The Imp Perfectionist

Welcome! I'm a Portland, Oregon based artist with a deep love of music, writing, and performing risky experimental art on guitars. Also! I generally keep this account for work only, so with very few exceptions all the content is originally mine. :)

[imp-perfectionist]

Hey everyone who’s been following me all this while, I’ve moved my blog to a new location where I have a bit more freedom in how I work with things. I’m healthy again and back online and so much has changed it’s ridiculous. So check out www.walkingnaked.weebly.com and bookmark it! See you there!

[imp-perfectionist]

It has been a long, long time since I had a dedicated painting area set up! But now, FINALLY, I should be able to start pumping out some kickass art!

[imp-perfectionist]

The Place of Pride

Sometimes when I finish playing a song I look up to see someone crying. It's always the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Every time. To know that this moment, and these words, and the feeling that so badly craves expression and connection has somehow unlocked the door between your heart and someone else's is awe inspiring. Heart stopping. Because those tears are the most certain sign that someone feels deeply, deeply understood. Seen. Related to. Every time it happens is a surprise, and a gift. Each time, it's taught me a little more about what music is. When I first began I thought music was a way of telling people how you feel, or how to fix the world, or for catharsis. And I was right, too. It is all of those things. But I was also wrong, because music is so much more. I once heard a radio interview with Philip Glass where he related an anecdote from a class he once taught. A student asked him: "What is music?" Glass had been asking himself the same question his entire career. In that moment, he said, he did not know the answer. Yet he heard himself saying: "Music is a place." And it is. It's an entire universe. It's everything we can imagine and so much more. Good music is music that takes us out of ourselves and leads us on a journey. Each of us is the main character of our own story. And so for each of us evolution has necessitated that for our entire lives we perceive the world as revolving around us. Our eyes and bodies contain us, and we can't escape. No one else can ever truly know us. No one else can ever live our choices for us. And so for most of us, relationship is what we crave the most. Lots of things get in the way of this desire, but to be seen, truly seen, is the most valuable thing I know of. I don't know about you, but for me, so much of my life I've felt isolated. Alone. I craved validation, and praise, and to be told over and over again that i'm okay. That I'm worth loving. Honestly, the raw truth is that more than anything in the world I want my father to look me in the eye and say he's so incredibly proud. I want him to see what I've done with what I had to work with and I want the love and pride it fills him with to burst out the seams until he cries from the intensity. I want tears to stream down his face while he looks me in the eye and doesn't turn away, and for the first time in my life I want to hear him say: "Well done, son. Well done." I don't care about what he did or didn't do. I just want his terrified heart to melt. It's probably all I've ever wanted. I'm not alone, either. How many of us lie awake at night wishing in our secret hearts? And we know, or fear, that we'll never have that. We rationalize, we say that it must be because we weren't good enough. We blame ourselves because when we were really young and didn't know about concepts like emotional projection, they blamed us. And we believed them. But not completely. Somewhere inside us we know that those words are total bullshit. We know that they never saw us, not really, and so how can they judge us? Yet they did, and more than anything it taught us to judge ourselves. As I grow older (and hopefully wiser) I am coming to see that I have mistaken my value as a human being on the things I can do. As a child, everything that I loved or enjoyed was taken from me. But they couldn't take stories, skills, or imagination. So I gave up on the rest of the world. But I am learning now that those, too, can be taken from me. Despite this, I have discovered something I find utterly hard to believe and yet cannot deny. What is the most valuable thing in this world? What is it that makes us worthwhile? Why are we loved? I'm not yet wise enough to tackle questions like these with any kind of authority, but I can speculate. At the moment, I would say that what makes us worthwhile isn't money, or skills, or knowledge. It isn't having the most food or being the most help. And if not, then what? Lately, I've been experiencing what it is to be disabled. To suddenly have confusing and inexplicable limitations. To have to ask for help from people who are already doing so much, and for whom you'd gladly endure pain for a while just to alleviate some of theirs. What a trip when you look in their eyes and see that they feel exactly the same way. That they would rather be stressed from carrying the burdens of two than have to watch you spend another moment in pain. And so you let them help you, because it's the most loving thing you can do for them. Maybe you realize in that moment that it isn't just you going through it. We all are. Maybe, in that moment, a feeling wells up inside of you. It pushes through the pain of the moment and whispers in your ear: "You are loved." It's true. You are loved. Far more than you have any right to be. Far more than you ever knew people could love. And in that moment you know that feeling. It's pride. Pride like an ache. The sort of pride you feel for another. It's a profound sensation of gratitude that some other person exists in this world too. It's so strong the feeling spreads out into the world and you know without a doubt that every person you've ever known, every person you've never encountered deserves that pride. Even you. All along you've craved permission to feel this, and now you see that the only true way to earn it is to feel it for another and accept that it takes one to know one, and so therefore you are one. I've met people who will never feel it. So many of them. Many others who will feel it but reject it out of doubt or low self esteem. But I've got it. This thing I craved for so long and always had locked up inside of me because I believed that it was only okay to feel if someone proved I'd earned it. And what it feels like is this: I look into your eyes and I see you better than I ever knew. I don't see what I think you should be. I don't see what you might have been, or what you've done to deserve to suffer. I just see you. Now. Beautiful. And dear heavens am I proud of you. If I could have one wish I'd wish that you could see yourself the way I'm seeing you now. There are no words to contain you, no brand to define you. You are vulnerable, perfect, changing, and beautiful in flawless balance. I love you, I hurt for you, and I am proud beyond all reason. So I wrote you a song. At least, that's what I thought. But I'm flawed too, and sometimes I forget how beautiful I am. I don't see how much I'm carrying until I am upset and irrational and lashing out. The other day, I found myself irrationally angry at a friend I love beyond all reason. Once I realized how utterly stupid I was being, the shame washed over me. I sat alone then, indulging in self pity and self reproach. I wanted to punish myself for the way I'd acted. Instead, I stole the song I wrote for you and played it to myself. For the first time, I made myself cry. I bawled like a literal baby. I couldn't even sing. Because I felt understood, and seen. I didn't even know this was a thing. That the music could affect me the way it has affected others. But it turns out the songs I always thought were written for you were also written for me. And this time too, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

