January 19, 2023 - GZA, founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan was performing in Ventura, CA. Before the show, he accepted 7 challengers to speed chess! He beat 5 of the first 6 challengers with ease. I was up last. It was a close game but GZA ran outta time and I won! But it was so close I asked if he wanted to play it through and he agreed, so we continued and then I decisively won after getting a pawn across and a second queen. It was so fun hanging with him as he rapped and joked with everyone there. Afterward he played a dope show with great energy on the stage and from the crowd. Wu-Tang forever!
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While on vacation in the northwest I decided to stop and have lunch with my old boss, Pastor Stoot. He was the first one who ever gave me a chance to teach in the classroom, he always believed in me as much as he did the kids. While I was there, he got a call asking if someone could do an inspirational art project with the kids for a promotional fundraiser! This cosmic coincidence that I happened to be there at that moment was declared a "Jesus moment" by Pastor Stoot as he immediately asked me if I'd be willing to guest teach. I quickly agreed and for the next two days I spent about 6 hours working with Kindergarten and 1st-5th grade students to make an individual/collaborative art project that would promote good in the world while also promoting the school. The school, "Rise Up Academy" has a mascot of eagles so each piece of art was turned into a feather. Students cut their own feathers and glued and wrote everything themselves. I just sparked their ideas and gave the eagle framework for them to rise up through! It was an honor for me to teach here after 12 years since I first taught here. The kids were great too :) On my final day there, another cosmic coincidence happened when a rare bald eagle landed right outside the school as I entered! *magical* This mural should be going on display somewhere big, stay tuned!
Looking through some old photo albums I realized that my mom had saved my first ever fingerpaintings (I was 2 years old!) and coloring sheet. So cool to see them. I wonder what I was thinking at that time? Probably I was just feeling more than anything. Either way, this is some of the most original, untrained, and freely created art I'll probably ever make :)
While driving north to Yosemite, we stopped in Fresno for lunch and went to nearby Woodward Park... Much to my surprise, part of the park included an "Art of Life Healing Garden"! The space was dedicated to and created by cancer survivors as a way to share their artwork, inspire others to be expressive, and to remind everyone to fight on. It was such a cool garden with various art pieces and musical instruments you could play. Luckily I had a few copies of my book "The Art of Life" on hand so I signed and left two copies easily hidden in the park so that some unsuspecting people could find them. I tried reaching out to the Art of Life organization to see if I could donate or support them somehow but got no response. I also tried selling copies of my book and donating 100% of the profits to the Art of Life organization but I sold no copies. Oh well, hopefully someone will enjoy the copies I left and I sure enjoyed my time at the garden. Cool to see the Art of Life is a concept that is spreading :)
Today I participated in BAAD Sunday in Santa Barbara, CA and sold $202 worth of art and then immediately donated $202 toward the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission, helping local homeless people and those struggling with addiction. It felt great to share my art and let go of the desire to earn money from it. I'm eager to see how much more good I can do with my art under the new "Non-Prophet" brand :)
I used to think I wanted to be a famous artist who made tons of money from their art... But over the years I've learned chasing dollars and playing the game called capitalism is a bunch of bullshit... and what really makes me happy is teaching, creating, and sharing art. In fact it makes me so happy that I've willingly lost/spent money every year of my life doing it and I plan to keep doing so. When you factor in all the costs for supplies, publishing, printing, marketing, art classes, taxes, and more, art is quite an expensive pursuit... But it makes me happy and believe that you should invest in your sanity, and I'm going all in... And luckily for me, I've worked my way up to a point where I can now earn a living teaching art. I want my motivation to create and share art to be free from financial aspirations so I'm now changing my business name to "Non-Prophet". As a "Non-Prophet" artist I'm committing myself to paying it forward by initiating a policy where I will donate 100% of the proceeds from my art toward various charities. My focus will be on supporting the environment, the homeless/poor, and other humanitarian causes. I still believe my art is worth money (in fact, it's worth more than money!) and it is valuable in many ways however I already have much more than I need and giving back to the community is a constant reminder of that. Let's make the world a better place, peace y'all! In the 2021 Spring edition of the "Moorpark Review" my art "Still Evolving" was featured as the only full-page image! Publishing was delayed as was the shipment so I just received it today.
While going for a light jog up in Bellingham, WA I noticed out of the corner of my eye what I thought was a 4-leaf clover... I gave it a second look and sure enough, 'twas! I briefly browsed the surrounding clovers and quickly noticed there were about 6 or 7 other 4-leaf clovers very nearby! I left the other clovers and returned home. Then I told my brother I thought I had found a lucky, big money patch and so our Mom drove us back there later that day... Within 20 minutes we had scoured that approximately 2x8' patch of grass and found 74 4-leaf clovers (2 of which actually had 5 leaves). I made a peace sign with the clovers for our Mom and we gave the rest away to friends and others :) My previous similar record was in 2012 in Everett, WA when I found 72 4-leaf clovers in 10 minutes, and those were all picked myself.
Many famous artists have painted self-portraits throughout time... If they had lived today, would they have considered selfies to be as worthy of such artistic prestige? What is the difference between a selfie and a self-portrait? I explored that idea recently by first taking many different selfies. I tried to be thoughtful about composition, perspective, lighting, and considered what I was trying to portray. I think most selfies generally are taken quickly and simply meant to let others know when/where you were at a certain time. Because of this, I think the main difference between selfies and self portraits is in the intention. A self-portrait takes a lot of time to make and because of that, more thought goes into each detail. There's nothing wrong with selfies, but I don't think most selfies are equivalent artistically to self-portraits. Regardless, my selfie exploration led to this painting... For this painting I limited myself to a zorn palette - meaning I only used 2 colors from the color wheel (yellow ochre and cadmium red), while also using black and white. I originally planned to paint the chess pieces, however after spending almost 15 hours on this painting, I was running out of time to submit this piece for my class... Then I had an idea... What if I titled the painting "Playin' Mindgames" and showed a player visualizing the game? And thus, a cool/new idea was created out of necessity and a creative/flexible mindset. There are already enough paintings of people playing chess, but I don't think there are many of people imagining playing chess ;)
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