The sickness has struck me once again, I'm afraid.
But I guess this is censored subject...

I'll soon be elaborating the next Surreal revelation.
It's got something to do with the hardships of being a man. And how women seem to think we have all the comfort.

Nana, you'll have to forgive me for these chauvinist insights...

So, I was leaving the showcase, after confirming that they really did screw up as I expected and placed the violent Virgin and Child side by side with tranquil Sati's portrait... It was a good thing though: I had a way for people to actualy compare a work from a clear phase to a work from a dark phase. There were equal praises to both. Methodless seemed to like the Virgin more. And, somehow, her opinion matters to me. We talked a bit about the painting itself, the manufacturing process. I was amazed at the respect I suddenly had in painting. I mean, I had decided never to bring my paintings to the foundation again after all the bad criticism I got in the first two years.The teachers at the foundation had broken me into believing figurative painting was bad. But I never gave up. I have no great pleasure in abstracts. I kept painting at the atelier and never showed another painting again for a whole year. But this year, I had decided I'd enter the Anual with my paintings one way or the other and prove I was worthy. And here I am: two figurative paintings in the foundation's halls. It must be burning some of the teachers like crosses burn vampires.

Anyway, I was leaving the showcase, when one of the prized artists (I did not get the scholarship, by the way...), Maristela Cabello, called out to me. Took me a while to recognize her. We aren't all that aquainted. Come to think of it, I was surprised she knew my name... She said to a group of women standing beside her: "He's Peter Pan" (No, of course that wasn't exactly it, but let's keep it this way in here...). They all greeted me and congratulated me on Sati's portrait. And that's when one of them said she was interested in buying it...
That caught me by surprise. I mean, I had heard these things did take place in the showcase, but I just never honestly believed it would happen to me. The next thing I know, one of them is giving me a card from a gallery and telling me they'd like to know more about my work!! I was flabbergasted! Methodless seemed to be joyful as well. And noticing this made me ever so happy. Among all my classmates, it's her respect that I crave for the most.

Of course, now I'm faced with an old problem: what would be considered a good price for my portrait? No one has ever given me a good answer to this. I'm so aweful at settling a price for things. To me, those portraits are priceless. But, of course, this is pretense. I mean, they're only paint and canvas (and glue, in this case...). I don't know... I'm slightly confused. But I'll definetely be calling those ladies and scheduling a time for us to chat!

Recently, we studied in advertising ethics class the ads created by Oliviero Toscani for Benetton.
And our teacher told us of some of Toscani's thoughts and philosophies. I gotta say I liked it! But one of them called my attention. I had seen it before. It's an ad with a few dozen pictures of genitals, all organized side by side. Men, women, children, black, white, blonde, brunnette, reds, all of them. The first thought that sprung to mind was that it was some kind of identity. Just as any part of the body, genitals have their little differences here and there. Enough to make each one unique in adulthood. And yet, since there are no faces to match with the genitals, we'd never recognize any one of them if we ever came to meet. It's like Gerhard Richter's Betty:


It's a portrait with no actual, useful identity.



After a while, another thought hit me. I was remembering all the ruccus created by the girls at the university wanting to do those Mapplethorpe inspired pictures and the way people reacted when I accepted to pose for them. That and my work with the photographic ghosts and such. It all made me think about the sensationalism around naked intimacy. The way people refuse to be seen naked is as if they were ashamed of their own bodies. As if having genitals was a flaw to be hidden. It turns into a sort of weak spot: to catch a person naked is almost like stealing some great treasure, conquering something from that person, beating that person up. It's some weird sort of childish victory (Ha ha ha, I saw you naked!!). And I had this bizarre idea of creating a cluster of photos like Toscani's, but with full body pictures of me, naked in a neutral pose. The idea behind it is to turn that body into such a common image, that the fact that it's naked will cease to matter. I mean, an annonymous naked person in a picture is just some naked guy/chick. But make it a friend of yours, someone you know, and it's a scandal. Why?

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH AQUAINTED NUDITY??

More witty remarks:

On a wall somewhere near the art course:
Why do you study if the future means death?
And the answer scrbbled right under it:
To make history...

My advertising ethics teacher (roughly translated):
You weren't born a black man. You have no idea how it weights on your identity.

Ok, I know you're asking, "are there ethics in advertising??"
Hell yes. But there are those who tend to override ethics to gain more recall. It's a troublesome issue...

