The Gearwork Nest

The Magnetic Crow is moving!

2010-08-09T14:40:00.000-04:00

Tired of blogger's interface and unbalanced customizability, I'm packing up shop and moving to WordPress! There I'll be posting to a schedule, as well as regular posts, which will guarantee a much more dynamic blog that updates at least four times a week. Monster, art, and fantasy enthusiasts should be particularly pleased by my choices of feature!

The first Monster Monday is going live tonight! Head on over to A Distinguished Bird and check it out!

The real news

2010-07-07T15:30:00.002-04:00

On to the exciting things that have been happening in art-life!

The beginning of May, Evan and I had a joint opening at SOVA on H street, in DC. We called it "Third knock on the door". The theme was folklore and storytelling.
A close and talented friend of ours had had her own show there earlier this year, and we met the owner through her. It's a great place to show. The owner is a great guy, the venue gets a lot of traffic, and is overall a varied and interesting looking space.
Artists reading this: SOVA's always looking for new blood. Try contacting them, get some art up! It was an amazing opening, one I hope to replicate in the future.

The show's still up, and probably will be for a few weeks yet.

Illustration:
'Firebird with cherries'
8"x10" Watercolour and sepia ink
May 2010

I mentioned that I would be illustrating the July cover of Crossed Genres magazine, "Lies". Well, I did! And it is out! Though, also, Evan and I collaborated on the cover for the prior issue as well, "Gadgets and Artifacts".
He's working on the cover for the September issue, "Bildungsroman". Absolutely go check it out. Gorgeous, varied, and fascinating magazine. Highly recommend it.

Illustration:
'I'd like a word with you. In private.'
11"x17" Watercolour and blue india ink
June 2010

That all seemed like a lot more when I was doing it. At the time, I was also working on my graphic design contract (that one with the long commute) so it was all I could do to get a little painting done in the evenings when I got home from work.
Things were so chaotic for a while, there, that I ended up having to turn down some commissions that I dearly wanted to take. At the moment I'm at loose ends (though waiting, eagerly, to hear some very important news) and working mostly on personal projects, like mailers.

And ripple cards. If you haven't heard... little ACEOs, whose proceeds go to benefit wildlife rehab in the gulf. Do you own a pencil? A pen? Artist or not, consider making one. Or buying, at least.

I should've known this would happen

2010-07-06T21:48:00.000-04:00

Another long blogging drought, precipitated in part by this little trouble-maker:

Yup, that's Cinnamonopteryx, that kitten I was talking about in the last post. He's been taking up a lot of time and attention, in part due to the "Awww, I want to play with him!" factor, and also in part due to the "I've never owned a pet mammal before and I had no idea how much more work they are than snakes and birds". He's adorable, he's tenacious, he's friendly and cuddly and purrs like mad when you get close to him. He's also struck up a friendly rivalry with our roommate's cat This causes him to tear about the house at odd times in the morning, poop in our roommate's litter box, and tackle our roommate's cat with vigor.
This last is more hilarious than annoying, really, considering that Shadow weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 pounds, and Cinnamon was last weighed at 7 1/2.

Cinnamon's origin story involves our friend's tiny calico cat Saga, a postponed spaying, and an ill-advised excursion outside. His father's identity is a mystery, though the fact that both he and one of his sisters are points (and none of his mother's siblings were) makes it pretty likely that mystery dad was a siamese.
We're getting him neutered next week, ensuring that he doesn't follow in his father's footsteps in any other fashion. And, hopefully, calming his and Shadow's rivalry a tad.
Cat fights? As loud as you'd expect, even when friendly.

He was all white but with orange ears, an orange nose, and a stripey orange tail when we brought him home. He's since developed a tabby-like orange mask, faint orange stripes on his legs and flanks, and a faintly tawny cast about the shoulders and flanks.
Cinnamon also has an immensely long tail. Is this a normal kitten-thing, at six months old, or does this have to do with his oriental-type heritage? Anyone know?

So this post appears to have drifted entirely to cat. There's been a ton of art-news too, I swear! Also, important life-news...
But since I like to keep things neat, I'll keep this feline-related and save the more important things for another, very proximate post.

Now, for the sake of absolutely gratuitous cuteness, I sign off with a photo of Evan's pet hedgehog: September.

A few impending things...

2010-03-04T20:59:00.000-05:00

These next few months are going to be pretty exciting for me. The next issue of Steampunk Magazine is coming out soon (with two of my illustrations in it)!
And I've managed to nab the job of illustrating the cover of Crossed Genres' July edition, themed 'Lies'. I am so excited about this. Cover art is something I've been wanting to do, and Crossed Genres happens to be a truly excellent publication that I really respect, both for its past art and literary content, and also for its imaginative method of running.

My biannual graphic design contract is edging closer, which will mean a lot less dealing with grump customers and a lot more feeling like I'm actually in my depth.

Illustration:
'Basking in Lamplight'
3" x 5" Watercolour and graphite, sketch
February 2010

And on top of all of that: kitten.

