project nu-shed, (more) foundational fun with circular saws edition

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With the addition of another three cubic yards of No. 57 limestone, managed to make a hill somewhat level (yesterday) and built a retaining wall on three sides (today). The thing isn't necessarily pretty, but it's keeping the precious 57 in (fingers crossed that it does so when NuShed takes its place onstage) – and I used all reclaimed wood from inside the original shed to build it. Waste not, etc etc.

lots of gravel in a stage for incoming nushed. looks like giant kitty litter.
limestone and wood retaining wall

Next up: more limestone transport from driveway to shedstage, and then waiting until 19 July for NuShed delivery and crossing fingers that wall doesn’t give way in the meantime.

two notes from the two minutes I was able to stomach

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  • I love Joe and will vote for him again, but this was an unmitigated disaster and will, unfortunately, forever leave a shitstain on 3.5 years of more or less great work as president. He either needs to overhaul his entire campaign apparatus, from the top down, or bow out. Status quo is a no-go.

  • The Tumor just spent weeks in a criminal courtroom forced to not gesticulate or make a face listening to people rip him apart for eight hours a day. How anyone in Bidenworld missed that that would make a splitscreen debate easier for him is political malpractice of the highest degree.

exploring

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At the risk of sounding like a TED talk circa 2010-12, I've been relabeling my working time as "exploring time," a distinction from previous iterations of I: instead of being a writer or working on a project or learning to draw, cartoon, whatever, I'm exploring writing, exploring drawing, cartooning, zine-making, what have you. Part of it is a removal of a should / must / have to aspect of my creative practice instilled in me not only by my music conservatory background (that uniquely creative form of Catholic guilt) but by viewing my practice as a means of escape for parts bigger and better and what have you. As my brief bio says, "Among other things, I write": this is my way of freeing myself to explore those other things sans guilt or have to / must / should.

project nu-shed, foundational edition (gravel dump one)

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Since yesterday, we’ve transported and spread the first three cubic yards of gravel (No. 57 limestone; I've no clue what the other 56 varietals are like), with another three cubic scheduled for delivery tomorrow. Underestimated how much of a hill we had to build up. Not bad for it being less than three weeks since the first slices of demolition with a little more than three weeks to go until NuShed's arrival.

NuShed frame surrounding dirt.
NuShed frame surrounding dirt but with some gravel

Chris Ware on (lack of) perspective

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I avoid the use of perspective because I don’t think it effectively translates the way we remember physical space into the two-dimensional form of ­comics. Isometric projection, which keeps coordinating axes at the same degree, seems to key in to my felt memory better than any mass of as-seen conflicting angles does. Japanese narrative art embraced this approach thousands of years ago. Plus, perspective simply makes the page a mess, and in comics, composition is paramount. 

Art Spiegelman has defined comics as the art of turning time back into space, which is the best explanation of the medium I think anyone’s yet come up with. The cartoonist has to remain aware of the page as a composition while focusing on the story created by the strings of individual panels. I think this mirrors the way we experience life—being perceptually aware of our momentary present with some murky recollections of our past and vague anticipations of where we’re headed, and all of it contributing to the shape of what we like to think of as our life. I try to flatten out experience and memory on the page so the reader can see, feel, and sense as much of all of this as possible, but it’s really not much different from composing music or planning a building.