What it means to be an artist, or an oyster...

"What it means to be an artist, or an oyster..."

A statement that I wish I had a better answer for.

I wrote this with Luna Lovefood on my lap in her new sweater.

If I gave the definition of what western society in general defines it to be, it might be a life of non-work. An existence sleeping in, doing what one wants, when they want. A life mitigated only by the imagination of the artist. When seen at an art show, they've undoubtedly "made it". They have numerous patrons, gallery shows, and the visual appearances any creative will have, should be reflective of the perhaps bohemian and borderline lawless and carefree lifestyle they no doubt enjoy daily.

That fantasy laded optic is so askew of the truth for at least 95% of creatives, it's depressing.

A message posted by a friend and colleague, really hit it on the head about being an artist in this modern world. It reflected the same sort of thoughts I have about money, social media, and the almost mundane necessity to stay relevant or at least seen, by participating in digital interactions as much as possible.

Facts be told, one must not only be "out there", putting time into creating, but also learning, marketing, attempting to capture the attention of anyone willing to listen, read, or appreciate what we offer through the semi porous translucent membrane of human perceptions and expectations.

As I shared in my last video journal entry, this is a year I'm taking to experiment and attempt to expand my horizons. All without doing the shows and conventions that I've normally done.

If it sounds insane, that's because it is.

But to that point, I am the single person effort behind relaunching my podcast, to all of the editorial, site design, media creation, and marketing that is involved. This takes no account of my comic work, illustration and design for clients, or time for rest and spending time on things like hobbies or those that matter to me. 

A point was made, in that post from my colleague, about the way that modern day marketing works. It's an unfortunate and uncomfortable truth that the more we post, promote, and create content of whatever kind, the better a chance we have of our work being discovered and appreciated. Even if most of the time it feels like we are yelling inside of an auditorium, with empty seats or worse yet, seats filled with people brimming with torpid disinterest.

At conventions and shows, you may find yourself silently screaming for attention as everyone else around you does the exact same. All vying for the chance someone will choose to stop and consider what we have and who we are. 

It reminds me of the faces of the animals in shelters. The overlooked ones feel pain you might not immediately recognize. The difference is many of us get to go home. They may never get that chance.

When I create something, and take the time to nurture and entwine it with effort from the mind and heart, navigated by an eye for clean design and presentation, rounded out by a proficiency and knowledge in them, I would love to think that there would be no problem gaining ground and making a living as an artist. That people would be elated to see something new. That people really can appreciate something made by a fellow human being.

Typing that last paragraph out makes it sound like I'm being petulant and difficult in my expectations of how working in a creative field is.

It's more born from burnout and the understanding that I'm part of a generation of artists drawn to mirage like goals placed by college and societal expectations. But then realizing that my career started at a point where a lot of the ways that the world of illustration worked, were heading on their way out. An extinction of skillsets in the name of corporate progress and banality.

Don't misunderstand me, I am grateful for the opportunities I've had and the often tumultuous paths I've taken to get to where I am. I’m just more of a realist these days.

But I'm well aware that life is often presented to us as an oyster when we are young.

You know the saying. 

That the world is our oyster. That's a weird idea to present to a graduating class, or someone suffering depression. 

I imagine it means that when we open it up we will find a pearl. But if I remember right, it takes a granule of sand entering the internal area of an oyster, causing irritations, which lead to the creation of a pearl.

If one takes that literally, it makes no sense in today's world, but then again it does. Much like the struggle of maintaining an online presence and attempting to be witty, creative, authentic, whatever other sort of adjective you want to place here, there is a duality to the idea of an oyster being your world.

It would mean that you have to be irritating enough to create something that is held at value by others, who can forcibly remove it from you and then present it as something they found and will sell at some later point without your involvement. We've become so comfortable with the work for hire aspect of nameless creation in the name of an umbrella brand, it's a wonder that any creative cut loose in layoffs doesn't just take up a whole other less stressful job like bathing rabid orangutans. 

But an oyster does tend to parallel to what a lot of people in life do.

When we are young starting as larva/children we are buoyant and move around by foot until we find somewhere to attach themselves for the rest of their lives, until something comes along and removes us forcibly. Oddly enough historically, that's one commonality, it's almost always humans that will do that to both of us.

Talking specifically about creative people, and I will use myself as the example, it's extremely easy to look back on my younger years and realize how much more freedom I never realized I had at the time.

