It's been a while.

Hello. It’s been a while.

During college, and even for a few years after college, this was my place to talk
with the internet. I talked about my anxieties, about who I wanted to be, and
shared my art. At the time, I imagined a whole community wrapping around my
content. In reality, it became little more than a journal of my progress,
artistically and mentally. That’s not such a bad thing.

I can look back and pinpoint two pieces of technology that changed my life forever.
The first is an Intuous5. Almost the literal moment I shifted to doing digital art I
started to see success like I’d never seen before. Even though it took me almost
a decade to get any good at it on my own, producing digital art is the reason I’m able
to support myself with art today. 

The second is my smartphone. And I gotta say, it made me a fucking boring person.
I have read so many hot takes I could set your face on fire. I used to think and dream,
and now I instagram. It’s a drain, and a full on problem, and a complete necessity.

This is the person I am today and this is my relationship to reality: I am 32,
I am married, I have two cats, I have a full time illustration job, and I make
illustrations freelance on the side. I no longer write. I no longer give back.
I watch Youtube and scroll Instagram and Facebook and Reddit even when
I’ve rung every bit of data out of them. Then I play video games.
I am a child and an adult in a fight for my body and time.

Let’s change that.

Last week something crazy happened. It was like a flash flood in the Midwest,
where the sky goes a boring shade of gray and begins spitting water, slowly, at first.
It never turns into a full-on torrent and if you were to stand in it you’d simply
be uncomfortable. But it also doesn’t stop, and soon the ground becomes saturated
and the water starts pooling in ditches and fields. Then you hear the sump pump down
in the basement, wiirrr-chunk! as it tries to suck out the water suddenly filling
your house from the ground up. 

For months, there was talk of the coronavirus. Same as SARs, same as Ebola,
so on and so forth. It was boring.

And then it was here. 

The sump pump kicked in, wiirr-chunk! And the NBA cancelled their season.
Here in Ohio, they closed restaurants and tattoo parlours and music venues,
the list goes on. My office building was closed, though I still work from home.
Colleges and schools cancelled in-person classes and most will finish their
years online, if at all. Wiirr-chunk! The sump pump works to keep the basement
from flooding, but the rain continues.

It’s Sunday, March 22nd, after the first full week of staying at home practicing
‘social distancing,’ and on the eve of what will no doubt be remembered
as the fastest onset of a recession in modern history.

Hello again, it’s been a while.

Now let’s do some art.