project artschool = PÄS

as i seek to simplfy life, i strive to consolidate it's contents which can be very complicated. :) it used to be family + school + work = life. the past 19 months or so i've realized that my plate was much too full. family alone occupies the largest piece of the pie and to throw school on top of work on top of it all is just too much.

i'm consolidating work and school, sorta. i haven't registered for any classes this semester, but instead will open an art store in downtown fullerton. for quite some time it's been an unattainable dream, until now. i've always wanted to be in hospitality or work with people on a retail level. being in school, i've realized some immediate needs for local artists and i'd like to offer them conveniently right here in downtown. i will combine those needs with my work, primate design. and it will all take place at 115 S. Harbor Blvd. as soon as i can get the space presentable.

the space will be called PÄS (pronounced PAUSE). it's an acronym for Project Art School, but it also voices art in general. we should pause to view art, pause in life, smell the flowers, appreciate the details and in my retail environment, i'd like it to mean linger, but move on. it's a place where you stop, but it's not the final destination. it's a place where you find inspiration, then go on to create on your own. a place to think, and ponder ideas. all that in a little word: PÄS.

as mentioned in a previous post, 27 May 2009, i wanted to open an underground art&book supply. well, this is it – only not underground. it's smack dab in the middle of downtown. the idea is to offer the exact supplies the local art professor's are requesting of their students so that they don't have to drive to westminster, irvine or pasadena to get them or pay high shipping costs from buying online.

in addition to catering to students' art supply needs, the space will be used for gallery exhibitions, professional workshops, and simply a place to come for inspiration with a library of art and design publications.

naturally the consolidation of work and school also means i'll be combining the 2 blogs to create one interesting, all-encompassing Art Blog. the look will also change as i work on a new brand for PÄS.

until then, i have a lot of work to do because this is only the beginning...






soon projectartschool.com will not be this blog, but the vision of PÄS. linger in thought.

happy accidents: always something fresh.

david carson defined graphic design in the 1990's. "the grunge" look was at it's peak and designers were rebelling left and right, and creating design materials by digitally spewing on the page. i'm so guilty of it and as a matter of fact, that's one the reasons i was attracted to this field. on the regular, i'm all about order, but there's something about controlled chaos that really fits my personality. the ability to use a computer to make things precise and call it art was the answer to my lack of knowledge in art, and now, ironically, i love the printmaking-splatter ink-brush stroke-torn edge-crinkle smudge stain, kneeling-on-the-floor-sweating, hands-on aspect of the work i do.

today, "grunge" has found it's place (mainly in extreme sports and occasionally the wanna-be-youth marketeers) subsiding from the mainstream. and for a little stint, the ornate, curly-q, massive-layered-patterns reigned the mainstream, but now it's all about functionality. clean, clear, concise design with the the purest of typography. driven by, i believe, the explosion of 'screen' media.

the more i experiment with "the cut-up" process and relate it to design, the more i realize that i'm way behind the current times. and i'm fine with that. cutting up design is very similar to what david carson stamped on the industry years ago. my studies this semester led me to understanding rhythm more and it's active role in visual patterns, deconstruction, book design – including syntax and the grid, and in graphic design’s general flow. (paper 1 | paper 2)

now that the semester has gone to the wayside (or wastebasket), the thought-bubble just popped and david carson splattered all over my walls. i should have been researching him much earlier. his latest werks seem to still be very contemporary to me and not necessarily '90's'. check'im out:




david carson: the new architecture book by paul anderson(harvard) and david salomon(cornell)"the architecture of patterns" covers designs in progress, june 2009.


david carson: lucky disasters. art w/out intent.


david carson: cougar paper promotion.


david carson: part of the worldwide rebranding of western union. 2009.

more resources on th eking of happy accident s:
http://www.davidcarsondesign.com
http://www.creativereview.co.uk

on another note, i've been retrospecting, or contemplating my time in this program (and yes, still wondering the what, why, and how's of it) and went back one year to spring 2008 to see the work i did. none of it is related to my visions now, but it's still a piece of me. here are a few pages of my semester-end notes from ayear ago when i was supposedly just getting my feet wet. i believe it's even pre-projectartschool.com blog.


















umm, yeah.
i'm still getting my feet wet.
hmm.

cut-up: preliminary concepts for show in january.

