Hopefully looking towards creating some great new art with some newly found inspirations based on hurt and sadness and regret.  Not anything big, but perhaps finding that things could have, would have, and should have worked out differently, or maybe I'm just thinking too much. My life as it is right now is fantastic, could I ask for a better day to day existence? Sure, but why?  Am I missing something? Yeah. Am I happy with it? No.  Am I going to go on? Damn straight. Why ponder over those things, those experiences I missed, the opportunities that I didn't take, or was scared to.  All of that made me into who I am today and would I change anything about me? No, because what if I hadn't turned out as conscience as I am about myself? Life's lessons teaches only how to resolve situations, because situations are not stagnant. I grow, and I am constantly growing.  I learn each and every day to be the predator and not the prey.  I am strong, willing, and determined.  Fuck those who have hurt me, yes, but what am I going to do about it now? Go on. What else is there to do? My new piece is a collage, bits and pieces from things that I love, things I hate, wrapping them all up into one big mess of a piece and hopefully calling it a success. It takes a lot longer than a painting. I can paint fast like nobody's business, but this is challenging because I'm used to creating art from scratch.

What shall I call her? I mentioned I'm a predator, getting what I want as long as I'm determined, perhaps a small bird in the clutches of the amazing falcon who's eyesight is as sharp as her talons as she swiftly approaches the small helpless bird and clutches at it with speed so fierce, that the leaves around the poor screeching bird shake with fear themselves. The weaker me, and the stronger me, which one overpowers...

Holy crap my laptop is hot!!

Well a nice fruitful day today!! And yesterday actually... in art. I'm working on a few new animal heads out of the bicycle saddles and they look pretty sweet, but that's one person's opinion. For being a pretty laid back day, I booked myself a solo show at a place in Cherry Creek, this place sells high-end mattresses, but they are supposed to move them all in order for my art to "show".  It's a win-win.  Hopefully it reaps more fruitful than Santa Fe does.  Not anything against the strip but it's a little dissapointing when there's heaps of people but there's not the revenue to make it worth my time.  Sorry Arts District, that's just how I feel. On another note, I am really excited to finish these heads!! Some days just feel good, and other days just feel so-so.  It's a good day! I also made myself a pearl milk tea, also known in the US as bubble tea (I just learned to say it that way in Australia, when I learned what it was!) Wonderful stuff!! I found a fantastic Asian market to go to and grab all the goodies. There's Pacific Mercantile Co in downtown Denver, and then there's the Pacific Ocean International Supermarket. So delicious!!!

As for my next at show, it shall be posted so that Denverites may be able to come, I'm so excited to have a place to myself! It will take place the first Thursday in September, so the 6th of September.

Why I don't like it when....

When I am riding my bike to work, or to get groceries or wherever I am just in an area frequented by bicycles and cars cohabiting together, I do not like and sometimes am downright rude when cars wave me through stop signs when they clearly and logically have the right-of-way. Why is this? They are being nice when they wave me through, when they should be clearing the intersection while I come to a close stop after them, but I have had cars wave me through milliseconds after they stop as well as ten seconds. This morning i wasn't even near the stop sign when a car who had stopped already, proceeded to continue through the intersection and see me as he was in the road. But upon seeing me, which i was still at least 50 feet away from the intersection, he stopped suddenly, at this 4-way stop, in the middle of the intersection. I was in a hurry, running late for work anyway so I just passed around the front of him as he confidently waved me through, unknowing that he potentially put me in danger for being in the other lane to actually pass him. This is a moment i realize that was a special instant but nonetheless sums up my feelings. I will usually do one of two things when cars want to wave me through stop signs illegally, blatantly ignore them while looking the opposite way, or stop completely while they wave me through and look into their eyes while I lift my hand up and point to the stop sign. Yeah I get it, you're trying to be nice but you are also causing me, a law-abiding cyclist, to break the rules of the road. I am too smart to fall for the 'cars are nice to me because my acceleration is slower' crap, but there's a lot of vanity and accessory cyclists out there, especially in my neighborhood who will and do consistently break this rule because they are given the mercy treatment. They know it, and they take advantage of it. If cars would like for me to act like a vehicle on the road like I am supposed to, then don't wave me through stop signs. How do I know you're not a raging aggrieved just waiting for me to do something wrong in front of you do you can slyly have your vengeance by running me over? I don't. So I'm going to play it safe, put my foot down and let you pass.