How today, I am much less entrenched in my worldviews and habits. But that isn't true of the points of my professional life. I'm not even talking a physical location necessarily. It could be a long standing goal I've never gotten to. It could be making time for other people or experiences. Or dealing with any of the other challenges in life that fear and insecurity threatened to rob me of.

And yet there's a necessity to put myself out there. It goes beyond whatever I create, and relies on me doing all I listed above and also being some form of a social butterfly.

Marketing and taking the time to engage and network in a world that already doesn't know which direction it's really going, is simultaneously somehow erratically rewarding and also the most infuriatingly manufactured effort any one of us could produce.

There is no such thing as perfection. At least not in the way that so many of us strive for an expect out of life. In fact we will often raise or lower the bar to attain a status closer to our idealized concept of perfection, to make ourselves feel better and keep ourselves motivated.

Back around the middle of December I had decided that I would more than likely get completely off of social media for one year, and do absolutely no shows. I wanted to see if anyone would notice. I wanted to see what that would do to whatever ego I had. I wondered how much interaction and reciprocate of comments or likes were more valuable in my head, than me creating anything of real artistic merit or worth. I did realize quickly that that is financial suicide in more ways than one. That and I only have so much bone marrow to sell.

The unfortunate truth is that so many people are far more engaged with what they have going on that unless one has a sizable following online, I'm willing to wager that most people wouldn't notice or care that someone hadn't posted or shown anything off for a while. 

The social media machine is one that doesn't allow for extremely critical thinking or deep assessment of the connections we carry in life. To the contrary, it becomes more and more of an echo chamber.

Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely somebody that understands where I fit in all of this. And social media can and has often provided a connection point for people in my life that I may not see as often, or realistically may never see in person again. There are good things about it.

But the questions come up in my mind about how necessary and how honest are my efforts in what I create. I wonder to myself that if I excised myself from focusing so much on interacting online daily, exactly how much more what I accomplish in a week, a month, or a year?

I'm approaching this from a very personal standpoint. The more innocent, possibly high minded concept of what the internet would be and had potential to become, has more and more become a reflecting pool where we sometimes don't recognize the reflection anymore. What was once heralded as a bastion of information exchange has instead become a bastard. But a charismatic bastard, wearing cheap AI cologne.

It's an addiction, an emotional one, that is fastidious and painfully hard to rid of ourselves. Modern interactions happen more often via phone and screens, and it's not uncommon to see derisive ideologies about interacting in person with others. Something that is so fundamentally skewed when you consider that the human race is fundamentally community based and herd like mentality.

Everything I've stated above is what lingers in my mind when I release an image of a piece of artwork that I've spent a few hours on. It's what's in my head as I edit the videos that you may watch on my YouTube channel. It inhabits my secondary reactions when I forget my phone and cannot chronicle something to share later in a journal, or I'm unable to write something down and save it to my notes app. 

All of those reactions come from the need to stay current, gain the attention of people if even for a few seconds, and also bring about a disability in comparative structure with others experiences and lives. We see things said online as windows into another person's life. We often forget how carefully edited and staged much of what we ingest truly is. Some people would say that we've had that as long as storytelling has existed, as long as television programs have been around, so I feel honest when I'm trying to tell the stories of what I go through as an artist today.

I have to remind myself that what I'm trying to do will have longevity and merit if I keep it honest, straightforward, and keep as much of myself in it as I possibly can. While also at the same time not flinging myself off the cliff's edge of oversaturation and overexposure, or if quite frankly, I do whatever and no one gives a shit.

Sometimes I wish humans could live to be older, perhaps around 200 to 250 years old. Not just because of the immense amount of things we could learn and master with an extended lifetime, but we would witness even more vibrant and probably confusing trends emerge in modern society. I say that from a  somewhat ignorant view, that a longer lifespan could allow us all to give time for the things in life that matter. 

Self reflection and taking time to appreciate the world around us more, embracing wisdom to a depth few if any have ever achieved. Maybe in that stretch of time we'd also come to realize that things like engrossing ourselves within the modern facets of social media, need not be anything more than a passing fad. Enjoy it, but don't make it a false alter of worship and admiration. 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, as much of a challenge as it is to be a creative individual, it is far more difficult to be a creative individual today, that can produce things that people will take the time to invest in and value. Because the real challenge may not always be that it’s your art that is undervalued, it's instead the amount of time and life spent on our parts that has no real perceived value. Just ask anyone working in HR. 

