Sketchbook Page 1 RIDE THE WILD?...notes through MAY 28

...and so it all started when I was invited to retrieve a remarkable friend from the studio of one Mr. Jeffrey b. Childs... This honored task got me thinking about how, a very long long time ago, if one had said I'd be in a similar situation as Jeffrey, ie in a country home with a garage-barn like studio... I'd be sayin' "what, I'm going to heaven?" (we must get pics of Jeffrey's place... another mission; if he allows it)... My mind began to meander, wander over to the old vault the tomb perhaps, into a part of the vault left more or less untouched for many years... The tomb contained three things... Things I had started... never finished  and... never started...
APRIL 2015: A QUICK REMINDER...
(...and at this time, question perhaps... just exactly where does joy come from?)
Ride the Wild Jesus was a piece I'd assembled when I was living in the Carpet Factory on King Street in Toronto, say 1985/86... What does it mean? Who cares at this point, we can assign it meaning as it unfolds... (and indeed, oh brother, meaning it shall be assigned) :-)
I'd built this box of a house like thingy out of canvas stretchers a few years before "Ride the..." while I was actually attending OCA... when I was living at the corner of Walnut and Queen... just after splitting with the High School sweethearts... I don't specifically recall what I call it then, today I am calling it "Trapped Inside his own _ _ ART" (this may change)
And an idea that raced through my head, an almost obsessively compulsive thought during the Ancient Art Career... and on into the years we were building Mackerel... for far more than the four+ year Ancient Art Career...
...where do ideas come from? How long do they last? Are they ever really GONE forever? • Perhaps your sillier ideas, still lay in wait... disguised as notions... feeding up on who you're becoming... looking for the moment to pounce... WIll you recognize them? Do they even have a pale glimmer of familiarity? ...who the hell knows! At this point, I really just need some dumb reason to do this thing I seem totally driven to DO! :-) AND... away we GO!

APRIL 15, 2015: AND THEN SUDDENLY... THE FIRST MISSION UNFOLDS...
On the day after a nice night attending the last of the Kingston Art's and Letter's Club meetings, a remarkable friend takes me up on, hmmm... was it a plea to invite me on a morning's walk. I'd been thinking that a key element of one of the pieces could be found out in the woods... As geography would have it... One of the closest and nicest places for a walk around our neighborhood is partly of wooded...

Belle Park is a jut of land to the north of downtown Kingston. Along the Cataraqui River. Near where they plan to build the third crossing. Access to the wooded portion of the park runs along side a swap, the river and a golf course. They've planted regularly spaced trees which, when reaching a certain age and diameter the local beavers seem to find perfect for damning the swamp.

The diameter of these trees also seems a suitable size for the standing rigging of Ride the Wild Jesus (as it's known now). So, off to see what wreckage the beavers left behind for us... all we ask is that they've left us three... [click here or on the image to see our first mission]
APRIL 16, 2015: COMPLETING THE FIRST MISSION INVIGORATES THE PROCESS...
APR 20: This whole thing grows legs (or is it wings) or better yet, ARMs after we completed first mission... Out for a coffee, the very next day... out comes the sketchbook... the structure of how these pieces will be built here, in this virtual big room with big white walls is laided out, AND... a more detailed (almost as detailed as the original drawn back in the 1980s) emerges... I miss drawing (and am quite out of practice)
APR 18 Thought it might be fun if you could see my now current artist's studio which also doubles as a desk and a prayer chair... This chair will take on further significance, IF this project becomes significant at all...
.APR 18..every once in a while it would seem, I'm likely going to have to sort this all out. This is how I used to work, pen on paper, writing furiously... notes... all over :-)
APR 18 On April 16th, after completing the first of quite possibly many missions, I upgraded the sketch for "Ride the Wild Jesus"...

APRIL 18, 2015: THE SECOND MISSION [ASSEMBLAGE] BEGINS. A BIT OUT OF SEQUENCE... RIGHT ON SCHEDULE
APR 19 One of the end games is to recreate as perfect a virtual realization of my ancient art career as possible; why? I really don't know yet • I really don't • ?

