Revival of the drawing game

The other day John Pomeroy and I engaged in a time honored tradition that I had neglected for too long...THE DRAWING GAME!! For those of you who may not know the rules it goes a little something like this: one person draws a squiggle, and the other person has to make something out of it. Then the other person squiggles, and so on ad infinitum. Its roots lie in the surrealist excercise "The Exquisite Corpes" but it was adapted for easy play by lazy kids, for those times you really need to check out...like PE, which is when it was taught to me. It is like the kegels of the creative muscle. The other person presents you with a problem, and you must draw your way out of it. Really expands the mind man.

Here's what I did at work today...

Being a projectionist at a movie theater means no matter how hard you bust ass, there will always be downtime. I've taken to carting my ink pot, pens, and a brush to work to fill the void with something a little more productive. I like sitting up in the booth like a hermit. The projectors rhythmic chatter lulls me into a trance state and I am free to make with the drawing, at least until the shows are over and I have to do my job. Here are the two I hammered out today. While I was up there ruminating I realized color can fuck off and die. Everything I want to say is done so far more eloquently in black and white. The ink is simple and responsive, but still has that element of surprise when it does it's own thing and I am forced to deal with it. I always think (and maybe erroneously) that you aren't a real artist if you don't paint. Well I think I officially don't like painting. Or maybe I didn't take enough color theory as a student or I shouldn't have dropped out of that intro to painting class (even though the teacher made me feel like a total asshole when he said he liked mine because it looked like I didn't know what I was doing). I think I will always do it as some kind of perfunctory effort to "be an artist." But my true love is one clean white sheet of paper and a pen.

The perilous journey to 5am

The routine lately is this: go to work, come home, sit on the couch, have a Popsicle or two...then come 1am or so, descend to my lair to begin a night of endless paint squishing and ink splattering, and if I'm lucky...hacking things to bits with an exacto knife. It feels good to sit and work for a few hours uninterrupted by the nagging of life during daylight hours. Its easier to get in to the zone when I know everyone else is sleeping, the weird is more at liberty to come out and wander. However, it is inevitable that all perspective will be lost when you're in the middle of an all nighter. The sun starts to come up and you realize the thing you've been slaving over looks like it was made by a 10 year old, and there is only 2 square inches of the damn thing that is worth saving. I've made things and fallen in love with them, but those always feel like an anomaly. Like maybe the brush was possessed or I was, and it was some kind of lucky mistake. Maybe if I stay awake long enough...It reminds me of an incident many years ago when I was working on some painting or other in to the wee hours, holed up in the greenhouse of my family home. I took a step back to consider the mess I had made and was feeling like giving up, when I had a really vivid auditory hallucination. This gravely male voice demanded "KEEP WORKING!" It scared the shit out of me, so naturally I fled and left the painting for the next day. Upon reflection it was probably due to the close quarters and the incredible amount of turpentine I was unwittingly inhaling. But the sentiment still rings true. If I smear enough paint around, that lucky mistake will have time to happen. Until then, I'll keep my day job.

Echo And The Bunnymen Seven Seas

In celebration of figuring this son of a bitch out! Not that it is that monumental a victory for all of mankind, but after last nights tussle with Wordpress, I was damn near throwing the computer out the window and wandering off in to the night. Instead I wandered upstairs and ate an ice-cream sandwich...I leave you with all that saved me from imminent madness.