Graphically Inclined

Ever just had that thing you liked to do and were seemingly pretty decent at it? For me, it has always been graphics and painting. It's always been something I can get completely absorbed in and truly enjoy. For so long it has just been something I can do. I don't give it much thought, but always enjoy it. How about you?

Where the hell have I been?

I regret the tremendous silence as of late. I have been on the go. Mostly the three readers I have are well aware of my travels of late, but on the off chance you have been waiting for an update, allow me to clear up the last several weeks. Caldera work picked up over the last month or so. Starting before I left Chicago on Feb 7th, I was busy everyday producing renderings for events in Orlando, Phoenix, and Colorado. It was tremendously satisfying to have artwork to do while my waiting tables gig was drying up due to season and economy. Side note, $5 is not a tip unless your bill is in the neighborhood of $10. The person bringing your food is not doing it for satisfaction of serving you or the hourly wage divided among the government and runners.

Yet I digress. On the 7th, I boogied to Colorado and quickly thereafter hopped in a huge truck to convoy with Scott to Phoenix for the NBA All-Star game. See the above picture for a glimpse of part of that drive. Caldera was subcontracted to handle to players gala the night before the game. We put in some long hours n the road and in the convention center, but the result was great. I was particularly proud of the step and repeat banner that the VIP's had their photos taken in front of as that design nearly killed me and my computer.

We hustled back to Loveland and arrived at the hanger we were transforming into a black tie event the next weekend at the same time as the trucks returning from Orlando. All three trucks unloaded there and we commenced to working longer hours to achieve the stunning result on Sat. night. When all was said and done, we put in 85 hrs that week.

While striking that party, we carefully set aside the gear for another party the following weekend for Northern Colorado AIDS Foundation in Ft. Collins. At this point, most of our gear had not even made it all the way to the shop before being deployed for its next event. We also finally enjoyed our first day off that week. It was a blur.

The party in the Ft. was great and ended up utilizing 5 truck loads of furniture and gear. We struck that as soon as the party was over and around 3am, we were finished. When I signed out I logged 105 hrs for those two weeks. Needless to say I am sore and tired.

Now within this time, there has been inquiries into relocating to Colorado, planning a wedding, dealing with a home robbery in Chicago. I will go further into those aspects soon, but for now I have to wrap up and catch a flight back to Chicago. There is a girl there I am dieing to scoop up and hold.

Till next time.

Live from Wicker Park!

I am checking in from our sweet house sitting gig in Wicker Park. Well technically I think we are in Bucktown, but close enough. Tiffany's friends Shannon and Zubair just bought a place here and we are house/dog sitting. for them. It is a beautiful, new home with a very modern feel to it. By comparison to our sweet studio in Roger's Park, this feels like a palace. In some ways it is though. The marble floors in the bathroom and basement are heated. Envy not only me but my happy feet.

I other news from the artistic front, it has been a more exciting week to be sure. I am officiall on hold for a day on a feature film in May. That seems to be a step away from booking, but as I learned in LA, nothing is guaranteed until they have you on film. None the less, I would get to do a scene with the star of the movie. Un til the whole thing is more for sure, let's just say it's one of the stars from the new Ocean's 11 movies.

Yesterday, I had an audition for a big casting director here in Chicago. I tried an unconventional route to get them interested and it worked. I finally got to go in and read some comercial copy for them yesterday. It went fantastic and the interview went very well. At the end I received the bittersweet compliment that had they seen me 4 months ago they could have used me in the new Depp/Bale movie being shot here. A great compliment, but makes you wince a little too at the near miss factor. None the less, more positive signs. I am having a lot of fun with my approach to acting right now. Being much happier where I live is seemingly influencing the way I approach getting work.

I am also getting quite a bit of work from Caldera to design. I just wrapped up a new design for their business cards and have a wopping 9 renderings to get done this week. It's fun, but I am still struggling a little with making those more efficiently. I am seeing progress though and am excited to get to do more art. As Cody reminded me of yesterday, this is the year of Bringing the Art Back.

So far so good.