Whats up yall! ✌🏼 It’s been a minute since I posted on here so I wanted to do a short update. I’ve been painting a bunch the past week. After I built this small overhang off my studio I had to break it in with some painting.

I really love this overhang! It took about 3-4 days to build and came out great! It’s really nice to have some shade in the summer and a dry area to hang out in the rain, I live in the Pacific Northwest so we get alot of that.

The space has been so perfect! I instantly wanted to paint under it . Please enjoy this photo of my matching crocs and shirt. 😁

I have a couple shows coming up in the next few months so I gotta get some painting in. One of the shows is a large space that will need large pieces. These are a start but I will need to transition into some bigger scale work too and this outdoor space will help me make that happen.

Im really happy with these and can’t wait to do some more painting!

Alright yall! There’s a little update on me. I hope yall are having a good summer despite the tyranny at our doorsteps. Much love and stay safe ✌🏼

They asked me to come back and paint the logo large on the warehouse wall. It was great to be back and work with them again as the first experience was really fun and I was able to make a great mural and Mascot design for their team.

Tackling this large of a mural was no small task. First off, I needed a spotter to help direct warehouse foot traffic around my area. Safety first! This task fell to my amazing wife, Kelly, who was really great to have on the job with me keeping us all safe. Thanks Boo!

When I was thinking about how to get my sketch on the wall, I didn’t want to project it as it wasn’t the right space for that. The wall was a smooth sheetrock so there wasn’t an easy grid to follow like bricks or blocks. I was talking to my buddy Brian and mentioned my dilemma and he said “…paper pattern.” And it was exactly what I needed to do. The pattern would be printed at about 23ft x 23ft large. I contacted my friends at Visual Options and they did a great job of printing me my patterns so I could place my sketch on the wall quickly, with ease and accuracy. The paper was strong with a nice finish that didn’t eat up the chalk like a rougher kraft paper would. It ended up working out perfect!

After receiving the patterns from Visual Options I connected with friend Brian at Papa Studios (hit him up for your signs , he’s the real deal and will make your business look so pro! @BPapa1 on IG ) who offered his studio to help me process the large paper patterns and helped me pounce the pattern with his electo-pounce machines. (I didnt take any pictures of this unfortunately. ) I say Machines because he knocked out one side of the table with his back up machine while I did the other side wuth his main machine. All on his birthday no less?! Thanks Brian! I appreciate your friendship man! Its always good to hang out! Bonus to work on something together.

Once I got the pattern up and started getting down the colors it was a systematic fill of each color. The design is very hardline and vector so it was all about laying down clean lines from the start. As my cousin Dino would say, “make it look like a sticker Joe.” I used to paint with him at the Cheney Stadium here in Tacoma when I was a teenager so I always think about the things I learned from him for making these large paintings. All small things in the moment that I didn’t realize have stuck with me until I do them when I’m on a mural. It’s funny how that works.

Everything progressed really good on this one. My lines laid down crisp, my brushes felt good, and my tape was clean. All in all a successful project that was great to work on.

Thanks again to the team at DSW5 for having me out for a 2nd time. I really enjoyed bringing this one to life at around 30 feet in the air. ✌🏼

Spaceworks Tacoma (in collaboration with Southsound Scooters who donated the Vespa) will be raffling off the scooter for their upcoming fundraiser Cachet !

Check out the raffle link online below and help support local Arts and small businesses in Tacoma https://cbo.io/app/public/bidapp/cachet25/tickets/raffle

Also, dont forget, you could WIN THIS VESPA!

Spaceworks asked me to paint something that was representative of Tacoma. I was excited to tackle this brief from a different angle. Alot of times we turn to monuments for representing Tacoma, like the Dome but I wanted to represent the city through the streets that make it up. These streets mean alot to alot of people in Tacoma. Many of us were born here and could tell you what street our childhood home was on and alot of us are new here using these same streets to try and navigate a new place. The streets are what connect us. This is where we cross paths and meet new people. Where we have memories and new experiances. The streets are the fibers that run through our communities.

