29 January 2007
25 January 2007
Discovery New Orleans
Discovered behind an armoire. It's a thin layer of acrylic paint on canvas, painted in 2001 by yours truly. I may soon paint over it. WDYT?
24 January 2007
Up for grabs
This painting is up for grabs to the highest bidder...It's a 30 X 40 painted in acrylic in the year of your Lord, 1999 or there'bouts.
23 January 2007
Mardi Gras Floats
Mardi Gras concept floats for the 2008 Carnival Season. There will be more to come as I will be designing 28 of these that focus on the elements of nature and the underworld as it pertains to Greek mythology.
21 January 2007
When all the words....
I've been sick and am recovering fine enough. I'm still tired and am wondering more and more (with the help of a friend) if it's not my schedule creating the fatigue. I work all night and sleep during a pretty good portion of the day, when I'm not painting. Colors are coming out of me as though I can see where they belong on a canvas or a piece of paper well before they ever make it there or even before I know how it will end up. I can literally see the strokes as I look at a canvas. I envision patterns and shapes in my head that have to be put down. After considering all the past year has brought me, I am glad to have finished the labor of last year. Without those ups and downs, the painting shown below would never have made it to completion. I painted over a half-finished painting that I was told SHE didn't like the way it was turning out. I put so much gesso on the canvas, it will never be seen.
So I am done. I have a million things that I need to talk about and the person I'd like to tell it to probably doesn't know how to hear it. I mention it only because this person and I have not had the best history of communicating with one another and instead of beating my head against a wall, I'll just build another one. I've been doing a pretty good job of de-constructing my walls lately, but that's mostly face service to the reality that I probably aren't. There's a general notion that I freeze people out, but the way I see it, I get to a point where there's nothing more of me to give. There is only so much of me to be had and the rest is spent in my mind. For that, I am sorry, but my source of self is in my Self and I can only do so much about that.
Anyway, I am getting to know myself again. I've have been relatively alone since my accident in December and am learning to enjoy it. I learned early on how to be alone and somewhere along the way, I was deluded into thinking that I should need someone else. Need, I'm not needed, thus why do I place importance on it? So, I no longer do and I no longer adhere to the desire to have people constantly around me. December brought the last of my deleting phone numbers from my life. I am enjoying the self-imposed exile into solitude and when my old friends (from high school (like any self-respecting New Orleanian)) ask whether I am dating or interested in dating, I tell them no. Not quite yet again. I'm learning to like myself again. After feeling for years that I never could quite measure up to all the things someone else wanted me to be, after all the years of being told I wasn't needed, and after the years of seeing diminishing value placed on my interests and hobbies, I am re-learning that none of that matters.
Sure, I'm the bad guy in so many things when the roots are ignored and the surface is explored. With my family and friends, someone exposed all the gritty little details of my life that have no bearing or relevance on their love. Through all that, I have kept safe harbor on that person's secrets and though I have been angry enough to share those devestating tidbits, I am not going to be that person. I'll be the resident bad guy for as long as I am needed to be. And when asked again why I am being so nice by someone, the answer will simply be...because I am that nice. Believe what you will...
So, am I up for dating? No, not quite. I want to be firmly back to my own sense of self and not someone else's vision of me before I get into that mess again. Instead, I'm taking up the fine art of celibacy. To me, that is my path to sanity for the time being. I have my art to keep me company and keep me sane. Perhaps there's a career shift in the future to occupy my professional life (despite the fact that someone very recently derailed one of my plans). Perhaps there's a school I should go to. I was done with this brown water of mine well over a year ago and it's time I put this river to rest. In this, my new life of clarity, disavowing mere moments of clarity, I can start anew and finally say, "I'm sorry and goodbye" to those whose season has passed.
On a more somber note, I am tired of funerals.
So I am done. I have a million things that I need to talk about and the person I'd like to tell it to probably doesn't know how to hear it. I mention it only because this person and I have not had the best history of communicating with one another and instead of beating my head against a wall, I'll just build another one. I've been doing a pretty good job of de-constructing my walls lately, but that's mostly face service to the reality that I probably aren't. There's a general notion that I freeze people out, but the way I see it, I get to a point where there's nothing more of me to give. There is only so much of me to be had and the rest is spent in my mind. For that, I am sorry, but my source of self is in my Self and I can only do so much about that.
Anyway, I am getting to know myself again. I've have been relatively alone since my accident in December and am learning to enjoy it. I learned early on how to be alone and somewhere along the way, I was deluded into thinking that I should need someone else. Need, I'm not needed, thus why do I place importance on it? So, I no longer do and I no longer adhere to the desire to have people constantly around me. December brought the last of my deleting phone numbers from my life. I am enjoying the self-imposed exile into solitude and when my old friends (from high school (like any self-respecting New Orleanian)) ask whether I am dating or interested in dating, I tell them no. Not quite yet again. I'm learning to like myself again. After feeling for years that I never could quite measure up to all the things someone else wanted me to be, after all the years of being told I wasn't needed, and after the years of seeing diminishing value placed on my interests and hobbies, I am re-learning that none of that matters.
