My girlfriend and I have been fans of sculptor Mark Prent for years. A friend of ours once worked as an apprentice to him and, knowing that we would enjoy his style, had loaned us some videos to watch. We clicked the “Play” button and our jaws dropped. His work is incredibly realistic, darkly imaginitive and profoundly disturbing – and we couldn’t believe that we knew someone who worked for this guy!

After years of admiring him in private (though not SO private – I’ve been linking my blog to his website since Day One), my sculptor girlfriend managed to develop an online rapport with him, and secured us an invitation to his house to meet him and see some of his work. Continue Reading »

Some days it seems like I’ve been here only for three or four months, other days it feels like I’ve always been here. I’ve grown to like school. At first I was really unsure, but I’ve come to enjoy the place. The experiences, the people, the whole routine. It seems odd to feel that way in such a temporary situation, and I’m at the point in my education where I no longer measure my remaining time in months but in weeks, and sometimes even hours. I currently have 230-ish hours left to go, just over seven weeks until I “graduate.” Graduation day seems almost alarmingly close.

I’m looking forward to completing the path I’ve started, to get back into the workforce and start making money again. I hate having to watch every penny and worry about how long, in this economy, those pennies might have to stretch. I miss buying video games and scooter parts, gourmet beers and weekend vacations. I need new clothes, new shoes and a renewed sense of financial stability. I want a new place that I will refer to as “work” and to meet new people I will refer to as “coworkers.” In short, I want to return to adult life.

Continue Reading »

—-Blabbermouth News Link—-

Dear The South,

You lost that war nearly 150 years ago. Get over it. Confederacy Appreciation? Virginia, are you out of your mind? What is it you are commemorating? Something that was distinctly part of Southern culture? Can’t you just commemorate RC Cola and the Wiggly Wiggly and call it a day?

Let me put it to you this way… every time you say something like “The South Will Rise Again” and other pro-Confederacy one-liners, you need to remember that you were, for all practical purposes, a rogue nation whose system of commerce was based on human-trafficking. Kinda like Afghanistan and its opium market… only decidedly more evil.

Yep, we invade countries like you and install puppet governments in place of the old warlord-based neo-feudalistic governments like yours. We would do so because “freedom” is a big thing here in America. You know, Freedom? That word on all your flag-decorated T-shirts and bumper stickers? Irony runs thick in your neck of the woods, doesn’t it?

Rather than glorifying the history that you feel compelled to remind the world of, you should take a play out of Germany’s playbook: Don’t talk about it, pretend it never happened, and outlaw the display of your old flag. Are you really THAT proud of your sordid past? Or are you just that STUPID that you don’t understand how the REST of the developed world view being an abjectly-inhumane Banana Republic as a BAD thing?

Today is the one-year anniversary of my last cigarette. A full year later I am still a non-smoker. This was something I never thought I would become. I smoked through half the 80’s, all of the 90’s and almost all of the 00’s, all those years I thought that my addiction was far stronger than my willpower to destroy it, and that I was forever doomed to the life of a smoker.

Doomed to the life of dirty clothes that always smell. White shirts I had to keep in a closet in a non-smoking part of the house. Doomed to walls and ceilings covered in that oily yellow dust, the same dust that covers lampshades and curtains and my computer and all my books. A life where I don’t know for sure if I’ll have an old age, a life where my athletic endeavors are limited, as are the levels of whiteness I can expect in my teeth. A life where I am rigidly timed… how many hours between one cigarette and the next? If I do this thing or that, go to this movie or get on this flight, go shopping in this mall or visit these friends, I have to time everything just right so I can minimize the impact of withdrawals that I will be experiencing 2 hours after my last cigarette.

Doomed to be a smoker in a non-smoking world. A world where I am viewed with the eyes of the average stranger who sees smoking as a habit which designates me as part of the lower-classes and the criminal element. A non-smoking world where the smoking areas are disappearing before my eyes… not only in public and private property and mass transit, but in my town there are even public pedestrian streets where smoking is illegal. There are apartments and condos I can’t live in as a smoker, there are insurance programs that won’t accept me, and there are employers who can legally discriminate against me as a smoker and fire me or refuse to hire me based solely on this. This same non-smoking world that will tax the smoker more heavily than any other person, reaping millions of dollars a year from these people whose addiction forces them to pay the taxes, and no one can cry foul… because smokers aren’t people who matter anymore in this world we live in.

