From Then To Now: A Life Of Lateral Progress
Ah, the kamikaze-like journey of a Social Media “Memories” Feed..
Spoiler Alert....
(It’s a Trap!)
This particular memory popping up made me realize today, that I really need to get *OFF* the net and the computer and start actually creating and producing some new stuff… What a damn concept, eh? - Any guesses as to how long it has been since I’ve put actual spray-paint to poster/lung?
TBH, it’s been YEARS…
(What Other Memes Could You Really Expect ?)
The last time I think I actually painted, or spent an amount of time where my focus was on creating with paint, trash/junk, and my hands had to have been pre-Covid… I know I am not alone in the feeling that the pre-Covid era of this century seems like a 100s of years ago..
Like when you needed a heavy-duty utility shelf to support/display those heinous Disney VHS Tapes… If you didn't need to rewind your video before returning it to the rental store in-person, you are too young to… well ok maybe it’s more because that will make me feel as old as the lady up there^ who wouldn’t share that floating door with Gilbert Grape...
Digressions out of the way for a moment - This is still one of my favorite paintings I have finished. I remember I had seen a similar color scheme somewhere on a T-Shirt, with willowy white finger-like branches, a bold, bright giant orange moon against a navy blue horizon streaked with a few wisps of teal. I was also teaching myself about layout, and how to plan ahead for the edges/corners of a square painting, and in which order should I layer the colors before choosing the correct spots/motions to tear them back up and reveal what I had in my minds eye. Spray paint art is incredibly easy. It's just painting, but backwards, and with one eye closed, and making each mistake you can't cover seem intentional.
This piece was done behind my parents garage, on a .98 cent poster board, either first or second week after picking up a paint can with art in mind, and long before the compulsive drive to hoard all lids, cardboard, and newspaper as part of the golden garbage art accessories that go into the toolbox when you #spraypaint #artlife had overtaken my ability to use rational thought when throwing things away.
I will admit that just now I took a moment away from typing in order to look this one up… It’s labeled as #003 in my portfolio files, which means it was only the
*3rd* spray paint poster that didn’t get torn up, or painted over.
I remember snapping a picture quickly as it dried on my dads wheelbarrow, on whatever cell phone I had at the time, not even to post on social media, but to see if this was something I could do 1-2 a day to gather a library of actually doing something with my creativity, which at the time was not yet a priority during tenure at my last “real job.”
(Sidenote: This would also be the first painting I would get to see framed.. By my mom, but it counts! - She herself, a professional hobbyist, was at the beginning of her own artistic journey becoming a photographer. (Hey, mom!) @pearl.snowman, but it turned out great and she did an excellent job.
Eventually, not long after hanging it as shown above on the wall in my studio apartment, I ended up selling it (without the frame) to a close friend who admired it and asked to purchase it when they came to visit... This must have only been the 2nd maybe 3rd poster I sold..
This piece of the primordial ooze that would culminate into the forming of @splooshpaints - But, this was when I still believed the warnings from those too scared to try themselves, who could never conceive how I could see so clearly the path I wanted to pursue with this new skill/hobby.
They did not have the capacity to understand a different way than they had been taught, a way that does not demand the price of your joy and passions and how to devise a means for those to bring a means to live while making a living doing anything but what you love doing.
It took a lot of courage, and admittedly, a bit of resentful anger before I was able to answer, “artist!” proudly, while looking someone in the eye as the flash of judgment passed over their expression and that in some way made me question my own answer, to the very standard question of "So, what you do for work?" - And then, the almost instant, crushingly ambivalent follow-up after I answer "I'm an artist," without even blinking they ask, “But what do you do for money?” - As if they don’t even realize how poignant of a sting their well-meaning conversational faux pas has carried... But I won't keep dwelling on this here..
For More On The Subject Of How Fear Makes People Try To Instill and Project Their Own Doubts, Shortcomings, and Traumas Upon Others, And How To Become A Shepard In Spite Of The Sheep - Well-Intentioned Their Baa’s May Be!
