Potential T-shirts (fun with photoshop)

So I'm due to make some new T-shirts and I have a bunch of ideas but nothing definite. Suggestions and comments are welcome, cause I really don't know what i'm gonna go with. 

I also don't know if some of these images can translate into a shirt (too many colors?)... anyway here's the first run of T-shirt ideas.

Sorry Slick

Enough of me rambling on about god knows what... how about a nice freshly finished sculpture. Weighing in at an easy 800-1000 pounds standing about 6'8 or so with a hand stretching up near 9 ft. His name tag reads Slick and he's in quite a lot of pain as he gets flattened by the cylinders of a Rolling Machine (used for putting curves in plates of steel and by no means to be messed with).  He cringes in front of the offices of Brakewell Steel only fifty or so feet away from the Dumpster Divers.  The sign reads "Office this way enter at your own RISK"

Insights on human dignity (internet marketing)

So I've had twitter for a little while now and I've come to regret the decision to walk down that road. I grow weary of it all. Even writing a blog and then sending out messages to let people know that I've written a blog and "hey, like, maybe you should go check it out" it all feels so forced. I mean what am I pushing here? I'm trying to sell my art and, it seems, to do that I have to sell myself.  Because regardless of who you are, it's very hard to sell art these days, whether your someone who has sold art for years or newly introduced to the art-world; it's tough. I don't think it really has to do with how smart or how great of an artist you are either... Now it's more about how well you can prostitute yourself on the internet or whether you know a really good pimp. That seems to be the fast-track to success. It used to be you were supposed to go from gallery to gallery and meet curators and get yourself into shows and then you'd might maybe strike it big. But now gallery's seem like empty vessels. Once full of life they are no longer the behemoths of the art world they once were. Now its all slick blogs and twitter followers and facebook fanbases. So to be a successful artist it seems one needs a degree in internet marketing. But I hate it. I just want to make sculpture for people who enjoy it. My mind is so full of sculptures I want to make, that I curse Time for the fact that it will prevent me from sculpting the limitless number of things I could conceivably create. But I can't just go out and sculpt all day without some sort of way of selling it. Not that I've ever sold anything through the internet anyway cause I'm no good at hyping myself up in the various places I would need to be hyped up in (word of mouth usually does it for me)....So why do I do this? Why do I continue to write entries on this blog and post links to it. Why do I succumb to these little social networks that feel inexplicably wrong and seem to feed on some sad primal urge to be heard at all times... Maybe it's because if I don't say anything I'm liable to explode and maybe I have the self indulgent artistic mind-set that wants other people to hear what I have to say, even if it is self-destructive. 

The Inescapable Need to Eat Your Vegetables

each word's a cacophony of unsung catastrophe 

thats pliable like taffy in the south american February 

hold strong on your haunches for cold wind blows resiliently 

and once aseptic hot-springs now house microbic artilleries  

it's a cyclical world which the truth points out pointedly 

so oil those hinges or you'll be walking disjointedly

the aspect of anger lives on chilly streets in Calgary 

as the termites chew holes in my cell wall refractory

now pass me that salad please

for leafy vegetables help with my allergies

This is me ranting and raving.

Whats going on with the world today. It rained like fifty fuckin days in a row this month. My summer has been soggy. I don't want a soggy summer,  I want overly hot beating sun that makes me appreciate the cold so badly that I only regret my wanting later.  But you know what, the grass is always greener. Let's get down on our hands and knees and inspect that grass why don't we?  Vibrant, greener, taller, shinier, seemingly glistening in the early morning dew and without fail on the other side of a freshly painted white picket fence. But do all these qualities make the grass better, is my wilting, somber, morose, dark green and occasionally brown, patched with dandelions and so called weeds... is it all that much worse. Or maybe we (and here I move into a sort of general 'we' conversational context) all just look at our own grass much more closely, we tend to idealized that greener grass. But have you ever stepped on that other grass, grass that seems to stand at attention, possibly in preparation to salute the all powerful spinning blades of it's Lord and Savior the Lawn Mower. Have you ever walked barefoot in it, crawled on your hands and knees and studied it? It's all sharp and jagged and feels something similar to a paper cut (I hate paper cuts) and you want to lie down in it but it scratches the back of your neck in a very uncomfortable way.  This green grass is not so great . It's all just a big chemical-y facade. I'm happier on this grass. But I've digressed from my non-linear rant and really I feel I should get back to it. 

