The Tenuous Balance of the Creative Process

As some of you already know I’m in the middle of writing a book and due to that endeavor my blog postings have been sparse lately. Nonexistent really. I have been building things in my shop but writing about them takes away from the time I need to be writing “the book”. Writing is a solitary task that is rife with self doubt and personal angst that is interspersed with occasional moments of inspiration and connection. It is easy to loose balance and fall into an obsessive anti-social state. Self-consumption is something I am familiar with. Something I am not fond of. It's a drag.

Today I took a day off and spent it cleaning the shop, ordering material for a new project, and doing menial tasks that required just enough mental capacity to maintain my focus and direction. It was a relief. I love the shop. I love the smell of sawdust and the tactile nature of wood. How different kinds have different densities, weights, and textures. I needed to be reminded of the importance of balance in my life. Reminded that there exists a world outside. Reminded of the beauty in a simple piece of maple.

Or a portrait on a coffee cup. My friend drew this. It's me as a cat. Art can be found anywhere....

Yoga and Sleep Deprivation

One of the primary reasons I got out of the movie industry were the interminable long hours making it impossible for me to have any kind of fulfilling life outside my job. This week I was reminded of what sleep deprivation while trying to meet a deadline can be like. I built an interesting fence feature for a Lululemon event at the convention center. We installed it yesterday at 5 am and I had been at the shop finishing it until 2 am the previous night. This gave me a 3 hour turn around period to go home, shower, have a two hour nap then run back to the shop to load the truck. I was exhausted by the end of it. The difference between this and working on a Hollywood project was that I actually cared about what I was doing. Honestly, my passion for yoga attire is limited but I felt a sense of accomplishment when I left the convention center with everything intact and standing. When I was building scenery for movies and television shows (shows I would never pay money to see) all I was feeling at the end of the day was regret. I am thankful to say that today that is not the case!

I was also fortunate to have amazing people helping me--Joseph, Meagan, and Farrel were incredibly helpful and equally as tireless!

Sweat

In this temperate west coast climate I rarely break a sweat. A hoody is my accustom daily attire. The past couple of days have forced a dramatic change in both the way I dress and the amount I have perspired. It's actually borderline hot in this city. Not hot by east coast or southern standards but in a city where air conditioning barely exists it can start feeling a little warm in the sun.

I'm not complaining! This is wonderful shift from the norm of overcast drizzle when the thermometer hovers at 15C/61F. I love waking up and knowing it's going to be a hot summer day. It is as should be in August. My trouble lies in the fact that whatever temperature it is outside it is much hotter in my shop. Yesterday in particular I felt as though I was working in a convection oven. It was 35C/95F within the Funhouse confines at 2pm and I had to pack it in and come back in the evening. Today I purposely arranged my schedule to work in the early morning and evening. Now fortified with this beautiful glass of ice tea and the sun making its lazy descent I'm ready to get back to it.

The Cost of Light

Light is precious in Vancouver. It’s bought and sold on commodity floors. Stored in barrels. 
Produced primarily in Chinese factories and moved in freighters across the Pacific. Sunlight
is pumped through pipelines into giant silos off the coast. It’s released in increments to keep
the prices high. These prices are seasonal. In the winter few can afford proper illumination.
Last year sunlight was even too expensive for most of the mansions on the west side.
The demand in global markets inflated prices astronomically. This summer the bubble
appears to be bursting. Sunshine is suddenly cheap and readily available. The residents
of Vancouver’s poorest neighborhoods are enjoying a radiance from the sky. It is welcome.

The magic hour through the shop bay.

Mass and Substance

For the past couple months my energy has been focused primarily on a literary/art project I'm involved with. I've been done the occasional job out of my shop to generate income (art still doesn't pay particularly well) but the majority of my time has been spent in front of my laptop creating Word Docx. Sometimes when I have too many crowding my desktop of these I create a folder to store them in.

I am accustom to producing things with physical mass. I base my productivity and success on how much space I have filled. How much wood has been cut into small pieces and then reassembled into larger pieces. Size, amount, and mass are all factors I use to determine value. I’ve realized I use these to determine my self worth. Writing has forced me to reevaluate what constitutes substance. The weight of ideas versus the weight of a cabinet. The weight of a word balancing a slab of maple…

The cabinets are stacking up in a reassuring manner

Gastown Diaries--No fixed Address

I’m cat sitting for a stranger in a nice apartment in the historic Gastown district of Vancouver. She's not a complete stranger. We did meet once so she could give me the keys and make the feline introductions. Still I know virtually nothing about her other than her name and she knows very little about me. A common friend made the necessary introductions and assurances. Last year at this time I was cat sitting for someone else. It appears that this is what I do during the month of June. It was twelve months ago that I began my experiment in living without a permanent address. Reducing my life into a much simpler form so it fit easily into a hotel room. I had thought I might spend three months in that arrangement and then find another place to live. Yet I still have no fixed address other than room 103 and that is only as permanent as a hotel room can be.

I stopped by the hotel earlier today to grab a book and realized I missed my little space. I missed it in the way a person misses their bed while on vacation. I missed the personal connection to space. I missed the interactions with the community of people I have gotten to know that surround Room 103. The stylish Gastown apartment is beautiful but I have no connection to it or its occupants (my furry roommates). I feel like an intruder—the kind of intruder who cleans and cares for pets.

Scraps and Off Cuts

Space is limited in my hotel room and using my bed as a writing desk is getting old. I’ve wanted a high desk/work table for some time but I didn’t want to spend any money on material. I also don’t usually have time to work on home projects. This week I went through the scraps and off cuts lying around the shop and came up with enough fir and walnut to build something simple and functional in my limited space. The result is a long narrow piece made of fir veneer and solid fir edging with a simple walnut inlay detail.