I don't think I'll feel like eating for quite some time now...

Dadaist revelation III:
Let this be known as the day she set herself free.
Fly, my bird.
There's a time for everything...

Listening to Cazuza:
MINHA FLOR, MEU BEBÊ
[...]
Que prazer mais egoísta--------->What a selfish pleasure it is
O de cuidar de um outro ser---->To take care of another being
[...]
E é por isso que eu te chamo-->And that´s why I call you
Minha flor, meu bebê

Well... I'll just leave you foreigners guessing on that last one...

A teacher of mine had an interesting interpretation of the Wizard of Oz. He was saying that Dorothy lives with her uncles. So, when she goes into Oz to search for the wizard, she´s kinda searching for her father. The wizard is this big paternal figure. She searches for her father because she seems unhappy with her current sitaution, her reality. But when she finally discovers that the wizard is just a big hoax, she returns to that reality. So, in a way, she fails. She returns to where she began, taking with her only the things she learned. I guess it's about growing up. Dorothy wears ruby slippers. Often represented by high-heel shoes. Shoes of a grown woman. But since, they're made of ruby, a transparent substance, it seems as though they represent a dream, a wish. Something oniric. And indeed, when she finally decides to leave that dream, she clicks them toghether: a gesture that clearly means to break them.

Well... I'm still working on this...

My Lioness:
Perhaps this might be something to be written on our little mutual project, but I was thinking: you should reall take a look at Nan Golding's pictures. Ask me about them later on...

Well, looks like I've found another edgewalker.
I visited my friend Lady Visentainer, the Vampiress. She's been studying law and I had only seen her once ever since we graduated from highschool. And now, after that insight brought on by my Lioness about how badly I take care of my friends, I went after her. I barely had any phone numbers to reach her since MY FREAKIN' ELECTRONIC AGENDA DIED ON ME!!!! So I went to her university to try and find her, but to no avail. Finally, I accidentally bumped into her on ICQ and got her phone numbers. Today we met, at the cemetary close to her university (yes, it's grim, I know, but it's a trip we were scheduling ever since highschool...). We talked about oh, so many things. I understood how she seems to be suffocating in the law course, not being able to expose her crazier side. And it felt so good to find yet another edgewalker. The Vampiress seems to be slightly less "on the edge" than me and the Lioness... But just slightly.. I feel like surrounding myself with edgewalkers. A small coven of free thinkers.

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Well... You all know I'm more of a schizotypal guy. But this'll do, I guess...

Post-B-Day analisys:

Making an analisys about my life after definitely enrolling in adulthood...

Although I have no actual job, I believe I'm doing well in all that has to do with my careers. I'm getting respect for what I do as an artist and making valuable contacts for the next years in my advertising career. I'm right where I wanted to be. Now all I need is to put toghether my portfolio and start visiting advertising companies next year...

My family is finally putting itself back toghether. I had a nice chat with my brother yesterday about that. About how we spent a few years minding our own businesses, all four of us, and not having any part in each other's life. The family ran like a company: every day we'd wake up ang do to each of our separate activities and then we'd have a board meeting at night to discuss planning, pending issues and the budget before going to bed. Now that my brother and I are grown up and my parents can treat us as adults, we can start behaving like a family. It's hard to understand and I should really dedicate a whole post to this. But later...

On the other hand, there are two unresolved things to take care of. The first one, I've already began: my health. Been working out every weekend and sometimes in mid-week. But I'm far from having the figure I want. I'm slowly picking up healthy habits and creating a frame of mind that denies any unhealthy vices proudly instead of believing itself to be a looser just because I don't want to get wasted every weekend on booze. Yeah, I wanna be healthy. Gotta problem with that?

The other unresolved thing is getting my friends back. Not that I actually lost them, but it has to do with that post about the last fight with my Lioness. About taking better care of my friends. That's another thing I talked with my brother. He has noticed it too. How we both had this lapse in our education. We never ask for help and hence never expect to have to help anybody. And that's just wrong. Because we don't pay attention to people. We're absent minded friends. But we're both gradually learning to pay attention and understand people's needs, even though they don't show it. We're learning to be kind. But most of all, we're learning to give a damn, to break through the apathy.

Well... I guess that's it. I'm working on my flaws and upgrading my qualities...

