People get entrenched in the art establishment, afraid to take a chance on something new or different from what they already do. Instead they want to tear down anyone who thinks differently or works outside the box.

I’ve been told already that my personal experiment is worthless, been done before, and has little value.

Sigh.

It’s hard to brush all this off and tell myself that these people don’t get it and are stuck in the mud of their own thinking. Or this.  Seth Godin calls this lizard brain thinking. I prefer to call it tethered thinking. It’s where a person is so attached to a particular idea or system of doing things that they are unable to see outside of the circle of their tether. Around and around in a circle they go never reaching out further than the length of their tether. At the perimeter of the circle is a rut so deep that even should they get off their tether surpassing the rut would be difficult.

No one ever said shaking up the system was going to be easy or comfortable.

The tether and rut are what we’re up against.

I’m asking for your help to push me over my own personal rut.

You can do it here.

My Chipin campaign has reached it's goal, 100% funded in about 48 hours. I've got 13 more days to go on the campaign itself. Here's my plan, i'm going to leave it active. If I earn another $100 I'll be able to take a 2nd day and spend it doing nothing but art. Add that to the already long weekend and I've got a 4 day stretch of nothing but art all the time. The rewards for anythign over the initial goal will be the same.

Also everyone who has bought in is truly awesome.

Last month I worked on the 34 ATC as Thanks project and it gave me a goal to work toward. It was pretty exhilarating to work toward the goal of finishing 34 cards over a short period of time. My goal was to finish them as fast as I could. And I did. I realize that I work really well towards a self imposed goal, even if it weren’t on paper and just floating around my noggin. It made me wonder what would happen if I worked toward a goal that was set in stone.

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I've written about this fence before. I adore it. If I had money I'd buy the empty, yet cared for, house that it surrounds, just for the fence. It's really something. Old school wrought iron. Heat, hands and hammers touched this and coaxed it into shape. This is from when craftmanship meant something.

I'm going to go and visit family for  along weekend and to see the Machias Blueberry Festival. It would be awesome to be able to buy a few things from some of the local artists when I'm up there.

So to get a little extra spending money I'm putting out a coupon code for free domestic shipping. The code is vacationcash all lowercase and no quotes around it.

This is good for anything in my etsy shop. If you've been holding off on getting an original piece, this effectively takes $5 off the price.

You can enlarge this to fill your screen and see them larger than in real life. HD baby!

You can enlarge this to full your screen and see them larger than in real life. HD baby!

I got a request to take a pic of all 34 ATC in one shot.It measures 15 inches by 21 inches. PRetty impressive. It took a long time to fill up that much space.

I draw a lot of people in public places. I try to not stare, glancing here and there not making eye contact, my gaze never resting on them but for a few moments. I work in places where it’s busy, I chose these locations so I blend in and people are less likely to notice me.  I prefer to draw people who are otherwise occupied with their computer, cellphone, digital contraption or books. They stay still longer than people who are talking and interacting. I don’t usually make people uncomfortable. It’s rare I get made as I’m sketching someone. Occasionally an observant student will spot me but the average person, not so much.

Saturday I wandered into my usual watering hole looking for a few faces to sketch for my thank you ATCs. I did a few failures as people moved around a lot and the place was quieter than usual. A couple walked in and I did my typical assessment for sketching. It was clear that the woman was incredibly ill; her gait was slow and deliberate, a wig covered her scalp, limbs too thin through her sweater, and her partner’s nervous look as she walked alone to the table.

As she sat down she noticed me looking. I admit more than anything I wanted to draw her. The contours of her face and eyes were the most interesting that had come into the cafe since I’d been sitting there. I could tell my momentary glances were making her uncomfortable.

I stopped.

I look at my drawing people in public places as a sort of personal journalism but I could not justify adding to this woman’s pain. Clearly she could feel my momentary glances at her, no matter how I hid them as if I were sketching the cafe tables or my cup of coffee. Perhaps she was hypersensitive to people looking at her perhaps I was less delicate than usual. Whatever it was, I couldn’t nor can I justify making someone in pain more  uncomfortable.

At some point we must draw the line.