you carry your demons well

 

 

 

 

 

So, I'm really proud to be able to finally post this comic (I was struggling to title it, and then just hadn't scanned the title page yet). Usually, I say that about posting comics that wind up in anthologies, or that a cool little printed version of this will be available at the next show I'm doing (which in this case is true), but this time it's for a completely different reason. For a very long time, I had (and somewhat still have) very strong feelings about things I did or didn't do, and the person I wasn't able to be and the one I shocked myself at being capable of becoming. It really started impeding on my life and my art, and this comic is kind of my way of laying it all to rest. I wanted to be clear about that, and be clear that in sharing it, I'm not trying to convince others that your guilt is always going to win out, don't let it; I just know we all have things we'd rather not have on our permanent record, and you're not alone. You can think everyone can can read it on your face, you think you're the worst thing that ever happened to someone (even yourself), you can think you're past doing any good, but you're not. Consider this a frog-blood-covered hand* to pull you out of the muck, because I swear, more people than you know have been there, and want to help you, so whether it's talking to a friend, seeking professional help, or drawing a comic, you deserve to help yourself up.

*super important note: I, in  no way, condone killing other people or animals for any reason. I am not a frog killer, it's an extended metaphor.

**less important note: I am not going to start turning my comics into some sort of quasi-sermon, promise. Still silly old me, who else could write this with St. Vincent's 'Surgeon' coming up on shuffle in the background and start giggling?

part two:dishes

Okay, so between having a life, the internet being temperamental, and my computer spazzing out, I have yet to finish my Boboli Gardens Series. Well, have no fear, because, I'm on it. A probably lesser gawked at part of the gardens is the silver museum, which basically means "ridiculously ornate plates and such" as opposed to all actual silver items, and I suppose it is the sort of thing that most people's grandma's drag them in to view, but I not-so-secretly love looking at this sort of stuff. They're super-detailed, painstakingly gorgeous, and essentially JUST TO EAT OFF. Like think about that, once upon a time, that was just for someone fancy to place their fancy snack on whilst entertaining some other fancy person. And that's what a chunk of the people whom are nowadays making all sorts of cool art would be doing: putting all their love and energy into: a plate that only the fanciest of the fancy could even see. So while on one hand it's really great that all this attention was paid to making every little thing beautiful, it really makes me grateful for the modern age. Plus, did I mention there's a bug-themed bowl? Like a bowl based off the things you don't want in your bowl?!

obviously, no one ate off this

see? what'd I tell you? bug bowl!

texture study/tide over

Alright, so I got a good load of work done on new comics yesterday in a little cafe where either they had a very short playlist on loop or it was a legitimately 30minute long rap song with a very strange dubby breakdown halfway through (yes, I feel the need to destroy all your conceptions of a charmingly quaint classy Florence..furthermore I may have been semi-kicked out for bogarting a corner table for almost two hours while only buying one drink..) Anyway, I ended up drawing far past the time I could go scan something, so ya'll are going to have to wait. In the meantime, enjoy this doodle I did at the same time of different textures/organisms I've been messing around with a bit.

Ciao. Io devo studiare Italiano aora perche non parlo o scivo molto buono  perche non sono brava de ricordo lingua straneri e fa un esame domani. (I think I just said "bye, I have to study Italian now because I don't speak or write very well because I am not clever at remembering foreign languages and I have an exam tomorrow.)

roar

So this is a little book-type thing I made in 2009 that I just had returned to me yesterday. It was for a creative writing course, and I had turned it in with my portfolio and apparently the professor had been cleaning up her office and found a lot of unreturned portfolios. So I thought I'd post it, just because while it's very rudimentary, it kind of was the last thing I did that lead me into really deciding that maybe making comics what what I really needed to do ...because I did shit like this all the time and then thought, "you know, if I put a little more effort into it, maybe this stuff could be something". Also, it folds out so that you don't see the next page until you're done with the page you're on and was made using all 100% post-consumer recycled materials (looking over the in class comments that were also in there, these seemed to be things people really liked that these pictures don't get across.

finger is kind of casting a shadow over the word "she" in case you couldn't read it

this is what happens when I have too much coffee

Between normal life, making fliers, working on my Halloween costume, and getting some pieces ready for a publication my friend's putting together, I am creatively tapped out, so sorry if my posts are skint in the next week or so. However, this popped in my head and I had to get it on paper and on the interwebs.

just a little something to keep me occupied

Okay, so in past posts, I've been letting some of my more 'controversial' beliefs come up and then each time saying "Oh I won't do that again, I don't want to alienate anyone", but here it goes again. Here's a poster I did for Occupy Walla Walla! Yes, unlike OWS, we won't be camping out for weeks (at least not at this point) and we're in a little nowhere town, but that's just the point:our voices are valuable because we want to use them for some rational discussion about the state of our town and nation. That want, and acting on it, is not "extremist" or "disruptive" or "anti-American", in fact it is one of the most American things we can do to share our opinions, draw attention to our grievances, and work together to try and come up with solutions. Every "Occupy" event has its own way of doing things and its own meaning, and it just so happens that ours involves an optional potluck and jam session. So if you're in Walla Walla on Sunday, stop by. Whatever your opinions are, we'd love to hear them. Or check out occupy together to find an event near you.