[imp-perfectionist]

Rothfussing

I just want to announce forever that I am coining a new term: Rothfussing Verb. The act of doing something over and over obsessively until it's perfect. If you get it, you get it.

[imp-perfectionist]

Went to Homiefest, drew some epic armpit hair.

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #5, The Hydra Hey everyone! It'd been longer than I intended since my last real post. I've been crazily busy. I'm nearly finished with another sculpture! But first things first, I've been meaning to show this off and talk about it a little. Picture 1: The finished product! Actually, there are several finishing touches I have yet to complete, but this is essentially it. I can hardly believe it actually worked. Picture 2: This isn't where I began. I actually began by trying to carve out of the back piece of an old guitar, but the wood was layered super thin with the grains crossed and I couldn't carve it correctly. I found a piece of wall paneling and started over, first by a light sketch, and then by outlining. Picture 3: Here you can see I've added details and carved around the edges. Picture 4: After totally removing the dark colored paneling top, I took a picture of the break away. Picture 5: Here is the beginning detail, edge cleanup, etc. tumblr only allows ten pictures per post, so the jump to the next one is kind of jarring... Picture 6: Here it is nearly complete! If you look close you can see it's been decapitated in the middle, going from five heads to four. I can't tell you how hard that was for me to do- I'd spent hours and hour detailing it. But the composition was wrong so I sucked it up and knock it's block off. At one point in the in-between process, I accidentally broke off a section of the tail, and it looked so much better I kept it off. During the process I busted two different heads off by accident, and tail in two different spots. The reason part of it is yellow is because I put a light stain on it just before the final detailing. That allowed me to see where I was at. It's a trick i'll probably use again if I ever do another inlay. Picture 7: The carving was warped, and the wood too strong for double stick tape, so I picked up some street sweeper brush wires and used those to paste the carving down. I first wrapped them in tape so that they didn't damage the work. Once that was done, I traced around the entire thing with an exacto knife. I took my time and was very careful not to push the carving. Picture 8: Once that was complete, I began carving out my guitar to hold the work. I have to say that this was the most tense and emotionally difficult part of the entire process. I had no idea if I'd done the outline correctly, and I felt like I was performing surgery on my best friend. I know it's nerdy, but I had to stop and hug my guitar every now and again to reassure it. Or me. Lol. Anyway, I just chose to have faith in myself and take it all the way. In the end, it was almost perfect. Carving out the guitar took a good three days. Finally, I lacquered the hydra and glued it in. I had to glue it in several steps. I finished the morning of the radio interview. JUST IN TIME! During the interview, it was hard to see but several sections were raised up still. I ended up gluing them a good week later. Pictures 9&10 Details! I have to say, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. And I'm amazed it's actually done. I began this in October of 2015, and then had to put it down for six months while working on commissioned projects. It's really quite a relief. Thanks for reading and following my humble little tumblr blog! There's more excellent content just around the corner...

