Brightness fills empty space, in search of inspiration.

Holy crap, where the hell did this winter and spring go?

I can’t believe how far behind I’ve fallen on everything. I can’t believe I leave for a two-week vacation in just a few weeks, and that when I come back I have to once again jump into the thick of another crazy season of work (for which I am not nearly as prepared as I should be). How has this happened?

Ok, I know how it’s happened. But still.

I admit I've been living in this kind of self-constructed cocoon. And though it’s good and I’m happy and I’ve been doing things that are fulfilling and meaningful to me (and making plans to pursue still others), it’s also alarming to realize how I’ve allowed myself to just kind of slip out of the world at large.

I felt so good leaving the studio the other night after three hours of work, completely exhausted, starving, my hands, arms, and clothing spattered with various colors of inks and acrylics. I’ve always loved having ink on my skin (much to my mother’s dismay, who has such an aversion to it that she’ll run screaming if you so much as point an un-capped pen in her direction) and have never hesitated to use exposed areas of my body as a human notepad.

But more than the utilitarian aspect, when my hands are covered in ink, or paint, or clay, or in some cases even dirt, I feel like I’ve actually done something. Created something, the physical evidence of which I need only look down at my own hands to see. There’s something gratifying about that. I mean, of course I create things at work every day. But my soft hands and at times even softer body offer no proof or evidence of that fact. To look at me, you’d never think, “There’s a guy who makes things. Creates something interesting.”

Nope, generally if you thought anything at all, it would be something like, “Now there’s a guy who looks just like every other guy.” But you’d never think even that, because it’s not the clean-cut, average guy tuned out to his ipod that catches your attention. It’s the guy with the paint-splattered clothes and ink-encrusted hands with the blackened fingernails. That’s the guy you might see on the street or on the subway and actually think something about.

At least, I think more of myself in that state than I do at other times. I think about what I accomplished in the preceding hours, what went right, what went wrong, what I’ll do to improve, what my next project should be, what I’ll do to take it a step further... The gears are always turning, and damn that’s exciting. For a lot of people it’s nothing new. But for me, this is something I haven’t felt in years. College, I guess. Yeah, that seems right. I can instantly think of moments in college where I felt exactly what I’m describing right now. What I felt as I left the studio last night, walking down Canal Street, tuned out to my ipod. But more tuned in than usual.