Annoying Pets (Pests?)

King Johnny does this funny thing: I'm crouched down, squatting to find something on the ground or using the only clear surface in the shop (yep, the floor), he comes over and forces his head under my arm. He then proceeds, one paw at a time, to stand on my supporting leg-to get as close to me as possible. I've never had such an affectionate dog. Hopefully, he'll never try and bite me as we seem to be head to head a lot.

He is one of the worst distractions in the studio: If I'm doing that artist thing of staring at a piece, he'll be at a right angle to the artwork, staring up at me. Truly disconcerting. I wish I could tell you that I'm able to ignore him-tain't so. He's what I remember some little kid calling his pooch: pesky pal.

Emptying the last of the Verona house at a fever pitch. I've been selling stuff on Ebay and using the towns Bulk Garbage Day to its fullest advantage. The same guys who were taking scrap metal from the basement said that they wanted the furniture and that's a load off my mind-just to drag the stuff out of the house was getting tiresome. There's still a lot of stuff coming out of the basement, but I can now see most of the walls of the house-believe me-that's quite an accomplishment.

Distracted by so many things these days, my sleeping patterns have been messed up and I'm getting a bit more acquainted with Old Man Insomnia. Sucks, but at least I feel as though the causes are transparent-lists of stuff to do and more lists of stuff to do. I'm surprised that I can actually function in the studio, but have to say that much of my time there has been more mechanical than exploratory. That's ok for now-much like the insomnia, I'm treating it as a temporary condition.

Made a lamp for the light show that Chris Giffin and I will curate out at the Zeek gallery, but I'm not 100% happy about the thing. It's one of those pieces that you know you could modify-you know it needs something, but time (and probably my compromised attention span) has not allowed for it.

Cleaning house

As you may or may not know, I lost both of my parents early in 2011. Since that time in March, I've been emptying their house, getting it ready to sell.
Recently, I found a couple guys who offered to buy the “contents” of the house- only what they wanted - as opposed to them cleaning the place whistle-clean. I went ahead and took money from them and told them to have at it. Now I'm left with the remainder, the dregs of what was not wanted and/or could not fit in the trailer. I have mixed feelings about doing this, but one thing is for sure, it was the best compromise between going at it piecemeal by myself and lighting a match to the place. I made this decision to save some of my sanity and a lot of my energy.
Dad was a hoarder, Mom a saver, so they collected excesses of stuff-items that were worth keeping, but not in the ridiculous quantities I found in the house. I'll spare you the details and at the same time assure myself that it could have been much worse. To their credit, they amassed a small fortune in goods and could have withstood many catastrophes, especially ones that deprived the rest of the civilization of New Jersey of canned food, surfoam planers, or fishing reels! I had always excused them in that they were the children of the great depression and this was the reason for their crazy excessive collections. Now, as I have learned from prominent sources, this is only an excuse for hoarders. So my parents were more nut-jobs than worthy savers… it's good to know I come from superior stock.
In going through the house in the past year, I have gotten better, read tougher, in choosing what gets pitched and what remains, either to sell, to donate, to keep or to incorporate into art...At first, my reasoning was that any excess would sell at the flea market. But as I have changed my perspective on this (I no longer enjoy flea markets so much, at least not as a seller) and as the pile of stuff grew bigger and bigger, more stuff has seen the inside of the garbage can.
But I digress. What I meant to talk about was the sadness that surrounded me (which was not really present almost the whole time I was cleaning the house on my own) as the door of the trailer of the "contents buyer" closed. It hit me like the cliche: An overpowering wave of sorrow came up as I was driving back to Blairstown. Uncontrollable tears put me on the side of good old Route 80. I grappled with getting back my control, but I could have idled there for quite a while-those waves kept coming and I feel as if I could have cried out the whole past year, washing my parents into their graves. The dog sat watching me, knowing, as dogs do, that this was a time to simply be there-After a while, coming up and calmly licking my face. Just once.