New Textures – Two Introductory Sets

When I was young I just wanted to make stuff for the pleasure of it. When I got older I was told that wasn’t a way to make a living.

I disagree. God made things for a living so I guess those people’s attempts to civilize me into a common worker bee never quite stuck because of my higher childlike “ideals”.

My parents were pretty good with supporting me through it. Mom is an excellent painter and Dad is a great musician. They weren’t like the other grown ups who usually attended school board council meetings. That is, they weren’t looking for a way to build a society – just looking for a way to raise great kids.

If more people took up their personal responsibility to raise their kids instead of handing their kids off to the village (idiots) to raise them, I think they would discover that children are important… they’re a joy… they bring back those squishy playdough, colored in fingerpaint, bruised knees from playing in the rocks moments. That imagination is never really lost – not completely, anyway – it’s just suppressed. And like a good expectorant, when you have kids that creativity just spits right back up!

Enjoy the free cave and art textures:
Cave Textures
Art Textures

The Looking Glass Zoo

During my time in high school doodles were constantly being drawn on the side margins of the class notes. This wasn’t unusual; many people doodled on their notes. However, a teacher saw the doodles and felt disturbed enough by them to call in a meeting with my parents. The doodles eventually stopped.

They weren’t doodles of any teachers, but rather of myself. More often than not the images resembled Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Why it’s considered art on a canvas and a psychological concern on notepaper is beyond me, but there you have it.

A few years later, at the university, these drawings started popping up again. This time I would cut them out of my notes and paste them or tape them in my diaries, which I kept for nearly ten years, and labeled them “The Looking Glass Zoo”.

Ignore the words in those years of entries. There might be a tidbit of wisdom here and there, but most of the words in the diaries aren’t really worth repeating. That’s a part of my past better left buried, only to be exhumed after my death when people can then discover how much of a jerk I was before I matured.

Since I’ve been getting back into art and drawing, I’ve gained an interest in looking back through these drawings and sketches – particularly for some raw ideas that never developed back then. I hope to document these images over time and improve upon them. The journaling is more reserved and in this digital form (the blog), which helps to keep me from writing some of the more libel thoughts and gives me a chance to edit the few I do post. I miss the handwriting, though. That’s something lacking on the web – too much type and too little personal handwriting.

Will Blog For Food

I love it when people blog and use the photography I post up on flickr. This has got to be one of the best uses of flickr around, and as long as people aren’t posting my silly mug up on posterboards or commercials without my consent I have practically no concern on the matter. Some of my photos have even been on pages supporting political groups that I don’t, but it was clear from the article that the photo was used to set a visual tone rather than to say that the photographer promoted the material.

The latest blog to use one of my photos is Alan Morantz’s Leading Thoughts. In this article he discusses how art can be used to develop leadership skills! Cool! That’s actually one of the reasons for the many photographs up on flickr and blogposts lately. I’m trying hard to learn a certain level of diligence that will hopefully lead to better leadership and organizational skills. I’m also trying to put something creative out there that can be used to enrich the world and bring happiness to others. I’m not good enough to make blogging or photography a full-time business, but someday I might learn some great hidden nugget of wisdom and become a world-renown motivational speaker to twelve-year-olds that will allow me to indulge in supplimenting the task with photography and blogs. Then again, reality tells me I should get back to work – lunch break is over!