Wrap Up

My internship here at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts is coming to a close. It is sad but also a good thing, as I need to step out of routines and exercise my creative side elsewhere. This has been an incredible experience and I highly recommend the the people and the place as a spot to do art of all kinds. Here are a few new photos which are added to my set on Flickr. I will continue to post them as I finish processing.

This is an abstract layered image of tissue paper from the Valentine's Day Sale. It was done using GIMP and layering one tissue photo over the other with different layer modes like "overlay", "grain extract", and "soft light."

This was just fun. Courtney Henson, my boss here at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts does not know I've posted this. I hope she likes it. I've got it in several other colors as well, in a kind of Warhol-esque assemblage of parts.

Another layered piece created in GIMP.

I leave you with a smile; from a young customer at the Valentine's Day Card and Gift Sale.

The Fact Is

The fact is, I can write. But do I write? No, not usually. I guess merely because I haven’t made it a habit yet. It’s one of those build-up things, where, the more you do it, the more words come to you, until you’re off writing whole novels every month or so.

Writing can be competitive, like a sport. You can compete with yourself, or others. You can say “I’m going to write three sentences today.” Or you can go for four. You can have ambitions: “A novel is what I’m going to write today.” But that might be a little much to expect. Somewhere in the middle, in between a sentence and a novel, is both a reasonable expectation, and a slightly higher one, enabling you to expand beyond your limits.

There’s another call inside the writer; A call to sleep. If you don’t have any deadlines or people to hold you accountable, you may give in to that call. The ultimate sleep is death, and since you’re still alive at this point, you may as well toss some words around, to see what they look like.

Along with sleep comes depression. That nasty feeling like nothing you ever try will be worthwhile. A dread of expectations and responsibility creeps in like a fog. There is a desire to hide away from the world, to hibernate. Perhaps hibernation served our ancestors in the past. Now it simply adds to society’s definition of shame, the opposite of what an honorable, productive person exhibits. The shame adds to the depression and they fuel each other for a bit.

Luckily, I’ve never sunk so low that it was impossible to shove my way out. Others are not so lucky. Others are not so blessed. That I am blessed I have no doubt. There are (at least) two times I most certainly should have been crushed to death, but wasn’t. One was on the Quarterdeck of the USS Wasp (LHD-1). I was standing watch and went to relieve my shipmate who had stepped down from the gangway. I thought I heard my name and paused, turning. Just as I resumed my stride, a massive rolling, flattening machine drove by, a foot from my face. The other time I have no recollection of. I think it involved a car; I’m not sure.

As I think about the feeling of wanting to hide away, watch Netflix, and sleep, I am reminded of Dory, the little blue fish from Finding Nemo. When Marlin says he doesn’t want anything to happen to his son, she says “Anything? Well that would be kind of boring for the little guy, wouldn’t it?” or, something like that. And she makes a good point. We who carry all this fear inside of us think we don’t want anything to happen to us, well anything bad anyway. But is that really true? If you ever do get a chance to experience life with little to no challenges, no interruptions, no disruptions, tell me how long you can stand it.

Word-birthing

Check out Deb Roy's article on the research of how children learn their first words!
The Birth of a Word

I got into an argument with my professor last Monday about whether or not there is order in the world that is physically present, yet invisible. (For instance, the order of electrons, protons, and neutrons- this was present even before we had discovered it) The argument was based on Plato's The Republic, book VI. The other side of the argument, which I believe is the case, is that order is something we (humans) impose on the world. (electrons, protons and neutrons react and relate to each other, but they don't know they're called electrons, protons, and neutrons).

Honestly, I'm not even sure the above examples are relevant. All I know is I kept saying "Doesn't it seem obvious that when we categorize data, name it, change the names, change our expectations, our predictions, and our ideas, that this is us (humans) imposing order upon the world?" And he kept saying "Why? Why should it be, just because there is an incredibly large number of ways we can categorize things, that those categories, that order, isn't already present?"

