Showtime

I have always been here before....

I did my stint today at the Horse Shelter and must say that I'm older: the work I'm do there is physically exhausting and I'm not so sure I'm getting any sort of satisfaction out of it.
The horses are generally a pleasure to be around, but there is too little time to enjoy them-it's always a rush to get stuff done in order to get onto the next task. This is one reason to stay a volunteer-no pressure, you know?
The heat and the sun are also pretty damn hard on me...it is a pleasure to go back inside into the cool darkness after a bout of mucking and watering and feeding.
After  four hours spent at the Shelter, I went over to my studio and kept the doors open until 5- as usual, not a single visitor. Not that any of those visitors would generally be worth having the doors open for- oops, do I sound a bit bitter?
After finishing the show at Cherry Creek last weekend (and going through the usual, "Why am I here?", "Why do I subject myself to the public-to these people who are looking at me and my work as pure entertainment?") and leaving the show feeling pretty beaten down, this week has been a real challenge to recovery. This week makes me think that I'm becoming less elastic, less able to laugh off the commentary at these events, of hearing how much my work reminds people of Tim Burton or how cute they find my work: "oh, thank you-I needed a good laugh".
It's good to be out of the spotlight and back into the cool darkness.
Anonymity ain't such a bad thing.

After a long hiatus...

This is the first posting I've made since moving here to New Mexico.
The family we have here now consists of myself, Laura, Dogs Johnny(who has been with us a while now) and Sharkie and our latest additions, Claudette and Bridget-two Donkeys from the rescue in Edgewood, NM. Laura and I were married since being out here. Both of us have looked for part time work since we've been here to little avail-I presently work two days a week, caring for horses and old dogs, at minimal salary...and I'm damn lucky to have that!

It's hot out here, which I guess is news to no one. The middle of June started with a bang in that temperatures rarely have been below the 90s. We expect a little relief in July, but I'm still holding on to hear what "little" means. We will look into a whole house add-on unit to air-condition the house. So far, we put solar blinds (an immense help) to block some of the sun's rays. This was a necessity, even though we thought it was a bit extravagant at the time. The air-conditioning is the same deal: we need it if this is the flavor of the summers out here.
More coming....

The household god

Here is the guy I made to protect our new home-is it Lares
(the Roman/Latin name for the god of the household)?

Packing Packing Packing

Still packing, believe it or not-the studio has been one big nightmare to box-I find it hard to fathom that I've been packing and throwing things away now for almost two years: first, my parents' place and now my studio. A large portion of the work here I have only myself to blame for-I've been accumulating stuff since I've had the place. Wow, wouldn't it be great to make it disappear-my fantasy would be to arrive in NM with two suitcases. But, I am my Father's child and this will never be.
As I've already promised myself, I'll be shuffling off even more stuff after we get to the SouthWest. I simply don't have the strength to let it go presently...knowing this is frustrating in a purely practical sense-but somehow, it just can't be helped.
There is a cut-off date at this point: we have hired a mover (although we can cancel and modify this date) to come for the stuff on September 10-11...
Below are shots of the second floor and the first-there is still a lot of stuff to pack, but I can definitely see my progress-what's that line? After this, I'll never move again!
BTW, this move breaks with the long-standing Skrips tradition of never budging/never moving once a place is found...

Dear Diary,

Sure has been a while since I wrote to you. 

Life as I know it has changed a bit. Presently, I'm packing up both studio and home and moving to the southwest-to an area a bit south of Santa Fe, where the tarantulas roam.

New Mexico will be my new home-or hacienda, as it were. 

I won't try and fill you in on the whys of this move-let's call it a conscious effort to stop the growth of roots under me here in NJ. Almost a lifetime spent here is plenty- I'm ready to go. I can hear my parents rolling around down there, asking me why the hell I want to go and do this….

The shedding of excess goods (and, trust me, there is plenty of excess), shifting of daily-used objects and tools, and all the subsequent packing following has left my life upside down. Going to a part time job has been my one source of real order in the topsy-turvy mayhem I've created.

What is starting to really tell on me, what has started to really grind is not doing any artwork for over a month now. I knew that I'd miss it and couldn't imagine how I'd get through this time. Unfortunately, there is more of the same in store: the earliest I figure to be able to do any work is mid-September-and that's if everything goes smoothly, without any hitches. 

There has been a feeling of loss of identity. This, coupled with all the sentimental items I've had to sift through (I have mounds of stuff from recently emptying my parents' house, never mind all the things I've saved and stored because it never seemed right to discard them), has been wearing on me rather visibly the past few days. I can't pull off any marathon days-my emotional state simply will not allow it. Besides, the heat of the season and the range of the nature of the job (between jaggedly emotional and so boring you feel as if your brain were being sucked out) also create some serious barriers to working very long hours.

In theory, I thought that I'd seek some sort of fulfillment by doing small paper paintings at home. But the reality has been that I'm way too tired to function even on a simple level, never mind at a creative one.

The dog has kept me going-he disappears at the right times, but also lets me know when we've been too long at a certain task. Yesterday, I packed seven boxes, ripped up more high school drawings, chucked out more superfluous family photos, disassembled a motor-driven machine in order to pack it and made a trip to the dumpster, "losing" six bags of garbage and discards. The work goes on, even though it's tough to see any real progress as my pace is so slow.