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You don't write because you want to say something' you write because you've got something to say.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
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 I have a hero complex. Always have. It comes from being the oldest child of five revolving kids in a multi-fathered alcoholic household.
Over the years, I've worked on projects and shone where the impossible was necessary and I was brought in to salvage something in a short period of time and usually worked alone and proceeded to do what no one thought could be done. It's a good talent to have, but it's not healthy because it's motivated by a need for speed, so to speak. Great chaos, but not sustainable. In the relationships I've chosen, I've looked for opportunities for me to be the knight in shining armor. Chivalrous, but over-the-top. It's not my job to save the world. Ultimately, I'm really not responsible for others. Here's where one of my favorite maxims comes into play: Circle of Concern, Circle of Influence. From Stephen Covey's Seven Habits: In looking at ways to influence and change our surroundings it is helpful to notice where we focus our time and energy. We each have a wide range of concerns - our health, our family, problems at work, the national debt, etc., and it is these things in our lives that make up our Circle of Concern. As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them in a smaller Circle of Influence. The problems all of us face fall in one of three areas: direct control (problems involving our own behavior); indirect control (problems involving other people's behavior); or no control (problems we can do nothing about, such as our past, or situational realities). A proactive approach is the first step to the solution of all three kinds of problems within our present Circle of Influence. Some people interpret proactive to mean pushy, aggressive, or insensitive, but that isn't the case at all. Proactive people are smart, they are value driven, they read reality, and they know what's needed. And they focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging, and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. I'm finding that life lately is telling me in a big way that I'm spending too much time in my Circle of Concern and not enough time in my Circle of Influence. Which means that I'm wasting my time. Time in the Circle of Concern means that I fancy myself Superman. I'm not. Always a good lesson to re-learn. |
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My son now thinks that my bedroom has the appearance of a hospital ward. He's not speaking to its cleanliness - too much stuff crammed in there for that - but speaks to the light that I now have in my room. I purchased the $18.75 20 watt Daylight bulbs for my overhead lights from MisterArt.com. Here's the difference, yellow first:  And white...  I might point out that the yellow bulbs are high quality bulbs from GE, not just your run-of-the-mill incandescent bulbs. But boy, are they ever yellow. Amazing, the difference. So what difference does this make for the artist? Take a look. Here's my unfinished painting... again, yellow light first:  And white:  Notice how washed out the yellowed picture is. The colors are drab and muddy. Especially in the blue of the sky - lifeless in yellow light. But the white light brings out the color accurately and vividly. Exactly as it appears in real life. I've thought a great deal during my week-long vacation about my art and I've come to a conclusion. My people'd cards don't sell, and I like people too much to give them up to paint subjects commercially for cards alone. I'll continue to paint for cards, but not with the fecundity that I had before. I'll start going into portrait work more, emphasizing family portraits on a larger scale that work to capture the essence of the people in them. (Read: no portrait posing.) And I'll charge a few or several hundred dollars for each original work because that's honest for my effort and respects what I put it into it. But no signed prints for hundreds of dollars. All originals. I'll continue to offer my art on cards for the cheaper price, but I think I'm going to tweak the pricing and perhaps buy a commercial quality printer to do these myself rather than print them in large quantities through a print shop. This way, I can customize the messages inside the cards for small productions. I might also approach businesses to offer a unique and artistic card for them. I don't know how I'll maneuver as I go forward, but I've learned in my cards experiment what sells and what doesn't sell. And I've learned what I'm willing to do and what I'm not willing to do. What I do at work is just a job for me - it is not my passion. I can't have my artwork become a job for me. It should instead continue to be my passion and free expression, and if people come to value what I do enough that it can sustain me economically, then I'll get to do what I love doing for a living. Drucker said that efficiency is "doing the right things right." I have to focus on the right things for me. And for me, I love people. ETC: I spent part of my time this fall taking pictures at the farmer's market so that I could continue my work on this. I'll get back to this eventually, but it's on hiatus for now. |
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I broke in my new shoes with a long walk this evening, during which it drizzled and I witnessed the most spectacular rainbow. A full circle, it was, with a second rainbow begun on the outside of it.  I took this with my camera phone. It takes decent pictures, I think. Lots of thinking during my walk and a few phone calls. Nice to get out, and it was cool to be damp for it. Yesterday, I went to my friend's house (Tamara) and watered her tomatoes. One had even turned color.  Summer is wonderful. I love these images. As I spend my time on vacation this week just being at home, I'm using the time to retool. I'll know more when I come up for air, but some strong directions emerge. We'll see if life will allow me to go in those directions.  I'll drive where I'm allowed. Fun! Oh, and one other thing. Kelly turned me onto Matt's site the other day. You really must visit it, if just to watch the video. (Kay, are you reading? You would love this!) Not only is it infectious, but the song is amazing. I ordered the CD, which is by Deep Forest. It's out of print, but I managed to get it through Amazon. |
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The Flip Side of Insecurity |
Ego. Smugness. Arrogance. Here's the New York Times back during the Revolutionary War, uncovering government secrets for public consumption.  Yes, it's a joke. Sort of. Note the name of the author of the article. That's not a joke. Bendict indeed. The flipside of insecurity is unspeakable arrogance that disregards human life to win Pulitzers, which are worthless for the cost to achieve one. (Got this from Powerline...) |
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I'm hard on shoes.  I've had this pair since 1999.  But everything has to be replaced...  Boy, are the new ones white! |
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I don't like it when I'm cynical, but I'm really seeing the relationship between blogs, newspapers, and the businesses who advertise in either one in a new light. If I'm a business, I need to let people know about my business - or I'm not in business. So I advertise, and to advertise, I look for venues that receive a great deal of traffic where lots of people will chance upon my ad and notice my business. Of course - nothing new there... And if I manage one of those venues - let's go with blogs or newspapers at the moment - my job is to create as much traffic as I can so that I can attract more advertisers. Of course - nothing new here either... I'm reading around on the net this morning and I stumble upon this: a horrid political cartoon that equates America with al Qaeda in terms of torture. I read on this guy's site that this generated an uproar in Atlanta and that talk radio is abuzz with this. This is an attention economy: you make money if people pay attention to you. And so lots of people are paying attention to the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) because of its cartoonist's despicable viewpoint. Traffic. He's generating traffic for his employer. Lots of people are paying attention to this. So one of the long-time advertisers in the AJC, a Mercedes dealer, decides to buy a full page ad on the page before the editorial section, protesting the cartoon. They don't sever their advertising relationship with the AJC. No, instead they set up their ad right where the traffic is going and howl at the moon and look patriotic. - The cartoonist created traffic that prompted an advertiser, who intends to continue the relationship, to buy a full page ad. Good for the AJC.