Surreal revelations VI:

Imagine that life is like the terrain close to the edge of an abyss. Imagine that in that abyss are all the things that wreck havoc into someone's life to the point where there's no turning back. In that abyss dwell all the socially inapt, the deeply depressed to the point of obsolecense, the people doped to the point of overdose, the pathologically suicidal and other "living hells". Nah... That's not exactly it... Anyway, in that abyss lay all the bad things. I can't seem to explain exactly what are the bad things... so you're just gonna have to figure this one out by yourselves.
We are born on that terrain close to the abyss. And life is spent right there. You and your friends meet each other right there. And life in the terrain is good, simple. You are warned not to go close to the abyss. Most people obey and, since they are so far away from it, they can't exactly see it. To them, it's as if there was no abyss. In fact, they'll insist that they do know what reality is. Others walk straight into the abyss, despite all the warnings, and plummet to a gruesome fate. And still others walk right next to the edge.
I seem particularly interested in these edgewalkers. I don't know if I dare call myself an edgewalker. Most edgewalkers were brought to the edge trying to save friends who ran right into the abyss, the ill-fated. Others simply got curious and went to take a look. Maybe even considered jumping in at some point. They have seen the abyss, they have gazed at how deep it is and they have refused to follow the ill-fated into it. But they can no longer deny the existence of the abyss. They stick around because the edge is where they currently feel more comfortable. It's not the obliteration found at the bottom (?) of the abyss, but it isn't ignorance of it's existence either. It seems to be the more realistic point of view. The place where you can see both the perils and the bliss in life. It's the place where you can see life as a whole (or even as a hole... *cackles*).

Most of their terrain-dwelling friends, the innocent, grow worried to see them striding so close to the abyss and even looking into it. The innocent believe edgewaklers are actually going to jump. Or even that they just might fall accidentaly. The innocent have no idea that edgewalkers can control this situation. One must make up his mind to jump. But all the innocent do, no matter how worried they are, is to call out to the edgewalkers from where they stand. But they never take a step closer to the abyss.
There are, of course, the ones who have gone in aid of a friend who was about to jump in and returned later on to the safe distance from the abyss. People who have seen the abyss but decided to ignore that truth. Just as there are the ones who plummeted into the abyss but made their way back up again, to dwell on the edge.

Anyway, I'm not sure if we can actually judge anyone of those. Maybe only the innocent shall survive. Or perhaps the abyss isn't as deep or deadly as we all think. Which would make the innocent a bunch of loosers who never took all that life can give. Who knows...

As the Foreign elf says, "more boredom... quizzes ensue..."


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Happy B-day, Pan!!!

Okay... I know that looks stupid.

I'll be a year older come tomorrow.
And yet, somehow, I'm taking this lightly. I've always been worried about these spacial dates. And, in being worried about them, I ended up frustrated. I guess I'm always trying to make these dates somehow memorable. When I turned fifteen, I tried to organize a huge party at my place. Hardly anyone showed up. When I turned eighteen, we went to a disco. That was fun. But hardly the ritualistic, memorable birthday I expected for someone entering adulthood. I turned twenty and... well, I can't even remember what I did. And now, another supposed memorable date. But this year, I didn't do anything. I was too tired of being frustrated. I mean, it would take a hell of a lot to make such a memorable birthday party.
I envited some friends to come over to grandma's farm next weekend. We'll have a jamboree. My brother will put on a little musical thing, I'll play out my monologue for the few in the gang who haven't seen it. But we'll keep it simple. I guess I'm learning that birthdays aren't all that huge thing. Specially when you're already in the twenties (Ok, I'll admit it: I sounded like a geezer back there...).

I'll miss my Lioness at the farm. Terribly. She's obviously not going, no matter how much I try to talk her into it. She says she had a few surprises for my birthday. But they'll remain frozen somewhere, for birthdays to come when I'll be single, I guess.

Yesterday, walking through the university, I came across my Blonde Muse. And she did the very same thing she always does when we see each other in the hall: she discretely looked at me ang grinned, politely saying "hello". A while later I was thinking about this gesture. We've talked and met and she sees I'm just a regular guy. But some psycho with a camera influence is still there. Whenever I lay eyes on her, she gets extremely tense. The rest of hers seems to be completely motionless as her blue eyes instantly meet mine and she starts the whole grinning, greeting thing.
Most scorpios have overwhelming presences... And my presence to her seems like something monstruous. A glance seems to be such a blow as to nearly knock her off her feet. That's how frightened she seems.

