"52 in 52: A New Journey" September NEWS: Gallery Blu Show and 3rd in the Burg Show!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January:



January 8, 2011


"52 in 52: A New Journey" Blog Show at

The Paper Lion Gallery, 1217 Hummel Avenue, Lemoyne



YWCA of Carlisle, PA - Featured Artist












Saturday, March 27, 2010

Week 12: "Life, A Rough Draft"

Week 12: "Life, A Rough Draft"

In my life I have always searched for a way to re-invent myself, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  In my day job I am constantly revising, editing, and formating documents over, and over, and over, until a final document is complete.  I began to realize that we have a similar process to life.

From when we are first conceived until the day we die, our bodies, minds, and spirits are on a continuous cycle of change.  I have watched myself go through physical changes such as growing taller, hair growth, even down to the recycling of our life's blood.  Our bodies are always changing.  It's an amazing mystery to slowly watch a child grow from almost nothing, into a full grow person.  

The physical, mental and emotional re-formating can be intense and horrifying at the same time.  Over many years I have gone through many versions of the man that now writes this blog.  As I start to see changes in the way I think about myself, others, and the world in general, I find myself making more and more edits to how I process these incoming changes.  

After saying all that, I have come to a point where even if at times I don't like it, I'm never going to be a finished product.  I will never be a perfect image, ready to be displayed to the masses.  I believe, like reincarnation, that each time I make majors changes to my own documents of life, it's for a reason, a way to learn. The man inside, that writes this blog now, is not even the  same man on the inside that started this blog.  As I look now forward onto the new revisions of my life that lay ahead, I always hope that I will remember to "Dot my I's and cross my T's", and that life itself is not a final copy, but a constant rough draft.


Note: To See the picture up close, just click on the image.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Week 11 - Meditation On A Fantasy




Week 11 - Meditation On A Fantasy
Over my life I have constantly been a day dreamer. As people have said I have always had my head in the clouds.  With the recent burst of spring that we have been having, how could I not.  With the sun shine spreading its light onto the earth around me, I have been finding myself more and more in a state of imaginary bliss. 


Society, the "they" of the world, say that someone that day dreams is not dealing with reality. If their heads are always in the clouds they are not serious, or that they are missing out on life.  So while in one of my day dreams I pondered this thought.  Is day dreaming, or as I feel getting out of ones self, such a bad thing?  At times we have so much mental garbage being pushed around inside our heads that it becomes oppressive.  We have insecurities about ourselves and our lives that it strangles our thoughts, our creativity, and suffocates our soul.  I find that day dreaming for those brief moments a complete freedom of one's self.  Getting lost in those "out of worldly" seconds cleanses my mind of that self-oppression. 


Around the world different religions and cultures use similar methods of mental cleansing, prayer, astral projection, chanting, and meditation. Yet these are acceptable because they are done in specific places and times, why not day dreaming.  Its human nature to drift from thought to thought, why stop that process.  So I say to everyone take some time and sit in meditation on a fantasy.  Happy day dreaming.    

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Week 10: "Like a Child, I Like To Spin"

Week 10: "Like a Child,
I Like To Spin"
Two weeks ago, someone commented on my blog, wanting to see something that I love. Most of the time with my paintings I use as a type of therapy. A way of digging deeply into the inner emotions of my day to day life. So for me to sit and grasp one specific thing that makes me happy was difficult. Yet there was one thing that kept popping into my mind.

When I was a child I used to spin around and around, and around. While I did, I watched the world blur, blend together, become indescribable.  For those first few moments I let go of my childhood insecurities.  I released the hold on myself and on the reality of the world around me. For those brief seconds I felt free. I felt one with the wind that I could not see, but could feel. I felt one with something greater than myself.

Now as an adult, secretly, I still try to recreate that feeling, when no one is looking of course. In my life I have trouble letting go, and just being loosing that vise like grip on reality.  As I grew up the amount of time I am able to allow myself to spin is smaller and smaller. I believe that its because I have a fear of I letting myself spin, and spin, and spin until I loose focus of 
something grounded, and not realize that I'm falling. 

But the answer to the question of what is something that I love comes down to one simple answer. Like a Child, I Love to Spin and spin and spin and spin...




Saturday, March 6, 2010

Week 9 - "Soul Freeing"

Week 9 - "Soul Freeing"
 
Recently someone that I just met asked me a question. What makes me feel free? That question hit a chord with me. What  makes me feel uninhibited, unbound, or unguarded?  

My first thought was to give a normal stock answer, "Going hiking and looking out from the top at the world below."  Even though I find that physically freeing, it does nothing for feeling emotionally free.  

It is said that when we hold secrets, it weighs heavy on our heart and our soul.  I feel that sometimes in our modern society we expect each other to keep ourselves guarded and not, as the world says, "show weakness".  How can showing your emotions to someone, letting go of secrets that anchor us down, be a sign of weakness?  Over the last few years, I have learned that releasing those thoughts, talking about them, or shining a light on that darkness helps to free myself of those shackles that put my soul on lock down.  The funny thing is, I never feel weak after that.
 I feel strong.  I find it amazingly uplifting, almost weightless.  

Through my art, and with the added help of this blog, I expose those feelings as they come.  Basically, putting my burdens on a extremely strict emotional diet.  With each secret I shed, I don't find myself becoming weaker, but my soul becoming free.