This will be a long one.

I was up at 2:30 last night and my heart felt like a lump of clenching, writhing meat. I once conceded to the idea that I would never be an insomniac, that I was such a heavy sleeper that it would take one hell of a situation to keep me awake at night.

Little did I know it’s not a single situation that would cause the problem. It was a series of problems, building up over the course of time, that would steal my sleep away. I finally fell asleep at 6:30am. That’s a little over 4 hours of sleep that I’m running on, and the issue that woke me up is still causing my chest to protest and punch at my sternum.

I won’t mention the issue due to the fact that it’s too revealing. I suppose that’s material for a private journal (another lost art that i want to rediscover). Let’s just say I miss getting lost in my worlds of creation, dreaming my nightly dreams, perfecting my escapism–I miss seeing the value in those things. Instead I’m dealing with the fact that I honestly think I made a mistake choosing this field as my profession.

I don’t mean the side projects, as my clients and the process of working independently with them, is an awesome experience. It’s also full of positive progress, good feedback, and great results on both ends. Good work is always the result of an understanding between client and designer, and when it’s good, it’s good.

One thing I will mention is something some of you might understand–something that’s contributing massively to my newfound insomnia. A dreaded little thing called Creativity by Committee. Yep, it’s something so common that it has garnered it’s own title, instantly solidifying itself as a cliche, a counterproductive process. Bad. Doesn’t work. Wastes time. Yet that exact process is haunting me now. Opinions oppose each other. People slather me with subjective opinion such as “I’m not sure and this is just me but maybe it’s dated or something?”.

Don’t get me wrong. I like good feedback. I think it’s absolutely necessary and I’ll even go as far to saying I prefer working in a group, where my ideas can grow as they bounce off of others. But the fact of the matter is when you get five different people together (from five different backgrounds), you’re gonna get mostly five different opinions. Get yourself trapped in that sphere of opposing feedback, and all the sudden you don’t even know what you think about your own work. Things you love become tarnished. Sometimes you’ll even conclude that you’re work is a steaming pile of poo. It might will keep you up at night.

But here’s my point. You can pick up any brochure, any design ever created, and it’s guaranteed that there is someone out there that won’t understand it. And when that person, let’s say they’re another designer, doesn’t understand it, they get confused. They think, I don’t get it, so, based on the fact that I’m a super designer, there must be something wrong. Hmm, maybe it’s the text. Yeah, I wouldn’t choose that text. It bugs me. It’s the letting. It’s the whitespace. I nailed it. Heh heh. I’m a winner!

There is no such thing as good design. Think about that. There is no such thing because there is a group that won’t get it. There is always a critic. It is entirely subjective. The rules set in place are loose, and everyone itches to break them anyway. It’s a broken profession and I’m convinced almost 99% of us don’t know the answer to our own questions. That’s why we dissect and over-analyze to the point of pure exhaustion, to the point where the original idea is a distant memory. For example:

What if the stop sign was designed by a committe?”

Ok, so, saying there is no good design is too harsh. I’m being dramatic because I’m dead tired. So, where does good design exist? Good design is only as good as the guy who approves it. Good design is only good when it causes a reaction in the SPECIFIC audience it was intended for (show it to the wrong audience and it can all-of-the-sudden become bad design, like magic!). Good design is having trust in someones abilities and taking a chance. Good design is a psychology, it engages a person and pulls at emotion (and I don’t mean making them teary-eyed, I mean basic things like “I like this cover…I want to read more”). Different demographics have different ways of approaching these emotions, so good feedback to supplement your design should come from your target audience.

Design by committee is a massive fail. Massive fail.

I’m on a poetry kick lately. I noticed I start reading more of it when I’m looking inward and trying to figure stuff out. Heard this one read by Garrison Keeler today on the radio. It made me remember the awe of childhood, and the fear caused by the silly adults, sputtering their nonsense.

Halley’s Comet

Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there’d be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground’s edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I’d share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family’s asleep
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street—
that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I’m the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.

Stanley Kunitz

Do yourself a favor and have Garrison read it for you. His voice is an amazing thing. You can do that here.