Goin to the beach and Getty married!

This Saturday I get to marry Ryan, the perfect guy for me. I never thought i'd be getting married now, and ever even. I'm a happy single Hal, but it's true that when you find the person who knows your every flaw and STILL loves you even after that, well then, minds can change. I love him:) yay!

A new set of paintings

Kind of like sunshine!  I'm always thinking new series to start with my art.  When I can't think of anything to paint for a while, there's a whole list building up inside my head of potential future works! They all excite me and then frustrate me because I want them to be done like, NOW.  Like as soon as I think it up, I want it on canvas at THAT MOMENT.  When I finally sit down to paint "said" piece, it's been a few days or so and I just don't feel as motivated anymore.  I stick beside what I say 100%, I have the attention span of a 10 year old.  And no crap about ADD or ADHD, what-the-fuck-ever. I don't believe in mind disorders, I believe in people characteristics!

So I got off track, but likely, I can talk so fast sometimes that it's like I'm having three conversations in my head at once but I can only keep up with one via my mouth so I can just jump back and forth between conversations and if I get my thoughts out in time, I can jump back to what I was saying just prior to my deviation and continue without falter. I woke up this morning thinking I wanted to paint my nails two different colors and then I fell into a routine.  This routine was switching the brush from one hand to another and continuing the orange/pinkish color onto my other hand.  So anyway, I make a video of some stupid abstract art. YAY!
Metal ABstracts!

Too long ago!!

Art is the sense of my being. If it cannot be expressed, I'd rather explode.

Life at Turin

I make a paycheck working at this bicycle shop called Turin in Denver. It's 41 years old and still going strong. I have them to thank a lot for the random parts that I pick up and turn into revamped pieces of art. The beauty of bicycles is unmatchable.
Beasts.

Sexy bikes

I found this ridiculously sexy picture of Bianchi bicycles underneath models! (I intentionally worded it that way yes...) I found more at this guy's blog: http://italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/2009/11/bianchi-and-models-for-vogue-italia.html and they are just stunning, he sites on there where they came from.

The development of my brain and internet

It's interesting, as I approach my 30th birthday (and come to terms with it like not being able to say "I'm in my '20's'" anymore, I still admit I'm a fan of random crap I find online.  I wasn't born with the internet in 1982, but I grew up with it. So I have been there to see the development and the evolution of online life.  I used to chat in chat rooms at 11 years old with others on Progidy, and then moved into mIRC in #Teenchat when I was 12 through 18.  My online lifestyle wasn't shared by most of my classmates at the time because it wasn't as popular or mainstream as it is now, but having looked back, I was smart.  I wanted to be online as well as liked in the school world so I was careful as to how much information about my home life I shared with my collegues and friends.  No, I wasn't a poser, I played to the crowd, which is a major factor of psychological acceptance among our peers according to textbook psychology. Everyone is bullied in junior high/high school, it's just a fact of life, it's a rough world out there and how you accept it and grow from it is what matters.  Just watching a Sourcefed video reminded me of it and how it makes me feel passionately for those kids who haven't the ability to control it in a proper way.  Being that I'm considered "grown up" now, I can still relate to those teenagers because, we've all been there, we've all experienced bullying.  I even bullied some kids because I wanted to feel mighty and strong too, but of course who did I pick?  The girls "lower" or weaker than me.  You never pick on the bigger stronger person because there's no reasoning to that.  The thing is, you don't realize these facts until you've grown past it or above it.  As a teenager you'll never realize what you're doing until you pass that time up and look back to your development because if you stay in the same mentality, you can't see yourself from the outside.  It's like traveling, you can't see where you are until you can see where you've been.  If you have never left your own neighborhood, how can you see yourself from the outside.  I work with some people who are 42 year old bullies, they never grew past their bullying stage or no one ever told them that they have to be nice in order for people to be nice back.  Those are the type of people who are not happy, they have limited friends, wonder why they can't keep a girlfriend, and are literally blind to their own actions and if you were to try and tell them that they're not getting along in society because of their own mental attitude, they deny the charges and blame the other guy.  It's never their fault because they never grew past the mighty stage.  I'm not a psych major, but I think there's an age where it's pointless to try and teach an adult to turn their life around, or it gets harder.  The teenage years are such crucial years, its important to have a mentor and guidance.  In a lot of my older art, I created art similar to those now in the same years.  It was dark, it was surreal and I thought nobody understood.  We do understand, but usually you won't listen, I didn't.  I'd advise those now who are creating similar art, the dark-the decaying-the unsurpassed meaning of existence and meaning, to ease up.  Stop asking for the attention and start being proactive in integrating into society where we all live.  Maybe its my own longing attitude to be liked by everyone.  I'm not asking to be understood by everyone, I know that's not going to happen.  I hope it does, but I don't focus on it as much as being a nice person and likewise, liked. Some might need help, and it's okay to have help.  Some people don't need it, some do, but it doesn't make you any less of a person to go and ask for the guidance that you think you need to function in social situations.  It's like fitness, it's a hell of a lot easier to sit on the couch and watch videos than it is to get the motivation to get up and go for a run, but those that do don't regret it.