Check Out My *First* Ever Blog Post
Sploosh: Confidential - "Maybe Art Just Isn't Your Thing."
Where I talk about this exact subject, and how I started out as an artist, ignoring everyone in my life who, was very correct, that this would not be an easy thing to pursue and make into a means to a living.. So I won’t continue to re-examine and digress even further here...
^ Check out my first blog post if you need a boost to your daily “fuck-em-all” energy that gets drained because someone you look up to tells you you’re wrong, or refuses to consider that they might be.. The person I refer to in the first post on this blog is no longer in the teaching profession. She didn’t return after her first year, for some reason… I was at the time, at the age where I was still excited at the prospect of applying to colleges, and since I was a high school art student where this particular art teacher told me I shouldn’t waste my time looking into creative careers or art schools as it seems to them that “Art just wasn’t my thing.”
(Oh yeah… It gets good.)
Imagine if I had believed those who I was supposed to believe would know enough to give good advice? Who else did this ‘teacher’ destroy with their limited scope and refusal to deter from their own minimalistic experience?...
Good thing teaching turned out to
just not be her thing, eh?..
Despite that and the many many many other voices both inside and out of my mind telling me to give up, move on, that I need to get a real job and do something else with my life and stop wasting my time, and to "grow up" -
Luckily, I ignored them all.
Currently, I am getting ready to head into year 3 of my ART business…
To all of those voices I say:
Ha! :-P
Someday I’ll let it go about that awful art teacher experience… But probably not. It sort of drove me forward into making my way through life driven to prove them all wrong. And, I think I’m winning?… Anyway, it’s a good story! - Check it out!
To what point have I been leading with my tangential, resentful, and overly expired teenage angst? -
For the purposes of this post, I am standing in yet another reframe of the survival honed superpower to somehow continually and perpetually
ignore everyone who does not seek to understand, or even feign support of my goals, especially if the conclusions they hold were drawn before even a chance to openly discuss it with them has been considered…
aka...
I don't have time to explain particle physics, to the particles.
The hardest part of this approach I have learned, is always going to be that the people trying to tell me that I can’t or that I shouldn’t are ultimately, trying to prevent me from getting hurt. The fears they project unto me are usually from a place of love , deep down..
And I love them for this, even though it took me years to realize and be able to finally accept this form of love, without feeling somehow attacked, or misunderstood. I learned to let them misunderstand.
I realized that they don’t possess the capacity to see the picture I see from my eyes, and that this not a reflection of my shortcomings, it is a reflection of theirs.
They are scared and they need my compassion and patience as I see to enact the full opposite of what they suggest. I have no other choice but to rally myself, even if no one else is behind me, to do everything they said I would not be able to.
In order to believe that they truly were wrong, they need to bear witness to the opposite of their warnings coming to fruition. They declared something was not possible, so to see it firsthand is the only real way to change such a fearful, faithful mind.
After watching the contrary consequences of their predictions manifest from the very actions they had been convinced would lead to suffering, and seeing that my success was in direct contradiction with what they believed was going to happen, they may eventually come to a place where they can allow themselves the chance to try again to do what they never had the courage to finish in their own past.
[Enough of the wisdom gleaned from the AA and Al-Anon Fortune Cookies That Somehow Stuck With Me Since 4-5 Years Old, going to meetings with family members, believing everyone went with their families… I blew some covers since I was too young to know the definition of “anonymous” and would ask my 1st grade peers and teachers what meetings their parents went to each week… I always tried to make it seem exciting as frequently after the few loudest adults stopped talking, there was a cake!]
-*–
During these last couple of years, before I was making money, and had dumped what finances I had into startup costs during early Covid-19 weirdness, I was seemingly perpetually unemployed, broke again and again, with dwindling options and a metaphorical tunnel with no light and no end in sight, and even less opportunities were available as I went through addiction and then forced treatment for substance abuse issues, including a period of facing heavy legal consequences including extended time in jail, a rehab facility, and onto court mandated outpatient treatments to prove to the court I did not deserve the proposed long term prison sentence hanging over me for the poor choices I had made a year or more before it all caught up to me..