- The car dealer gets to look good before its buying public in the midst of scandal. Good for the car dealer.
- And bloggers and talk radio folks get more readship and listenership through those incensed by the whole thing, which drives up their traffic.
See the full circle?I remember when Bono used to be somewhat high-minded and he decried the star aspects of rock and roll. That changed about the time that their Achtung Baby album came out. He decided that he was better off just emracing the whole thing and running with it. His "The Fly" image - big glasses, leather jacket - was a response to this. Today, he uses the attention he gets in his embrace of stardom to advance causes important to him. Smart. Eric Lichtblau, the New York Times "journalist" who broke the story about SWIFT, is essentially a useful idiot, just as the AJC's cartoonist. The AJC and the NYT use these sideshow acts to drive the curious into the big tent. And Mercedes dealers and bloggers and talk radio folks set up shop around the whole thing to ride the coattails of it all. This is all just mutual backscratching. I don't know if I should be deeply upset or amused by it all. At the moment, I'm pretty irked about it. I might feel inclined to jump in the fray if it weren't for the fact that people's lives are threatened by it. |
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 | Insecurity |  |
I read a quote a few days ago that said something like, "The problem is rarely the problem. The problem is usually the reaction to the problem." I've been noticing lately that what seems to cause conflict in relationships - at work, at home, between friends, etc - is the response to a person's insecurity. We're all insecure at times. This will drive us to do really stupid and drastic things to protect ourselves that we might not otherwise do, but insecurity is not really rational. And so we do the thing we never thought we'd do, or we say the thing we never thought we'd say. Did we mean to do or say it? It seems as though it were driven by a different side of us. Which is true, in a way. Our instincts rise up and it's fight or flight and we react. It's never classy when this happens. We're usually ashamed of our behavior later. I think our reaction to someone's insecurity is where we spur the frightened beast and the problem then escalates and becomes the problem. Rather than recognize it, we can react back and make it worse. I can't control the behavior of others, but I can control my response to their behavior. By believing that the reaction is the problem, I can usually take someone's insecurity and calm it with an even-handed response. Cool hands, warm heart - isn't that the saying? |
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How the New York Times Drives Business |
A lot of folks on the right side of the blogosphere are up in arms this week over the New York Times' disclosure of a legal and effective money trail surveillance program aimed at finding terrorists. They should be mad; it's wonderful when you're battling America to have America's own national media serve as an arm of your intelligence services. The reaction I've seen has been umbrage over the Times' insistence that this was in the "public interest." I say "Hooey." In fact, it was for a different reason and all of the bloggers just helped the cause of the New York Times, in my opinion. Newspaper readership has been in decline for quite some time. But not at the New York Times. They have a winning formula. It's called "sensationalism." Here's the formula: Write an article that is not quite as titillating as, say, Brangelina's latest escapade. Instead, write about something that skirts the edge of national security and gossip and everyday Joe concerns. An example is trending phone records for terrorist activity. Remember that one? Yep, the Times broke that too. An article like that gets the New York Times web site traffic meters humming because everyone on all sides of the blogosphere links to it. Especially those on the right. Which is perfect for the Times. This has nothing to do with reporting and journalism. It has everything to do with revenue. It is, after all, a business. And the righties help them out with furious and passionate links to the New York Times. Me, I ignore the Times. No link from me. Why help them? I know that attribution is important, but seriously - why help the New York Times and reward them with traffic for doing the wrong thing? |
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Market with Yellow Umbrella - Day Four |
Yep - I'm crawling along with this one, but it's not for a lack of interest. I've learned that my cards in the store that feature people on them don't sell. The ones without people sell okay, but if there's people, they sit idle. Not a big deal, I suppose, but I really enjoy painting people. So my dilemma: do I commercialize my art and go for what sells, or do I paint what I choose for myself at the risk of not selling? Bigger question: what is my art to me? |
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Market with Yellow Umbrella - Day Three |
After a couple of days away, I'm back and working on my big painting. I've corrected the lines problem that I had and I'm beginning to add some people, as you can see in this close-up shot.  |
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