Thus ends my #livepainting career. I retired on palindrome day #02022020 after over eleven years of hauling gear all over North America and Australia, enduring punishingly intense work environments (windstorms, dust storms, hurricanes, jet-level sound systems, drunk jerks, rude promoters, and on and on), and squeaking by on next to no income in order to bring art to a mostly-appreciative public... ✨ Since November of 2007 I've painted nearly 500 works of #liveart, inspired by my training as a #scientificillustrator and entirely with #paintpens, which made me both a unique member of the #festival ecosystem and a #pariah among elitist self-imagined competitors. But for me the only competition was with myself, continually pushing the envelope of my own #technique and my ability to be as present and helpful and loving to fans and other #artists as I possibly could. ✨ This painting, created during @eotomusic & @pherkadmusic at @meow__wolf last Saturday night, was a lovely way to tie the bow on this phase of my art career. I've done a number of electric #jellyfish for various @sci_official side projects in my time, but have never allowed the #painting #process to flow through as spontaneously as it did that night, #markers dancing on the #canvas, letting the #painting build itself out of #calligraphy as loose and #weird as it wanted to be. I really got out of the way of this one and I'm glad to have ended on a note so orthogonal to the #precise and #rigid #detail that defined so much of my earlier work... ✨ I promise to continue making #art. (I'm working on two other paintings now.) But for a while my priorities will shift back to the other sides of my #creative life that I've neglected: my #guitar and #songwriting, my work with @futurefossilspodcast, and my duties as a father to an awesome baby girl. I just can't chase all of those rabbits at the same time, and it feels immensely healing to return to other #soulwork that, quite frankly, feeds me more and better than the live art ever did. ✨ Huge thanks to everyone who has supported me through all of this - to everyone who wrote to tell me that my work inspired them - to everyone I've met along the way. ❤️ (at Santa Fe, New Mexico) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8KMK7yJPh9/?igshid=15czqgwjj76d0