I never came to a place where it seemed justified to quit and give up the notion of my idea to develop the small Facebook page which surprised me by helping me connect with the first customers who happily purchased a handful of posters, and that fed the idea of turning that into a legitimate and profitable business, that has somehow managed to survive with me and still stands as a monument to the pile of shit I had created, and then was forced to crawl through to find a completely different, refined version of myself once the crud was washed away and I got to take a new coat of paint over an old and outdated period in my life.
So even from the beginning of these last 2-3 years forming what was a hobby into whatever this business has become, and whatever it's morphing into next, I wouldn't have ANY of it if I had not made a point to go against the advice of literally *EVERYONE* I know, and focus all of my energy, thoughts, prayers, and resources on not letting myself fail without a fight and a forward fall, until I am ready to one day say I think it's time to move on..
On my terms.
If I wasted time listening to anyone too afraid to even for a moment, consider the possibility of my success, before foretelling doom and gloom of choices that would inevitably leave me to starve, I wouldn’t have made it to even begin the acceptance process of recovery, where I finally admitted what was doing, was not working, and that in order to change, I needed a lot of help from powers outside myself, and I had a long hard road before the journey would be over… Good thing I had a coping mechanism of creating art to fall back on, eh?...
I’m pretty sure my mother is still convinced that the only reason I like spray painting is because I can get high off of the fumes…. Ya can’t win ‘em all, I guess..
Today, I continue to huff paint full time, and have kept growing my business to a point where I am starting to make a reasonable living designing, marketing, selling, and convincing people to trade money for my creations that I make from collected garbage and toxic corrosive explosive aerosol pigmented gas in a can… on that note, this whole post is about how long its been since I’ve gotten a good spray paint headache….
That memory is from only 6 years ago… how!? The world, people I know, everything is so different than it was such a short half decade ago… Back in the time when I had a decent and rewarding hourly career for which I had just finished school for, back when wearing a facemask in public was weird and back when some of those I counted as close still called each other friends, back when so many of all of our families, those united by blood or those together by choice, would set the table for at least 1 more soul than they do now when it’s time to break bread.
Family-(RIP)-Friends
All Those Gone Too Soon
Back in a time when we all had the nerve to believe we knew how the world worked, because it was made from what we thought was sense and order and where the good guys always won. Back when we still trusted those leading nations and communities of people who placed their faith in their direction… Before the questions posed to those who were looking to become leaders in their own communities became just another reason to hate whatever was different from them. Before it became trendy to be an outsider. Back in the time of the “Old Norm.”
Sploosh was just a squishy dream back then, more of an escape to think about while I kept on doing what was expected of me, and what made those around me comfortable because I was just as miserable as they were. They were not threatened by the chance of making my aspirations manifest if I never looked up from the line I was supposed to be towing alongside them on the march to death.
The current cultural expectation that has normalized working 40+ hours at a job that makes us physically/mentally ill in order to come up just shy of breaking even, so that we remain always, running in place, treading water and drowning but expected to say thank you for the opportunity.
So to anyone lost and wandering, who may have watched some painting or craft DIY @Youtube tutorial videos like I did which sparked the thought that they could do that, too.
My advice to you is: DO IT. And don’t stop DOING it.