[imp-perfectionist]

Last week Heather Hanson interviewed me on 99.1, Portland FM! Here's the recording of it. This being my first experience of this sort, I was nervous as all hell. About five minutes ahead of tome I decided I didn't have time to be nervous and refocused on what we were about to do. But it didn't stop me from shaking. The first song and interview bits went off perfectly, but the second song was really tough. I kept forgetting things because my jacket had cut off the blood supply to my strumming hand at the elbow, like a sweaty tourniquet, and my hand kept having weird sensations. I took it off after the second song and the third was much better- except that my fingers had begun to sweat and kept sliding off the strings. And somehow, all in all, it turned out really good anyway. In other news, i've been very busy. I'll have a post regarding the guitar that's in the picture here very soon, and after that some figure sculptures I've been commissioned to do for a midwife, centering around motherhood.

[imp-perfectionist]

Redefining Abuse

This is a repeat post of an essay I wrote months ago. Honestly I'm feeling too lazy to bother scrolling down a million years to find it so I'm just reposting it here: Redefining Abuse I've been working towards becoming more neutral in day to day life. Lately it has felt like the harder I worked towards neutral, the more depressed I seemed to feel.  About a week ago, I saw that one of my online friends had posted a comment on a well-written article concerning abuse and personal responsibility and that this had inspired him to write his own article. Their posts stuck with me and bits of the past I had thought locked down and fixed came up again. I had a deep need to write down something of my own, and the next day, I did. It was difficult. The memories were coming up like never before. Incredibly minute details seemed to float to the top. Hunger. The soft, icy, late February breeze seeping through the crack in the bottom of the tiny bathroom door frame and chilling my knees as I bent over the toilet and waited. The sound of the old man grunt as he sifted through the frozen woodpile.  Details.  Bruises, from my ankles to waist. Splinters in the bruises. Dirty snow on a splintery, knotted, length of kindling. A separation within me as I saw a little kid on a bathroom floor, trying to crawl behind a toilet as the punishment continued on whichever part of him was exposed. The realization of what rage feels like. The realization of powerlessness. Nausea... And something else. Something I had never recalled before. Something that didn't fit.  Details.  And so I wrote it out until I couldn't take it anymore. Having barely scratched the surface of my sob story, It was too much. I went for a walk. Downstairs in the event space of the artist community in which I live, an installation piece called "mechanics of engagement" was underway. People sat in a circle under a faux tree of branches and twisted wire on which bits of broken glass with poetry written on them hung like christmas ornaments overhead. An unsafe space. Perfect for sharing unsafe feelings. Yet I found myself unusally mute. Listless. So much to say and no words. Tossing and turning that night, I finally faced the new details. They are the reason I am writing this. They change little, and yet they transform everything.  Details.  An old man with a triangular thickness of splintery kindling. Not staring down, but crouching at eye level. Warnings and explanations. This is what, how much, and why. The memory of pain remains the same, but after each session...  Hugs. Explanation. Another try.  Maybe now is a good time for some context. I am the oldest of five children. Born in Walla Walla Washington, I was raised in eastern Oregon. Early in my childhood, my father met a older man we will call Jim, and we became the first family after Jim's own to join what would eventually become an isolated and unregistered church group that would never consist of more than 140 people loosely scattered throughout Oregon and Washington, and which would become known by the excommunicated as simply "The Church". This is not the time or place to talk about the beliefs of "The Church", except to say that Jim's ideas on child rearing were exceptionally strict. When I first encountered public school at fourteen, the concept of using the bathroom without first obtaining permisson seemed alien and sinful to me, like stealing. I could write a thick volume on the negative experiences, and another on the journey away from them, but for now I'd like to focus on one experience in my early childhood, and how the memory of a hug can make all the difference in the world. It was sometime in the winter of 1990, and I had just turned four. On an overcast, post-church Sunday afternoon in February I had to use the bathroom. When I emerged, my family had left without me. The next two weeks would be two of the most severely difficult weeks of my life. During them, I ate in total two bowls of oatmeal, a few bites of broccoli, and one small chunk of liver that was being cooked for a large dog. I am told that when I finally returned home, I was black and blue from my legs to my waist from the punishments. Yet, in those same two weeks I went from being barely able to connect two letters together to being able to read. Words were literally beat into me.  