i have my first solo show in january and it's going to be based around the thread that holds my being together: words. since the beginning of my career in graphic design i've been concepting with words. and now that my run as an MFA graphic design student nears its end, i want to explore my time in words. there will be more than words in the show, including experiments with montage, the roller poem and the flicker machine strobing mad ambiance, but what it comes down to is what i see myself as – a word lover, as i've always believed: 1 word presents 1000 images in my head.

january 19, 2010 is set for the opening but the ideas are still brewing. it will be in the Center Gallery of the Titan Student Union at Cal State Fullerton which is a pretty small gallery, but will be nice and intimate with the dreamachine as the centerpiece.

the working title is CUT-UP: Words Are Image, but very well may end up as ONE WORD PRESENTS A THOUSAND IMAGES. there will definitely be a handful of poems i've written. and i may feature a cut-up and/or visually stimulating works from a couple other artists.

- - - - -
from my proposal:

At a surrealist rally in the 1920s Tristan Tzara, the man from nowhere, proposed to create a poem on the spot by pulling words out of a hat. A riot ensued wrecked the theater. André Breton expelled Tristan Tzara from the movement and grounded the cut-ups on the Freudian couch.

A poem encourages, if not forces, one to focus on imagery, theme, and associative relationships, rather than on chronological causal structures as found in a novel or longer works of literature.

In the summer of 1959 Brion Gysin, painter and writer, cut newspaper articles into sections and rearranged the sections at random, formalizing the cut-up method bringing the collage to writers, which has been used by painters for fifty years. Writers will tell you that often their best works are accidents and manifest out of a stream of consciouness that cannot be explained. The best writing seems to be done almost by accident, but for writers, until the cut-up method became explicit, all writing is in fact cut-ups. You cannot will spontaneity. But you can introduce the unpredictable spontaneous factor with a pair of scissors. (my first experiment ://here)

Graphic Design is, by nature, completely planned mainly because the end result must be universal and legible. but i don't think the process has to be...

William S. Burroughs, who is most know for this process said,“The cut-up is actually closer to the facts of perception than representational painting. Take a walk down a city street and put down what you have just seen on canvas. You have seen a person cut in two by a car, bits and pieces of street signs and advertisements, reflections from shop windows - a montage of fragments. Writing is still confined to the representational straitjacket of the novel ... consciousness is a cut-up. Every time you walk down the street or look out of the window, your stream of consciousness is cut by random factors.”

The cut-up is a mechanical method of juxtaposition in which Burroughs literally cuts up passages of prose by himself and other writers and then pastes them back together at random. This literary version of the collage technique is also supplemented by literary use of other media. Burroughs transcribes taped cutups (several tapes spliced into each other), film cutups (montage), and mixed media experiments (results of combining tapes with television, movies, or actual events). Thus Burroughs’ use of cutups develops his juxtaposition technique to its logical conclusion as an experimental prose method, and he also makes use of all contemporary media, expanding his use of popular culture.

The cut-ups can be applied to fields other than writing. Dr. Neumann in his Theory of Games and Economic Behavior introduces the cut-up method of random action into game and military strategy: assume that the worst has happened and act accordingly. If your strategy is at some point determined . . . by random factor your opponent will gain no advantage from knowing your strategy since he can not predict the move.

The cut-up method could be used to advantage in processing scientific data. How many discoveries have been made by accident? We can not produce accidents to order. The cut-ups could add new dimension to anything — film, photography, ceramics, writing, and even graphic design. There is no reason to accept a second-rate product when you can have the best. And the best is there for all. “Poetry is for everyone.” The word is image and this will be an exhibit of image and theme, mainly through the cutting and reforming of words.

My thesis will consist of the my own personal explorations of Burroughs’ and Gysin’s experimental ideals. This exhibit is an introduction to those explorations with hopes of finding a new purpose and place for graphic design in the cut-up arena.
- - - - -

i'm excited to finalize the details in the fall. but for now, summer will be spent with the family on the road...

steven heller called out my fate.

