The Last of a Series

I just published my third book of collected drawings done during the pandemic. This is probably my last, since I can’t keep on churning the same type of collection every year. The idea for Pseudologia Fantastica was almost a whim, and carrying on that whim for over three years is a little long. That’s not to say that I’m going to stop drawing using my current style, busy drawings that fill the full page, but I’m not going to do them anymore with the purpose of publishing. There are still many ideas that I feel like I need to push, so I’m still going to continue with it.

Also, the pandemic, which was the catalyst to my busy drawing style, hasn’t really affected me much recently in regards to my art. In fact, I’ve been much busier now and I’m finding less time to make art.

I encourage artists to make prints and make books of collections of their art. Not only are they an alternative way of selling your work, they are also an alternative way of showing your work, free from the confines of a traditional gallery. I kinda wish I sold prints much earlier in my career. I always thought that my works were cheap enough as it is, and a Glico print wouldn’t make sense as an alternative purchase. But now I find that prints are just as good a way of driving revenue as much as the original. It’s also a way of meeting your audiences halfway, especially if they don’t necessarily have the resources to purchase an original. The same goes for books of collected works.

Anyway, I hope the people who get my third book enjoy my collection. They’re basically the same images found on my Instagram and featured on this website, but it also includes explanations as well as a list of things found on the page, much like an I Spy book.

Getting Myself Out There

I’ve been looking at other ways to show off my work through an online networking service, and so far, there hasn’t been anything that’s excited me just yet.

I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but I’ve had a bias against DeviantArt. For the longest time, I’ve always thought of it to be the place mostly for sexy anime drawings. I’m sure there are lots of professionals in the site who do great work, but can’t help but feel that bias. To my surprise, when I looked at DeviantArt now, things seem to have calmed down. They’ve properly categorized the artists and it seems like they’re trying to cater to more serious artists. Maybe I’ll look more into it if I have some time, but building up a following on DeviantArt seems like starting a Facebook account in 2022. Perhaps that ship has already sailed a long time ago.

I tried out Tumblr, made an account, and found that the community is mostly dead. I think most people left Tumblr a few years ago after they strictly prohibited adult content.

I can’t with Pinterest. I actually find Pinterest annoying and how their aggressive SEO keeps pushing Pinterest in my search results when it’s the last thing I want. I also find Pinterest not very intuitive, so I just can’t.

I’ve been using Instagram for a few years now and have developed a reasonable number of followers, and it has been alright with me. The algorithm seems to have changed and I no longer get as many new followers as I used to, but the fact that it pushes people to keep on posting content actually encourages me to make art more often. It’s dystopic because it is literally making content for a corporation that doesn’t reward me for my efforts in any way, but I find that my Instagram is a good way to catalogue my art, get some feedback from people, and even make new friends.

I looked at Dribbble. While they seem to be very serious about catering to artists, the fact that there’s a paywall also tells me that it would be closed off to the public when it’s the last thing I want. People can still access the site without paying, but because creators need to be paying customers, it also means that many people wouldn’t even bother engaging in it. It seems to be more like a Linkdin for artists, not so much a networking platform to meet other artists.

Similar to Dribbble, Behance seems to be like a Linkdin for artists. It’s free and I made a Behance account and I find that the format is for artists who don’t already have an online portfolio or their own Web site. The way to get a good number of clicks and followers seem to mirror Instagram as well: interact with people, follow others, be active, etc. The set up however is very static. Artists get to make “projects” with a number of images. It doesn’t work like Instagram and you don’t have to update regularly, so it’s very counter-intuitive to interacting with the site regularly and gaining followers to be noticed.

I used to be on Medium, but they changed the tools on the site and it stopped playing well with my Korean machine. I gave up trying to fix the issue thinking I wasn’t getting much good feedback from Medium in the first place. I think the platform is designed for long think pieces, much like Substack, and despite me occasionally having long spiels once in a while, sometimes, I have nothing much to write about, much like right now.

I guess I’ll stick around with Instagram and my own website for now. That is, until Meta completely messes up Instagram the way it did with Facebook.

Inktober is Coming

Inktober is almost here. The prompts for every day of October is already out. One thing I’ve learned to appreciate about this October drawing initiative is that not only does it encourage people to make art, but it also does the hardest thing about drawing for me: coming up with ideas of what to draw. I think I spend half of my time tormenting myself thinking of what to draw as opposed to actually drawing. Thank you, Inktober. Here’s to trying to keep up with all of the daily prompts!

…

I just realized that it’s been a while since I’ve applied to any shows. Being busy and with the pandemic, it’s been very difficult to find an outlet which could cater to my works. I do make art regularly, it’s just that I haven’t been very active in trying to get them out there, especially with the postal services messed up and prices to send work overseas skyrocketing. There are tons of opportunities out there online, but I haven’t been spending the time getting my heart broken by applying to juried shows. It’s time to get busy.

