Our little Millie rode the wave into her first birthday. Thanks to all the family and friends that came over last weekend for our rubber duckie fiasco. Millie loved it! It was a riot watching her dig into her first little cake with strawberry frosting in nothing but a diaper. The thing I’m most happy about is that my wife and I were able to keep the little bugger alive for a whole year. And I’m definitely falling more and more in love with her.
I did the card design on a little, spur-of-the-moment Photoshop adventure with an integration of on one of Tim McKenna’s spectacular shots of the legendary Teahupoo break.
This is Chun Migal. He’s one of my co-workers with ‘The State’. He’s facing lay-offs and, after 27 years of service, is realizing that his time may have been better spent doing graffiti (or something creative) (and edgy). His realization that sometimes hard times come too easy is only his own perspective. Others had to work very hard to create these hard times for Chun. Little does he know…
My meditation:
There is a wave that appears as the wave of our life. It is ingrained with much ebb and flow that appear to have a cohesion, and a tangible, reasonable consistency. Symmetry. But behind the wave is a deeper wave that takes even more prominence, but somehow is less honored as the true wave, because of its depth. Though the deeper wave is deeper, it is still very apparent to most and leads to a greater depth; one that is not seen, only hinted to.
There are seams running this way and that; affected by and influencing the collected chaos. The collective wave chaos creates one cohesive out of many varied. Take it or leave on the day of rest.
This little, curly-q, cursive-inspired ship just sailed its way from deep in the cosomotes; from a sketchbook several years old. I’ve always thought it would make a cool little logo. I’m sure I’ll use for something meaningful some day. For now it’s just a reminder that I’ve gotta keep sailing on through the ocean of life, casting my little messages-in-a-bottle into the sea of the internet from the bow of my desk. Enough metaphor for you? There’s plenty more where that came from.
When I studied English in school and the teachers always wanted me to dredge out the “symbolism” in great English literature, my dad would always say, “There’s nothing in there symbolizing anything. Their just writing a story.”
Well let me tell you, my restless little mind finds ways to drum up metaphor and symbolism in just about anything. Sometimes I’m afraid it’s a sickness. And I know others are doing a lot of symbolizing too. Maybe pops was just trying to be funny back then. Or maybe there’s more meaning to what he was saying. Hhmmmm.
Today was my first official Father’s Day! Millie, with the help of Momma, made me some awesome gifts. An edible, Cheerio necklace to keep me energized on my big day and a shirt, made so well, I thought it was store bought. I love my creative little ladies and am feelin’ proud to be a daddy (just like the real guys).
This last weekend I tried my hand at organizing the, first ever, Artist’s Commune Weekend. Not that artist’s working, or even living together in a commune is a new idea, but I’ve had a vision for about 3 years to have artist’s and musicians come together and, basically, camp out over Memorial Day weekend. Everyone would bring their creative tools and other legal items that help conduct inspired creativity and just spend the weekend together encouraging each other to be productive. That’s the vision.
Due to late planning and the uncertainty of having people camped out at my small house for the duration of the weekend we decided to make it a Saturday only event. The unpredictable nature of the invited creative types made for two small sessions in my garage. One wave in the morning with Velasin on guitar and George doing some sweet pen and ink work. As we headed into the afternoon they decided to go explore other things. Just when I thought the Artist’s Commune Weekend would have to be resumed next year, wave 2 came in. Roy Uyeda, the master painter, and the very musical Molly seemed to appear out of nowhere which took the creativity into the evening.
Overall, I think the artist appreciated it and it was what it needed to be.
He doesn’t look too “wild” does he? Over the weekend I watched Into the Wild. I’d heard fragments and murmurings of Chris McCandless’ adventure over the years, but I’ve never really known his story. Pretty wild! huh,… no pun intended. It’s inspiring, I guess. I love the unbridled idealism which he pursued. But you realize that it’s not a typical Hollywood script in the end. That’s all I’m gonna say. Great movie.
Going through some unposted Cosmote I found this packing traveler, and made a connection to the movie/story.
I think there’s a wandering, idealistic, adventurer, in every man. Don’t be afraid to realize it.
This is an old doodle I found in the annuls of my sketchings. I’m pretty sure I did it at work one day. As with much of my Cosmote material, it just came to me. It’s no one I know but it does bear some striking resemblances. It’s fun to show it people and ask them, “Who does this look like?”. People usually have a real quick answer. Funny what images of people we hold in our heads.
It’s been a long time in coming, but I finally got my wife’s album cover done. This is a demo CD that she put together in 2005. She wrote all the songs and the music was created by Symphonic Tones.
Going with our Spring, cherry blossom theme Katreen did this mural for our baby, Millie. I did help with some of the art direction here, but I was pretty impressed with my wife’s speed and certainty to create this is just 5 hours. The roots look pretty awesome too but they’re buried under the crib now.
I was unable to send the photos of the CAEYC Expo via my iPhone app on Saturday so here’s a couple now:
I’m putting them up here a week after the event because I was unable to find reliable wifi all week. Hey, what do you expect from ‘a blog of chance’? But the event was pretty awesome. We met a lot of great educators and a banjo player, while promoting the cause of effective and fun emotional education.
