It’s been a little while since I posted on my blog. My bad. Just been busy I guess. I got myself into a project or two and finally finished them, but didn’t get started on any paintings…yet.

Being in the garage for a month made me eye a box of old photos of my art and I got a bug up my ass to scan them all and then stick them in my database. I have a lot of missing images in there, especially of my old artworks. It was weird to see them all. Even if they were terrible pictures, I still had to scan them because they are the only documentation I have.

I also have a lot of slides, but I don’t have a slide scanner. I think Hannah does, but that’s a whole other project, though not as big. The photos took a while. It was a big project and it was something like 300 images. Then I had to save and edit them in a number of sizes and names into a few different folders, then upload them all over the place: the raw file, a 300 DPI .jpg, a detailed web file, another web file, and a thumbnail, etc. Those all go into different directories. Oy vhey.

I’m almost done wrapping and putting away all my art from the open studios. Can you believe I’m still on that? Then earlier this week, I went out to LA to pick up a bunch of my art that I had on loan to HUC–USC. I slept in LA overnight because I had to rent a giant SUV and meet up with a few people while I was out there. I met with Anne Hromadka who was the person who arranged the loan. For dinner, we had some delicious steak tacos at Sky’s Gormet Tacos, OMG!

In the morning, I picked up all the work and went to visit my artist friends Rochelle Botello and Leigh Salgado. We had coffee and blabbed. It was so great to see them. I made it back to Joshua Tree in the nick of time to return the rental car.

I had some of my largest work on loan at USC, like Forgive, which doesn’t fit in my car. I’ve learned never to make any more paintings that can’t fit into my small SUV. That painting is like an albatross! But I still have it despite selling it in the past, then having traded it back from another secondary buyer. It has a long history that I’m sure I’ve written about before. A bitter-sweet one. It wasn’t for resale for a lot of years because of sheer guilt, but I recently put it back up for sale because I’d love for someone to take it away. However, it’s not an easy sell since it’s such a personal story.

Anyway, now I have to put away all of the pieces–somehow fit them back into my garage inventory. Wish me luck on that.

In the meantime, I’ve been quite busy running the art forum, CreativeSpark. It’s been really taking off and taking up a lot of my time, especially in the mornings when I first wake up. Once I get the hang of reading everything every day, maybe it will go faster, I’m not sure. I’m stuck with it for now. I do have a great helper now and she’s been a godsend.

I was able to write my full proposal for my Yaddo application and get it sent last week, so that’s good. I’m also still working on words for my upcoming solo show, This Land, as well as figuring out the work for it. I’m not going to totally knock myself out getting the work prepared. I’m just going to do as much as I can. I’m going to up the ante, but nothing ridiculous. Nothing like I did for Exodus or anything like that. However, I might put together some cool/special promo for it.

And I may have mentioned this in the recent past, but I definitely for sure decided to take my memoir out of circulation. If you’ve noticed, I’ve been slowly taking links to it off my website, but it’s still up on Amazon and all that. There’s nothing I’ll be able to do about its availability in terms of what’s already been printed, but I can make sure no new printings are made.

I decided this because I’ve been uncomfortable about it all along–publishing it, that is. It’s so private. I don’t know why I ever made my life so public. I mean more public than this blog is. And I’m mostly talking about my childhood. It’s graphic stuff. It’s embarrassing. It’s no one’s business. And much of the book feels petty and angry. Probably because it is.

It’s not that I’m not angry anymore. Oh, I’m still plenty angry. Publishing that book did not cure this by any means. It’s just that I am embarrassed that everyone knows just how angry and affected I am, and not only that, I had people coming out of the woodwork thinking they now “knew” me, giving them free rein to share their woes with me.

Not to sound insensitive, but these are essentially strangers to me. I try to be friendly with everyone, but that doesn’t mean I’m your best friend. Also, I didn’t personally share my issues with anyone. I wrote it in a book. And what people seemed to have missed is that I suffer from mental illness. I can not handle the burdens of other people’s mental illnesses too. It’s is overwhelming to me and triggering. Did they not read about what I had to live with growing up with my mother? I guess not.

SO, I’m taking the book off the market. I guess I couldn’t handle the blowback.

I had considered writing a book about being trans–the one I was calling Queer as Mud, but I’m afraid that would just put me in the same spot all over again. I think I’m better off publishing my short stories, that is, if I ever get back to writing, which I doubt I’ll do any time soon.

I’ll just stick to this blog.