"I have finally come to the realization that my self-education was like a dormant childhood illness that has returned in adult life to haunt me." i had printed this summer-2005-article from eye magazine (eye opinion) just over a year ago and stuck it with my stash of articles that may benefit me or be of interest one day.

just like my box of inspiring printed pieces housing direct mail pieces, brochures and ads as well as my browser's bookmark folder stuffed with cool web sites, i tap into these inspiring archives when i get into a rut. i have an oversized folder with articles that i've collected from the Times, online, or Xeroxs from books and other pubs that i resort to when i seek inspiration.

i have a meeting with some gallery directors next week to discuss a show i planned on exhibiting at the end of this semester. it was for the last project in my Special Studies class in which i withdrew after 85% completion. the space wasn't available any how, but is open for the beginning of fall. my biggest dilemma is if i should still exhibit my intended show — my decades book – progress shown at the end of this blog)? or do i come completely off the wall and make a show from something unrelated?

this is why i began the search in my article archives. i have plenty ideas for an exhibit, just none have ever been flushed out... and the meeting is next week. and now after re-discovering this article, i can't help but to believe that i'm merely a "capitalist tool," as steven heller put so in-my-face-ly. but it's true. i have a knack for pleasing clients, presenting a clear message, and selling the goods. but, is my lack of formal training holding me from finding my purpose in the MFA program? am i really a graphic designer? or just a creative person with the ability to juggle administration...

i should have been accepted into this program based on a social issue/graphic design problem that i wanted to confront over the next 3 years. instead, i was accepted based upon my "corporate" portfolio. perhaps my experience proved that i could think for myself with hopes that something would surface. well, after a year and a half, nothing has surfaced and i find myself completely alone. no comradery. no direction. no push. just a demand to create my own curriculum and plan to present to a committee. the news flash is loud and clear: i just don't have it.

read heller's article published in eye magazine summer '05 issue 56: "Me feral designer" and you will see where i'm coming from.

as for the exhibit in the fall, i'm still going to attempt it. i can't give up that easily. below is where my book was going. the plan was to extract the spreads and blow them up to present in a gallery setting... now, i thinking i'll do something much more interesting. as for the book, i was exercising a flow as the reader flipped through the decades of commercial art in america starting in the 50's. a rhythm would maintain with the chorus of vellum spreads showing a graphic transition of each of the decade "circles" as they separate the decade spreads.

cover:


50s:



60s:



70s:


80s:


90s:


and the NOW is even more incomplete than the 80s and 90s... i didn't have time to massage anything and before i knew it the semester was over. as i've taken the W's this semester, i've also taken a lesson. i know who i am and i will never stop learning, i just don't have control of the time line.

finally, just for fun, even as i discovered that the decades mesh together with fuzzy borders, i wanted to explore type treatments that represent each in a poster:

project artschool: i am a serif.

spring 2009 has ended now, and...

there may be a change soon. on this blog, project artschool. since the last third of my first half of the graduate program withdrew nothing new and injected nothing progressive, i'm forced to rethink my purpose here. lack of direction. lack of motivation. lack of the knowledge or research to create a decent thesis statement. i'm lost. and i'm fine with it.

i have no regrets for anything. the past. especially these last three semesters. i learned a lot. i learned how to learn. i grew an interest in design literature. and discovered my place.

i am a serif. with flare. juggling more. and more. than any (one) thing compared. to. compare... ison. i can be extreme. wear boxers. and sweat passion. a tagline. for the who, what, where, and why. but that’s only the half. as i jeopardize. a reputation. i am alive. a living oxy moron. who dares. death. daily. exposed. knowing that one can only grow. with others around. as you will find on this index to my (school) life. online. is merely on line. and no one will truly know me until they find time. to sit in a coffee house. and sip fine conversations. with cream and sugar. sweet nothings. envisioning. a life that is bigger. traditional. realist. fictitious. dreamer. i am a serif.

so why all the long hours. drawn out. tail chasing. solitude. when i'm finding no purpose. when i dig up a graduate level graphic design problem that i want to explore, i will apply to an art school and hit it head on. i can't burn a bridge that was never built. until then, i will continue to be who i am.

there's no surprise why this time will be eliminated. the summer is now necessary. i need it.

my mind is currently focused on project artschool, the underground art&book supply...

