Reno Artists Help Out a Wedding Chapel

I just wanted to do a quick share of a temporary outdoor piece that I painted over the summer. The Antique Angel Wedding Chapel in downtown Reno wanted to replace some damaged windows with artwork from local artists. The theme of all of the work had to be centered around love, romance and/or angels. My interpretation included little cherubs, bubbles and an implied marriage between a Black couple. It was a hot day and the acrylic paint was challenging for me to work with, as it always is, but I still had a lot of fun.

Live From Lockdown

I’m reporting live from the 6th visit to my fridge today.

Since I’ve been home and not working at the moment, it’s been a challenge to navigate through each day. Initially I expected to be making a lot more art, because there’s nothing but time now. Before we were on lockdown, or “quarantine” if you prefer, the lack of time seemed like the main obstacle to my ability to produce more work consistently. However, personally I’ve found myself filling my days with lots of other things. To be fair, I have made a few pieces in the last month and a half, but I could’ve made more. Surprisingly I don’t really feel bad about it. The way that it’s been shaking out for me is that it’s nice to make art whenever I want, not to do a whole bunch of it. The real unfortunate part about the state of things is that we don’t have more time just for the hell of it. The extra time comes at the cost of being in a state of constant anxiety and survivor mode. Everywhere we turn there are messages of death, sickness and loss. So though at first glance it sounds like this is the best time to take advantage of the extra time that I have and create more than I ever have, most days it’s difficult to find the right headspace!

Even still, I have been able to be creative in an informal way. My partner has a six year old daughter who is always seconds away from a creative idea, which means that I’m always seconds away from creating it with her. I have to say, it keeps me on my toes! It’s also been an exercise in simply “doing.” My biggest challenge over the last two plus years is detaching myself from certain expectations for my artwork or the act of making artwork, but hanging out with a six year old is teaching me to let go of some of that. With her there are new creative problems to solve all the time, and there’s no concern about how it looks or how long it takes. It’s the most freeing thing for me right now, and it has made it easier to have the same approach to my own work at the moment. There are no series that I’m interested in working on right now, no upcoming shows, no deadlines, and no restraints. Right now I’m making whatever comes to mind or pulling old ideas that I never executed, and sharing them. That’s it.

A painting inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic

A memento mori

CINDER-block the cat

Drawing pokemon has become a huge part of my life in the last month!

Squirtle Squad

Kids’ art is so pure and simple

A popular art challenge that has surfaced. I used characters suggested by my good friends.

For however long I have left in this particular phase of life, I’m going to continue to make whatever I want whenever I want and just see how I feel. Maybe it’s necessary to help push myself forward? I have to admit that working with a young child is in some way helping me get in touch with the concept of “art for art’s sake,” which has been so difficult for me to do for years. I hope that I can find a way to keep it up!

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. How have you been using your time? Do you find yourself creating more or less often? Are you creating alone or with someone else?

Website Glow-up!

After buying my domain name, it took me at least a year before I actually started to make it a website. That was about 7 - 8 years ago. Because of some changes that I want to try out behind the scenes, it hit me recently that it was about time for an update on the front-facing side. So, welcome to the new look of my site! Most of the stuff that was in the previous version is still here, but more streamlined. I also think it’s a bit of a cleaner presentation than what it was before. In time I’ll be adding a couple more features once I solidify the details, so be sure to check back for that.

Now that this part is finished, I plan to move on to my Etsy store to clean up the work that’s there and add new pieces that will be for sale. Soon enough I’ll be back to working on new paintings on a more regular schedule. Though I’ve been really slow to get motivated, I’m looking forward to sharing new shit. In the meantime, have a look around! Check out the updated, trimmed down Gallery where I’ve added a bunch of work that was in my backlog for a while. If you haven’t visited in a while then you’ll see definitely see some new things. As far as all the rest, though the schedule will probably be inconsistent, I’ll still make videos for my YouTube channel and blog posts on here of course.

Can’t wait to be able to get to work and share more!