Sure, I'm the bad guy in so many things when the roots are ignored and the surface is explored. With my family and friends, someone exposed all the gritty little details of my life that have no bearing or relevance on their love. Through all that, I have kept safe harbor on that person's secrets and though I have been angry enough to share those devestating tidbits, I am not going to be that person. I'll be the resident bad guy for as long as I am needed to be. And when asked again why I am being so nice by someone, the answer will simply be...because I am that nice. Believe what you will...
So, am I up for dating? No, not quite. I want to be firmly back to my own sense of self and not someone else's vision of me before I get into that mess again. Instead, I'm taking up the fine art of celibacy. To me, that is my path to sanity for the time being. I have my art to keep me company and keep me sane. Perhaps there's a career shift in the future to occupy my professional life (despite the fact that someone very recently derailed one of my plans). Perhaps there's a school I should go to. I was done with this brown water of mine well over a year ago and it's time I put this river to rest. In this, my new life of clarity, disavowing mere moments of clarity, I can start anew and finally say, "I'm sorry and goodbye" to those whose season has passed.
On a more somber note, I am tired of funerals.
20 January 2007
Purple Fish Sings the Jazz - FINISHED!
It's taken awhile but my first painting produced solely for the purpose of being sold is finished and then, it may be one of the hardest to part with. It's taken far too long to finish, but it is done. Any agony is worth this, a piece that signals a turning point in my art. It's 30 X 40 inches and can be yours for a reasonable price (plus shipping). To see it on my website: http://www.michaeldingler.com/artwork/oils.htm
13 January 2007
What I've Alluded To
I believe I have adequately welcomed the New Year and have made mention of it several times about how happy I was to finally have 2006 finally over. Indeed, that much is more than true. No belly-aching and whining will ever convey to you the heaviness of the weight of 2006 upon my shoulders. Not only has it been the very worst year of my life, I handled it with the grace of an elephant and rhinoceras dancing ballet around eggshells. That is to say, not very graceful or gentlemanly at all.
For whatever will come of the havoc I have wrought, only the future will know. However, I am finally optimistic about life and the future; an outlook I have not felt three or so years now. I haven't felt this hopeful since they told me some years back that my youngest daughter would live after being sick with spinal meningitis.
I ended the year with a helluva car wreck and a major head injury. I had been awake nearly forty hours when the accident happened after working two twelve hour shifts and spending the twelve hours between helping a friend pack to move. The impact was intense enough that only fractional pieces of nearly a whole week come back to me. For details, I have none. I remember images. I spent two weeks in the hospital as a result and ended up with plenty of time to look at my life. It was an end of a lot of things and despite my losses of 2006, I will rebuild, renew and re-establish.
The biggest aspect that I have decided to undertake is to seriously make my art a priority. To do so, I have sacrificed am willing to make greater sacrifices as needed. I have far too many paintings started and drawings done to neglect taking it to the next level. In retrospect, perhaps last year was the most integral in getting me to a place where I can begin parting with my art. With that, I have nothing more to say about last year than that it can only serve to make me a better and stronger person. We can also hope that I'll become a more visual artist.
For whatever will come of the havoc I have wrought, only the future will know. However, I am finally optimistic about life and the future; an outlook I have not felt three or so years now. I haven't felt this hopeful since they told me some years back that my youngest daughter would live after being sick with spinal meningitis.
I ended the year with a helluva car wreck and a major head injury. I had been awake nearly forty hours when the accident happened after working two twelve hour shifts and spending the twelve hours between helping a friend pack to move. The impact was intense enough that only fractional pieces of nearly a whole week come back to me. For details, I have none. I remember images. I spent two weeks in the hospital as a result and ended up with plenty of time to look at my life. It was an end of a lot of things and despite my losses of 2006, I will rebuild, renew and re-establish.
The biggest aspect that I have decided to undertake is to seriously make my art a priority. To do so, I have sacrificed am willing to make greater sacrifices as needed. I have far too many paintings started and drawings done to neglect taking it to the next level. In retrospect, perhaps last year was the most integral in getting me to a place where I can begin parting with my art. With that, I have nothing more to say about last year than that it can only serve to make me a better and stronger person. We can also hope that I'll become a more visual artist.
10 January 2007
08 January 2007
07 January 2007
06 January 2007
Another Day Closer!
Another day closer... I had wanted to get this painting finished before the end of last year, but I've decided not to stress about it and make it the first painting of the New Year. Without all the shitiness of last year and the persons responsible who helped make it that way (myself included, but there's percentages to be assigned), this piece of work would not be possible. So for all the misery, my first true piece of artwork that marks a change in my perception of art and self is produced. I'd give up all sorts of things and people to create more pieces worthy of sharing with the world...most importantly, though, I'll never let anyone create within me the feeling that I am not good enough for whatever it is I am doing, trying to do or hoping to do. No one will stand in my way again, regardless of how much they might try to impede my progress in the multitudiness ways in which I decide to live.
02 January 2007
01 January 2007
Bless You Boys
If the Saints game taught us anything this past Sunday, it's this...that it takes a first string Carolina team to beat a second string Saints team. I consider that an acceptable loss for training our second string with real game experience and giving one of our blessed boys his first touchdown in twelve (or there'bouts) years. Yep, the Dome is Payton's Place! 12-31-06...a loss for the Saints and, ultimately, also a loss for the Panthers since we're going to the playoffs and they ain't. Now that's proper English.
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