I love these photos above by Amy Carter. Please check out more of their work at http://amyzcarter.com/

I took some photos while I was working on the scooter in my studio to show some of my process. I used automotive paint and Lettering Enamel on this project. I had to sand down to bare metal in a few spots because the scooter is 20 years old so naturally as you’d expect there was a few rust spots and some minor dents and dings and 1 bigger dent that I mostly pounded out. Its still a minor dent but much better. I then primed and painted with aerosol automotive paint and laid down Enamel Lettering paint for the illustrations. I sketched them out first with a white Stabilo Pencil then brushed them out. I used a clear and mixed the main color with the clear to create shadows throughout the illustrations. I think this added good depth and made for a nice finished look.

Huge Thanks to Spaceworks Tacoma for trusting me with this project and allowing me to bring my vision of the city to this Vespa. 🙏🏼✌🏼🛵💨💨💨

I’ve sat down to write this blog entry a few times. When I think about my time at Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts in Rabun Gap, Ga I feel a little shy. Like I want to hold this one close. It took me a couple weeks to write about my experience at Hambidge because It was truly transformative but not in the way I thought it would be. I had big plans to go to Georgia and make a bunch of sculptures. The funny thing about plans is, they are just plans. Life does what it wants regardless of my plans.

But let’s back up a but. First, I should have said. Last year I applied to and was awarded a creative residency at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia. My time there was March 4th - March 16th 2025.

I took some pictures of the ground to share the space. The building above is called the Rock House . This is where we ate dinner with other residents Tuesday-Friday and also one of only a few spaces with Wifi. This ended up being the most transformative part of the trip. Well, minus connecting with the other artists there but I’m still weighing privacy concerns and ultimately want to allow everyone to tell their story with their voice. Or choose to hold it close to themselves . What I will say is that the openness and camaraderie I felt with every artist and staff member at Hambidge was unlike anything I’ve experienced in a group setting before. We were all on our journeys of exploration. Sharing time and conversation with other artists from around the country can not be understated. This is how things happen. The energy is real.

I mentioned that Wifi was limited. This small choice by Hambidge staff is the real transformation. Before I left on this residency I was having issues with social media impulse control. I was on it before bed and in the morning. It was not going well. The doom scrolling was taking over. My wife wasn’t happy about it as I was effecting her as well as myself. I was internalizing the mostly negative daily bombardment that is social media currently. But 2 weeks in the woods disconnected from that impulse of grabbing my phone first thing in the morning allowed me space to rethink my relationship to the current moment. Yeah, I’m still worried about the immediate future, but I will not allow the daily humdrum to bring me down anymore. I can be informed without internalizing the hate and cruelty of the current administration. 2 weeks of waking up and not looking at social media first thing in the morning allowed for the space to reevaluate that relationship. I don’t think this can be overstated. It was eyeopening. I have a feeling I will be thinking about this for years to come. But back to Hambidge.

The weather was pretty wild. 2 huge storms, minor dusting of snow and 27 degree nights , and a couple days close to 70 where we got to play in the river. It was wild weather-wise.

Wood fired Sauna was great. Perfect temp! The conversation was fun that night. Lots of laughing. Really good night in the Sauna.

Hambidge cats, Coal and Pewter handing out on the roof of the Weave Shed.

The weave shed houses some offices and the Hambidge Center Gallery. They have an annual fundraising show they open up to the public that I’m told is always a good time. I wish I lived closer so I could attend. Beth asked me to put some pieces in the show, of which I was happy to oblige. Thanks Beth!

The main pottery studio, Antinori Studio, is quite a good size l. They host workshops for locals and also have space for staff to work on projects too. Its a really great studio, with wheels and a slab roller. A few electric kilns, some gas fired equipment, and a glaze room.

Bisque wall of past guest workshop instructors. There is some incredible work on this wall.

Antinori Studio is part of the larger Antinori Village where workshop attendees can stay in one of about 6 or so spaces. Really great design and a nice newer addition to Hambidge. Also has a Common House for gatherings like the Board Retreat that we were invited to for cocktail hour and dinner. It was great meeting some of the board and talking to them about their practices and how Hambidge fit into ours.

Antinori Billage looks so great at night. I loved the warm lights. Its the only way to go with outdoor lighting in a rural setting. Really any setting but thats a different topic.

One nice thing about Hambidge is the 600 acre range of trails from mountain hikes to river strolls. This day I found this pink rubber ball stuck in the sticks riverside. I decided to pull it out. Honestly it reminded me of my wife because we have a ball like this thats fun to kick around in the back yard. So I grabbed it up and brought it back to the studio to spend the rest of my two weeks up at Margaret studio rather than riverside. It made me happy.