Last night, one of my internet friends passed away at the age of 27. Allison Kline was diagnosed with Neuroendocrine Small Cell Cancer in 2006. She passed peacefully at 7pm. I never knew her in the traditional sense, never exchanged any form of communication. She was a friend of a friend of a friend. But I followed her story for the past two years, and i feel as if I know her and her husband like true friends.

Her husband, Tom, runs a blog called “star of the sea breezes,” and he poignantly, and with amazing strength, tells their story. He says goodbye with a fitting poem, which I’ll post here:

Set Sail

And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, “There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
“Here she comes!”

I can’t begin to understand the emotions Tom is going through. He is wiser, more aged, and more soulful then most of us will ever need to be. So we, the stoic masses, can do nothing, can offer no consolatory words of any signifigance. We can only stand in silence, and help him do the same.

Stand.

To that I also want to thank them both for putting things in perspective, and as I talked to one of Tom’s friends on the phone, who recalled to me his words during those last moments, I want to remember what Tom told him.

Each day is a gift. Every time you open your eyes.

Yesterday, after a rather bleary posting, I tried an experiment. You’ve heard it all before, probably in a shoddy kung-fu style revenge flick: Turn your negative energy into fuel for something else. Redirect.

Well, I did it yesterday and it actually worked. I went to town on a design that had a bit of the anger I contained peppered within. Lately I’ve been frustrated with web 2.0 design standards. Being trained as a traditional designer, I have to grasp the fact that the large fonts and ultra-shiny icons are a standard entirely created by an online community. Not saying it’s bad, as there are some truly amazing examples of Web 2.0 Design in all of it’s glory. I’m just saying it’s different from print design.

So I set out to design a site that was appealing to only me, one that I created solely for my own entertainment. Lo and behold, I designed a site that contained remnants of my old print design days paired side by side with Web 2.0 standards that had residually found there way into my toolbox–all this wrapped up with techniques I use in my illustration. I made something that feels right, to me at least, and it was a fueling of negative energy like no other.

I worked fast, and I laid down the texture and it knew its master’s name.

Alright, I’m exaggerating the importance of this event, but I was excited to create something so close to me while still in such a funky state of being. I pushed through, and I was able to come up with something I’m more than happy with. Here’s just a teeny tiny hint:

Yep, it’s the all new PTV website, once again redesigned, and this one most definitely being The One. I’m hoping that, despite this old websites lack of functionality, some of you are still out there waiting to make a witty comment. This ones for you.

I’ve fallen victim to the “Oh my it’s been so long since I’ve posted” curse that plagues all blogs. Reason being is because I’m going through “rough patch,” one I’m unable to put a finger on. Unfortunately it’s not exactly positive news, so I haven’t felt the need to post about it.

What it is is a combination or irritation and burnout. I’m irritated at blogs, and more so at those gimicky corporate blogs that rip off other blogs and try to sound original. Everyone thinks they have something to say, something that others really want to read and be enlightened by. Fact of the matter is that if you’re writing a blog because you think people will latch on to it and boost your traffic reports, I give you a fat prediction of failure, because those traffic reports are slow in coming, and if you’re writing for any reason other than the fact that you have to, then you’re going to lose steam. Even we writers who do have a passion to blurt our feelings onto the screen lose steam sometimes, and we don’t even have a real goal with these things.

A bigger part of my problem is my own creative pursuits. I feel like I’ve turned my back on a big portion of myself that once was center stage. I used to be an artist, with dirty hands and coal-streaked jeans. I used to draw and enjoy the act for the act itself, not to prove myself, not to make a living out of it. That part of my personality has been robbed from me in the last couple of years. It has been picked apart, scrutinized, and over analyzed to the point of complete boiling point. And now it’s simply gone. Poof.

Not that I’m planning on it being gone forever. But dang. Irritation is a real killer of creativity.

…Alright, so now that that’s out, I’m happy to change the subject. My first book, entitled “Butane” is finally nearing completion. Little did I know that the editing process is 75% of the job, where the initial writing was a piece of cake. Only a minor tweak is needed at this point, and a few design elements, then it’s off to press. It’ll be an awesome day when I get my copy in the mail…even though I’m self-publishing. Dah well.