A friend of Evan and I had mentioned some time ago that his cat might be pregnant, and it turned out he was correct. We'd been planning on heading to the shelter to browse about for a cat or kitten that suited us, but with the immediacy of a friend who needed to get some kittens into some good homes, and with the added bonus of having at least one of its parents be a known quantity, we decided to go for one of the little fellows instead.
We finally met them last night, and they are adorable.
We're still trying to decide on which one we want to bring home (they're not ready to leave for another week yet), but we have it narrowed down.

As a parting warning: prepare for photographs and drawings of kitten. I don't think I'll be able to help myself.

A catalogue of recent personal events.

2010-02-16T20:03:00.000-05:00

     This has been a pretty crazy month for those of us living on the mid East coast. The Maryland/DC/Northern Virginia area is used to experiencing, at most, perhaps a handful of days each year in which snow of in any volume touches the ground. Much more common, particularly in VA, are ice-overs-- ice up to an inch thick covering everything in a glittering shell, making even walking treacherous and causing tree limbs to crack with a sound like gunshots. Even this never lasts long, and rarely bought us more than a 2-hour delay from school.
   This year has been record-breaking, dumping impassible amounts of snow in December, and then twice in the same week in February. Following two years in a row of unusually wet summers and an early fall, it's getting pretty obvious that global climate change is really moving in on us. The accompanying photo is of the Annapolis harbor, filled with ice floes. Ice floes in the Chesapeake bay, folks.

     There was a week and a half where I didn't go to work at all, each time I was scheduled being either in the middle of a Blizzard or directly after. I did get rather a bit accomplished, however. I completed two illustrations for the next issue of Steampunk Magazine, one for an interview with the marvelous band Sunday Driver, and another for an article on Steampunk belly dancing.
    I also joined the artistic team for the delightfully progressive cyperpunk litzine The Future Fire, which I cannot wait to make work for. Good stuff, all.

    And then! I finally bought up my domain name again, having broken off with godaddy over its abyssmal regard for privacy (handing out my info to shady web design firms and hosts) and terrible ads (sexist hogwash, of course). So I have it again, and my professional portfolio is sitting upon it! Thank to deviantArt, and their webtools for lazy artists.
     And more than that, I have designed and ordered myself some business cards! Adorable, mini business cards from zazzle. They will be awesome, and I will finally be able to hand out my info with as much ease as Evan does. Excitement.

And so I have been up to things, oh yes. Art and writing, too.
Posting of some of these things in the near future.

A solid wall

2010-01-08T01:48:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, it's just so much easier to write to an audience. Even if it's just a theoretical audience, as on a blog like this.
I've been working on trying to knock out a decent word count every day. This is hard. Very hard. I second guess myself constantly. I have little training as a writer, and I fear I'm doing everything incorrectly, missing some mystical rule of grammar or pacing that I need classes, workshops, or other writers in order to learn.
I know that in order to succeed as a writer, I need to write a great deal. Finish many, many stories and send them away to many, many places to even have a slim hope for acceptance.
Often, it's easier to just ignore this need to work on writing, and just draw. Obviously, this is important too. I'm far from perfect as an illustrator, and I need to work hard and build up my portfolio. But I know when I'm using it to hide from my writing as well.
I have quite a few finished illustrations, but almost no finished, polished, ready to send stories. I know that I need to take the advice of Cory Doctorow (et al.) and just set aside a concrete period of time each day during which to do it. Every day. Without fail. Or, if failing, at least set a word count to achieve before allowing myself sleep.
So.
Why am I having so much difficulty doing either?

I keep telling myself that a different setting will help. And maybe it will. I think wistfully if the days when I was fully unemployed (and still got nothing done during the day). I don't think anything will help more than just sitting down and forcing myself to get to it, but I balk. I know fewer of the rules of writing. I fear rejection in writing more, because I've yet to find any sort of acceptance in it. Will it be easier once I do? Or will I worry about having produced a fluke, something I'll never live up to again?
I think of joining a writer's group, but then balk. I'm never the most social of people anyway, and the thought of reading my work for the sake of critique in a group is intimidating. Also, I've been unsuccessful in finding local writer's groups that cater to my perticular interests and are also still accepting members.
I think about sharing my work online, but then I worry too much about the possibility of theft and plagiarism.
And thus I've written yet another blog entry about having difficulty making work, and without actually posting anything of artist substance or interest.

Roadtrip

2009-12-30T23:18:00.000-05:00

We spent Monday driving to Pittsburgh and back. To pick up a letterpress.
Evan had been searching all over the internet for one, his interest mostly academic. He bemoaned their sudden steep rise in popularity, which had more than tripled their standard asking price over the past few years. He browsed and inquired and researched. And then, last Saturday, he accidentally purchased one.

He confronted me with the news when he picked me up from work on Saturday night. He'd made a low bid on a 5 x 8" press of decent quality on eBay, and had been shocked to receive the email notifying him that he had won. It needed some cleaning, some new springs, and the rollers needed to be recoated, but otherwise is was in good condition. We just had to drive to Pittsburgh to pick it up (that, or pay to ship a 126-pound press. Driving was much cheaper).

This thing is amazing. We drove nearly ten hours straight (roundtrip) to pick it up. Everything West of the Appalachians was encompassed in a blizzard both ways, so that when we returned home our car was caked and streaked in salt. But we made it, picking up the press from a quiet Pennsylvanian man in his Ford pickup, who waited patiently for us in the snow.
Now it sits behind me. We haven't gotten down to cleaning it yet, we have a lot of lemon juice and vinegar to acquire for that. But it will come. And we have our own press.