APR 21 Second chances after long pauses? An answer to regrets? Certainly not a longing look back, but maybe a bit of a wistful "remember when"... (why not?) Perhaps I wish I were more courageous back then, but this is not what I recall... I more remember a fella who didn't so much take the easy way out but allowed the next fancied challenge to have it's way...
APR 21 ...look at this old fool taking the time to learn software he'll never ever use to make a little money... finally a proper skill set :-) How far will you push this un-reality... time will tell, I guess..
APR 21 ...and then the dreaded notion of time creeps into the picture: "I learned to treat time as a gift, rather than a threat" - (me rethinks)

APRIL 18, 2015: THE SECOND PART OF THE MATERIALS MISSION... UNFOLDS ACROSS A SMALL TRIANGULAR SECTION OF DOWNTOWN KINGSTON
APR 18 A walk from one important place to the next on a gorgeous Saturday morning... APR 20 At least one cat has escaped the bag, no? :-) Begs the question: "By which door do you come before him?" (...if that question alone doesn't completely freak out an old friend or two, frighten another and really piss off more than I care to imagine :-) • I'm now wondering how the original builder might respond to the question? As it's asked; that it was asked at all. • Who were we then? What were the motives, ideas, the thinking behind these original little sketches... the obsessive thoughts? It could easily have simply been... let's get laid (or let's get laid as an analogy to "love me, love me, say that you love me, hold me hold me say that you want me") • Who WAS I trying to impress? Am I trying to impress someone... this time around? • Motive... why the fuck does anyone make/create sometime any how? (money vs. sex vs. joy)
APR 21 (later): Of course ALL OF THIS will have to be translated into an obtuse, fancy-pants (virtually unreal) "artists statement" :-)

APRIL 18, 2015: NOTES FLOW UPON THE COMPLETION OF THE SECOND PART OF THE MATERIALS MISSION...
APR 21 - Just to spring the memory... After the morning first mission, the second thing to do that day was to go see the current show away out at the Modern Fuel... Basically a dry run of the date none of my online dating prospects saw fit to take me up on....
POF VERBATIM: "A suggestion, meet for a coffee and then walk out to Modern Fuel; I haven't seen the current show there yet and it closes Saturday. A thought" - Gordon :-) • APR 21 Likely a good thing, as there's only one I know who'd like be able to respond to the show that was hung there last month (yikes, you mean to world is still full of bad, no... art I do not like?) :-) • Maybe I should have asked one of the other two? :-) (YES, I did have a date that Saturday night, out of the blue and into... another story)

APRIL 19, 2015: NO PLANS FOR CONDUCTING THE NEXT PART OF THE MATERIALS MISSION, BUT MORE NOTES AND MORE ASSEMBLAGE
APR 21 Sunday saw me awake to more of the melancholy... BUT, the day ended well... very well! Rocks were tossed... things let go of... new things grabbed onto, to be held onto not so tightly? Not likely... not likely... as it would appear, I let go of nothing at all. (case in point)
APR 21 As I half suspected... much of this is going to become about the rigging itself... (and? What's with this "skewered again" business?)

APRIL 20, 2015 JUST MORE NOTES AND A LITTLE ASSEMBLAGE
APR 21... I noticed (obsessed?) last night that the (heart) house was based on 10' x 10'... is this something I should look into? How doggedly should I pursue the factor of the dogmatic 3? hmmm... I mean the whole thing could begin to seem more obvious than I'd like (although, perhaps it's an obvious ruse) :-)  ...arrgh, but it will have 4 walls... then he thinks, but, it will have six surfaces... (something tells me the little house will be resized...
APR 21... Obviously heart, mind and soul kinda stuck with me... (but that? That's just plain obvious) :-)

APRIL 23, 2015 THIS ASPECT WILL LIKE PROVE MORE IMPORTANT
APR 25 I'm more than certain the geography of these missions will expand considerably... Of course many mission may not even leave this desktop. Going to try and keep meticulous track of any travels, or simply points along the way that may have taken place, somewhere specific, ages ago... there are after all 30 some odd sites in the old city of Toronto alone... (map found here, for now)

APRIL 23, 2015 AND THIS ASPECT? WILL IT PROVE MORE IMPORTANT?
Roughly... a few friends seem to be following along in my madness :-) Well, isn't that nice... it's 2015 I guess... (more on this note sooner or later)


Visit the project on my personal Facebook page... if you dare :-)

