House on Red Corner

Since I have several places to blog from and subjects to blog about, it seems like it would be simple enough to become a better blogger. If you jump over to my artblog you will see that I have a nice stream of work that I have been producing, but have been slipping on my viewing of other people’s artwork and have not been linking to many other people’s websites. My twitterstream has not exactly been sharilicious either. My home blog is mostly about the way the family has grown and frankly I find it hard to keep up with the pace of that growth, particularly as both kids are blasting past milestones with such abandon.
Recently, I have begun a trial period as a tech blogger for MakeTechEasier and I am looking to see if that can help me get better as it is a more researched set of subject matter and requires more writing skills than just jotting down random thoughts as they occur to me. Fish. Bears, Lions and Tin woodsmen not withstanding my faux randomness.
As there is a great deal of sickness happening in the house at the moment, I thought I’d take this opportunity to throw some words at the internet and hope that they find some place to be read.

My efforts at creativity are continuing; today I posted a new entry on my artblog from my Moleskine project. That’s a fun sort of medium range project that is done in small chunks and does not necessarily require a great deal of effort, it’s just sketch, draw, ink and color.

My large project has tons of little cardboard squares to be cut out and glued together to make a mixed media mural on cardboard and paper. I am also not quite finished printing out the image matrix; I keep running out of colored ink for the printer. I am two rows from the end of that portion of the project. After that I have to attach the matrix to the backboard and then begin the slow process of glueing the cubes onto the surface, that is after the cubes are painted.

TheBubster has been helpful with this project although at the moment she is mad about having to take a bath, while Bud is very comfortable drink his bottle of milk next to me on the couch. We have such a good time together all day long, the three of us. Art is just one of the many things we do, but the lessons are always on.

It has been nearly three years since I last was able to freely create as I wanted. University has taken a great deal of my mental space and the kids have taken an equal share of the emotional space that I used to reserve for producing art. Now that things are beginning to transition again, I am finding time and space for more creativity.
First of all I am putting my work on its own website, Nacreo.us. This is serving as the backbone for my art works, whichever media I am experimenting in. The is blog, of course, that I am using to document my efforts. I have tried to go visit galleries in NYC since we moved here, but I got a little sidetracked from this objective during the final few weeks of University. Now, I should be able to get back to those visits.
I have also embarked upon a journey within a Moleskine notebook as part of a greater project called Escape into Life. Additionally, I am submitting the images from my notebook into a Flickr Group of the same name.
Finally, I have a large multimedia project up on the wall of the bedroom that is slowly taking form. Currently, I am laying an image matrix on the backdrop before beginning to add color layers in bas relief. Certainly, there will be something that begins to take shape in my life as the result of all this activity. i have a strong belief after looking through some past notebooks that this is certainly an area which I am well suited to producing great work, as well as having an interest in the advances and skills necessary to compete within the field. So it is to pursue the stated goal and create like an artist.

As part of my personal goal to get a bakfiets, TheBubster and I took a trip downtown today to look into a shop that is rumored to sell unusual used bikes. I had read their website that indicated that they closed last fall but people kept telling me about them, so I chose to do some old fashioned investigation; the shop was definitely not there anymore.
There is more happening with regard to getting this bike. First of all, we are running pretty heavy into some budget trouble, well trouble might be the wrong word, perhaps we’ll just say budget difficulty. Since we had a big move from Boston to here in the last couple months, our finances are having some strain, plus there is a private school that TheBubster fits into quite nicely that needs a tuition paid. Realistically, it has come down to one or the other. The Bike or The School.
Given this choice, TheBubster wants the bike, because she loves her family. Of course, the choice was framed as “The Bike so you can have adventures with Daddy” or School, which followed the question, “do you want to go to school or stay home with Daddy?” Frankly, I can not blame her. If I had been given the same options as a four year old, I would certainly have chosen to go on adventures everyday with my Daddy, riding in a big bucket on a bike would have made it even more awesome!
We have not fully made this decision, but I suspect that we will take her wishes highly into account when the final result is calculated.
Anyways we still do not have a bakfiets.

“One massive undertaking completed; my brain is not what it used to be, its better!”

How I did it: This is not a continuation of another series that I started to prove my undying desire to own a bakfiets, rather this is about a goal that I set for myself a long time ago (see image below for dated entry) Well, now it’s over. I turned in my last assignment on Friday and got the grade back this morning. I got a C in my final class and this gives me a 3.3 GPA overall, which makes me proud to be completed. I am certain that I learned tons of stuff especially as it was all done at online University and required a great deal of self-motivation and organization, particularly the times I was taking three courses simultaneously, or the other times when I was spending a greatdealoftime travelingoverseas, all while having and raising a couple of kids, well they might have actually raised me but don’t let that get out too much. 

Anyways, it’s all done except for the marching down the aisle and apparently waiting for the sheepskin to arrive in the mail sometime this century.

Lessons & tips: Get organized. 

Resources: Google was my friend. 

It took me 4 years.

It made me Proud