Mission Statement: I guess that as an “artist” I have not really considered a mission statement as such. I work as a commercial artist all day. My job is in advertising and marketing and I create designs and illustrations for other people –– to their brief and their whims –– so when I get a chance I like to create work for myself using subjects that interest me. When I first started to create art and exhibit I was at university and working with a very talented friend of mine. I was designing work on the computer and he would then take that and re-paint it on to canvas by hand. We exhibited these in bars and shops around Bristol (UK), which was always fun to see. Since then I have continued to create slightly strange and surreal work but keep it purely digital, along with portraits and images using more traditional methods.
A guy named Brian who posts on my blog (hardcorezen.blogspot.com) asked:
“I’m wondering how you feel about stories of Zen masters who endured what would normally be insane levels of pain through the discipline of zazen? No doubt some of the stories are fanciful, but we have on video the monk who set himself on fire and didn’t flinch until he was dead.
“Do you think you could do that after so many years of sitting or is something missing? Or is that really not the point of zazen, just a type of parlor trick that’s cool to know can be done but isn’t the primary purpose of meditation?”
Around the same time I got a message from one of my Facebook friends mentioning this video by Ken Wilber:
In case you can’t view it, this is a video of the uber-spiritual wonderman Ken Wilber hooking himself up to a machine that supposedly demonstrates how he can voluntarily stop his brainwaves.
This stuff kind of reminds me of juggling.
When I lived in Santa Monica, I used to walk down to Venice Beach on weekends. There would always be lots of talented people on the boardwalk doing various tricks for chump change from tourists. One of these guys was a juggler. He was absolutely amazing. He had this trick where he’d climb up on a balance board on top of a top of a rickety wooden ladder and juggle like five butcher’s knives, all while making clever jokes at his own expense. It was astounding. Take a look:
Like most people on the boardwalk, I’d watch his act, be amazed and then put a dollar or two in the bucket he passed around at the end. I was a local, and hence a cheapskate. Maybe the tourists slipped him fives and tens. Or maybe some of them were cheaper than me and just threw in quarters.
I’ve done twenty plus years of daily zazen meditation, plus more intensive retreats than I care to remember. Having been through some interesting scenes during practice I can understand how one could use meditation practice to learn to do some pretty impressive tricks. I personally could not sit still while I was on fire and I doubt I could wire myself up to an EEG and make the indicators do whatever I wanted. But I can see clearly how that could be done.
“I love SuicideGirls.”
– Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara
To fans of Tegan & Sara, it may seem like it’s been a quick rise from unknown indie band to one with a respectable following. But to Tegan & Sara it has been a long, hard road with many artistic rewards along the way. One of their most recent rewards is that they are finally putting out a DVD. It’s Not Fun, Don’t Do It!, features all of their music videos, a full length concert, the making of their video for “So Jealous,” and endless commentary by these talkative sisters/singers.
INTO: Having a lot of fun, dancing, eating, drinking and laughing with my friends. The beach, the ocean, swimming, being wet! Adopting as many children as I can. The man of my life! VAMPIRES!!!
NOT INTO: Being used, bad red wine, and feeling guilty!
MAKES ME HAPPY: Summer, seafood, red wine, sushi, strawberry daiquiri, people laughing and dancing, the sound of the ocean, the stars, masturbating, having someone to talk and to have sex with!
MAKES ME SAD: Injustice, hypocrisy, lies, guilt, anxiety, finishing a good book, little children all around the world being sick and hungry!
HOBBIES: Reading, watching movies and TV, drinking and dancing, writing, the internet.
5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: My glasses, deodorant, red wine, books, and movies.
VICES: Seafood, sushi, red wine, vodka, smoking, kissing.
I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Working, watching series/movies, reading, going out at night, dating, studying, and modeling.