Books, bookplates, business cards... One of the first projects I plan to tackle is to finally design and print my own deck of cards, something I've been meaning to do for years now. Expect updates on press process, as well as art updates of my progress. I've been lax in uploading art here lately, I know. I do most of my internet-ing on my Eee PC now, and most of my art-ing on my Mac--meaning that I need to get considerably less lazy to get things up here.
My DeviantArt account has been getting rather more love.

Minutia

2009-12-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

With the overwhelming retail workload of late, I've had little time for anything else. I arrive home from work exhausted, drained, often demoralized, and want little else but to divert myself via the contents of a novel or a video game. Art and writing have been creaking along at sub-glacial speeds. Email and twitter are ignored. Blogs go unread.
So I have little of real interest to share here, except a journaling of some of the more diverting occurrences of the past week.

A photograph of a mug, taken in Hessler St., Cleveland, with my phone. Several years old. I was trying to pick up the delicate traceries of the spider-webs, though the lighting on the mug itself ended up being the more fascinating aspect.
Posting it because I feel it's appropriate.

Last week I worked for seven days straight, in order to clear two consecutive weekend days in order to see my sister graduate from college. Evan and I drove down to Williamsburg, which was unusually cold, and spent time with my sister and parents.
The graduation itself was a tad disappointing. It was the winter ceremony, short and with little aplomb, which my sister was taking part in because of her plans to study abroad in Leiden, The Netherlands, next semester. We spent most of the time there tromping up and down the main street in the colonial sector of town, trying to maintain a quick enough pace to keep our limbs from freezing.
Williamsburg itself is always a fascinating place to visit, and we enjoyed the architecture and historical reenactments.
Being who I am, however, the thing that stands out as my favourite part of the trip was not related to any of these things.
Evan and I had been out to grab a late lunch on the day we arrived, as my parents had already eaten. On our way back, I spotted a few familiar black shapes gliding noiselessly through the air toward a copse behind our hotel. Following them, we discovered where the vultures of Williamsburg gather to sleep at night. Waning orange sunlight touched off of more than a hundred Turkey Vultures perched in clusters among the winter trees. The only sounds were the hushed whirring of wings, and the occasional turkey-like gobble as one bird vyed with another for prime boughs. A shallow rill trickled along the bottom of the ravine, an obvious attraction for the vultures. The experience made me wonder where the Annapolis vultures go to sleep at night.
Though we did find that at least one murder of crows, fifty birds or so, sleeps at Landover metro station on winter nights.

Then a few days ago, I was going on a walk before work. The morning was clear and cold, so I walked briskly. A sudden flash of striped tail feathers arrested my interest, and I stopped to focus on their location.
I approached the bush above which I'd noted the motion. A hawk popped out, probably startled by my proximity, and sat atop it staring back at me. It was an obvious juvenile (most juvenile hawks are nearly identical, with yellow legs and striped brown-and-white bodies), and I suspected it to be the progeny of the Sharp-shinned hawk I'd seen about the neighborhood last spring.
It regarded me warily for some time, then turned its gaze toward its feet. It began making a most uncharacteristic squeaking and chirruping, sounding much more like a small finch than a small hawk. Without warning it dove down into the bare bush; I could see it tunneling through the narrow spaces within. With a startled chirp, a tiny sparrow came rocketing out of the same shrub and fled, leaving the hawk disappointed.
Feeling guilty for losing the hawk its meal, I moved on. A few hundred feet down the road I noticed a tapping sound, and discovered a Downy woodpecker. It was testing small branches for hollows, which might house insect infestations. Rapping several times with its stubby beak, it would then pause briefly to consider the timbre of the sounds produced. Upon deciding that the twig sounded solid, it would move on: hopping rapidly about the tree in its progress.
It suddenly ceased its search, flitting to a thicker limb and hunkering down in an attempt to appear a portion of the tree itself. Moments later the juvenile hawk came soaring over, landing in a nearby oak. It perched precariously, surveying the area. Then with a dramatic flutter it dove straight into an overgrown juniper bush and disappeared.
This is apparently a burrowing hawk.

Currently, I am tucked under a blanket and in front of a beautiful fire. Work was canceled today, and I doubt I'll be able to make it there tomorrow either.
More talk about the snow tomorrow, accompanied by visual aids.

A troublesome customer (how it should have gone).

