Friday, August 5, 2011

The Snake, the Butterfly and the Rose.

      Hello my friends. Much love and hugs to all of you.  Those of you that are friends of mine on Facebook know that I am recovering from Pneumonia. I am on my feet again and feeling much better, although I found out the hard way this morning that I still need to be taking it easy. I was trying to get caught up on my house cleaning and darn near pasted out. I am guessing in a couple more days I should be 100% again.
     While I am going through this big change I would like to explain to you all why I said certain things and did some things a lot of my friends don't or didn't understand. One of my dearest and closest friends told me the other day that she saw my totem as a snake. At first that kinda worried me but after she explained it to me in more detail, it seemed very logical. Personally I have always seen "Snakes" as a bad thing.  The word is often used to refer to people that are sneaky or stab their associates in the back, but she had me see it as a growth thing and it did explain the things I have been enduring this year. My health mainly, this "need" to grow and change myself as a man an a Artist.  She said to see this like the way a Snake grows.  Before a snake grows, it becomes sickly, slow and then it sheds the skin it has to a new and bigger one. To me, shedding the skin is the same thing I go through every several years where I embrace the new things in the horizon and put aside the things that have no more use to me or didn't grow as I did. She believes that I will come out this much stronger, more focused and more determined. She has a lot of faith in me and I respect her and her guidance very much, so this should interesting.
     One of the first things I did to bring on these changes was go into a "Hermit" mode. I cannot speak for anyone other than myself, but this is very nessacary for me to move forward. Almost all of my friends have opinions of what I should or shouldn't do.  This is a path I have to follow on my own. No one can influence me, things have to unfold as they are meant to do.  I have to embrace this for the changes to take hold and with my friends saying "No, this is suicide for your career" or "I don't get it, but I hope it works out well for you", well, that would make me second guess myself and that will not do. So for now, I quit all the phone conversations and letters to them. Just little messages on FB here and there to let know I am still alive. Until I have embraced all of this and I am going full steam, I have to stick to this plan. I have been an Illustrator for 32 years now and I don't want it anymore. I have done everything I ever set my sites on, I have a book shelf of book and magazine covers. My focus now is to do what my minds eye sees, and not what someone tells me or pays me to do.
   The process is slow it seems. I am having to learn to let myself see new things I haven't seen before on my own. In the past, it was always easy. Someone tells me what to paint, I do a few roughs to show them, they pick one and then I just create what their minds eye sees. Now it is going to be about what my mind's eye sees.  
    At first, I was going about this all wrong. I was coming up with idea's of series of paintings I would like to do, but still my mind's eye wasn't seeing it.  So I told you all and Madison that I just need to do something I haven't done in a very long time, which is simply just to have fun and do the things I love to do the most in life, other than painting and drawing. What are those things? One of them I haven't done in years, simply because I felt like it took up to much of time since I was an Illustrator and I had to work 10 to12 hour days to keep up with the work I would take on. It is playing video games. I love them. I recently was able to download the entire collections of all the Nitendo and Sega Genisis games ever made as well as about 500 classic computer games.  I am in game heaven.  I have been letting myself play as much as I want as long as I keep up with the things I need to do to keep the house going.  I love the golf, racing and most of all, the Role Playing games.  Right now i am playing Final Fantasy 2. I have the first 7 games and have never played them before. They are wonderful and I am having the most fun that I can remember, but the really big thing here is that now that I am happy and not worrying about every thing I do, my mind's eye is starting to see new images and I am getting very excited about what I am seeing. My imagination is in full swing again.
    Other things that I have been doing is watching movies and TV shows from our massive libary of DVD"s and Blue Rays.  Madison, the kids and myself have went to see 2 movies this last month. The new Harry Potter movie in 3-D and Cowboy,s and Aliens. Both were a lot of fun, and the 3D blew my mind. It was more awesome that I can explain. Bottom line, I've been having a ton of fun.
    Now that all of that has been said, and I have no intention of hurting anyone's feelings, but it all boils down to this, my whole life I have done what others wanted me to do, or let them make disicions that involved me. I have always put the need of others over the needs of my own. That changes now. I will be 54 in a few weeks and it is time that I made my own choices and NOT let other people be involved in my progects and idea's.  I have a plan and I am going to do it on my own. I don't want to hear anyones opinion on anything I am doing. If I want it, then I will ask for it. 
     For those of you that like my art, I think you're really going to like the future I see for my paintings.  Love and Hugs. "May the Darkness Comfort You"













































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