Don't believe me? Go to any major museum and listen to the some of the comments and conversations in the art galleries, the history item rooms. Just make sure you have a therapy appointment later that day lined up.

Thanks for reading, I sincerely appreciate it. 

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue

Closing out the year of 2023

Lamps light the darkest recesses, when we need them most.

If you look above at the top of the website, I slightly updated the banner above to feature one of my favorite lyrics from the irreplaceable Tom Petty.

This year I turned 49. Saying that out loud, never mind typing it out, is utterly surreal. 

Some mornings I still connect with the younger versions of myself still within me, other days I have aches that remind me not of the years but of the mileage earned.

Burnout this year was more than I thought I could endure. So many times, dour feelings surfaced, driving my mind to where I simply wanted to walk away from being involved in anything creative.

I do enjoy setting up at shows, it bolsters the interactions and stories I get to hear.

Thankfully being around other colleagues and professionals stemmed any foolish decisions I most certainly entertained. Make no mistake, to define a path a progress for myself when my future seems so incredibly nebulous, makes decisions at a crossroad in life all that more painful.

Learning to fly...

I had an opportunity to have Marc Scheff, a man of interminable skills and capacity, as my career coach for a few months. If you are looking for someone that offers services and knowledge that can help you out personally and professionally, I recommend him highly. When a route seems darkened, often a guide who is familiar with what you will traverse, can help lighten the path and the load you bear.

Creating some personal work that broke rules I had set for myself, was really a release.

A lot of perspectives shifted for me during the weeks I participated in the sessions. I began to rediscover and learn more about myself. In ways I had never allowed myself to consider. I connected with a group of people in ways I wasn't really capable of anymore.

Being able to work through designs for clients during the coaching sessions was beyond helpful.

Something I began to celebrate was acknowledging when I am able to accomplish things that I am proud of. It's nothing I felt doing before, but it has helped me understand how far I've come along, and gives me examples of my ability to do things I'd wanted, and see them through.

• I've learned Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese for 30 minutes a day, for 513 days straight
• I have been learning ASL for 212 days, and it's been one of the most rewarding things.
• I started creating and learning animation a week ago, with the goal to have a video covering my year long journey from awkward beginning efforts to hopefully much better end results.
• I have made every effort to push forward into the mental health challenges I have, to better understand myself and overcome so much of what has held me back
• I have said no to less and less things in an effort to experience more in life, but with that comes the ever fragile component of work and life balance
• Every morning, for the last 789 days, I practiced mindfulness as the first thing every morning, reminding myself of what brings joy into my life, what I'm grateful for, and what opportunities lay yet to be found
• I've taken to reciting and enjoying the works of Shakespeare daily, and have done so now for 412 days.
• I started relearning and practicing music from the most remedial level just a month ago
• I've kept to meditating now at least 15 minutes every other day
• A rekindled interest in archery has manifested, something I had forgotten how much I enjoyed when I was a youth around 19 years of age using an English Longbow. It turns out my first effort with a compound bow yielded 7 out of 8 arrows hitting a bullseye 
• I touched a sea anemone and a sea cucumber for the first time ever
• I started a daily bullet journal to track my habits for one year
• I've now completed a few physical journals that go more indepth on things I really want to remember 

There have been other minutia and weekly goals including organizing and re-naming files on my hard drives for projects years down the road, reading more, and a few others, all of them small steps forward.

Nights of Lights and Memories...

Since I didn't do reviews of all of the shows I participated in this year, just allowing myself to be in that space, immersed in those moments had me enjoying things a lot more.

The KC RenFest has been a place of many happy memories for me over the years.

This last weekend, I once again visited the KC RenFest's Knights of Lights. It was great fun, and led to an unexpected meet up with an old acquaintance of mine that I had not seen in almost 20 years. After about 10 minutes of reintroduction and recollection, we were waist deep in conversation, swapping stories about days in the Society for Creative Anachronism, experiences at museums, times working as security guards, how life was treating us. It was almost a solid hour and a half of storytelling and laughter.

Almost 20 years is too long to let conversations continue.

It rounded out something that I made a point of really emphasizing this year. To focus in on forging new and good memories with people. Not just the few that I'll see from time to time at shows, but so many more that I've known over the years and have lost touch with.