I'm not sure if he thought I was saying "there is no order, only randomness" or if he thought the overall purpose or God would be thrown out if we admit we create our own order. I'm just not sure. I would have loved to discuss it with him. He gets so aggressive, so "prove it, prove it, prove it" that I end up crying. I guess my ideas mean a lot to me.

Anyway, I've gotten some great ideas in his classes over the years, and for that, I'm grateful. I'll have to share some more with you some time (if you won't yell at me). Ha!

One of my ideas is a dual way of looking at Darwin's Theory of Evolution (which I should probably read in its original form. Yikes!). One way, is looking at it like a process. A process of a few steps, that is set in motion, and achieves incredibly vast complexity. Start with a few amino acids, maybe some lightning, proceed with microbes, algae, etc. Each generation containing random modifications (mutations) and if they happen to enable that generation with longer life, or more reproductive capability, those modifications get passed on more often to even later generations. Everything combining, interacting, eating, reproducing. This process goes on and Bam! We have a world filled with an incredible variety of stuff, at nearly every point in time you look at it.

The other way I look at Darwin's Theory of Evolution, is more of a back-to-front way. I look at all the variety around us, and think of the theory as a label, an explanation. Something we can call all this life around us. Humans use labels and categories to more easily retain and process information. (my opinion) So here we have this world we're trying to make sense of, and there's stuff happening all around us, and we try to process it. We try to find the parts of it. But this is difficult, because we are a part also. Just as we can see a relatively small amount of things reacting to each other (salt and ice, for instance) there are larger, more complex things which react to each other. And larger, more complex things which react to smaller things, also (salt on a wound, for instance). So maybe it is the same things happening, the same process, the same stuff we have to put in a list somehow: everything combining, interacting, eating, reproducing. E-mailing.

Gorgeous Valentines at Shake Rag Alley

I was lucky enough to attend the Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts Valentine's Day sale event on January 26, 2013. I say lucky, because I came away with over twenty hand painted valentines for under $50. Now I have to find twenty people to send them to, but won't that be fun.
More Images

I'm here today to tell you about

I'm here today to tell you about anxiety. And clichés. We all know that "I'm here today to tell you about..." is a cliché. It's been said before. It will, most likely, be said again. But that's beside the point. Or behind the point, anyway. 

Let's talk about clichés. Clichés are our friends, right? Everybody knows what you are talking about when you say, "He rode off into the sunset." You get a mental picture in your head, usually involving the color orange and a large hat. So what better way to say it? He waltzed off into the sunset. (We can start substituting words one by one.) He jogged off into the sunset. He loped off into the sunset. Or how about "The man rode off into the sunset.", "The zygote rode off into the sunset." 

Change it up a bit. If it is an image not pictured here, it will make the brain work a little. And that's all we're asking for, a little brain workout. Nothing like Pilates, but a little more than hand to mouth.

Individual words, also, can be clichés. Take "the" for example. It's completely overused. "The brown fox jumped over the..." You know what I mean. Why not use a word like "ta"? Ta cake is in ta fridge, dear! Or "Ze." Add a smidge of Russian flare to your speech. Ze world is a global, don't ya know.

Anxiety. Let's talk about that now. Specifically, the anxiety of writing. If you are writing by hand, or picking like a hen (like it?) you have way too much time to think about what you are writing. The initial idea leaks out between thoughts of better phrasing, self-awareness, shame, and uncertainty. I say, just write it all! Why give yourself time to think and mess it up? Start writing, and don't stop until at least ten seconds have gone by (I mean minutes) and don't erae typos. Don't correct. Don't backspace your way out of your genius. We want it! We want to milk you dry!  Ok, that's a cliché. Don't correct them. Save, and put it away for a while. Congratulations! You've completed some writing. You're a writer. Yep, that's it. As an outstanding teacher in a great book once said: "A writer writes."

More Photos!

As an aside, these photos are registered under the Attribution Creative Commons License, so feel free to use them for personal or commercial purposes! These photos are but a few I have uploaded to the Shake Rag Alley Set on my Flickr page.