Latest news from the Showcase:

It seems my paintings have created a sort of uproar among other ilustrators in the art course. See, the foundation has it's own rotten internal politics. Whenever an illustrator, someone who already dominates a technique, starts the art course, he is brought down, humiliated for a year. He'll be persuaded to spend some time doing abstracts or other things out of his interest. By the end of the second year, the illustrator will begin to be respected. My Virgin and Child is so clearly the type of thing that is heavily criticised in the first year. And there it is, on the Anual Student Showcase. Sophmores will have something to rub in their teachers' faces...
One of the students one year below mine has a liking to painting that matches my own and some very simmilar researches. He has his own composition studies, like my Battle for Importance series. And he has this conspiracy theory that in the first year, teachers slightly humiliate all the technical artists to avoid competition or possible student authority figures that could question their authority. I'm thinking this might not be so far-fetched...

By the way, the only one that didn't made it was the only one I really expected to make it: the Battle for Importance series...
Good. It was the least of my favourites.

At around five o'clock yesterday, my phone rang. It was Methodless. My heart raced. I new that call could mean disaster or bliss. She spoke quickly and said her phone was running out of batteries. Then quickly added before the call was unexpectedly terminated:
-"You made it to the Showcase!!"-

Hence, I'm more than glad to inform you fellow countrymen living in my native city, that on the 25th of the present month, my very own Virgin and Child and my latest portrait, Taís, will be displayed for public viewing at the art foundation!!!

Yee-haw!!!!

I did promise I was going to slow down on the posts, didn`t I?
Crap...

Surreal revelation V:
Someone in the art course was talking about the discomfort in that feeling of being watched.
I don`t know about you, but I find in this vigilance a great comfort. I like to live as if I was being watched. We all live as if we were acting out movie scenes. Most of the times, even though unconsciously, we look for the right pose, the right angle, the right lighting. Some people develop that quirk of talking to themselves. Would they actually be talking to a possible spectator?
As that person was ranting about the discomfort of being watched (I can`t seem to remember what brought up the subject...), I was thinking about how completely terrified I`d be if someday I would come upon the complete awareness that there was no possible way anyone could be watching over me. The idea that, if something was to happen to me, no one would know. It`s probably a horrible feeling when you comprehend that you are the only one left.

I`ve began drawing schematics of the influences that lead to my works with the photographic ghosts and to the actual work with animalistic behaviour (graduation work on the updated "projects section"). There are influences dating back to my childhood, my time abroad... you name it!! I guess, even if I hadn`t made it to the student showcase at the art foundation last year, I would have stumbled on this sooner or later. There are things in the schematics that not even the Lioness knows about me!

And speaking of the showcase, I`ve enrolled Sati`s portrait, my Virgin and Child and four samples of the Battle for Importance series. But my confidence is wavering. I`m beggining to get used to the idea that I won`t make it this year. Too bad... I could really use that scholarship right now...
I`m a little queasy over the fact that I enrolled paintings. Last year was all photography. But with photography, I have the negatives, I can easily do them again. Paintings are harder. I could do them again, but it would take so much effort... What if something happens to them? I`m like a father expecting a daughter to arrive from a saturday gig...

Quick little post:

Yesterday, after just three simple lessons, my Lioness rode that bike all by herself.
You have no idea how happy I am. And what it all meant for us both.
As a reward, she gave me a picture of her as a little girl. It's only the cutest thing I've ever seen in my entire life! I fell in love with that picture when we rehearsed the ill-fated Huis Clos at her place. And she left it in my car yesterday, with a thank you note written on the back.

One for my fellow countrymen:




Faça você também Que
gênio-louco é você? Uma criação de O Mundo Insano da Abyssinia

My blog recomendation for this week:
What`s wrong with you people?
She`s got a nice view of things. Although sometimes rather too utopian. Or is it that I have lost hope?

Alas, my Lioness` blog has come to an end...
It was a nice run. And quite frankly, I expected to quit blogging before she did. I guess she just didn't like to be so public. A lot of people read her blog. And it bothered her somehow. I can relate: it's hard to write about everything you want to say when you know certain people will read it and get hurt. She's just no that used to having her AT field invaded like that. Although she does like to invade as much as anyone else.
I admit that, without her, my own blog seems to be obsolete. I mean, after a while, I was practically writting for her. Just as, I guess, she was writting for me. Some of my interest in blogging has faded...
But don't worry: I`m still here. And I'll remain here for a while longer. I still have an urge to write.

