Courage

“Conference room. San Ramon, California”. 2013. Blood, sweat, ink and watercolor

What does it take to lead a truly creative life? What demons must you slay? What ancient voices growl from deep within your head, chanting familiar curses?

What can art do to show you the way? How do other artists embolden you and say, “It is possible. It really is.”? Do you think of Van Gogh in his shack, deciding to abandon the ministry to paint through his remaining days?

What is the price of golden handcuffs? How firmly does Money hold you by the tail, insisting it will never share your love and attention? Can art ever compete?

What do the people around you say? Do they encourage you to leap? Or pepper you with their own doubts?

Are you willing to be selfish? What’s the cost?

What are your fantasies about the way it could be? What does the best day look like? What about the scariest one? How does your grimmest fantasy compare with the worst trial you’ve ever actually endured— and overcome?

What does it take to root your life in passion, rather than necessity and obligation?

How many days do you have left on this earth? How many of them belong to you?

When, finally, will the time come?

Baltimore!

Jenny & I and Tommy Kane & Yun drove down to Baltimore for the weekend. Our main objective was to eat crabs. And we certainly did that. We also stumbled into a half-dozen divey bars around town. This was one of our faves: Baltimore also turned out to have some amazing art on virtually every corner:

We saw this Amish version of the Scream propped in someone’s window.

The art highlight of the trip was  a visit to The American Visionary Art Museum. They don’t allow cameras inside, so check out their site for more. It’s  a museum devoted to untrained artists and it is so moving, inspiring and awesome.   I’ll be thinking about what I saw for months to come.  It is well worth a return trip just to reexamine everything again.  We also went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and drew critters and ate funnel cakes.

The weather was amazing. 

And it was a fantastic time with some of my favorite peeps.

Three Years after Pink

“Tickled Pink” by Kevin Kling

At times in our pink innocence, we lie fallow, composting waiting to grow.
And other times we rush headlong like so many of our ancestors.
But rush headlong or lie fallow, it doesn’t matter.

One day you’ll round a corner, your path is shifted.
In a blink, something is missing.
It’s stolen, misplaced, it’s gone.
Your heart, a memory, a limb, a promise, a person.

Your innocence is gone, and now your journey has changed.
Your path, as though channeled through a spectrum, is refracted, and has left you pointed in a new direction.

Some won’t approve.
Some will want the other you.
And some will cry that you’ve left it all.
But what has happened, has happened, and cannot be undone.

We pay for our laughter.
We pay to weep.
Knowledge is not cheap.

To survive we must return to our senses, touch, taste, smell, sight, sound.
We must let our spirit guide us, our spirit that lives in breath.
With each breath we inhale, we exhale.
We inspire, we expire.

Every breath has a possibility of a laugh, a cry, a story, a song.
Every conversation is an exchange of spirit, the words flowing bitter or sweet over the tongue.
Every scar is a monument to a battle survived.

Now, when you’re born into loss, you grow from it.
But when you experience loss later in life, you grow toward it.
A slow move to an embrace,
an embrace that leaves you holding tight the beauty wrapped in the grotesque,
an embrace that becomes a dance,
a new dance,

a dance of pink.”

It’s three years today since you left, Pandy. I will always miss you.

Traveling

I’m on a quick trip and will be back in a week — at which point I’ll continue to post my video interviews from An Illustrated Journey. Meanwhile, I’m working on my own travel journal…

Backblog 2

Just to recap and explain my absence over the past months, here are some souvenirs from my second consecutive shoot. We are making a big commercial that will run on Thanksgiving Day — if you watch American TV for even a minute on November 22, you’ll certainly see it. If not, I’ll post a copy later this month.

We filmed around New York City and Westchester in the days leading up to the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. In fact, we wrapped the evening the storm finally arrived on our shores.

Fall is here.

Our first location. This seems like ages ago, an idyllic Fall day in Brooklyn. Now all of these leaves have been blown away by the hurricane. Hopefully the house is still standing.

Jeff shoots in Ocean Park.

My director Jeff and I have made commercials together for over 20 years. We’ve shot in New York, California, Chicago, and Rome and the results are always spectacular. He’s one of my favorite creative collaborators and I can’t wait to see his feature film, scheduled to come out next year.

One of the three complete Thanksgiving dinners we prepared and shot.

We shot three scenes with large, extended, real families making and sharing Turkey Day. The food styling was extraordinary and cornucopian.

The crew films in a nut store on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Ave

We used real stores, streets, yards and homes as our locations.

Never mind the Bollexs. My director’s 16 mm. cammeras.

Jeff shot with several different cameras, film and digital: 35 mm., a Canon 5D, a Canon C300, and his personal collection of Bolexs.

A glass-blowing forge

We filmed a master craftsman as she and her team blew extraordinary glass vases.

Relics of the Industrial Age.

We shot a factory scene in a  giant warehouse full of old machines from New York’s dwindling manufacturing industry.

This isn’t a scene from “Armageddon” or “Independence Day”. It’s just the first arrival of Sandy on our shores.

On our final Day, we shot high atop the World Trade Center where crews were battening down their gear as the wind picked up.  Then we hired a ferry to drive us back and forth past the Statue of Liberty as the sky grew menacing.