What Can You And I Do? SHOW UP!

“What can I do? SHOW UP!” 

A year and a half ago, I found myself at an art fair and discussing my frustrations with getting the kind of traction I wanted as a creative. My art friend/mentor decided to give me a few of her motivational works. Apparently, I had motivated her in some way, so it was a fair exchange. While she does really nice artwork, she likes to bang out these quickie sayings for fun. I didn’t particularly want them (I thought they were a bit cheesy for my walls), but I graciously accepted them.

A little later, I pick one up from my desk and put it up on the wall because it was taking up space on my desk and needed to be moved out of the way. The “Show Up” painting stayed there for months. 

Then comes the day Art in Bixby Park. I REALLY didn’t feel like going, even though I had already applied and set aside the day. I got out of bed to pick up for my phone from the dresser. I was going to text the coordinators and let them know I was bailing. That’s when I looked at my sign: “SHOW UP”. Shit. I sat in bed for a bit pondering our discussion and reluctantly packed up my things and made my way to Art in Bixby Park. 

It ended up being a lackluster day for a while, but then I turned the vibe around and started talking to people and getting excited about being out there. Because what else was I going to do? Sit around being lame? At some point, someone stopped by and left a card with me. It was fantasy and young adult author, Holly Stacey. 

I ended up following up with her and that led to me making several breakthroughs for Transcendent Press and meeting a completely unique set of people in the writing world. It’s currently the reason why I have been making the next set of short stories.

So yeah. SHOW UP. The whole attraction thing might just kick in, and whole thing might end up being well worth your while.

New Website Is Live. Now I Need An "Under Construction" Gif

Alright. I have been avoiding this for a long time, but I said that in 2019 I was going to be making some changes, so a new website is in the works. I am a firm believer that websites are still relevant. People used to say they didn't need a website because they had "A Facebook". Now it's "An Instagram" or "A Twitter".

Fact is, those outlets are just outlets for those corporations.

I'm going with the white-walled look like this some of those art galleries use. I think this should work out just fine. More as it develops. I'll be dumping all sorts of good shit there.

www.mrbenja.com/site

The Paint Trips Podcast Appearance

So I made an appearance on a podcast on an art podcast. I t came about because I was at an art  party talking shit about my own audio recording history when I run into a guy named Nigma 32 that has been running an art podcast and wanted to talk to a cool ass artist. I was ready.

Now usually, I get bored talking to people for that long, so I figured I’d be out of there in 30 minutes, but I ended up staying and recording for a good three hours talking all types of good shit. You know why? Because talking good shit runs in my veins. I already knew how to back up what I say, so listen in and catch some good gems.

Bonus points for anyone that knows where the colors I selected for my episode come from.

I'll get the time codes later so you can jump to a certain section.



- Benja -

Productivity Tips: Notebook

Ever find yourself not knowing what to create, design, write, eat, type, say, draw, choose, etc?

Here’s a productivity tip for you. Document your ideas and thoughts, including the ones that might not apply. Here’s what will happen: you will naturally go about your days, weeks, and months and you will build up an arsenal of weapons for getting over mental slumps.

I use mini-notebooks (pictured), full-size notebooks, digital notebooks, calendars, and index cards. They all come in handy for different reasons.

Heck, you might even have your plan already mapped out completely, but as you go, you’ll find that you need another viewpoint angle to sharpen, refresh, or contrast.

So the next time you hit a slump, you can look back at the ideas and get a jolt of inspiration from your best proponent: YOU!

Do you have any special processes that you use to get you through any slumps in your creative work? Let me know. We can compare notes.

The Trap Vector Blueprint

UPDATE: No one really supported The Trap Vector, so I shuttered it in favor of continuing to work on The 8BitCubist

I've spoken about this briefly in other places, but I wanted to give a more proper explantation of The Trap Vector project. There’s enough information to go into that I’ve decided to break this posting into 7 parts.

This is the part where I define how The Trap Vector came to be.

Around 2011, I had just been laid off of my job at Rockstar San Diego, and I was beginning to become a little disillusioned with my career in the game industry and life. I had let politics wear on me, my family wasn’t doing that great, my social life wasn’t where I wanted it to be, and in general, I felt like I was fighting to stay afloat in quicksand.

