Focus -- Losing It While I Gain It

 

This week's theme over at Illustration Friday is "Focus."  Yet another one of those serendipitous confluences as the theme itself seems to come into focus in my life.

It's that time of the year when my profession requires me to engage in the ritual of the annual review.  Polish up the CV, review what I accomplished in 2009, match that against what I said I would do, extrapolate from all that my plan for 2010.  I always put this bit of administrivia off until the last moment.  I loathe it, and I am convinced it will yield nothing but internal angst over my lack of direction, my lack of clear focus.  And yet, every year as I fill out the paperwork, I find I was more productive than I thought, and that there is a more or less clear direction in my labors.

And that's the point of it all, I guess: to demonstrate for others but also for myself that I am delivering on my commitments to profession.  To bring into sharp relief the fruits of those labors.  Still, it is exhausting work.  Even if the message is ultimately confirming, I find myself drained by the effort.  All evidence to the contrary, I feel like I've lost my way. 

So.  A dark illustration in shades of gray.  A lonely alley with noir shadows.  A face lost in black ink and crosshatch.  Call this an illustration of inner turmoil.  See in it how too much introspection, even if required, ends up being an exercise in beating your head against a wall.  And somehow, at the very edge of the frame, my life swimming in and out of focus.

Grace is in the Recovery

"What?"

This week's theme over at Illustration Friday is "clumsy."  I struggled a bit with this week's theme, and hence my offering of two submissions in one blog post. 

The title of this entry -- "Grace is in the Recovery" -- is something of a life philosophy (yeah, I have a lot of those).  I've never been the most graceful person.  I trip a lot; I bonk my head a lot.  Sometimes I think I never really grew into my body.  However, even as an audience member, I bore quickly of the precisely controlled performance.  But I find it very exciting when an actor or artist has to deal with an unanticipated problem.  Yes, that is painful if they don't deal with it well.  But I am ecstatic if they respond well.  I feel like I am in the presence of a unique moment where a scripted and precise action gave over to one that must respond to context.  And how do we access those moments if not for the willingness to be clumsy?  That's not to say I value the under-prepared performance -- more that I value preparation that readies the performer to deal with the unexpected.

I recently wrote a brief piece for an environmental education center's newsletter where I discussed my lessons learned from walking down the side of a glacier's lateral moraine.  In that piece, I talk about how you have to give up the idea of sure and stable footing and be ready to respond quickly to the steep and slippery gravel-mound's tendency to slide.  There is really no way to do it and look pretty.  At its heart, the experience is about letting go and trusting your ability to respond.  That is where grace resides.  Not in the perfectly executed gesture, but in the capacity to recover from the fumble.  And that is a lesson about grace that goes well beyond walking and performance. 

We all fall.  None of us are perfect.  All of us are sometimes (often times?) clumsy.  But beauty is in how we respond to clumsy -- in ourselves and in others.  And I think beating ourselves up about not being perfect, about not being graceful, is about the least graceful we can be. 

Ah Wilderness

Illustration Friday's theme this week is "wilderness."  Okay, so this is a great one for me.  I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about the wild, and I recognize the problems with it as a concept.  Namely, we have a lot of romanticized notions of wilderness and what it means.  Orginally, the concept referred to something unpleasant -- and so is etymologically linked to words like "bewilder." The Puritans saw the wilderness as a site of evil and danger, something to be tamed (like all "baser nature," internal or external).  It took visionaries like Romantic poets and early American nature writers to see in the wilderness the sublime, that mix of awe and wonder at once terrifying and spiritually uplifting.

Today, several environmental thinkers posit that our perceptions of wilderness get in the way of meaningful environmental management more than they motivate it.  Folks like William Cronon and Neil Evernden posit that our received notions of wilderness are more social construction than actual nature.  Cronon notes that in the US, we tend to equate wilderness with the absence of humans, and in the process conveniently erase the humans that lived here before European colonization.  Evernden cautions that many neophyte ecologists tend to focus on the happy "light" side of wilderness by emphasizing harmony and balance and downplaying the shadow side of all that -- including predation, parasitism, disease, etc.  Both (and others) suggest that the evocation of wilderness is often a problematic call for preservation that fails to recognize that nature is always about change.

