It Started in the Shower

It all started in the shower, as good things often do. I said to myself, "I wish there was a squishy man toy. One, that looked like a weird monster." I had made polymer clay sculptures in the past, but the size of them made them pretty delicate. Thank you moving day.  I wanted something I could drop on the floor, or throw against the wall, by accident—without being left with a pile of polymer crumb dreams that would  go down the toilet of reality. 

 And that's when I realized, I had always like car upholstery. It's weirdly smooth, yet rubbery surface... it's wipeable, and if you accidently sat on it, not only would you bounce back—but it would have given you a soft cushion during the short exercise.

 After many attempts and too many hours of trial and error. After many seltzer waters. After learning how to use a sewing machine... and constantly sewing the wrong sides together. After trial and error (many) and learning to make patterns... and make eyeballs, and wicked shoes, and and do all sorts of things I never thought I would do when I was seven. I had finally created something I was happy with. I created something weird.

 In short, I blame my mother and father.

With any new endeavor, there always marketing. Artists are famous for NOT marketing. We'd rather spend our time shutting the world out and creating art. Irony at it's finest. The big mighty dude in the sky says, "You'll shall make art... but, well you're going to have to figure out how to promote it." 

Is it the marketing machine we hate? Is it how the mainstream chews things up, and spits them out into vanilla spooge or chunks of click-bait across the web? As much as I hate mainstream, and as much as I hate that soulless corporate white-wash (Children's movies that take classic rock songs and water them down to the vacuous puritanical acceptance of spirit killing blandness.) And when you see it coming, run like hell from it. That's what I've always said. So, here I am now, writing a blog. 

As Pink Floyd once said "Welcome to the Machine." If I have to enter the machine, can it at least make soft serve ice cream? That would be nice. 

Shameless web rip and photo-manip to capitalize on Pink Floyd. 

                                 

I bought a domain name and I'm officially Awklyart.com, I liked the word Awkly. It seamed to fit for some reason. I also write, make music, and make short films. I also hold down a regular job and watch over my mother who has been diagnosed with dementia. It hasn't been easy. It's a busy life. I make art, I have opinions, I play video games and watch strange films to escape. I'm married and have an awesome daughter. Sometimes I put on my yard shorts and pretend to be a gardener, grounds keeper. Sometimes I just hold the shovel to impress the neighbors. Other times, I put on more clothes and become cook of the household. Tonight's experiment: Chicken drumsticks on the grill, hopefully not ruined with BBQ sauce charring itself into a burning lump of hard meat. 

OK, now I've gotten the obligatory intro out of the way... whooo, I always hate that part. 

"Hey, what are those things made of anyway?" Someone from the future might ask. Vinyl fabric (car upholstery material) wood, polymer clay, resin, foam and a year and half of frustration. "Why make these Joe?" Because I'm weird. I've always been an artist in one form or another. I had gotten into making short films a few years back and loved it. My father was a local actor, and owned his own theater. So it probably runs in the blood. I created 5-6 short films, but I yearned to make something better, longer, better quality, something I could send to the big boys—Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu... etc. Then my friend and cinematographer left for a small town, and I needed better, more expensive equipment anyway. Then covid hit—and suddenly, no one was doing anything with another human being. Period.

So, what to do? What does an artist do with more time on their hands than usual? Aside from things you don't talk about in public. You make art. 

Awkly was born. 

I will have my website up soon.

Until next time,

Peace, Love and Waffles

-J