APRIL 25, 2015 MISSION THREE BEGINS IN EARNEST...
APR 25... lets just say, MISSION THREE got off to an interesting start, with... punctuation... not sure what to say about this day really. Was last night another mission? If so, it was successful in spurring some thinking for the yet to be named 3rd element... AND it looks as though we can call it the ceremonial start to the MISSION... it looks like time will make it's play... TIME "is a gift, not a threat"...
Life is a hospital where every patient is obsessed by the desire of changing beds. One would like to suffer opposite the stove, another is sure he would get well beside the window. - Charles Baudelaire
...OH SO MUCH MORE :-)
Me thinketh the weekend's allotment of time spent on missions... booked
APR 26 Just how MUCH time has there been since 1980 and 2015? The easy answer, 35 years... this project demands the uneasy answers :-)
...until it's another night by yourself in the coffee shop. Good thing, I've always something to do.
APR 25 (EOD)... It was one of those sets of days that generated a story to be told another day. A big story? Oh, it will be told that way... A good story? Indeed it could be framed either way. Good in so much as although the arch was short, it's path, crisp, to the point... The better outcome, a flurry of sketchbook activity for this madness; work done on other job sites and... the possibility I might just sleep through this night. HOW MUCH MORE TIME, AND HOW MANY MORE TIMES? Which way and how far will I be flung... tomorrow?

APRIL 26, 2015 STRUGGLING WITH... HOW FAR FLUNG?
...struggling with the details of the (yet un-named) piece. The piece that was never started but most obsessed over... four years. While walking back from the point, the site of MISSION ONE part one, I imagined it afloat. I was imagining it in operation (getting quite the chuckle from that) as it flung folks here and there... I figured, if I were to start flinging folks, it may be best to have it out on a lake so that those flung folks would land in the water... Now then, can a human being survive being flung, catapulted from atop a near 100' pole into even water? This needs researching... • Oh, and we found some other things while out and about today as well • APR 27 From time to...
alone time • good time • bed time • time out
...time we seem to stumble across things can be used immediately. Reference for the nut and bolt assembly that attaches the erect to the supine; thoughts on these chairs and what they might mean (if you recall, each and every element will have meaning, if not more)... And then even more old and far too obvious artworks from the ancient art career... this one actually built then destroyed almost immediately. I believe I re-used the crane-like feature as the leg for a wall mounted kitchen table...

APRIL 27, 2015 ARCHEOLOGY worthy of being
Personal archaeology helps to construct a 4th dimensional imagination by thinking about our impact as agents of change for the future. Examining the objects of our own lives through an archaeological perspective allows us to see those objects as artifacts; evidence that reveals our values and choices and uncovers the record of a unique individual life. - taken from The Distant Mirror ...ummmm, OK.

APRIL 29, 2015 PROGRAMMING NOTE: I HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD
Insidious: awaiting a chance to entrap • harmful but enticing • having a gradual and cumulative effect (Merriam-Webster)
Fear not those braveth enough to venture this far. Mission Three may appear nare more than a belly-button-esq naval gaze into what my seven year old son might call the "butt-crack" of my mind. It's a long path towards figuring out why; the path needeth starts somewhereth... and this path will wend it's way through a healthy bit of wreckage before we... reach, what? Enlightenments? (I don't think so)... Well, somewhere close to enlightenments, let us hope.

This Saturday I attend a highschool re-union, brace yourself for wreckage (and naval-belly-buttoned crack gazings) :-)
On another note, what a beautiful sky this morning... AND "I hope I die before I get old"... how that pop-rock classic lyric line seems so utterly stupid now... die? before I get old? ...miss the punchline? • "Youth is wasted on the wrong people." (from It's a Wonderful Life)

