Recently I’ve tried a little more to draw due to an interest in carving and sculpting and … drawing. I think doing other crafts in addition to somewhat increased observational skills improved my “abilities.” Without a picture, however, I cannot do much, and my source pictures so far are pictures of carvings because of often exaggerated details and the like.
Yeah….
Yesterday I decided to pick up trash along a rather junky section of road. A guy pulled off and thanked me, which has never happened before. I am considering doing an “art” thingy along this stretch using cigarette boxes and a couple pieces of bamboo from up the road, just a simple shape. On the same road someone dumped a pack of newspapers, and that might make a suitable anchor. Drill a couple of holes, stick the bamboo in and add the boxes. Not sure what shape yet.
Also this spring I want to try to use fabric scraps as weed suppression. I already have a fair amount of scrap in the compost pile (cut in small pieces and larger chunks to test the difference), but adding all scrap would be overloading it. This will be done with natural fabrics only.
First, a picture of me because I was reminded from reading http://crookedoaks.wordpress.com/ (she’s a pretty darn good photographer by the way) that our bodies do not stay the same forever. I’ll spare you the naked pictures of me, however. Do you think my “beard” will ever turn brown or will my hair just turn gray/blonde to match it? 😛 I’m curious–a buddy and I were having a conversation about inspiration, and since a few of my subscribers write poetry/fiction, with a few music writers and other kinds of artists too, what inspires you?
I look out my window and observe the small space it opens
to, an area where within a minute a person (or anything that moves) can enter and
escape from view to parts probably known but out of my
eyes’ reach. Here, too, I see cars and think that even I,
while sitting and examining, am likely to move, where the
car just sits in its space, acts as a receptor of bird poop
and pollen and dust, until a human wants to enter it and
escape to parts perhaps not known–to a greater geographic
area known as North America.
I feel like, given the surface area of the continent, these
words mean very little, for what I see as a car another
sees as a car and so forth, but as a man who tries to
convey through poetry, I believe in the niche
who revels at such a simple story of the cars
and passing people and birds and other such
life
outside this minute window.
I could pour my face till everything around it hardens into fiberglass.
Very, well!
… No! Because everything appears keen … but then its touch–lightweight and
inhuman, even though its mold remains.
I ain’t ever going to shake ’em anymore–these
higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius.
There is no middle choice, no escape, no neutrality, so
we should go forth on the shortest walk prepared to send back our embalmed hearts, for it
is easier to seek such easy substitutes such as love, charm, kindness, charity …
but there is no substitute for competence.
Lay down your laptop. Forget language for now. Settle into another of your masterpieces: just yourself. Listen, crickets! Far from carefree, but we can pretend. A last cicada hums as the evening grays into night. [forget that it will probably die tomorrow, tonight]. Your neighbor turns on the TV to something-something reality. Haha, yes. Smirk with me! But close the window closest to his, anyway. Your own house lies silent. Perhaps feel your face and remember what you’ve become. No peeking! Save any mirror-dissatisfaction in yourself till morning when the birds rise and chirp and you want to cover your eyes and smother a bird or ten with your pillow. Nothing sounds more appealing than squealing as that laptop flies, then, and let the birds serenade the junk—
Oh, yes, but feel good now! Please!
Chilled, perhaps, by the building’s thermostats, left with fewer ticks: fewer finger licks to turn the same number of pages. Several other factors, too, throwing off the gauges … troubles which really aren’t my duty to divulge because I don’t want to concentrate on the problematic bulge but to remind you of the finger that winds your ticker, that allows you to relax, to recognize the foam that dashes against the rocks as you lie in the interlocking wicker of a tree’s roots. I want you to know of the incredible find, the thing which allows you to solve this or that bind, the underlying thing which I’ve … barely outlined; but with great intention: here’s the mention:
YOUR BEAUTIFUL MIND
I know, cheesy, but I felt like writing it. I like to dish out some hope now and then, especially to those deserving. I have a need to rhyme lately. I guess it gives some reason to try to structure.
I feel the need to explain why I post about these projects of mine. Back in high school I kind of sucked at making things–rarely completed them or used inefficient methods. I didn’t spend as much time online and youtube did not have most of the great channels it does today as far as my hobbies go. Here are a few things I built/made:
A TV (just kidding, but look at that girth!) Ok, this table worked all right. It held up a 100 pound plywood box tv for a while. However, I just made inefficient work of it.
A chair I never completed because I didn’t know how to. The cross pieces were scrap from the previous pictured project because I didn’t know how to complete the drawers.
A hat I never completed because I didn’t know how to.
Anyway, you see the idea. The point is that these days I do complete projects, and however they turn out I end up feeling pretty good since i wasted several years completing almost nothing. I still feel a touch of sadness, however, for my parents do not see these little oddjobs as having career potential (use your brain curiousbum (or maybe because I am a 24 year old invalid)). I just wish my ideas and projects could gain their respect, but I keep going even without it. I try to live my beliefs as best I can. I try to show people not everything needs to end up manufactured-perfect, that we can have faults and functionality. It’s humorous that we often preach about the loveliness of human imperfection, yet affordable and imperfect things are so often chucked.
A few days ago I could barely stand up straight due to depression, but last night I sewed the fly of my pants three times due to screw ups and spent several hours today chiseling out this bowl thing from a log I sawed and split with a knife and rubber mallet. This kind of unimpressive piece represents the beginning of minimalist woodworking, I guess, where I do as little as possible to wood. I like the idea of spending just a quarter of a day carving a hunk of log, leaving it to dry, then finishing it. As a bonus, the wood cost me nothing. I am curious if anybody would want it when finished since I have no use for it and will just chuck it back in the woods when it dries (which may take a month). I will post of picture of it when finished. Right now it looks rather ‘blah’, but the grain should pop out much more once I oil and wax it.
TheCuriousBum 