This is like an inventory of things I do to express myself. I don’t know why I nee to do a catalogue, but it feels right – like emptying a closet before you reorganize it.

Writing

• I post musingsand observations to my blog. Theseoften are like a journal of reflections, or

  some passing whim or temporary interest.

  • I tend to returnto the same themes in the course of 12months:

    comic book and graphicartists, like Will Eisner, E.C. Segar, Jack

    Kirby, or Alan Moore, and iconic characters

    like Popeye and Superman.

  • I recall emotional patternsfrom my youth, particularly regardingmy Mother and Father, or themes of loss,

    responsibility, persistence or hope.

  • I try to connect cool ideasor inspirational movements across eras, oracross media or disciplines.

    Sometimesthe expressionist films like Metropolis will

    lead me to the Bauhaus, which will lead me to

    the new wave band DEVO, which leads me to

    underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, or the

    Cult of the Subgenius and concepts of

    devolution, or to the movie “Idiocracy”. I find

    it interesting that some of the same ideas seem

    to “infect” both high art and low art in

    similar ways.

Visual Art

• Occasionally, I’ll do adrawing, sketch, of collage,to document a state of mind.
  • Sometimes, it’s a sketchyportraitof the back of a stranger’shead, just to see if I still have enough eye-

    hand to render someone representationally, or

    to see if my Playbook tablet can be used as a

    sketching tool with as much effectiveness as a

    brush-pen.

  • Sometimes, it will be alittle diagram or design scribble, tohelp me sort out a design idea.
  • Sometimes, it’s a crazy,colourful collage, using a plastic binfull of scraps of images culled from hundreds

    of magazines over the past dozen years. This is

    the most fun of all – like putting together a

    strange Freudian puzzle out of irregular

    pieces, and with no box cover to show you the

    final product.

It’s all about some kind of creative output.

Thought Precedes Action

But inspiration for a creative act or artifact most often comes after I’ve internalized some cool information, or someone else’s cool

art. More often than not, some kind of

stimulating input will have inspired me to

synthesize something for myself: It’s important

to listen to music or to look at art by artists

whom you admire, or whose vision or message resonates with you.

It comes and goes. I need to hear or see something that makes me laugh or makes me go

“wow”.

It will trigger something inside me – a

response, a dredged-up memory, or a forgotten

sense of self. I will ask myself who I am now,

or how I want to feel. I will create an

artifact. I will need to make a mark.

Everything in that last paragraph can happen

very rapidly, like a sensory-response, or at
the level of muscle memory – subconscious, and
not even clearly or consciously articulated.

Garbage in, garbage out. Garbage in, Gold out. Sometimes copper. Most often, pixels or paper.

It is what is is: a response-loop that simply has to happen. Without it, I think I’d get ill or be too nervous.