Incommunicado

Lately I have had great trouble in making myself do much of anything that involves communication technology, be it computer or phone.  Apart from Sparky, it's been very hard to make myself do so much as send a simple text message, much less call someone.  Not that I've had to much, of late.  By email I only correspond with one person, and he finally sent another email asking what was going on since I hadn't responded to his last email in quite some time (weeks probably).  Even that took me three days to respond to.

To be fair, those three days were pretty busy.  Highlighted by Saturday, when I went to Epcot with Sparky, Sparky's mom, Sparky's mother's friend, and Sparky's mother's friend's daughter.

I feel a bit guilty here for making that seem much more crowded and complicated than it really was, but it was rather fun to build upon each level of acquaintance.  There were five of us, and we've done stuff together before.  This was no different except it was all day (a very long one, but very fun) and involved two two-hour drives, as well as insufficient road signs.  It's just wrong to have a sign for one road at every single intersection for a while then to suddenly stop mentioning it.  Makes you think you missed it.

But oh well, we all had fun, and we all got home in one piece.  The photo was taken there, in what was the best section of the whole park in my opinion.  No rides there, but that was perfectly ok for me (although I do love the rides, and was wishing for an all-out roller coaster).  The only point of contention for me (apart from crowds and prices) was knowing a bit too much about certain things than is good for someone trying to enjoy an educational ride.  Partly out-dated animatronics, partly artistic liberty unchecked by scientific fact.  That and the fact that it was so incredibly euro-centric that it wasn't even worth a joke about.

I have once again strayed from my point.  Let me just wind it up because this whole anti-communication thing is kicking in again.  It's been getting harder and harder to do these blog posts lately because I just haven't felt like doing anything about it.  Possibly part of that part is that I'm doing enough art-work that I'm getting my creative fix.  Who knows.

This is amusing though.  I just clicked the spell checker included in the blog editing mumbo jumbo magic box that I type and things appear on the blog page (which does not like for you to type more than two or three letters while it's on, it cuts you off), and it isn't nearly as good as the Safari (or is it just the Mac itself maybe?) spell checker.  Namely "ok" and "animatronics" were picked up by this thing, while the Safari (web browser) knew they were ok.

One last note.  I am very proud of myself for being able to type animatronics correctly on the first try.

The Beggar King

This is the story of Ralph: The Beggar King.

Ralph was born Prince Ralph of the Land of Junk.  After the death of his father, he became King Ralph.  Soon, however, the evil Old Man of the Mountain (of old AOL CDs) took over the Land of Junk, and deposed Ralph, stripping him of his finery.  All he was allowed to retain was the following: 1 royal sceptre, gold, 1 begging cup, 1 crown, gold, 1 royal pendant in the form of some kind of shiny tool of unknown purpose, and his tattered cape with the words "Danger: Dad at Work" emblazoned upon the back.  He wasn't sure that emblazoned was the right word for something printed on a t-shirt, but it had a nice ring and sounded appropriate when describing his cape.  Now, Ralph is the Beggar King, reduced to begging for spare change at the side of the road.  He is no longer capable of standing upright, and simply sort of squats, bent over nearly double as he pleads up tot passers-by, which he incidentally insists on referring to as passer-byers, asking for spare change.  His dream is to one day rise up and reclaim the throne of the Land of Junk, or at least to save up enough change to buy a pair of shoes.

Hey, I said I'd give you a story with the head shot, I didn't say that it would be a good one.

Link and Michael: Hypocrites on Ice!

At least that would be the title if they made a figure skating version of this, which would completely and utterly fail.  If you haven't read the previous post, scroll down, read it, then come back to this one.  I'm not going to go back and recap, nor do I want to just tag this onto the end of it because that would both change the date on it and rob me of this fun chance to title something "Hypocrites on Ice!"  So there!

I know I said that I was refusing to work on the sculpture until I fixed the problem or until daylight.  I lied, as it turns out.  After trying to sleep, Link and I gave up (or rather I did and he woke up to join me) and went out there anyway.  As it turns out this was a wonderful thing despite an inadvertent decapitation.

I'll get to that.

The sculpture went from being a sort of frog man to a Beggar King.  He also went from being about three and a half feet tall to my height, if not a touch taller.  So let's call it 6' or so, maybe an inch or two shorter.  He's no longer a squat, awkward thing, but a dynamic, comical (he makes me laugh looking at him) character with a back story.

The back story will get its own blog with a picture of him.

Of course, there is the decapitation incident... in the process of attempting to give the king his cape, I dismantled part of his back, which rocked the not-yet-firmly-secured sculpture.  In a horrifying instant, his head and neck came tumbling off of his (for lack of a better term) neck stump.  The main part of the neck was reattached, but his entire lower skull was broken off.  That has been bolted on, more securely than it was to begin with actually.  His crown was also reattached after flying off.    But long story short, his cape is attached, and everything up to the neck is ok, and his head is sitting on the floor waiting for more JB Weld to attach it to his neck (once that's secured a bit more).

Meanwhile, in the yard...

Lincoln was absolutely loving all of this activity, and seems to have missed my working in the studio (I've been sick, so I've been saying in), and kept dashing around the yard, keeping the motion lights on most of the time in the process.  Of course, to make sure I was properly awake to do all of this work (a good two and a half hours of it) I ended up having three cups of coffee, so I was/am pretty buzzed as well, so we did a good bit of chasing around (remember, I have to recharge the creativity!).  To be fair, part of the time was spent staring up at the stars, and wishing the motion light would go off so I could see better.  But it was a great view of Orion, so I was happy.  Bit chilly, but I like that, and a warm cup (and another and another) of coffee was very pleasant on such an evening.  Then the dog would come up, challenging me to a game of tag/chase/jump/attack-the-hand and that would end that.

So now here I am, basically at 3:30, having had three mugs of coffee since 12:30.  Rather awake.  So I guess I'll take a shower and then settle in for a movie, and hope to get this song by the Eagles out of my head.  Love them, but their songs do stick easily for me.

Artish Ramblings

Being an artist is fundamentally weird sometimes.

For one thing, at least most of the artists I know are somewhat unable to "turn off" their artist brains for any worthy length of time.  This involves fighting the urge to go out to a studio on a cold night to work on something that you know you just need to wait a few more hours to work on so the adhesive has time to properly set.

For another, it's hard to know when to stop.  It is very easy to ruin an artwork by simply working more on it.  Most people have trouble understanding that, but it's really simple.  Ever see things that are just too complicated for no reason?  Someone just couldn't stop.

The other weird thing is the whole creative process.  Few jobs exist where it is legitimately useful to sit down and do nothing about a project, to simply relax, focus on something else, or at least just sit there doing nothing of any import.  Because otherwise you burn out and cannot make anything worth more than a buck fifty at Walmart.  Not to devalue Walmart's merchandise, but it really is cheap mass produced crap.  But they are the only ones who seem to carry a really good glue, so I'll be headed back there one of these days.

Anyway, the point is, I'm only typing all of this to talk myself out of going to my studio to work on a sculpture that I need to let set for a while, partly for the adhesive, partly for the creative process.  And partly for my nerves.  It's frustrating when you fix a problem and then cause it again by being careless.  So until I figure out another solution, or at least until it's daylight again, I need to take a break from it.