaesthetic.com – ever.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Title: the last time i waited for her
Media: pencil, watercolor

I don’t like to talk about subject matter in terms of interpretation. Composition, color and the role that light and shadows play is fair game but i believe there’s a huge disservice done to the arts when the artist begins deconstructing their work in literal, narrative terms.

Having said that, it’s impossible for me to escape the experiences that nibble the surface of my mind when i paint. Given that art, be it musical, performing or visual, is, at its core essence, self expression for the sake of self expression contained within time and/or space, it’s impossible to remove ones experiences and the interpretation of those experiences from a composition [Oh Lord, i hope i never have to diagram that sentence].

I had an idea of doing a monochromatic painting for a while. To produce my gray, i mixed ultramarine blue with some yellow ochre. Ultramarine blue is a very granular paint. I was surprised at how volatile it was on the paper but very pleased at the end result. About half way through, i began to become aware of the tone the composition was beginning to take-a  longing… a friend that no longer was. It wasn’t rooted in a specific memory but it was bound to a specific experience. My paintings often are, whether i want to admit it or not [and i usually don't].

And the title came to me: the last time i waited for her

So, this time i’m actually giving an insight as to where *I* came from in creating this composition. But please, don’t let me do you a disservice; find your own place in it. If it evokes something beyond and brighter than the place it came from, so much the better. If you find yourself relating and feel a faded thought worrying the edges of your memories, then perhaps you’ll see your next cup of coffee or listen to the rain or to the sound of cars driving on water slick roads with a bit more reflection.