Purpose in Lachrymose

This last year didn't involve much travel for work or otherwise. That's when I forget that some of my best thinking happens when I take a drive.

Beginning

I had previous versions of this post that went on too long. The writing was out of focus. I decided to keep it simple but honest on this fourth run at it.

Employment

I got a part time job creating imagery for the recently deceased. Portraits cleaned up and images put together for presentation of lives now at rest. After over one hundred resumes and applications, it was a welcome respite to be hired on in something that felt familiar, yet also hit closer to home than I had anticipated. Every client I do work for, I learn a little something about them. Sometimes it's a bio, always a photo or two, and I spend time working on an image of them that is the last image their families may have of them to see before they are laid to rest.

Cats

I have three indoor cats and one that lives outside as a very tame feral. Out of the blue, I had another little one show up, skittish, fearful, hungry, and as trust was gained and I was able to pick them up to hold them… I felt something in their belly. I small soft kick of an unborn kitten. A race to find a foster, a rescue to help was paramount. A wonderful foster stepped up to help this very young momma cat, by taking her in, and just in time. 

(Left) Clarabelle days before her litter came. (Right) Clarabelle and her little babies just a few weeks later.

No less than a day or so after being taken into foster, a flash of cold weather hit the area, and she gave birth inside. No complications and all the kittens were born safe and sound. I've had the pleasure and happiness of watching them grow and be cared for at the foster's home (where many other felines are cared for and safe until they can be adopted out). On days when I feel like I can't make a difference, when I think few others care enough to help out, I think of this little cat and her babies. 

Death, Dementia, Distance

I lost friends and family this last year. 

Some unexpectedly, some inevitably, all heartbreakingly. Sicknesses permeated some interactions and updates between myself and people I care about.

A few friends left the country. Leaving behind much of what they knew to stay safe.

My mother has lost more and more ground to dementia. My father quit drinking to care for her.

Days became surreal. Every day feels like an effort to wipe the static from my mind.

Funerals and memorials were weights I never wanted to endure. Absences were hammered home by the presence of empty chairs, found belongings, and stories and games left unfinished.

To this day, I feel that the look inwards at my own mortality and place in this world has become more prominent. Time is a gift. One that is limited.

Creation

I started this year being rejected from a slew of art shows.

I had struggled to write, to draw, to imagine. To believe in myself.

Last year, clinical depression and undiagnosed ADHD wreaked havoc upon my efforts, and I felt less and less like myself. 

After getting on Zoloft, I felt like a different person, one jarringly separated from the pall of sadness and other burdens, with chemical balances leveling out,… and leaving me adrift from the familiar waters of my previous inspirations and creative muses.

I’ve had to relearn to concept, to draw in some ways, to tell stories, and have questioned my role as an artist. Was I still an artist? Would I find the drive and passion to push onwards and find myself again? This year may or may not have those answers in waiting.

Building up my media archiving/preservation business started to become something more for me, and have been enjoying the analog nature of working with old cassettes and technology that are considered "dead media". Being able to watch past memories unfold for stories I don't know makes me think of things we've all lost. Not just things. But interactions. Conversation. Community.

Acting chances came about as well, helping bolster my confidence.

I started collecting Wander Club tokens to highlight past times and memories. Not just for posterity, but to stay inspiration and remember good things.

Shows

There are a few shows I am certain I will be doing, so I am working towards being as prepared as possible and have laid out goals for those. I hope to attend any shows, music performances, and gatherings I can. This last year I really enjoyed the handful of musicians I managed to see. 

There has never been a year that I've attended the Renaissance Festival that I didn't find phenomenal musicians performing.

Horizons

As I write this, the world seems to be in a very delicate and damaged place. The shadow of turmoil and the vile corpulence of greed are now the invaders in the minds and homes of many in America. 

Natural places are in danger of being destroyed further and further. Wildlife is changing and disappearing. 

Class warfare has divided communities. Oligarchy and corporations mean to manipulate and own those divisions. 

Lives are forfeit if there is the smallest of reasons to ignore or extinguish them.

The surreal nature of things shows that the very real decline of western civilization is drowning us, and yet, we still need to survive, to pay bills, to find glimmers of hope and reasons to move forward. It is laborious to look to far shores, when the ones we stand upon are defiled.

Cognitive dissonance and the rise of normalization of deviance stand to smother the morality and well being of our lives.

Patience

The first 2/3 of last year was a blur. It took taking up meditation and writing even when I didn't want to journal to establish some boundaries and sense of well being for myself. 

Around October, I started organizing old photos and gazed upon people and places who had been stored in far corners of my mind. I have been going through many things from my childhood, and deciding what will stay and what needs to go.