Also, I'm posting it just like I post other posters/flyers I do, as a functional appropriation of all the doodling I do..think the guitar turned out great on this! (there's also a Spanish version of this floating around, also by me, layout and content is essentially the exact same thing.)

workspace

Okay, so I took a few days off, in which I meant to get a lot done (which if you count catching up on over a week's worth of sleep in the past 4 days, watching a lot of movies and tv shows, and making serious head way on my Halloween costume a lot, then I did. Spent the first half of today cleaning/organizing my place, got very stressed out (it's always emotionally jarring for me when it gets the the time of year where I have to put away the shorts to make room for sweaters) and so I did what I usually do when I get all yucked up, I put on a good record, spend the A side just lying down, thinking calm and happy thoughts, and then when it's time to flip the record, I get up and do something. In this case, Wilco's A.M. and drawing. And then i realized that my room right now might be the best creative space I've ever had. It's kind of spacious (bigger than my old place but not too big), colorfully decorated, and just a little bit on the chilly side (if I get too warm I just fall asleep). So here are some pictures of where my brain does its thing (some product of this space to be posted later tonight, early tomorrow).

Yes, I do ofttimes pull the little extra-space board out of the desk and use it as a giant clipboard. And yes that is not Wilco's A.M., it's Belle & Sebastian's The Boy with the Arab Strap..good job that one guy who thought he'd caught the vinyl incongruity in this post.

everybody wants to save the world

And sometimes, it's rather easy. Sure, maybe there's a protest (or ten) you're too far away from to partake in, maybe you haven't managed to make yourself carbon-neutral, maybe your cape just isn't back from the drycleaners yet. But you know what you can do? You can sign this petition for the Sierra Club to help them get permanent protection for the Arctic Refuge. And yes, I know, I don't usually use my blog like this, but I was asked to make a pledge for how many signatures I thought I could get, and well, I really aimed um, ambitiously. So please help them save an important threatened habitat and help me not let them down by filling in tori holder in the bottom two fields where it asked who referred you.  Thanks a million, and I promise I won't make (too much) of a habit of this.

because this lil guy unfortunately can't stand up for himself, otherwise we wouldn't need petitions

hey-hey-look-at-me / please pick up after your dog

So today I made the occasionally wretched trek over to the internet, checked my email, logged onto facebook and twitter (btw, if you read this and are like "oh I want to friend her" please don't, I only friend those whom I am actually friends with and then feel bad deleting the requests of those people who are like "be my friend person who doesn't know/can't recall me"...I am pretty good at checking out my twitter followers and comments here, so if you'd like to forge a fake friendship with me that way, do it to it!) But after deleting the requests of the people I didn't know, noting that my kinda-sad number of followers remained the same, and then getting into one of those little chat conversation things with a friend of mine about some new artwork he posted, I just got that ennui internet feeling, which turned into an almost revelation. Because in the conversation, I'd said something to the effect of "looking at other people's creative productivity makes me feel like I'm pretty much awful" and Sam was like "stop your self-deprecating bullshit, it's annoying" (except that he's far too nice so it was probably full of kind and cutesy words no one really uses, by the way you should go to the "rad places on internet" tabn after reading every single post here and find his blog's link, so you can look at something, you know, good) and isn't it just the same way with social media, blogs, or even the frequency of your phone rings.. just because you're (and by all you-terms, I mean me) not the most popular, famous, competent, talented person in the universe; well, there must be something grievously wrong with you, isn't there? I mean, why aren't people hanging on your every word like any insert-name-here you can think of? And then you realize how utterly dumb you sound. So that's it, I'm me, you're you, and I will do my best to be a better person pretend you're important if you do the same.

Unrelated in every way here's a little piece of paper on the side of the table while taking time off the computer drawing, I apologize for the poor quality...I love drawing lightly in pencil, but my scanner hates it.

Walla Walla

"And on the way home held your camera like a bible
just wishing so bad that it held some kind of truth

And I stood nervous next to you in the darkroom
you dropped the paper in the water and it all begins to bloom
and they go wild..yeah, they go wild"
-Bright Eyes, Old Soul Song (For The New World Order)

Gah, you know I'm not a quote-y type and generally I think the more you try to sound smart/poignant by using one, the more cliche it seems, but that is one of my all-time favorite songs about photography and it just fit well here. I am rapidly approaching the point where I move the "you are here" sticker on the map down about a thousand miles, and so I am starting to miss this little place, and just had the last meeting of my photo class, and it was just sad, and I thought back to my final reviews for the class (earlier this week) and something I'd said about photography and what it is to me in regards to the fact that no matter what I photograph it has this old nostalgic feeling. I love the sense of intimacy photographs can give you, with a person, with a place, anything. Because you get to hold a fraction of a second forever. A place as it was today will not be the same in ten years. People will change, things will get lost and destroyed. But more than that, you will never feel the same way as you did taking that picture, the way you love, you hate, you fear, you act indifferent, is always changing. And feelings manage to develop themselves onto images too. So this is a bit (some of the printed but not yet posted) of the way I felt about Walla Walla these past few months.

As it happens to be, I haven't really lived coherenly yet

I was going to blather on about where that came from, and how it relates to everything and blah, blah blah. but I have had too much blah blah blah from myself lately. So just enjoy these drawings, all of which are 2-3 years old at least (found them while looking for something else).

In other news, working on a new comic today and going to the darkroom after this, feels good. As always, stay tuned...


Oh and happy Easter. Go find some eggs or something.