Now in color!

If you haven’t checked out Barry’s fill in strip for Dicebox yet—or even if you have—go check out the colorized version.

Nature abhors a vacuum

Which, I suppose, is the operating principle of weeds. Something I decided to defy this past weekend. Man, let a couple months go by it gets to be a jungle out there.

But one advantage to letting the back most corner of your backyard go is discovering
you have Digitalis purpurea growing back there:

It just supports my theory that in the 60 odd years that my house had been a rental property, just about everything that can grow in Oregon has been planted in my backyard. And given our climate, that’s alot. The foxglove was one of the nicest surprises, unlike the recurring brambles or the 4-foot thistle that had grown in front of the foxglove. The Jerusalem artichoke that shoot up ten feet is amusing and the yucca plant just won’t call it quits.

Speaking of gaps to be filled, Barry
has started his fill in strip for Dicebox over at Girlamatic.com,
a short Molly and Griffen story called “the Argument”. It looks
fantastic so far and will be running the next three or four weeks as I take
a break and prepare for Chapter 3.

And don’t think this leaves me a lot of free time on my hands. This break
happens to coincide with my having to ramp up my duties as curator of an upcoming
group show at Pushdot
Studio, a small gallery whose purpose is to showcase the work of Portland
digital artists. This show, which will be opening on First Thursday July 3rd,
will feature the digital work of seven local cartoonists: Christopher
Baldwin, Barry
Deutsch, Indigo
Kelleigh, Robert
Lewis, myself, Linda
Medley and Kevin
Moore.

A Walk down Memory Lane, Near Collision with the Present

Now that Chapter 2 of Dicebox is done, and I have a couple week break thanks to Barry, I’m making an effort to get my life back into a more agreeable pattern. Instead of the stressed awkward scrambling I felt my life has been the past few weeks. Also helps that the day job is also a little calmer as well.

This means not only getting into my proper rhythm of producing pages of Dicebox, but re-incorporating certain things back into my routine, real boring stuff but necessary for me to feel satisfied, like housework, yardwork and more regular physical activity.

The absence of the last has been a real killer for me, and part of a vicious cycle: between work and art I have to spend many hours seated concentrating on something not more than three feet from my face. In order to comfortably endure this with energy and focus, I need regular physical exercise, especially to avoid excessive back and knee pain. But I need just about all the time I can grab in order to complete these things that require me to sit for long periods of time, hence, not allowing time for exercise.

But recently I’ve discovered I can actually walk to work. It’s a 4.4 mile walk, granted, but that only takes me an hour and fifteen minutes, only a half hour longer than the bus ride during rush hour and far less a time commitment than prepping for the gym, driving there, working out and then driving home and than catching the bus to work. And I am just fundamentally opposed to driving to the gym. (Think I’ll quit)

I used to walk to work all the time. Of course that was only .9 miles from Northwest to Old Town. But I always enjoyed it, especially walking through the Pearl and past the Henry Weinhard plant while it was still operational. I was acutely reminded of my morning constitutional by this post of Kip’s talking about his disgruntlement of the gentrification of the Pearl and regret for what’s passing which is in line with my own. Except—I work in the Pearl now. A dangerous three blocks away from Powell’s, in fact. Every day I watch this art gallery close or that long established business forced out to make way for boutiques that no one seems to go into or condos with romantic names and bad space planning, filling up with people who complain about the smell of the fertilizer plant that has been there since the 1920s of the trains that come through in the wee hours like they have since the mid-1800s.

And walking through it is now more hazardous and unpleasant than when it was mostly industry—and real art lofts full of dust and fumes and real originality (take that you lousy poseurs). These incoming gentry are rude as all get out, nevermind how they run stop signs or nearly sideswipe bicyclists and pedestrians.

Sigh.

Maybe I should go back to why I like walking.

Well, my new route takes me down Hawthorne, past all the funky shops (some of which, yes, could be described as boutique-y, but are affordable and interesting), markets, and the Masonic temple, then through charming neighborhoods, a thriving industrial district (few of the businesses were chased from the Pearl) over the Hawthorne Bridge and through downtown where I can stroll through not one, but two parks. It’s such a pleasant walk, first thing in the morning, so the sun is on my back instead of in my eyes, before it gets too hot. And when I just start to get too warm, I hit the Hawthorne Bridge with it’s cool breezes. (And there is usually a train going by underneath the approach ramp as I walk over, which the kid in me finds cool)

And then two blocks from my office I nearly get creamed by some idiot in their pseudo SUV, on their cellphone looking everywhere but at the traffic signal, the road and the odd pedestrian.

Ah well, I’m actually going willingly onto the streets of the Pearl tonight to partake of First Thursday along with Kip, Christopher and Hilary. (Might as well enjoy the remaining galleries)

This’ll actually be my second outing with artists this week. The first entailed Kip, Barry and I impulsively piling in my car to motor up to Seattle simply to catch dinner with Scott McCloud—delightfully we were also joined by Erika Moen, Kevin Hanna and Kevin’s wife Claire. It was great fun, Barry, Erika, Scott and Kevin have there own reports (with pictures!) I enjoyed watching Scott and Barry engage in debate again after all these years, though given our limited time, it felt like a warm-up.

Really odd how comfortable and familiar it all was, I mean, we were missing Amy, Paul and Ivy, but a lot of it felt right, even Erika almost being bathed in ice tea seemed oddly apropos. There was even sharing time with the passing around of art and comics and Scott gathering us around for some pop cultural oddity-this time it was a David Hasselhoff video. Which I’m not sure was a step up or down from the
video tape he showed us once back in Amherst of a short film someone made of Barbie and Godzilla dolls acting out a porn flick, complete with appropriate soundtrack.