The trails were all really nice. Whether a great path like this one above or a meandering trail that lead you along the road below, nature was all around. Honestly it felt very close to the PNW. A few different trees, a but more deciduous and less evergreen. But very similar.

The mountains surrounded us. They really do have a blue tint to them. Legend says its from all the trees. Who knows. What I do know is it’s beautiful.

When we were hiking down to the river to swim we past by one of the old buildings on the property. Its so cool to see an old building, made of stone and concrete, slowly sliding down the side of a hill. I mean it wasn’t moving, but it had moved. Really cool.

And the Old Grist Mill. still functional. I believe they do mill some grain here monthly. Really cool to see the gears and such. I will I could have peaked inside. But it was all locked up.

But the river wasn’t locked up so I jumped in. The water was cold but the sun was warm. What a great day it was that day.

I stayed at Margaret studio. It has a full service clay studio in it with 2 wheels, 2 kilns, and an Anigama kiln. I didnt have access to the Anigama whenI was there but I could use the other kilns.

Margaret had a huge (new!) deck on it for gathering while firing the Anigama. It made for a nice spot to eat breakfast with the sun.

The studio side was small but had everything I needed. I actually prefer this to the opposite. It allowed for a nice, large, studio to be attached. I had 2 burners for meals, a toaster oven, microwave, a small desk and a landline telephone. I couldn’t make calls out but I could receive them so I was able to talk to my wife every day and that made me less homesick.

All in all a really nice studio space to stay at and dig into my work.

And dig I did. Like I said before I had planned on making sculpture. But when I got there and saw all the red clay everywhere , apparently it’s Georgia Red Clay, and it IS everywhere. Well, I decided I would levigate some and see what I get.

Well I got a little ball and it seemed a success. I had always wanted to do this but clay is not as abundant where I am so the opportunity isn’t always there.

With the success of the first levigation, I was on the hunt for more clay. I ended up finding some yellow clay along the creek. I dug a quart bag if that, had to take off my shoes and get in the creek to get it, but that wasn’t a problem and I strolled back to my studio with another bag of ground to try and make something with.

This clay ended up being very short and needing some addition of some of the dried bits of clay I had around. Eventually I was able to roll out a small slab and make a few mugs and pinch pots.

I was really surprised at how easy it was to even get to this point. I knew firing was going to be tough to truly test in this condensed time so I decided to just wing it and fire ut like it was commercial clay and see what happens. Well nothing melted and everything held together. Now, the red clay waaay over fired and neither were water tight but it was a great experience digging the clay and experiencing Georgia in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

Some greenware stage water etched porcelain mugs.

The bisque went well. Some spalling on the porcelain pieces that I added raw sand from the river to. I didnt expect that, but mostly because I didn’t expect anything beings ut was my first time. Now I know I should wash the sand and probably just not use it. But thats what this experimenting is all about. Learn by doing. Fail over and over. Then, in the end, gain some knowledge about the process.

I had some issues with this blue glaze. It ran pretty bad and ruined quite a few pieces. Which was a bummer. But smashing them was fun so thats ok. I still learned through failure. That’s a good thing.

I left behind a few small sculptures to be fired in the Anigama when they fire it in June. I can’t wait to see how these dire. It was some Starworks Wild clay that Ife gave me to use for the firing sunce I only brought cone 6 clay with me. Ife will fire these with that firing and I really excited. It will be my first pieces in a wood firing. And I love they are sculptural pieces. I do want to make more sculptures as well so this will be a nice catalyst.

Some really beautiful days in Rabun County.

My meals were legit! It was fun planning meals at the Igles and trying not to overbuy.

CHEERS!

Multiple days Cheers from Hambidge. These words only explain 10% of what it felt like to experience the Georgia woods of Rabun County at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences.

Heads sculptures by Hambidge staff member George Long.

Sculptural Vessels by deputy director Ife Williams

A view from the airport after my red eye into Atlanta. Look at that Sunrise! 👀

Lots of great art in the ATL airport.