For two and a half decades now, I've seen myself as the victim of abuse. Therapists have told me. Family has told me. I hated the idea that something that happened so long ago could still affect me so viscerally and unpredictably. I needed to know why these things happened to me, and why I could not be satisfied with victimhood.  If memory is light and the stories we tell ourselves about our role in life a prism, my own attempts to see my place in the world have been like a scientist who had attempted to view the full spectrum in an ambient red light. The spectrum would be visible and yet important parts would be lost into the setting, and the scientist would not know he missed anything. How much of Jackson Pollack's work would be lost if it had only ever been seen under red light?  In the process of writing down the memories in excruciating detail, it became clear that I had been blinded by my anger. But I had worked through that anger, and a new picture was emerging that challenged my personal story deeply.  It is true that I did not eat more than two meals for a space of two weeks. But food was served to me three times a day. Yes, that food brought on a gag reflex. And yes, it was the same plate of broccoli over and over until it began to rot. But if I had gotten over my aversion and choked it down, that would have been the end of it. I would have won a battle with myself, an opportunity to find strength early in life. A test that I failed, not Jim. I was not as knowledgeable then as I am now about how the brain works but even then, had I been determined to eat that broccoli it would have been a breeze. Jim's actions were intended as a lesson. Life is not always fair. We don't always get cake. A person who can accept this and act can survive almost anything. It is true that I was punished with a thick length of splintery kindling many times a day for two weeks. It is true that I fell off the toilet during more than one of these punishments, and that Jim continued to administer them to whichever part of me was available. But it is also true that not a single one of these punishments was administered in anger. Before each and every one I was warned of its severity and told how to avoid it. I was warned about what would happen if my hand got in the way, or if I turned around. Each time it happened, Jim would explain again. Hard but not terrible. He never once exceeded the number of whacks I had been warned of, and never once gave ground.  And when the punishment was over he would often give me a hug as I choked for breath and the waves of pain subsided.  These things do not justify the severity or frequency of the punishments. They do not validate Jim's choice of tool or the reasons for using it. Instead, they reveal something deeper. Something hidden and strangely, deeply, beautiful. A single, delicate rose in sleeping beauty's thorny hedge.  To locate this rose, we must step away from the hedge and look at the larger picture.  Occasionally, to assure me that what I was going through could be worse, Jim would tell me stories from his life.  Jim's father was a brutal, angry drunk. Jim was often beaten for minor or invented disobediences. In the mornings, if he did not get up the instant his father told him, he would flip the entire bed over on top of Jim with him still in it. Once, Jim disobeyed his father and went on a motorcycle ride. There was an accident, and Jim was injured. He barely made it home, his back flayed open. Rather than show concern or take Jim to a doctor his father went into the house and returned with a box of salt, which he poured liberally into the flayed wound to punish him for his disobedience. This was the kind of love Jim was given. It made him terrifyingly tough. He is a man whose eyes hold secrets, wisdom, and pain. Jim was a hard man, but never a thug. He was an extemely well educated man, and one of the most gifted teachers I have ever known. Because of him I am much more educated than my apparent schooling would indicate.  If we view him from this perspective, Jim's warnings to me showed incredible restraint. Have you ever tried to hug someone you just lashed out at? I have, and I couldn't do it. He wasn't lashing out. To him, this was truly discipline. I truly believe that Jim never enjoyed administering the punishments. I think he really did know better than anyone what he was doing. Was he wrong or right? Who can say? All I know is that he felt it was necessary, and that he didn't do it to hurt, but to teach.  So what is abuse? Is abuse an action, or is it really just a reaction? Is it a cultural definition? Or is it, as I am coming to realize for myself, a story that we tell ourselves so we can find out where to fit in a world that tries to pretend pain is just a purposeless and annoying problem to be fixed? I don't know. All I can say is that without that pain, I would never have been able to feel so much compassion. In a way I may have been given an incredible gift, a tour of hell without being trapped. An ability to know first hand what it feels like, but just offset enough that the cage was brittle. Or maybe I'm stronger than I feel.  Still, It is a well-known psychological phenominon that the abused perpetuate the abuse. Jim's actions, although severe, show something incredible. He broke his mold. He never once lashed out with emotion. He never got carried away. All those times I thought he was just making me sit there in anticipation were more likely times he needed to calm and steel himself. And afterwards, he expressed love. Those two weeks really could have been much worse.  