Good Morning Friends,
A little bit of a blank slate syndrome here.
A good ole’ confrontation with the unknown and your self locked in a room. I was just released from Quarantine… though from the looks of it, they probably shouldn’t have let me out. 😅 I’m not cured yet!!!
Ain’t isolation just the best!? The things we come up with when left alone with our own thoughts are some of the most wonder filled things we can have, and I yearn yearly to return to this island in Menorca where the incessant disturbances from the outside are kept across the bay.
Every day at 8am we traverse the sea saturated with medusas, and return exhausted and a little more closer to the truth at 10pm.
and while it may just look like a bunch of people painting sunsets… what really happens on the island cannot be explained by mere images of people doing things, or rattling text I can convey here. My job, my task I was invited to do, was to break people. Only through such true devotion, will a person pick up the shards and try again… or better yet, walk on naked into a new you. Its as hard for me as it is for all of you, I’ve just given myself more time in my past.
I discovered a joy in sketching the myriad of little rabbit holes scattered around the ruins of the 18th century Isolation Hospital while I hobbled between the Tower of Solitude and the corner of the Graveyard, human jawbones blending into stone. Bouncing between one student and the next and cracking my Mann whip, or so I heard! :D
It think I may have gleaned more wisdom about my own beliefs thanks to all of your hard work and trust.
Those of you who were there with me: fuckin’ thank YOU. The satisfaction I felt in your gleaming faces when in the final 10 minutes I saw you push beyond the your own self inflicted limits, realizing a glimmer of the purest truth, gave me such tickles.
Not because… you know, “hell yeah ME!”
haha! not at all… you know you’re the catalyst for your own life story, I was simply there to light a fire under your ass… like a landmine. Seeing you all catch that, that understanding of what this all really means… “artist” - beyond that which you expected, beyond that which you once thought you couldn’t attain, beyond the gimmickry and the base ideals pushed by social media artists and schools and dvd’s and books and all the other bullshit.. seeing the truth in your tears at the end of that week… filled me with a sense of satisfaction that somewhere out there now, in this bleak and bastardy world, you get it, you understand…
the Shadowhood grows more robust with every choice you make for your own artistic spirit.
Surrounded by the most tightly knit crew of vagabonds who took a dream and made it real, gifting it back to the starved with endless dedication and hard work. Sitting amongst the giants of Edward Povey, Martin Wittfooth, Miles Johnston, James McCrea and my most inspiring art soul, Nadezda, I felt at home with a new family.
Thank you, all the attendees, mentors, and Quarantine family, Thank you.
You helped me see my own path more clearly, and I’ll never forget.
I warned you all it would happen!
The airport…
the return to a society gripped with doubt, fear, confusion, ego, greed, ignorance, and avoidance… like weeds in the rocks, in time will crumble any tower you’ve protected yourself with.
I sat beside my 5 Euro coffee in a mental huff and bled ink on paper. I think its quite poetic that we call it the “Terminal.”
How quickly it rushes in, the distractions, the “buy me!” the “eat me!” the “give away your money, your time, your hopes and dreams! We have candies for you to fill that hole in your soul!”
Everything out there is making every effort it can to take away your time by giving it your attention and your money… feeding you entertainment you think you need, filling that sorrow of why you’re not who you want to be. You already are, you just won’t give yourself the time, and the PERMISSION.
GIVE yourself the gift you need, the gift you want. Those at Quarantine will remember in my speech the little bit about Harper Lee? Her friends got together and gifted her one year of all her bills paid. Now THAT is a gift worth giving. Not some plastic entertainment.
TIME> That is a gift you can give to yourself.
Never forget the truth:
Inside every single one of you, there lies a genius, if given full play and free time at the height of your faculties, the true genius within you will freely emerge.
Devote yourself to this idea.
Open your mind to the necessity to unlimit yourself.
All our problems are just a limitation to which we don’t see the solution to circumvent and continue on our path.
You’d be closer to that solution when you let go, love yourself, realize your gift of being alive with an unknown expiration date, take the risks, get the experience, and above all:
YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT.
Remember that truth,
you live once.