…

The image here is one that was suggested to me. Make a busy traffic scene. I didn’t want to end up with the opening scene of ‘La La Land’ or the music video for ‘Everybody Hurts,’ one of REM’s worst songs, so I tried to look at traffic from an unusual point of view, from down below. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it fully translates. Half the time, I have to explain to people what is going on and why they are only seeing the undersides of cars.

No Tokyo Olympics, Please

It’s really time for the Olympics to get cancelled. It’s time. We all can see the Olympics for what they are. They are a company interested in their own profits. They’re not about sports, camaraderie, or triumph over adversity. The sports and the athletes are just a secondary concern. What the IOC values more is licensing, advertising, and broadcasting the games.

The games have been slowly showing its hand in the past few Olympic games. A couple of years after the games were held in Beijing, people noted the abandoned structures that were hastily built for the games. Then people started questioning whether it truly is worth it to host the Olympics, especially when the money used for infrastructure could be used for so many other things. This was especially true when the Olympics were held in Rio. Last year, the Olympic park was closed due to safety concerns. Hosting the Olympics means spending money on infrastructure that would never be recovered, infrastructure that has a high probability of not being maintained after the games. But yeah, the countries/cities are losing money, but someone is getting rich out of all of the construction and other Olympics-related logistics.

As for the sport, Sochi Olympics has demonstrated that widespread cheating can occur with very little consequences to the athletes. After Russia was caught having a national doping program, they barely suffered any consequences for it, and many of their athletes were later allowed to compete under no flags. Pointless.

And now Tokyo, despite rising coronavirus cases, insists that the city will continue to host the games as scheduled. There will be no spectators, and athletes will not be required to get the vaccine, but will however be required to sign a waiver that they risk illness and death by competing in the city. Why is the UN allowing this? This is akin to South Korea’s old law of revoking foreigner’s visas should they learn they are HIV positive. What if they caught the virus in South Korea? (Instead of having brought the virus into the country) Isn’t that not their fault fully but also the fault of the environment they are in? The UN saw it as discrimination as well as a backwards policy that unfairly treats visitors to the country. In Japan, what if the athletes catch covid in the country and dies? Doesn’t the country or the IOC have any responsibility for it? Doesn’t this shift the blame for catching diseases fully on the visitors and not the country the same way South Korea did before with HIV?

Inviting a host of people from countries all over the world could potentially turn Tokyo into a hotbed for the pandemic and naturally, many of the people in Tokyo are against it. Around 80% of people in a recent survey wanted to have the games cancelled altogether. So the games aren’t really for the benefit of the city either. They don’t want to risk dying from covid should the worst happen as a result of thousands of athletes visiting. Even a group of Japanese medical professionals want the game cancelled. Japanese cities are not doing well with infections and vaccinations. As much as some people are saying that Tokyo has handled the pandemic well. They truly haven’t. They came into the pandemic with so much hubris, even allowing people to go out cherry blossom viewing in spring 2020. And now Americans are officially warning people not to visit the country for the Olympics.

As much as I love Japan, I can’t stand the conservative Japanese government. The Olympics has a policy of not allowing politics to be part of the games, and yet recently, Tokyo has been using a map that shows Dokdo, a Korean island, as part of Japanese territory. This revisionist claim is just par for the course for the Japanese government in the past couple of years. They have denied wartime atrocities and downplayed claims of sexual exploitation. South Koreans are understandably unhappy about the recent Dokdo fiasco and many are pushing to boycott the Olympics altogether.

I believe this push to have the Olympics in Tokyo this summer no matter what is simply companies trying to make good on their investments. I’m sure contractors and other beneficiaries to the Olympics, be it the Japanese government side, the corporate side, or the IOC, who were disappointed last year are still hoping that they can make money off of the event. And it truly doesn’t matter whether the events have people watching them on the ground. What truly matters is how many people will be watching the games on television and online. As for me, I think I’ll be watching better shows on Netflix instead. I can just read about whoever won whatever event on Twitter or Reddit.

Gah! Art block!

It’s weird to actually have a perfectly good and normal day. Looking back, it’s rare to have an objectively good day, a day I could just repeat over and over again. Maybe my medication is finally working, but I genuinely felt that last Sunday was a good day. I wish I took more pictures of that day. The sun was out, people were nice, no depression or anxiety, things were great.

Then Monday came along and I have to deal with new problems at work. Good-bye, serotonins! It was nice knowing ya!

Thinking back, it’s hard to remember many pure, perfect days… perfect holidays that I just want to re-live over and over again. I think I’m not alone here. People have a few perfect days that they re-live in their minds. Last Sunday wasn’t particularly special, but it was just a good, anxiety-free time. And in this day and age, at this stage of my life, that’s a big deal, I guess.

…

Been suffering from artist’s block lately. It’s been a week now and I haven’t been inspired to draw anything. I hate this. I hate this as much as the nagging need I have to draw or make art when I’m inspired by an idea. It’s always nice to finish a piece and finally be able to walk away from it, admire it from a distance. But afterwards, there’s the gaping hole where art-making should be.

