I Like To Think Of My Art And General Existence As A Collage Of Beautiful Mistakes.

I like to think of my art and general existence as a collage of beautiful mistakes.

I once described voting in an argument as "taking a shit." I just do it. I generally don't brag about it. Don't always like the smell. Sometimes the stall is stinky. But I do need to shit. Sometimes I feel half decent about it too. I FREQUENTLY TELL PEOPLE ABOUT MY SHIT, AND THE PROBLEMS I HAVE WITH MY SHIT. AND THE THINGS THAT MY SHIT SHOULD BE DOING. AND SOME WAYS TO HAVE A MORE MANAGEABLE SHIT IN THE FUTURE. But taking a shit isn't a deep moral statement, it's taking a shit. I think taking a shit is healthy, so I do it.

all of the USamerican people going "bbut if i vote in the election, im culpable for the unjustifiable evils of the american imperial machine!" just love to paint people who realize that you still need to vote as like, too naïve to understand their oh-so-principled moral stand, when the reality is that if you live in america and you're of voting age and you're realizing for the first time just now that you live in an evil country that runs on the blood of millions and always has, and if you somehow think that you can live here and work here and earn & spend money here and somehow none of that makes you culpable for the horrors that are done on your behalf, but voting does, or would, then you are so stunningly naïve that you need to shut the whole fuck up.

like. yes, the united states is a machine that turns colonial vampirism and for-profit genocides into capital, thanks for noticing, and welcome to the conversation. the rest of us have already figured out that 1. this centuries-old machine that kills people is not gonna just go away, or collapse spectacularly all at once, it is gonna need to be dismantled, and 2. it is not gonna be dismantled by november, and 3. i don't fucking know who told you that if enough people don't vote, nobody becomes president, but that isn't fucking true.

somebody is gonna be the president, and the president is gonna keep doing war crimes like the president always has because that's the president's job, and it will remain that way until we break the whole machine down. now who would you rather be in charge of it while we're trying to break it down: a senile old man who thinks he still needs to behave in ways that are decorous and won't cause bad press, or an angry old man who thinks cops should be able to shoot protesters with live ammo?

you are being offered the chance to pick your opponent in the biggest hardest fight of all time, and you're bitching that you don't wanna because it would make you feel icky to act in a way that is strategic instead of emotional & performative. if you actually cared about the vulnerable people you claim you're doing this for, you'd be willing to suffer a moral injury to keep the evil destructive monster you live inside of from going extra-berserk mode, but no, you want to posture about how you can't taint yourself by "participating" in a process that you are already part of every single day. let us know when you're ready to join us at the grown-ups' table, shitheads. do not @ me idfc

Some older doodles in dark mode (Inverted w/ some editing)

Doodled on Cardboard & Cardstock w/ acrylic marker or pen

I've started carrying cardstock and pens as often as I can. If I get restless at a social gathering [for one of 20 deliciously rude reasons] I can whip out my cardstock and start doodling. Nobody has seemed to mind yet. I don't have to talk, eye contact is long gone.

Slightly on that note I describe this sort of loose unplanned stuff as "stim doodles."

It's either I doodle, dance very much, say every horrific thought that makes me squirm, I climb, talk about historic atrocities (or another shared topic), gremlin yodeling, I start speaking as one of the bit characters, I try to figure out why people have built their lives in the way they have (in a nice innocent terrifying way.)

So the page up top, and the following page are the same piece of paper. I was at a bar with some half-acquaintances, and the paper became my little escape. The pages are in 4 sections, because it's the largest & easiest paper fold while still fitting in my pocket. And 4 mini canvases are fun.

The following two are drawn on scraps of cardboard with acrylic marker. I drew 'em real quick during my lunch break. ~min or two?

I drew the following page when my housemates threw a party. I wasn't feeling terribly social, I knew nobody. So wall-flowered under some of my weirder doodles in the living room while doodling. I enjoyed my doodling, problem solved. ['Getting bored' might have been in reference to the party, but I think I'd just been doing that kind of eye for a couple days and I wanted something new.

And the eye everyone draws while listening to the audiobook version of 1984 while in their kitchen. ~20min? Possibly less.

Yep!

Oooooooh wait. One last side note I think is really interesting!!!

In lots of old pottery, scrawls on cave walls, carvings, etc. There are patterns I use! Or rather, I use similar patterns. I've been into cave paintings and plenty of ancient art/craft since I was young as hell - so I might just be yoinking. But what's interesting is that THEY DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO WHAT I DID. A LOT OF THESE CULTURES ARE SEPARATED BY OCEANS, MILLENNIA. SO THE PATTERNS BEING SIMILAR IS COOL!

UGGGGGGGGGG. I LOVE FEELING AT ONE WITH THE WEIRD CROUCHING GOBLIN WHO CARVES THE TINY RHYTHMIC DETAILS INTO A COMB THAT COSTS MORE THAN THEIR HOUSE.

I think when limited to 1 color [in carving it might just be depth?] a lot of similar patterns come about between different people. All my friends have different patterns too! Many are things we've seen before, but it's interesting seeing what comes out of people when you get them to fill in a page with something.

Have a life!

Ben!!!

Another Poor Financial Decision

I've made another purchase.

It'll solve many problems.

Not the ones that most would call problems.

And thus it is an unwise choice.

But the problems it solves

are problems I want solved.

So I bought a portable 32bit float recorder with 4 inputs and a condenser mic setup.

To record little instruments while in the park.

To capture the noises of the world in more beautiful wretched detail than what my phone can provide.

To have the sound of my voice be crisp in the worrying footage I shoot.

And it was on sale.

So I bought it.

Desperately trying to normalize Brittany Broski so that I can film a bi-weekly chalkboard yapp sesh that lasts for 4 hours. I think figuring out the camera angles so that I could get the chalkboard, the mirror I talk to, and the padded room all in the same frame [two camera setup?] is something to do some deep thought on.

I think the reason why the super rural places are Like That is because there's just no stuff in there. Just sky and ground, no insulation between people, god and death. Heaven and Hell press against people from both above and below like a divine hydraulic press. Pressing people until they break one way or another, cracking, bending, exploding, whatever way each one does, and you either break and go to a church and start praying for real, or you break and shoot a gas station clerk while on meth.