One of the side effects of recording and writing about my life over the last 10 to 15 years, is that it becomes evident what has changed for myself. People have moved in and out of my life, jobs have ended, new ideas have come and gone, and sometimes sadness is involved in those aspects. 

I've spoken previously about the concept of mindfulness. That has allowed me to think about a day as it begins, which is important, become it's all too easy to become encumbered with being busy.

I did stay busy this year, tending to a small garden. It felt like time stretched out as watched the plants grow.

Sure there's something to a robust career, to be in demand, or just letting ourselves be weighed down with "to do lists", that we never make the time to think about the success we've garnered, nor the reality we sit within. It's an easy way to keep people at distance, and attempt to conjure a sense of being in control of our lives.

I'm certainly one of the people that spent the better part of his professional career letting go of all the free time I did have, chasing many dreams that were not my own. Many late hours in cubicles, some years I stayed working three jobs. There were so many more things that I could have done in regards to simply living more in the moment, and allowing myself to ask... What was I running from? Depression? Thinking responsibly? The passage of time?

Connections...

I really pushed myself to reach out to people, creating new friendships, finding new clients, and most importantly, learning new things. But the concept of connections isn't just gaining, sometimes it's also losing them. I learned the not every connection in life is absolutely necessary, in fact some can be downright negative to have.

Connections can also be with one's surroundings, even ones you come across on a trip. Take that time to stop. Take a photo, a video, or just live in that moment.

The best ones are the most organic ones, that bloom forward from seeds planted in the gardens of our minds, when things like mutual interests, beliefs, or circumstances allow for us to embrace a wider world.

While out and about in Louisiana, I came across this. Reference discovered like this, ignites the mind. Already I had two or three story ideas running through my head.

I had to come to terms with the fact that I had started isolating myself as I wrestled with clinical depression for the last two or three years. I also had no less than 4 journal's worth of "receipts" that whether I liked it or not, stood as a chronicle of every moment I took. That can humble you really quickly, but it also gives a very transparent view into yourself. Toxic positivity is one of the most damaging things anyone can market or endure. For a long while, I practically had an intravenous flow of it, because of social media, the nature of conversations changing for the majority of people, and convincing myself that if I only focused in on the positive, that was key to a happy life.

Not even remotely close to how reality works... 

Know what's worse than social anxiety? Regret.

Days of despondency...

Tumultuous things continue to happen within the creative industry.

Even as I worked on my reproductions this year, I wondered to myself, how many more years will it be viable to be an illustrator? What will things be like for anyone in this industry in ten years?

The latest public corporate incident, came from Hasbro, who announced the letting go of 1,100 people this month, bringing the yearly total up to almost 2000 people. My heart goes out to all the people let go. It reminds me a lot of the hemorrhaging of positions that Hallmark had for so many years, the company is physically shrinking, it's down to two floors of operation at it's Kansas City headquarters. But I'm sure the CEOs and others are fine. Even if let go to show some PR damage control, the severances and stock portfolios they left with could have kept many employed.

The discussion of AI's place in any sort of creative space reached multiple fever pitches this year, and no doubt will reach an ever higher zenith of argument and morality play over the next few years. A few creatives, myself included, have already felt the initial hit of losing work to AI. The most sobering thing about all of this has been the slow infusion of it into the public mind, and the both defiant and unnervingly acceptable place that it occupies from it's staunchest defenders, to the average person that just wants cool things created without the hassle of an artist being involved. Many are calling this a fad that will fade. I think we have yet to see just how much damage this will end up doing to all creative outlets.

Rest in peace man, and thanks for the conversations and advice those years ago. [Image from BrianEwing's website.]

In more personal news, earlier this year in April, Brian Ewing, a fellow illustrator, metalhead, and all around fucking awesome guy passed away from colon cancer. I had the opportunity to meet him once or twice, (my memory fails me, I need to go back and look at my photos from Spectrum Fantastic Art Live) but in the short times that I got to speak with him he was soft spoken, but that fell to the wayside as soon as you witnessed his powerhouse talent and indelible skills as a creative. I've been very lucky  over the last decade, to meet some incredible heavyweights within the world of illustration. The vast majority have been kind, patient, and very open to sharing stories and knowledge.

Brian Ewing was absolutely one of the ones at the top of that list.

His passing earlier this year, was very much the catalyst that got me to start thinking about myself more seriously as a professional artist.