2009-11-17T22:55:00.000-05:00

    I glanced up at the clock on the monitor. It was fifteen minutes into my break, and I still had filing to do behind the register before I could take off. My replacement had arrived on time, but the constant stream of customers had kept me pinned behind the desk. Now the line had dwindled to three people, two of them apparently a couple. I finished helping the customer in front of me, then turned to the other cashier.
"My break started 15 minutes ago, so I'm going to take off now. Do you think you can handle this on your own?" She smiled and nodded at me. "Awesome. Where was that binder? I have a donation sticker."
    "Wait a minute," Interjected the next customer in line, an elderly woman standing with her husband, two slim volumes balanced upon her palms. "I have to wait now because she wants to take a break?" She turned to her husband, the look on her face self-righteous affront.
    "I'm sorry, but I've been here a long time..." I began.
    "She's been here a long time! As if I haven't!" The customer in front of her seemed to be nearly finished with her business, but I called for backup anyway.
    "Look, I've called backup. Someone else should be here shortly. But I really can't help you, I need to go. And I think you need to calm down and be a little more considerate of others." I took down the donation binder that my coworker had indicated, and began recording the sale.
    "I'm the customer!" She was close to yelling now, and I was having difficulty maintaining a smile-- I'm sure it looked strained.
    "Yes? And?"
    "Your customer service is awful! I can't believe you treat people this way!" She turned back to her husband, who had taken to throwing sarcastic jibes at me between her outbursts. "Can you believe this? She must really not like this job!"
    The implied threat is what did it for me. I returned the binder to the shelf, and approached the register. My coworker was trying to mollify the irrate woman, telling her that I had called for backup.
    "Well, she didn't tell me that!" Was the customer's huffed response.
    "I see that I've been wrong," I said calmly. "I didn't realize how much more important your schedule was than mine. It's true that I'm rather behind on taking my medication, but since your time is so valuable I can put that off a little longer. Surely nothing bad will happen."
    "Well, finally!" The customer trounced over to the counter, angrily dumping her books in front of the scanner. I keyed my employee code into the register, then leaned across the counter to for her purchase. As soon as she was in range, I twitched the specialized muscle in the corner of my eye, causing the vessel there to burst.
    Jets of blood shot from my eyes, hitting the customer squarely in the face. She began screaming and stumbling backwards, flailing into other customers, who were backing away themselves. With a quick thumb's-up to my grinning coworker, I clutched my hands to my still-bleeding eyes and staggered out from behind the register. Headed up the escalator and towards the breakroom, I made sure to mutter "Oh gods, oh gods..." whenever a customer approached, for effect.
    Only three people stopped me to request directions, making it the most effective aversionary tactic I have yet devised.

Employment

2009-11-06T19:29:00.000-05:00

So I have a job again. A seasonal position as a bookseller for Borders, which is obviously not ideal, but certainly better than nothing. After Office Depot, I had forsworn ever working retail again... though tough times obviously call for doing things you'd rather not.
But at least it's a book store, and so far everyone I've met there has been really nice (and in some cases, quite pleasingly zany :) ). Being out of Reston and dealing in products rather than services, I think this is going to end up being 50x less stressful than OD was, as well. Despite this being the holiday season. Let's hope time proves me right.
The other advantage of this job is that it dovetails really nicely with my biannual graphic design contract, which happens every early spring and late summer. If they like me well enough at Borders, perhaps I can keep swinging back and forth between the two jobs (working summer and holiday seasonal) until something more permanent comes along. Sure, Borders only pays about 1/3 of what ASET does... but it's more than 0, and admittedly the majority of my entertainment spending goes towards books anyhow. Getting a consistent 33% off of those purchases will be amazing.

In the meantime, I keep drawing and writing. Submitting to magazines and contests. Further successes will, of course, be reported here. :)

Happy Hallowe'en, GUD-monster style!

2009-10-26T21:47:00.002-04:00

"Be careful your clockwork doesn't run down." monster: You're the robot from Darby Larson's Electroencephalography in Issue 1. You were built by Dean's family to help around the house, but it seems you don't take orders too well. You do take other things, though. Like hearts.
What GUD Monster are you? Find out at GUD Magazine!

I have spent the past week working on the illustrations for this quiz. I ended up pouring in more time than I had intended, but the cause (promoting GUD Magazine) is good, and I really enjoyed doing it! Sometimes, it's incredibly nice having inspiration placed in front of you. :)
I encourage you to take the quiz. It's quick, amusing, and links you to both my art, and some excellent writing. The monsters are also quite strange and creepy (not your usual Hallowe'en fare, these!)

There are also ten different possible outcomes, so you might want to take it more than once. ;)

Where the writing goes.

2009-10-13T20:00:00.000-04:00

For anyone who has been following my blog for a long, long time, there might be some recollection of my having once posted snippets of short fiction on here as well. I stopped doing that a while ago, frightened by the prospect of having my work stolen (something that is easier to do, and more difficult to prove with words than it is with imargery). But I have no ceased writing! Since finishing my six thesis books, I have continued to write short ficiton for myself.
Emboldened by my recent visibility on GUD Magazine's blog, I am beginning to submit some of them to contests and literary magazines.

First up is Nanoism's December five-part twitter serial contest. I'm posting about it here for three reasons!
a.) So that you know about this magazine, because it's awesome and because there is a chance I might be in it!
b.) Because, as an incentive, they allow you to submit two different stories if you mention the contest!
And
c.) This is a nifty contest, and a really cool little magazine, and you should submit! Yes you! Whoever you are, send them something and make it good! They make it very simple to do so.
The deadline is October 31st, and winners will be published in December.

Second, I am also submitting to Fantasy Magazine's Halloween flash fiction contest. Flash fiction is good for me. It forces me to be succint, to have an entire story arc in mind when I begin, and to actually finish the thing. 1,000 words is also a pretty good goal for a single day of writing.
This contest is particularly good because the premise requires that a graphic be paired with the story, as the inspiration, and I can make my own. Thus, it gives me a possible venue for showing my art as well: two-for-one!
The deadline is October 16th, so get to work!

