United States Army Retired

After twenty years in the Army, you get a few token things to remind you of the odyssey. The tie pin is one of those things many toss in a drawer, if that, never to be seen again. I guess because it's an odd thing, this retired Army tie pin. Still, it is a reminder that you put in 20 years, or more, in uniform getting your boots dirty around the world. It says you made it pass go and got to collect $200.  But what do you do with it if you don’t wear ties?  Do retired women get one too?  I think they should replace the tie pin with a “Retired Army” coffee cup (one of the nick names, in the Army, for coffee was ‘lifer juice’ – alluding to those who were in for the long haul) or a “Retired Army” shot glass, that way we ‘lifers’ could get better use out of the ‘gift’. It's been 13 years since I was given this tie pin. It seems a lot longer than that; it seems a lot farther away. Well, I'm on a different journey now. My goal is to be a working artist. That is to say, I earn my living from being an artist; you know, my ‘day job’ is being an artist. I hope I stressed ‘artist’ enough. The tie pin is a good reminder that this present goal is achievable too, but it takes time. And it reminds me to have fun with the adventure as well, like I did with my Army adventure (it wasn’t fun all of the time but there were a lot of fun moments). And having things to remind me is good because sometimes I forget to have fun every now and then – really.

Oh, the image.  The retired Army tie pin is a part of this photomontage.  If you need to see it by itself, it’s on my Instagram.  The link is over there on the right.  Like I said, artist.

Extreme Art

Here’s the thing, I exist in, I think in, I work in the extremes.  For me, it takes daily effort – all of the time – to operate in the middle where most people are; and are comfortable with me.  It doesn’t help that I’m a little bigger than average.  Nor does it help that I’m black, an African American, a person of color, etc.  And I, if I’m not monitoring myself, can be loud – or say nothing at all.  Both ways make folks uncomfortable.  But I have been managing myself all of my adult life – I’m in my mid 50s now.  Unless you are like this, you may not be able to really grasp how this is not an easy way to live.

So, let me narrow in on my art.  As far as what I would like to do with my life – I just want to be a working artist – predominantly working with photography.  Why working artist?  I don’t want to do anything else – employment wise.  But I do have a fulltime non-artist job so I work on my art as time permits.  I go to non-artist work to help provide for our family.  We have kids, my wife and I, and we both work.  That’s good and I love my family.  It’s just the non-artist work part – I want my job to be an art job, not non-artist work.

So what does that have to be with being on the extreme? When I do work on my art, I push it.  I’m back in the extremes and I am comfortable working on my art that way.  I have recently joined Instagram and I push my art there too – working on exposure and learning how to make Instagram work for my art.  When I’m creating, it’s just me in my head so it doesn’t involve anyone else.  But when I’m doing the Instagram thing and trying to gain exposure, I wonder if I’m pushing too much.  I don’t know.  It’s obviously not too much for me but I don’t know if it’s too much for everyone else – I don’t get that type of feedback from Instagram (at least not that I’m aware of yet).  So, I will back it off a bit – put that Instagram thing in “the middle where most people are”.  Just saying that makes Instagram now feel like…

Well, I just had to write this down.

This image is my latest #montage, digital collage, #photomontage, photo conceptualism, “California Tree Dreams II”.  It is on the website too.