It reminded me that we don't know how much time we truly have. It gave me a foundation to stand upon again and take note as to what I want to accomplish. 

It's never easy when someone in our field passes on.

Those creative motions, that unique perspective within that individual, and the landscape of the mind, all fall silent, the remnants and memories now become stories told in fondness, echoing in the creations they left behind.

Fade into new...

As I've stated every single year that I have had any sort of online journal entry for the month of December, I don't believe in, nor appreciate the concept of New Year's resolutions.

I know that it works for other people, especially any owners of gyms that deal with about a month and a half of brand new memberships which have attendance fade away beginning halfway through the month of February. 

I always viewed it that new beginnings happen every day.

I spoke earlier about learning animation, this has been an effort that has involved watching YouTube tutorials, mining my memories and watching a lot of DVD extras of many of my childhood heroes who were animators. I made it a point to not wait until after the first of the year to begin my effort. Calendars were invented by us. So I thought I might as well invent a reason to not care about when I choose to start something, and not let it be held to a specific starting date. Today is always better than tomorrow unless we are talking about death.

It does no good to wait to begin something if the end result could be any one of the following, an effort that resulted in learning, a final product that may not be perfect but is finished, or when unique opportunities present themselves, even if they reside on the other side of barriers built up of fear, insecurity, and a reluctance to fail.

This entry took me the better part of three days to write.

Writing anything, not unlike living life, is very much, a work in progress.

For years I had fooled myself into thinking that there was this attainable plateau of perfection, or at the very least an acceptable mode of professional accomplishment that would cast a natural harmony over my life. 

One that would allow me to make no more wrong decisions, or at the very least have very little to lose if something went wrong. I'd be the first to tell you that growing up in the 80s and 90s, there was a particular expectation as to, if one simply applied themselves and had natural talents that rose above the others, there was no goal you could not attain.

No job you couldn't secure with a firm handshake.

And it took a few years for me to understand that many of the people I worked for, and indeed my own parents, were very much people that believed in those ideals.

Which unfortunately also meant that the vast majority of companies that exist today function on those sort of antiquated systems of reward and acknowledgement, so long as year end earnings consistently go up regardless of what else is happening in the world.

As I've gotten older it's become less and less important for me to accept things that are going wrong in the world. But I imagine like many of you who may also feel this way, how does change come about?

I've had debates over the years, many postulated on the positive interactions with aspects ranging from politics, to religious interaction, which raised so many varied reactions to sociopolitical, economic, and human rights, that it can seem like the world is at times filled with nothing but anger and insanity no matter where we look. The vast majority of society prefers for people to fit within preconceived notions and reduced down to numerical data. It's not as clinical as it sounds, we are engorged within it, as we scroll social media, adapt to trends and ideologies that are presented well in 4K video, are veneered over with marketing 24/7, and are willing to back the loudest representative of our more reserved or liberal thought processes, even if that person is the least informed person in the world. 

Influencer, politician, or holy man, they are all the the same...

I believe the scientific term for them is, moron.

It doesn't matter what angle any of the people who are calling the shots come from, it always seems that the vast majority of them, want what they want. Which means that the rest of the world suffers as we fight amongst ourselves, and they reap the money and returns.

I know what you're thinking, wow this shit got really heavy really fast. 

I think about everything I've written in this entry almost daily. If you don't believe me you should read my journals sometime. I'm hoping to put all of them together someday, and publish them, but also have them placed in a time capsule to leave a record of what an average person went through and their lifetime. Maybe it's because I feel that to speak out today, primarily can result in either reactions of ignorance or others simply ignoring. 

And when you're a visual artist, a performer, it can seem like the creative efforts you want to get out into the world may not matter. But they do, they truly do.

It matters if you're doing the best you can. Creative or not. Let me be clear, your job title doesn't define you. You're interactions with the world and the people you come across, do.

So for any of you reading this, I hope that today you'll pick up something that maybe you left behind because you didn't feel like you were good enough at it, I hope today that you'll realize you are the only one that can tell your story, And I hope that today you'll realize that you are far more than what any company could ever begin to define you as.

The strongest form of self love, is remaining dedicated to your dreams. It’s keeping that promise your past self pined for, current you is building discipline for, and is what future you is depending on.

Links

Brian Ewing

KC Knights of Lights

Marc Scheff Coaching

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog, it sincerely means the world to me when I've had people talk to me about the stories and thoughts I share on here.