Blogging!

2009-10-12T17:11:00.000-04:00

So I just wrote a guest post for GUD Magazine's blog! It's on the topic of banned books, and is a belated post in recognition of the ALA's 'Banned books week' several weeks ago. Check it out!
And while you're there, be sure to take a look around the site. GUD's an excellent literary magazine, and the freebies there alone are enough to be worth your while. Plus, they've recently gotten a whole slew of honorable mentions from 'The Year's best horror'. I have three of their issues, and I've been enormously impressed by everything I've seen an read of them. They have some great editors, and a lot of diversity in what they publish. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

My brain is getting in the way of thinking.

2009-10-10T04:14:00.000-04:00

I have difficulty working with music or sound around me. Or rather, I have difficulty conceptualizing... once a sketch is down and I'm onto the grunt work of rendering, I can listen to anything. This is something I am just realizing.

Despite five years of art college, it took until now for me to recognize this pattern in myself. I honestly thought that the reason I tended to do most of my work in silence was because I was too lazy to turn on music, or an audio book until I was several hours deep into a project. I also though that the reason that I didn't like spending time in the noisy Print studio at school was because I am antisocial.

It took until I was living with Evan full-time, working in the same studio space as him for the problem to truly surface. He loves music, and works best with his MP3 collection, a podcast, or an internet radio station playing in the background. He does a lot of insanely tedious work for a graphic design firm, so he seriously needs it.

I know why this is, too. I have Asperger's Syndrome (as I've probably mentioned before) and tend to automatically visualize everything. If there is a music track playing, my mind is working to visually map that song, with colour, imagery, and geometric shapes. If someone's speaking, my mind is creating a tableau based on whatever they're talking about, overlaid with a running transcript written in a pleasing serif font. This ties in with the synesthesia so common in us Aspies, apparrently. Also, sometimes I just hallucinate stuff, for no other good reason! My brain does not like to think that I am lonely.

The net effect of this sort of all of this? I become almost blind when there's too much sound going on around me. I'm seeing what I'm hearing, and I'm finding it almost impossible to focus on whatever is in front of me. So even if I'm doing fine, inking and listening to music, someone talking to me over that can make my entire workspace go invisible.
I love working in coffee shops, because they remove me from the constant temptation of internet time-wastage, while also getting me out of the house. This is where I write best. Unless it is too loud there. This is highly frustrating.

The best solution I can think of is to find myself a quiet, private place to get started on my work in. Where that is, I have no clue, as I live in a townhouse with no backyard to speak of. Anyone else out there with similar issues, and perhaps suggestions?

SOZD*!

2009-10-01T19:14:00.001-04:00

Today is 'Support Our 'Zines Day'! Something I was informed of upon waking this morning, by an incredibly exuberant Eimhin. He, not the procrastinator that I am, has already posted a wonderful and comprehensive list of 'zines-of-amazingness on his own blog, which I recommend that you peruse. But there really is no possible way to over emphasize the importance of literary magazines, both in purveying excellent literature (and visual art, comics, and poetry...) and in promoting artists, burgeoning and established alike. So take a spin about these bizarre and marvelous publications, and if you can afford it, show them some love.

GUD Magazine
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Crossed Genres
McSweeney's
Weird Tales
Leading Edge
Brain Harvest
Electric Velocipede
Sybil's Garage
Tin House
Flash Fiction Online
The Cafe Irreal
Fantasy Magazine
Strange Horizons
ClarkesWorld
Shimmer
Steampunk Magazine

If there are any others I have missed, or simply have not heard of, please tell me about them in the comments! There are few things as satisfying as discovering a good new source of fiction.

I listen to not nearly so many Podcasts as Evan, but I am a generally huge fan of the readings over at Telltale Weekly. Alex Wilson's voice and inflection are perfect for these readings, and his content selection is excellent. It was through Telltale that I first found out about Kelly Link, actually (you must listen to 'The Girl Detective' as read on the site) which has, of course, led to all sorts of fascinating developments in my life.

*SOZD still sounds to me like a state of drunkenness.
Somewhere between dameschwipschen and completely toasted. Probably not the ideal state for reading, but to each one's own. Go for it.

Random pet peeve

2009-09-27T23:04:00.000-04:00

This may strike you as strange, but one of my biggest language-related pet peeves is the misuse of the word 'cannibalism'.

Cannibalism is the devouring of the flesh of one creature by another member of its same species.

Anthropophagy is the devouring of human flesh, by any creature.

So a chicken that eats another chicken is a cannibal; but a chicken that eats a human is anthropophagus.

There, important English-language lesson of the day. Use this knowledge well.

All that talk of not having any art done...

2009-09-21T23:18:00.000-04:00

...and I forgot that I hadn't posted this sketch here. Done in my Canson sketchbook, one fine afternoon whilst sitting about at the Hardbean Cafe downtown.

A larger version, as always, can be seen on my DeviantArt page.

Graphite. 5 1/2" x 8"

On the misappropriation of 'masculine' and 'feminine'.