I knew things had to change or I would fall into a pit of despair that I couldn’t pull myself out of, so I started changing course with a lot of my activities and really jumped into the fine arts, fashion, writing, improvement strategies/tactics, and started expanding my horizons.

I hadn’t felt that energized in a long time. In fact, the last time I felt like that was that time period in my life when my parents worked with me to expand my mind in numerous ways. It was a synergistic experience. I was that curious kid that wanted to see and learn everything I could. Over several years, they worked with me to give me powerful perspectives and insights on life. They had been to many different countries, met so many people, and seen so many different things that they felt it would be a shame for me to miss out on those experiences. That period of time stuck with me, and in my later years, the longing for those mind-expanding experiences came again.

Returning to the 2011 era, I needed to process what I was feeling/thinking/experiencing, so I developed a form of visual journaling that relied on an abstract language of forms and shapes. You will recognize the most prominent of those shapes as the arrow and the portal. These shapes came from various sources and don’t directly mean anything on their own, but they hold a lot of meaning for me. These representations are, after all, abstract.

For years, I maintained and refined this abstract language I was coming up with and came up with over 400 thoughtful concepts that have been archived and are now being released in the form of a fine art print project known as The Trap Vector.

- Benja -

Flattening Your Prints

In the last post, I talked about framing your prints. What I forgot to mention is how to flatten them. The Trap Vector prints come rolled in damage-resistant kraft tubes for safe transit. This is a common practice, especially for larger prints. As your art arrives, you'll want to flatten them out before storing/displaying them.

Here are some recommended steps:

1. Find a flat table or surface to lay your print on. It should be dry and free from dust/debris.
2. Open the tube and slowly pull the protective tissue paper to slide out the enclosed prints.
3. While leaving the tissue paper in place to protect the print, carefully unroll them so that the curl s are going into the flat surface.
4. It is NOT recommended that you reverse-roll the print in the opposite direction unless you have experience doing so.  
5. Distribute a few books on each of the corners and in the center of the print. (If you don't have books, you can use some other flat-bottomed items that will keep your prints in place.)
6. Let your print sit for a while under the weight of the books. Usually, a day will be more than adequate, but you can probably get away with overnight or while you're off at a picnic.

Alternatively, if you get your prints professionally framed, you can just bring the rolled tube to your favorite framer, and they'll take care of everything for you.

- Benja -

Three Options For Framing/Storing Your Prints

Collecting prints? Of course you are. I was asked about what to do with prints if they aren't planning on putting them up on a wall just yet. You could simply keep them in the tube they were shipped in, but many opt for a storage solution of some type.

In general, you have three framing options:

1. Print Protectors - Not really framing, but you can store prints safely in protectors or portfolios like the ones available from Baroque or by searching on Amazon. Shop around to find what you need. This option is usually employed when collecting numerous prints.
2. Ready-Made Frames - This is the popular option. Head to your local framing shop such as Michaels, Art-To-Frame, or any place that sells frames and ask for styles in the desired size. You'll find something that looks good and won't destroy your wallet. Most prints for The Trap Vector are 18x24.
3. Professional Framing - This is the nicest and most expensive option. Michaels actually does custom framing and is a suitable start if you've never gone with the professional option. You can always ask a decorator or an artist/gallerist to recommend a framer near you if you want to go this route.

There are other options available, but these are the most common. If you have any ideas or comments, let me know!

I Need Change Agents To Actually Change Anything

Something is going on this year. I can feel it. While I can't put my finger on it, something changed once 2019 arrived. Do you feel it? I hope you feel it, because there's some good energy in the air. Not everyone is going to catch it though. Will you?

The Martin Luther King Jr Day week got me thinking about change and working towards a better future. I care about the knowledge and the work that I can do to make the world a little better place.

So how does one change? Like REALLY change? One thing I like to do it is implement a 'change agent'. I alluded to this concept with my New Year's post. But remember that a change agent doesn't have to be a holiday, it can be anything that works you. Any place, image, person, song, event, creedo, et cetera that symbolizes your concept of progress can help you get to that next level. Have that dream!

