UNEMPLOYABLE

Another week down at Untitled Concepts, week 6, and lots of appointments and fun getting stock for the shop, designing the interior and shooting the products. There are some serious players in the JUNK GAME. Not in the sense of money but in the sense of style, of self. It feels like I have joined the real world, the blue collar world, or a world that brings happiness out of me, kindness, curiousity, not judgement, frustration, impatience and disdain. The work makes you sore, injury is imminent and the thirst for beer increases ten fold.

I have not really found my creative feet yet and I often feel lazy but despite the laziness I have always done things the hard way, not just out of stubborness but more for a desire to feel pain, accomplishement, or just more alive. And once I lift my ass out of bed or away from the television the work is fun and unexpected, wide open, like travelling with no itinerary. I am still not a happy person, and I occasionally worry about that and my incredible bitterness. I want to slow down my mind's pace, be in the now. I think I would be kinder. Perhaps a result of my past work life. The rags to riches to rags. Sometimes it just feels like a wasted life. But I was living a lie and that's all on me, and the rewards gathered during that time were a bit tainted and I let all the good slip away. I always hated working for the yuppie family man and the eager shoulda stayed at home mom, they never seemed to care about pushing conventional standards or finding something original. I never got over my disrespect for those people. But moreso hitting a dead end after 12 years sucks, and making the U-turn is tough and slow going but I have to be thankful for my old career, it left me enough in the tank to make the U-turn, and it gave me enough freetime to build-up for the change before it spit me out. I thought I remained unaffected by all of it but after 12 years and the northern virginia pace, I find that I don't like a lot of who I am and who I have become. This new direction is toward the person I was when it all started in Baltimore before life happened to me. Maybe that is why I like old things because I am still totally living in the past. I am a natural at making the best of what I have, parasitic perhaps, creative possibly, inspiring doubtful. So the eclectic things I find and repurpose are exactly what lie at my feet, highlights along the path back home. They are markers and incite memories of my life long gone. Like driving in that old mint 1980 Datsun a few weeks ago, tuned to a radio station that just does not exist pumping out songs of my childhood and the smell of cooking dashboard in the summer sun. It takes me back to St Paul St 1976, maybe these moments will slowly heal me of the pain that I have still not let go and that has plagued me my whole life. Maybe that is what the right path is all about, healing and celebrating the clues back to who you truly are. It's not always so simple, there is trust and risk and all of that with any endeavour which is making you a living. The money helps give me confidence and it helps me to be open to feeling what is around me, and not denying it, ignoring it and just trusting in myself.

As I age and watch my life further diverge from many of those around me I can't help but worry a bit, I want what they have, when will my life come around, I am not that different, I want to be happy like them. I think to much? That is what the contractor who stole 5000 bucks from me said. And perhaps he's right but it's not a choice, it's part of my make-up, it's my guidance system. And without it I would never find my way back to myself. And without this constant thinking, my child-like imagination could not create and take what's around me as symbols or markers and turn them into clues and memories and stories. I would be truly lost without it.

Anyway, check out the photos on Factory 20 that is all the stuff Eric and I find and photograph in the shop when we get back and they are all for sale. And the iphone photos below and mostly in the blog are from the road. Maybe our stuff will live on an Untitled Concepts website as we develop the business. Cheers. Dino.