Fullerton, CA

Orange, CA

Long Beach, CA

this. spring break two thousand nine.

for reasons i cannot explain the brakes came on so easy this semester as i contemplate during spring break starting today a revelation that my classes are far too behind my thesis topic is hiding a mystery that quite frankly i'm tired of seeking all i want to really do is write but get guilty feelings like i'm wrong then i find myself searching my archives of works nothing to be proud of except the words.

somewhere in the middle of that run-on sentence i found this string of words that talks about this.

typography.

rules i strive to live
by.

always check your kerning. start off with negative tracking. at least negative ten. don't write vertical when communicating quickly. (hotel and motel are the exception.) nor with uneven or unbalanced words.

please don't leave your typesetting to a sign shop. they only own silly fonts have no taste in typographic usage and don't design with a purpose. this pome is for them. listen up.

location is key. place your type carefully. simply. in a second. always close-up double oh's. closer than your average kern. look. moon. poop. food. be sure the captial Tee and whY is close to your lower case oh. To. Yo.

and spread your double el's. million. brilliant. trillion. killer. don't ever use a font named after a city. ever. and move comic sans. to the trash can. on a mac. or recycle bin. if you're a user of i.b.m.

make a capital vee and a capital eay comfortable. VAGINA. ENDEAVOR. tighten the kern. the space between them. simple rules. of typography. watch and observe. it's easy to learn. use your keyboard with caution. perhaps go back to a pen.

know your printer. eat breakfast with them. drive in their car. always shake their hand. photoshop is not graphic design. neither is a computer.

idea is king.

it's solving a problem. it's a service. translating a message from one to
another. from bow to target. the arrow. straight. narrow. responsible for the end result. the viewers perception.

there's meaning. there's reason. visual plus verbal equals message. graphic design is a verb. a+b=c. providing closure. problem solved.

communication.
the life i'm ruled
by.

that was supposed to be read slowly. start over.

spring 2009 forecast.

i made it through my first week of school and it's very clear that i have my work cut out for me. i decided to go ahead with the 500A writing class, but when i got there i discovered that the class was canceled due to lack of enrollment. so, i tried the next best thing and went to the 500B class which was unusually full because the 500A class was canceled. i couldn't get in. it was a long monday already, but i had one more hope.

there was a 483A special studies class that night (mw 7-945) and i decided to go for it. the class is full, but i proposed an alternate study plan for the semester that works towards my thesis objectives and i got in. well, not in the system yet, but i'm working on that. the professor is very open to my plan and i'm very excited about it and i feel it's crucial for my studies. i somewhat aligned the projects to go with his regular course, but i will be focusing on my research.

it's not ideal for me to have a mon-wed night class then wake up tue-thur for a morning class, but right now, i don't see a choice. i have a 503A grad problems class that i'm still trying to find "the problem" in. like the special studies, i'm on my own plan and i'm working to refine it so i can have it approved. that's what i'll do this weekend, so i can dive in come monday.

and for my third class, i'm in the creative photography building in a course called Studio Expanded (478). it's basically an installation class and i fell in love with it. i have a total interest for gallery space and public art. it's just going to be very demanding. i was inspired and encouraged by three videos we watched on the first day: Ann Hamilton, Tim Hawkinson, and Jenny Holzer, all installation artists.

so, i have the weekend to find the energy to handle all of this.

one year down...

who knows how many to go. i wrapped up my first year and 2008 feeling really good. in academia land, i somehow pulled off straight A's. woot woot. in primate design land, i landed the GRAMMY Museum business. All awhile being super involved with my family. i also had a great christmas break/new years, and i can't believe spring semester is already here.

i had time to reflect on my first year in grad school and i realized that i don't have to get anxious over all the resistance i get from school and its makeup: deadlines, advisors, balance, and the quest for self-motivation. i'm just going to keep doing my thing and everything will fall into place. the more i get into what i'm doing, the more i realize that my work will never be done here on earth. i will always have goals, i will always be reaching for something and no matter what i do, things will always become more complicated. that's just been the trend in my personal history and i need to keep teaching myself how to breathe again.

i literally took a vacation from school this break. my intentions were to build a dreamachine, read, assemble some research and my bib outlines, and prepare for 500A - a grad thesis writing class. but i did none of that. well, maybe a couple hours here and there, but not enough to record in history. it will be tough ramping up to meet the demands of another full-time semester, so i'm going to ease into it slowly. i'm only registered for 2 classes as of now:
ART 478 - Studio Expanded, an exhibition course of sorts, and
ART 503A - Graduate Problems in Graphic Design with one of my committee chair members, Chen Wang.
i'm still contemplating if i want to enroll in the writing class, ART 500A. with my current workload and with two boys starting baseball in a month, it's not likely.

