I own about a half dozen different pencil sharpeners.

Yeah, it’s outta control…

They range from the little handheld ones, all the way up to a couple of electric models. However, the number or sophistication of these devices isn’t the point. The fact that I only really use one of them is.

The one I use is an old pencil sharpener, the kind I used to use when I was in grade school. Remember the kind I’m talking about? They were the ones made of all metal that bolted onto the wall and operated via a hand crank. It took me forever to find one of these (there are a lot of cheap imitation versions for sale out there). I finally got it from my late father in law, who was an engineer and had a lot of old equipment left over after he retired.

There’s nothing quite like the fine points that a sharpener like this one produces. With the long, smooth, fine points that it puts on a pencil you just feel like you can get to work. Before you start to wonder why on earth I am rambling on about pencil sharpeners, understand that I realize these things are pretty mundane. My underlying point is that it makes me wonder what happened to the old school concept of providing quality.

Yes, using the sharpener can be somewhat painful (as my knuckles will attest to), and yes in order to use it I have to get up from my chair and walk to the other side of my room to use it (all of three steps). However, I am of a mind that I will trade a little convenience for a quality result.

Can people (as a whole) say the same?

When I look around, I see all manner of things being geared toward providing convenience. You see this especially at grocery stores, these days. While yes, these things do provide some measure of convenience and expediency, they all invariably wind up sacrificing quality to do so. The funny thing is, this all seemed to boom up in the last decade or so. Waxing nostalgic for my “younger days” when things were “simpler” is laughable to me, because I am not that old.

And yet here I am….

Perhaps it’s me, or my memory is merely portraying it differently, but before the age of modern convenience, the things that required effort oftentimes produced measurably more quality results. It took effort to make a pot of rice, but the results were far better than the instant kind you find today. This strive for convenience has spread over into other areas, like the artist world, where digital art has all the convenience without the herculean effort that goes with traditional mediums. While I have seen some pretty good pieces of digital art, even the best can’t hold a candle to a painting or drawing that was done the “old way”.

I guess my question is this: For all the time we supposedly gain, is it really worth what we give up in the end?

Year 2009 Overview

It’s time to celebrate yourself, Taurus! You are pouring yourself into your life’s mission and rejuvenating yourself with abundant thinking, which attracts great things to you. You’re diligently creating a public arena where opportunities will emerge for you to be a teacher or messenger. Engagements for speaking, writing and sharing your thoughts will open up. Other people will be inspired by your enthusiasm and insight, and will support you in accomplishing your goals.

Taurus’s excitement radiates more than ever this year, bringing with it a magnificent energy the world has been lacking. As you embrace the power of your heart and spirit, you are allowing yourself to transform and align with a universal energy source. You discover the space for your creativity to flow and abundantly bring the truth of your being into the world. Your focus on your connection with a higher purpose brings out the best in you and refines your self-expression.

You appreciate all the expansive shifts that are taking place in your life, and you are learning to break up routines and old patterns of rigidity. This allows you a new level of awareness and acceptance of your ultimate purpose. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Express your truth and you will advance. You will find avenues to bring your talents and belief systems to philanthropic endeavors. By the end of the year, you will be able to slow down a bit and find more time to enjoy the new you that you have created.

Career Overview

You will discover new ways to regenerate your finances this year, as you let go of blocks and fears that are holding you back. Rethink your belief that you have to work hard for money; as you evolve spiritually, you will find that this thinking no longer serves you. As you step into your creative flow, work and finances become much easier for you. You realize that you’re able to manifest a dependable income when you just allow your talents to flow. As you learn to do what excites you, your enthusiasm will overflow and new opportunities will come your way. Trust that your ideas will tap into profitable avenues. When you stop placing restrictions on yourself, you will be able to move ahead and gain amazing benefits.

