Greetings all and welcome to the inaugural blog post!
In actuality, this is a continuation of a blog I used to keep years ago. I've kind of missed blogging. Not because I had any huge fan base of readers, but because I enjoyed journaling so much growing up. After my surgery in 2000, my physical writing in leather bound books declined and the Internet seemed to be much easier on the hands. So here I will continue to post about my creative works, my rants and raves, and whatever else it is I usually keep bottled up.
So as much as the title of the blog may read, this blog is NOT just about Steampunk work. In a way, I am taking the "U" out of Steampunk, because I create it for me, not for you. Steampunk was a way that I imagined as a kid. It was in the literature my sister would read to me at bed time. It's what I would build after I tore apart my Transformers and Go-Bots. It was the way I decided to draw and create as I came into my own style, and it is what led me to start a business with Ahren. The word Steampunk was pretty much vacant in my world up until a few years ago. When I finally asked what Steampunk was, my friend led me to a few websites and said, it's what you've been drawing since I met you. And so eventually SteamGearLab.com was born. But I'll get more into that in another post.
For now, we have just entered 2009. I am not going to continue by saying that I hope 2009 is better than 2008 or any other year. I am not the kind of guy that thinks that a year is any better or worse than any other. Believe me I've had my fair share of both, but they always seem to overlap. It's like the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy for instance. Most people say they like one film more than another, where as I just enjoyed all 3 as one big story. It's just how I look at things. So as far as years go, I just look at the years like chapters in a book. A good chapter book will subtly take you on a ride, reveal some secrets, make new questions, introduce new characters, and say good bye to others. Almost every chapter has some mix of that as do the years for me.
This past year was on the mostly good side. Celebrated an anniversary, both with my wife and in our home. I started a new business with a friend, met some new friends and clients in the Art world, and heck, I think I've been more creative this year than I have been since 2000. Sure I lost a day job, but so have many people. Politically and economically, the world was/is in the shitter. There will be change either way, except now I think people finally realize that it is up to individuals to change and no "one man" will do it for them. (Oh yeah, I voted for the first time too!)
As for this man, yeah, loosing the day job had been frightening. I have spent years carefully balancing my artistic career with a day job that will support my family. And by balancing I mean 70/30 with the day job having the advantage. As much as I have always hated the day jobs, it put food on our plates and paid the rent/mortgage. And believe me, do not think I am ignoring the millions of people who built this world by working day jobs they hated. coming home from factories and mines being in poorer health than when they left that morning, just to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. I don't think I am any better than those people and I know I wouldn't be here with out them. But I will say, that I have always believed that I was meant to create art for a reason and it was to make the world a better place even if it's one paint stroke at a time. So I did what I needed to do.
Then an opportunity is handed to me based on nothing except a friends sudden urge to "build a better Steampunk Mousetrap" so to speak and suddenly this new business takes off out of no where. We are contacted by a film producer after just days of posting some of our new contraptions and I finally see something that hasn't been obtainable since I left California in 1994. A real creative day job. The opportunities continue to grow and I am no balancing the day job and the Art job at at least 50/50, when reality hits, and the economy knocks the day job out from under me. I knew it was coming, I was just hoping that it would have been on my terms. A rarity, I know, but at least I was in a better place than most when it happened.
So was loosing the day job the Universe giving me an opportunity to do what I love again? Maybe. My friends seem to think so. I still try to be realistic and send out resumes just in case... Well in case I fail. 35 years of doing that will keep that fear right over your shoulder. I don't doubt my art as much as I doubt the times, I guess. It keeps me on an emotional roller coaster every night. Ahren and I have so many projects just waiting to leap off the page and into our laps, but that is all controlled by several producers. Hence why I continue to search for a day job to pay the bills. I hate keeping my wife in such agony, especially since she has her own issues with family health to deal with. So 86 ignored resumes later, I continue the search, while also making new contacts every day in the art world to try and make that a reality. Deep down I feel like I will be forced into the day job, just before all these projects go live and I will loose my opportunity again. Either way, I have to do what's right for my family. I just hope maybe this time it will work out for me too.
And so, for better or for worse, Chapter 36 begins for me, as does this blog.
From Doctor Grymm here in the lab, I bid you all good day.
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