Life passes by quickly if we don’t make the effort to slow down. To appreciate the good around us. The good that is worth fighting for. That is worth believing in.

Live

I don't know what this year will bring. None of us really do.

But if you’ve made it to this part of my post, I hope things will go well for all of you..

I promised myself I would to reach out to at least one person a day. Keep those connections going. Clear the paths of overgrowth. 

Thank you for reading. May the course of this year reveal safety, decency and hope for you and yours.

It can feel hopeless and overwhelming.

But we are alive at a time of great change. Within us, around us, and everyone has the responsibility to carry the best of us forward, to herald in better days. 

Do not let those who mean to tear down your spirit, succeed.

Live. Remember. Tell stories. I will. I hope you do as well.  

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue

Halfway point

Radar sleeping as my arm goes numb trying to get this photo.

Have you ever woken up and realized that far more time has passed than you're comfortable admitting?

I don't mean suddenly sitting up in bed one morning and having an epiphany, I mean maybe you're sitting in a conversation and somebody says something that Stokes a point of thought or reflection in your mind. The last entry I made on here spoke to the amount of burnout that I was dealing with. Thankfully it seems that a good amount of that burnout has started to fall to the side. I had to come to terms with a lot of what went wrong in 2022, and how I wanted to approach it in a constructive way and build upon that.

As I'd mentioned before of course I go to therapy, and thankfully I also have access to a career coach.

It's allowed me a forum filled with the combination of interaction, intense self reflection, and then understanding that it's not so much procrastination as much as it is avoidance that I am putting myself through. Originally I was going to list out a whole bunch of things that were negative aspects I had to deal with, and although that might be a really good exercise for myself, I don't think it makes the best blog post. 

What I will focus on, is some of the positive things that have happened for me. The most important of which has been an honest start on organizing a lot of the overwhelming things I need to finish and accomplish so that I can move onwards professionally and personally. I'll go more into depth on those things in another post.

In other news, I recently was given an opportunity to speak on the subject of artificial intelligence and how it affects creatives, and lead a discussion about it with the attendees. 

The presentation was to a small and enthusiastic group of people that had a lot of questions, and a lot of input, which made for really enjoying and inspirational evening. What led to this was that I had created a one hour video of me reacting to working in the program Adobe Firefly some weeks prior. I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine who works at Adobe had shared that with his coworkers, this video in turn had led to me doing this talk on AI. It now looks like I might have an opportunity to go on the radio on KKFI possibly, and speak more about it. 

It's funny where life can take you and what you end up doing that isn't necessarily outside of your wheelhouse, but it's still unexpected. I've updated the page on here is showing the conventions and events I will be taking part in for the remainder of the year. There's still two or three events I'm waiting to hear back on, so fingers crossed I'll be able to get into those. 

Late nights and irregular hours have started to infiltrate my days again unfortunately. I know that's not good for my health but there's a lot of times when I feel like the only time I'm able to think is late at night. There's a lot of times my mood swings get the better of me, and I can find myself being impatient, annoyingly driven, and prone to moments of heavy self doubt. I think that can happen to anyone whenever life seems overwhelming. I used to think this was connected to having a midlife crisis, or maybe just getting through the COVID years, But I think it's a more general feeling that I found other people have as well. 

It's a feeling of aimlessness, questioning ones place in life, and even aspects of feeling isolated in one's thoughts. For a few months I'd wondered if I was ever going to blog again. I honestly didn't have a whole lot that I wanted to write about on here. But then I remembered how much my website and this blog in particular has remained an archive of memories for me, and many of the very kind comments that people have told me over the years. 

That led to me getting into the editor and starting to do some small updates on the website overall and then writing out this blog. It was also because I was working on my YouTube channel which yesterday was the 13 year anniversary of me having logged on to YouTube for the first time and started up this channel. That is so surreal to think about. I struggled for a long time to get followers and in the last few weeks I've managed to start growing once again. 

Granted I'm uploading videos a lot, it's been daily content for about 3 months now. I'm still learning and I'm doing what I can in lieu of the fact that I no longer have my Etsy store, and need to drive traffic to my gum road store and to any live events I'll be selling at. I think that's enough for now, I'm looking forward to doing reviews of shows and finishing up the reviews for the last three shows of 2022 that I never did publish. On that note quickly eventually the archives I have for past shows and events will be going away and they will be replaced with either publications or downloadable PDF files. There's a couple of reasons for this that I'll not get into right now, but I need to streamline this website and organize a lot of my older stuff.

Thank you so much for reading, I am Mario, the Artisan Rogue, and until next time, remember to support artists and local businesses. And if you liked what you've read, and want to support the blog, there's a donation button just below.

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