As I reflect on my time at Hambidge I cant thank everyone enough for this Opportunity. Thank you Beth, Abe, Ife, George, Rachel, Lori (your food was delicious!) and all the Board Members and staff I was able to meet at my time at Hambidge. Y’all made my stay so incredible! Also, I can’t forget the artists and arts administrators I met at Hambidge. Leah, Lee, S.E. , Katherine, Minna, Chris, Julia, Jesse, Jennifer, Matt, and Molly. The time I spent with yall will stay with me forever. The conversations were rich and made me feel closer to fellow humans than I have in a long time. Thank you 🩵

Some pics of Clayton, GA

Last night a big storm came through and dropped a tree over the road.

Vibes drawing while waiting for my flight in Atlanta.

Bye Hambidge. Till next time 💚

Specifically Nintendo with this set. These still need to be fired but I wanted to share them in their greenware state. I painted a bunch of the Nintendo Consoles. Original NES, Original DMG , SNES, N64, and GameCube . I’ve been having fun lately playing a bunch of Retro games.

One thing that stands out with alot of these games is THEY ARE HARD! Like, really hard for some of them. But I’m having a great time with it so I decided to do a run of these Retro Mugs. Nintendo First. Should I do Sega next or all handhelds, or Sony ? Which system do you want me to paint next?

Also some larger cutouts from a window display I did last summer in Downtown Tacoma with Spaceworks.

I decided to re design my logo for this video and I love it! I have always struggled with my basic straight letter logo I’ve had for a few years. I like it but to be honest I don’t feel like it has ever really captured my work how I wanted it to. I think this new logo does that a little better. It’s a bit busy but really represents me better in how I work and what I work with. It speaks to my clay work and painting work. I think this one will be better for the time being. Alright y’all. Have a good night! Stay safe out there! ✌🏼

Resin Session !

I resin’d up this batch of cutouts. Its been fun working on these paintings . I have never done any larger glow in the dark cut outs so I like that these turned out good and glow well.

I now have a nice batch of cutouts. They are all available if you are interested. I will be adding them to my website soon but if you see one you want I will sell them before I add them to my site. This batch had so many great ones. Lots of different sizes.

The glow is crazy on these . Granted this is the night enhanced iphone photo from my old ass iphone but still, this is pretty close to what it looks like in person. Glow is so interesting to me.

This bottle doesnt have resin on it yet but I didnt take a photo of it resin’d .

I cleaned up my studio today and transitioned my space back to clay making. So look forward to seeing a bunch of photos of clay stuff for a bit. After last year I told myself I wanted to work painting back into the mix so its been nice to have so much time in the studio lately with these cut outs. I’m ready to build some more clay stuff now. I actually found 3 mugs in a damp box that I had forgotten about. I took them to SPSCC for demo a couple months ago and didnt get a chance to carve them. Then set them aside while I did some painting and forgot about them. They were still the perfect carving hardness! Damp boxes are amazing!

Anyways… till next time ✌🏼

What’s up yall! ✌🏼 I’ve been painting in the studio alot lately. Making a bunch of cutouts. Im still trying to make this video content work so please let me know if the video isn’t working for you. I just wanted to get on here really quick and show yall what I’ve been working on. Till next time 🍻

I’ve been painting a bunch of cutouts lately. It’s been fun. Really I’m posting this because I need to test out posting videos. If I’m going to be here more then I will want to have more videos. I hope to be able to grow this blog again and show y’all what I’m working on and maybe share a little more than I usually do on socials. Here’s to 2025 🍻

The past week I had the pleasure to do some demos at South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC) with Mariella Luz. I had such a great time with Mariella talking about art and making with the students and staff at SPSCC.

The pottery teachers Joe Batt and Crisha Yantis were so great to us. Mariella and I both work at a standing wheel due to comfort and ergonomics so they set up 2 wheels next to each other and we both demoed at the same time while talking about process and art life in general. We work in quite different styles and have different ideas about how we want our work to get out to the public. I tend to sell mostly direct to the public, probably being 80% of my sales, where as Mariella sells through wholesale mostly. They also do markets but tend to do them more during the holiday season where I do them year round multiple times a month. It was really interesting comparing and contrasting 2 different ways of going about being an artist to the students at SPSCC.

This was my first experience doing a demo and I couldn’t have felt more at ease and supported. My friend John Brooks is the Art Dept Tech at SPSCC and was there the whole way helping us set up and buying us Lunch . It was amazing. Thank you John! It was great to hang out for a few days. John also had a tech assistant who was really helpful and great as well. Unfortunately I can’t remember their name 😬 Thank you too!