Remember to support artists and small businesses. Be kind to your fellow beings and always take the path less traveled. We all may live in times uncertain, but kindness, understanding, and believing in the good that is in most each and every one of us is what can bring about better days!

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue
Illustrator, Voice Actor, Writer, Animal Rights Activist

-All photos, editorial content, created by me. One dude. Thank you for reading.-

www.theartisanrogue.com

The longest post ever...

I have half a mind to keep my mini tree up for the entire month of January. Just for a bright bit of cheer.

This is the first time this has happened as long as I've been keeping this blog running. I had started this update some month back and abandoned it, not choosing to update this for quite a long time. As things moved onwards, I wanted to make one last post before 2021 came in.

I left the first draft part, because it is exactly what was on my mind then, and I can finally finish my thoughts, in this forward time traveling sort of moment. 

July 5th, 2020

The other evening, as I sat awake around 2am, had finished up some late night work, and went into the living room to sit and think. I started to play some Fire Emblem Heroes on my phone, but really was just going through the motions, so I switched over to checking the socials,... Twitter, then Instagram, meandering over to Facebook... but after a few bland minutes of just staring at the blue glow, I just turned the screen off.

Sitting there in partial darkness, with just the porch light filtering in through the edges of the blinds nearby, my mind started to wander and think. 

I thought about the previous post about where we would go, moving forward. Emotionally. Physically. 

Over the last few weeks, we've all seen the ups and downs of what is happening these days. Covid19 isn't going away. Now, I know that there are a fair amount of people that will read this post, and decry "fake news", or feel that I am being overly cautious, or maybe even playing the part of a doomsday enthusiast.

The numbers, the data, all of the information you could need is out there via the CDC. The fact that people have died from this, period, is all the reason that matters. Even unto the ones that have "recovered", I feel that's in part, a not completely truthful assertion. The long term effects of this disease, are only in the last few weeks showing just how damaging and unpredictable this is becoming.

But none of the above is directly about what I am here to write about today.

Most people reading my blog, are people that either are or know artists/vendors that create things that they may sell online, but more frequently, rely on the access and sales they get from doing various shows.

It occurred to me that, as more and more shows begin to fall by the wayside this year, there are still a few stalwarts that look to be standing, or hoping, that things will "go back to normal". Thankfully, if that is the word that can be used, others have either relented and focused on shows moving to 2021, or they have taken the stance of a longer waiting game.

The fact is, everything is uncertain. Nothing is normal. I don't believe it will go back to whatever we deemed normal before...

The clouds over the highway as I made my way to Columbia, Missouri.

December 30th, 2020

It's about 12:30 AM as I start back in on this. To say this has been a strange year, would be an understatement. I halfway expected an alien invasion from outer space, or for Sasquatch to be discovered. It would not have been out of place. It would have been so on brand for 2020.

I can go on about so much that has happened this year, but it's almost too much to cover.

So for now, to keep this post simple, here is a short list of some of what I went through:

1. Was hired as an overnight security guard the first day the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art closed it's doors to the public, quit the day before they readmitted the staff and started small opening times to the public.
2. In working at the Nelson, I saw more art history than most people may ever see, a lot that has never been shown to the public, and some that will debut in years to come.
3. I worked there the weekend of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in downtown KC. I went through some things that not only changed how I felt about KCMOPD and the Nelson, but also myself.
4. I won my first design industry award ever. For a freelance design project for Infinity Foils. It is still a bit weird, but I am happy. The last time I won an award was seriously at a high school art show.
5. I started up doing therapy with a renewed vigor and hope to face up to so many things that I have as walls and challenges in front of me. 
6. I started a Hero's Journal, which was one of my two favorite gifts this holiday, and I'll be reviewing it soon. I truly believe it's been a help to me that I never in a million years would have done on my own.
7. Hallmark, let more people go, in the wake of Covid coming through. I as a contractor, recently had to go and empty out my desk, to work permanently from home. It was a surreal bit of time to be in there packing up again, and seeing all of the empty cubicles. I hope for my friends that are left there, that it holds as it is, if not grows once again in the near future.
8. I started an online weekly show with a friend of mine, that we've now done for 20 weeks. It has been cathartic, fun, and helped me get over live feed performance.
9. After years of holding out, I started up an Etsy store, which will hopefully help me out in this coming year, as art shows and conventions still seem dodgy at best for happening. 
10. Many scary and personal close calls happened as well, almost losing my two cats, losing other pets that lived at my parents' house, and losing some friends and acquaintances to Covid this year, really hit home.
11. Supporting more independent artists and small businesses this year than I have in the past.
12. A lot of highs and lows when it came to daily life. Thankfully, depression has become far more manageable, but other shadows of the mind still wander around.