In many ways, Jim was another father to mine. All beginners make mistakes. My fathers own mistakes were part of his learning process. And as I write this I realize that he too, cared most about teaching me something. Dad was less experienced and more emotional. But he too was breaking his mold. They say actions speak louder than words. I think that they also teach more effectively. My father often said to do as he said and not as he did. But what he did was never stop learning, never stop trying to break his mold, and never stop trying to improve life for his friends.  So I am the third generation in a line of men who have stepped away from and who will not be controlled by their experiences. Men who do not wish to see themselves as victims, consciously or subconcsiously. And so I posit that in fact, I was not abused by Jim. Or even by my father. Rather, I am the successor of a new cycle, a cycle of growth.  That is not to say that I would ever, under any circumstances, repeat on anyone else the experiences I went through. I would never come up behind a four-year-old unawares and knock them to the ground with a length of garden hose or allow them to starve for weeks over a gag reflex. I would never tell a child he is the worst of all the children in his known and isolated universe every day for a decade. I would never wish on anyone the years of suicidal depression that came afterwards, or the lonely isolation of a powerful fetish.  And I would never, ever, wish another student like me on the old man that became my balancing point; who always answered the phone, who never judged me even as he called me out on my arrogance; Whose infinite patience never wavered, and whose example gives me the final keys to break the cycle once and for all. Or else, damn it.  I am seeing now that strength is not merely survival. Strength is the determination to walk out of one's own personal hell, one step at a time. Even if one knows there is no such thing as a way out. Strength is not showing, it is listening. It is opening up enough to be vulnerable. It is being willing to let go of something that has been absolutely basic to your identity and functional world view. Most of all, strength is everywhere. It is soft and it is hard. It is rippling muscle, but it is also patience. It is actualizing that it really is only our weaknesses that can truly make us strong.  I am thinking, as I sit here on the floor and tap letters into a program, that in the end strength is just a choice you make and don't really know how you did. Like the night years ago a certain awkward, worthless dope decided the evidence suggested he was, in fact, worth loving, and made the hardest choice of his entire life- to believe it. I still don't know how I did that. I probably never will. It's a complete mystery.  So many of us have been the victims of mental, physical, or sexual abuse. And yet, the choice to see ourselves as victims is ours. I can say from a decade of difficult experience and a decade and a half trying to get out of it that it is not a simple process. It is not comfortable. But it is transfiguring.  Isn't it incredibly ironic that the hardest part of healing is accepting that you are worth healing? For so long I felt so overwhelmed by the pain and the rage that positivity did not fit my narrative and so I allowed those moments to fade away into the ambience of memory. But without them, where would I be? So I guess that in a very real way I've been looking at the world through, pardon my language, shit-colored glasses. It is a little scary to admit this, not just to myself but to the world.  I realize that my own experiences are really only mine. My pains and triumphs, my failures and my successes. I will never truly be able to understand what someone elses experiences have been like. The best I can do is find similarities in my own life and do my best to bridge the gap with listening and compassion as my teachers and friends have done for me.  Maybe, as I write this, I am coming to understand love just a little more. Maybe, the patience my loved ones have shown me these past eight years is also mine to give to others.  I will say that it is rapidly becoming the only thing I care about these days. I want to listen, learn, and teach. It's why I live as minimally as possible and spend the time being available to inspiration. That's why I write music, and paint, and perform. Those are the gifts I've got to work with, and so I am doing what I can to use them as well as I am able. Even though I might not know you, I love you. More than any words could ever describe. I love you because I know that in this incredibly messed up world we live in, no inspiration happens in a vaccuum. I'm just one little molecule of water among all the waves in the ocean, being pushed and pulled with the tides like everyone else.  If my online friends had not written their articles, I would not be here having these revelations. They wrote because of whatever inspired them, too. I think we really are all just rolling pinnacles, cresting every now and again and then making room for someone else.  So maybe it's selfish, but I really hope that this essay inspires you to try to find the love in your own story, and that you write it down so it can affect and inspire others in turn. Maybe I'll find it one day, and it will be the missing piece that helps me break through the next barrier.  In the meantime, if you are reading these words it means that you, like me, have something inside you that wants to see past the labels of life and discover the seed of a good story.