During my carving demo on the 2nd day there was one question from a student that really stuck out for me. They asked “what do you do if you make a mistake.” The reason they asked is because when I carve I carve directly into the clay without any sketching. This process has come from many years of practice working directly in ink or paint without having a sketch down first. My answer was that I don’t believe in mistakes. And truly, I don’t. I feel like there are many ways to deal with an errant line while working directly on the clay. One is working the line into my design making it part of the composition. Also, I am a believer that my line work and composition is just where I’m at in the moment skill wise and energy wise. So a mistake isn’t the right thought about the work. My artwork grows on the work I’ve done in the past and this one item/object is just one object and not the totality of my life work. So mistakes can’t exist in that mind state. Also, mistake is the wrong thought about work that we make. As Artists, we need to protect our energy from the world telling us that what we are doing has little value. When we start internalizing the idea of mistakes in our work we are creating a barrier for ourselves making work and possibly derailing our progress for a period of time. Not that there isn’t things that I make or parts of the process that have gone awry, there may be, but the way I process that work can either allow me to feel the drive to make more work or can impede that process. I feel this very deeply. The world can be rough to artists telling us what we should/ shouldn’t do, telling us we have value or our value is waining or none at all. In a world like this we must protect our minds from the onslaught of negative thoughts we are being bombarded with daily. This is not only good but necessary to continue our practice and bring more to the world through our personal voice. I believe this deeply, art can change us all. As artists we have a responsibly to our future selves to protect our minds so we can make future work.

Thank you for supporting artists in the community at SPSCC. Having us out to do demos connects the working art world with the education that is sending students into that world. It’s inspiring to see what the students are making and show them how and what I make. Thank you!

Tomorrow Sunday April 7th at 2pm PST !

I’ve been working on these pieces the past 6 weeks and I’m really excited to share them with everyone! Lots of cups and mugs and a few other little goodies.

If you are interested in checking out my work, set an alarm on your phone for 2pm PST this Sunday April 7th! (That’s Tomorrow!)

Thank you for connecting with my studio practice as I float from painting to functional and sculptural ceramics and back. Your support helps me continue to search out mediums that speak to me in the moment and follow my path as an artist. Buying this work and using it on a daily basis WILL bring joy to your life. It does for me when I use other artists cups and plates in my home. It carves out a small space for it in a day that may be scheduled and chaotic.

See yall tomorrow at JosephBrooksArt.Com/Shop ✌🏼

My kiln is Back in action ! 🎉🎉🎉

I vended at Brewery District Makers Market. It was great! It was nice to see everyone and connect with the community again. I haven’t done a market in Tacoma for a minute so

Thank you for supporting my work by all of your purchases during the market. Every sale helps me keep this boat afloat. Thanks Tacoma!

Spring walks have been incredible! We had a nice few days of nearly 70 degree weather. That was nice!

Not everything makes it through the making process. Sometimes things fail. And thats ok! Actually, it’s a big part of the whole thing. Learning how to navigate making when things don’t go right is essential to growth. And this mediums growing pains can be brutal. Luckily things all went pretty smooth other than these couple reclaimable pieces. Off to the buckets you go! Time to make more things!

2nd Bisque firing loaded and firing (now)! 🎉

More updates on glaze firings soon!

I have been having fun with clay the past few days and feeling like I’m growing and trying new things. I started using tar paper templates in my process. That’s been fun. It will help me keep sizes more uniform in the future and also allow me to play around with forms on paper first. I’m excited to see where this goes and how it changes my slab work. I can see using these template in combination with each other and making some great shapes.

Im still working out the dimensions on these. I’m deciding what slope I want on the tumblers sides and the overall height. I like this foot detail on these. It may or may not have a hidden shot glass on the bottom. 🤫

I just picked up a roll of tar paper from the 2nd Use down the street from me. They don’t sell tar paper in small rolls so getting it from a 2nd use reseller like this was great! Saved me a bunch of money. The whole roll, 36”x144ft was 20 bucks. Thats a good price for my needs.

Im cutting a coffin box template here. This will be a fun one if I get it to work.

Small sipper tumbler

These were fun from the other day. I used a Thermaband to make the fluted impressions. It worked great! I'm excited to see how these turn out. I like the fluting detail in combination with the organic shape. I think the glaze will look good on this.