The top is close to completion. Next I need to figure out what I’m doing for legs….

Architectural Detention

Vancouver architecture is often deceiving. It would be easy to mistake this new building on the corner of 1st and Main for some sort of government detention center. An unwelcoming place where people are sent against their will. A building of cement rooms with narrow windows and heavy locked doors. Hallways that smell of antiseptic and fear. It would be conceivable to imagine a basement where the Geneva Convention has been replaced by heavily redacted documents.

This perception would only be partly wrong. This is a new social housing project. This is for the people. Our government appears to be hiring octogenarian architects from East Germany.

Melancholia

Sometimes on rainy days at the shop it is easy to slip into a state of melancholia. The rain coming down. Elvis Costello singing about diving for pearls. The solitude of the shop. Melancholia takes me gently so I barely notice until I find myself entering the next stage, the one I’ve heard referred to as call morbid reflection. This is when I begin reflecting critically on past decisions, situations I wish I had handled differently, the times I perhaps should’ve said something different.

The difference between nostalgia and melancholia is that nostalgia can be shared. With friends. With family. Even with total strangers. Melancholia is solitary. Nostalgia has potential for light whereas melancholia’s direction is inevitably towards dark and ponderous thoughts.

Today I caught myself in mid descent and had a quick flash of truth that brought me back. The fact is that I have a really great life! I wasn’t working outside in the rain. I was building a cute shelving unit for someone’s kitchen. I wasn’t hungry. I could change the music and no one would complain (The Ramones are antithesis of melancholic music). In that flash of truth was also the realization that I ought to be focusing on the task at hand rather than mulling over things I would never be able to change. I should be focusing my attention on building the best damn cute shelving unit possible! So that’s what I did…

Cutting dados for the aforementioned unit

Modern Division

A little something I whipped up at the shop.

A vertical grain fir sliding panel door as division of space.

Waldorf Diaries--The Waldorf Pool!!

The Waldorf is getting a new pool!!

Think Esther Williams

Think Chateau Marmont

Think Vancouver's Downtown East Side

You get the picture. It's going to be sweet!

Waldorf Diaries--The Flanover

Living at the Waldorf Hotel can be a dangerous experience. I’m not referring to the hipster onslaughts or the shady characters in the parking lot. I’m not talking about being accosted with inane conversation by barely 20 somethings hopped up on Mojitos. Nor the threat of breakbeats putting me at risk of suddenly busting a potentially dangerous move. I speak of a lethal combination served with careless abandon in the restaurant below me. The late night flan and espresso combo.

Seductive.

Delicious.

Together they call to me in irresistible siren songs through the floor. Beckoning me to venture down the stairs and partake in their contrasting yet enticing complimentary flavors. The warm creamy flan drizzled in dolce leche leaving a subtle sweetness on my tongue only to have that lightness transformed into something deeper. Something darker with a simple sip of coffee. Intoxicated and entranced, I am defenseless against its lure.

The immediate effect is one of euphoria, an electric exhilaration, a desire to express myself creatively, and a feeling of rapturous invincibility. Inevitably, an hour later, those ecstatic sensations are followed by an equally radical crash that sends me crawling shamefully into bed.

Then, in the morning, there is the unavoidable Flanover. Even before my eyes are open I feel the throbbing in my temporal lobe. The morning sun coming in the window burns my parched tongue that must’ve been hanging flaccidly out of my mouth while I lay unconcious. Dehydrated and delirious I lurch towards the bathroom and fall into the shower letting the water bring me into semi-consciousness. I brush my teeth staring at myself remorsefully in the mirror. My eyes appear as two red orbs sunken deep into my skull.

Espresso. Flan. Each of these individually pose potential risks. Together they can destroy a man.

This is my shame.

The Waldorf Diaries--Opera/Punk Rock/Ratting Hotel Windows

I’m a city boy and I’ve come to accept that fact. I like traffic, sirens, and car alarms. I move in the flow of human traffic like water on sidewalks. I’m comforted by the juxtaposition of crumbling asphalt and blooming cherry trees.. I appreciate the expressions of mankind’s grandiosity. I value the dirt, decay, and the glaring signs of human frailty. I like a myriad of options.

I’ve had a little time off and I’m doing my best to get out and do things in this city. Explore the options available. Last night I got dressed up and went to see Aida with a friend. I don’t often have the opportunity to get see an Egyptian warrior entombed with his Ethiopian princess lover so it was very exciting. Exciting and so very tragic. After the opera, still dressed in our opera attire, we went across town to see a friend’s band play in a small club on the east side When I got back to the hotel I navigated my way inside through the crowd of young club kids gathered on the sidewalk outside. I had my friend who was working coat check help undo my collar button for me so I could take off my tie. Then I hung up my suit, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. I like the possibility of solitude within this kinetic collage. My windows rattled rhythmically with dubstep remixes from the club downstairs and the loud sidewalk conversations blurred into a soothing static. As peaceful as Tibetan singing bowls.

Money

For the past couple days I’ve been going through piles of receipts and invoices. Making stacks of paper and then shoving those stacks into labeled envelopes for my accountant. I don’t usually leave this until the end of April. Most years I have this financial imperative finished sometime in early March. I’m not entirely sure what happened this year. I’m not worried…it’s going to get done.

It’s interesting looking at this physical representation of my job. Where the money came from. What the money was for. How the money was spent. Last year was a particularly good year. That’s not in reference to my net income (I’ve made more money at other times in my life) but rather to the jobs I was able to do. They were interesting, challenging, and above all rewarding in a creative sense. I feel good about the work I was allowed and the pieces I produced.

Money is necessary if I want to live in this overinflated city and I appreciate a paycheck as much as the next guy but there are much more important things.

More shelving for the Waldorf Studio