The modern trend in Television... to watch people who are so miserable, so terrible, so awful, pathetic and shallow in every way that to watch their stupid melodramatic lives makes the viewer feel better about themselves. But to me that is oh so wrong.  Simply using these people as comparison is, in itself, a personal lowering... it's like take a portion of ones soul and placing it in the microwave.....  Movies these days... gimme a break, it's always the same seven clowns doing the same shtick in slightly altered context. Seth Rogan (et al.) and/or Will Ferral (et al.) add drug of choice, place in inherently stupid situation ( I.E. 70's era basketball, Mall cop, Ice skating, drug war, amatuer pornogrophay... you get the picture). Gimme something new something refreshing. And what the fuck kind of name for a James bond movie is Quantum of Solace it sounds like a biography about a lonely Physicist. 

More ranting later.

Get Conjunctivitis, I did!

Are you tired of groups of swarming people? Long hard work days? being hounded by colleagues and co-workers? Are you over stressed and under pressure and is everyone vying for your attention? Do you find people don't take you seriously anymore? Try new and improved Pink Eye! Thats right folks, Conjunctivitis! With this lovely little infection no one will want to be near you. You'll be pressed to take the day off from whatever job you have and you can easily excuse yourself from any hefty social obligations. Not to mention the unsettling nature of your new menacing red eye will make people not only listen to you but fear you in a similar way one might fear a rabid dog or an overly large spider.  But thats not all, you can also use the green gooey stuff that drips out of your eye at frequent intervals as a great adhesive for small household fixes! 

Pink Eye - All the cool kids are doing it!

Get yours today!

God I love being a sculptor (Part 2)

Metal is fun indeed, but she is an all consuming mistress. I can't even stress how stressed I am. Come to think of it I don't remember a time when I wasn't stressed.... nor do I remember a time when I wasn't working with metal (interesting...). Metal is pretty much all I know. Sure I can draw and clay model and make plaster molds (albeit poorly) but metal is no longer a material for me it's just a constant. Metal is pain and pleasure, it's work and it's distraction, it's freedom and confinement, Metal just is. Apart from maybe women and sports metal is pretty much all I think about (oh and food on occasion).

Maybe it's the artists temperament which keeps work constantly on my mind. Even when I try to relax or when something forces me to end my day early I am still constantly plagued by thoughts of what I could or should be doing. It's silly though, I know it is. I can't work all day, especially not in the metal industry.  This shit is heavy, I can't just pick up a sculpture and fix that little obtrusive weld on the underside. It's grunt work out there, but I'm a sucker for it. I am enraptured by the ultraviolet arc of a welding machine or the blue flame of a cutting torch,  even the smell of the air-born particles given off by a flap disc sanding wheel brings a smile to my face. 

Oh yeah, I've had injuries. I try my hardest to avoid 'em and  I've been pretty lucky, but I've had my share. I dug a deep trench into my thumb with a grinding machine,  I've cut half my knuckle off with a chipping hammer (more an act of stupidity than metalworking but I mention it regardless), I've burnt a line across my palm from a freshly forged piece of steel, I've had globs of liquid hot slag fall into my shoe creating quarter sized marks which turn red in the shower to this day, I've had incredible sun burn in the form of welders tan from the ultraviolet rays created by the arc hitting my exposed forearms, I've felt the feeling of sand being thrown in my eyes from catching one too many glimpses at aforemetioned arc... oh and lets not forget the numerous objects of clothing burnt to complete and utter worthlessness.  All the marks and burns and blackened cuts on the heat-weathered skin of my hands have become like a badge for me, similar to the way a wrestler might show off his deformed cauliflower-ear. And the funny thing is, I really can't even join in to those "hey check out this scar conversations".  My hands and arms don't actually scar. Sure at all times I have some raw pink flesh or a large scab but it usually blends in with the rest of my reasonably fresh cuts and bruises that I can't really place exactly where each one comes from and on the rare occasion I can place it, it usually means it was due to some act of overt stupidity that I'd rather not share. 

But when it comes down to it metal is sharp, heavy, hot, grueling, labor intensive, time consuming medium. Suffice to say I'm usually exhausted and hurting. 

And thats the easy part......