Kingdom Come - The Mae Shi
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
type exercise
these are just some type exercises i did today.the example restaurant is jose garce's new peruvian/chinese restaurant chifa(which already has a logo).
have to keep sharp during break, you know.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
another WIP and it's inspiration
this inspiration for the vector i am doing right now, that picture i drew about 4 years ago, it is done in all ink and marker.it makes me feel lazy for using a computer to draw now.
Sitting - White Denim
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
final main character
the last main character of my in the works short story, "Buster Keaton Book Bag".
the time traveler.
Friday, December 12, 2008
gordon
another character from a short story i am putting together about the ghost of buster keaton, time travel, and a meth dealer.so, you know, the usual.
stay tuned.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
fuck you, guy.
i heard some wealthy people in the restaurant this past weekend bitching about crossing over thirtieth street, and then bitching some more about the south street bridge closing for reconstruction, and it reminded me of a bumper sticker i saw a while ago.it said- "University City is a marketing scheme. This is West Philly."
I agree. old city and fishtown and northern liberties can stay on their side of 30th street.
i'll take homeless crazies and bangers and project housing and church's chicken over yuppies and hipsters and ten million coffee bars and over-hyped restaurants any day.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
oh art school elective class essays, how i love thee.
“In the towns I am tracked by phantoms having weird detective ways.”
-Thomas Hardy
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a deviant as one who deviates especially from an accepted norm. The social norm is a hard concept for me to understand. From my experiences growing up in Lancaster City, an expanding small town that is a weird amalgamation of redneck resisitance and new york puerto-rican bravado, to moving to the liberal-pregnant, murder-happy Philadelphia inner city, it has always been my opinion that most people who I have interacted with in our “society” would much rather someone be indentifiable than interesting. In the interest of this self examination, I will list instances of my conformance with as well as my deviance from what can only hope to be perceived as an acceptable social norm.
Conformity has always seemed like a filthy thing to me, to be conformist was to be a part of a herd, opinionless, ever following. I suppose this comes from attending a Roman Catholic grade school and high school, as Catholocism isn't always the most understanding or accepting of religions. Although, my parents were not fervent Catholics and were probably just trying to get me involved in a more focused academic program, perhaps provide structure and balance to a life we as a family were living on the poverty line. The first way in which I suppose I am conformist is that I continued with my Catholic education even after, at age 8, realizing I was quite a staunch atheist. I offered resistance to my parents, but figured I had already made friends in school, many of whom I am still good friends with today, so I simply bit my lip in class and listened as doctrines that I saw as outright misogynostic and homophobic were explained with a progressing set of laughably illustrated religious text books. When bringing these ideas up to my friends, I was seen as pompous, aloof, arrogant, as if the asking of these questions was to show off how clever i was. Which is the second way I conformed to social norm, by genuinely caring about what other people thought of me. I wasn't a zealot, but I became quite aware of my awkward social nature, dark sense of humor, my unfit body, the creepiness I had been sure up until that point was just my “individuality” coming into its own.
Of course, upon leaving high school, my father dying suddenly, and being tossed from my house at the age of seventeen, a skepticism crept its way into my psyche. Which is another way I conformed to acceptable norms-I began to believe I was the smartest person alive and justified my assholeish behavior with unrelenting candor and ability to “tell it like it was.” I went all the way. I read Nietzsche, dabbled in nihilism, flirted with anarchy, laughed when I heard of the Catholic priest molestation scandals, argued with anyone who had brought up religion, politics, or even caring about anything in general. I got into a fistfight with a Jesuit student. I was alone, simply because I was unbearable and unlikable. After some time, I grew tired of arguing. Not that I gave up, I simply just didn't care anymore. Also, it was impossible to get a girlfriend being a fat, drunken, angry asshole, so I backed up a touch.
I began using humor instead of anger, made people feel comfortable talking to me, made new friends, got a girlfriend, a steady job, a nice apartment. Which is yet another way in which I began to conform-I began to believe in the American Dream. I worked three jobs, cut down my drinking to the weekends, read crime novels, chit-chatted with strangers, had a girlfriend who was a special-education teacher. This was my life for some time, until my teacher girlfriend wanted to get married, and I experienced a hiccup on my path to conformity.