But along with that, because of the rise of more time spent texting, working online, and seeing more social media posts, following more people on instagram, I saw so much more come across. 

The very quiet halls.

It's been so hard to put into words so much of this, and especially when as introverted as I am, to not be always able to reach out to people I cared about and be there for them when the time mattered.

Four of the reasons I am grateful to be home.

I don't know what to expect of this next year. I don't do resolutions. I don't really adhere to the idea that things suddenly change just because a man made calendar flips over or ends.

The second set of illustrations I put up on Etsy.

That's not how life works. But the symbolism and anecdotal aspects of that, are firmly implanted in who we are.

I've had a lot of time to spend looking back on things, not only because of therapy sessions, or because freelance and contract work is dead at the moment for me. In part, I end up looking for things that are comfort zones for me. Regrettably, one of the things has been a new rediscovery of my desire for late night college level food...

No seriously, am I the only one craving a seven layer burrito right now?

Not a great way to crash into 2021. 

Until next time, remember to support artists and local businesses. Be kind to your fellow beings and always take the path less traveled. We all may live in times uncertain, but kindness, understanding, and believing in the good that is in most each and every one of us is what can bring about better days!

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue
Illustrator, Voice Actor, Writer, Animal Rights Activist

www.theartisanrogue.com

Living, feeling immature, and learning not to worry.

Sleepytown USA, this is how a lot of the midwest feels these days.

Does anyone else wake up, and have one of your first thoughts be, what day it is? I mean, I'm working 3 jobs, and am pretty darn confused as to what day it is, even with that going on.

Feelings of all kinds.

Honestly though, having worked contract for so long, not a lot has changed in that regard for me. I think it's more that OTHER people not doing their routines has begun to mess up my mentality on all of this. For instance, traffic has been either somewhat busy, or like a set shot of the highways on the Walking Dead. "Social distancing" has either been done pretty well, or completely ignored. It makes for an odd set of circumstances for so many people. 

For some, you can see anxiety of all sorts play out across social media, or in new videos. Anger, frustration, calls for a "return to normal", whatever the hell that means. No doubt, on more serious inclinations, staying at home can be the worst thing to have to endure for reasons I won't go into here.

For others, it's either not a huge change, or a lot of relief, because societal pressures from gatherings, interactions, and face to face contact are the lowest they've been, really ever.

The one unifying factor in all of this seems to be division, sadly. Actually, one other factor is that nasty, fearful word of "change". If there has been a word that instills more varied reaction than that one, I don't know what it is.

What's my age again?

Something that is ever more prevalent in my day to day interactions, whether they be in person, or online, is that opinion, feelings, and emotion have consistently started to overwhelmingly be the foundation of conversation, passive interaction and reaction, and is replacing genuine conversation with waiting to simply respond.

It's made me more aware of my own arrested development, especially when it comes to dealing with people. I rarely am that serious about anything, and find humor in most things. Sure, everyone has their triggers, and taboo subjects. I get that. Personally, I will joke about anything except anything dealing with animals. For a long time, that made me think I was really messed up. 

If we can't find humor in our darkest moments, or in daily life, then are we living life right? I am saying that as someone that spent most of my youth picked on, made fun of, and at many times, isolated and lonely. Humor was the savior I had. I used self deprecating wit and offbeat observations to make it through life.

All that big slice of seriousness aside, I find myself wondering if I even have my shit together on a daily basis. 

We are living in a time, when we have the most gloriously insane idiot running our country. People are either super close minded, or quote, unquote, Woke As Fuck. It's an era of extremes. Corporate definitions of lifestyle, illusions of freedom, and self styled meme heavy revolutions authored by armchair rebels and keyboard warriors with canteens of mixed drinks. That includes me.

It's an epoch that will resonate for years, and later be known as the "Stupid Fuckers" period.

I feel immature, and question daily if anything I do, matters. Does it even register? Will it ever be remembered? Is it even WORTH anything?