I still want the cigarettes every now and again, but that passes. The smoking “lifestyle,” however, is not something I miss. I’ve found other things to do while I wait for a file to download, I’ve found other ways to enjoy a ten-minute work break, and I’ve found other ways to unwind after dinner.

I managed to find a way to break free from my chemical slavery, and today is my new life’s birthday.

I haven’t updated my online gallery very much lately, however, that’s not to say I haven’t been putting new works to paper. Some of my more recent illustrations, all of which are a combination of carbon pencils and watercolor pencils on Bristol plate…

(Four More After the Cut…) Continue Reading »

When I started writing about my experiences in this new school, I was a man in a class of sixteen students. That might not sound like a whole great big army of pupils, but it sure felt like it. When you think of a classroom in a regular university, you’re picturing a teacher lecturing a mass of students listening and taking notes. It’s a quiet setting that you’re picturing in your mind, where everything is nice and organized and people pay attention. It’s higher education, the students are more adult than child, and things are accomplished.

Then there’s hair school.

Hair school is nothing at all like the serene and mature setting you would picture as representative of higher education. In a lot of instances, even university classes can miss this mark, but not quite so profoundly as in hair school. Continue Reading »

So today started out rather dreadfully, my first client started out wanting one haircut, then once I was completed she decided she wanted another one altogether, then one more. After three haircuts in a row I was awarded the “attaboy” that only a one-dollar tip could provide. Yepper, a single dollar. I didn’t get a lunch break today because of this multi-cut of indecision, and to say “Thank you I love my hair and I really appreciate you going home starving and exhausted” she heralded me with a single, wrinkly dollar bill. I would have rather gotten nothing at all, it would have said to me “I don’t tip anybody” rather than “This is how much I value your time.” However, I perked up a bit with my next client.
I was starting up a haircut with a lady, we were talking about graduation day and I talked briefly about hours and the concept of banked hours, saying “Might be tempted to take a couple days off just to watch Olympics on TV.”

She replied “Huh, that’s interesting. So you like the Olympics?” and I said “Love ‘em! Especially the Winter games.” “Why the Winter games?” I replied “‘Cause they’re faster and more dangerous. Summer games are OK but they seem to be all about ordinary beach sports.” She replied “Well I’m sorry that I may be a disappointment to you, because the medal I have at my house was won in some of those boring slow summer games.”

I wonder if she could feel my mental pause as I was shampooing her. Did she just say she was a Silver Medalist? Must be kidding, busting my stones for pooping ever so slightly on the Summer games.

“Really?” I asked “What event?” “Rowing. Won the silver medal for rowing back in 1984. I was SUPPOSED to go to the 1980 games, but…” and I finished her sentence “…because of the Moscow boycott. Are you serious? That’s awesome.”

I acted all smooth and stuff, like I wasn’t at all phased by having a world-class athlete in my chair, but as we were just passing time talking casually about Olympic stuff I couldn’t help but be terribly aware that I was talking with someone who was IN the Olympics. In the way that it feel awkward to be casually talking about the Olympics as an ordinary spectator, with someone who viewed them through the eyes of a winning competitor.

Even if it wasn’t one of the more “rockstar” events like gymnastics or speed skating I couldn’t care – a medal is a medal. A medal means “Say what you will about the Olympics, I came here to compete against a world of other competitors in this event, and I beat them.” All but one of them, anyway.

So, I had already forgotten about the woman with the three haircuts and the dollar tip. My day was now brightened just that little extra bit.

So, if anyone knows a Gold medalist who is in dire need of a haircut…

This week our school participated in a student body fashion show. After more than two months of meetings and planning and brainstorming, followed by weeks of preparation and stress, all our efforts came to a close during a two-hour event. My synopsis of the event? A little stressful (but not enough to matter), a bit of fun (at least in the preparation part), but somewhat disappointing and a lot of anti-climax.

As far back as October we have been aware that there was to be a big-deal fashion show occurring in January. This event would display our talents and drive to the local populace inside and outside the industry, and could result in us making great network contacts. It was drummed into us time and again that this was a big deal, and that we should take it seriously. This was also a competition. We were four teams competing against each other, each representing ideals of “Earth,” “Wind,” “Fire” and “Water.” The prize was reputed to be something substantial, something good that we would actually WANT to compete for. Continue Reading »

The other day I set a few cookies onto my bedside table, I was going to have a can of beer, a few cookies, and read my book before bed. I set my cookies down and immediately had to grab my camera because when I drew back my cookie-eating hand this was looking back at me…