The interim...

People really just don't appreciate negative space anymore

-Michael Owen Jones

So since I've returned from California I've been kind of bored. I'm working on house renovations and doing this T-shirt thing... but neither of those things seems to be all that consuming. In fact the T-shirt thing I just came up with because I needed something to do and maybe I could raise some money (though a limited run of a couple T-shirts is about as far from a get rich quick scheme as it gets). The weather is still sporadically shitty and I'm still fairly cooped up in my rural locale; a cause for much turmoil. Add to that the highly limited social life of being in a place where very few college educated 20 somethings want to be. Of course things will pick up as the soggy countryside dries out; like when I start playing soccer with the Spanish speaking chicken and duck farmers; and when I finally get back to work! But at the moment it's still just me aimlessly perusing social medias... editing things on photoshop... occasionally going on a run... watching old movies... trying to get through War and Peace.... and not much else. It's pretty rough.

As a metal sculptor the work season is fairly grueling. The work isn't easy, it's demanding, it's unhealthy, and most of all it's all consuming. I haven't really made anything in like two months and it's really getting under my skin. Of course once the intense metal work begins I generally look forward to a nice long respite period that comes with finishing some sculpture or another. The human condition is a bitch. But in actuality I'm happiest when I have burn marks all up my arms, when my fingers are all calloused and raw, when my face is smeared with dirt and my forehead has the impression left by the overtightened welding shield. And sure I complain and I moan about how tough and how much work I have to do, but it's only natural (everyones a martyr right).

I think the real judge of (artistic) character is not how well one maintains when the work is flowing in and things are busy, but how resolutely they deal with the interim periods, the negative space.