CONTENTS

The work soon overwhelmed me, with the beginning of Fall and the chance to get some work done during the days again I wanted to start painting for the two big upcoming events: the EAST tour and Blue Genie Art Bazaar.  I was able to juggle my funds to buy enough wood and canvas to complete a few jobs and buy some much needed paint as well. 

The trick to making a living as an artist is to make sure your income always trumps your main bills, mainly rent, some food money, and at least a phone payment every couple of months.  The sad thing about once you've worked all the odd jobs and assignments is there is never anything left over to build off of - no savings, and any small amount of extra cash just gets re-invested in more supplies.

I've continued to work on some small works that are still in the study stage - I'm experimenting with color and applying paint to see how I can keep the investigative starts of my paintings with a more polished and refined gestalt of a finely tuned artist's hand being able to state his ideas and technique in a concise and powerful way.  I'm soaking up the lessons of the Hockney show I saw in LA and trying to apply some of those lessons to my new work.  I've also developed a couple themes and ideas for a series of paintings I should be starting in a few weeks. 

Also on my plate was the mammoth production that was my California trip update.  I spent an afternoon at Cafe Mundi eating a turkey sandwich and drinking hazelnut Italian sodas trying to find a way to take two weeks of crazy living and stories into ten entertaining pages of stories complete with pictures and descriptions.  I've always considered this website to be an unspoken priority of sorts - I believe these seemingly random events and incidents documented here do have an importance beyond mindless internet entertainment, but have never really expressed it as such, nor looked at the countless hours I'll spend from midnight to six in the morning writing, editing, and sorting through piles of photos as anything besides ridiculous amounts of personal work.

I have two threads still hanging from my California trip that haven't been published - one will be finished, hopefully, on time this Wednesday, to synch up with the season opener of LOST, and the final story has deep ramifications to my studio and art making lifestyle, with still more connections and ideas flowing in different directions that probably won't reveal themselves to the public until the middle of 2007.

I often get asked how much time I spend on my website, and I usually just answer, "Too much."  Sometimes it comes really fast and easy, other times its a chore, but no longer can I look at the work I do writing and putting together this website as an activity separate in any way from my art making mind.  There is too much value in having to write and comment on my art and life regularly that I hope acts as an interesting, informative foil to the artwork that I produce in my studio.