To recap, Butane is the revival of a story I wrote back in college, only it’s updated and simplified to “not suck”. It picks off where the last ended, but with some slight changes to the overall mythos. I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out so far. Butane is book one of a (forseen) 7 part series.

Writing books is hard.

In other news, Aubrey and I are still trying to decide on our pictures, and we’ll be getting a CD with all of them so I won’t have to scan them in (nice!). In the meantime, please feast your eyes on this one, and be amazed at how I can ruin a perfectly wonderful picture:

All those beautiful smiles… and then there’s me. Yep, I was that kid that made faces at the camera. And no, I’m not drunk. That’s just how my face looks.

2*Sweet, the guys I did the CD cover for, are pretty freaking awesome. Check out this animation a friend put together for them using the artwork from the CD. All of the voices were performed by the band members, and they wrote the script too. So funny:

I’ve done quite a lot in flash, which I think this was created with (or Adobe Aftereffects). I can tell you first hand that a LOT of hours went into the animation. Glad though.

My brain is very soft right now. I’m sure if you poked it, you’d real back in icky shock as your finger sank right through. I’m still recovering from Post Good Times Disorder (PGTD).

I was sitting on my back porch the other day and I had this little thing play in my mind like a movie. I saw all of us, all of the people in the world, sliding around underground beneath what appeared to be a skin-like membrane. Beneath, we were sluggish lumps, moving about and paying mind to our own needs. But, every once in a while, one of us would poke our heads up and look around, we’d break the surface of that tight membrane, sleepy-eyed, and stare in awe at the world outside like it was the first time we’d ever opened our eyes. It’s a world that’s always there, always just out of our grasp.

We were like baby birds.

A deep breath, maybe a tear or two, and we’d submerge ourselves once again, regrouping with the masses in that endlessly restrictive membrane. We’d pick up where we left off.

I was one of the folks that saw that real world, the world that’s there, but somehow out of reach. My problem is that I left something there, and I took something as well. Something that stirred up an addiction. And, boy, I’m jonesin’. I need an exposure (let’s call it a fix) that’s larger, stronger…one that makes me forget about that membrane altogether.

I have a hard time with it all. That grind, those restrictions, the restraint.

The Membrane.

So I had a dental procedure performed on my face today. EIGHT shots were given. EIGHT SHOTS. My mouth, or what I once called my mouth, is a limp, slug-like chunk of flapping skin. Don’t ask me to whistle, because it’ll look like someone’s hooked the right side of my mouth with their finger. One side means business, but the other one is still napping. A whistle means a stream of drool sliding down my chin.

I’m trying to drink my coffee, and with a sleepy form of confidence, I started out the process just like normal. You know: open mouth, apply lips to cup, inhale a little. Drink. Only that wasn’t working, and I didn’t know it wasn’t working until I felt the burn…On my chest. See my face wasn’t telling me that I was simply pouring the coffee down my face. My chest had to tell me that.

So if you see me, ignore the giant splotch on my shirt, and don’t ask me to whistle. And don’t stick anything up my right nostril, because I won’t know it.

Now that that’s explained, check it out:

Yep, our wedding photos are in and we’re going through the process of picking and choosing. And it’s not easy, since the photography is completely stellar. I’ll be sure to post more once we get our own copies.

Aubrey is pretty much the most photogenic person I’ve met :) Geesh.

You can check out a few more pictures here. We’ve got about 500 of them to choose from, so be sure to check back.

Lately you might notice that my entries have been all about making things simpler. I’m sure that’s because I have a tendency to complicate, and this is my way of balancing. Still, I think it’s common for creatives to complicate things, to make more out of a situation than it really is. In a sense, that’s what creativity is, seeing things differently…creating something out of nothing. So shoot me.

My newest practice in simplicity is to stop analyzing. Trend studies, swelling and swooning in the market. Style analysis. Stuff like that.

And by stopping the analysis, I don’t really mean stop. I mean instead of making such a practice of studying it, shouldn’t we just be absorbing? I mean really if you feel so detached that you find yourself having to imitate a trend, there’s always going to be something missing.