Fashion hauls

I was wondering this morning, how the future of fashion would end up being at the end of this century. I was born in the 80's and I remember studying fashion from the 1900's on and seeing where we had come from, and where we were now. I haven't studied this lately maybe because I lose interest or perhaps because it's not as important as it once was. What brings me to this conclusion is the fact that I keep seeing the same styles over and over again and the re-inventing has become boring and lifeless. Could it be there's nothing to re-invent? I think so... and then I don't think so. I was thinking about it this morning, pondering what kept eating at me that I am tending to think that worldwide fashion will die in the 21st century? To me, it's the lesser ability to compliment many people's individual styles and personalities at once. Fashion has yet become a personal choice rather than a social choice. I say this with great emphasis on the dreaded "hipsters"... those whom I wish to address, and those whom I've been accused of being also. It's the title that's brutal, but take for instance, the hats, the hair, the mustaches, the suspenders, the pants, and the overall idea of them or, us, whatever that means. It's a conscious effort to look a socially acceptable way but complying in a way that suits individual needs without the need to grab the latest and greatest newest piece of cloth from Urban Outfitters or GAP. I'm not a fashionista anymore and my involvement in the fashion world lacks, but hasn't it started to imply that social fashion has run out of ideas? I believe by the end of THIS century, runways, catwalks, and fashion shows will be a thing of the past. Why? Because people will start catching onto the fact that this was a style once seen, and once seen again, and again just a short decade ago. Fashion used to have a 30 year turnaround retrospective. Now it's a retrospective of the retrospective. The 2012's are a retoaction of the 80's and the 80's were a retroaction of the 50's. I mention this because the bohemian will always become mainstream, and the bohemian are asking from the 20's and 30's of the 20th century.  Why would they need to skip 70 decades to look for another interesting social fashion. In some (more interesting) cases, they borrow from the 20's, and the 50's and the 70's with a splash of 80's. These are my personal favorites because that's where I believe I belong.  I look at it in the same way as I've been looking at art history, this is one time that art has funally surpassed fashion in its evolution.  The realism is the starting point, abstraction is the finishing point.  Soon, fashion will be such a composition of decades with pieces taken from every generations's style and merged with each other in a composition on a body, what will you call it? Abstract. That's what I would call it. Will the fashion in another 30 years be as interesting and renaissance as this years fashion on fashion on fashion was? We will never know until it comes but I personally like to imaging the possibilities.

In Line with making new loves!

 

Some things are worth doing fun.  When I created my webpage, it seemed serious, like a resume.  What I was imagining was a bunch of people with suits and glasses on (no stereotypes on glasses) rubbing their chins wondering "now what is this...." and clicking through the pages because it's grey but with a splash of color because I can't keep color out of my art!!! I may be the most nontraditional traditional artist I know! I'm a skeptic, but I'm a believer in change as well as conventionalism.  Where does THAT put me? When I can't decide between one or another, I think that makes me who I am.  I'm not a fence sitter, but I'm also not a side chooser. What happens when you place Botticelli next to Clifford Still?? Does one art lose it's quality? I don't believe so, I believe that each enhances the experience of the other.  It's like comparing sports.  How does American football look in comparison to golf?  While golf is not my favorite sport by any means and my fiance would argue that I constantly consider golf not a sport on the first place, doesn't it enhance the dynamics of American football in a different way than if one were to just look at football without any other resemblance of another sport?