I lost my girlfriend because i refused to marry her, bounced around from apartment to apartment, had a string of jobs, ended up driving a hearse, living in my mother's basement, smoking copious amounts of marijuana, sketching and illustrating and writing and painting with every free moment. I had just about given up. I began seeing a woman, moved in with her quickly to escape the gloom of my basement apartment, and within three months, she asked if I wanted to move with her to philadelphia. I agreed and within two months of living in the city, I had signed up to attend the Art Institute of Philadelphia.
Which is the final way I have conformed-I enrolled in and believe a college education will better my life. In this way, conformity isn't this dirty, wretched beast anymore, rather a necessary evil, a step towards a life I would see as fulfilling and fruitful. We'll see how that pans out when I graduate next March. In time conformity has softened in my eyes, and while I still recognize the inate dangerous nature of society conforming to an acceptable social norm, I am more comfortable with it's existence.
While my history with conformity has been a somewhat complex tale, my acquanitance with deviancy started early and strong. My first encounter with deviant behavior came when at age eight I realized that to me, the idea of a God didn't make any logical sense. I saw religion as something that helped people through difficult times in their lives, provided stability and assurance to an existence which even at my tender age seemed unreliable and sketchy at best, gathered like minded individuals in a place where they could judge others secretly, brought communities together. I didn't believe in God, therefore I deviated from a course set upon my by my parents and peers. Which inevitably led to my second deviance-I began to receive thrill from dangerous or criminal behaviors.
I stole anything I believed I could get away stealing, broke into homes just to see if I would get caught, broke car windows and carried knives and smoked and became acquainted with pornography. When I would get caught doing one of these things, I would lie, almost always transparently, and act sincerely hurt if the accuser did not accept my explanation. Which is another way I deviated from an acceptable social norm-I became a raging liar. We all know of political lies and religious lies, but when experienced on a personal level, the act of lying can guise itself simply as an act of self-preservation. Eventually I got my criminal inclinations and liar tendencies under control, made a distinct effort to become a good person. But it seemed that with every compliance I made another deviancy would pop up. I deviated once again by becoming rather involved with narcotics and alcohol. I smoked pot every day, told myself it made me more creative, calmed me down, made me a fun guy. I drank to excess when in social situations to try mask my ever-looming depression.
I continued on this path for some time and after moving from my home town, entering school, and gaining some self-confidence by extracting some negative people from my life, I experienced a new deviant behavior-I deviated from my can own self-imposed social norm. I put my fears and expectations to bed and charged full force into the ideal that by going to school, being proactive and easing up on the cynicism I could break free from an acceptable social norm and just be my own person.
Which brings me to an open-ended conclusion of sorts. I have never really considered my propensity towards being conformist or deviant, but if pressed I would say my outlook and lifestyle would rest somewhere in the middle, with a heavy lean towards deviancy. To pare it down to simple terms, life could be seen as a series of fragile balancing acts, of situations and occurrences where no clear moral passge can be determined, of instances of conformity and moments of deviance. To me, it is better this way. To me, life should be best described as interesting rather than identifiable.
-Thomas Hardy
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a deviant as one who deviates especially from an accepted norm. The social norm is a hard concept for me to understand. From my experiences growing up in Lancaster City, an expanding small town that is a weird amalgamation of redneck resisitance and new york puerto-rican bravado, to moving to the liberal-pregnant, murder-happy Philadelphia inner city, it has always been my opinion that most people who I have interacted with in our “society” would much rather someone be indentifiable than interesting. In the interest of this self examination, I will list instances of my conformance with as well as my deviance from what can only hope to be perceived as an acceptable social norm.
Conformity has always seemed like a filthy thing to me, to be conformist was to be a part of a herd, opinionless, ever following. I suppose this comes from attending a Roman Catholic grade school and high school, as Catholocism isn't always the most understanding or accepting of religions. Although, my parents were not fervent Catholics and were probably just trying to get me involved in a more focused academic program, perhaps provide structure and balance to a life we as a family were living on the poverty line. The first way in which I suppose I am conformist is that I continued with my Catholic education even after, at age 8, realizing I was quite a staunch atheist. I offered resistance to my parents, but figured I had already made friends in school, many of whom I am still good friends with today, so I simply bit my lip in class and listened as doctrines that I saw as outright misogynostic and homophobic were explained with a progressing set of laughably illustrated religious text books. When bringing these ideas up to my friends, I was seen as pompous, aloof, arrogant, as if the asking of these questions was to show off how clever i was. Which is the second way I conformed to social norm, by genuinely caring about what other people thought of me. I wasn't a zealot, but I became quite aware of my awkward social nature, dark sense of humor, my unfit body, the creepiness I had been sure up until that point was just my “individuality” coming into its own.