2009-09-18T16:55:00.000-04:00

Still struggling with my artwork and creative motivation. In the meantime, I've decided to write about something that has bothered me since I was just a wee childling. That is...gender, and how it's characterised!

As a child, I was what is commonly referred to as a "tomboy". I liked dinosaurs and dragons, hiking and getting muddy, running about and playing outside. I hated dresses, and as of 3rd grade began refusing to wear them entirely. I would not wear pink, make-up and purses held no fascination for me.
For a long time, people thought this meant that I did not want to be a girl. Hell, even I was convinced of that for a while. But what has come more and more apparent to me over time is that being a girl is never what bothered me. It was (and is) the false set of roles and restrictions that are handed to every child upon determination of their biological sex at birth. Restrictions that are, inarguably, a lot more restrictive to the development of individuality in girls than they are to boys.

Not only that, but our culture has a habit of frequently disparaging any and all of the things women are supposed to be interested in. As a kid, this is very confusing-- on the one hand, there's a huge push to be interested in pink ponies, barbies, and make-up. On the other hand, everywhere you turn there's someone implying that women's things (and by extension, women) are silly or stupid, and that men should rather be caught dead than in association with any of these things.
So as a girl, you get a choice-- subsume any individual interests and complexity you might actually have and evince interest in only "girly" things, thereby gaining acceptance among your female peers who have done the same (not to mention the adult society, which sees gender and meaning in every decision you make, and has vested interest in you bowing to the status quo). Or reject all of these things, forcefully, and try making it in boy culture, which will allow for more diversity in what you can do, but no less condescension-- boys will still be mean to you and imply that you're less-than, you'll get to be the 'love interest' in every game they play, whether you want to or not, and at some stage in development they'll likely reject you entirely because girls "aren't allowed to play like that" once they hit puberty, apparently. This was my experience, anyhow.
Now, I am not implying that my interests were entirely driven by rejection of gender roles either. I was the oldest child, and my parents really started off on the right (non-gender specific) foot with me. Later on they started pushing gender stereotypes on me more, which I think had more to do with the advent of my brother (I no longer got to be the "son they never had", now that they had a son). But prior to that, most of my toys were dinosaurs, dragons, toy castles, and toy cars, planes, and helicopters. I had a big toy castle, populated by knights and ghosts-- no princesses to be saved, all the girls were knights too, or wizards. I received a microscope and a college textbook on human anatomy for my 5th birthday.

Where am I going with this? I want to talk about how the concepts of "feminity" and "masculinity" are entirely socially constructed, and how incorrectly those terms are used anyhow. I've just gotten done talking about how children feel immense societal pressure to perform gender based on the way adults conceive of it, and how adults conceive of gender in a way that's overall very bad for girls' self-esteem and individuality. Now, I want to argue against the way we use the terms "girly", "boyish", "feminine", and "masculine".
I want to argue that I, as a child who loved science and dinosaurs, who refused dresses and the colour pink, who loved spending my time running around in the forest, was entirely feminine. I also want to argue that I, as a woman with a shaved head, who doesn't wear make-up and loved to hike and run around outside, who is still interested in science and dinosaurs-- am also 100% feminine. Because I identify as a woman.

Get that? The fact that gender is far more complex than the either/or, binary concept that society is currently operating on is a topic for another post. But what I'm saying here is that everything any self-identified woman does and is, is feminine. And everything any self-identified man does and is, is masculine. Because that is what those two terms mean.

I am sick to death of hearing the word feminine used to shame men who do not fit the very artificial construct of what society deems men should be like. And I am also sick to death of hearing women shamed with the term masculine, for being any of the things that men are privileged for being (assertive, muscular, loud, etc). Pink dresses and ponies are not feminine, because they actually have nothing at all to do with girls or women. Being interested in them or not has absolutely nothing at all to do with being female, and so the application of the label 'feminine' is entirely a false one. Such an application of that label also leads to people extending the disdain they feel for such items* to women and girls-- something nobody deserves to have done to them. If we're going to achieve complete equality, it's going to have to start with scrubbing hate from all of the obvious channels. This includes language, and how we exercise it.

*Though the disdain felt for these items probably has a lot to do with the fact that they are associated with women and girls. So what we need to do is stop creating this false dichotomy between interests-- that some things are "for girls", and some things are "for boys".

Duck, lest ye run afoul of the steam shooting out of my ears.

2009-09-14T20:17:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, even well intentioned people can be very, very insenstive. It usually comes when someone questions or challenges their priviledge in a situation where they don't perceive that they have it. I've been guilty of this in the past myself. Today, though, I'm going to ran about somone else. Someone who's very near and dear to me, but who can still be a complete jerk at times.

Exactly one month ago today, Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville wrote this post, about how we, as women, often have to make the decision between protesting when someone makes a sexist (or downright misogynistic) statement and potentially ruining the evening for that person, or "swallowing shit" and only ruining it for ourselves. I had an evening like that not long ago, where I decided to just swallow the shit and deal with it.

My mate and I were at a party with some friends of his. One of his friends, James, likes to bring up obscure hypotheticals to prove his point--often without thinking about the implications of those hyptheticals on others. This particular evening, the argument was about the universality or certain moral codes. His argument was that some points of morality are universal and immutable, remaining intact regardless of the culture they operate within. My mate chimed in with the opposition that most moral values are dependant on the situation. James responded with a hypoothetical:

"Well how about killing your wife? You agree that doing that would be wrong."