so, this is where i stand now. the frustration took a break, but it's not far (i can smell it) and the obstacle course continues as i guess-my-way, pretend-and-smile, research-the-facts, and do-my-thing into Spring 2009. here is my initial research goals: i want my thesis to be based on rhythm, from an artistic view and heavily influenced from the written word. i categorized three elements that make this topic: 1) kaleidoscopes and flicker, 2) calligraphy and mandalas, and 3) patterns and wallpaper. my interest in poetry will drive all this research. i hope that a love for story-telling and visual nostalgia will express my intended outcome in rhythm.

here we go again...

breathe. eat. and sleep.

graphic design.
that's what i've been doing this past year: breathing, eating and sleeping graphic design. i'm a bit at a disadvantage not having my undergrad studies in graphic design. i missed out on art, in general, the industry of graphic design, in particular, when obtaining my BA ten years ago in communications. i find myself catching up, at rapid speeds, to be in-the-know about this industry that fascinates me. but, still have questions like what am i doing? doing—as in—an MFA in graphic design. do i belong here?

i have thoughts and inspirations that come from all over. from sculpture and public art to writing and reading. from parenting and christianity to soccer and running. these things take up a coexistence with eating, sleeping and breathing — daily life.

i often ask myself if i'm in this program seeking some sort of acceptance where normally i would never be accepted.

you can see the doubts i have. i believe this comes from lack of guidance, motivation and just plain out interest. when you're alone in something, it's hard to see the light at the end. sometimes we just need a little encouragement. will you give me some?

textbook... subscriptions.

yeah, that's it... my subscriptions are textbooks. i see the envy in my wife's eyes everytime a new publication comes in the mail. and my justification is that they keep me abreast of the latest in my industry. it just so happens that design pubs are a little pricey. but in the end, i gain lots of knowledge and inspiration from each book, plus they're all write-offs. subscribing to publications is actually the best textbook and i'll probably recommend/require them one day when i'm a gray-bearded professor. being in a readily exposed contemporary culture with many new ways of learning, they're a win-win — the text that keeps on giving. currently i subscribe to these pubs:


Print, HOW, CommArts, eye, ID and 2wice.
kristy gets cottage living, and some parenting ones.
while we both enjoy westways and the la times. in addition to those are the freebies, which are always a pleasure: freepeople, UO, and anthropologie catalogs, GDUSA and the fullerton observer.

life is good. and our mail box must loves us.

this. and that.

last couple of weeks
i've been out of sorts
in this project artschool (coursework, in general)
department. discovering many books
and articles that i think will
apply to my grand scheme here
and to my thesis in particular.
the problem is that i can't find
the necessary hours to dive as
deep as i'd like. i'm constantly
skimming the surface in my
school-related research. i
spent last week up to my
neck in freelance and a few days at a trade show in las vegas
and well,
kind of abandoned my coursework.
couple good things though,
i registered for spring two-thousand nine,
sorted out my study plan, and
rented a gang of books from the Cal Poly library.
drove up there a few weeks ago to return a book
and ended up walking out with 5 more.
in addition to those books, i'm borrowing
a handful of design theory books from
my history professor, bought
some poetry books, and rediscovered
virginia tufte's book, "Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style."
it's at the top of my pile. i know it applies
to the direction i want to take my topic
because i can't keep my nose out of that one...

so basically, i have to catch up in my three courses now and dig deep into this pile:


i'm actually excited
for every free hour i can find and
yearning for christmas break time so
i can get into my new stack of
books.
from here on out, it seems
that my bibliography will have real
purpose
towards my final goal. it might look more
like a lit-major's bibliography — but that's the point.

i think.
and also — i'll be implementing a system
my mom told me in outlining
the information i'm reading. starting
with index cards and a shoebox.
and there you have it. a little bit of this.
and that.

artists to eye at the moment:
Brion Gysin
Frederick Kiesler
William Burroughs/Charles Bukowski/Jack Henry/Gillian Prew/Hollace Metzger/Antony Hitchin/Erica Jong/Allen Ginsberg/Marilyn Chin
J. Abbott Miller
Tristan Tzara
Sonia Delaunay
Genesis P-Orridge

topics to watch:
designer as author
architecture of deconstruction
visual culture in relation to intuition
formal structured poetry

credit card art: and fraud.

tuesday evening was a little shocking to say the least. i received a call from the bank saying that the primate design bank account was a victim of fraud in new york. i knew that i was certainly not in new york earlier that day pumping gas, so they told me to shred the card as they canceled it on the spot.

for therapeutic calming, i gladly cut the card.

and displayed it nicely on the shelf.


i'm grateful for banking with such a great institution. they already took care of the mess and issued a new card with new number. all i needed was a little art to pass the time.

