The Problem With Crack...

So...I finally get back in my studio to work. Let;s forget that the place is a complete disaster area at the moment. I needed to work on something before my head exploded.

                                               

I began here. I spray painted a textured canvas with metallic gold. Then a layer of bright crimson red, leaving some of the gold to show through where I plan on putting one of my girls.

While that was drying I got the bright idea to crack a few of the older works. But which ones to sacrifice?

It is a sacrifice of sorts because I don't always know if it will work. The cracking process is not precise and anything can happen. You have to be willing to loose a painting. If the crack goes wrong, it's very difficult to save them.

I selected a Martini from 2009, my first Martini to be cracked, and a girl from 2005. The first layer is the Patina Varnish. It's difficult to see here, but it's there. Just have to let it dry a bit to the tacky stage.

                                                

Then after the Patina has started to dry, I put down a layer of the Cracking Varnish. Again, it's difficult to see here, but it's there. As it dries, it begins to crack. This is the hard part for me. I'm impatient. Temperate and humidity affect the rate and size of the cracks. It was cool and humid last night. I didn't feel like waiting like I should have. I know better. If you rush the crack you get crap. 

So of coarse I rushed it. I set up a heat lamp to speed the drying process.

                                        

I was very pleased with the girl. She was on board which I think changes things a bit but I have never really taken the time to study how the surface reacts to the varnish. The Martini however, bubbled on me. Anywhoo... 

                                     

After the Cracking Varnish has dried and cracked is the most frightening part for me. The toning. 

The entire surface has to be covered with paint. I use a towel in order to rub the color into the cracks. Then wipe it off. The paint sticks in the cracks and wipes away over the rest. Or, it's supposed to anyway.

It's at this point you get to see how you did. And I rushed it. The heat lamp makes the Cracking Varnish dry too fast. Making the cracks very large and bubbly. The poor cracks make for a poor surface to rub the toner color into and you end up with SHITE!

In this case I took a metal spatula and scraped a large area of varnish off the canvas. At this point it's pretty much toast. So I can play with it and see what I might be able to do with some alternate techniques. It was a fairly nice painting before I did this. It's the worst part of Crack for me. Some times they come out just right. Some times I am pleasantly surprised. And, Some times, I ruin a perfectly good painting. 

The girl however, maybe because of the different surface, Cracked very nicely. Took the toner well and come out generally the way I want.

One for two. It's all part of the process though. You have to take a few risks, in order to get the reward.

The reward here...I'm back in the audio...creating...dreaming...exploring...

Beaten Puppies...

I have been standing in my studio at night. Almost every night for a couple of months now. Trying to let some of the pain out. Some of the torment I feel. To let any of the mixed emotions and anguish pour from me onto a canvas.

But I just stand there, staring in to a blankness that stares back. Taunting me. Daring me to take action. But nothing comes. The pain, and the loneliness build. I can feel the pressure inside. Everyday I wander farther into the darkness where light and sound have stopped. All I can hear are my own thoughts of longing and failure. Wondering how I will go on. How I will find happy again or how I might fake happy until I get there.

Every morning it takes all of my energy and effort to even climb out of bed and go on with my days.

We are still a part of each others day but the void grows. Fake it till you make it has only grown more fake. I wait patiently, trying not to push. Trying not to seem as pathetic as I feel. Like a puppy thats been beaten but still keeps coming back. Each time thinking if I can only love her more, that someday, somehow, she may love me again.

She doesn't look at me with love anymore. She tolerates me. She fakes it for him. Waiting until he might be old enough to explain what happened. Maybe someday she could explain it to me because I don't understand. Even through the hard parts I never gave up. I never doubted that I would love her forever.

I make this all sound like I have done nothing wrong but I know I did. I made mistakes. I said the wrong things, I did the wrong things. I drove her away. Everyday she spends near me she gets farther away.  My heart breaks more and more. More than I ever thought it could be broken. I miss her so much. Then pain has grown from emotional to physical. My body hurts inside and out.

I hate feeling like this. I wonder if I would be better off just disappearing, the way I used to back in the day. But I know I could never give him up or just walk away. I would rather live in pain with my heart in pieces than give up being a daily part of his life. She may be gone to me but he's still here. As long as I have him I know there is a shot at happiness someday.

Someday I know love will find me again. I know it may not be her, as much as hope it will be. She's the only one I can imagine spending my life with. She's the only one I can imagine loving. Time will tell. It always does. Time will not heal all wounds. Some pain will never go away. It scars over and gets pushed to the back of our minds until someday we can almost forget. Someday we can almost forgive.

