ATTENTION!

This blog has been migrated successfully to Word Press. Please bookmark the new link!
I will leave this one active for awhile, but all new posts can be found at:

http://electrofork.wordpress.com

thank you.

grrr

Here is my big secret:
I haven't done drawings on a regular basis for many years, aside from fits and starts. False starts-- or re-visitations. As a result, I can no longer draw anything unless I've seen it, or worse: unless I can see it-- in reality, or in a photograph. I've lost my ability to add or subtract from reality with ease- on a whim. It's crippling, as an artist who once invented things at the drop of a hat. But, it's simply a lack of exercise. (That's how you lose your chops- you stop doing scales, and you stop exploring.)

I tend to blame 'design'-- that my career in design has precluded my drawing, my explorations. But that's an excuse. The real reason is fear- you get far enough away from something, and it gets harder to go back. Or, more importantly, to go forward.

Well, hello 2009. I am drawing again this year. Goddammit!
Started tonight, and it wasn't easy (but then, that's my main problem. I've come to expect- or at least want- everything to be easy.) Here's Paris:

Overheard in the ether

Two things in rapid succession that meshed nicely (and made me smile):

An excerpt from an online column: "Well, that whole faux-happy moment [in our culture] appears to have expired. So you are right where you should be: full of trembling and dread, eyes wide open, unable to filter out the chaos of reality."

Followed by a snippet of conversation from an old tv show:
Adult: "How did your stream of consciousness thing go... What did your teacher say?"
Child: "She never says anything. She just checks to see if you did it."
Adult: "Well-- then how do you know if you're doing it right?"
Child: "You don't. You're just supposed to keep doing it."

Those two things are rather a good summation at the moment, hey?
Maybe at all moments. You just keep going.

Electro Fork available in Germany

Year of construction: 1994 load-carrying capacity: 2000 kg unloaded weight: 680 kg of battery: 24V battery Gew: 292 - 329 kg (depending upon load) fork length: 1200 mm of operation hours: 1338h factory No.: 145E11493620 Battery charger and battery participate. The mass are LxBxH: 2300 x 800 x 1300 mm

The data are mechanically translated in the english language. Translation errors are possible. No guarantee for printed data and pricing.

1.000 EUR plus VAT

(none)

Here I sit wasting time; a google search for tuckamore (Tuckamore are spruce trees that are stunted by salt spray from the coast) then led to an image search for ice boats (eisyachts, too) which naturally led to images of houses in snow. From there is was only natural to narrow the search down to the Moomin house in snow, and I learned of some Tove Jansson books of which I'd never heard (A Winter Book, The Summer Book)... Perhaps it isn'y exactly wasting time, but it certainly doesn't feel very productive.

It's time to do some drawing or designing. Or both.

drops

In the kitchen, rain is falling on the skylight-- a comforting midwinter patter; a perfect song (if you get to stay inside). It's bright outside, dark inside, and I'm wearing a Grinch-green sweater. Reading the news to procrastinate, and wondering why I'm procrastinating at all.
I've actually looked forward to these slow days of early January; days with plenty of time to get the work done and have hours remaining for other creative endeavors. Yet here I sit, puttering about with intangibles.
I think the puttering is itself an "other creative endeavor," though it's hard to convince myself of it.

I am easily daunted by lists of my own making.

welcome, new year.

A Sunday afternoon of puttering. Lovely!
Briefly interrupted by the realization: Network Solutions still holding my domain name hostage! (I thought I'd transferred it over a year ago.) My ongoing lease for said ephemeral domain lapsed December 29. Never having acknowledged my change of email (they had one on file from over ten years ago), received no warnings of impending digital homelessness. Now, having shelled out ridiculous fee for renewal, I once again must employ ancient fax technology to prove I am myself, then once again attempt to disavow them of electrofork.com once and for all.

:: sigh ::

Back to puttering.

Oh, also: Apologies to all who may have been expecting an electrofork calendar for 2009; the novel rather undermined my hopes-- but next year, next year! Fitting, anyway, to start up again for 2010. A nice round number.