Its been fun working on clay again. I can’t wait to get my kiln back so I can fire all this new work. I think I’m going to do an online shop release when that happens. I’ll keep you posted.

Last year Tacoma had a call for artists to design a traffic wrap. I applied and was accepted as one of about 15 or so artists to design a wrap for the new traffic control boxes the city has installed around town. The boxes were wrapped recently by Print NW and they did an amazing job! They really took the time to make sure all the lines matched up and continued around the box. Top Notch work! I’m not sure if more of these will be printed and installed but this one is on S19th st at the back entrance to Cheney Stadium and Heidelberg Baseball facility across from Fred Meyer.

What was really great about this project is that I was free to make anything I wanted as long as it wasn’t offensive. There were a couple rounds of drafts but the feedback was never about changing the artwork only positive feedback and logistic or readability suggestions. I wanted to make this piece in a style that I’ve been working on in the studio with monochromatic B&W characters and a colorful background. Tacoma Arts was awesome! They suggested a little more color but understood my vision and loved the outcome. It was great working with yall ! Thanks for giving Artists a voice without changing their vision. These boxes are great for that aspect alone. It’s hard to find public art projects that allow for so much artistic control. Thanks again y’all!

Heres some images of what it looked like while I was working on this project on my Ipad. I love that vector is now available on tablets! It makes life so much easier than pulling out the old CS4 computer because I don’t do enough design work to justify paying for adobe creative suite. Plus, I’m not about paying monthly for design programs. But that’s for another post.

I can’t wait to see what super fun projects come in 2024!

Cheers!

🛸💨💨💨

Heres some process photos of a few different pieces. These layers barely get seen in the final pieces. I forget to show these stages sometimes. It’s pretty cool to see the color laid out pre-characters. In a way, my mind still sees this layout when I look at the finished piece . My characters line work flows from the rhythm of the abstract layout below. Thats what I really enjoy about working without a sketch and improvising my lines as I go. No plan, nothing for it to have to be. This type of work becomes what it is through the process of making it. Thats what makes it fun for me. I never know how it will turn out. Not that I don’t have themes or motifs. But they tend to come out through a collection of works rather than individual pieces. I realized this about how I work after making ceramics. It felt natural to work in batches.

Its fun to line up the paintings I’ve been working on and see them all together. I do this at the end of the day in different configurations just to do it. I like to see the similarities between pieces and how they all speak to each other with color and line weight, also materials .

Alright yall, Till next time! ✌🏼

A couple days ago the long closed and empty Gault Elementary School building in the McKinley Neighborhood in Tacoma went up in flames. This building is only a few blocks from our house so my wife and I wanted to go see how bad it was as this was the 2nd fire there in the past year. This one was really bad. I’m glad no one was hurt in this fire. Heres a link to some drone footage news coverage. Its wild this building will soon be gone forever.

https://www.king5.com/video/news/local/drone-footage-shows-fire-at-vacant-tacoma-school/281-d0bc3416-2548-4503-b5d5-f7e9919d98db

I always liked these signs on the front entrance. The Attendance Office and Main Office signs. I would see them walking by and always wanted to save them from being lost to history. Well it looks like they will be lost with this rubble. Maybe someone else will find beauty in them and save them before that happens but probably not. They are a cool piece of the history of this building and Tacoma. I’ll leave yall with some photos of the destructive force of fire.

… making these cardboard pieces!

I’ve been having alot of fun working on these cardboard pieces but, I need to get on to other things. I had a couple smaller scraps left and this painted teal canvas, So I kept on. Plus today was a rough one and not much was getting done. We had to put our cat down. It was really sad. Thanks for sharing 18 years with us (8 with me) Long live Petunia! We love you 🥺 so yeah, I don’t think I need to explain why today was tough.

In less sad news, I like these pieces.

This is a short post. Sorry, today’s not the day for a long one. Love yall! ✌🏼

Last cardboard post for a min. Not alot to write today. Im excited to start on the last painting for my ArtsWa project. The panels are all prepped and ready. Now that I got this cardboard procrastination out of me, it’s time to get going! 🤞🏼

Yup! I still have a few pieces of this honeycomb cardboard that needs characters on it. These have been fun exercises in just doing a thing. Just making something to make. Arting for mental decompression and meditation . Lines that need to be crisp and colors that need to find their place in the composition. No erasing. Living with the line made because it is there. There are no mistakes. This is where I was when I made this thing and thats ok. Small changes over time help me find my way when I’m making things. I don’t really keep a sketchbook in the way I used to as a younger person. Every piece of artwork informs the next for me. Over time slowly my work evolves. Moving through color phases and motifs. Sometimes changing mediums altogether. Getting stuck on subject matters then abandoning them for a bit and then coming back to them. It’s all a flow and cyclical. If i paid more attention ut probably moves with the seasons. Life is funny that way.

