Saturday, December 29, 2012

Peeking out from under a rock 2012

Another year has gone by and it's time to peek out from under the rock and touch base with the outside world. 2012 has been a busy year for me on a personal level with a lot of work that I've got under my belt. I currently don't have the energy to bust out my favorites over the last year as I think it may take me too long to really review everything that I've done; nor is it fair to highlight some work I've done for others as opposed to work that I'm not highlighting being interpreted as bad or less than favorable on a personal level. 

Sadly, I haven't had a whole lot of time for myself in personal art or otherwise projects. The big project that I've set aside for myself hasn't been finished yet. That is my studio space that I slaved on for far too long. The studio space has been something that is both needed around here for my room in the house with a 3 year old as well as a space to call my own. I posted a lot of photos and updates over the summer months of the progress that was made (mostly on Instagram


I'm not even super enthralled with Istagram as  whole with the issues of the photos possibly being used in the conjunction with ads for companies beyond my will. I know they recently stepped back from this, but I still don't like at any given moment the double edged sword that is social media can be swung back at us.  i did also recently sign up for a more seemingly friendly version of this whole stupid craze on Pheed. I don't know how much I'll be doing on any of this because I'm really not into the virtual experience over the real visceral version. I've really even sort of abandoned the Facebook page after a couple of uncool things happened there with the Pay to Play ads for those with a fan page and also the same kinda sharing of images without implied or expressed permission given. For those who don't know, unless I want to pay facebook for them to show my updates, they can be buried in a popularity contest among those who are "trending"… Christ on a stick! Here I was thinking that middle/High School Bullshit ended 20+ years ago… It's just in a new form with social medias.  

I really don't care if I'm "trending" or not. I don't care if I get a billion hits in a day. It is nice to get likes and feedback, but if I don't, my day isn't ruined. My time since my son came along is pretty important to me to work on things for others as well as myself. I will pipe up when I can or want to, but I just don't feel like I have time to entertain so many social medias when I'd rather spend it making new images. 

Okay, I think I said my peace on the social media side. I'm not ignoring it really, just not playing along as much as I used to. So here I am writing a blog… Am I the last one still writing blogs? Probably! I just can't get out everything I want to say in 420 characters or less.  

In theory there is supposed to be a couple of articles coming out with myself included in the form of print, but I haven't seen anything as of yet. I suspect that 2013 will pop a little more in that department. Sometimes those who write the articles for magazines want you to advertise with them and in exchange for your ad dollars, they will write about you. I don't have the time to play games like this either nor do I have the funds to advertise. Honestly, I get enough calls, texts, emails, etc about work that I fear what would happen if I did put out an ad in a major magazine?!  I would probably have to let a lot of people down as I have been recently… which leads me to why there is a Harley-Davidson #1 up there at the top of the page.
As some of you know, at the end of October I got a call from some folks at Harley-Davidson corporate to come over and chat with them about some work. The chats went well and I've been rather busy working on some designs for them (and others) from the beginning of November up until recently when the shutdown for holiday break happened. During this time I got a lot of smoke signals from people requesting work and such and I simply just haven't had a moment to clear my head or catch my breath on designs, so I've been sorta backlogging multiple jobs until 2013. This could skunk me but I'm really just one guy here working away and I need time to get back to those who've written me. I've had in about 4+ weeks of work with  H-D which has been a fun experience with a lot of room for experimentation and exploration! Unfortunately, I can't show you anything at the moment because I don't own the images like I do for others that I'm working on. I can and will "share" on social medias when work of mine becomes public (hopefully something as soon as January '13) but I'm really under some strict non-disclosure agreements that I'm not going to break because I like working for H-D!

As for what 2013 has in store for me? I have no idea at this point, but I'm pretty excited to look into the future, rather than revisit the past.  2012 has been so overwhelming that I hope to breath  a little in 2013. So, hang tight with me here, or on your favorite social media and I'll do my best to update when I can. 

Cheers from this Birthday Boy (yes, 29 years old again!)