So what is "wilderness," given all this history and critique?  For me, it is about systems of relationship.  It's about organisms in relationships, be those relationships predatory, parasitic, symbiotic, nurturing, or what have you.  Wilderness is an "organic" system, by which I mean both living and emergent/unplanned.  This conception allows us to consider humans as both a part of wilderness (nature) and apart from it.  The first half of that observation is easy -- we cannot escape it, it's all around us, and it supports us.  But humans also create, with purpose, their own complex systems (towns, buildings, farms, ranches, factories, etc.) -- and those systems often compete with wilderness systems.  The result of that competition is often bad for the wilderness, although occasionally wilderness "wins."  More importantly, wilderness adapts from the competition, although perhaps a bit more slowly than human systems do.

The ecological systems we designate "wilderness" have developed over eons.  They represent incredible diversity that still extends beyond our capacity to catalog let alone comprehend.  And much as we like to ignore it in the name of human "progress," those finely honed organic systems support us, making our life on this planet possible.  We have yet to replicate the dynamic and intricate system of relationships that is a wild ecosystem.  Perhaps, one day we will.  But until we do, we are ill-served in the casual destruction of wilderness.  If that sounds like a preservationist's ethic sneaking back in, so be it.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's about humbly accepting our place in (and not above) these wild systems of relationship.

Confined...at home.

Actually, it was a lot more 

comfortable than flying coach class. 

This week's prompt over at Illustration Friday is "confined."  Given that I am more or less trapped at home this weekend since our car is snowed in at the top of an icy hill with unplowed roads, you'd think I'd focus on something like cabin fever.  However, I kind of like being stuck at home with plenty of groceries and art supplies.  Today, anyway.

Am I alone in a selfish response to the Christmas attempt to blow up a plane in Detroit?  I thought air travel was bad enough, but now we're making it even more loathsome.  I doubt it will be too long before mailing yourself somewhere would actually be more comfortable and probably more efficient than flying.  The prisons we build for ourselves are always worse than any dungeon imagined by others.  If that claim is too much of a sweeping generalization, it is at least a thought to carry with us as we return to contemplating how much of our liberties we are willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of "perfect" security. 

Maybe in the end, it's the rhetoric that is the most confining.  Here we are again, back among the pre-packaged arguments and memes, pointing the finger for political gain.  The world may (!!) have changed on 9/11, but the more it changed the more it stayed the same.

2010 -- A Year of Renewal?

The good folks over at Illustration Friday have kicked off the new year with a great prompt, "Renewal."  Indeed, as we put away the old and face the new, now is a great time to consider renewal.

Surely, 2009 gives us a lot to be cynical about.  In the US, Health Care reform consumed our political process, demonstrating that even though the bulk of the population wanted meaningful reform, special interests were able to clutter and stymie the process so much so that the current compromise(s) offers little in the way of real reform.  We thought with its hopeful beginning and a new President, 2009 might see significant changes in our foreign policy -- and we have.  But that change still involves more troop deployments and daily news of unrest in the places where we are involved.  Christmas Day reminded us that the free world is still vulnerable to terrorism -- avoiding it often only with a little luck.  And then, with a heavy sigh, we look at how little was accomplished at Copenhagen with regards to meaningful international agreements on climate change mitigation.

Now is not the time to give up hope.  And so, we recycle the wrapping paper, compost the holiday leftovers, pick up the party detritus, and come back from this liminal solstice time to the work of the new year.  The planet is doing its yearly tilt-thing, and the sun is coming back in the Northern Hemisphere.  Let us take energy from its shine and renew our commitments to getting it right. "It" being our lives -- individually and, more importantly, collectively.  We are all in this world together.

