Big things are happening and life is changing.

Today will most likely mark the end of a 10 year project: the Atlas Metamorphosis. This ink drawing series is what started my fine art career.

A decade ago I had a lucid dream where I saw the completed artwork that was out of my ability to create but I felt it was my purpose to attempt to be better than myself and recreate it in the waking life. So I poured it on and sacrificed my health and social life to create something out of my ability and out of this world.

I worked for five months straight and what I had completed earned me several accolades including being a Hunting Art Prize Finalist. What I also had done was create a unique idea that would require three more masterpieces of epic stature. The second masterwork took a year and got me in more Big Shows and another Hunting Art Prize Finalist and I knew that the third and forth would get me in and probably win the prize. Then the art prize discontinued and I was not able to get that chance but I trekked on anyway because it wasn’t about the prize. It was about me challenging myself to be better than myself. To be the artist of my dreams.

Today I am putting the final inking on stage 1 of 4.

The last installment needed in the series. I’ve avoided working on this project more than I actually worked on it over the last 10 years but I think it took this long because I grew into a different artist than I was when I started. Sort of a bipolar manifestation, I developed two dominant, completely different styles and have maintain them simultaneously. With my painting style that I call Iterations I pursued sacred geometry mixed with surrealism. With this series I also had promised myself I would make at least 100 iterations and I have reached that point. So both of my biggest projects are at a safe ending point.

Over the last couple years I’ve been developing new experiments in different media including 3-D and this year I even got into animation and installation art. So plenty of new things are already happening and more is on the way. That is not to say that I won’t continue painting and drawing but I will be looking for a way for these two series to coalesce into one new direction. A unified field.

I expected my life to change dramatically when I envisioned finishing this project 10 years ago.

I still do today. I am ready for it. I am ready to do whatever it takes to bring my art career to the next level and beyond that. Mostly I’m ready to stop neglecting my mental, physical and spiritual health and start living a more joyful life. That may mean not being self-employed very soon in the future if I can’t make the kind of deals I need to within the next month or so. But that’s OK because The ends will justify the means. I really hope I don’t have to take that route but its probably the most likely, given where I’ve at and the support it brings.

So I enter into this day with great excitement but also fear. Fear for I don’t know where this is going. One thing I do know is that we must face fear if we ever hope to progress.

Apology:

Lastly, I’m sorry to everyone I’ve neglected who needed my attention over the years, if any such person still exists. I kick myself in the rear for not being around for my friend and fellow artist Michel Draper who was found dead the same day my father died around this holiday season 2 years ago. My whole life has seemed emptier ever since that day. Two black hole vacuums are left in the places they filled in my life.

I felt this art was my calling in life and my most important work. I honestly think that if you really cared for me you would understand and still be happy to see me and want to share time when I am there instead of a cold shoulder of resentment. I think the resentful people would have been that way anyway. That is what was in their hearts and I am just a mirror to reflect that on them. Forgive me for not being strong enough to lift you up or weather your storm. Every day is a chance to start again. I always start with high vibrations when I encounter someone. It is their choice to bring down the energy, maintain it or raise it. If you met me and fell in love its because you took that energy and raised it with me simultaneously.

That is what I am looking for now and in the future. Those beautiful synergies that mean the right path is here.

(Taken from a journal entry last week)