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This morning was the first time I enjoyed reading since last week (thank you, Mervyn Peake, for the genius that is GORMENGHAST), and yesterday the first time I lost myself in a creative experiment in longer than I care to remember (I'm already in love with welding and can see myself diving in headfirst towards making it a full-fledged vehicle of creative expression). Now to rekindle my love of cinema and writing; comics and cartooning, you're always on the love-list, even when you break my heart.

/202410141233

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A chilly rain all morning but at least The Shed's nice and warm whatwith the little baby infared heater and all though a little sun would be nice so my panels can drink drink drink.

As I scribble my way through Edwards's DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN (in those afternoons when I'm not attempting to make The Paintshop habitable again), I'm fascinated to see its translation to my writing and the realization that my process – hunt and peck scraps and fragments and eventually combine – is right brain, whereas my frusration at this method and its slow pace (until it isn't) is a 100% left-brain mania. Learning still, to tune that out, even after (especially after?) all these years.

Looks like I'm back to some form or other of morning / midday word-blogging because it's the only way I'll actually do it. Plus, I do kinda miss it; twas always a useful way to unstick the brain. Note: need to figure out a time to do the actual posting.

snaps

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Update/202410131611 :: it went about as well as expected - though I didn’t manage to free up storage space for shelves shelves shelves.

Slightly dreading the afternoon today: have to go through some my grandfather's old pictures to find some good ones for The Bank's 125th anniversary calendar. He was an inveterate snapshot taker, so it shouldn't be too hard to find something to sate the celebrants; no, it's more a matter of not looking forward to looking back.

On the plus side, however, by doing this, I should manage to clear space from the upstairs room and make way for the next set of storage shelves to move up there. Shelves, shelves, shelves.

But before any of that, Sunday Mexican food and tankard of beer consumption. Liquid courage to pour through the past to get to my shelves.

flooring, ctd.

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My grandfather wouldve been 98 today (though 96 good years and two royally shitty months of 97 are a solid record; we should all be so lucky) and, with the exception of one row by the door area – on the docket today, along with floor trim which I'll be sourcing from the already-stained pieces of what was once the first desk I built –, that fucking floor (its official name) is in NuSanctum: if hell is, indeed, a thing, and I'm sentenced there, my own personal slice of it will consist of me having to do flooring for eternity while my mercifully long-dead stepfather attempts to impart life lessons via radio-blasted high school sports metaphors in that fucking swamp-creature-love-child-of-Jimmy-Carter-and-Jimmy-Stewart voice of his. And with that visual, I leave you to your day.

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Thinking that the best (only?) way out of my creative doldrums (this one being a weird – or maybe not-so? –  combination of overwhelmed and under-fueled) is to declare creative bankruptcy and start from scratch: with the exception of previously-made commitments, everything else gets shunted to the backburner and I approach my practice as if I were starting right now, right this minute, embrace that whole beginner's mind thing (again).