MAY 03, 2015 MISSION ONE? or PREMONITIONS of CORINTHIANS 13 impact on MISSION THREE?
MAY 05 ...if I'm not mistaken, many times we set out to do something, something totally different takes place. The most pre-planned of the MISSION ONE submissions to date, submission C unfolded, nothing as planned. Mistakes were made, equipment forgotten, technology problems, quality of light poor recollection of the setting itself... interferance? • The first two submissions, so haphazard, perhaps this one was begging a bit of that for it's own. In the meantime, did we get what we needed? • A few days before, I'd found out that all my high school artwork had finally been thrown in the garbage on the eve of my high school reunion... A woman I hadn't seen in 33 years who I hadn't remembered snuck up on me... • Is there a woman involved in all this? Likely more than one, more likely five... or more, maybe even a car, or two.
...and where does that take us? • It's less likely exactly what you were thinking, what you are expecting. Something totally different is far more likely to take place... make no assumptions... and no one gets injured... well, not just no one :-) ...when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. - CORINTHIANS 13
MAY 06.... sometimes these wonder-full deceptive epiphanies unveil themselves far more slowly than we're conditioned to believe they might... damned conditioning. As I approach my weekend, yes... MY WEEKEND, the anniversary of my having been squirted out like everyone else... I've been reminded of thoughts already thought long settled; there is no negatives, no so-called bad experience. Calamity, merely a simpleton's invention; another bit of conditioned mental mechanics to lazily add pre-packaged-plastic feeling to that one has foolishly convinced themselves they're expected to feel. The conditionings that have us closing our minds in defence to these feeling... Time to re-embrace the beguiling absurdities, re-erase this misleading conditioning again. Get on with it bonehead, this un-reinvention. Get on with this old mission, these new missions and their ensuing submissions... definitely with not an I'm better, but rather the glorious ...why bother with that attitude... so much more to experience and explore when considering... pain is joy encased in a hard shell we simply haven't yet figured out how to crack... and then you find yourself bleeding, giggling and full of glee to find your morning's cereal bowl, now empty, was full of bits of broken glass... onward rice-crispy-crunchers!

MAY 06, 2015 INDEED... PREMONITIONS of CORINTHIANS 13
When I became a man, I gave up childish ways... the childish way we're conditioned to believe are a man's way? Oh what another wondrous weekend awaits :-) (me thinks this sketchbook will be ablaze... then again, I did have a thought... is it time for the maquettes? ...and at what scale?)

MAY 08, 2015

MAY 09, 2015 HAVING GROWN YOUNGER... THIS WEEKEND OF THE STINKING ME BEGINS...
TO THOSE WHO ARE TRULY AWKWARDLY YOUNG
Old age is no place for sissies.
 - Bette Davis

Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.
 - Andre Maurois
AND THOSE WHO THINK THEMSELVES STILL YOUNG
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. - Victor Hugo
OR THOSE WHO WISH THEY WERE YOUNGER THAN THEY ARE
Adults are obsolete children.
 - Dr. Seuss

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
 - Henry David Thoreau
AND THOSE WHO ARE YOUNG DESPITE BEING QUITE OLD
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
 - Mark Twain
...AND THEN HE ASKS: Do you think me mature?

MAY 10, 2015 I HAD TO ADMIT, I'D GONE TOO FAR ON ONE ASPECT OF MISSION TWO - SO STOP AND START GOING TOO FAR ON MISSION THREE - SEEMS ABOUT RIGHT
this MAY make no sense at all... A seeming departure... necessary? Into the grips of the navel-gaze, if only for a day • MAY 09 A mission on it's own? Un-reinventing one's self. Reminding oneself of a much younger you... The Ancient Artist... recalling those days alone, but not lonely. Relearning this precious skill? Or a self absorbed exercise in more utterly useless wallowings? • MAY 10 in the end, it was a very good, an even, productive day.
...AND ANOTHER TON OF NOTES COMING... SOMEDAY
(after I deal with a few burning issues happening out here in the so-called real world)
MAY 17... impetus (noun): a force that causes an object to begin moving or to continue to move... the force that makes something happen or happen more quickly.... a force that causes something (such as a process or activity) to be done or to become more active... • It has taken me more than a week to figure out what happened last weekend, oh a lot of sketches and notes, for certain... but. What happened and what is happening... what's with this raging mumbo jumbo of none to well stitched together thoughts; this project, why it has started and... Where it is going? The IMPETUS for all this on one hand so identifiable, easy... on the other... and twisted melange of obsessive thoughts... does this project help clear this, OR is it adding to it. AS OF this, the next weekend... I refuse to answer on the grounds.... MISSION 3B
One of the more pleasant pleasant events over these last 10 days was a trip to the Modern Fuel to see Jeffrey B Child's new piece....
...might Jeffrey remain simply part of the chronological 1st impetus-suses, OR perhap a ceremonial mentor. We shall see (?)

MAY 15, 2015 IT ALWAYS KIND OF FRIGHTENED ME, NOT HAVING COMPLETED LAST WEEK'S THOUGHTS BEFORE HEADING INTO THIS WEEKEND'S... THINKING
I think I am moments away from ditching this week of self referential navel-gazing twaddle 
and getting back to the real work of un-making these not-real pieces of artwork. 
What more will we lose? • What more could possibly be lost?
...and on Sunday, I wear my suit. (maybe I'll go to church)
MAY 19: It looks as though we've re-found the joy in simply fiddling around n' building these things.