You enjoy giving outwardly and being in the public eye, and your life-long pursuit of developing your creative talents now has a new venue for manifestation. As you embrace your power, opportunities open up for public speaking, writing, performing and sharing visionary ideas with others. Through your work, you will most likely be helping people to achieve their own creative connection and a higher purpose in life. Your integrity and energy is shifting, and others are inspired by your wholeness and beauty.

The fruits of your work relationships will increase by leaps and bounds this year. Any endeavors you undertake will be very profitable, expansive and satisfying. As you open up to the creative avenues before you, you will earn bountifully, so surrender to the blissful adventure of walking down a satisfying career path!

Ordinarily I don’t put a whole lot of stock in things like this, but it is almost spooky how relevant this is already becoming.  I’m not enjoying any life changing success yet, but there has been a change in my creative outlook, and I have been spending a great deal more time at my easel, working on paintings and drawings.

After taking a ten year hiatus from doing any creative work, when I resumed those activities, there were a LOT of challenges I had to face.  Only recently does it feel as though the last remnant of those rusty shackles have fallen away.  More and more I have been thinking in terms of a projects completion, not the road it will take to get there.  Afterward, the idea of submitting a finished work to some public venue is not as daunting as it used to be.

Time will tell if there is any truth to the predictions.  But, oh wouldnt it be nice?

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London

There’s a new page on this site, titled “In Progress”.  It’s a series of progress shots of what is currently on my drawing board, typically having to do with oil paintings.  This page may become a landing page for multiple projects as I work on them, but for now there is just the one that I am currently working on.

Take a look…

The background was supposed to be the wheel of the year, where each spoke is indicative of a specific season.  Unfortunately I didn’t finish it, and the drawing got damaged.

Although, sometimes I wonder…

Never mind.

Chasing Unicorns is simply a metaphor, one that I use to describe the pursuit something that’s, for all intents and purposes, unobtainable.  The fact that it dovetails rather nicely with my chosen occupation as a fantasy artist is merely coincidental.

What does catching this coveted beast really symbolize?  I believe it’s the exceedingly rare occurrence of creating something enduring.  A work of art possessing such quality and emotion that it’s longevity cannot be quantitatively measured.  The piece becomes something more, greater than the artist and the process he or she used to create it in the first place.

Yet, I know that in order to catch it, one has to stop chasing it.

The problem is compounded by the fact that artists never know when they actually do manage to catch it.  It’s an achievement that can only be observed and recognized by other people.  If he were alive today, the world at large would likely tell Da Vinci that he caught the Unicorn when he painted the Mona Lisa (Hell, some would probably say he had the little fucker chained up in a pen somewhere).  Yet I’d be willing to bet that when he was finished and he looked at it, all he saw was another painting he had done.  Nowhere in his mind could he have known that it would become the piece that ultimately defined him.

When I was young, every time I put my pencil to paper or brush to canvas, I was working to relieve some unnamed hunger that existed within my creative mind.  I created without care because I wasn’t reaching for anything, I wasn’t chasing that Unicorn yet.

However, I find myself wondering about this pursuit more and more.  While the hunger remains ever more powerful, I find myself reaching for something without knowing yet what that something is.  It’s a never ending challenge where the payoffs are likely to be rare.

I think this pursuit explains why a lot of artists burn themselves out, or drive themselves batshit insane.  The desire to create something profound is so strong, that failure after failure leads to desperation, frustration, and eventually worse. They believe (as I sometimes do) that because there’s something to chase, then it’s reasonable to assume that it can be caught.

Every time I put pencil to paper, or brush to canvas, I know I’m still chasing that tricksome beast.  Every time I put my pencil or brush down for the day, I know I’ve again failed to catch him.   It makes me want to grind my teeth into a fine powder, to destroy every one of my works, so that I’ll no longer be taunted by them.  However, I know it would be foolish to do so, because I believe artistic expression is like a fingerprint.  It’s the evidence of our involvement in the world, and serves as both vindication and indictment of how we did so.

I guess the overall point is to continue the chase, without turning yourself into a modern day Captain Ahab.