Think about weddings, uniforms, knighting, graduations, insignia, powerful memories, etc.

So my personal change agent was to finally appreciate a set of nearly four hundred abstract drawings coupled with moving out of my painting studio last year. Those two things together have come to symbolize an artistic shift in my head. Every time I see those drawings, I immediately think about how I've grown out of my art studio, and I get to creating some new ideas. And I've put those drawings on my nightstand so I think about them when I wake up and go to bed. Over time, they've started to become second nature; the change is setting in.

That artistic change has manifested itself in the print project known as The Trap Vector. The prints I've been creating from that project are available now. Your support and feedback is appreciated, so click that link and check it out.

https://thetrapvector.com

Take care.
- Benja -

Splitting My Focus Into Three Projects for 2019

I have three projects that I plan on getting worked on this year. I know that sounds like crazy talk, but I'm trying something out, here.

The common idea is that you should focus everything you are doing into laser-light precision and get that one thing done. I get it, and I believe that to be true in a general sense. In fact, The ONE Thing (by Jay Papasan and Gary Keller) is a great book that really got me to a good place with my productivity.

I know that I waste a lot of time, but when I'm most productive, I've found that I have a few things that I can roll onto. Basically, when one task is completing, I can roll onto another one without losing momentum. If I have to keep doing the same thing, I can sometimes burn myself out. I'll have to work on embracing the monotony, but that's how it happens right now.

Also, when I pour a lot of energy into something, it seems like people back away from the energy instead of responding positively to it. I don't know what that's about, but I've often been told to "calm down" on social media and in life. I've been told that I'm "too much". So pffft...I have to spread things out a bit or create new outlets.

Project 1 - The Trap Vector

The Trap Vector is my fine art print project. It's my lead-off effort for the year. It's a follow-up of sorts to a lot of the personal thoughts and feelings I was having for the past seven years. The genesis probably started well before that, but that's what it's about right now.

This outlet gets out my artsy fartsy concepts.

Project 2 - Transcendent Press

Transcendent Press is my writing project. If I could, I would probably just write for about a month, and then come out with some stone tablets full of god-like text. Then I'd realize it needs editing and I'd go away for another month. This doesn't fit in my plans right now, so writing is going to have to take the long and laborious route.

This outlet gets out my most heady creative ideas, and is currently my biggest long-range goal. I have a book planned for sometime this year, and I've gotten to work on it.

Project 3 - The 8BitCubist

Oh boy. A lot of people have been wondering what happened to the 8BitCubist from a while ago, and simply put, the band broke up. I mean, we didn't break up, but we went our separate ways, and the venture was never meant to be a solo one. So over time, I needed to put the brakes on it to figure out what the next iteration was going to be about. I am not going to be putting this in full force for the near term, but it's coming.

I think a podcast and apparel will do good to start with.

I'll do some other posts outlining what's coming I'm learning in 2019 in greater detail.
Let me know what you think of the plan so far.

I Have Been A Communications Fuck-Up For Decades

They say the first step in fixing a problem is to admit that you have one. Well, I'm saying it now: I don't think I've ever properly communicated very well for my entire life. I can trace bad communication back to my childhood. We were out at a mall, and I honestly wanted to show her a cheap plastic balloon set, so I tried walking outside with it. The hope that she would bring me back inside to pay for it. That didn't work out so well. I was legitimately confused when she and the store manager had a long discussion about what I was really trying to do that day. I was trying to communicate to my mother in a way I thought she'd understand. I expected her to say something like: "Oh look, young Benjamin walked all this way from the toy store to show me something!" Sadly, I didn't get the plastic balloons.

Fast forward decades later, and I'm still fucking up communication.

I generally have no idea to communicate properly, but in 2019, It's my resolution. As far as you're concerned, you will see me doing better communication with this blog. I've kept up a reasonable blogging schedule, so I think I can keep doing this without driving myself mad.

Alright. I've already got the idea for the next blog post, so I think we're getting somewhere.