Kickstater Update #46
I was out for a bike ride with my son and saw a woman I know. She’s living nearby after a bit of trouble with some substances. It is the worst possible time to find any kind of sobriety, but there she is. One day at time. I wave and keep my distance as we do these days. It was hard not to run up and celebrate her time. Sobriety after abuse is a stunning act of courage. Yet, I pedaled away into the springtime blossoming Berkeley streets.
My son and I try to ride our bikes once a day. It’s that time of year in California where it’s impossible to think of living anywhere else. Flowers blooming and the temperature perfect. My son has got the world’s best attitude and I’m grateful. I’m grateful for a lot of things these days. Basic things. My dull ass day job is solid. I am not always so at peace with my career “accomplishments” but seeing my friends with cool art jobs suddenly thrown into a tailspin thanks to economic uncertainty makes my sell-out job feel quite nice at the moment. My son’s school is closed. I home school him part of the day. He had his first video conference class meet up the other day. His teacher, not the most tech savvy person, kept losing his signal. The kids would go into a Fisher Price Lord of Flies round of “What do we do now? The teacher disappeared” until he returned. They laughed but there’s drop of fear. Finally there was some consistency of signal and the meet up continued to conclusion. The teacher used to instruct kindergarten and is new to fifth grade. His style skews a little too young for kids on the cusp of middle school. However, the kids roll with it. My son still finds the puppets funny. At fifth grade some kids are little teenagers and some are big kids. My son is a big kid. The meeting ended with the group singing a song with a purple puppet. Really, though it was my son alone at his desk singing sincerely at a monitor and it was hard for me not cry.
This time has been brutal for me and my life is amazing. I have dough, a roof and kid that has a great attitude about everything. It’s hard not worry about my friends who are delivering packages and my artist friends without a safety net. It’s hard…you know why. The fear is constant. That said, even with this fucked up dystopian nightmare we are in, my son keeps rolling. I tried to ask him how he was feeling. Like REALLY feeling, creating space for him to be honest. He said “Top three things I like about homeschooling: 1. Seeing my grandma every day on video chat. 2. Learning about the Revolutionary War from my Aunt. 3. Biking every day with you.” I don’t know how people survive this without a Noah in their life. We get out. We bike and keep trying.
We are right in the middle of a global fucking pandemic and here I am making emo comics. I dunno, man. Is this the right call?
I make art because I am compelled to. Well, lately I’m compelled to eat carbs and hide, but on a spiritual level art is my compulsion. I remember living in New York after September 11th and Letterman came back on the air because “the mayor said it was time to go back to work.” He read shit jokes from hand held cue cards. His job was to tell jokes and so there he was. Even if he didn’t know how to be funny at that time because the world was a nightmare and bodies had just rained into the streets of New York. Nothing was funny. But it was time and Letterman went to work. His work was art.
I am back to work. I had stopped because the world is pretty awful but I’m back at it. I’m coloring Monument #2 and you can see my progress above. I’m blocking in the color story, then will make one more pass to clean up the colors. Then I letter the book. Then I’m done. I’m fairly close to finished and have the next project precolating. I have real doubts about this particular story and the merit of my work. However, this is my job.