I'll miss the Lioness` Kingdom. It was always ranked first on my link box. Even before I began ranking blogs. Usually I`d read it even before I accessed my own blog. She just has such a nice way of writting. So true.
I`ll keep the link on my link box for a while. In memorian. .

Slowing down:

Yesterday I had yet another of those really tense moments with my Lioness. And, as always, I went home very depressed. Usually, I go home and collapse on my bed thinking "tomorrow will be another day and hopefully things will change". And in fact, that other day does come. And that depression is left in second place while I worry about everything else in my life. It isn`t forgotten. Just postponed.
This time, though, it was different. While we were jousting with our words, she said something that has stuck with me up 'til now. Something that hurt. Do you believe a person can be hurt "in a good way"?
She told me that, while she had been depressed these last days (clinically depressed), her friends had all come to see her. Even their mothers had called. They had all left their lives and come to tend to her. And I didn't.
I'm tired of trying to defend myself of these accusations. All I'll say to this is that I was scared. Scared of the fact that most of the reasons she was depressed about had to do with me. How could I help? I had thought that, being aroud her would only make things worse.
Anyway, it hurt me in a good way. Because I spent most of today realizing that I'm so completely and utterly alone in the world because I really don't tend to my friends. I'm the solitaire, the loner. Because I spend most of my days thinking about secrets of the universe, meanings of life and the paths that art has taken that I forget about the ones that are supposed to be the reason I live for. And this thought hit me with such brutal force that I stopped for a moment right smack in the middle of lithography class and though to myself "what a sh*tty life I live". In time, it'll just lead me into being another lonely old geezer full of cats and barely clinging to his own sanity (I mean, is there anything more anti-social than having such a thing as the Council to talk to??).
This has haunted me throughout the day. But you know, it`s a good thing. It means it`ll bug me enough to actually change something in my life. And so, I wanted to propose a sort of "slowing down". I won`t be posting so often now. I want to use some of my time to tend to my friends in the real world. In fact, I`ve just placed this in my "current projects" section: I want to dedicate as much energy and time as I dedicate to art to taking care of my friends, of busted relationships, and getting back with people I haven't seen for quite a while.

This will be my last day of heavy posting...

Just a quick thought that excaped the censorship:

There's something deeply wrong beneath this calm.
I think I've broken her and made my blog rather obsolete. All in the same process. Censorship!?
I guess things are supposed to get worse before they get any better...

Changed the names of the links on the link box. This ought to organize things a little better...

By the way, the recently posted painting ranked number one above all my other portraits. Well... I guess I might have a new champion coming up in a few days. Stay tunned!

Ok... I just spent a whole sunday on my atelier finishing stuff for the student showcase at the art course foundation... And I'm still going back there tomorrow to pick up the stuff I left drying.

I left the atelier today with an awkward sensation. Seems to me I've always had these ups and downs of creative energy. At times, I had many ideas and no inspiration to actualy paint any of them. Then again, at times I had an urge to paint and no decent idea to spend a few buck worth of canvas and paint on. And then, all of a sudden, everything would naturally coincide and I'd spend a wonderful week of artistic production. But it came naturally. Every once or twice, the art course would push me into actually creating something while I'm out of this productive high, out of sync between ideas and productive energy. But most of the time, my production would follow some sort of season. This time, due to the coming of the showcase, production had to happen no matter if I was in or out of the productive season.
I'm not entirely sure you understand what I mean.
Heck, I'm not entirely sure what to think about it myself. I mean, it seems terrible that some outer factor should guide my production. But at the same time, I like the way my days in the atelier seem to pay off when I have this sort of motivation: a single day generates two, sometimes three paintings all at once!
Thinking about this, I've decided to take Methodless' strategy seriously. She has been gathering an enormous amout of info on expos, showcases, galleries and museums to enroll her works and those of whomever is interested. Obviously, we all have to help and research more info. And it all goes to some sort of databank she's building up. Sort of like artists helping out artists. I've come up with about ten decent events to send my works to. For now, they're all right here on my native country. Phase two of her strategy includes applying for a schoarship abroad. That's when it really gets interesting. But they say you need a few expos on your resumé to actually get a scholarship. They have to be sure you're a good investment.
But anyways, for now I just thought it might help my production if I had other events to motivate me like the student showcase does.