[imp-perfectionist]

Quick update: I've been invited to be interviewed and play a few live songs on "The Bus Stop", a radio show that airs every Wednesday on Portland's 99.1! It's put on by the ever incredible Heather Hanson. I'll be on air the 5th of July, five days after my fifth year anniversary of beginning to play guitar. I still can't quite believe this is happening.

[imp-perfectionist]

Amalgamystic Costume: Part 1 Hello again everyone! I've been working on this pretty heavily for a while, and just realized that this could easily be the new project we document. I began working on this back in late 2014, but due to priorities I have been unable to continue until now. This is the costume for my Singer/Songwriter persona, The Amalgamystic. (You can find me on Soundcloud easily, but if you do, please don't judge me too harshly by what's there! It's been since Nashville that I've done any recording.) The first three pictures are of the entire costume from where it's at right now, sans blindfold since it's hard to take a picture that way. (That's what's hanging around my neck.) I have to thank Leigh Torrance for helping me along the way. She used her sewing machine and spent several days helping me get the pants made up. Anyway, the first thing we should notice is that it doesn't work. Yet. There is a very long way to go with this before the entire costume is put together and complete, but the biggest problem is obvious- the cut of the top coat around my waist elongates my torso and spoils the curves in the pants. In pictures 4 and 5, you can see where the coat is at. It started as a full suit jacket. I took the sleeves off and sewed the edges, then wrapped each side with a shoelace. So that part is complete. On the back, you can see where Leigh sewed on a section I cut from one of my T-shirts. In picture 6, there's a closeup of the line i've drawn to cut the bottom. Before I make the cut, I'm taking care to backstitch around the inside of it. This keeps the liner in place and the edges from fraying too badly. Picture 7 is a close up of this. I'm doing one side, and when it's cut out I'll either use it as the pattern for the other, or do something asymmetrical.

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar 6, Part 6 (Complete!) Hey everyone! I'm pleased to announce that I've finished the sixth guitar! I had intended to show the finishing process in detail, but I ended up so into it I completely forgot to take photos. For once it went really smoothly! I've got the hang of how much sanding to do and which grits to use and whatnot. The resulting finish actually turned out better than the one it had originally. There are some imp perfections here and there, and they add some really personal touches. When I was younger, I used to be a total perfectionist. But there were always a list problems I'd run into. Firstly, I could never finish anything because it would never meet my standards. This was actually good because it motivated me to practice. But it also left me burnt out more than not. Secondly, if something is too perfect it's really hard to connect to. Take computer music, for example. Who can relate to an electronic metronome? No one i've ever heard of. It's too perfect. But once I began allowing imperfections, imperfect people like us could connect more. In a guitar that's absolutely essential. These aren't designed to be wall pieces- I want people to buy it, play it, bang it up. Make a story with it. Thirdly, i don't think perfection is perfect. It's our flaws that make us feel real. Flaws are our perfections! I've been calling them "imp perfections" and I hope the term catches on! Anyway, Thanks again for following me and for sharing and everything! Who knows what the next project will be? Either way, it's going to be super cool. ...Maybe I can find an interesting way to document the process of recording music? Hmmmmmmm

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #6, Part 5 Hi everyone! It's been a few days since my last post. Sorry for being so erratic! I'm dealing with some health issues and haven't been able to work as much as i'd like. I carved the headstock. Initially i had intended something more complex, but when I reached that all the fire went out of me and I decided it was pretty good. I like the idea of the six there, putting the sequential number on the instrument itself. It'll be different every time, but every piece will have my symbolic signature on it and the number designating which piece it is in the order of creation. I think that will give some of these earlier, more experimental pieces more value later on. I discovered that envelopes are absolutely genius for covering a guitar in preparation to spray the varnish. There are a couple of pictures of my setup and whatnot. The last two pictures are a close up detail comparison of the art before and after the varnish. I hadn't attempted to varnish acrylic before, and so all the detail got smudged. In fact, it changed the whole style. I'm not too unsatisfied with it though. For some reason I almost like it better. Maybe because it's darker and broodier and somehow that fits nicely with life right now. I don't know. However, I have discovered this strange phenomenon where I screw something up every time and somehow that mistake helps me to fall in love with a piece even more. Kinda like that moment when you apologize to a new friend for the first time and you have that sudden sense that you're that much closer. You weathered the storm. Like that. Next i've got to varnish the head and sand the whole thing into a shiny shiny finish! Considering how i've been feeling, it could take me a week or two to finish. But i'll do my best to get this beautiful (and beautifully scarred) baby out there. No one's got a claim on her yet... Maybe she'll be yours. Maybe you'll be the first one other than her creator to touch her strings; To make that first chord and know she's singing just for you. Guitars are some of the most wonderful things I know of in this world. I hope that I can continue making these really unique pieces and that they find heartspace with someone who will find endless songs in them. Thanks for following me and sharing my posts everyone! It's amazingly encouraging! :D

