Change of Subject

10.06.18

I am now ready to become much more serious and focused about the issues surrounding artmaking and creativity. I have spent plenty of time to date chronicling my personal difficulties, but this venue is worth far more as a vehicle for the expression of my larger ideas. What is driving me? Why do I feel the need to make these gestures and undertake these creative efforts? Why is all this important enough to deserve my energy and attention? Perhaps a little "journaling" here will provide some initial answers to these questions. I have become fully impatient with my preoccupation concerning health, mobility and my circumstances. It is what it is and there's more to life than bemoaning what once was and is no longer.

I have a grand opportunity (now!) to be as fully creative as possible and to take pleasure and satisfaction in the things I do. This is only in the actions I take, the pieces I make and has nothing to do with the eyes of any witness. I have been allowed to see the veneer of the life I thought I was leading exposed for the caricature it was, cracked and peeling away, unable to cope with the reality of this moment as I grasp my life's work with greater authority and confidence. There is a much deeper love for who I am and what I do now present in my awareness and it extends outward to embrace all things. I have great and special gifts to share and these pages offer such a perfect method of distribution.

I am my own publisher, editor, supervisor and critic. I am my own TruthSayer. In short, I am my own boss. So I schedule the work. I am acutely aware of the bread crumbs I've been leaving for myself as I develop this site, and it's not lost on me that my higher self has been directing things, even as my physical self was casting about, not sure where to go next. I see that I have material waiting in the wings that covers many of my previous endeavors, and that I have notions that are waiting as well to be fleshed out as images or polished up as verbal passages. It's all about building interesting content that speaks in unique ways to my particular experience. I intend that my work show itself now as more my own, less directly derivative of images and words to which I have been previously exposed. To that end, I declare myself freer than I have ever felt to look within, find the unexpressed and give it life.

In addition to my expanded conceptual liberties, I now also have a variety of tools with which to work - some of my software is now upgraded and some new programs are out on the market which are now ready for efficient and effective use, as was not so much the case in years past. There are also new components to OS X which can come into play. I am blessed to have many of these resources at my disposal as I set off with renewed, vigorous intention to exercise a more expansive brand of creativity.

The 3D work I have done up to now has been somewhat muzzled and ordinary, depending for its inspiration on client desires and requests. I love the work that the construction of forms entails, and I now intend to broaden the scope of my application of this particular tool, allowing my personal visualizations an opportunity to flower for their own sake. This is a real leap in my sense of purpose - one I have been hesitant to take, fearing my efforts could result in disappointingly mundane imagery. But my instincts are awakened to encourage me that this need not be so, that by conceptualizing first and then working toward a vision, with that vision as it takes shape, as it is realized, I will see the unique and the unexpected emerge. I have labored long and learned much in the service of payment and I now choose to give my issues voice, my visions form and my dreams life. Legitimacy does not depend upon financial return, nor further, upon a favorable regard from anyone external to the process. I alone confer legitimacy upon my efforts.

This is the sort of philosophy I espoused years ago as a younger man and it is high time that I returned to it. My work will now show the growth born of my commercial experience, but will increasingly break free of the predictable and the expected. All the technique I've acquired along the way can now serve a more esoteric purpose, as I allow commercial concerns to diminish in their importance and the magic of the creative process to come more to the fore. I won't prescribe a plan for future work, save loosely, and I only commit to following the directions of inspirations that come to me in a natural way, commanding my attention via their authenticity.

I still have a great affinity for the photograph and plan to shoot more images in the future. The small collection posted on this site comes from early in this decade during forays into the awesome natural environments found here in Oregon, using an early model Olympus digital camera. I will honor my future photographic works with better equipment and a more thoughtful approach to the effort, Yes, Oregon is visually grand, but my images have been, up to now, timid and predictable, and derivative of all the "nature photography" I have seen over the years. I owe this endeavor some serious thought for the future; I always had more on my mind than mere "pretty pictures," and it's time I got back to that level of involvement as well.

The aspect that most inspired me about the photographic art I produced in the mid 80's was the aesthetic of manipulation, both of the scene before the lens and of the print after the fact of the shot. That manipulation allowed me to refer to issues and ideas beyond the view of the camera lens with selective lighting, constructed/staged setups or arrangements and finally hand-coloring and/or airbrushing the final mural-sized enlargements. These pieces had a magic and presence that transcended the elemental components of the images. After 25 years, I feel I can revisit the conceptual roots of these early pieces with greater clarity of purpose and vision. They were often titled to allude to the metaphysical understandings I was developing at the time and I have now advanced my grasp of these concepts much further in scope and depth. It seems like it would be a rewarding effort to attempt to return to this work with the advances in the computer and image recording technology now available.

The giclée method of reproduction seems so very well-suited to this work, and the reduced cost of computer memory and processing power brings the production of large printed pieces within fiscal reach. I would also like to bring certain of my high-resolution negatives of 25 years ago to the digital age via high resolution scans and then execute large updated versions in Photoshop to be output as giclée prints. This may require a few steps to accomplish, but the path is quite clear and I can feel the work happening.

I've always had an interest in design, especially of form and dimensionality, I wanted to create animations and visual experiences as a child and adolescent. I have at my disposal one of the best tools for rendering and animating to complement the 3D modeling tool I mentioned above. The learning curve is steep, and I only scratched the surface of both these tools in the mid-90's, so I have much to digest spread out before me. I am assured to be engaged and not bored, and I have a sense now of my own uniqueness coming into play. The real beauty of the 3D work and subsequent animation is that it incorporates aspects of sculpture, painting, photography, digital technology, narrative and performance. This satisfies many of the desires I've had over the years for creative expression, so the route here is also very clear.

Of course, I have always had a great fascination with complex, larger and more ambitious productions - projects with numerous "moving parts." This website can serve as a prime example, integrating esoteric with practical, visual with verbal, commercial with personal and professional with philosophical. This site is still very much alive and on target to grow as the "bread crumbs" I've left would indicate. I am now beyond describing/bemoaning my circumstances and all about the things I can do. I have now changed the subject of both my written words and that of the conversation in my mind.