I am sitting right there. Way to make me feel non-existent

Evan: "No."

James: "You think it would be acceptable to murder your wife?"

James gestures at me without making eye contact. Neither of them are looking at me, though t be fair I'm not trying to make eye contact with them either. I am feeling put on the spot without even being expected to contribute. This is a ridiculously uncomfortable situation for me, and all I can think of is how many women are murdered each year by their domestic partners, and how asinine it is that they're using this as a hypothetical. And how betrayed I feel by the fact that Evan has not defended me, that he has not told James that this is an inappropriate topic. Instead, he's also treating me like I'm not sitting right next to him--and he's just stated that he doesn't see killing one's wife as an absolute taboo. This is the spot where the rest of my evening gets ruined.

Evan: "There are definitely situations. I mean, if she tried to kill me fiirst..."

James: "Ah, self-defense. Right, right."

Does not make me feel better, even slightly. No apology or acknowledgement is forthcoming.

There are a number of reasons I did not bring up the fact that this was making me feel uncomfortable and marginalized. The main one being, however, that Evan still suffers from the patriarchy as much as most people in this society. I'd chastised him once in front of a friend for calling Hilary Duff (who I hate) a whore, and he'd gotten extremely defensive about it and yelled at me later. He's absolutely supportive of my right to bodily autonomy, to equal pay, and to social equality. But he's also told me I'm "overreacting" in situations where I've pointed out sexism to him, either on his part or that of something he enjoys (re: our conversation after watching the movie "Repo-man", which I enjoyed but also found highly problematic).

The worst, as is to be expected, is when I directly challenge him for something he has said or done. Case in point: the reason I felt inspired to write this post right now. I was just looking over his shoulder at some work he was doing for the company he contracts for. The work includes lots of tiny images of people, performing tasks that range from writing at desks or conducting scientific experiments, to testing high-tech weaponry, welding, and building bridges. I'd noticed in his previous work for them that the more feminine-looking figures tended to get jobs that sat them at desks in his illustrations, and the welders and weaponry-testers tended to be pretty noticeably male. I hadn't mentioned it to him before, not wanting to start an argument, but today I guess I was feeling perky. He was working on an illustration of three navy personnel, viewed from the back but very obviously male nonetheless.

He began by telling me that they were supposed to be genderless characters. I told him they looked pretty obviously male (wide shoulders, small hips, short/no hair, etc.). He told me that there had been female characters in the past ones he did, and there just weren't enough figures in this one. I mentioned the disparity in occupation I had noticed in the previous ones, and also pointed out that three whole figures gives you plenty of space to make one female. I told him I was only mentioning it because he might not have beeen thinking about it when he drew the figures.

At this point, he got pretty angry with me, and told me that I was making assumptions about what he was and wasn't thinking about. That he did consider it. I really do not know what I'm supposed to take away from that, or how it helped his argument.

The point of this post, really, is to just bring up the fact that no matter how progressive you consider yourself, you're still going to act on your privilege if you don't take the time to examine it. Evan is a wonderful person, a smart man who definitely has the best interests of myself and all other women at heart. But the our culture makes it so damn easy for him to not examine himself when I bring up a point like this, and just get angry instead.

We're told from infancy that everyone is created equal. That something as arbitrary as our gender or the colour of our skins is not the determining factor for how we should be treated by others. I think it's really easy, given that we're not generally taught about all the inequalities that others frequently endure, to take it for granted that we're really at that stage. That equality has already been achieved before our own actions could become a factor, and therefore feel disbelief and discomfort when the opposite is pointed out to us. Nobody wants to be part of the problem, but the effort to change is taxing. To admit you've been wrong: that's taxing too.
It's easier to ignore the impact on those who have been hurt, and just get angry and tell them they're overreacting.

In group situations, I'm usually way outnumbered by the people who feel differently than I do, or who just don't see the problem. So that when I bring it up, I end up fighting against the multitudes and just getting angrier. "...intellectual men, clever men, engaged men—{who} insist on playing devil's advocate, desirous of a debate..." to quote Melissa, make up a lot of the men I know.

In one-on-one situations, I often find it too painful to continue supporting my argument (again and again and again), and back down, storm off, or stop bringing it up. Yeah, I have this person whom I love desperately, whom I have sworn to spend my entire life with, but with whome I am afraid to bring up certain topics for fear of him turning against me in his defensiveness.

Even situations like today, where I was simply trying to point out something I assumed to be entirely unconscious on his part. Which I was in no way blaming him for. Which should have ended with "Oh, I didn't notice that. It's too late to change now, though." or "I guess I didn't feel it was important in this situation. I'll keep it in mind next time." or some other variation on that theme. Because I was not attacking him, I was only pointing something out.
Something I felt was important enough to spend time and breath on, but which he didn't. Something which correlates directly with the inequalities I percieve and have endured in the world outside his drawing, but which he has no direct experience with--and so has the privilege to brush off, because they do not directly effect his rights or opportunities.

I know it makes it easier for him, but gods...does it hurt me. I hope I can convince him to think of that sometimes.

