"Winter"

I like making snowflakes.  I liked cutting them out and sticking them on winter windows in school and I liked sticking them on the windows at home.  I still liked cutting them out when I was designing packaging for a living.  Some things are perennially perfect activities and I don't care about all the little bits of paper that get scattered around.

Mom hated the snowflake activity.  She did care about scattered bits of paper.  She hated Legos and all sorts of things I liked to do.  That's fine.  She didn't have to cut paper or play with Legos.  Do your own thing.  Be happy.

This sounds so simple.  It is simple.  There's all sorts of aphorisms that reinforce the thought.  The problem is we talk ourselves out of it, and other people try to talk us out of it too.  For example, when I happily cut snowflakes at work, my coworkers told me to get serious and quit having fun.  I shooed them away and kept cutting.  An afternoon of quiet clipping turned into many successful package designs.

Although this supported my paycheck, I didn't consider it "important".  They weren't like Rembrandt's portraits, Van Gogh's sunflowers, or anything else the masters created.  I kept waiting for an epiphany to lead me to my own masterpieces.  I think too many of us keep waiting for an epiphany and don't even cut snowflakes in the meantime.  I'm not just talking about art.  Whatever floats your boat, do it.

Mr. Roger's "Nobody else can live the life you live" has been stuck in my head for quite a while.  “You are a very special person. There is only one like you in the whole world. There's never been anyone exactly like you before, and there will never be again."

This has often struck me as both absolutely true and impossible.  There are so many people in the world.  All the great paintings have already been painted; there are no new ideas, just variations on snowflakes that look like solid white when they get together.  And yet, no two snowflakes are alike, right?

My recent paintings are an attempt to live up to Mr. Roger's affirmations.  The paintings are about my unique life.  Nobody else could paint them because I'm telling my stories.  Someone else could paint similar objects in a similar style, or paint their own stories in their own way, and it would be something entirely different.  That's great.  Even with the billions of people on the planet there's still room for all of us to express ourselves.

It's one thing to aspire to the masters and another to be choked by their achievements.  I don't want to be Van Gogh.  He was nuts.  Rembrandt died poor.  I'm painting in a pursuit of happiness.  It doesn't matter if these men achieved more posthumous fame and fortune.  What matters is following Mr. Rogers' wisdom and being my best me.

I've been thinking of these things for a while, but maybe I'm being extra fatalistic since I found out Jason Furcsik died.  He's another of my brothers' lifelong friends from the Glen, and yet another of their friends to die far too young.  I feel so sad.

On a brighter note, Bro2 brought his new puppy over.  For a ricocheting ball of energy, he is so gentle with my ancient dog.  It's funny to watch them play together.  They're in love, and I have to say I'm in love with the adorable little thing too.

"Highlight"

As I huddle next to my space heater and peer at the computer screen through bleary, sleep-deprived eyes and type with slightly frost-bitten fingers, “highlight” holds a certain amount of irony while I wait for the furnace guy to call and explain why my furnace sounds like a jet flying through the house. The woman at the 24-hour phone service asked, “Is it an emergency?” In other words, do you want to pay triple to wake up the poor guy who actually fixes furnaces? “No.” Sigh. That was many hours ago. I’m starting to rethink “emergency”. It is winter after all. Maybe the “highlight” is that the temperature has worked its way up to 45F outside, which is actually rather balmy for this time of year.

I had a disagreement once with my sister about optimists vs. pessimists. My position is that all pain is temporary and it’s better to look towards future good when things aren’t going well. My sister said it’s better to always look at the down side of things because then you’re never unpleasantly surprised. In this case, she wouldn’t be surprised about a roaring furnace, but her resulting happiness would only be in being right about potential furnace disasters. That doesn’t seem very helpful when I’m cold and don’t want to hear anyone rubbing it in. Wait… extra friction might create some warmth?