In a recent blog entry I talked about commissions and my struggles with taking them. I wanted to balance that with a little insight into how I work when I don’t have commissions. I make shit! Lots of shit, all the time! Constantly making, compulsively with no end or desire for there to be an end. Its the work that does it for me. Im trying to figure out why I do this all day everyday for mostly my whole life. I don’t have it figured out. None of us do. And the ones that say they do are bullshitting themselves. I will keep trying to see whats at the bottom of this well until I’m no longer here. This is how I work when I’m not taking commissions. The exploration of materials + time = growth for me. Growth is when I want to be. Spring has always been my favorite season. My wife and I even married the first day of spring. Spring is all about new growth from old plants . Something new from something old. Its a beautiful metaphor for life. I mean, it kinda is life right? Cycles.

I get asked alot, “whats your inspiration” (I’m sure every artist does, its a common thing) for me inspiration to make things comes from within, outside, being alive, and building off what I made yesterday. When commissions fit into the stream of work I’m making in the moment its a beautiful thing , when they don’t it can be a stick in my spokes. Grinding my making to a halt until I do the commission. This isn’t to say I don’t like them. It’s to say I’m working on being better about when I take on commissions and how many I take on for the year. It will make for happier clients and a happier me. Who doesn’t want that?!

Alright yall, look at this amazing color coded rooms! I recently painted our bedroom and we hung some lights. It looks great and I really like it! Thought I’d share.

Good Night Y’all 🌙

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope you had a great celebration last night. Today was a beautiful day! We went back to Swan Creek for another walk there today. It’s such a great park here in Tacoma. Check out Grit City Magazines article from 2018 on it for some history. (https://gritcitymag.com/2018/08/this-is-what-it-looks-like-when-nature-reclaims-a-piece-of-tacoma/ ) Since the article, the park has changed a bit. It added a huge dog park and some other improvements like parking. Definitely worth a visit if you’re here and worth a read for some interesting history.

When we got back from the walk I started on this one. It was fun to work on today. Im having some issues starting the 3rd painting for ArtsWa so I did this to shake it off. I’ll get going on that other piece soon. I tend to beat myself up for not working on commissions and such but sometimes I just need to make something that doesn’t need approval to exist. Something that can just BE without needing to be liked by a client. Something that can be fully improv’d on the spot without a sketch or a theme or a “direction” . I know some artists don’t like working this way but it’s the way that resonates most with me and my style. I want to have more people connect with my work and want to buy the work I’ve made instead of commissions . No approval sketches, no mock up, no “just add this person’s portrait to it” just my characters in the way my brain arranges them in the moment. Its really freeing to me and always feels like growth instead of reproducing a thing with expectations to be that thing and possible dislike if I vary from that thing because my piece was taking me in a different direction than the sketch. I think most artists get this. And not that I dont like or want commissions. They have been vital to my art practice and I appreciate every patron I’ve had. But sometimes all the back and forth, the mock up, the sketch, the changes, etc… all the stuff that happens with a client before a piece is made can weigh down the commission for me and make it hard to get started. The fear of not meeting expectations and the fear of not being a “good artist” when hired to do work is real and can be debilitating. Thats why I need these kinds of days between commissions. It can be a problem if I don’t allow myself these smaller paintings to feel good about something I’m making before I dive into a perceived harder project. Or a project with higher perceived stakes.

This painting today feels like comfort. It feels like a warm blanket in bed. It feels like stress melting away and meditation. Commissions, by contrast, even commissions for the best clients, don’t feel this way when I’m making. They feel contorted and balled up, and stressssssful. Every single one , until I get going, then some stay stressful and others go smoothly. But the stress in anticipation of the commission is alot.

Well now that I’ve talked about all THAT, let’s decompress with more cardboard paintings.

Ahhhhhhh … 🫠