Secrets I Wish Someone Had Told 10 Year Old Me:
Make your opportunity. Just start doing it, and DON'T STOP. Don’t listen to them. Your reality right now is exactly what you wanted, once. Reframe. It’s ok to change course midstream. It’s ok to suck at first. It’s ok to give yourself a break. It’s ok to be the only one celebrating your success, even the small victories are worthy of acknowledging. Be proud of your milestones, and be sure you mark them out for yourself. This is measuring your progress, even in small steps. Even if you go back 2 steps before moving forward, just never ever never never stop, even when it seems like you should, even if others tell you it is time to give up. Surround yourself with those few whom you will never feel the need to explain yourself to, keep them close, they are your tribe. They will love you until they can understand you. Acceptance is never something you fear losing or need to earn when you stop trying to steer and let the wind take you where you were meant to land. Always question authority, never think the News is telling you the whole story, or even the most important story. Question everything. Don’t do something wrong to appease the status quo. Don’t be afraid to rock the boat. Aim for all the icebergs you see, if the boat sinks, you already know you can swim. Fear has no place in a life worth living. Be it your own fear, or the ghost of someone else's coming through their words as they misunderstand you as themselves. Be smart. Be remarkable. Find joy somehow. Never stop, keep going, make plans, take risks, fail forward, take a hundred breaks from working on your goals to gather your strength, just go again 101 times. You will prove them all wrong. You can’t lose if you don’t stop playing, and eventually, you will win. - They stopped playing a long time ago. They settled for whatever compromise they believed they could live with… And faking it until making it never works when it comes to self-love. An acceptable amount of misery is still miserable. We always get exactly what we want, in one way or another. So in closing (finally) get out there, start doing it, and do everything you were too scared to do yesterday!
“..Losers Look Stuff Up While
The Rest of Us Are
Carpin’ All Them Diems.”
- Summer Smith (Rick and Morty)
On that note, I think it’s time to log off the laptop for a time more than I’d like to admit I’ve been attached to my computer/phone while fumbling blind through the first 2 years of starting my website and business and all of the small business logistics that makes this actually something close to what seems like “work.” I can’t wait to get back into using my Cricut, and using some new techniques and tools I've kept secret... shhh...
- It’s time to touch some grass… And play with some paint cans…
Carpe Some Diems..
-Stay Tuned- and -Stay Weird-
-*-
Here's Some Follow Ups and Credits and Other Stuff:
-Sign-Up For Chances to Win Some Free Stuff-
@splooshpaints on socials including the Sploosh Street: Outlet Shop
@splooshstreet for my new shop, clothing line and home styling brand!
-*-
Sploosh Updates/Upcoming/Ongoing/
A Bit More Tangential Ranting:
-Check Out The “Track Your Order” Page -
It’s New + I’m Kinda Excited About It! - Should Work For Any Delivery Tracking Number from US or Overseas - Doesn’t >have< to be a sploosh delivery… Although you should treat yourself to something ;) You Deserve It!
-You’re Cookies Are Safe at Sploosh! (We are ADPPA Compliant! - We Don’t Collect/Sell Your Data!)
Updates and Fine Print have been completed and Sploosh is secure and safe with all your delicious cookie data. Which we will not store without consent. And we do not sell, store, mine, or use your personal data for any reason other than what is stated at face value on each page, i.e. name/address for order and the blah blah blah of it all. Check out our updated Privacy Policy, Terms/Conditions, and everything else that gave me migraines putting together in time for compliance with the recent 2022 “American Data Privacy and Protection Act”
Why is this important? How does it affect you, personally? - Well, these laws are governing how your personal data, even the data you don’t know is there (like Yellowpages, or your phone's location history from just having it in your pocket.. Yeah, that stuff) is used by both the government and corporations and how do they affect your daily life?
Aside from those extra pop-up banners sprouting at every click, begging for your consent to use some of your data for X, Y, or Z - Ever wonder what you are consenting to, or why your permission is all of a sudden relevant? - Check out these articles on internet censorship and surveillance, The Patriot Act, and the follow-up legislation meant to revise the Patriot Act, The Freedom Act.
And after you digest some of that heavy homework-ey, maybe not very exciting sounding stuff that sounds like things your mom said you’re not allowed to bring up at Thanksgiving again this year:
>Get yourself a reliable VPN (Virtual Private Network) - After some research, of course!
(BTW, this post is not sponsored, I do not receive any benefits/kudos from you clicking these links, I just found them very insightful and easy to grasp fairly concisely on Legal Data Stuff… Which I probably wouldn’t care about if I hadn’t had to do an overhaul of how my business and website deal with user information when people entrust it to Sploosh!... But It’s my responsibility to keep y’all safe here in the digital halls of Sploosh, and knowledge=power, right?.. You’re welcome.)