ch-ch-changes

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First, I've brought back my Scraps page, which is fed the ten most recent ephemeral thought morsels via by my self-hosted Mastodon instance (as opposed to pubbing them in this space then copy/pasting them around what remains / passes for the social web); those useless in-between thoughtlets/morsels will live on Mastodon until they die a death-by-vanishing after 30 days because I don't want it to get more expensive to host my own instance and I already felt bad enough that I wasn't using it to its fullest extent.

As for this space, it will remain largely unchanged (save the aforementioned ephemeralities). Basically anything that would either fit in Projects (Informalities, metalwork, paintings, comics, stories, and/or other major releases) or longer-form text. Still considering a daily text post here, but that will have to wait until next month probably, at the earliest.

Central question that's been guiding this reorientation is: How can I make this space be the digital representation of my work in The Shed –projects, pieces, developed thoughts, etc? Think I've found something that will work for now. Giving it a go to see what happens. All I can do.

currently_2025jul28

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End of summer break inbound; whereas everyday felt, for the last eight weeks, like Saturday, now they feel like Sunday. And so it goes, through the next few weeks. Things in process:

  • Final Shed transition from writing space with tools to full-on industrial art workshop. Metal and pictures and words oh my.

  • Moving rocks around nuPond. New footpath in the works for optimal gill-baby viewing.

  • Drawing little things for a zine, maybe. Words eventually, again.

  • Reading: WE ARE WATCHING, by Alison Gaylin; LOWER THAN THE ANGELS: A HISTORY OF SEX AND CHRISTIANITY, by Diarmaid MacCullough

  • Watching: PARADISE, season one.

  • LISTENING: On a BRMC binge.

  • PLAYING: ROBOCOP: ROGUE CITY replay on PS5 because my brain can handle only wanton awesomeness and occasional quirk; BALATRO and MARIO KART WORLD on the Switch 2.

  • Toying around with new metal ideas, though I might wait for the blazing heat to fuck off to work on something bigger.

a big fucking corkboard

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For the first time in more than 10 years I've a raging desire to buy a big fucking corkboard and fill it with index cards with scenes and scraps and phrases and stuff on them (in no particular order), a desire to bring the tactile prototyping approach to thinking that metal (or cardboard and tape) brings to the present (and far-preferred) iteration of my creative practice. Not sure what these hypothetical cards are meant to become – I remain proudly medium agnostic until the time comes to declare my project-faith – though I do know it will be something a.) I can do on my own (or learn to do on my own) and/or b.) nifty, the latter of which is really all that interests me these days. Or, perhaps, it's all just a desire to redecorate The Shed and make one of the walls more useful than as a shelf for things that could and probably should be shelved elsewhere because they're going to fall on me any day now.

extend / intersect

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Thinking about: how to make this space feel more organic to the current state of my creative practice (beyond The Informalities, of course) but in what can only be described as a non-performative extension of my toiling/tinkering in The Shed.

First order of business: what makes The Shed The Shed and what makes PR PR and where do they intersect?

P.S. Thrilled beyond words that my life has pretty much become a Tom Waits song: "What's he building in there?"

glimmers

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Fun morning of playing with my electric metal shears and cutting up bits and bobs for the WIP, a prototype for something else (see: this week's earlier Replicate post for why I'm considering most of my metal things prototypes) with occasional glimmers of the writer coming out to play as I pick at the WIP over on that side of The Shed. Acceptance that my primary method is to go do other things while things percolate until a line or phrase shows up that fits and then bang the whole thing out while ignoring the guilt of not going about things the way I used to (because, clearly, that worked out oh so well). Out into society for a bit today, society being a waiting room and a book store and maybe an antique mall. Status: fit for public consumption, more or less.