MAY 20, 2015 THE SACRED NUT
I found this on the street on the way to the bettermentation-autorium earlier today. Does it mean anything? I mean I've found nuts on the street before, likely dozens....
.... But how many nuts have I found on the street moments after virtually screwing 3 dozen or more onto a "wild Jesus"? • I think I'll hold onto it for a while, see if begins to speak to me...

MAY 22, 2015 I'M STARTING TO THINK I HAVE THE ORDER OF THINGS WRONG 
...a project for this weekend. The time of the week... it would appear I tend to do these things.
The Original Sequence
I seemed to have had it right the first time... Why did it change? I have no recollection of any particular reason to re-arrange the order of things... Perhaps I just wasn't thinking...
Reinforced 
...not thinking - before saying, before doing... an ancient and often dangerous habit of mine. So have I not learned a thing?
So, How'd This Happen?
Let's prove to be a learning monkey...
Perhaps all we can ever learn is how to undo the mistakes we make quickly, gracefully and graciously... 
MAY 23... God is picking on me? • How many times do we have to make the same stupid mistakes over and over and over again... forever? • Things were in the proper sequence, then somehow got mixed up... two things... backwards • You can be frustrated, learn something and/or fix it going forward. • Over the phone she said, "he's with a friend"... I suggested, "call him by name..." don't be timid... I was essentially telling her... don't make the same mistakes I just made... do not err on the side of tenuousity, be bold, direct and honest... (this has a long long long way to go as yet)... for today... .
Correct the mistakes... as many as you can... in the time and space allotted.
To be continued...
...problem solved? Ya, right!

MAY 23, 2015 FEAR OF SYMBOLS - OR NO FEAR - AN ENDING - OR A RENEWAL OF VIGOR?
The Sacred Nut?
MAY 23... as was expressed strongly in a conversation last night... "today is May 22nd, I haven't a fucking clue what is going to happen on May 23rd"... Are you afraid of this? Am I afraid of this? Pieces of metal bolted together at right angels, or is it angles (many times I find my misspellings both conscious and subconsciously purposeful) • Is this me delving into the ancient arguments over what this or that means? • I once asked an artist "did anyone question you over the symbolism?"...I mean really, if one man paints red lines on a wall in a certain way... one would expect another man to ask, "What does that mean?" • Begs the questions, what is the Sacred Nut? What is a Wild Jesus? Is anyone at home in the _ _ art House? Who gets flung? How far flung? ...and in which direction will we have flung them? • These oh so obvious layers... The machine that re-creates, un-invents the process of one's falling in love (really?)... The machine that forces one to find his own spirituality (really?)... Or is this just me, yet another stupid human converting some seemingly silly spiritual journey into his own little private religion fraught full of meaningless little... symbols. Beware the Sacred Nut.. It has begun to speak... in tongue twisted turns no less 

MAY 25, 2015 END PART ONE? - OR A RENEWAL OF VIGOR?
and of course we'll address the meaning of all this in... part two
MAY 25 ...seems a good enough way to leave the project simmering for a while (back to the aforementioned screaming real world issues). But what are we left with... a Sacred Nut and a still just started... thing(s)... that quite likely may never be finished (again). Will we ever get to Ride the wild Jesus look into what lay tucked, just inside our own _ _ Art or get Far Flung? Who knows? • But how nice is it to have added yet another really meaningful thing to this pocket full of things I've been carrying along with me since. oh, ancient times (thank you).
YOU AND I HAVE MADE GOOD CHOICES RECENTLY. Or have WE?
MAY 28 Paul points out that the Sacred Nut is not a unique thought. • When did this slip itself into my subconscious? • Does unique thought count for much here anyhow?
AND THEN... IT'S MAY 28th... THE END(ISH) OF THE 5TH MONTH AS GOOD AS TIME AS ANY TO BARE ONE'S SOUL, NO?

A NEW ORDER of Things... GO TO SKETCHBOOK - PAGE 2
corrected mistakes • items below will one day make it to another, second page

A SUMMARY OF PAGE 1 NOTES... Coming soon (links to each entry). For now... go to page two for more of this... is it madness or simply a creative outlet?
OLD DREAMS?
WHO KNOWS WHAT... OR WHEN IS NEXT?
This project is NOT a priority... It will unfold here as time and opportunity allow ...but... Stay tuned, it may take YEAR :-)

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