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #6, Part 4 Hey everyone! It's just about finished. Next step, the varnish. Then we'll see how it *really* looks. Also, the light I took this last picture on doesn't really do it justice. There will be more detailed pics later. In any case, next I'll be carving on the headstock!

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar 6, Part 3 Here's the beginning of the art process! I began with a pencil sketch of the woman, then climbed on top of Cougar Rock and used the background as reference for the rest of the sketch. Next, I did a loose layer of watercolor over the pencil sketch. Once that's done, any pencil lines are going to be locked in, so if you're doing something similar, make sure you're okay with that. Then I did a more locked down ink sketch over the foreground. I really love how this is turning out already! I can't wait to see how the more intense color sits on it! :D

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #6, Part 2 Once everything is cleaned and removed, the sanding process begins. There is more than a millimeter of varnish on this guitar. Reaching the point of the first picture took upwards if two hours using 150 grit sandpaper. Granddad said he had a power tool I could use, so I did. The second picture shows the guitar after we used the grinder. It was difficult to control, particularly because the part of the disk that would touch down on the guitar wasn't always the part I expected. Even though it's messy, the rounded bits still strike me as very beautiful. I also did the headstock, which you can see in picture 4. Once the grinding was done I got back down to the hand sanding and smoothed it out until it felt right. I had no intention of getting all the varnish off. The process of sanding reveals a nice organic shape, and that shape will in turn affect and inspire the work. Finally, as a bonus I went to church with my grandparents and did kind of a cool little sketch while I was sitting in church. Not really sure what it is... Man church is a thing I haven't been to in a long while. And I have to say it feels exactly the same as it used to.

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar 6, Part 1 Hi everyone! Having suddenly discovered that my grandparents had wifi out here in the middle of somewhere (they just didn't know what wifi is, lol), I can begin updating y'all on the next project! A couple of months ago, while I was still living in the artist community and deeply enmeshed in the urn, I was woken up with a knock at my door. I opened it with crusty eyes. A friend of mine, all bushy tailed at some ungodly hour of the morning (like TEN a.m. Wtf?) was leaning against the wall. "Want a guitar?" He asked. How could I refuse? Now it's time to do something cool with it, yes? To begin, I got out my cleaning kit and scrubbed this baby clean. If you pay attention to the pattern of grime buildup you can learn a lot about how well a guitar was loved. This one had very thick grime all over the fretboard. It has the most beautiful intonations. It was originally constructed in Mexico and has a beautifully angled solid two-piece cedar top. The whole guitar has a feeling of being important but not really loved. It's obviously been played frequently, but rarely, if ever, cleaned. The previous owner picked it up for practice or to channel feelings and it did a wonderful job. A guitar is so much more than a tool. It's a device constructed out of the flesh of a living being, strung with metal or nylon. It becomes a bridge through which emotion can be channeled. The Samurai cared for their swords above all else. They knew that their very lives depended on the oneness of their sword and body. The care of both were paramount. A guitar may have a different function, but the necessity of caring for it is still really important. So the first thing one should do with a new guitar is make certain the strings are new and the neck is oiled. Make sure the fretboard is clean. Get to know it. Make friends with it. Become lovers. It'll change everything and get you through those difficult moments during the practice the way love in a relationship gets you through difficult times. As an artist, I spend that same kind of care in the process of sanding down the guitar. There are a lot of choices to make: do we sand the entire guitar down and refinish it? That will erase many of the scratches, allow for drawing all over the body, but add a lot of time to the finishing process. Or do we only do the face, leaving the scratches and scars as the evidence of the love invested in the guitar? Since this guitar was used as more function than love, my feeling is that the scratches and scars have little meaning in the whole story. So in this case i'll be sanding down the entire thing. I've been thinking of the Samurai quite a lot in context of this piece, so that's probably going to be the theme of this project. But my art has a tendency to evolve dynamically, so that's mainly a starting point. Anyway, please like and share and follow me if you'd like to see the process play out! As always, i'll be posting my progress along with relevant things that happened during the process, techniques, and so on. Thanks again for all your support! It really motivates me! >:D