Some days I blame myself. Some days I blame her. Most days I blame her. I think she gave up me but I don't know why. I try to think about the people I have loved and then stopped loving. What made me change? Why did my feelings for them stop?

We work opposite hours. Her days, me nights. We see each other about a half an hour a day before she goes to work.  Each night when I come home my pulse quickens just a bit as I open the garage door. There is a slight sigh of relief when I see her car there. She hasn't packed and left me, yet. They're both in bed. I sneak in so I wont wake them. Some nights I stand in the hall way in the darkness just staring at them while they sleep. I go form room to room sitting on the edge of their beds listening to them breathe. Sometimes for hours. I wake up with the hope that it's all been a dream and that I will find my best friend, my lover that used to be happy to spend every moment near me. And when I find that it wasn't a dream I try to throw on my happy face anyway. I don't want him to know how sad I am that I lost her. I don't want him to see the pain that love can bring because I know what joy love can bring and that's what I want him to believe in. I want him to believe in love, because even with all of the pain I still believe in love.

I spend each day trying to be happy and be the person that she fell in love with, hoping and praying that one day she will look at me and remember what we had.

It makes me wonder most days. Was everything just a fantasy? Was any of it real? Maybe I just imagined our entire lives together. Maybe we were never as happy and in love as I remember us being. I do tend live in a fantasy. It's possible that she never loved me the way I remember. Our entire lives could have happened in my mind. Did I fall in love with her or the fantasy I had of her?

I spend so much time wondering what I did wrong. Wondering how I can fix it. Trying to forget that you can't make someone love you. They do or they don't. And she doesn't. But if I only love her more she might love me again. Then I wonder how long I can hang on to what's left.

Even the worst day with her in it, is better than a good day with out her...

3rd Grade Versification...

"Since I am me I would go weee! 

If I kissed the girl I liked.

Since I am me I would go weee!

If the girl I liked kissed me."

He showed this to his teacher on Valentines Day. The next day I got an email telling me that this was borderline inappropriate for a third grader.

My first reaction was, WOW! We talked about it at home. He claims it's not about anyone in-particular. We encouraged his writing and the sharing of said writing with us. And maybe he should keep a few things for home life and not share them at school.

Borderline inappropriate or not, I thought it was awesome.

Why do I feel like parenting just got a lot more complicated?

And, It's Back...

After a six month hiatus, we are please to announce that CHADSPICKNALL.COM is back on-line!

WooHoo!

                                                                                                                                       
Now if only the studio was in such good condition...
                                                                                
                     

                                                       

                                                                                                      

Not Who I Appear To Be..

How well do you know yourself? How much time do you spend looking at yourself in the mirror?  Do you look the way you think? 

Have you ever looked at yourself in a photograph, and thought,"That's not the way I look.!" or "I don't take good photos."

Except...That is the way you look. 

It's not the photo, it's you.

I was looking at myself in the mirror the other day and thought, I look pretty good. Later that day I saw a photo of myself taken that same day. My first thought was, "WOW, what a horrid photo. How did they catch me in such bad light?

Later that day I glanced at myself in the mirror again. That's when it hit me. The person looking back at me isn't me.

Ok, it is me. But I'm the only living human being that sees 'mirror me'. The rest of the world, sees 'photo me'. 

In the mirror, everything about me, in reality, is backward. I see my hair parted on the left, but it's really parted on the right. I see my rings and ear rings on my right hand and right ear. But they're really on the left. The scar I see on my left cheek is really on my right. When I smile, I see the right side of my face go a little higher than the left, except it's the left side that goes higher.

I only see mirror me. Everyone else, sees photo me.

Everything I thought I knew about myself and the way look is backwards. 

What if other things I thought about myself are backwards too?

I think I'm a good person. A some what talented artist, writer, cook, family man, athlete, intelligent, witty, attractive... a bit of a renaissance man.  

What if I have it backwards. Maybe it's just mirror me that's this guy, and photo me is merely delusional.

I can't see photo me. What else have I been looking at backwards? What else about have I been wrong about.

I see myself one way. The world sees the reverse of that. Does that apply to my actions and thoughts too? When I do things I think are cute or funny, is the world seeing it that way too?

I had never really given any prolonged thought to things that have been said to me or the way the world have reacted to me at times. 

Maybe they were seeing photo me when I was being mirror me. They would have seen the reverse of what I thought I was doing or saying.

Now I am completely confused as to which person I am. For much of or all of my life I have been thinking I was mirror me. In reality I was always photo me. The problem now is that I don't know who photo me is. He's a stranger to me. And photo me has me questioning how well I know mirror me. Maybe I don't know either me at all and I have no idea who I really am.

I used to look in the mirror and see Mr. Incredible. Now when I look, I see Bob.