Pioneer Spirit -- Looking Forward/Looking Back

This week's prompt at Illustration Friday is "Pioneer."  To the stars and beyond! Actually, I came close to drawing a cobbler on an ear ("Pie on Ear"?).  Fortunately, my inner SF geek won out over my incessant need to make puns (visual or otherwise).

This is also that time of the year when everyone is doing some sort of retrospective.  I've put together the following 2009 retrospective of my Facebook profile pictures.  Perhaps this is a tribute to the unavoidable narcissism of Facebook (and really, blogging and web presence, in general).  But I also find that, seen back to back, they reveal much about not only the changing events but also my shifting aesthetics in 2009.  I'm not much of one for chronicling my activities with my profile pic, but I do use it as a place to share new skills and visions in digital art.  Prior to finding sites like Illustration Friday, The Green Palette, and Artspark Theatre, my Facebook profile picture was my greatest "prompt" for doing art regularly.  And, of course, toward the end of the year I stopped even trying to make those pics look like me.

Anyway, enjoy.  And if you have any questions about how I made any of these, don't hesitate to ask.

The Weight of the Undone

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "undone."  Now, I could have (and probably should have) just taken a picture of all the busy work and end of semester administrivia I have waiting on my desktop.  All the work, in other words, that remains undone.  Instead, I went with the first image that came to mind: a close-up of a button fly coming undone. In order to produce this image, I decided to "undo" a little soft pornography.  So, the figure above was originally a photograph of a soon-to-be nude male model on whom I drew some pants (albeit suggestively coming undone).  I then filtered, processed and otherwise worked the image to get to the illustration you see before you.

Here is a scan of my drawing of the pants before digital manipulation:

 

Here is the manipulated photo of the male model:

 

 

 (I know, copyright and all that.  Look, if you

can identify this pic as represented, I will gladly deal with 

the rights issue.  But as a DIY, not-for-profit blog illustration, 

I say the ball is in the copyright owner's court to make 

the appropriate claims...)

And here, for your viewing pleasure, are some other versions of the final image above:

 

Not exactly stages in the process, but some indication of how much time I spent working on an Illustration Friday prompt when I, perhaps, should have been addressing the weight of the undone. Ah well, grades are due and I don't want to spend all weekend with a spreadsheet.  We make choices of how to spend our time, and those choices also can be our undoing.

(Cross) Hatch

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "Hatch."  First, I thought of playing around with the idea of a porthole.  Then, I landed on the idea of a visual pun.  Yes, I'm pretty sure that bird is a Cardinal overseeing the "cross hatch," both in the nest and around the rest of the composition.  If only the internet allowed me to hear your groans...

Crunchy

Crunchy

The theme this week over at Illustration Friday is "Crunchy." A lot of images come to mind -- many involving breakfast cereal for some reason.  But my mind is apparently still, um, chewing on abstract comics.  I am wondering if this is a little too concrete to be an abstract comic.  The image is not really representational, but the stylized decay seems a bit too much like a narrative.  And then there's that cheesy comics sound effect.  Ah well, whatever it is, it is also my entry for this week's illustration prompt. 

Entangled

Right, so apparently I should have been more patient.  The Illustration Friday prompt did eventually come out, and this week it is "Entangled." I've been working a lot lately with pen and (black) ink, doing a lot of cartooning.  But I also have worked with other pigments and collage before.  At some point, these interests will fuse (dare I say, "entangle"?) in some interesting ways.  For now, though, I am oscillating back and forth between styles and techniques.

I really enjoy the Illustration Friday prompts.  They keep me active and engaged with visual communication as I prepare for some more ambitious projects.

