Set-up at little skips!

Just wanted to share some pictures Jon took while I was setting up the show. In order to get straight, even lines and equal spaces between each shadowbox I had to hammer nails through solid brick:

Seeing how this was my first experience setting up my work on such a complicated wall I was wholly unprepared for it. I assumed making things line up would be cake since the bricks form a grid. However I did not account for the fact that this was older brick and completely uneven- so following the lines of the mortar would result in a mess of a hanging. Luckily a fellow artist who has previously shown at Little Skips was there and willing to share with me the knowledge she gained from her own trials with the wall (her name, by the way, is Shakhed Hadaya and her work is FANTASTIC, so check it out). I bought some twine and hung it across the wall and used it as a makeshift reference point and Voila! Success! The top left and right are missing in the above image because two Nudtendos sold that I have yet to have the time to re-create. I'll tackle that this weekend.

Once that was finished (which was the brunt of the work) I just had to populate the opposite wall with my Inner Demon pieces:

I spent the previous night mapping out my layout and honestly it worked out nearly exactly as I planned - and I'm ultimately happy with the result. Because this wall was a regular plaster number I had a much easier time getting exactly what I wanted. The only thing that proved troublesome were the dozens and dozens of nails and anchors that were left in the wall by the previous artist (who had taken down his art while I worked on the Nüdtendo wall)- but even with that is went fairly smoothly.

Anyways just thought I'd share. Always fun to see process and such!

My Winter Hibernation

It's been a problem for as long as I can remember. It's something that has affected me even before I was cognizant of it: Seasonal Depression. Every fall, fresh off either World Con (in the past) or more recently Dragon Con I enter this state of vegetation. When pressed by Jon I often excuse it as burn-out from spending my summer months working on preparing new artwork and prints for upcoming shows- but if I am to be completely honest with myself I'd have to admit it comes from something deeper. If it were mere burnout I would be back on my feet after a week or so of downtime- but my creative hibernation tends to last nearly all winter.

I've been like this since I was a kid, though I didn't fully understand this until much later. There was a point post-college where things had reached a boiling point: I was sitting in the gym and was overcome with inexplicable sadness- a sadness that had been gripping me for weeks. It wasn't just lethargy anymore; it was now a melancholy that I couldn't shake and whose origins were completely unknown to me. You see, my life was going great at the time. I had been freelancing consistently, I was 25 and looked better than I ever had before due to my dedication to working out, I was finally starting to gain an audience for my work, and I was living with good friends. I really had nothing to be particularly sad about- but it was there, oppressive and constant. So I gave my mom a call and asked for her Doctorly Advice. It was then that she informed me that this has always been a thing with me. Every year my grades would dip in the winter and I'd get less sociable. It was a trend I was completely unaware of while going through it but seemed so obvious in retrospect. She then recommended a few things that could help: daylight lamps and Vitamin D. And while it definitely helped me escape the horrible sadness it didn't really solve the state of creative lethargy that overtook me every winter.

Flash forward five years and it is a problem that continues to frustrate me. The amount of work I could get done if I wasn't shut down for 4-6 months out of the year is infuriating to contemplate. If I could just find a solution to this problem- along with my growing suspicion that I suffer from Adult ADD- I can only imagine how fast I could improve my art and how much more I could produce.

So here's my goal for this winter: try different techniques to break past the lethargy caused by Seasonal Depression and get to work trying to produce art all year-round, not just in the summer months. I also want to talk to someone about options for diagnosing and possibly treating my adult ADD. I really do think that having a dedicated Studio outside my bedroom (in the form of the Castle Braid Library) will go a long way in helping to motivate me (in the sense that I need to be down there using the space or I'll likely lose it)- but it will take more than that to solve this problem. I'm just hoping I can discover the proper solution and make this the first winter that doesn't turn into a complete waste of time.

POST NOTES: I do understand that my Freelance work is always most busy in the winter months, which means my capacity to get more work done is still limited, but it's important to eliminate the biggest obstacles anyway- and that is honestly the Depression and ADD, not the workload.

Showcase at Little Skips

Starting today until the end of the year (barring unforeseen gallery showings) I will be exhibiting my artwork at Little Skips (941 Willoughby Ave, Brooklyn NY 11221). On one wall will be my current full line-up of Nüdtendo shadowboxes and the opposite wall will house select pieces from my Inner Demon Series. The show will feature a combination of originals and prints (the prints are mostly of pieces that have already sold). So come on by!

The show itself is only half-finished at the moment, but once I have all the work on the walls I'll be scheduling a night for an "Opening." But until then most of the work is already up and you should stop by! Little Skips is one of my favorite local Coffee Shops with fantastic sandwiches (my current favorite is the Gluten Free "M-Train") and they really work hard to support local artists.

OCT 1 2014