I’ve tried to force myself to make art before, to basically just power through and make something until it looks like something inspiring, but I’ve never been happy with the results. They end up looking like something that cringes me out months afterwards, which is far less time than my regular art makes me cringe afterwards. Usually, it takes two years.

Anyway, I hope the art gods are kind to me and bless me with inspiration soon. I want to make art. I have so much time I could be filling with art that no one will buy.

Talking Art

I realized yesterday that my best friend, despite being an artist and a gallery owner, is incapable of talking about art. For sure, she can spend hours talking about her works and her self, but she is not the best person to talk to about art, artists, and anything creative. I’m not even sure if she’s interested in art history or anything in the past that could inspire her works. I remember giving her a couple of books about art and artists, sending her links about art, or even trying to talk about potential art concepts, but I can’t remember feeling any interest coming from her in return. If anything, I recall a couple of times being discouraged and just keeping things in the status quo when I tried to brainstorm ideas with her.

어제, 내 가장 친한 친구가 예술가이자 갤러리 주인이지만 그녀는 예술에 대해 이야기 할 능력이 없다는 것을 깨달았어요. 확실히 그녀는 자신의 에술과 자신에 대해 이야기하는 데 몇 시간을 할애 할 수 있지만, 그녀는 예술, 다른 예술가 및 창의적인 것에 대해 이야기하기에 좋은 사람은 아니에요. 그녀가 미술사에 관심이 있는지, 아니면 그녀의 영감을 줄 수있는 미술사에 관심이 있는지 모르겠어요. 그녀에게 예술과 예술가에 관한 책 몇 권을 주었던 기억에, 예술에 대한 링크를 보내거나 잠재적인 예술 개념에 대해 이야기하는것 하지만 그 대가로 그녀에게서 오는 관심을 느꼈던 기억이 없어요. 그녀와 아이디어를 브레인 스토밍하려고 할 때 몇 번 낙담하고 현상 유지를 유지했던 것을 기억해요.

She simply can’t or is just disinterested. We try talking about art, and then eventually we drift back to talking about her works, going through the same rote conversations.

단순히, 그녀는 할 수 없거나 무관심해요. 우리는 예술에 대해 이야기하고, 결국 그녀의 예술에 대해 이야기하며 제 귀에 못이 박히도록 같은 대화를하게되요.

Now, I know that this is not a prerequisite for all artists to follow, but it surely helps in guiding one’s work to know about art and be able to talk about them, and to be inspired by bigger artists. It instructs the artists not only with their style but also in how to see their own works. Is an artist painting the way Jackson Pollock painted in order to see the canvas in different directions and show movement? Or is the artist just doing it for pretty colors? Maybe an artist can start with the latter, but knowing who Pollock is and why he painted the way he did, an artist can move on to the former and beyond.

이것이 모든 에술가 따라야 할 전제 조건이 아니라는 것을 알고 있지만, 자신의 예술이 예술에 대해 알고 이야기하고 더 다른 유명한 예술가로부터 영감을받을 수 있도록지도하는 데 확실히 도움이될수 있어요. 예술가들에게 자신의 스타일뿐만 아니라 자신의 예술을 보는 방법을 가르쳐주어요. 캔버스에 다른 방향으로보고 움직임을 보여주기 위해 Jackson Pollock적 그린 그리는 예술가입니까? 아니면 예쁜 색들을 위해해요? 혹시 아티스트는 후자부터 시작할 수 있지만 Pollock이 누구인지고 그의 그린 방법 이유를 알면 아티스트는 너머로 이동할 수 있어요.

Anyway, I’m going to have to take my art conversations elsewhere.

어쨌든, 저는 다른 곳에서 미술 대화를해야 할 것이에요.

The Woven Tale Press

Thank you to the good people at The Woven Tale Press  for including me as one of their featured artists for their issue this month. They do wonderful work at introducing new artists as well as literary works to enthusiasts.

Like Movember with Drawings

Sorry Inktober. I love the spirit, but I just draw way too slow. I do draw regularly though, so does that does that count?

I wish I could be one of those people that draw everywhere, carrying around their drawing pads and doing life studies or doodling on the fly. I’ve always admired Robert Crumb and have enjoyed his series of drawings on paper place mats. They’re genius. He’d come up with funny scenes while waiting for him meal to arrive. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the creative will to do so. Also, I blame my phone. That piece of tech with all of the world’s knowledge right at my fingertips is just way too distracting. I guess that’s why things like Inktober are even more important now than ever. It reminds people to just sit down and draw.

Rats

Sometimes, there’s not much to do but draw the royalty of the rat kingdom.

Canadian Anime

Printed and distressed my Canadian posters to make them look more authentic. I’m hoping I succeeded (http://josephmreyes.com/Blamco.html). People can compare the results from the images I posted in the past couple of months. I’m happy with the resulting images. I’m hoping others are too.