Chicago is in two weeks. I am nervous as hell.

Art-making format has become much smaller. There are lots of sketches happening. Without studio space temporarily, I am forced into a corner but somehow a little bit more free with low stakes drawing that is fun and intense. It changes the focus to smaller, but dynamic, productive, prodigious, quick works.

My career choices include making a career out of bad choices, sometimes convincing others not to then watching them make bad ones. I grew up kind of German and now must face my Protestant capitalist guilt at never accomplishing enough to satisfy the ego and give the self a trophy. This is like pedaling in a rainstorm with tireless rims on a ghetto bike, ubiquitously being noticed but not noticed. Ubiquity-swimming in it.

Dear Diary,

It seems like if there is an envelope around, then I can write plans for installations. Drawing pads are prohibitive formats sometimes. Maybe an assemblage of plans on all those weird little pieces of paper with encrypted plans is in the works.

Version Fest is coming up in Chicago. We will be working with other artist groups to install a sculpture in some mansion or gigantic house. Haven’t seen the space or the warehouse where the things to be built with are staying, but I have a feeling that an assembled piece could be in the works. I have been wanting to do a larger scale project beyond just writing about larger scale projects. That’s been a while in the making. Back to Chicago though, there is another show that will display proposals. I am curious about it, because so much dialogue will take place. That could be amazing. I am really looking forward to working with artists not based in NYC. Hang out with people I hope live somewhere in where they can breathe every once in a while.

Also, we will be putting up several dozen Dadaist-type drawings. They are based on associative writing/drawing games faintly related to Exquisite Corpse. Phrases get written and drawings occur in response to the writing, which then responds to the drawing. The experience creates mixes of non-sequiturs, socially bizarre situations, subconscious hemoglobins, Raymond Pettibone/graphic novels with disjointed narratives, absurdist stuff, and other thingies. Some of the writing/drawings are crass, low-fi punk rock. All of them are very cryptic, kind of dark, a few are guffaw-type funny.

There is also a show for a conceptual piece outside of Atlanta. Somehow have to find a way to get there. Sketches soon to scan in. So far, a pagan death metal witch race is the big idea. Contestants will run out of a tent through a spiraling race course made of lamps, flags, or whatever kind of stuff can be found. I’ve seen a few of Mark Dion’s shows, which I would never have the patience or obsessive gathering skills to pull off, but the idea of assembling objects of related significance or encoded meaning sounds interesting and like a summer project to treat boredom with ocd.

If I were microscopic, I think I would be seeing synapses disintegrate. At the beginning of the day, there was a situation that seemed irreconcilable, one where you are stuck between compassion and the logic of being pressed with too many decisions. It was not so easy to deal with interruptions after that. Things get heavy.

I feel like an iceberg is sitting on my neck. All of my energy is sunken into work. Going to Belize. Maybe one of those places to find a house or summer studio, collective, take the ex-pat route…