Sometimes you reach a point in life where the proverbial crossroads happen, and I think I’ve reached that point.  There is a definite feeling of where I’ve been, and now where I choose to go.  The paths are unclear, but there are definite choices coming.

Art.  No art.  Design. No design.  Keeping the status quo or wrecking it.  The fork in the road has been reached, and now I have some decisions to make about how life is going, and where and what I want to be doing when I type this same blog next year.

I think that’s where the above art comes from.  Earlier, I just couldn’t decide which project to get in on (except for some signing I need to do, that just requires cleaning the apartment), and I thought to myself, “just put iTunes on random and see where the art goes”.  Thus, the above piece.

I think part of where that art comes from is in one of (if not “the”) my favorite stories, The Masque of the Red Death .  I have a good idea of the visual sense of that story, and what I would do with it as an artist.  The final paragraph is always somewhere rattling around in my head too, which may explain some things about how my head works.

“And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

There’s a certain dark sense to the art of course (go figure), but there’s also a sense of the unknown, of things that can’t be seen and maybe shouldn’t. That’s where I’m at, at the point in the road that, even if I don’t know what lies on each path, I need to make the choice.

I just returned from a very long trip to Portland, and I snapped a few pics for the website. As always, if you have any comments just let me know on my MySpace or LiveJournal.

I like old signs, especially the faded ones on the sides of buildings:

I also have a tendency to experiment with photos, here are a couple of duotones and one that’s a little more involved:

I also had a lucky shot at the local wildlife with the slowest camera on the earth:

Finally, here are a couple of other architectural shots.  I’d love to get back to Portland just to check out the eclectic architecture.