Of course, upon leaving high school, my father dying suddenly, and being tossed from my house at the age of seventeen, a skepticism crept its way into my psyche. Which is another way I conformed to acceptable norms-I began to believe I was the smartest person alive and justified my assholeish behavior with unrelenting candor and ability to “tell it like it was.” I went all the way. I read Nietzsche, dabbled in nihilism, flirted with anarchy, laughed when I heard of the Catholic priest molestation scandals, argued with anyone who had brought up religion, politics, or even caring about anything in general. I got into a fistfight with a Jesuit student. I was alone, simply because I was unbearable and unlikable. After some time, I grew tired of arguing. Not that I gave up, I simply just didn't care anymore. Also, it was impossible to get a girlfriend being a fat, drunken, angry asshole, so I backed up a touch.
I began using humor instead of anger, made people feel comfortable talking to me, made new friends, got a girlfriend, a steady job, a nice apartment. Which is yet another way in which I began to conform-I began to believe in the American Dream. I worked three jobs, cut down my drinking to the weekends, read crime novels, chit-chatted with strangers, had a girlfriend who was a special-education teacher. This was my life for some time, until my teacher girlfriend wanted to get married, and I experienced a hiccup on my path to conformity.
I lost my girlfriend because i refused to marry her, bounced around from apartment to apartment, had a string of jobs, ended up driving a hearse, living in my mother's basement, smoking copious amounts of marijuana, sketching and illustrating and writing and painting with every free moment. I had just about given up. I began seeing a woman, moved in with her quickly to escape the gloom of my basement apartment, and within three months, she asked if I wanted to move with her to philadelphia. I agreed and within two months of living in the city, I had signed up to attend the Art Institute of Philadelphia.
Which is the final way I have conformed-I enrolled in and believe a college education will better my life. In this way, conformity isn't this dirty, wretched beast anymore, rather a necessary evil, a step towards a life I would see as fulfilling and fruitful. We'll see how that pans out when I graduate next March. In time conformity has softened in my eyes, and while I still recognize the inate dangerous nature of society conforming to an acceptable social norm, I am more comfortable with it's existence.
While my history with conformity has been a somewhat complex tale, my acquanitance with deviancy started early and strong. My first encounter with deviant behavior came when at age eight I realized that to me, the idea of a God didn't make any logical sense. I saw religion as something that helped people through difficult times in their lives, provided stability and assurance to an existence which even at my tender age seemed unreliable and sketchy at best, gathered like minded individuals in a place where they could judge others secretly, brought communities together. I didn't believe in God, therefore I deviated from a course set upon my by my parents and peers. Which inevitably led to my second deviance-I began to receive thrill from dangerous or criminal behaviors.
I stole anything I believed I could get away stealing, broke into homes just to see if I would get caught, broke car windows and carried knives and smoked and became acquainted with pornography. When I would get caught doing one of these things, I would lie, almost always transparently, and act sincerely hurt if the accuser did not accept my explanation. Which is another way I deviated from an acceptable social norm-I became a raging liar. We all know of political lies and religious lies, but when experienced on a personal level, the act of lying can guise itself simply as an act of self-preservation. Eventually I got my criminal inclinations and liar tendencies under control, made a distinct effort to become a good person. But it seemed that with every compliance I made another deviancy would pop up. I deviated once again by becoming rather involved with narcotics and alcohol. I smoked pot every day, told myself it made me more creative, calmed me down, made me a fun guy. I drank to excess when in social situations to try mask my ever-looming depression.
I continued on this path for some time and after moving from my home town, entering school, and gaining some self-confidence by extracting some negative people from my life, I experienced a new deviant behavior-I deviated from my can own self-imposed social norm. I put my fears and expectations to bed and charged full force into the ideal that by going to school, being proactive and easing up on the cynicism I could break free from an acceptable social norm and just be my own person.
Which brings me to an open-ended conclusion of sorts. I have never really considered my propensity towards being conformist or deviant, but if pressed I would say my outlook and lifestyle would rest somewhere in the middle, with a heavy lean towards deviancy. To pare it down to simple terms, life could be seen as a series of fragile balancing acts, of situations and occurrences where no clear moral passge can be determined, of instances of conformity and moments of deviance. To me, it is better this way. To me, life should be best described as interesting rather than identifiable.
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