Nerves are good.

At least that's what I'm telling myself.

In under two weeks I am embarking on my biggest music video project to date. I've enlisted help from some of the most talented people I know. I have Will Pailen writing and singing the music that tells the story of "The End of All Things". He is brilliant.  He has come up with a song that is everything I asked it to be! It's really going to help me tell this story... the premise being this: humanity is so overstimulated by technology, the substances that we ingest, that we have evolved into gods. Unfortunately when this happens, the very thing that makes us human (our soul) is lost... and because we have no soul we have no desire for love... and therefore we slowly die off. This video will depict.... the last man and woman. Colleen Katana (this beautiful multitalented friend of mine.... photographer, writer, actress, singer) will be portraying the last god-woman. She will be fierce. I hired a make up artist who I recently worked with on a shoot. Her name is Tiffany Garlick. I liked her style and the make up she did for the ladies on set was off the hook. So I'm sure she's going to break it down! I knew I'd need extra help for this over night shoot. We'll be doing interior shots from midnight on and then we need to shoot exteriors as the sun is rising. So I've hired one of the most capable people I know.... my friend Brian Kalinowski to be my assistant director. I trust him with my first born, if I had a first born.

So I have been lucky enough to gather a team of really amazing people. This places the rest of it up to me. I guess I am so excited that my nerves are creeping up. There's this feeling of "I don't want to let any body down." So I thought I'd be ballsy and say it out in the universe. "I am scared." I feel like I'm onto something big here. I will also say this out into the universe. "I will not run from this fear." I am forking out a lot of time, energy, and money to create this. And why? The answer is simple. I love this. I have found something I love doing. If no one ever sees the videos or likes the videos " I can live with that." Mostly I don't want to let myself down.

So I will put this out into the universe too. I ask what ever is out there to help me suspend my belief in myself. And remind my heart of all the reasons I'll ever need to keep the faith in me. "I do this because I love it. I love the music. I love telling a story. I love the styling. I love the concept of "living art" through video. LOVE. If I hold onto that feeling. I can not fail. I will not fail."

If I'm gonna be an artist then I'm gonna get messy.

So life has been amazing lately. This is mainly because I have opened up to my potential to create. I feel like I've been ignoring it for a while. It's interesting how energy seems to grab momentum. All this creative energy started in the winter as I bought this new computer in hopes of making "little music videos". I decided to use my first one as a marketing tool for the bar I work Xes. I called this video "Strobe". You can find it on my youtube channel if you haven't seen it already (I tagged about a thousand people via facebook). I WILL NEVER forget the high I experienced when I finished it. I was working on it at the bar with my earphones in for a couple hours sitting ignoring every one around me..... when finally I had it how I wanted. I pressed play which cued my victory dance... a sharp jolting series of movements that resembled some one who was possessed by the devil... or perhaps it was god in this case.

And so slowly but surely I made more videos. And each time I made one they got better. Until after a while I began to get bored again. And I began to feel lost again... until I told some one that was not happy and they encouraged me to write down how I felt. So I began to vent and to pray. And very quickly I became inspired again. Only this time I can't seem to stop finding new and exciting ways to express this creativity. The more time I spend letting myself dream and make things, the more ideas I have. I'm making two genres of music videos.... those that are dark and expressive and those that remind me of how important family and life is. I'm writing a book that at times I find myself laughing out loud at the silly things and ways I write, and just recently I started making collages. This new hobby began because there was a GIANT ORANGE dumpster in between my bedroom window and my view of the park. "What an eye soar" I thought.... for days. Until a few days ago I decided "well at least the color is cool. I'm going to take a picture of it." I began a leisurely walk through the park except I could not stop thinking of the picture I took. So I went back and took more. As I was shooting, I immediately realized I wanted to turn this into art. "How ironic," I thought, "That my perception shifted so dramatically and so quickly." And so that became the subject of this work.

I decided to hang the triptych I made out of the dumpster photos today. I wanted to integrate it seamlessly into the existing art I had hanging on my wall. I couldn't figure out how to do that. "If only I could have as much fun arranging these as I did making this latest work." And then, "Why don't you?" popped into my head. So I grabbed some spray paint and began to spray the walls. What I stupidly did not anticipate was that the paint would circulate through out the room dusting EVERYTHING in it's path. I soon realized that I was spraying my entire world. I frantically grabbed wet rags and began scrubbing as best I could. It was an ARDUOS process. As the sweat poured from my brows, my world was being snowed on by the most electrifying tint of blue... and then I realized, "Let it be." I will be happy to put forth my best efforts to clean what I can of this beautiful mess, inhale these awful fumes.... because I am an artist... and I am ready to open my world up to some mess in the name of art.

Amen.