[imp-perfectionist]

The Urn: Final Ladies and gentlemen, after a five month process of working and re-working, persevering through challenges, and never knowing all the while if this thing would actually turn out decently, I am proud to say that it's finished. This has been the most difficult art piece of my life. I mean that thrice over, or once each in three dimensions. If any of you has ever read a novel called "The Name of the Wind", by Patrick Rothfuss (my favorite book), you'll remember about the rule of three. It was a challenge of three parts. The first challenge was conceptual. The original concept was designed to hit a feeling rather than a specific set of aesthetics. As the project began to take shape, there were a lot of challenges that made my original ideas either impossible or unable to hit that feeling. The last bit where I had to cut off the möbius strip curve from one wing to the other was particularly difficult. But without doing that, without cutting away a hundred hours of delicate work, the piece would not have been complete. I learned a lot about attachments from this. Sometimes in life we have to make hard decisions, sacrifice things we've worked for in order to achieve what we started out in search of. The second challenge was perseverance. After the first six weeks of carving for eight or twelve hours a day I was sore as hell and burnt out. As much as I love this project, parts of it could be a real grind. When it got to that point, I kept thinking of the client and how she would feel once her son's ashes had a place to rest. I couldn't give up on that. There was nothing else but to take it all the way. The third challenge was in life and in maintaining a place to live in a city with spiking rent prices and an increasingly claustrophobic feel to it. I've often felt that rent is like a monthly tidal wave. The last week of the month is just bracing yourself, waiting for it to crash into you and hoping you'll still have a place to live afterwards. But somehow, (several times on the last possible day) I managed to make rent and secure my shaky fortress for another month. I wouldn't have, had I not been blessed with a support system of three parts. Family, friends, and patrons. What? Did you think I'd go on and do the credits? Come oooooon. We both know y'all would just skip that part and stop reading (unless you're looking for your name, hehe). But I won't bore you with that stuff. I mean, if it were a novel... *BUT* If I've learned anything from this last year as a full-time artist it's this: An artist is really a creative medium. A creative medium is like the water molecule at the top of the wave. Maybe it has a unique viewpoint, but that view is only possible because it's supported by an ocean. It's creations are the manifestations of the energy of the wave itself. So I take credit with, I hope, humility. As you read this, know that I see you as a part of this and every project. Wether you were one of the few close friends who tried their hand at carving during the early stages or someone who I'll never meet. If you are the one who came knocking on my door one morning with a box of donuts and and a look in your eye that said I'd better work on the Urn or ELSE, I'll never forget it. If you are the one who constantly assured me that no matter what happens I'll always have a place to live, and who followed up on that promise, supporting me when I failed to support myself, you are like my guardian angel. One day I woke up feeling fatigued and burnt out. I knew I couldn't work. If you were one of the six who had followed my page and reblogged a post several times that night while I slept, know that those simple action changed the course of my whole day. All the work on that day and several others like it is yours. If you are one of my patrons, men and women who have this baffling belief that giving me money every month is a good idea, and whose contribution made up that final bit I needed to pay rent month after month, you'll get what's coming to you. (You crazy bastards! I've got plans...) In short, I could go long. Very long. To sum up: Thank you. Tomorrow I'm leaving Portland to live in the middle of nowhere for little while. The main goal is to complete an album of songs I began back in October, and for which people people keep (happily) bugging me. I doubt that means there will be no further art. In particular, there's this five headed hydra I spent a month and a half carving that has yet to be finished and inlaid into my guitar... Please don't hold this next bit against me! It's 2016, and it's what you do. If you'd rather skip the shameless and charming begging, feel free to stop here! But... If you happen to be a guardian angel who would like to help support my work, here's the link to my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Wesley_Britt Patrons get all sorts of rewards whenever I can do it. So far they've been a lot better than stated- The profile, goals, and rewards are desperately outdated and I'll be updating them as soon as I have time. It's easy to lose a single dollar and forget it existed. So why not drop me a dollar a month? The better I can support myself the more time I can spend teaching free art classes and generally helping wherever I can. And even a buck adds up! Finally, would you please follow me and share my work? I'm shamelessly motivated by growing numbers. There's a face behind each one, a real person that finds the work beautiful or inspiring or cool.