Anyone and everyone who knows me knows what a huge Portland Trail Blazer fan I am. It's something, again, that takes me back to my childhood and some of the greatest memories I have. I got to see Hakeem Olajuwan play against Clyde Drexler in person. I got to meet Jerome Kersey and Terry Porter. I got to see Shaquille O'Neal when he was young and completely dominant playing for Orlando. Trail Blazer games on t.v. were a family affair, and still are when we can manage. My grandfather taught me the ins and outs of yelling at the t.v. and bad mouthing Dick Bevetta and Steve Javie for the way they always managed to call Portland for phantom fouls. I'd watch him duck and weave like he was sitting on Drexler's shoulder as he drove to the hoop for another Phi Slamma Jamma tutorial. I'd watch him rise up in his chair, ever so slightly as Terry Porter would release another dagger three and plop back down in relief when it hit the bottom of the net. Riiiiiip City. But that was then. Now? Sure I've seen quite a few games of the new iteration of Trail Blazer basketball. Thanks to modern t.v. and DVR I don't have to miss a game. I still enjoy going to the arena and taking in the atmosphere, especially during player introductions with the music and lights and video show; Portland really knows how to get their crowd pumped up. But watching this year's playoffs I realized how fortunate I am. Not for the ability to watch the game I love, or that Portland did overly well (far from it). I realized that despite being banged up physically and coming into the home stretch of my own season, I'm still going strong. I'm still fighting. I've always said that creating art is much more competitive than people realize. It's every bit the competition that sports are. The difference is, you're constantly competing against yourself, pushing yourself to go further, to attack and attain a goal. There's a constant urge to improve, to get better, and to prove that what you're doing matters. Creating art can be every bit as fatiguing, both physically and mentally, as any athletic endeavor. I've seen people scoff at that notion, and then wonder why I'm so drained, emotionally, mentally, and often times physically by mid-evening on a studio day. Art is an endurance sport. Quote me on that. | To say that I feel like my journey is done or I feel content with what I've done would be a massive lie. I feel like I've only recently begun to scratch the surface of something that could take me into the next decade. Which is exciting and frustrating at the same time. It's exciting because I know that I have a direction I want to go. I've recently started a body of work that is heavily (even more so than normal for me) influenced by the works of Paul Horiuchi and Gerhard Richter. There are literally infinite possibilities for exploration with this. However, I feel frustrated because technically I should be working on my thesis paper and getting things ready for the BFA Showcase in a few weeks. And, I'm frustrated because I've had this huge creative epiphany really late in the game and the clock is winding down. Sure I'll be able to pick it back up in summer ball and there's always next season, but it was just starting to gel. I was just starting to get into a rhythm when boom, the shot clock says .05 and I've got to throw it up and hope I hit iron. For those of you who don't follow basketball, there was a lot of metaphor in that last section. |
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Allow me to share my thoughts as I journey through my BFA year at Western Oregon University. Archives
April 2016
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