Nothing to show

2009-09-13T02:54:00.000-04:00

I'm having one of those days where nothing goes quite right. I can't mix the colours I want, the shading goes all wrong, the line ends up elsewhere than where I want it. The grey catbirds come out looking a little more on the green side. It's not artist block, it's more of an artist stumble.
My time tomorrow has been booked by parents and parents-in-law, so I know I'll get little to nothing done--which only adds to my sense of frustration. This was supposed to be a day for making!
Normally, if I'm having trouble in one sphere of creativity, I move to another until the stumble resolves itself. Today there seems to have been little recourse but to write and avail myself of Write Habit's list of literary magazines in the attempt to find someone who might want to publish my work (hopefully with a little bit of pay to be exchanged, as well).
So at least that was something.

There can't be anything much more boring than reading about someone who cannot create. More interesting posts are in the offing, I promise.

In regards to actually getting to work.

2009-09-02T01:31:00.000-04:00

So my lovely mate, E, has been in LA for the past week. He was there attending the workshops and award ceremony attendant upon winning one of the quarterly Illustrators of the Future contests. Incredibly impressive. If you want to go rush over and take a look at his work right now, having heard that, it's here. Go over. Spend some time. I post his DeviantArt rather than his website, because he updates it more often. (Mine own, more neglected, is here).
So I've gotten up off my own butt, and I'm getting back to work on the art that I've been ignoring, due to demanding-contract-dayjob. I admit to bouts of self-doubt and criticism of late. There are a few things that are difficult in a relationship between two creative people in the same field, and being torn between extreme pride in your mate and jealousy/self-doubt is one of them. That, and some people will come at you with the preconceived notion that in a creative couple, one of you must be inherently "better" than the other. More about that in another post.
Anyhow, I've been spurred to work on my artwork, more vehemently. Also to pick up my writing again. After the six books of mini short stories I wrote for my BFA thesis, I took a rather substantial break from writing. Partly because I didn't know how to surmount the main (and very legitimate) criticism that occurred during my thesis critique: that I have difficulty ending a story. Or at least, coming to any kind of conclusion.
So this is my goal. I have several short stories in the works at the moment, and for practice I'm going to try writing flash fiction. Just to practice better how to bring a story from a begining to a thoughftul conclusion. The stories will probably begin showing up on here.
And of course I will be submitting to Illustrators & Writers of the Future as well. E says he had a smashing time at the workshops, and heartily recommends attendance. By which he means getting off one's ass, and getting the courage up to submit to this thing. Now. Because it honestly cannot hurt (except one's confidence).

As if I didn't love her enough...

2009-08-31T15:08:00.000-04:00

...for her incredible books (Palimpsest utterly blew me away), this is what Catherynne M. Valente had to say about the recent Mammoth book of Mindblowing Science Fiction Gender/Racefail:

"Stories are important. Stories, in fact, are life. They are what is left of our unique experience in this world. They speak--no. They scream. And when an author sits down and constructs a completely imaginary world in their heads, if people like me, people like us, do not exist in it, or exist only to be ridden like animals or raped or murdered or humilated or destroyed so that an audience can acheive catharsis via symbolic annihilation of our lives, bodies, and souls, well, certainly, we can sit down and look at the floor and say: yes, you're right, that is what we deserve. Or we can stand up. We can scream back. We can band together. We can demand our right to exist, to take part in humanity, to learn, to grow, to evolve, to self-examine. We can tell our stories, to anyone who will listen, to the campfire, to our lovers, to coffee shops, to strangers, to publishers' skyscrapers in New York, to the heavens, to the earth. Yes, you're fucking well right we can."

Besides being the very first one to call it out.

How to lose me as a customer

2009-08-30T20:04:00.000-04:00

I'm finally getting back to work on my gallery website. I tried it first two summers ago, and was ultimately defeated by my own ambition. This time, no flash is going to be involved at all. Just a simple, aesthetic layout in Dreamweaver, using Lightbox2 to showcase images. My writing will go up on it too.
What spurred me to get on it again? Well, my domain name registration expired. I'd been waiting for this, because I originally got it using GoDaddy, as it had been the only registry I had heard of. Then I got blasted with some of their ridiculously gross, sexist commercials. Decided I didn't want to send any more money that way. I canceled (after having them unsuccessfully try and charge my credit card for re-registry behind my back) and now it has been several weeks of waiting for my domain to free up so I can register with DynamicDolphin. Is it supposed to take this long? Seriously not amused.

But anyway. Here is a doodle from one of my sketchbooks, done in café Tryst a few weeks ago. Ballpoint pen and white coloured pencil on recycled brown paper.

Good/Bad

2009-07-06T21:02:00.001-04:00

Not Happy:
-Maybe coming down with another sinus infection.
-Coming home to find toaster oven's door broken off.
-Call from coffee shop telling me I'm not hired. -Someone trying to hire me to do 20-25 colour illustrations for her children's book in under 6 weeks, and only offering $250 as pay (and making passive-aggressive comments about how reasonable she thinks this is.)
-Still not living in Portland.

Happy:
-Working again, for good-paying contract.
-Working also on illustration commissions for two books, both of which are future-pays.
-Working on t-shirt designs that will get made, and I get commision on! Yay!