When I visited California, my host apologized for the “bad weather”. Huh? I looked around at the blue ocean, the handful of puffy clouds slowly drifting across the clear sky, and wondered where the “bad” was hiding. He moaned that it was “so overcast”, and I laughed. My friend Korki recently said it was a good day because she “almost saw blue”. Yeah! Toughen up California boy! People in Ohio actually live longer than you people with reliably pleasant weather. Of course we might have a heart attack digging snow out of our driveways, but at least that’s a quick death instead of your prolonged skin cancer. Yep, I prefer looking for positives.

Of course I can get down just like anyone else. In fact, I can get somewhat more down because I’m a competitive perfectionist. Why experience a simple down when you can experience exquisite misery? Obviously you’re just not trying hard enough. On the other hand, how can I be anything less than grateful that the furnace broke on a Friday instead of on the weekend when the repair guy wants to party on New Year’s Eve and charges holiday rates on top of weekend rates? I’m glad that my furnace problems happened in 2011 instead of bringing unpleasantness into the new year. I’m glad my brother Pete gave me some beautifully split firewood. It’s all a matter of perspective.

I often think the pessimists have me outnumbered. How many people are waiting for the world to end in 2012 because the Mayans quit filling in their calendar? Church people love to predict disasters too. “Do what we say or bad things will happen!” I mean really, what’s worse than perpetual hell? Why not focus on the promise of perpetual heaven? A lot of people listen to the negative rants by politicians too, which is why we end up having wars and doing a lot of other stupid things, but they always seem to be looking in the wrong directions. Why get riled up because some people are gay? Isn’t that the gay people’s problem if it’s actually a problem for anyone? Let’s talk about pollution instead which we can prove causes cancer and other unpleasant and preventable problems. Of course the longer I sit in the cold, the more negative things I’ll probably think about. At least I’ve got a home and a warm puppy, which is more than a lot of people. Sometimes we all need a reminder to be grateful for what we have.

I like making snowflakes. I liked cutting them out of construction paper when I was in elementary school, and I like drawing them in PhotoShop. I used bevel/emboss just to highlight the highlight theme. I don’t know why I picked these colors. They seem illogical, but seemed logical in the cold.

Happy New Year everyone!!

"Layer"

Ohio is actually warmer than Florida! Woo hoo!!! The heavy snow has mostly melted, except for dirty mountains left over from plows in parking lots. Funny how that never gets shown on greeting cards. I took the opportunity to work off some of my winter confinement by raking the leaves I neglected last fall. I only got as far as the first big maple tree, but I'm feeling a sense of accomplishment.

I suppose I could act superior and say I was allowing the leaf compost to nourish the yard, but it isn't true. I just plain didn't feel like doing it last year. I spent last summer and fall fixing my house after a plumbing disaster, and then got blinded with migraines that seemed to go on forever. I can only do so much.

But raking leaves on a warm winter day feels like a blessing instead of labor. Seeing actual green weeds looks like a blessing too. Yeah, I know, they're going to get out of hand before the snow really melts once and for all, but at this moment even weeds are welcome if they're green. Maybe my deer will eat them instead of my apple trees? I had a vivid fantasy about eating the deer when I was surveying the damage. One way or another, I want to eat apples!

"Layer" made me think of M.C. Escher (b. June 17, 1898 -- d. March 27, 1972), a Dutch artist who liked playing with reality. I admire the way he made waterfalls and steps that led to their sources, and birds that turned into lizards, or maybe lizards into birds, and spheres that can be clear, opaque, or reflective. I can admire the way his mind worked, but I have to admit I've never managed to get a lizard into a bird in any kind of believable way. I can however simultaneously look through and at water. We all have to work within our limitations. Just imagine what Escher could've done with computers!

I started the snowflake with something else in mind, but what the heck. It's a study of layers in PhotoShop, and makes me feel like the seasons are moving in the right direction. I'm tired of trying to think nice thoughts about people in the Southern Hemisphere soaking up the sun.

I wasn't that excited by my first effort, so created another color scheme in the hope I'd like that better. In the end, I decided they make a better pair than either individually -- but then again, maybe I've just been looking at this too long? I'd rather go outside and enjoy 54F degrees! In Cleveland, that's swimsuit weather! Yay!!!