...the Food of Love

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "Music."  My contribution may be a bit "normal" and lacking my usual weirdness.   Nonetheless, it is the season of returning juncos and white-throated sparrows to the feeder, with their recognizable songs of winter.  Two days ago, I went for a walk in the neighboring park.  It is hunting season, so parts of the park are wisely closed to hiking.  On a "safe" trail, I heard the autumn bird chorus silenced by the report of not so distant gunfire.  And then followed with a new birdsong: alarm, beware, look out. 

Music soothes.  It is the "food of love."  It takes us away.  But for some, it is the way we claim territory in a world of never ceasing competition for real estate.  It is both the alarm and the all okay.  It is the song of something fragile, striving to be heard even as it struggles not to be seen.  I feel ya', little birdy.  Even though it is my kind with the firearms, I often feel that competing urge to proclaim and hide away in the same gesture. 

Illustration Prompts

Anthony was amazed when he looked out the window and

observed...his pet alien chasing a robot off the lawn.

This has been a busy week yet a bit of a relief from the daily blogging required by my participation in @Platea's "Following Piece 2.0" last week.  Nonetheless, I am trying to keep my commitment to regular posts here, and so I take a break from planning for the National Communication Association Annual Conference next week to post some art.

The above piece is my contribution to Susan Sanford's latest illustration challenge over at ArtSpark Theatre. I love this blog and Susan's whimsical illustrations.  Her combinations of illustration and photography always amaze and inspire me.  I also appreciate her sense of collaborative play as she offers incomplete illustrations for friends and followers to complete.  This is my second participation in Susan's challenges. (Note: In the above illustration, Anthony, the wall and the window frame are done by Susan and what's on the lawn is done by me.  Just wanted to be clear.)

Linked on her blog is the wonderful site, Illustration Friday, which offers a weekly one word theme to inspire illustrators of all skill levels. This week's theme is "blur" and below is my contribution to that theme.  A quick note on process: this illustration is not a scan or made up of scanned parts.  I did this one entirely with the graphics pad and with, honestly, mixed results.  But I share anyway (and look forward to imitating the subject in the near future).

 "Blur" (Illustration Friday 11/6/09)

Wishing All a Gaunt and Strange Halloween

My contribution to this week's Illustration Friday theme: "skinny."  If this guy seems a little creepy, consider him appropriate for the season.  I also think he matches the subtitle of Bungy Notes -- he is flexible, he is strange.  Happy Halloween, all.  Don't eat too many empty calories.

Fast and Not Fast Culture

It's been a hard Saturday.  I participated in a quickly organized local "Climate Action 350" today and dealt with quite a few denialists.  Well no, that's not quite accurate.  I dealt with one particular denialist who wasn't really a denialist.  More a nihilist.  We're all gonna die.  We can't do anything about it.  That old saw.

It is with this experience that I turn to Illustration Friday's theme for the week: "Fast."  Holding a sign about catastrophic climate change to motorists speeding by on their way to some Saturday appointment, it's hard not to see our culture's addiction to speed, to getting there fast, to instant gratification.

It is important, then, to remember that other meaning of fast -- to go without. To voluntarily starve oneself, to subsequently slow down.  To understand what you have, what you can consume by choosing not to, even if only for a short while.  The general consensus among the climate change mitigation opposition is that the problem is now too big, that no one will make the sacrifices necessary to have any meaningful impact.  Sure, we can identify the need to get back to 350 ppm carbondioxide, but it is harder to agree on what we need to do to get there.  And harder still when we are all too wrapped up in our recession woes to think of giving up anything more, to even consider climate change legislation that might add $100 to your yearly household energy bill.

And then this.  If I just live fast enough, live hard enough, I can keep from thinking about transgenerational problems that loom large but offer no confirmation of immediate gratification.  We cannot solve human contributions to climate change easily or quickly.  So live fast and die hard.

Or not.  I choose not, even if the boys zipping by in their four wheeler in a cloud of dark exhaust flip me off and call me faggot.  Sorry boys, this is not a problem you can run from.