Just a short update. I took part in Inktober this year. What's Inktober? A loosely organized effort to get people to practice their ink drawing skills. So there's a predefined prompt every day, and every day you do a drawing based on that prompt.

Here is a link to my 31 drawings.

It was fun getting back into drawing...I really hadn't done much of it in the last 20 years. I'm my own biggest critic, but I'm happy with how many of them turned out. And I appreciated the chance to try some new things and improve some technique.

Looking forward to doing it again next year!

Some interesting street art in Portland (not mine):

I was in Kassel, Germany in 1992 for Documenta IX and had my brain melted by the sheer volume of amazing art.  As a teenager/young-adult, this was really my first opportunity to explore the art world in any meaningful way.  That experience of wandering around the galleries and discovering works and artists...learning about conceptual, contemporary, video/film, mixed-media and conceptual art had a powerfully profound and long-lasting impact on me as a person.

Whenever I think about this time, I almostly always think back to Anish Kapoor's "Descent Into Limbo".

(source)

The viewer enters a small concrete/stucco room in which there is a large black circle in the center of the floor.  Otherworldly/surreal lighting fills the space (was it electronic? natural? something else?), but the circle is the focus of attention.  What's so special about this?  Why do I care about this circle?  Wait?  What is it?  Is it a carpet or a mat or a flat form...or wait, maybe it has depth?  Maybe it's a hole.  Why can't I see it!?  What does it want from me?  We're a little scared and nobody seems to want to get close to it.  It has no edge/lip and there certainly is no bottom.  It's perfect darkness, or darkness perfected (I can't tell which).

Anish's site has some drawings that explain it in more detail.  I sometimes wonder if it's still there, haunting the ground in Kassel.

I know what I'm doing when the next economic downturn slices our faces in half!  I'm going to the pawn shop with all of my Hargadons!

For historical record:  First observed yesterday morning, around Broadway and 3rd (??). This is not a common morning route for me, but the sign was there and appeared fairly new.  I considered going back last night to pick it up but decided to give it a day or more to cook(?).  Tonight it's mine mine mine mine mine mine mine...

I want the g-voice number response team to be moar responsive, though I respect that my calls are hopefully just noise in the matrix.  From the support perspective, we should be OUTRAGED that it's this difficult to get actual cash money for your actual Banksy (original artwork).  Actually.

Please call the above sales line and let them know how upset you are that you can't actually sell your actually original Banksy.

RIP H.R. Giger. 

 A true goth and cyberpunk LEGEND.  

You have changed the world forever and you will be missed.