Here’s what I mean: Say I’m really into creating artwork for CD covers for some Folky Indie Bands. Say for example, Folky Indie Bands are just HUGE right now and if you do artwork for them, you’ll get rich (this is obviously hypothetical). Now, you’re probably only going to succeed in this area if you’re in tap with what Folky Indie Bands want, right? And how do you get in tap with this? Well, you probably happened to have liked Folky Indie Bands already, and you’ve been living the life for years. You go to their shows, you buy their records. You check out their show posters. But you do it out of an inherent interest, not because it’s a trend. You would do it anyway, even if you weren’t creating artwork for them. You do it for love of the music, man!

Of course this philosophy can get more complicated. If you’re going to succeed as an artist, you can’t pigeon hole yourself into one specific category. So how do we appeal to all of these markets and still live it naturally?

That’s tough to do if you think about it too much. For me I’ve mostly chosen to go into book jackets and CD covers. Both are plentiful, but both are tough to get into and don’t particularly pay well (well, book covers still pay pretty well, but CDs? Nah.). In a way these are the same thing: All consist of story-driven content, all have a title, and all have authors who care dearly for the stories they are telling. This works for me, since have a mini-obsession with stories. I read about 36 books per year or so, watch endless amounts of movies, have an extreme love of lyrics, and play dorky story-driven video games. I’ve also written a couple of novels myself, one of which I plan on publishing in the upcoming months. So, I think it’s natural that I translate my artwork to story-based products. Being out there and picking up books and checking out CD artwork out of pure interest (and not because I want to latch onto a market) automatically makes me aware of the trends. I’m absorbing them automatically. On the opposite end, I’m getting a kick out of taking something purely from my (or someone else’s) imagination, and turning it into a fully realized visual.

Anyway, being IN the market, in turn, leaves a residue. We go back and sit in front of our computers or easels and all of the sudden we’re using the right colors, and we’re painting the right things. Somehow we just know what looks good (except on the rough days, of course). It works the same with writing. You can’t be a great writer unless you’re a good reader. I’m a heavy believer in that.

In the end, I’d rather filter than analyze. Absorb.

I’d rather live my life.

*Domesticated Man Tip #4356: If you like to read but don’t have the time, try audio books! Who say you gotta sit down and read the book the old fashioned way? I do it all the time and take in at least 75% of my reading this way. You say it’s not actually reading? You say I’m cheating? I can verify that listening to the book is just as effective as reading it, save for taking in the grammar and prose itself. From a storytelling aspect, however, it’s at LEAST as good, if not better. On top of it, you can do daily chores and yardwork while you listen! Get all the crap done around the house and still study the craft. Nice.

So I was curious after editting my last post, and made the mistake of reading some really ancient postings on PTV, circa 2006. What a difference 2 years makes. In a way I’m really glad my site is so ghetto-janky that viewers can’t even read old entries. There’s been a lot of changing in this artist.

Funny how as my personality grew and matured over the past 2 years, so did my artwork. It’s directly fused with my own growth, and the more focused and centered I became, well… Same seemed to happen with my work. To me it all makes sense. In the past 3 years I’ve gone from Chaotic Bachelor Intern (dirty dishes, excessive drinking, ramen noodles, wrinkled clothes) to Married Man and Home Owner (still have wrinkly clothes though.).

For the most part I’m feeling pretty centered. There’s one nagging concern that I can’t go into here, but I’d have to say I’m doing pretty well.

As many of you know it’s hard to look back, especially at something so direct and indicative of who you were (like reading past journal entires, for example). But that’s what it’s all about. Personal growth.

And growth and blog and growth. I’m tired of saying those two words. Especially the word ‘blog’. Is anyone else sick and tired of that word? I even hate the way my mouth feels when I say it. it’s like I’m speaking some sort of ancient gay word from the goblin kingdom.

Whatever. Maybe I’m not quite balanced yet, but I’m close.

Returning to art news, I’m patiently waiting for feedback on a book cover I designed for Random House. Not to shabby a gig, but man I always hate the period between feedback. Also, in case you didn’t know, the CD packaging I designed for the Chicago band 2*Sweet is finished and arrived just before the wedding. Check out some photos I took by clicking here.

You can also order your own copy here. And, last of all, if you find yourself in a bookstore, check out the July edition of Alternative Press Magazine, where they have an interview of the CD (with my artwork included :)