amazon anxiety.

it's friday.
ordered six books on amazon
last friday. yet, no door bell ring.
ordered one hundred bucks of book-
making supplies from dick blick
on tuesday. one-day shipping.
with the arrival of nothing.
so unprepared. so behind. so it is.
what it is. and this outlet
of expression
just gained
me

another gray hair.

project artschool Time Clock.

summer just disappeared this week, but not on a sour note by any means. i had a sweet summer filled with adventure, rest and rejuvenation. today i go back to school for my second semester.

this summer i decided, amongst other outlandish things, that i am going to track my hours spent in the MFA program. i have posted at the top of this blog an ongoing count of the hours spent towards schoolwork and research, school-related functions and meetings, and extra-curricular activities that further the goal towards my MFA.

i am tracking more detailed use of the hours spent and will save that for some interesting tufte-style graphing towards the end of my grad school journey, roughly some time in 2011. also in the works is the project artschool Expense Report, which will essentially track similar details as my time, but in the dollars i've spent. i'm not sure what will make me faint sooner, but both time and money are valuable resources that i'm lending to this program.

and since, once again, this is the journal of my journey i must add my schedule for this semester Fall 2008: Wed_ 483A Special Studies with Drew, Thurs_ 480T History of Graphic Design with Roche, and Fri_ 448 Artists Books with Connie Sasso.

stay tuned for posts on my projects and research for this coming semester, it's gonna be a busy one. and for the final wrap-ups for 2 of my summer projects, olympictograms.com and the relax project proposal.

gebrauchsgraphikers.

i just came across the word Gebrauchsgraphikers today and i thought it was cool. it's german for commercial artists. i stumbled upon it in steven heller's design literacy (continued) for the third time right around the essay on Ludwig Hohlwein.
that's all.

look mom, i'm in grad school.

the 'redefining the call box' project (lookforsigns.org) is coming along well. when i return from hawaii in a couple weeks, i will have a month of summer left to tackle 2 more projects: olympictograms.com (coming soon: hopefully right around the olympics 8/8/08), and a proposal for the 'relax' project. and before i know it, fall 2008 will be here. stick around...

pull.

in light of the design for the world proposal, i stumbled upon this last weekend outside the cabin we rented in lake arrowhead. (prev. post)

things like this make me happy.

(to see the previous post regarding the proposal, click here.)

everyone's doing it.

yesterday, we started a blog for primate design. now there are officially three blogs in my life – one for every aspect. school. life. and now... work.
check it out: primatedesign.com

deadlines 101.

it seems that my working life is dictated by deadlines lately. some inevitable. most self-imposed. i guess it's a way to meet progress.

mental list of things due:
JUN 15 : design for the world's push/pull proposal (today)
JUN 16 : CUP's making public policy (tomorrow)
JUN 17 : cordelia knott's fall catalog to print.
JUN 20 : eikon's summer ad to newspaper.
JUN 21 : 480T, csuf grand central art center 2pm.
JUN 23 : 480T, mary kelly paper#2 due. (gloria patri)
JUN 24 : logo comps to seoul enterprises.
JUN 27 : create awards 2008
JUN 27 : free people's shopping bag contest
JUN 30 : logo lounge volume 5
JUN 30 : print magazine's 2009 student cover competition
JUN 30 : american graphic design awards
JUL 1 : pd blog launched.
JUL 1 : rent to landlord.

if making just one of these deadlines means progress, then i'm in good hands. and if i don't meet progress, well, then i'll be on the street, cuz rent is due.

balance 101.

between the family, primate design, little league, summer school, writing and the NBA FINALS, i haven't had much time to update project artschool. i know. i know. "no one said it was going to be easy." but, i say, why not? there are a lot of things coming down the pipe. a lot of pressure building up. and the summer is looking shorter and shorter by every late sunset. but lately i've had the opportunity to step outside of my life and look in, and man, it can't get any better. praise God for all the goodness amongst the chaos. as i see it right now, if my life wasn't so grand, i wouldn't have this ability to stop and acknowledge it — peeping in at every angle, appreciating every blessing before me. i came to this realization this morning in the dentist chair as the hygienist picked my brain. life may be full and up-to-my-neck busy, but that's because i'm always loungin'.

one thing accomplished however, is that i managed to shorten the URL to access this blog. so, welcome to www.projectartschool.com. word up.