Now before anyone starts to reach out and make sure I'm not about to start giving my stuff away and sign off from this aspect of reality called life, I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth, and I have my therapist's permission to say so.

Jump into the deep end

In no way can I figure out how to make things work out for myself without some overwhelming inundation of diversions and attention eating endeavors. It's like drinking myself into a better mood without the alcohol. It's like making an analogy that makes no sense.

My gardening efforts are minimal, but still a source of happiness on a weekly basis for me. I may not have boxes of soil overflowing with the promise of farmer's market level produce, but gottdammit, I do have a lot of green onions! 

Notice the Instagram worthy scissor pose, and saturated Green Day video color levels of this Jpeg.

The good thing is, in forcing me to both slow down and take in details of life, and begin to appreciate it more than before, I feel like I am seeing and experiencing, if not more, then the same things, but on a much more intimate level.

You haven't lived until you help a Jack Russell pick out birthday cookies.

Case in point, a tree in my backyard has for years grown, and I've tended to it, and watched it bloom and leaf, and slumber in the winter. This year, while filling my bird feeders, I let myself just sink into that moment. And as I stood there up close looking at the little blossoms on the tree, I noticed bees with pollen laden legs flying around. I spent forty minutes wandering around the edges of the tree and beneath it's filling canopy and took some video and pics of the little buzzy beings.

The tree only blooms for about 2 weeks, so I think I'd always missed out on seeing the bees.

My days have been variant, some like today, I spend working bit by bit on my business, currently prepping two custom toy commissions, finishing up a new digital illustration, working on this blog as I am now, to filming and editing various videos on my days where I can devote all the time I can to it. 

It's as all over the place as it sounds. If my professional life were a dance, it could best be labeled "seizure like" in it's rhythmic tap. If it were a song, it was composed on a violin with no strings, that is actually a tuba. 

That's a lot of verbage to say, even with the best laid plans, I am chaotically all over the fucking place with ALL of this.

Rainy weather has made making these take longer than I had expected. But I hate sunny days so...

And being completely honest, without a pattern, or normal rhythm from others around me, even just people in the grocery, it affects my mood. By most instances, I have always kept my distance, and rarely talk to people when I'm out and about. In fact the last person I spoke to, that I didn't know, was at Wal-mart, this little old lady saw me getting canned cat food off of the top shelf, and she asked me if I could help her out.

I spent the next 15 minutes walking around the store with her, getting other items off of high up shelves that she wasn't able to reach moments earlier. She had been looking for staff to help her, but they were all very occupied cleaning the front self checkout areas, and attempting to keep stocked items on shelves.

This was the 5th shot, meant to make this image look effortless and have a depth of field to maximize artsiness.

Working for the Nelson Atkins nightly, from Wednesday afternoon, through into early Sunday morning. Sunday evening, and all day Monday and Tuesday, I spend jumping back into doing everything else I need and want to accomplish. From cleaning the house, to filming videos, working on the new stream of freelance work, figuring out direction on personal projects, reaching out and keeping in touch with people, etc.

Work in progress shot of Gollum for my buddy Ben (who is one of two people that through messenger, has helped keep me sane and a productive member of society)

It isn't easy to do, and there are many times when I didn't get a completely restful sleep, or my mind won't even let me shut down to relax and drift off to slumberland. I'm actually going through that now, as I am editing this, over a series of days, all around the 2am to 5 am hours. 

#healthyhabitsnotsomuch

I had more I wanted to add to this, but as I sit here on a Tuesday morning at 4am, I figure I need to cut this off like a frat guy at last call, trying to call an Uber so he can get his cheeseburger vibe on, and annoy someone working a drive thru.

YouTube is my sanity

BUT, if you feel so inclined and I've managed to keep your attention, I have been posting more video content to my YouTube channel.

These playthroughs aren't anything hardcore, in fact, they are sunspots of brilliance on my inability to be "a true hardcore gamer", whatever that is.

All this aside, I genuinely hope you all are doing well, and keeping sane, safe, and afloat. 

Keeping your head above water, trying not to drown, is always harder when our own temerity keeps pulling us down.

Until next time, remember to support artists and local businesses. Be kind to your fellow beings and always take the path less traveled. We all may live in times uncertain, but kindness, understanding, and believing in the good that is in most each and every one of us is what can bring about better days!

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue
Illustrator, Voice Actor, Writer, Animal Rights Activist

www.theartisanrogue.com