Comic Book Blogs SELF PORTRAIT metamorphosis

HEY APATHY! Comic Book Drawings

Ok so the last few weeks have been less than inspiring. I've been really, really down. I'll run through my situation quickly just to give any reader’s out there a sense of why I kind of wish the universe would end these days but even worse why I almost stopped caring. 1) ADDICTION: like so many of us I’ve been trapped by addiction for holy s—t 18 years or so now and I just can’t take it any more. 2) MONEY –For the past couple of years I have been financing my projects with the support of various art council granting programs. I thought I was building a future and some strong relationships here but this year after spending 2 months writing essays and filling out forms I received a grand total of $2000 municipally and a glorious go fuck yourself from the Canadian Arts Council, (next year I’m going to draw them a picture of a beaver driving a Newfoundland schooner across a map of Canada) 3) MY SOUL- people keep calling me to do commercial work and I had to take some for the first time in over 10 years, I feel like bloody Winston with my face in a cage full of rats, 4) THE WORLD- I am so stupid that I actually tried to discuss the problems of the world with a group of Americans, I got so frustrated that I turned into as big of an asshole as those people are and virtually lost all faith in mankind. 5) ALL OF THE ABOVE – have put a serious strain on my 6 year relationship and my girlfriend, who was basically my wife, isn’t talking to me right now.

Deep breath, I’m dealing with it all as best as I can. The self portrait at the top of this post is my first drawing in weeks but at least it’s more positive than the one I did near the end of April ( reposted below).  keep on truckin , just keep on truckin ...

Dark Drawings and Human Erosion

HEY APATHY! DARK DRAWINGS

          I must say it almost feels like I’m falling apart. The expression “when it rains in pours” comes to mind only it doesn’t quite suit my situation. It feels more like a small drizzle that just won’t stop, it keeps tapping lightly at my skin, almost unnoticed, but is creating an accumulative effect of erosion. I am eroding.

First of all I’ll state that while I wouldn’t exactly describe my living conditions as ‘poverty” it is necessary for me to work under a very strict budget in order to subsist. As an artist with no real employer or gallery representation I never really know when or where the next cheque is going to come from. Fortunately there are few frivolous things I desire and am reasonably content as long as I’m well fed and have my artist’s supplies. In fact almost all of my belongings fit into a knapsack which I just replaced after an entire winter with holes and  broken zippers.

I have been feeling kind of down lately and thought that a hearty meal and a bit of productivity would be the best cure for my blues tonight. So I went to the market and filled my new knapsack to the brim with groceries came home. had a nap and awoke ready for food and work. Somehow, and I can’t remember the last time that this happened as my whole life is in there, I have lost my new bag. I have lost my new bag, my fresh produce, my pens and my ink. It is 10 pm on a Friday night and everything is gone. Like I said I’m not exactly destitute and can replace most of these things tomorrow but tonight I am without. Just like that my dinner, my supplies and my new bag, gone.As I metioned I don't exactly live in poverty but I am not wealthy either.

It all sounds so trivial when I put it on paper but add the fact that some one has taken up smoking in these non-smoking shared accommodations, I really just don’t feel well. Every few hours and particularly late at night my room is filled with grey nausea and yet it seems difficult to identify the culprit. Once the smoke gets in your nose everything smells like that and it becomes very difficult to trace the source. Nothing tragic or grandeur to excite the reader or even really worth while to complain about, it is just all sorts of little things wearing at me, drizzling. I was so looking forward to that fresh salad. I was so tired of the old knapsack with holes in it and it really wasn’t in the budget to replace the two $40 pens and a $25 bottle of ink I carry around with me. Ah yes, right on schedule, now I can smell the cigarette smoke coming up through the vent again.

I don’t even have any right to record this silliness but I can’t draw any pictures again tonight, I can’t refresh myself with a big meal and I have no other means of distractive productivity. Maybe I can look back at this post and laugh  in the morning? Maybe everything is going to be just fine? Maybe I will be younger tomorrow than I am today? Maybe, I am eroding.